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  SHADOWS RISING

  A Shadow Cell Thriller

  Ernest Dempsey

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Thank You

  Other Books by Ernest Dempsey

  1

  Istanbul

  Adriana ducked her head a split second before the bullet thumped into the sedan’s opposite quarter panel.

  She cursed herself for being spotted. She’d spooked the target and now he was on the defensive, taking shots at her with a .45 cal, at least that’s what it looked and sounded like.

  Tracking down art that was stolen by the Nazis in World War II had its moments of peril, but those dangers had hardened her for what she was doing now: hunting terrorists.

  The .45 fired again and shattered the window above her head. Whoever the driver was would certainly be less than happy when they got back to their vehicle and found it riddled with bullet holes and broken glass.

  Pedestrians screamed as they scattered down the sidewalks and streets.

  Despite today’s shootout, Istanbul was a relatively peaceful city, only disturbed now and then by a bit of political unrest. Far and away, the ancient city formerly known as Constantinople was a bastion of multicultural enlightenment and acceptance. For thousands of years, the area was the crossroads between East and West. Wars had been fought to gain control of it. Conspiracies and secret alliances had been forged for this express purpose. Over time, rather than a military stronghold to be captured and utilized, Istanbul had become the center of much trade in that part of the world.

  In the past, her expertise had been focused more intensely on art and the history surrounding it. After all, she was one of the most feared art thieves in the world. That fact didn’t bother her. She only stole from people who’d come by their treasure through unscrupulous means. At the moment, Adriana didn’t care about all the history and culture. She cared about not getting any of the citizens hurt, which was why she couldn’t take a shot at the target despite the fact he was unloading a barrage from his magazine.

  She wasn’t in the business of taking out innocent civilians, but she needed to apprehend this guy or there would be trouble. Big trouble.

  Adriana had been recruited by a secret counterterrorism organization known as Shadow Cell. Her friend June had been instrumental in bringing her on board, though it was witnessing a terrorist attack firsthand that drove Adriana to help. She had a life, a loving boyfriend, and a hobby that kept her busy enough. The family businesses and her trust fund kept her more than comfortable, giving her a life that many would envy.

  Adriana Villa, however, wasn’t one to sit on the sidelines and watch. She itched to be in the game.

  So, here she was.

  She’d tracked Qufar Abdi for nearly two weeks. The first intel she’d received about the terrorist was that he was in Greece, living on an island compound with a group of other terrorists connected to the Red Ring, an upstart cell that was spreading across the planet like a virus.

  Shadow Cell operators had been able to confirm Abdi’s location in Greece, but when Adriana arrived, he was gone. The compound had been abandoned, almost as if they knew she was coming, knew they were being watched.

  Shadow Cell was too small and too tightly organized to have a mole. That meant someone got sloppy.

  Adriana didn’t assume anything. It could have been the director of the agency that messed up. All she knew was that her hunt for Abdi would likely get harder.

  Luckily, she had been wrong.

  Two days after striking out at the Grecian location, she got a lead from a source in Turkey.

  Someone said they saw Abdi crossing the border with an entourage. Maybe they were bodyguards. Perhaps they were just more terrorist soldiers he recruited. Either way, it was better than nothing. Her vast network of lowlifes, degenerates, and scumbags was already proving its worth. Adriana wondered if the agency knew about her connections, and if so, whether they minded her using such sketchy assets. She had the feeling they wouldn’t care so long as the job was done.

  Now after casting a wide net, it seemed she’d caught the fish she was after.

  Setting up surveillance was the most tedious part of the mission. Her orders were to follow Abdi, find out what he knew, who he was working for, and what the Red Ring was planning next.

  As far as she knew, Abdi was a lower-level member of the terrorist cell. He wasn’t brand-new, so he had some authority, but he certainly wasn’t the one pulling the strings and issuing orders. Adriana knew if she played her cards right and was able to bring Abdi in for questioning, that would go a long way toward finding out who the mysterious head of the Red Ring really was and, perhaps, ending this whole debacle.

  She had a feeling it wouldn’t be that easy. Terror cells weren’t like other entities. If you had a mad dictator trying to take over a region or a country, eliminating the leader often ended the conflict. It was the old adage that if you cut off the head of a snake, the body dies.

  Terrorists, however, were different.

  Cutting off one head simply meant that another would spring up somewhere else, eager to carry out their holy mission and perhaps be rewarded in either this life or the next.

  Where other agencies and organizations failed to see that fatal flaw in their reasoning and planning, Shadow Cell went above and beyond. Not only would they track down and find the leader of the Red Ring, they would make him an example to anyone else in the world who considered terrorism as a viable option.

  Adriana was driven by the people she’d seen dead or injured in the streets of Paris. She knew what men like Abdi and his cohorts were capable of. And she had no intention of letting anything like that happen again.

