The Soviet Assassin

by Allan Leverone

  “I’ll wait out here, ma’am, thank you.” The marine stood to the side to allow his boss to pass and then placed himself directly in front of the door, facing the hallway, without another word as the skeletal man in the suit entered.

  She closed the door and the man turned and offered his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Quinn.”

  “Likewise, Chief Gatlin,” she said, shaking his hand firmly. “Although I wish the meeting was under better circumstances.”

  She wondered whether he was aware of how much responsibility she bore for the current unpleasant circumstances. If he knew, he was doing a good job hiding it. He seemed pleasant and professional, if somewhat somber. Tracie supposed having your boss gunned down in his own office and then taking over the top spot while the killer remained on the loose would have a sobering effect on just about anyone.

  “Call me Henry,” he said. He had removed his fedora upon entering her room and now stood fingering the brim nervously as he faced her.

  “Please have a seat, Henry,” she said. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Thank you, no. And I’ll stand. I’m far too upset to sit, and as far as tea is concerned, I haven’t been eating or sleeping since Ambassador Leavell’s body was discovered. The last thing I need is caffeine.”

  I know a little bit about insomnia myself, Tracie thought, but said only, “I understand.”

  “So,” Gatlin said after a deep breath. “The purpose of my visit this morning is to prepare you for your embassy tour.” He continued to meet her gaze only with extreme reluctance, locking eyes for a moment only to slide them away, focusing on something over her shoulder.

  It was unnerving and unexpected, particularly given the man’s status as a professional diplomat. For a moment Tracie was thrown off, and then the likely explanation for the man’s excessive nervousness occurred to her.

  “How many people know about the note found on Ambassador Leavell’s body?” she said, speaking quietly but focusing on the man’s eyes, willing him to meet her gaze.

  “Only a few. Me, of course, given the fact I am—was—second in command at the embassy as well as the person who found the body. French officials, the lead law enforcement investigator, and also the Marine Corps Embassy Security Group.”

  “So then, you are aware the note was left for me.”

  “I wasn’t, until I entered your room and saw your hair. Then it became…”

  “Self-evident,” Tracie suggested.

  “Yes.”

  “Let me make something clear, Mr. Gatlin. I don’t expect you, or anyone else for that matter, to accompany me outside the embassy complex. Once we get inside—” if I make it that far, she thought but did not say—“we can meet up to continue the tour.”

  Gatlin shuffled on his feet. If anything, he seemed more nervous now than he had been before. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You must think the worst of me.”

  “Of course not,” Tracie said. “I don’t want to put anyone in danger unnecessarily, particularly you. You’re critical to maintaining the integrity of our diplomatic mission, now that Ambassador Leavell is gone.”

  They stood staring at each other for a moment, neither speaking, and then Tracie said, “So you’re here to brief me on the locations and tactics of law enforcement and intelligence personnel surrounding the embassy. What do you say we get started?”

  Gatlin dithered a moment longer. The man was clearly shaken. Finally he nodded. He turned toward the writing desk next to Tracie’s window and on it, unfolded a map of the embassy complex and surrounding area. The map was dotted with marks made in red pen.

  Tracie listened carefully as he began speaking, although from her perspective his explanation was hardly necessary. The meaning of the red marks was clear from the moment she looked at them, and they had nothing to do with protecting Tracie. They were the places the good guys would lie in wait to capture the KGB assassin after he’d dropped Tracie with sniper fire.

  8

  May 15, 1988

  7:50 a.m.

  Hôtel de Crillon

  She waited fifteen minutes after Gatlin and his escort departed before leaving her hotel room.

  The U.S. deputy chief of mission to France—now, Tracie supposed, the acting U.S. ambassador to France—could not have been more clear in his desire to be as far away from the prospective murder victim as possible. That was her wish as well, so she gave him plenty of time to return to the relative security of the embassy complex before proceeding.

  She wanted to feel anger or disgust at Gatlin for his cowardice but couldn’t quite manage it. His boss had been gunned down execution style in his own office for the express purpose of luring Tracie here, and then he was given the unenviable task of meeting with her? With the assassin still on the loose and presumably still in Paris?

  Tracie and Henry Gatlin had no connection other than the dead ambassador, so Gatlin had no personal stake in trying to protect her. And he was obviously bright enough to know his odds of survival took a dramatic turn for the worse in her presence, so his desire to get the hell away made perfect sense.

  It didn’t make Tracie feel any better, but it was understandable.

  To make matters worse, there was no guarantee Piotr Speransky was holed up in some sniper blind waiting to gun Tracie down outside the embassy. That was the working theory, and why Aaron Stallings had felt comfortable instructing Gatlin to meet her here in her hotel room.

  But Tracie felt it was just as likely Speransky was remaining mobile in order to avoid being discovered by French authorities and trapped before he could escape. And if that were the case, and he’d seen Gatlin and the guard leaving the embassy, it would be a simple matter for the professional operative to tail the two men here.

