The Soviet Assassin

by Allan Leverone

  So that was what she did. She knew she looked out of place in this grimy area, and that was intentional. She wanted to look out of place.

  More importantly, since Speransky had paid Vasily Labochev to learn her identity, she knew that whoever Speransky had recruited to protect his safe house would have been given a precise description of her. Rather attempting to disguise her appearance, Tracie made certain her flame-red hair was plainly visible: no hat, no scarf, no high collar. Nothing that would cause Speransky’s newly recruited partner to doubt that he’d gotten the right person in his sights.

  She half expected to be assaulted before ever getting near the safe house and was a little surprised when it didn’t happen. She made a show of emphasizing her interest in that particular building, ignoring all the others and circling the safe house several times.

  She rattled the door.

  She checked the bars on the windows.

  She climbed onto the ancient loading dock and examined the brick work.

  Before she’d completed her first circuit, Tracie had identified the KGB operative. It was a man standing in the shadows two buildings deeper inside the park. While he was dressed slightly more appropriate to the surroundings than Tracie—jeans and a light jacket—he wore no work boots, no hard hat, and seemed to have no purpose inside the industrial area other than to observe Tracie’s activities.

  She loitered around the building for a long time, drawing no attention from anyone besides the mysterious man lurking a couple hundred feet away. Then she left the industrial park and spent the rest of the day in preparation for her meeting with Vasily Labochev.

  Three times over the next several hours Tracie caught a glimpse of her tracker, and while the KGB man did a better job at concealing himself than he had at the industrial park, she still felt he’d done a damned poor job overall. Even during the raid last night on Labochev’s home, she thought she observed him skulking around the rear of the property as she was disabling the security guard prior to entering.

  She’d again expected to be assaulted by the KGB man after leaving Labochev’s home. The conditions were perfect for a kidnapping or attempted murder: a partly cloudy night obscuring the moon, and a distinct lack of potential witnesses because virtually everyone in Leningrad was fast asleep.

  Again she had been surprised when he hung back. Apparently her escort had been given strict orders not to engage. He was to keep her under surveillance but leave her alone unless she made an assault on the safe house.

  When Tracie thought about it, those orders made sense from Speransky’s perspective. He had gone to a lot of trouble to ensure she knew exactly who was murdering her relatives and attempting to destroy her. He would not want someone else to end her life. It would be critical for his sense of self-regard—and maybe even his career—that he be the one to do it.

  Tracie wondered if she could use that knowledge to her advantage. Piotr Speransky’s single-minded obsession with revenge for the way she’d tortured and humiliated him had been fueling his every action since the day he’d escaped he CIA safe house.

  That obsession would become his downfall.

  She hadn’t wasted a lot of time developing a strategy on her way to Russia because there had been far too many unknowns to develop anything. All she had really known was that she wanted to use Speransky’s little piggybank as a lever to turn the tables on him, to let Tracie control the engagement and put her back in the position of hunter, rather than that of prey.

  But now a plan was beginning to take shape. She thought she could use what she had learned at the industrial park—not just about the safe house, but about her opponent as well—to her advantage. It would not be easy, but she liked her chances.

  Tracie had played sports in high school, and even as busy as her father was, he still managed to make it to almost all of her games. He’d drilled something into her head that she hadn’t fully appreciated at the time, but that in the years since had played a significant role in the foundation of her career and, in fact, her life.

  And it was something simple: always respect your opponent. Don’t fear them, don’t be intimidated by them, but respect them.

  “They want to win every bit as much as you do,” he’d said. “They’re out there competing just as hard as you are. So give them credit, give them their due, but trust in your own practice and skill and preparation. And win or lose, do it with grace and compassion. Shake hands when it’s over and move on, no matter the result.”

  She had approached every CIA assignment she’d ever been given with those words in the back of her mind. The enemy—in most cases, that meant the KGB—was every bit as dedicated to their mission as she, every bit as convinced they were fighting on the right side of history.

  She would respect their training and abilities while trusting in her own. It meant never becoming overconfident, never believing herself better prepared than the enemy, but also trusting that she was as prepared to face a challenge as she could possibly be.

  Her father’s words had served her well, and she had no doubt he’d intended them as a message that would be carried far beyond the soccer pitch or basketball court or softball diamond. And while she had no intention of ever shaking Piotr Speransky’s hand—or the hand of the nameless KGB operative currently shadowing her for that matter—she would once again take his words to heart.

  She would avenge her father’s murder using his own advice against his killer.

  36

  May 23, 1988

  7:50 a.m.

  Druzhba Industrial Park

  Leningrad, Russia, USSR

  The padlocks securing the single entrance to the concrete-block safe house were accessible not by key, but via combination tumblers. It was an arrangement that made sense, Tracie thought. Given the uncertainty and danger of his employment as a KGB assassin, Speransky could never be certain he would be carrying the proper keys if he needed to access the building in a hurry.

