by Seeley James
“Who are you to Strangelove?” Yuri asked. “Why does he care about an obscure soldier working for an American billionaire?”
“My problem. You think I trust you? Why do you want to turn on him? Why don’t I just end your miserable vacation and call it a day?”
Yuri clenched his jaw and regarded the man. “He threatened my girlfriend.”
Stearne might not appreciate art, but he appreciated beauty. That much was evident when he pursed his lips and nodded slowly. They had found common ground. Andrine was not a pawn to be sacrificed at the whim of political powers far away. Not in Yuri’s world. And certainly not in Stearne’s.
“And he orchestrated the ambush on Bornholm.” Yuri sighed. “My part was only to monitor the video. After the other platoon failed, he’s ordered me to kill you. He threatened her life for yours.”
“Let’s pretend I believe you for a minute.”
“Ask him yourself.” Yuri stared hard. “I’ll tell you where to find him.”
Yuri grabbed a passing college student and asked for pen and paper. He drew a crude map of an apartment building and a nearby office tower in Kaliningrad. He listed the streets and the landmarks. He tore the page from the spiral notebook and gave it to Stearne.
The next few seconds were critical. Everything hinged on getting Stearne off his back long enough to walk out of New York alive. Strangelove thought Stearne was in DC. He was in the clear for a few hours, perhaps as long as a day.
If Stearne killed Strangelove, great. If not, Yuri would work Strangelove’s projects until he could get clear. His priorities were obvious: incite the mad Mexican to go on a rampage, find a new passport for Andrine, then flee the city. Wait for the news of who won the war between Strangelove and Stearne.
Handing the drawing to Stearne, he said, “Strangelove’s home and office. One hundred twelve soldiers at the office. None in the apartment building. You take care of him, and I will be forever in your debt. I give you my word, soldier-to-soldier.”
CHAPTER 33
Pia sat at a large reading table in the downstairs library at Sabel Gardens, scrolling through the thousands of documents from Pozdeeva’s drive. Across the table, Tania and Alan did the same. Around the world, a hundred Sabel employees toiled to discover the cipher key. In the midst of scattered pages on the floor nearby, Emily read through the information from Alan’s Zurich files. Pacing the floor with a tablet in his hand, Olivier also tried to unravel the mystery of what a dead man so desperately wanted to tell them.
Veronica Hunter’s caller ID showed up on Pia’s phone.
When she answered, the President said, “I got your message. I’d love to have your financial support, but I’m not sure I understand what you meant about not making the same mistakes as Alan.”
“You made promises, and he was generous. After the election, none of your promises materialized.”
“There is no quid pro quo.” The President used her in-no-uncertain-terms voice. “You give to the candidate of your choice because you believe in the platform. Separately, I listen to the advice of people like you and your dad. When that advice is in the best interests of the country—”
“Roche offered me HHS.” Pia paused. “Or Ambassador to England, my choice.”
“He’s, um, inexperienced, Pia. Don’t hold it against him.” Hunter huffed. “What do you want?”
Pia explained several executive orders that would benefit Sabel Industries which in turn would benefit the country and the economy. Separately, Pia agreed that the donation once promised to Marty Maddox before his death might be released to the current candidate of the NEXT USA party. Since there were no guarantees that Hunter would win, the executive orders would be executed immediately. But, they agreed, there was no connection between the orders and any possible donation in the future. Pia clicked off.
Several people looked up, expecting an explanation. She didn’t offer any.
“I’m sorry, Pia.” Emily scooped up her pile of Zurich papers. “There’s nothing in here.”
“But it shows his companies receiving millions in financing from Russia.”
“Ten, twenty years ago.” Emily shook her head. “Most of the loans were paid back, the accounts were closed, and the companies were sold off or dissolved. If it’s money laundering, the proof is still in Russia. There’s no smoking gun here.”
“Then why did they kill Eleni? Why did they send a squad after us in France?”
Emily shrugged. “The bigger question is: what was Pozdeeva doing at CIA headquarters? And what does the cipher tell us?”