  And if that were the case, she might never even make it as far as the embassy. She could be ambushed the moment she stepped into the hotel’s hallway, or shot as she crossed the first floor lobby, or murdered anywhere between her hotel room and the embassy.

  She’d mentioned her misgivings to Stallings as they spoke via secure satellite connection inside the CIA’s Gulfstream after departing Washington National, but he’d disregarded them entirely. “The Marine Embassy Security Group is aware of the need for secrecy, so Chief Gatlin will leave the embassy complex through a little-used tunnel. No one watching the embassy will see him, and the detachment in charge of security at our Paris facility is among the best in the world. You’ll be fine.”

  “Really?” she’d said. “If the embassy security group is so good, how did Speransky manage to access the complex and murder a sitting ambassador in his own office, and then escape undetected? Sounds like real quality protective work, there.”

  “Knock it off, Tanner,” Stallings had said, his annoyance clear. “You know as well as I do that with proper planning a professional can access virtually any location. You could do it. Hell, you have done it, many times. So I don’t want to hear your crap. Meeting Gatlin inside your room is much safer than meeting him anywhere in public, so that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  She’d bitten her tongue, having dealt with Stallings long enough to know she had a better chance of winning the lottery and getting hit by lightning on the same day than changing his mind once he’d made it up. But that didn’t mean she felt good about it.

  Especially now, pacing her room, checking her watch every thirty seconds, waiting for enough time to go by so she could go out and meet her fate. She’d never been particularly good at waiting, unless the prospective payoff at the end of the wait was going to be something worthwhile.

  Getting shot in the street didn’t seem to fit the definition.

  She adjusted the Kevlar vest under her blouse, wishing she could leave it behind and knowing that wearing it would almost certainly be pointless. Speransky would anticipate body armor, so he would have taken up a position that would allow for a headshot instead. Any high-powered Soviet sniper rifle would pulverize her skull to the point where a closed-casket
funeral would be necessary, lest mourners become sick to their stomachs.

  She was starting to feel a little queasy herself just thinking about it. Death would be instantaneous, meaning there would be no pain, yet the thought of one or more rounds blasting her skull into gravel was causing her gorge to rise.

  Think about something else, dammit, this isn’t productive.

  She paced the room a few more times and then muttered, “Okay Gatlin, ready or not, here I come.” She figured she’d given the man plenty of time to lock himself out of harm’s way, but more importantly she didn’t think she could handle one more minute in this tiny space, alone with her thoughts.

  She pulled on a light jacket, more to cover her vest and the shoulder holster housing her Beretta than because she thought she would need one, and walked to the hotel room door.

  Paused with her hand on the knob and took a deep breath.

  Opened the door and stepped into the hallway, bracing for the worst, one hand inside her unzipped jacket on the butt of her gun.

  Nothing happened.

  There was no bright flash of light, followed by a loss of consciousness.

  No bullets ripped into her body.

  No one attacked her.

  The hallway was deserted. Tracie glanced in both directions and then began moving toward the stairway that opened onto the lobby. It was not the route she would normally have chosen with an assassin lying in wait, and it was almost certainly not the route Deputy Chief of Mission Gatlin had used, but her role in this little drama was solely to act as a target.

  So she would take the stairs, and hope Speransky wasn’t waiting for her in one of the stairwells. She kept her hand on her gun as she walked, determined to give him a little something to remember her by in the event he was bold—or careless—enough to allow himself to be seen.

  Nothing.

  She descended the stairs and crossed the lobby, a little surprised to still be breathing by the time she exited the hotel.

  The morning was overcast but warm and humid, with low grey clouds threatening deluge at any moment. Tracie would have liked to wear a hat or at least use an umbrella, but the plan was to allow Speransky to identify her by her flame red hair, and to do so, he had to be able to see her flame red hair. She thought the only thing worse than dying by an assassin’s bullet would be getting soaked to the bone first.

  Her nerves were strung as tightly as she could ever recall as she turned toward the embassy. It would be a short walk, with the embassy complex located just across a narrow alley from the Hôtel de Crillon. Not for the first time, Tracie considered the possibility that she and her killer had spent the night within a few hundred yards of each other.

  She walked slowly, balancing her desire to not get killed with the need to complete her mission. She couldn’t imagine ever receiving an assignment that would be more distasteful than serving as a human bulls-eye, but it was her fault Piotr Speransky was still alive to target her—not to mention a half-dozen innocent Americans—so she would complete this mission to the best of her ability.

  After crossing Rue Boissy d’Anglas, Tracie approached a group of a half-dozen or so men dressed in long black trench coats loitering just outside the embassy’s front gate. Their status as investigators, law enforcement or intelligence personnel could not have been more obvious, and she knew they could only be there for one purpose: to meet with her.

  To their credit, none of the men shied away as she approached. They must be aware of the situation and that bullets could begin flying at any moment, but unlike Henry Gatlin, they seemed accustomed to dealing with dangerous situations.

  One of the men said something to the others, nodding in Tracie’s direction, and then all heads turned toward her and watched her approach. When she was maybe eight feet away, one man, presumably in charge, stepped away from the others and extended his hand.

