Primary Threat

by Jack Mars

  Dixon nodded. The general had made his point. Dixon didn’t love that fact, but he had to admit it was true.

  “How many, and how much do they cost?” he said.

  “Sir, with modern icebreakers, ones that can compete with the Russians, we are talking about one billion dollars for one. But if we build seven of them, we will realize economies of scale, which should bring the price down to about seven hundred million dollars each.”

  Clement Dixon ignored the economies of scale. He’d been around government spending long enough to know it was a joke.

  “So between seven and ten billion dollars, you’d say?”

  “Yes sir, just for the icebreakers. After that, the Russian icebreakers would still outnumber ours four or five to one. And we haven’t even touched upon the cold-weather battle tanks the Russians are already deploying.”

  “Richard, did I mention I’m not the Congress?”

  “Mr. President, the oil rig attack was a provocation. It was designed to test our readiness. We failed that test. It was also designed to humiliate us and give us a black eye publicly. Mission accomplished. The Russians are going to seize control of the Arctic, and it’s going to happen sooner than anyone thinks.”

  General Stark paused and looked around the room. Clement Dixon almost laughed at the bush league theatrics of the gesture.

  “Mr. President, please don’t let it happen on your watch.”

  “General,” Dixon said. “It’s not going to happen on my watch. You know why? Because I’ll probably be asleep. I’m going upstairs to bed.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  September 6, 2005

  1:05 p.m. Central European Summer Time (7:05 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time)

  La Scalinata Ristorante

  Piazza di Spagna

  Rome, Italy

  “You guys look like something the cat dragged home.”

  Big Daddy Bill Cronin, deeply tan and wearing shorts and a Polo shirt, relaxed, well-rested, looked at them both with the eyes of a bird of prey. Neither Luke nor Ed took the bait. They’d come in on the overnight flight, and they were tired. They’d barely said a word to each other since they arrived, never mind to Bill.

  Luke had called Becca one more time, last night, just before he and Ed left the United States. This call had actually gone a little better than the previous one. She didn’t hang up right away.

  “Hi, Luke.”

  “Hi, babe,” he said. “Listen, I really need to talk to…”

  “I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”

  He paused, shaking his head in frustration. “I’m going out of the country for a couple of days.”

  “Of course you are. I don’t even want to think about that.”

  “Becca…”

  “Have a nice trip.”

  Click. The phone went dead.

  See? You could almost call that progress.

  Now he, Ed, and Big Daddy sat in the small outdoor dining area of a restaurant just off a crowded plaza. Their seats were cordoned off from the street with a red velvet rope. It was a hot day with bright sun, but they were under the restaurant’s canopy. The sounds of silverware and plates, people chatting and laughing—lunchtime eating sounds—came from inside the restaurant. It was loud and echoey in there.

  Outside, all over the plaza, the voices of the picture-taking tourists made a low, steady hum. There was a lot of ambient sound here, hard to edit it out, hard to differentiate individual voices. It was a good place to talk.

  From where Luke was sitting, he could look directly at a fountain, the famous Fontana della Barcaccia, which dated from the 1600s. He had the tour book open to it. The stone fountain was sculpted to look like a half-sunken ship with water overflowing its sides. Two human faces were embedded in the inner walls of the boat. The water was a light blue-green.

  Beyond the fountain, a wide steep set of stairs ascended straight up to a whitewashed church at the top. The church had what appeared to be two bell towers, each with a crucifix carved in the front. People milled everywhere. People stood all around the fountain. People sat on the far edges of the staircase. A throng of at least forty people stood at the top of the steps near the church. They must be a tour of some kind.

  “Here’s what the guidebook won’t tell you,” Big Daddy said. “That fountain? It’s fed, to this day, by an aqueduct built by the Romans before the time of Christ. Talk about built to last. Those people were ahead of the curve, all right. After Rome fell, a thousand years passed before anybody in the west was even attempting similar engineering feats.”

  Luke stared at Big Daddy. Big Daddy was annihilating a chicken dish with pasta as he talked. He was on his second glass of red wine.

