Dead Drop

BERKLEY TITLES BY M. P. WOODWARD THE HANDLER DEAD DROP BERKLEY An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC penguinrandomhouse.com Copyright © 2023 by Michael Patrick Woodward Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader. BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Woodward, M. P., author. Title: Dead drop / M.P. Woodward. Description: New York: Berkley, [2023] Identifiers: LCCN 2022056155 (print) | LCCN 2022056156 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593441664 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593441671 (ebook) Classification: LCC PS3623.O6857 D43 2023 (print) | LCC PS3623.O6857 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20211223 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022056155 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022056156 Book design by Ashley Tucker, adapted for ebook by Kelly Brennan This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. pid_prh_6.0_143668237_c0_r0 CONTENTS Cover Berkley Titles by M. P. Woodward Title Page Copyright Dedication Cast of Characters Officer Oaths Prologue Part One: Ready Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Part Two: Fire Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Part Three: Aim Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Epilogue Acknowledgments Glossary About the Author _143668237_ For Wendy CAST OF CHARACTERS THE AMERICANS Meredith Morris-Dale—Senior operations officer in CIA’s Counterproliferation (CPC) Center; ex-wife of John Dale. Meredith uses the aliases Maggie O’Dea and Margot Henri. John Dale—Retiring CIA case officer living in rural Washington State. John uses the aliases Reza Shariati and Etienne Crochet. Grace Dale—Daughter of John and Meredith; midshipman at the US Naval Academy. Ed Rance—Department head of CIA’s CPC Center based in Langley, Virginia; assigned on temporary duty (TDY) to the diplomatic mission in Vienna, Austria. Jeff Dorsey—Director of CIA’s National Clandestine Service. THE ISRAELIS Maya Shaheen—Mossad Operations (Caesarea) director based in Tel Aviv. Werner Davidai—Chief of Mossad’s Caesarea operations based in Tel Aviv. Daniel Mitz—Chief of Mossad’s Junction (covert intelligence collection) division based in Tel Aviv. Noam Galin—Brigadier general in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) military intelligence wing (the Hebrew acronym is AMAN). Commander of AMAN’s Unit 8200 (signals intelligence arm). Eli—Mossad Caesarea katsa (intelligence collection operative) on the American station. Ari—Mossad Caesarea kidon (special activities operative) on the American station. Rina—Mossad Caesarea katsa on the American station. Mia—Mossad Caesarea katsa on the American station. Nahshon—Mossad sniper in Bayonet special forces unit. THE IRANIANS Kasem Kahlidi (“Atlas”)—Quds lieutenant colonel based in Lebanon; a former adjutant to the late General Soleimani, former head of Quds Force. Atlas is his CIA code name. Siamak Azad—Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) major based in Beirut. Naser Maloof—Iranian MOIS colonel based in Tehran in charge of Iranian counterintelligence. Kasra Khani—Girlfriend of Kasem Kahlidi. Ramin (“Roger”) Gulrajani—ex-fiancé of Kasra Khani working as a doctor in London. Zana Rahimi (“Cerberus”)—Former CIA asset, now defected to the US. Before his defection he had been sabotaging Iranian centrifuge arrays; his CIA code name is Cerberus. Walid Zafir—Iranian MOIS officer posing as a Foreign Ministry diplomat in Vienna. Nabil—Lebanese Hezbollah cell leader. CIA CASE OFFICER OATH I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. MOSSAD OPERATIONS OFFICER OATH I swear and commit to maintain allegiance to the State of Israel, its laws, and its authorities, to accept upon myself unconditionally the discipline of the Institute, to obey all the orders and instructions given by authorized commanders, and to devote all my energies, and even sacrifice my life, for the protection of the homeland and the liberty of Israel. PROLOGUE The captain had to rely on the oldest, most reliable naval sensor of them all—his eyes. He pressed his brow to the viewfinder and squinted. Sidestepping, he rotated the large metal cylinder all the way around the bridge. He was under strict orders to avoid using the surface search radar, but after completing the periscope’s sweep, he’d concluded that on a night like this, his eyes would do just fine. For once, conditions up top were just as the intelligence briefers had said they’d be. There were no visible marine navigation lights and only a few winking streetlights on the distant shore. Even better, a thin, silvery sheen from the half-moon reflected on waves that were barely above a ripple. Only a heaving swell undulated the surface of the otherwise flat sea fifty feet above them. The captain scanned again. This time he paused in the middle of the three-sixty, aiming the reticle at the northern end of the lights on the land. There, he zoomed in to identify the old sandstone ruins, still lit for the tourists at ten o’clock on this summer Saturday eve. The crumbling sixteenth-century Ottoman fort known as the Sidon