“Unfortunately,” Pia said, “CIA records are sealed. No surprise. And Bianca says if there is a Vigenère cipher buried in here, we need to know which documents hold the ciphertext and the key. The many pages in Latin are candidates, but they could be just calligraphy sheets. We just don’t know. We’re still working on it.”
“You’ve tried his family, names, dates, anniversaries?”
“Ages ago. Nothing easy. We’ve tried the streets between his office and home, his favorite sports teams, cities he’s visited. We’re running out of ideas.”
“He would’ve used something easy to explain,” Emily said as if thinking out loud. “Which could be anything. It’s maddening.”
Olivier paced between them, muttering to himself.
“News from the local cops.” Dad held up his phone. “The Russians disavowed the guy Jacob brought back. Now the guy’s asked for asylum and wants my help. Claims he can help us in return. The FBI has a bunch of questions.” Alan looked at Pia. “You have to face facts, Pia. Jacob’s mental health issues put us in—”
“He’s fine.” She glared. “He tried to unsettle Popov. It was a good strategy. But, it didn’t work.”
“I’ve been summoned to discuss this.” Alan stood, his voice rising fast and his face glowing red. “We have to stop Roche as soon as possible. But. Now I have to get an attorney and learn about the intricacies of asylum. Tell Jacob—”
“Let it go, Dad. He pulled your ass off a bomb in Germany.”
“Yeah. Well.” Alan tried to contain himself. “If you want to keep him around, bear in mind that sooner or later we’re going to regret—”
“He stays.”
“You need to listen to me.”
“Enough, Dad.” Pia glared at him. “I’m not a little girl anymore. I can handle everything just fine without your help.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, turned away, then back, and let out an exasperated breath. Then he stepped in, kissed her forehead, and left.
Olivier paced faster, his route growing to cover the length of the library.
Pia’s butler came in to announce the arrival of David Watson. As a mobile executive, Pia kept her sensitive correspondence on her phone and laptop. The secrets she wanted to keep from Roche were in the library, scattered around her. She instructed the butler to park her double agent in her home office down the hall.
Bianca entered and stepped around the butler.
She approached Pia and froze mid-step when she saw Emily. “I didn’t know you were back.”
“Just got here.” Emily looked away. “A few hours ago.”
The only sound in the room came from Olivier’s pacing. Tania glanced over her shoulder, then buried her face in her tablet.
“I have to get back to the office.” Emily faced Pia. “Thanks for taking me on your adventures.”
Pia nodded. Emily left.
Bianca turned to watch her leave then slowly returned her gaze to Pia.
Pia patted her friend’s shoulder gingerly. “Give her time.”
“It’s not easy, mi parcera.” Bianca wrung her hands and looked over her shoulder at the empty space Emily left behind. She sniffled quietly, took a deep breath, then turned back. “Jacob has a lead on Strangelove’s home and office.”
“I saw his text. Could it be a trap?”
“Trust is the most difficult part of the spy business.” Bianca took another deep breath, fo
rcing herself to stay focused on the job. “Jacob’s source claimed he was the guy charged with monitoring Bornholm. It’s plausible that Strangelove would have a direct-report do it on his behalf to maintain a deniable distance. But the guy is an army major, which is pretty high-level for watching an empty lighthouse. That part bothers me. Jacob uploaded the guy’s router logs yesterday. We thought it was low priority, but I’ve put the team on it now. The net is: we have no idea. Yet.”
“What does Jacob want to do?” Pia asked.
“Swoop in, kill them all, sort through the rubble.”
“What do you recommend?”
“Research and confirm the source first.”
“I’ll tell Jacob to chill for now. But I don’t want to be on the bench if this is real.” Pia sent a text to Jacob telling him to enjoy the weekend in NYC and that she’d get back to him when she was ready to make a move.
Bianca was about to say something when Olivier thrust his tablet between them. “I have something. Maybe.”
Pia looked at several rows of thumbnails lined up on his screen.