  She’d cornered Abdi in a hotel room near the center of Istanbul. It was smart on his part to rent a place surrounded by so many people. He could easily blend in, and if things went south he could use millions of human shields to make his escape.

  Another gunshot rang out above the screaming, and the bullet smashed into the wall behind her. Dust and debris exploded from the impact. He was getting less accurate. That meant he was trying to escape. A quick peek around the corner of the bumper confirmed her suspicion: Abdi was on the run.

  Adriana knew that would be the case. She knew it from the second Abdi spotted her and realized who she was. Maybe he didn’t know her name or who she worked for, but she’d slipped just enough to give away the fact that she was observing him, watching his every move.

  He sprinted away through the flood of panicked pedestrians and disappeared into an alley.

  Adriana sprang from her hiding place and charged ahead. Cars were parked on the street, their drivers choosing to take their chances on foot rather than stay put and be hit with a stray bullet. Adriana jumped as she reached an old beat-up sedan. She flew through the air, landing with her butt on the hood and sliding across the rest of the way until she felt her momentum and gravity bring her back to the asphalt.

  Her eyes were locked straight ahead. She caught a glimpse of the target’s shirt as he weaved through the mass of people in the alley’s market. What had, a moment ago, been a place of business where farmers could hawk their wares, was now a funnel of chaos.

  People rushed toward her as she pushed ahead. It felt futile, like she was swimming against a powerful rip current,
but she kept going, grabbing shoulders, twisting her body, and pumping her legs. She could only hope Abdi had been slowed as much as she.

  Finally, about forty feet into the side-street market, she broke through the last of the terrified citizens and tourists. She saw her target’s foot disappear around a corner to the right.

  Gotcha.

  She rushed forward, but in an instant Abdi reappeared from around the corner with his pistol aimed right at her. He fired three times.

  Adriana dove behind a column on the right and readied her weapon, holding it up by her face. The shooter’s bullets tore into the evacuating crowd, striking two people—one in the leg and one in the back. The third round missed. Adriana assumed it had hit an exterior wall.

  The two victims collapsed to the ground, rolling around and screaming. There was no way to be sure, but Adriana figured the wounds weren’t mortal as long as they received medical attention soon.

  The sirens echoing between the canyons of buildings told her help would be there soon.

  The victims would be fine. She had a job to do, and now she was even more determined.

  Driven by righteous anger, she popped out from around the column and aimed her weapon at the corner where Abdi had been just a moment before. There was no sign of him.

  She sprinted from her cover and skidded to a halt at the corner. A quick peek around the corner revealed nothing but an empty street to the right that bent back to the left at a 90-degree angle.

  Adriana took off again, but the gunman popped out again from around the next corner and opened fire. Bullets crashed into the corner, sending more red dust and debris into the air. She dove to her left and rolled until she reached the next wall, then pushed herself up and aimed her pistol.

  Her finger tensed on the trigger, but she didn’t fire. The target was gone again.

  She cursed herself and got up once more. This time, though, she took a different tack.

  He would run down the alley and find another place to hide, setting up his little ambush like he’d done twice already. She looked back and saw the street followed a similar pattern to the other, making a sort of forked path through the buildings.

  She took a chance and rushed back the other direction.

  Her feet pounded the cobblestone street; the clicking of her shoes reverberated through the three- and four-story apartments, cafes, and businesses. Vibrant fabrics were draped over the alley, keeping her in the shade for the most part but occasionally letting a streak of sunshine through.

  Adriana came to another T-junction and looked both directions. She didn’t need to think about it. The path to the right would take her toward Abdi and, hopefully, give her the element of surprise for a change.

  She slowed her pace to an up-tempo jog in an attempt to be quieter as she hurried down the corridor toward the next corner. Halfway there, she stopped and pressed her back against the wall to her right and listened.

  She heard something rustling just beyond her field of vision.

  Abdi was finding cover.

  She hadn’t missed her guess.

  Adriana tiptoed ahead, moving stealthily until she reached the edge of the building. She poked her head around for half a second and saw another alcove that connected to the alley.

  And there he was. Abdi was waiting with gun in hand. He had his left shoulder pressed into the wall, ready to pop out and eliminate his pursuer at point-blank range. So, this was where he had decided to make a stand.

  What he didn’t realize is that by pigeonholing himself in the little dead-end side street, he’d sealed his fate.

  She swung her left leg around the corner and pressed her heel into the stones. Then she crept forward, careful not to make a sound as she closed the gap between her and the target. She was out in the open and knew that any second he’d turn and see her or maybe catch a peripheral glimpse.

  Adriana lined up the target in her weapon’s sights, aiming for the shoulder that carried his gun. Her orders weren’t to kill him. She was to bring him in for questioning.

  One stray round could make her mission a moot point.

