Red Deception

by Gary Grossman

  “With you, yes.”

  “Then—”

  She kissed Reilly again. He had the same tentative reaction.

  “There you go again. Still focusing on that woman?”

  “She’s Russian government, Marnie. There’s more than what meets the eye.”

  “There’s a lot to look at,” she joked.

  “Come on. I don’t mean that.”

  “Then what do you mean?”

  “I’m sure she’s a Russian agent. Possibly FSB.”

  “Why would you suspect that?”

  “The chance meetings.”

  “Hey, we met by chance. What does that make me?”

  Reilly smiled broadly, “Totally different circumstances.”

  Marnie smiled. “And don’t you forget it, Mister Reilly.”

  Reilly sighed. “Right.”

  “Forget her. Kiss me.”

  She moved in again; her lips ready, her eyes closing. He wasn’t there. She opened her eyes.

  “What now?”

  “The way she squeezed your hand.”

  Marnie buried her head in his shoulder. “I wasn’t aware of anything.”

  “I was. If she is an agent, she may use you to get to me. Or she could compromise you and your business.”

  Marnie nibbled on his ear and slipped her hand down below his belt. “Daniel J. Reilly, you really need to focus on more pressing things.”

  He sighed. It was even a deeper sigh than when her toes reached him under the table.

  “See,” she said.

  “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

  Babbitt drew in a long breath and smiled. “I promise.” Then she got right back to the situation in hand.

  They made love. They spooned. They slept. Reilly awoke at 3:00 a.m., grabbed his phone and went to the bathroom. He checked for texts; the first one up was from Bob Heath.

  “Phone Home.”

  Home was Langley. The fact that he wanted Reilly to call meant it was important. He dialed and whispered.

  “Reilly.”

  Given the time difference Heath was still at work, but he would have taken the call at any hour.

  “Got something interesting,” the CIA operative said.

  “Wait.” Reilly put a towel on the floor to block the crack under the door and turned the shower on.

  “We have a 70 percent positive match on your mystery woman,” the CIA operative said.

  “And…”

  “Seventy percent isn’t 100 percent. But speaking generally, and working from what you sent, we’ve come up with a six-year-old fuzzy photograph of a woman with colonel stripes standing in the third row of a Moscow parade stand. Two rows behind Number One. Seventy percent because she’s in the shadows and wearing a uniform hat. Except—”

  “Except what?”

  “I can’t get into specifics,” Heath said. “But working with the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, it’s the only match we have, which is fairly unusual. A highly ranked woman officer in the Russian army is someone they’d ordinarily bring out. Market. Publicize. But they haven’t. That suggests she either fell out of favor, was reassigned, or she’s extra special.”

  “And you think…?”

  “I don’t know enough. Besides, we’re starting at 70 percent. Anything beyond that is speculation.”

  “Okay, Bob, speculate.”

  “Remember, Number One,” Heath said, referring to Gorshkov, “was master spy. During the Cold War he was able to turn and recruit more Westerners than probably anyone. But even he couldn’t entrap subjects the way a woman could. I’m sure you’ve heard of the unique school where they were they trained.”

  “Red Sparrow?”

  “In the day, yes. More recently, under the SVR, it became The Institute. Different name. Same purpose. Recruits are trained in befriending, seducing, and compromising foreign political figures, reporters, and business executives. Seducing being one of the most important tools in their portfolio. We know this through experience and confirmed by a former KGB general, Oleg Kalugin.”

  Reilly had heard the name but couldn’t place it.

  Heath continued. “For years, Kalugin was a top dog in Russian spy operations until he exiled to the U.S. in the mid-90s. We learned a great deal about Russian operations from him. Don’t laugh, but Kalugin famously boasted, ‘In the West, you ask your men to stand up for your country. In Russia, we ask our young women to lay down.’”

  Reilly nodded. In his mind Pudovkin fit the profile perfectly.

  “Such a woman operative, especially adept at running other Russian agents around the world trained to snare new assets, would surely earn Gorshkov’s respect and rise in responsibility.”

