“You’re from CNN.” Ridges looked Will directly in the eyes.
“Yes.” Will waited as the FSB agent left the room.
“This is my third interview this month.”
“Really?”
“Let’s sit by the fire. Do you want some tea?”
“Thank you.” It gave Will the chance to see all of the players in the cabin, but there were clearly no servants. Michael Ridges went to the kitchen and came back with two cups. It appeared that the guards only rarely entered the cabin.
“Cream? Sugar?”
“Yes, thanks.”
Ridges pulled up a chair near the fireplace and reached for a pad and pen on a table. He wrote furiously on it. He removed the page quietly, folded it, and handed it to Will. It was likely that both microphones and cameras were studying the two.
“The tea is from London,” Ridges said, clearly trying to fill what would otherwise be suspicious silence while Will read his note.
THEY HEAR ALL AND SEE US. WHAT DO YOU WANT?
“It’s good,” said Will as he read it, then tossed the note into the fire. He took the thick marker from Ridges like a school buddy passing notes.
“Do they get you whatever you want?” he asked.
“You mean food?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re very good to me.”
Will wrote down three names.
RIDGES, NEWTON, O’HARA: ONE IS DEAD.
O’Hara was the woman whose mangled corpse now rested on a cold steel table in La Paz.
Ridges read it once, read it again, and began to shake.
* * * *
YOU CARED ABOUT HER. Will wrote the next note, which was read and then tossed into the fire.
“So, you want to know why I did it? Everyone does.” Ridges held his teacup with both hands. He was keeping the conversation going. “Am I right?”
“Sure, if you’re comfortable telling me.”
Will looked around the small room. It was a cottage with a kitchen just off the sitting room. The windows had shutters, but they were all open. The fireplace gave the place warmth and a smoky smell. It didn’t seem that the fire drafted well. A pair of French doors were on the opposite side from the kitchen and led to a small porch, covered, and just to the bottom of the door, Will could see the edge of a well-stocked woodpile within easy reach. Being an experienced operative, Will knew the details were important. They gave one insight and were stored in one’s memory in case of need later. There were no ashtrays. There was a vase on a table near the kitchen door with some dead flowers in it. It seemed that a woman had been here.
Will’s research had confirmed that Ridges had met another woman since his days at Maryland and she had visited him often in Russia, but her absence was reflected in the rest of the relatively bare cabin.
He assumed that everything was being recorded. And cameras would probably have recorded the writings, but the guards seemed to have gotten lazy with the many visitors their guest had had. They weren’t in the room and left the two alone.
Nevertheless, he imagined that the guards would be most interested in the notes in the fire. They would see them use the pad and try to look over their shoulders to see what was being written. Ridges covered the pad as he wrote and used one sheet to cover the printed page. Will followed suit. He assumed that when Ridges went out for exercise, an FSB agent would gather up the ashes with the hope of finding something.
“So, tell me why you left?” Will kept the conversation going.
“There was a man that was corrupt and vengeful.”
Will had a good guess as to who that person was.
“I was onto something that if he found out, it would have been bad.”
“So not much choice about where to hide.”
YOU’RE NOT SAFE HERE, Will wrote.
EVEN HERE? Ridges wrote back.
YES.
The notes went back and forth. Ridges seemed easily enough convinced, almost as if he had secretly been wanting to leave Russia.
Will suspected that Alexander Paul’s reach could extend into Russia if needed, but not strongly enough to stop Putin’s desire to hold onto the bargaining chip that was Michael Ridges. At any moment, though, the bigger situation could change, and it would be over for Ridges. And if his fellow ex-trainees were being abducted and murdered, things were indeed changing.
I’VE A WAY OUT.
Michael Ridges looked up from the last note, then wrote his response:
I’VE BEEN WORKING ON SOMETHING THAT NEEDS TO GET OUT.
“Do you miss America?”
“Some things, yeah, but like I said, they’ve been good to me.” Ridges played along with the game.
A man came into the room. Ridges stared at the FSB guard. His boots had tracked in snow, which was melting on the rug.
“What do you want?” He seemed to have no problem letting it be known that he didn’t appreciate the interruption.
“The time is done,” the guard said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He seemed uncomfortable about the change in the normal routine caused by Will’s visit. It appeared that there was a nervous tension caused by the passing of notes.
“Leave us alone a little longer.”
Will was mildly surprised that Ridges seemed to be granted some control over his situation.
Like a scolded child, the guard turned abruptly, almost petulantly, and went back outside. Will’s last note ran longer than the others. It was the most important one.
USE TIPPENHAUER, GUARDS WILL BE GONE AT MIDNIGHT. BE ON MAIN ROAD, FIVE MINUTES.
Ridges would know of Tippenhauer—a scientific paper published several years earlier that had outraged law enforcement when it hit the press.
Ridges wadded the note up in his hand but held it for what seemed like an eternity.
Will stood. “Perhaps we can communicate by email so I can flesh out this interview?”
“Sure. This is my email.” Ridges rose to get a piece of paper and pencil.