  She had to be careful. While she didn’t want to give the man a chance to surrender, she knew it was her best option. She also knew what would follow.

  “Abdi!” she shouted. “Drop the weapon! I only want to—”

  The gunman cut her off as she had expected. Startled, he twisted his body and turned the gun toward her. He never got off another shot.

  She squeezed the trigger and planted a round straight through the tissue between his shoulder and neck. The bullet smashed into his collarbone, splintering it into fragments.

  Abdi howled. The gun dropped from his hand and clattered on the cobblestone. He instinctively reached for the wound with his free hand, clutching it as he dropped to his knees in agony.

  Adriana rushed forward and kicked his weapon out of reach, keeping her own trained on his head in case he decided to try something foolish.

  But he was hurting too much to even consider making a break for it or trying to fight her off. He moaned like a baby.

  “I told you I just wanted to talk,” she said. “But you wanted to do it the hard way.”

  “You’ll face your fate soon enough, American dog,” he spat.

  “Now, that’s not any way to talk to a lady. I tried to extend an olive branch, and you just shove it in my face.”

  “You may as well kill me, infidel. You will get nothing from me.”

  She’d heard that before. Men who tried to keep secrets from her always confessed in the end, giving up everything they knew to save themselves from more pain. Over the years, she’d perfected the art of interrogation. It was how she’d been able to recover dozens of lost paintings and sculptures.

  This guy, however, wasn’t going to be the recipient of her talents. No, someone else wanted to speak with him.

  She touched a button on her wireless earpiece. “I have the target,” she said. “Requesting pickup.”

  “Ten-four,” a female’s voice came through the radio. “We have your location. Your ride will be there momentarily.”

  Adriana stared at the injured man. Blood seeped through the cracks between his fingers as he tried to stem the loss from his shoulder. He breathed heavily, like a man resigned to his fate. He didn’t beg for mercy or to be released. Instead, he simply met her gaze with one of his own—a cold, calculating look that peered into her soul as if the look alone would convert her to his radical view of the world.

  She wouldn’t give in, though. Adriana was just as hardened as him, maybe more. Her emotions and will had been forged in the fire of the crucible more than once, and she’d come out stronger on the other side.

  She heard an engine revving from down the street but never took her eyes off the coiled snake at her feet. She knew that, even injured, the man was dangerous and could snap at her in the blink of an eye.

  The black sedan appeared around the corner and sped its way with almost no room on either side in the narrow street.

  “Looks like your ride is here,” she said and took a step back.

  A man in a black suit got out of the front of the car. Another stepped out of the back. The trunk popped open, and the driver rushed around to prop it up.

  One of the suits removed something from a jacket pocket—a syringe. He flicked off the plastic guard and bent down, shoving the needle into Abdi’s arm. He depressed the pump and sent the drug into the man’s bloodstream.

  Within seconds, Abdi’s eyelids grew heavy and he passed out.

  “Good work, Agent Villa,” the driver said as the other two men loaded the prisoner into the trunk. “Need a ride?”

  “If you have room,” she said with a smirk.

  2

  Istanbul-Shadow Cell Safehouse

  Adriana tossed her gear on a narrow hallway table made of oak and wrought iron. She tilted her neck to the left then right to stretch the muscles. One of the discs in her spine cracked, bringing a little relief to the tense tissue.


  The agency’s safe house was only fifteen minutes away—on the outskirts of the city—from where she’d apprehended Abdi. The men in suits had unloaded him from the trunk and brought him in the back through a red metal door.

  Old warehouses were, apparently, easily rented for the right price.

  Adriana wondered how many other properties Shadow Cell occupied throughout the world. She had a feeling it was on a need-to-know basis. The agency didn’t strike her as the type to leave a big footprint. They were mobile, ready to zip across the globe at a moment’s notice.

  She let the thoughts go and wandered down the dusty hall. The drywall was cracked in several places. Wiring hung from an old light fixture above. One of the windows in a room to her right was broken, probably the result of some kid throwing rocks at the glass.

  Down the hall, Adriana made a left and walked by a row of windows looking out into a courtyard. From the looks of it, the place used to be an epicenter of shipping and commerce. Now it was nothing more than a husk of its former self. Three tractor-trailers sat in loading docks, waiting for all eternity to receive their next shipment that would never come. The tires were flat, the edges scorched with dry rot.

  She continued down the next hall until she reached another metal door. It was fixed with a plate in the center that protected a wire-reinforced window. She knocked twice, and the plate slid open. Sunglasses covered the eyes that looked out at her, despite the fact the guy was indoors.

  The plate slid closed, and the door unlocked. It creaked open, and Adriana stepped inside the makeshift interrogation chamber. Once in, the guard closed and locked the door again.

  “Hello, Addy,” a familiar voice said from the corner.