  Tracie’s first impression during yesterday’s reconnaissance was that the locks represented a potential security weakness. Their size and quality—not to mention the fact they were on the door in the first place—would be a strong indication to any enterprising Russian burglar that the structure might be something other than it appeared.

  Speransky had probably felt confident the safe house would never be disturbed, though, mostly because it was such an unlikely-looking repository for marketable liquid assets. From a distance and to the naked eye the building appeared decrepit, abandoned years ago and left to slowly crumble under the weight of inattention, much like the rest of the industrial park only at a slightly faster pace. An interested party would have to circle the building and approach it at the proper angle to see the combination locks at all.

  For Tracie, the important question was whether Piotr Speransky would have trusted his KGB buddy with the combinations to all three locks. It would require a major leap of faith to assume from his location thousands of miles away in the United States that if he provided his comrade with access to the building, that man would not simply loot the safe house on his own and disappear.

  She had slept inside her stolen car last night after leaving Labochev’s home, and now she considered the issue on her way to the industrial park. There was no way to know the answer to that question, and while it would better suit her purposes if the KGB shadow had been given the combinations, she decided she could adjust her plan if necessary.

  She had been sure to lose the man tailing her last night before finding a secluded area in which to catch a few hours of sleep, and hadn’t seen any sign of him since. By now it had become apparent that Speransky had given strict orders to his KGB comrade that Tracie was not to be touched; that he was to protect the contents of the safe house but leave Tracie to him.

  It was the only explanation for why the man wouldn’t have tried to take Tracie down last night outside Labochev’s home, when the conditions were as perfect for such an operation as they ever would be. He had tailed Trac
ie initially to become as familiar with her as he could, to get a feel for her habits and a sense of how dangerous an opponent she may or may not be, and then he had backed off to focus on his primary mission.

  And she could use that knowledge to her benefit. If it came down to a confrontation—when it came down to a confrontation—the man’s reactions would be a hair slow, because he would be worried about killing her and thus triggering the rage of one of the most deadly and unstable men Tracie had ever encountered.

  That was her working theory, anyway.

  She was about to test it.

  She parked her stolen car an eighth of a mile from the industrial park and began walking. By now she was as certain as she could be that the KGB man had taken up a position in or around one of the abandoned industrial buildings surrounding the safe house. There were plenty of them to choose from.

  In the event she was wrong, though, and Mr. KGB was still tailing her but had gotten suddenly much better at it, she wanted to give him plenty of advance notice that she was making a move on Speransky’s precious safe house. She wanted to provoke him, to make him commit to taking action against her, but at the same time not surprise him into a deadly overreaction.

  She walked at a rapid pace, not quite trotting but almost, and in just a few minutes found herself at the entrance to the grimy industrial facility. There was still no sign of the man who’d followed her most of the day yesterday.

  An ancient chain-link fence surrounded the park, topped with three parallel strands of barbed wire angled outward at roughly a forty-five degree angle, the universal security measure designed to protect against vandals or drunk kids looking to get into places they shouldn’t. Any professional thief, or even a vandal who had planned ahead, would be able to circumvent the measure easily, and in a matter of seconds, by bringing along a set of bolt cutters and slicing through the fence.

  Even that simple action was rendered moot, though, because the swinging gate located at the park’s entrance had been standing open each time Tracie had been here. From the looks of the rust coating the hinges, it hadn’t been years since anyone had closed the gate, it had been decades.

  She turned left and walked straight through the gate and into the park. As was the case yesterday, the facility appeared mostly deserted, the majority of the structures standing empty and forlorn. The sound of work in progress somewhere deeper in the park echoed through the access roads and off the concrete and metal buildings, but mostly the place felt forgotten, a crumbling relic of a repressive political system that was finally beginning to topple under the weight of inevitability.

  Tracie never slowed after entering the park. She turned immediately left and then right, moving between buildings like a woman on a mission, which, of course, she was. It just wasn’t the mission she wanted KGB Man to think it was.

  She moved straight to Speransky’s entry door, the one protected by the series of combination locks. She bent and focused her attention on the locks, spinning the dials like she knew what she was doing, making it clear to KGB Man—wherever he was—that unlike yesterday, she was serious about accessing the building this morning. She’d purchased a hacksaw yesterday at a Leningrad hardware store, and if the business with the locks didn’t get her shadow’s attention, she would pull the tool out from under her jacket and begin slashing away at the bars covering the windows.

  The damned hacksaw was so cheap she wasn’t sure she would even make it through one bar before the teeth were so badly dulled the thing was rendered useless, but that was irrelevant. She hoped. The point wasn’t to access the building by herself; the point was to convince KGB Man to do it for her.

  She played with the locks and tried to use her body to block the view of her shadow, assuming he was watching from somewhere around the area she’d seen him yesterday. A minute went by, and then two, and she wondered how much longer the charade would remain believable, if it ever had been.

