Page 66 of Rising Tiger

The price had been right as well. Because many places in Bucharest had been built on top of Roman ruins, some buildings ended up developing structural issues. The Terrace Club was one of them. Not only were many of the doorframes inside not right, but outside, the palace was quite visibly askew. Members liked to joke that the club tilted toward the wild side, which very much applied to Durrani.

As good as he was at controlling everything else, his sexual impulses, once indulged, began to take on a life of their own. They were an absolute addiction.

He didn’t stumble into dacryphilia and acrotomophilia right away, but it didn’t take him long to get there. Like any addict, each time he partook, he craved a bigger and more intense high.

His addiction both unnerved and excited him. In a world that appeared to him mostly in shades of gray, the Terrace Club provided amazingly bright and incredibly brilliant pops of color.

The only way he could fully “control” his addiction was to make a deal with himself. He would limit the indulgence of his predilections solely to his visits to Bucharest. At the club, and nowhere else, would he allow himself to be so disinhibited.

He started visiting multiple times a year. It required both lying and stealing. He found clever ways to extract money from the ISI for nonexistent operations, while simultaneously claiming to be anywhere but Bucharest when he was there.

It would have been difficult for most people to keep up the charade, but he was good at his job and that made him good at masking his addiction.

He knew, however, that at some point he was going to have to find the strength to give it up. A secret like this made him vulnerable. No matter how careful he might be, it was foolish to believe that it would never come to light.

Addictions, however, could be very persuasive. They had a way of clouding even the most intelligent and capable of minds.

He had talked himself into one more visit to Bucharest—one more time indulging his deepest, darkest desires at the Terrace Club. He would go after all this business with the Chinese was finished. That would be his reward. He would wrap up this operation and sneak off for a few days, with no one the wiser. Then he would return to Delhi and think about a change—some way that he could go cold turkey. In the meantime, he had work to do.

The next step in Beijing’s plan was going to require precise execution. It was a spectacular attack. Perhaps eventoospectacular.

He had tried to warn his superiors about all the danger it entailed, but they had simply waved him off. They not only loved to the idea of India suffering additional punishment, but he also suspected there was a large amount of Chinese money flowing into their bank accounts. The intelligence officers back in China weren’t stupid. They knew exactly what they were doing. He had no choice but to follow his orders.

Nevertheless, he had a bad feeling about things. Something was off. It was more than just his discomfort with what Beijing expected to see done. He still hadn’t heard anything on this morning’s operation. No updates. Nothing.

That was a problem. And the one thing he didn’t like were problems. Not when something this big was on the line.

Problems, he had learned, had a way of multiplying. No matter how small, once set loose into the world, they tended to grow. The only way to deal with them was to crush them—as soon as possible.

Looking at the time on his phone, he decided to give it five more minutes. If he hadn’t heard anything from his contact by then, he was going to have to take matters into his own hands.

And if he had to take matters into his own hands, there was going to be hell to pay.

CHAPTER 35

NORTHERNVIRGINIA

Nicholas hated safe houses. They were like sterile, corporate housing but with even less thought put into the comfort of the people staying there.

Nina was going to give birth soon. She needed to be at home, resting, in her own bed.

While he had no idea who had attacked him, he sure as hell wasn’t going to let someone chase him out of his own house. Nofuckingway.

In his mind, however, the question wasn’tifthey were going to attack again butwhen? That was some of the worst pain he had ever felt. He had to think of Nina and the baby. Would she be able to withstand something like that?

Whoever was behind the attack had gotten his attention.Most definitely. But nothing had followed—no demand, no warning that if he didn’t do what they wanted they’d hit him again, nothing. And that concerned him.

He was worried that they weren’t done with him. That they would be back. When they did come back, he needed to be ready. But how?

Based on all the classified material he had been shown regarding Havana Syndrome, he had a loose idea of what he was up against. The key to foiling an attack was interrupting the flow of energy. In his estimation, there were only two surefire ways to do that.

The first, and worst idea, was to launch a drone of some sort equipped with a weapon of his own—a bomb capable of producing a significantenough electromagnetic pulse to knock out the attacker’s weapon. In the process, however, it would likely fry all the electronics in his house, as well as those in all the houses in a three-mile radius. In addition to the damage, it would also create tons of legal problems. It was simply untenable. That left him with his second option.

The NSA had been experimenting with a new type of shielding for government satellites. Thus far, the results had been quite good against all forms of radiation. He asked Gary Lawlor to reach out to CIA director Bob McGee and for him to request as much of it as he could get his hands on.

When Nicholas returned from the hospital with his security detail, additional operatives from the Carlton Group were roaming the property. Sitting on the tailgate of a dirty, mud-spattered blue Ford Bronco was a man he recognized from the office.

His name was Wes Sutton. In his mid-fifties, he had been career Army before retiring and coming over to the Carlton Group. His expertise was in counterinsurgency. He had also been one hell of a sniper.

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