Will stopped him and touched the other man’s hand for a short moment. Ridges seemed hesitant at first, but after another moment dropped the ball of paper into Will’s palm. Will tossed it into the fireplace, then used a poker to stir the ashes. He slipped Ridges’s email address into his pocket.
At the door, the guard stopped him and frisked him. He took the slip of paper from Will’s pocket, looked at it, and then stuck it in his own pocket. He pointed with a nod of his head toward the Lada. Once again, Will submitted to being blindfolded and sat back for the journey to his hotel.
Chapter 35
Paul’s Headquarters Near Dulles, Virginia
Frank Caldwell was skimming through news stories on his phone when he noticed two articles that stood out. The first covered the robbery of a small grocery store that his wife often used. It was only a couple of blocks from their small-town house in Arlington. Two people were dead.
“The first murder this year,” the police chief said in the online interview. “Anyone who knows anything, please call.” Arlington was a safe city and homicides rare. Suicides were more likely in the highly stressed city of government employees and contractors.
It was the final comment that caught Caldwell’s eye.
“The cameras were all destroyed and the killer used a small-caliber weapon.” The chief’s observations telegraphed a professional hit to Caldwell. True, any random robber might use a small-caliber pistol, but destroying the store’s cameras displayed the kind of tradecraft used by special operators behind the enemy’s lines. He made a mental note to find out who the victims were.
The second story caused him to sit up. It came from an American newspaper’s Moscow bureau and concerned Michael Ridges.
Caldwell looked up from his phone and stared into the middle distance.
So that’s wher
e Parker is.
Caldwell already knew about the connection between the two Marines and Ridges. He also knew that Parker had gotten onto that same trail and then disappeared from public sight. There was something else he remembered in the Will Parker file with the Agency: The man had an unusual talent for languages, in particular Russian.
His phone rang and the conversation was short.
Since the line was not secure, it only took one word.
“Moscow.”
* * * *
Alexander Paul hit the red button to end the call. Caldwell may have served a useful purpose after all. He turned to his computer and opened the Tor browser. It had been some time since Alexander Paul had used the deep web address of his friend in Russia’s FSB. Suddenly, having a contact in the Russian intelligence bureau seemed like a godsend. If William Parker were in Moscow, then Paul’s FSB friend would be delighted to follow up on an uninvited foreign agent in his country.
Chapter 36
The Hideout in Mexico
The fever had started the day before. Todd Newton’s clothes were soaked, and the dampness had him shivering in his cell. It had been more than twenty-four hours since he had received anything to drink. He was fighting the thought of giving in.
Maybe she knew something.
Todd remembered that at one time Lucy O’Hara and Ridges had been a thing, but it hadn’t lasted long. Ridges had mentioned his new girlfriend in the few emails they’d exchanged before he defected. He had started the relationship with the new woman while working in Washington. It had sounded serious at the time.
“If only they’d told me,” Todd pleaded to the wall.
If his captors wanted something that Ridges and O’Hara knew, it might save his life to know it. He would have gladly given up anything—anything at all—in order to stop this nightmare.
The door swung open.
The two men covered his head with a black bag and dragged him up the stairs. He felt, for the first time in days, a cool breeze coming off of the water. It had the taste of salt air. He felt his feet drag on gravel and smelled dust, its sterility and chalky taste signaling that nothing green grew anywhere near this place. The taste of salt air was soon replaced by the taste of dust in his mouth as he inhaled. The broken nose made it a struggle to breathe, but his sensation of taste had not been affected by the beatings.
The van had a metal floor. He moaned from the pain as his elbows and knees struck the van’s bed. As soon as he did, a hand slapped the bag hard, causing his ears to ring again.
They accelerated from the parking spot with the tires spinning gravel. Deep ruts in the road bounced the vehicle up and down and to the side, tossing Todd from one wall to the other inside the cargo area. With each jolt, he painfully banged his elbow or knee or head on steel. The journey seemed endless, and Todd was expecting to lose consciousness at any moment, when the van finally slammed to a stop, banging his head once more against steel.
The doors swung open and one man grabbed him by his chained feet and dragged him to the edge of the van. There, another threw him across his shoulder like a bag of potatoes and proceeded up a stairway.
The nightmare repeated itself as Todd’s hood was removed, only to reveal another dark basement, a small metal cot, and this time a metal lug sunk into the floor that was used to padlock his chains.
“Water?” Todd tried to speak. “Please.”
It seemed he still needed to be kept alive. The giant with the big black eyebrows said something to the smaller man. Shortly, the other one returned with a plastic bucket full of water. It had the logo of Ace Hardware with the words La Paz below it.
For the first time in days, Todd could fully quench his thirst. The water was lukewarm, but it didn’t matter. He had no guess as to why they had moved him—his conditions had not changed in any meaningful way. Except for the water.
It seemed he would live another day, but the clock was still ticking loudly.
The two men left, and with the water and his craving satisfied, Newton collapsed on the cot and fell into a deep, feverish sleep.