  She sighed and was reaching for the hacksaw under her jacket—Time for Plan B—when she felt the heavy mass of a gun barrel being shoved into her back.

  Finally.

  From behind her, angled slightly off her right, a deep voice said, “Remove your hand from your weapon or die.”

  Despite the adrenaline racing through her system, or perhaps because of it, Tracie had to fight the urge to laugh. KGB Man was worried about her whipping out a semi-auto pistol when the only thing hidden beneath her jacket was a Russian handyman’s tool she’d bought for the equivalent of seven U.S dollars.

  She hadn’t bothered wearing her shoulder-holstered Beretta because the whole point of this morning’s exercise was to get herself captured. That being the case, it seemed like a poor strategy to bring a weapon that would only end up being confiscated, thus providing her captor one more tool to end her life than he’d started the day with.

  “Okay,” she said, speaking quietly and calmly. Don’t spook the Soviet spook. She released her grip on the saw and began raising her hands slowly.

  “Nyet,” the Russian said. “Do not put your hands over your head, it is too conspicuous,” and again Tracie almost laughed.

  Conspicuous? Here? The place was so forlorn they could probably fight a gun battle between two abandoned buildings and no one would notice.

  “Spread your feet to at least shoulder width and place your hands flat against the door at shoulder height, and then remain still,” the man said.

  “And you think that’s more subtle? A man holding a gun against a woman’s back and forcing her to spread her legs? You don’t go on many dates, do you?”

  “Shut up,” the man spat, “and just do it.”

  Tracie did it. The hacksaw fell out of her jacket and clattered to the rough pavement and the KGB agent flinched, and for one horrible moment Tracie thought he would squeeze his trigger just out of shock.

  But to her surprise, not to mention her relief, he held his fire. For a moment nothing happened, and then he bent slowly, being sure to keep his gun pressed against her spine. He lifted the hacksaw and stared at is as though he’d never seen one before.

  Then he chuckled. “You really thought this little blade would be sufficient to slice through these locks, or the bars on these windows?”

  Tracie shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Just an ordinary girl, out for a walk on a beautiful morning.”

  “With a hacksaw under your jacket.”

  She shrugged again. “You never know when one will come in handy. Like today, for example. I’m out, minding my own business, when I happen to stumble over this little shack. It’s falling apart and yet it’s got locks on the doors and bars on the windows, the whole thing sealed up tighter than Kresty Prison, and I think to myself, I wonder why? So I pull out my hacksaw and get to work. Or at least I would have, if you hadn’t shown up and spoiled all my fun.”

  “You think you are quite clever, don’t you?”

  “Again, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I know what you are doing,” the man said, shoving his gun harder against her spine.

  “Really? And what’s that?”

  “You are trying to keep me talking out here, hoping someone will come along and see us and perhaps rescue you.”

  “Is that what I’m doing? I thought we were just having a little chat, you know, getting to know each other, now that you’ve forced me to spread my legs for you.”

  “Shut up,” he said. “It will not work. The odds of anyone passing by are minimal, and the odds of anyone doing anything besides minding their own business even if they see us are even less. But still, we will continue this discussion out of sight, since you are so anxious to examine the interior of this building for yourself.”

  “That’s very neighborly of you, and just as I was about to ask for my hacksaw back. Now I guess I won’t need it.”

  “You will not need the gun you have beneath your jacket, either.”

  “Gun? I don’t ha
ve any gun beneath my jacket.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “No, I’m pretty sure I don’t. That seems like the sort of thing I’d remember. Would you like to reach in and check for yourself? Get a little free feel? Normally I wouldn’t offer, but since we’ve already established you don’t date much I thought you might appreciate it.”

  “Shut up!” he said again, this time emphasizing his demand by placing one hand against the back of her skull and shoving it against the door. She just managed to turn her head in time to avoid breaking her nose. Still, it was painful, and she blinked and shook her head but refused to give the man the satisfaction of taking her hands off the door to rub the bruise that was already beginning to swell.

  “Does this mean you don’t want to date me?” she said. “I’m getting mixed signals.”

  “Step aside,” he said. “Move slowly and keep your hands against the door or the wall at all times.”

  Tracie did as he demanded, and when her body had cleared the locks he said, “That is far enough.”

  She stopped and he continued, “If you make one move I do not like you will suffer a very painful death. Do you understand?”

  “I would say there is very little room for misunderstanding in that statement.”

  “Good. Do not forget.” He held the gun in his left hand, keeping it pressed against her back, while he began manipulating the tumblers on the locks with his right.

  At least you bothered to memorize the combinations, she thought, and didn’t have to pull a slip of paper out of your pocket.

  A moment later he had popped all three locks. He removed them, one by one, and tossed them onto the ground. Then he turned the handle and pushed open the door. “Get inside right now,” he said.

  That was easier than I expected it to be. She slipped past the KGB man and into Speransky’s safe house.

  37