  “Fiona Quinn?” he said in understandable if heavily French-accented English.

  “That’s right,” she answered, and shook his hand. “You are?”

  “I am Chief Inspector Jacques Guillard, and this is my team. We are here investigating the murder of Ambassador Leavell and were asked to escort you on your tour of the crime scene. I wish to assure you that we take your safety very seriously, and will do everything in our power to ensure your safety as we proceed.”

  His grip was strong and confident and despite her tension, Tracie immediately liked the man. He had to know he could be splattered with blood and bone and human tissue at any moment—hell, he might get taken out himself—but if he was feeling any fear, nothing in his demeanor gave it away.

  She hoped he would get the same impression of her.

  They pulled apart from the handshake and Tracie noted that none of the other men were introduced by name. None of them seemed as relaxed as Guillard, either. They nodded and smiled tightly, and she realized she’d already received the only greeting she was going to get.

  Not that it mattered. If a sniper’s bullet dropped her to the sidewalk, her companions’ identities would be the least of her concerns.

  “Well,” Guillard said, “shall we conduct a little tour?”

  I’d rather not, Tracie thought, even as she smiled and said, “Sounds good. Lead the way.”

  She was still alive.

  For now.

  She counted that as a win.

  9

  May 15, 1988

  8:10 a.m.

  Rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré, Paris

  Piotr Speransky prepared to resume his vigil. He drained the last of his black tea and grimaced as he swallowed. This past week had constituted his first experience with Paris and he’d discovered the city had a lot to offer—it was bright and lively where Moscow was typically dull and grim—but he’d sampled a handful of cafes in the vicinity of the American Embassy and had yet to find one that could match the dingiest Russian roadside food cart when it came to the quality of their tea.

  He shrugged into his jacket stepped onto the sidewalk, and as he did he glanced dubiously at the threatening skies. Rain was in the forecast, and from the looks of things it was going to start sooner rather than later. The prospect of getting wet didn’t bother Piotr—he’d completed many missions with much longer timelines under far worse conditions than this—but a heavy downpour would reduce visibility and make it more difficult to see what he very much wanted to see.

  He had suspected all along it would take a minimum of three murders to lure the redheaded American spy away from her hiding place in the United States, and he was beginning to think one more might be required. He’d kept the U.S. embassy complex under more or less constant surveillance since executing the ambassador, and given the timing of the killing had expected her to show up yesterday.

  But there had been nothing.

  It was always possible he’d missed her, of course. One man working alone could not even begin to cover all of the entrances to the facility. But he didn’t think that was the case. French law enforcement had swarmed the embassy the morning after the murder, as had U.S. state department representatives and military officials.

  The day after the murder would have been too soon for the redhead to make an appearance, though. That would be the day the CIA would have deciphered his note, located the spy, and sent her on her way. He’d left the same note on both of the previous corpses, but hadn’t really expected the American idiots to put the pieces together until he’d staged the third ambassador’s killing in a way he knew would have meaning for his tormentor.

  Assuming his timeline was accurate, the little redheaded cyka should have arrived in Paris yesterday. Piotr had been up early and spent the day walking the streets surrounding the embassy: no breaks, just hour upon hour of watching and waiting, his senses on full alert.

  But he’d seen nothing.

  He wasn’t worried about hanging around the scene of the killings because he knew he’d left no evidence behind that could be used to identify him. Piotr Speransky had been killing enemies of
the Soviet state for years, and had long ago mastered the art of committing murder without compromising himself.

  He’d been excited and hopeful at daybreak yesterday, but as the hours wore on and there was no sign of the American spook, he began to fear she was still either too dense to pick up on the clues he’d left specifically for her, or had deciphered them but was too afraid of him to be drawn to the scene.

  No matter. He would keep watch all day today and again tomorrow. If she still hadn’t shown by tomorrow at nightfall, he would chalk Paris up as a lost cause and leave for Rome. There were still plenty of United States embassies dotting the European landscape, and Piotr knew that no matter how much security the Americans added to the embassy staffs, he could circumvent it and kill at least one more ambassador, probably two.

  Eventually the Americans would tire of losing their diplomats.

  Eventually they would send their spy to face the music.

  And when that happened, Piotr would be ready.

  He stalked along the Champs Élysée and then made the pair of left turns that would lead him directly past the front entrance to the American embassy. Security had been fortified, as Piotr had expected following the killings, so he was unsurprised to see several armed guards stationed at the gate as well as more patrolling the area.

  But this time when he passed, he spotted a group of a half-dozen men, all dressed in suits and overcoats, all very officious-looking, all huddled together as if awaiting the arrival of someone else. An American spy, perhaps?

  This was a good sign. This was a very good sign.

  Piotr continued past the embassy and strolled a ways farther before turning left and crossing Avenue Gabriel. He didn’t like the idea of keeping his back to the embassy for too long, but making a one-eighty and walking past the guards and the men in suits a second time so quickly could arouse suspicion. Piotr wasn’t about to get arrested now, not when he was so close to finally extracting his vengeance on the American cyka.