Chapter 37
Moscow
The phone rang again in Will Parker’s room.
He was lying on his bed, working his way through the night’s plans.
“Yes?”
It was a woman’s voice. It only said one word. He recognized it immediately.
“Deeya!”
“You must have a wrong number.” His message was intended to slow down the guards that were listening, but he knew exactly what it meant. Deeya was Apache and could only come from one person.
He hung up the phone, went to the window, and peered through a crack in the blinds. The two FSB agents were standing outside of their Lada, looking down the street as two cars approached. One stopped short of the other, and a tall man got out from the front passenger seat.
His hair was gray but full enough that even in the frigid air he wasn’t wearing a cap.
Spetsgruppa commander.
Simply by looking at the man’s face and the insignia on his uniform, Will knew much. This was a seasoned combat veteran who probably rose through the ranks in Afghanistan. He had been transferred to the Federalnaya Sluzhba Beszopasnosti because he was smart. An officer of the FSB, particularly one stationed in Moscow, always made for a capable opponent.
Will gathered his parka, gloves, and the bag that held his computer. He stopped at the phone and wrote down on a pad Bolshoy Deviatinsky Pereulok No.8. He then ripped the pad paper off, leaving only the ghostly, written impression on the page underneath. The address to the US Embassy might cause his watchers some hesitation. At least, it would pull their attention and some number of troops to another location. At best, it would buy him a little time.
He quietly opened the door to see the hallway empty, then ran to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and locked the bathroom door from the outside. Again, it gave him the chance of buying a few seconds. His experience had taught him that every bought second paid a dividend. If they hesitated in the room waiting for the shower to stop, it bought time. If they took the pad and analyzed it for the address, that bought time. If the embassy address misled them, then the extra time could be significant.
Will slipped out the door, went to the back stairs, walked up two flights, and walked down the hallway until he found a room that faced the back of the hotel. He quietly knocked, hoping for no response, and heard nothing. He then pushed his shoulder into the door. A crunch of wood and then it forced open.
The room was dark and empty. Will closed the door, slipped to the window, opened it, and slid out onto a ledge connected to an adjoining building. He crossed to the roofline of the next building, then traversed several more, passing across most of the block. One building had a fire escape a floor below that descended into an alley. Will slid down a pole to the landing and was in the alley in a matter of seconds.
He went in the direction opposite of the American Embassy, worked his way to the metro, and then went deeper into the center of Moscow. At one stop he went to a mall and purchased a new parka, a long-tailed sweater, a hat, and a new pair of sunglasses. In the store restroom, he changed his outfit and put the used clothes in the plastic shopping bag he’d just received with his purchase.
An old man was sitting on the floor with his back up against the wall near the entrance to the subway. The smell of vodka was soaked into his clothing.
“Here, old man.” Will said it in perfect Russian with a Moscow accent.
The man’s eyes were bright blue, and his face looked like well-worn leather. He glanced into the bag and smiled. If the man chose to change into the clothing, it might cause another useful distraction.
Moscow would turn dark soon. Will stopped in a restaurant, took a table in the back, and ordered in perfect Russian, albeit with a southern accent, making him sound as if he’d just come in from Belarus.
The waiter teased him about his accent, precisely as Will had intended. For one thing, it was meant to put the man at ease. In addition, if pushed, the man would later remember a stranger, but deny that he could have been an American. Clearly, the customer was from Belarus.
Will had a hot bowl of borscht and a cold beer. He ate the black bread that came with the soup, unsure when his next meal would be.
Alina knew they were coming and had called Will just in time. It meant that while the FSB were watching him, Alina’s group was watching the FSB. He was impressed, including by her use of the Apache word for escape. Moncrief had taught her well. It would take the FSB some time to figure it out.
The snow started again as he headed out the door.
Who told them I was here? He thought back on his last twenty-four hours. He recalled the conversation with Kevin Moncrief involving the man named Caldwell. That seemed a likely link, especially since he worked for Alexander Paul. Will remembered the business card of Frank Caldwell at Camp Pendleton.
He pulled out his Mac and quickly went on the Wi-Fi. A site called Beeline opened up. Beeline provided Wi-Fi service in Moscow and was easily picked up by Will. It was the third largest wireless operator in the country and covered the city. It was all in Russian, which was no problem for him. He quickly did a search of Caldwell, who he worked for, and the connection of Alexander Paul with Michael Ridges. The man he hoped to meet in the next few hours and lead out of Russia worked for the men who called Kevin Moncrief. And once the call from Caldwell came, the FSB showed up at Will’s hotel.
Alexander Paul. Will studied the dated photograph of the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He read the follow-up stories of his outrage at the media and his fall from power. In his divorce from his first wife, her attorney described him as ruthless, obsessed with the advancement of his career, and vengeful. It appeared that he could not keep the ire of his wife out of the divorce.
Sounds like a man who could make two Marines disappear, Will thought. And someone who had a direct line to the FSB and didn’t mind using it.
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