Cloud Cover
Ron Terpening
Language: English
Pages: 251
ISBN: 2:00182013
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
1984. A Yugoslav military attaché defects in Ottawa. Before the Canadians can interrogate him, he is assassinated.
In Trieste, Italy, someone is eliminating NATO agents. Michael Higgins, their case officer, is warned by a Canadian spy, Fae Avadek, that he has a traitor in his network. Suddenly, Higgins is running for his life, framed for the murder of one of his contacts. Pursued by an unknown enemy, he falls in love with Fae, whose violent past figures in their search for answers.
Vitali Alferyev, KGB station chief in Belgrade, has been recalled to Moscow, where his superior orders him to withdraw all covert operatives from the sector between Rijeka and Ljubljana. Alferyev’s search for the reason leads him into a deadly conflict with a GRU agent operating in the area.
In the Yugoslav mountains, where Croatian terrorists, KGB spies, and NATO agents play out the final violent moves in a dangerous game to change the fate of Europe, Michael and Fae must sift through layers of deceit and treachery in their attempt to thwart an enemy whose tentacles stretch from the East to the West, from the past to the present.
late to ask for help. My comrades and I must defuse the situation ourselves—before it blows up.” He leaned forward. “If we can stop the Croats before they create a stimulus for intervention … we stop the Russians.” He slapped his hands in a crisscross motion. “Otherwise, boom! Chaos and confusion. Perhaps the destruction of Belgrade, perhaps worse.” Fae nodded. It was her turn to speak. “You blame the Russians …” She hesitated. She didn’t want to say he was wrong. “Perhaps you should
Your hands shakin’ like cow piss. Where you keep the stuff, Rod? Off the post now?” Hot Rod tossed the stub of his Camel out the window and spit after it. The bus had turned left and the sun now streaked in the front windows, highlighting Davidson’s bald head. A thin yellow halo shimmered around the black skin. “I ain’t got none to sell, Marcus. Ask Weinstein.” “Weinstein! Shit, man. He got garbage. ’Sides. Finding his ass is like finding fly shit in pepper.” Hot Rod leaned
world was Grigovich doing? • • • Uneventful best described his tour of the island. The airport near Omišalj had what appeared to be a usual number of military and civilian aircraft. The islands off the villages of Krk and Baška, viewed from a distance through binoculars, presented nothing noteworthy. But, when he tried to rent a boat at the jetty in Baška for a closer look at the island mentioned by Grigovich, no one would take him. An old sailor mending nets near the fleet of
an exorbitant five hundred dollars for his work and his silence. Money no longer mattered. The doctor had earned his fee. He slept until noon Tuesday, when the maid’s knocking woke him. “Tell the padrona I’ll pay for a second night,” he muttered from behind the closed door, and fell back to sleep until late afternoon. It took him over a half hour to get cleaned up and dressed. He wrapped the bloody clothes he’d worn to the taverna in a tight ball, placed them in a plastic bag and left
sensation that let her know how tense she’d been The police. That was better than … than the others. “Did you know the other men in the taverna?” she asked suddenly. The Russian shook his head. “They looked like colleagues of yours.” “Or of yours,” he shot back. “What do you mean?” He shrugged. “Americans. CIA agents.” She hadn’t heard any of the men in the taverna speak. Features sometimes told you something about personality, but rarely about nationality.