“These are all the photographs taken in one office or another. It looks like an FSB office judging from the background. Soviet architecture covered the gray-and-bland spectrum. The pictures show Pozdeeva’s friends, never him. Possibly, he is the photographer. But this one, and only this one shows him with the older woman who is not his wife or mother. Behind them, looking the other way is Viktor Popov—the man who killed my wife. This is the only picture of Popov. And it’s the only one of Pozdeeva inside the FSB offices. I think it is the message to us. This woman is important.”
Pia rolled Olivier’s comment about Popov around in her mind for a second. Popov was wrecking the American election. Popov was enabling Roche. And Popov was a murderous bastard. It’s a shame Jacob hadn’t eliminated him when he had the chance. Popov was fast becoming her highest priority.
“I found a series of random documents.” Pia reached for her tablet. “Hundreds of them. Unnecessary documents for Pozdeeva to include. Bills of lading for coal. Transfers of paper. Personnel requisitions. Many of them from the Soviet era. The only thing they have in common: they were requested by Olesya Sochneva.” She looked at him. “Do you know who she is?”
Olivier shook his head. “No idea.”
“Hang on.” Bianca typed furiously on her phone. “How is it spelled in Cyrillic?”
Pia showed her the stamped documents.
Bianca searched for photos of Olesya and came up with hundreds of young Russian women including a movie star. Toward the bottom of the thumbnails was one old lady. They compared it to the photo Olivier found. The same woman.
Bianca dialed her assistant, spoke for a moment, then pulled the phone down. “Popov’s secretary for thirty years.”
Pia cocked her head. “Why her?”
“Secondary or tertiary contact,” Bianca said. “Pozdeeva knew they would try to kill him. In case they succeeded, he needed a backup plan. You theorized they already found his co-conspirator—that’s how they learned about the microdots. This woman must be the last resort. We know Popov is an evil man. In the Soviet Union, people were assigned jobs. If you weren’t happy, there weren’t a lot of options. It’s possible Ms. Sochneva loathed him and willingly helped Pozdeeva.”
“It’s a stretch.” Pia and Bianca looked at each other. “But what else do we have? Find her.”
She marched out of the room and down the hallway to her home office.
Watson stood at her bookshelf, reading the titles. It was not a small bookcase. Filled mostly with her second-favorite subject, history, it also held many memoirs by soccer legends.
He glanced up at her. “Have you read all of these?”
“Why do Russians in Barcelona know you?” She pointed to a chair in front of her massive walnut desk.
“Your boy, Jacob, left me in a crack house in Barcelona.” Watson saw her glare. He shrugged and took his assigned seat. “My profile was pretty high in Moscow. After all, I was the Senior Agent in Charge of Counterintelligence.”
Pia rounded the desk and stood with her forearms on the executive chair’s back. “When you interviewed for this job, you said Hunter only told me half the story of my parent’s murders. You determined how much she told me by who was left alive. Tell me, who should be dead?”
“I never advocate killing.”
“Sophistry. Who did you expect me to kill if I knew the whole story?”
Watson squirmed in his chair.
“You offered to help investigate the murders.” Pia pulled the chair back and sat. “What help can you provide?”
“I may have been too anxious for the job.”
“Why have you traveled to Barcelona several times on your days off?”
“It’s a great town.” Watson tried to smile. “Messi plays there.”
“What do you think the Russians told Jacob about you?”
“I have no idea.” Watson pouted and shook his head. “Whatever they put in my dossier, I would guess.”
“Did you travel to Barcelona and visit with Russian intelligence officers on behalf of Chuck Roche’s campaign?”
“No, ma’am.” Watson leaned back, pressed his hand over his heart. “I swear—”
“Chuck Roche admitted you are on his payroll.”
“Not on behalf of the campaign.”
“Have you seen this before?” She held a photo on her phone for him to see.
Strangelove’s handwritten note defining #HuntersFail stared at him.
“Never.” Sweat broke out on his forehead. “What is it?”
“You need to make a choice, Mr. Watson. Right here, right now. Who do you work for, me, Roche, or Strangelove?”
“Ms. Sabel, I don’t know what those people told Jacob. I don’t know what you hear or from whom, but I am loyal to you one hundred percent.”