  Luke had almost nothing in front of him. Just a cup of coffee that was already going cold. He was so tired, he felt physically sick. He sipped the coffee. Tepid at best. He watched Ed pick at a thin slice of veal.

  Big Daddy gestured with his head.

  “See the house on the right at the bottom of the steps? That’s where the English poet John Keats lived at the end of his life. He died in that house in, I’m gonna say… 1821.”

  There was a long pause at the table.

  “You missed your calling, Bill,” Luke said finally. “You could have led package tours of retired ladies from Ohio.”

  Big Daddy smiled. “I heard you guys nearly ate a shit sandwich in the Arctic the other night. I’m glad to see you bounced right back.”

  Now Ed smiled. “What are we doing here, Big Daddy?”

  Big Daddy shrugged. “Well, I’m supposedly on a break for my health. Much-needed, and well-deserved. Really, I’m under investigation. Nothing new there. You have to crack open a few eggs to make an omelet. But this isn’t cooking class. You guys, so I understand, are on your way to another destination. And if that’s true, I’ve got some things for you.”

  He reached down into a backpack at his feet. He came out with a book, another Rome guidebook, this one by a different company, and placed it on the table.

  “Don’t open that,” he said. “When you get up to leave, take it with you. It’s not what it looks like. Inside are some documents.”

  He gestured up the wide stairs, indicating the church—just a guy from America pointing something out to a couple of friends. He spoke quietly.

  “Here’s something you should know. You guys are businessmen from the United States, in Moscow to look at possible investment properties. Nothing huge, maybe a couple of high-end apartments you can rent to visiting bigshots. Your names, ages, places of birth, backgrounds, families, it’s all in the documents. Passports are in there. Carte Blanche. Diner’s Club. Impressive. You guys are music producers, got lucky with a couple of rap and dance hits.”

  Ed shook his head. “Of course. That explains the rich black guy.”

  “Relatively obscure songs, nothing in the Top 40, but they made you a lot of money. The songs were actually produced by an Agency front company. You guys were involved. The names of the songs and artists are in the documents. You should memorize that stuff in case it comes up. It won’t, but you never know.”

  “Produced by the Agency?”‘ Ed said. He smiled. He seemed to be perking up. Maybe Luke shook have eaten something.

  Bill nodded. He coughed, his hand covering his mouth. “We’ve got our little fingers in just about every pie you can imagine. Sometimes the best way to get a message out there is through music. Or in a movie. Or on TV.”

  “Okay,” Luke said. “And?”

  “Don’t check out of your hotel here. We’ve got a couple of doppelgangers who are going to play you for a few days. Wander around Rome, enjoy the sights, turn up here and there, have a nice time.”

  “How do they look?” Ed said.

  Big Daddy shrugged. “Big black guy. Not as big white guy with blond hair. Not necessarily handsome, but not as ugly as you two. They’ll do.”

  He took a sip of his wine.

  “There are clothes and luggage being placed in
your hotel room as we speak. Take that stuff with you. Wear the clothes. The suits, the watches, the shoes, everything. Dress the part, okay? Because you guys…” Big Daddy gave them both the once-over, smiled and shook his head. “You don’t look like high rollers right now.”

  Ed was wearing jeans short and a tight, dark blue T-shirt. His sunglasses were perched on his head. Luke was wearing jeans, sneakers and a green Boston Celtics replica basketball jersey.

  “I mean, look at the state of you both.”

  Big Daddy burst out laughing. He laughed so long that his face started to turn red.

  “Don’t give yourself a stroke,” Luke said. “I hear you’re a ticking time bomb.”

  It took Big Daddy a moment to stop. He took a deep breath, and his broad smile started to fade.

  “When you touch ground, you’ll be contacted by a real estate agent. Albert Strela. He’s going to show you the properties. It wouldn’t kill you to actually go look at a few of them. But Albert’s really your translator. He’s also the one who does your surveillance. You guys are going to stick out like a couple of giant sore thumbs, so let him do his work, and don’t step all over it. When he says go, you go. When he says sit tight, you sit tight.”

