BERSERKER

Ankara, Turkey. November 16, 2016.

Tom Keeler opened his eyes and saw Calcutti’s weathered face looming over him like a desert cliff blocking sunlight. “You’re up.”

“For what?”

“Canada didn’t respond to the ping, so I sent Karim up an hour ago. He says they’ve pulled the curtain.”

Keeler got up on an elbow. Canada was the code name for a safe house up in the diplomatic district. “What’s the move?”

“I’m switching Karim to overwatch. I want you to do the pass at Canada.”

Keeler nodded and swung his feet off the narrow bed to the floor. Calcutti looked at him and walked out. Across the room, another man grunted and rolled onto his side to face the wall. Bratton was up next for a shift, which was why Calcutti had woken Keeler. He put on his boots and stood up, feeling the buzz as his joints cracked pleasantly.

Keeler strapped on a money belt and checked that he had cash inside, plus the passport he’d used to enter Turkey. You never knew what would happen, so it was best to be prepared, even for a training mission.

Five of them were in the apartment, taking rotating four-hour shifts in the ready room. Three guys on duty, two guys in the back bedroom. Keeler had come off shift only two hours before.

He took his jacket from where it hung behind the door and walked into the front room of the apartment. Calcutti was on the sofa with a bag of spicy Turkish potato chips. The window was curtained with a batik sheet held in place by a couple of thumbtacks. The sunlight coming through was orange.

Calcutti pointed a red-powdered crinkle-cut chip at him. “You do your SDR and see if Karim can pick you up in Çankaya.” He crunched a handful of chips between powerful jaws. “Mess him up, Keeler, test that kid. Make it hard.”

The toilet flushed and Cheevers emerged, looking tired. Keeler noticed that he hadn’t washed his hands.

Calcutti said, “Mr. Cheevers, issue Keeler a weapon, please, he’s going for the pass at Canada.”

Cheevers looked at Keeler, then back at Calcutti, deadpanning. “Just the nine or you want the operational pack too?”

“Just the weapon.”

Cheevers shrugged, went to the kitchen, pulled open a panel on the tiled wall, and began rooting around in the cavity. He came up with a plastic-wrapped Yavuz 9mm, the Turkish version of a Beretta 92. Keeler removed the plastic wrap, balled it up, and tossed it in the can. He checked the pistol, inserted one of the magazines, and checked it again before slipping the weapon into his jacket pocket.

He was confused about the combination of training the new guy, name of Karim, and the fact that Canada had missed a ping. He said, “So what’s the deal with Canada? Is that for real?”

Calcutti wiped potato chip residue on his jeans. “I don’t know. If I did, I’d have told you. Just go up there and check it out. Probably bullshit. Use the opportunity to grind Karim a little.”

Keeler said, “I’m asking if they actually missed the ping.”

Calcutti nodded slowly and shrugged. “Affirmative.”

The three men stood in the apartment’s entrance. Keeler pushed earbuds into his ears. The buds looked identical to the civilian version, but were different on the inside. He paired them to an iPhone, also a heavily modded version of the civilian device. Calcutti thumbed a device into his left ear and spoke. “Feel me, bro?”

The voice came through into Keeler’s ears, stereo and clear. “Roger that.”

He tapped on the earbud and got the electronic click. Tapped twice and got two. Nodded at Calcutti.

Calcutti said, “Switching to channel five.” Spoke into the air. “This is Sierra, Charlie, do you copy overwatch?”

Karim’s voice came through. “Copy.” Something about how the vowel met a consonant gave away Karim’s Middle Eastern accent.

Calcutti looked at Cheevers while speaking to Karim on overwatch. “Kitty is leaving Brooklyn.”

Keeler left the apartment, another safe house, this one code-named Brooklyn.

He rapidly descended three flights of stairs to the street, enjoying the movement. The November air felt clean and crisp, Ankara being a city at a high elevation, almost a thousand meters. Keeler started the steep walk up the hill to Çankaya, where all the embassies were located. The neighborhood quickly turned residential, the shops and restaurants thinning out.

He walked the Surveillance Detection Route, moving the way he’d been taught, unpredictably, switching back on himself and ducking into alleys and street food stalls and generally doing whatever he could to smoke out any mobile squad that might be on him.

The team was on a training mission and Ankara was a great place for it. The capital of Turkey was teeming with spooks, all of them looking out for surveillance, many of them hostile to Americans. If a new guy like Karim could make it in Ankara, everyone would feel a whole lot better about working with him when it wasn’t a training mission.

Keeler went up to Çankaya the long way, down the other side and up again through Botanik Park. At the other side of the park he entered Atakule, a shopping mall in the shape of an enormous donut, and took the escalator down three levels to a Lacoste store. He tried on a sweater and flirted with the saleswoman, complimenting her on her English. He bought a latte.

Karim’s hoarse voice croaked into Keeler’s ears on his way out of the mall.

“This is overwatch. Blue skies.” Karim, telling him that he was clean of surveillance and could proceed.

Keeler hadn’t seen him and was mildly impressed he’d come in the back way. Keeler tapped twice on the right earbud, confirming receipt of the message. “Good. I didn’t clock you.” He waited for bravado but it didn’t come, which is another reason people liked Karim. “What’s the deal with Canada?”

The audio popped in his ear. Karim said, “I went up the back way and the curtain was pulled. I called it in.”

“Okay. I’ll finish the SDR and take a look. Just stay with me.”

The street was pleasant, cafés set back from the road with patios and outdoor heating. Couples sitting around drinking coffee. A group of friends playing cards. Karim was a local of Turkish and Persian descent who’d been recruited as a street operative able to blend into the environment. So far so good. It had been a while since any of them had managed to screw Karim up; he was coming along nicely.