  “And she’s one of them,” Reilly observed.

  “Worse. She could very well be one of the best they have.”

  “Seventy-percent certainty, Bob?”

  “What’s in a percentage?”

  “It’s important. She’s gotten close to me, and….”

  Reilly had another troubling notion. Two, in fact. First, what if the Russian woman was trying to get through him to Marnie? The second was more disturbing.

  “Bob, can you do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s an awful one.”

  “It’s an awful business.”

  Dan Reilly told him what he wanted.

  72

  STOCKHOLM

  TWO DAYS LATER

  Nicolai Gorshkov traveled through Stockholm’s streets in an armored caravan coordinated by the Swedish Military Intelligence and Security Service, approved by Gorshkov’s Presidential Security Service (SBP), and with consultation by Kensington Royal security head Alan Cannon. The Russian entourage comprised six armed Russian all-purpose, multi-terrain 4x4 GAZ Tigr infantry mobility vehicles–two in the lead, two in the back–and one on each side of Gorshkov’s armor-plated Aurus limousine. The name Aurus is a linguistic blend of the Latin word for gold (Aurum) and the first syllable of Russian (Rus).

  Reilly watched the arrival through the underground service entrance with Cannon, the hotel general manager and ten members of the security team. No one was present without permission. Everyone had a job to do: that’s what made the arrival appear seamless.

  Gorshkov waited for an SBP officer to open his limo door. He was the second to get out. The first was a man who looked like a bodyguard, but Reilly pegged him as much more: an FSB officer. He’d be joining the Russian contingent in the hotel. Gorshkov straightened and smoothed his black suit. He nodded to the first man and to the Russian soldiers who took up positions in the garage with their Kalashnikov AK-12 assault rifles at the ready. They surrounded the Russian president for the twenty-four steps to the elevator bank. The elevator was open and waiting. It was keyed to skip all floors but the fourth, where Gorshkov would reside.

  “So far, so good,” Cannon remarked.

  “That sounds so temporary,” the general manager said. “Like it’s only the beginning.”

  “It is, and it’s never the same with these people,” Reilly added. “Come on, our turn.”

  The KR team went to a second elevator bank.

  “Make sure everyone’s always three steps ahead of their needs and completely alert, 24/7,” Cannon instructed. “These people are impatient and hard to please.”

  “Try impossible,” Reilly said, “which is all the more reason to anticipate.”

  He thought again about the Russians constantly on his tail. The trio of Moe, Larry, and Curly. Then the notion, who’s anticipating whom?

  STOCKHOLM

  AMERICAN EMBASSY

  THE SAME DAY

  Ryan Battaglio read through the talking points prepared by the State Department, and a CIA analysis of NATO’s position. He focused on committing the relevant facts to memory. He had instructed Chief of Staff Lou Simon that he was not to be interrupted, but National Security Advisor Pierce Kimball had urgent information.

  “Just in from Watts, sir. U2
flyover confirmation of the North Korean shipments to Venezuela.”

  Kimball held a folder containing multiple pages. The cover was marked Top Secret.

  “Summarize it for me, Pierce.”

  “I’d prefer you read it. One specific paragraph, then we can discuss it.”

  Battaglio took the folder and read the first few lines of the top sheet:

  On the basis of the report of the Southern Pacific Watch Committee, the following advisory is issued regarding five (5) container ships that departed from the port of Wŏnsan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. USSPACECOM has tracked the cargo vessels even after the ships turned off location tracking devices, a procedure North Korea often employs when it transports coal to China.

  He was instantly bored by the intel-speak. Kimball prompted him to the bottom sentence:

  Intelligence concludes the shipment includes forty (40) ICBMs capable of reaching major cities in the United States. They must be considered weapons of mass destruction and their transportation an overt act of war.

  Battaglio exclaimed, “They can’t!” He handed the summary to Simon.

  “They are,” Kimball said.