  Big Daddy took another long sip of wine.

  “He knows what you’re looking for, and he’s already found it. That’s the good news. But you have to tread carefully, because Uncle Joe is always watching. All these people are connected, and the connections go up and down, high and low. Everybody knows everybody, it’s a spider web, and our friends over there routinely drop people in the Roman aqueduct, if you know what I’m trying to say.”

  Luke did, without even having to be told. The Russian government was all-knowing and all-seeing. Its reach extended to the streets, the hotel suites, and everywhere else. The most untouchable mobsters, and the most savage street thugs, were all on the payroll. Clandestine murder in Moscow was barely even a crime.

  “Which leads me to my next point,” Big Daddy said. “When you’re over there, you’re on your own. I know you guys are on the friends and family plan, and you like to keep in touch with the folks back home. In most cases I’d say that’s a good idea. But the walls have ears, and every call you make goes through the hotel switchboard, if you know what I’m trying to say.”

  Luke nodded. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He often relied on Swann and Trudy when he was on a mission, and tried to stay in touch with them. Swann was able to encrypt calls and bounce them from satellite to satellite across the world, baffling attempts to track them or listen in.

  Big Daddy was saying that wasn’t going to work this time. It made sense. They were going to Moscow. It was one of the most closely watched places on Earth.

  “Yeah, sometimes it’s just nice to get away from everybody,” Ed said.

  Big Daddy looked at Luke. “What do you think about that?”

  Luke nodded. “It’s okay.”

  What else was it going to be? A deal breaker?

  “Let me ask you a question,” Big Daddy said. “Totally off topic. How come your friend Murphy’s not here? This seems like a trip he might enjoy. Or at least one you might enjoy having him on.”

  Luke shrugged. “He got some time off. And he deserves every minute of it. Decided to take that time and lay low, I suppose.”

  Big Daddy nodded. “Yeah? What’s he doing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s what I figured. I’ll tell you what he’s doing. He booked himself a flight to the Cayman Islands under a pen name. He’s headed down there later today. Then he’s got a flight to the Bahamas tomorrow night. Nassau. He’s an interesting guy.”

  Luke wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. Special operators were unusual people. Getting a few days off, then suddenly jumping on a plane to the Caribbean under a false identity was hardly out of character. Luke wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow if Big Daddy had said Murphy left on a flight to Zimbabwe.

  “I guess he likes to travel.”

  Big Daddy shrugged. “Yeah.”

  Ed was still tucking into the tortured remains of his veal. “Why are you keeping tabs on Murphy, man? He do something to you?”

  Big Daddy smiled. “I keep tabs on everybody. It’s a little hobby of mine. And Murphy’s been a friend of the Agency before.”

  “Haven’t we all?” Luke said.

  There was mirth in Big Daddy’s eyes. “Some better than others.”

  Luke decided the strain really was getting to Big Daddy. He had tossed out that he was under investigation like it was nothing. It was never nothing. Luke hadn’t been around nearly as long as Big Daddy, and already he knew that. If you overstepped, if you made them look bad, they would eat you for lunch.

  Now he was letting it slip that Murphy was under surveillance. That wasn’t the kind of thing you shared around. If Murphy was a threat of some kind, Big Daddy should tell them that. Otherwise, he was just spreading gossip and sowing division, like an old washerwoman leaning over the back fence.

  “Is that everything?” Luke said. “Are we done here?”

  Big Daddy shook his head. “No, there’s one more thing. When you get where you’re going, say hi to Albert for me. Also, don’t get him killed. I like him.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  8:15 p.m. Moscow Daylight Time (12:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time)

  Hotel Baltschug Kempinski Moscow

  Zamoskvorechye District

  Moscow, Russia

  “We should have come here for vacation.”

  Ed Newsam had spoken.