Pia stared hard in a silence that stretched long enough for him to stroke his gray crew cut, adjust his position in the chair, and re-cross his legs.
“Remind me,” Pia said, “where did you go to college?”
“University of Wisconsin.” He smiled. “Madison.”
She nodded in thought. She sat up and leaned forward. “Well, your word is good enough for me.”
He smiled, looking greatly relieved.
“See Agent Marty for your next assignment. Close the door on your way out.”
She turned her chair away and texted Bianca. Behind her, she heard Watson hesitate, decide not to protest, then leave.
Bianca texted back two seconds before walking in.
“I have her on the line—Olesya.” Bianca handed her phone to Pia. “She will speak only to you.”
Pia took the phone, put it on speaker, and said hello.
“What Alan Sabel weared for funeral of your mother?” The woman on the other end of the line spoke with a heavy accent in a rough, aged voice.
“A polo shirt under a sport coat,” Pia said.
“Why?”
“Because he was a poor grad student and hadn’t picked up his dry cleaning.”
“Those questions; Ilya tell me only you know answers.” She paused. “You tell to his daughter when she ask for autograph.”
Pia remembered the meeting. At a crowded restaurant in Leipzig, a father led his bashful teenager through the crowd to meet Pia.
“You were Viktor Popov’s secretary?”
Pia heard the distinct sound of the woman spitting before she answered. “Only to feed children and grandchildren. Not good man.”
“We agree. What was Ilya Pozdeeva trying to tell me with all this?”
“Poor wife. FSB put in jail. She knows only about microdots. I know the thing that is big.”
Pia jotted a note to get the State Department to push for Ms. Pozdeeva’s release. “What things do you know?”
“Ilya destroy all Viktor’s kompromat on Alan.”
“That’s good!” Pia looked at Bianca. “Very generous of him.”
; “He do this thing for reason.” The old woman sighed. “He want Alan get kompromat on Viktor, turn him in. Put him in jail.”
“We would love to do that. But how can I get kompromat on Viktor Popov?”
Olesya took a deep breath and spoke quietly as if someone were listening to her. “Ilya have it. He—oh, how you say—hide in plain sight.”
Pia and Bianca raised their brows at each other.
“The deed,” Bianca whispered. “The dacha?”
Pia grabbed a pen and jotted on a pad of paper. Get dacha location. Tell Tania + Dhanpal we go in 20.
Bianca nodded and left.
“I want different thing.” The woman’s voice strengthened and rose. “You kill Viktor.”
“Uh.” Pia imagined the international incident that murdering a Russian leader might kick up. Jacob’s incursion into the Embassy and his other Russian escapades had landed them in plenty of trouble already. Sabel Security was the focus of several ongoing investigations by everyone from Homeland to the FBI to the State Department. “That might be difficult. He’s surrounded by—”
“Popov kill my granddaughter.” Another sound of spitting came through. “Ilya tell me you are strong woman. Stronger than me. Do this for Ilya’s ghost. Do this for my Tatyana. Do this for Bridgette Jallet. Do this for your mother.”
CHAPTER 34
Meeting Yuri Belenov in person was a stroke of luck beyond the powers of Mercury and his band of deadbeat deities. Naturally, that didn’t stop him from claiming it was his will. Gods are like that—taking credit for every leaf that blows your way. I considered thanking a more current holy one, but I never know what kind of reaction I might get. My lifestyle as a security specialist/international assassin doesn’t fit the admonition of today’s dominant deity to “love thy neighbor.” Given my recent narrow escapes from death, I thought it best to heed the old proverb: dance with the god who brung ya.
After texting the boss and Bianca, I pocketed my phone and cut over to Madison Avenue. I peered through the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of Sylvia. She stepped out of Tom Ford just as I neared the store. I saw her before she saw me. My jaw dropped. An emerald green dress wrapped her exquisite form and made her auburn hair glow. Matching shoes, clutch, and jeweled barrette rounded out the outfit. She turned my way when we were still twenty yards apart. I wolf-whistled.