  “Don’t they know what we’ll do?”

  “I suspect they’re counting on you doing nothing, sir.”

  “Well, they’re damned wrong!” Battaglio shouted. “And they’ll find out the hard way. Now give it to me in plain English.”

  Kimball did, reciting details from the Appendix: precise dimensions of the containers; computer overlays of the Hwasong missiles within them; and most importantly, photographs of North Korean military personnel including Major Kim Noh, identified by the CIA as a member of the famed Pyongyang Missile Quartet, the nation’s leading nuclear scientists.

  “Cuba again,” Simon declared.

  Battaglio missed the reference. He looked to Kimball for clarification.

  “Read Bobby Kennedy’s book Thirteen Days about the Cuban Missile Crisis,” he said solemnly, but knew Battaglio wouldn’t.

  73

  Savannah Flanders started her article at least ten times but she still had more questions about Dan Reilly than answers. Reilly was a man who seemed to have an uncanny ability to insert himself into trouble.

  “Christ!” she blurted out of frustration. She tossed the pencil she’d been twirling at a corkboard in the London bureau cubicle. It stuck like an arrow piercing a target.

  I’m not getting anywhere here when the story’s out there. When he’s out there, she thought. Flanders sharply stood, collected her laptop, purse, and the always-ready carry on suitcase. Before boarding a Norwegian Air flight from Gatwick to Stockholm she called Blowen in New York.

  “Good timing,” her colleague said. “Check your email. I’m about to send you a pdf. Not a lot, but some.”

  She listened.

  “More on Reilly’s military record and the woman he’s seeing.”

  “What woman?”

  “A VP at Barclays in London. Travels constantly. Not much on her yet, but I’m working on it. Her name’s Marnie Babbitt.” He spelled it.

  “Sounds haughty.”

  “Hey, she’s British.”

  HENDERSON, NV

  THE SAME TIME

  The FBI posted undercover officers at the Denny’s on a rotating schedule. They came in trucks and rented cars, on motorcycles and as walk-ins. They looked tired, busy, self-absorbed, in a rush, and carefree. Men and women. They made ordinary calls on their phones, sent innocuous texts to unlisted numbers, looked up trivial things on Google. They ordered food and they ate. They paid in cash and with their personal credit cards. They were observed from the building across the street and listened to by wireless. And they watched and waited. Day after day, night after night.

  So far, the only positive thing to come out of the FBI SSG, the Special Surveillance Group, was the extra revenue for the restaurant and generous tips for the waitresses. Vincent Moore was back and hating the oppressive Nevada heat. The lack of results from the stakeout only made it worse, but he couldn’t pull his team out. Reilly had identified the water system as a target and the death of the Denny’s waitress appeared to confirm that suspicion. So they’d stay, watch and wait.

  At 2 a.m. on the seventh night a man entered, took a seat in the corner, and ordered a Grand Slam. Nothing unusual until the chef peered out through the opening after the new waitress came in with the order. It was the right time. He looked to the corner, swallowed hard, and nodded to a young woman flirting with a date across their table as they held hands. The woman caught the sign and surreptitiously tapped her associate three times with her index finger. The man slid his right hand back and under the table, touching the number zero on the cell phone that rested on his lap.

  Across the street, Moore’s lead agent was sleeping and missed the tonal alert. Moore didn’t. He shook his man and tapped one of the four monitors covering the restaurant.

  “There. The guy in the corner.” They could only see the man’s back.

  “Him?” the sleepy agent asked.

  “We got the signal. The cook ID’d him.”

  Moore watched the monitors closely. He saw the subject eat three pancakes, three eggs, and three sausages. His Grand Slam. But he didn’t move. Neither did the romantic couple nor the pair of two-man teams at opposite corners on Warm Springs Road. The FBI agent had laid out his standing order for the way everything would go down. He reiterated it each night: “Identify one or both of the terrorists at their meeting place. Then a game of cat and mouse. And in this scenario, the FBI is the cat.”