  They were walking into the lobby of the hotel, a grand old palace right on the boulevard that ran along the Moskva River. Red Square and the Kremlin were across a wide thoroughfare from here, and lit up for the night in spectacular fashion.

  The lobby was wide, gleaming, with two-story ceilings. It had white marble floors and walls, fresh cut flowers in stone vases on the tables, and a hallway lined with expensive boutique shops. A white-gloved man in a red top hat and tails pushed their luggage on a rolling cart.

  It took every ounce of Luke’s will to allow it to happen. He preferred to carry his own bags.

  He glanced at big Ed. The man was in his glory playing music producer. Ed wore a form fitting gray pinstriped vest and matching pants, with a black dress shirt under the vest. His shoes alone must have cost $500. His watch was big and garish. He wore a gold chain around his neck, with a crucifix dangling from it. To complete the look, he wore sunglasses, indoors, at night.

  Ed followed the man pushing the cart, big jaw thrust out, massive arms swinging. He was strutting like a peacock. His legs in the pinstriped dress pants looked like overpacked sausages about to burst from their casings.

  “Maybe you missed your calling,” Luke said. “Maybe you really should have been a rap mogul.”

  Ed shrugged. “I am a rap mogul.”

  Luke wore a blue pinstriped three-piece suit, with a white shirt and red tie. The suit was perfectly tailored to his body, but he had to admit he didn’t own the look. Not like Ed. Luke felt awkward, almost apologetic, in these clothes.

  Check-in was effortless. The man at the desk was small, skinny, dressed in a starched white shirt that fit him like a circus tent. He was smoking a cigarette. The haze of gray smoke rose toward the ceiling high above them.

  His English was very good, with a slight evil Russian villain accent that Luke remembered from cartoons during childhood.

  “Hello, Mr. Simmons. How was your flight from… America?”

  Luke was Rob Simmons on this trip. Ed had the improbable name Max Funk. Luke nearly laughed. Big Daddy had a sense of humor—you had to give him that.

  They had pushed on from Rome, with just enough time to stop back at their hotel rooms and pick up the clothes and the documents Big Daddy had left for them. Luke had been so exhausted he slept the entire flight here. He’d popped a low-dose Dexie right before the plane landed and drunk a cup of coffee. Other than the clothes he was we
aring, he felt pretty good.

  “Very nice, thank you.”

  The man glanced from Luke to Ed.

  “Will you gentlemen be looking for companionship this evening?”

  “Companionship?”

  “Yes, sir.” The man stared into his computer terminal. He didn’t look up from whatever he was doing. He shrugged. “Ladies… to accompany you. Out to the nightlife. Who know all the places to go. Bars. Shows. Clubbing. You understand. Companions.”

  There was a young woman nearby, blonde, very pretty, wearing a blue hotel uniform. She stood at a long table, collating papers and stapling them together. Luke looked at her, and she at him. She smiled, and blushed just a bit.

  This must be a normal question.

  “Uh… no thanks. We’re here on business.”

  The man smiled. “Of course.”

  He handed digital room key cards to Luke and Ed.

  “Enjoy your stay.”

  They rode the elevator upstairs to their rooms. They weren’t speaking. The man with the luggage cart had gone on ahead of them, and for Luke, it didn’t seem quite safe to speak. There was no doubt in his mind that this elevator was bugged.

  Then again, if there were bugs, it wouldn’t be natural to act like mutes.

  “Quite a night, huh?” Luke said.

  Ed nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Can’t wait to get out there and just… you know.”

  “Check it all out,” Ed said.

  “That’s right.”

  “High rollers,” Ed said. “Watch out Moscow, because here we come.”

  Luke smiled. “Young and dumb and full of…”

  Ding!

  The elevator arrived at their floor.

  Their rooms were about twenty meters apart. Luke let himself into his room. His bags were here, near the bed. The room was nice, but he barely glanced at it. There was a long picture window, with the heavy curtains and drapes pulled wide. It gave him a panoramic view of Red Square. St. Basil’s Cathedral with all its minarets, and painted like candy canes, was closest to him.