Chasing the White Lion, James Hannibal [ebook reader macos .TXT] 📗

Praise for

The Gryphon Heist

“There is plenty of international action and intrigue in this heist thriller. Give this suspenseful launch of Hannibal’s Clandestine Service to fans of James Rollins and Tom Clancy who are looking for something new.”

Booklist

“Military pilot James Hannibal puts his experience to solid use in the riveting The Gryphon Heist, a cutting-edge tale that dresses up a classic international thriller in a fresh bow. . . . An ambitious, beautifully realized thriller cut from the cloth of James Rollins and Steve Berry.”

BookTrib

“Mitch Rapp and Sydney Bristow have nothing on Talia Inger—i.e., CIA rookie spy. James Hannibal has crafted a story slam full of mystery, danger, twists, and turns. Breathless with anticipation, I couldn’t flip the pages fast enough. You don’t want to miss this one!”

Lynette Eason, bestselling, award-winning author of The Blue Justice series

“A movie-worthy tale of espionage and intrigue. Hannibal has done it again.”

Steven James, national bestselling author of

Every Wicked Man

“Cutting-edge technology and age-old cons collide in this high-stakes thriller from James R. Hannibal. The Gryphon Heist plunges readers into a world where no one can be trusted, nothing is as it seems, and choosing the wrong side could be catastrophic.”

Lynn H. Blackburn, award-winning and bestselling author of the Dive Team Investigations series

“Leap onboard The Gryphon Heist and ride the whirlwind of suspense. Don’t let go!”

DiAnn Mills, author of

Burden of Proof

, www.DiAnnMills.com

© 2020 by James R. Hannibal

Published by Revell

a division of Baker Publishing Group

PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.revellbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-4934-2114-5

Scripture used in this book, whether quoted or paraphrased by the characters, is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

CONTENTS

Cover

Praise for

The Gryphon Heist

Title Page

Copyright Page

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Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Back Ads

Back Cover

CHAPTER

ONE

VOLGOGRAD, RUSSIA

WHARF DISTRICT

PRESENT DAY

THECABDRIVER cast a nervous glance at the alley’s unlit streetlamps and blacked-out windows. An old man in a mud-stained coat stumbled out of the darkness and passed through his headlights, muttering in the singsong voice of the permanently delirious. The cabbie honked his horn and shouted at the bum, then turned in his seat with a wrinkled brow. “Vot? Ty unveren?”

HERE? AREYOUSURE?

Talia Inger smiled, answering him in flawless Russian, refined at the Central Intelligence Agency by America’s top accent coaches. “Oh yes, my friend. This is exactly where I want to be.”

She climbed out and paid him, slipping in an extra five thousand rubles because he hadn’t wanted to drive to that side of town in the first place.

The driver thumbed through the money and gave her a soft, worried smile, as if his next words might be the last she’d ever hear. “You are a nice lady,” he said in his native tongue. “I will stop at St. Peter’s and light a candle for you.”

Talia reached through the open window and squeezed his forearm. “Spasibo.” She took in a deep breath as he drove away. The night air stank of drizzle and old fish.

Glorious.

The entrance to the Som—the Catfish—lay at the base of a stairwell halfway down the alley. Like many of the most interesting places in the world, the Catfish could be found only by those who already knew where it was. The bar had no webpage, no neon sign, just three Cyrillic letters scratched into a black-painted iron door. Talia pulled it open and absorbed the blast of heat, noise, and cigarette smoke that greeted her, then waltzed past the bouncer like she owned the place.

Several sets of eyes turned her way. Most of the men seated at the bar or tucked into the dark booths were murderers and thieves. Talia didn’t fit the profile, but she didn’t care. She could handle them. She picked the beefiest patron looking her way and met his eyes with a disgusted glare. “Na chto ty smotrish’, izvrashchenets?” What are you staring at, pervert?

He growled and went back to his drink.

The others laughed.

A wooden table near the back sat empty, lit by the faint red glow of the liquor shelves. Talia pulled out a three-legged chair and checked the clock on her phone. Three minutes until her target arrived. In the meantime, she was content to sit and wait—to soak it all in. Volgograd, still known to most Americans as Stalingrad, was Cold War Russia trapped in time. For Talia, this place embodied all her preconceived images of intelligence work.

A seedy bar filled with the refuse of Siberia’s prisons.

A rendezvous with a greedy criminal ripe for the turning.

A shot at several years’ worth of vital counterterrorism intelligence.

Like she’d told the cabbie. This place—this dank, smoky, dangerous place—was exactly where she wanted to be.

Her fish entered the bar a few minutes later. Oleg Zverev remained true to his file photo, down to the blue leather motorcycle jacket. Talia guessed he thought the padding in the shoulders made him look bigger. He thought wrong. Compared to the big gorillas and lithe jaguars at the bar, Oleg looked like a rat wrapped in a blue leather blanket.

The bouncer stepped in front of him, folding his arms, and for a moment, Talia worried she might have a problem. The rat answered with a sour look. The gorilla chuckled and stepped aside.

“Vera Novak.” Oleg spotted Talia at the table and greeted her with the cover name she’d given him. She stood to take his hand, and he held her fingers far too long while his eyes passed up and down her form. “What a pleasure to finally meet you in person.”

What