  “What if we’re sure we have him?” the woman agent asked hours earlier.

  “Stick with the plan,” Moore said. “Observe, identify, follow. Do not engage without my approval. We’ll take him down when I give the order. Not before.”

  Vincent Moore knew the man was a threat. The worst kind; he was well-placed, an inside man. Moore recognized him: the subject was the supervisor from the pumping station, Richard Harper.

  74

  STOCKHOLM

  THE HOUSE OF NOBILITY

  THE NEXT DAY

  Twenty stone-cold faces sat staring at one another across the conference table—adversaries wearing their game faces. Gorshkov had his people, strictly for show, and Battaglio had his, though he wasn’t inclined to listen to them. The NATO delegation was further down Battaglio’s side of the table. Stacks of yellow pads remained in the middle for jotting notes or making deals. Files were stacked within reach of each camp, some opened and others not.

  Sitting with Ryan Battaglio were his translator; National Security Advisor Pierce Kimball; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Robert Levine; Chief of Staff Lou Simon; and Secretary of State Elizabeth Matthews. Matthews had chosen a conservative blue suit and white blouse for today’s meeting; below her left shoulder she wore a small silver brooch in the shape of a bald eagle. Those who knew her, including Kimball and Simon, understood what it meant: honor, respect, and dignity. But Battaglio neither noticed nor got the meaning. Depending upon how the meeting went, Matthews might flip the pin upward or downward to express her assessment—it was a non-verbal cue she had borrowed from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. With the exception of the four-star general in his service dress uniform, the other Americans wore dark suits and red ties. NATO’s three-man contingent wore their neatly pressed uniforms.

  Gorshkov was in a classic black pinstripe suit, identical to another fifty in his closet. They were all handmade, with hand-stitched vertical gold thread piping of his name running through the fabric. His white shirt had a cutaway spread collar, and a dark blue Italian tie matched his imported Salvatore Ferragamo shoes.

  “Mr. President…” Gorshkov addressed Battaglio in English.

  Battaglio liked the sound of that. Respectful.

  “Please extend our sincerest wishes to your nation and to the family of President Crowe. Your country is suffering, and you have our heart-felt wishes.”

  It was impossible f
or Gorshkov to sound completely sincere through his accent and delivery, but that worked to his benefit. He showed no real empathy, which Secretary Matthews noted, but Battaglio didn’t.

  “Thank you, Mr. President,” the acting president said. “We all pray for President Crowe’s swift recovery.” To Matthews, Battaglio’s words fell as flat as Gorshkov’s.

  Gorshkov gave a cursory nod, the kind that meant nothing.

  “We have much to discuss, President Gorshkov,” Battaglio continued. “Your incursion into Ukraine, your troops on the Latvian border. Neither bodes well and may lead to terrible calamity.”

  Gorshkov cocked his head, as if he could no longer understand English. Gamesmanship. He looked to his left and his aide quickly translated. Gorshkov replied in Russian.

  “Mr. President, the good people of the Russian Federation seek a secure life now, as they did following the Great Patriotic War. All we want is security for our homeland, and freedom for Russian nationals living outside our borders without their rights and privileges. You would not consider such a situation if it were reversed, and Canadian and Mexican alliances threatened you and Americans by birthright living in those countries.”

  Battaglio heard the English translation and swiftly replied, “There are no similarities, Mr. President. We are not at our neighbors’ doors with troops.”

  “Well then, you live a safe life, while we do not.”

  National Security Advisor Pierce Kimball, to Matthews’ immediate right, felt the new president was quickly being outclassed and out maneuvered. It was going to be a long session, he thought. No, sessions.

  STOCKHOLM

  Savannah Flanders arrived, stiff from sitting in the cramped last row of the Norwegian Air flight. The Kensington Royal was impossible to book, but she secured a room at the Hotel Skeppsholmen, a small boutique property nearby. She took a long, hot shower and instead of resting, she set to tracking down Reilly again and gathering whatever she could for her story.