Objekt 825 (Tracie Tanner Thrillers Book 9)

by Allan Leverone

  Tracie forced the frustration from her mind—it wasn’t easy—and continued her desperate visual search. There had to be something she could use to effect an escape. It quickly became obvious, though, that nothing else inside the mostly empty room would be of any use to her even if she could reach it, which she could not.

  Her last hope was the table that had once housed the assembly line. A few ancient tools had been left scattered across it, abandoned for some unknown reason upon the facility’s decommissioning.

  There was a hacksaw to her right.

  A claw hammer that would serve wonderfully as a makeshift weapon to her left.

  A length of heavily rusted chain, partially coiled along the table, also to Tracie’s left.

  All could serve a purpose in a possible escape.

  The length of chain was closest to her, but all were beyond Tracie’s reach. She knew they were because she tried, one by one, stretching her arms as far as she could, reaching for each.

  Failing in every attempt.

  Lukashenko must have realized the tools represented no threat to him, which was why he hadn’t bothered to move any of them.

  Tracie cursed again.

  Her head, shoulder and ankle continued to throb.

  She was in big trouble.

  38

  June 25, 1988

  12:25 p.m.

  Soviet Army Headquarters, Moscow, Russia, USSR

  General Ivan Gregorovich did not even bother replacing the telephone handset onto its cradle at the conclusion of his very strange—but wonderful—conversation with the KGB man known as Andrei Lukashenko. He pressed the button on his phone’s console to terminate the connection and then immediately pressed a second button, the one that would buzz his personal aide in the office’s reception area.

  The line was picked up almost instantly, as Ivan had known it would be. “Rudnev,” a male voice said.

  “Mikhail, I need to fly to Sevastopol on urgent business. Please arrange for an aircraft to be fueled and ready to depart in thirty minutes.”

  “You are flying to Sevastopol…today?”

  “Did I not just say that? Yes, Mikhail. Today.”

  “But Sir, your afternoon schedule is filled with appointments and meetings, some of which are extremely—”

  “MIKHAIL,” Ivan interrupted, his voice not just loud but authoritative. He knew it would be effective in getting his administrative assistant’s immediate and undivided attention because he’d used it before and it had never failed to serve its purpose.

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “I know my schedule. I have my schedule right in front of me. You will cancel my appointments and advise my colleagues I will be unable to attend my meetings. I told you once already, this trip to Sevastopol is urgent. Do you understand?”

  “Of course, Sir. How long will you be staying? Would you like me to arrange for accommodations?”

  “No accommodations. I expect to return to Moscow this evening. If plans change, I will handle my own accommodations. In that event, I will offer you as much advance notice as I am able, so you may adjust my schedule for tomorrow.”

  “Understood. How many men will be traveling with you to Sevastopol, Sir? The number of passengers will determine which airplane I reserve for you.”

  “Any airplane is fine. I will be bringing just a small security detail, say, two men.”

  “Very good, Sir. I will select a pair of soldiers from today’s security roster.”

  “No, Mikhail. I will choose my own men. This trip is of a highly sensitive nature and I must be certain I can trust their discretion.”

  Ivan’s assistant fell silent, his surprise obvious. To classify this conversation as unusual would be an understatement. The Soviet military’s highest-ranking acquisitions officer had never before abandoned his schedule in the middle of the workday to fly to a Black Sea coastal city on some unspecified, “highly sensitive” mission.

  The reaction didn’t bother Ivan in the least. As one of the half-dozen or so most influential members of the Red Army hierarchy, he had long-since grown accustomed to being obeyed instantly and, more importantly, unquestioningly. He felt confident today’s situation would be no different.

  “Of course, Sir,” his assistant said after the short pause. “Will you be needing anything else?”

  “Da. Please arrange for transportation to be waiting upon arrival in Sevastopol. Two vehicles.”

  “Very good, Sir.”

  ***

  The Vnukovo Tupolev Airport was located just twenty-eight kilometers from downtown Moscow, making it less than a thirty-minute drive from Ivan’s office. The two soldiers he’d selected to accompany him as a security detail were being shuttled to the airfield in a separate car, which left Ivan alone—aside from his driver, of course—to consider the implications of this morning’s surprising news.

  He had been obsessed with the pretty, redheaded American CIA agent from the moment she had invaded his private residence—during his daughter Irina’s twenty-first birthday party, no less!—and assaulted Ivan and one of his men, stealing classified information right out of Ivan’s home office and escaping into the night.

  It was a brazen act of hostility, one he could not seem to move past. In fact, the more time that elapsed since that awful night, the more the desire for vengeance burned inside Ivan. The woman had put not just Ivan’s life in danger, but also those of his family and friends.

  Worse, she had made him appear weak and ineffectual in front of his military colleagues, and that was something Ivan simply could not countenance.

  The fact that she had single-handedly prevented the Russian radical group Sovetskiy Soyuz Navsegda from detonating a tactical nuclear device and murdering thousands of Soviet citizens in the process did little to assuage his smoldering hatred for the petite—but lethally effective—American operative.

  In fact, the opposite was true. Ivan’s men should have been the ones to hunt down the Navsegda radicals and eliminate the threat, not some representative of the hated American enemy.

  Just thinking about it, Ivan could feel his blood pressure rising, and a mild headache began to throb at the base of his skull. He closed his eyes and massaged his temples, forcing himself to relax, to breathe deeply, to slow his racing heartbeat.

  After a moment he opened his eyes. He felt marginally better but could not stop himself from continuing to relive what he considered the worst failure of his career. Following the debacle, he had printed out hundreds of bulletins featuring the likeness of the little American cyka, distributing them to KGB stations throughout not just Russia, but all the Soviet satellite states as well.

  His assumption had been that once the operative escaped Russia, she would never again return. She could not possibly be stupid enough to think she would not be hunted like the dog she was, and even if she were that stupid, her CIA handlers certainly would not be. For all his hatred of the Americans and everything they stood for, he wasn’t too blind to acknowledge the competence of the Central Intelligence Agency and its people.

  But on that point he had apparently been wrong. Not only was the American bitch back on Soviet soil, she was back just weeks later. Perhaps she had not even left the country at all.

  He recognized that he was taking a leap of faith by dropping everything and flying to Sevastopol. If Comrade Lukashenko was mistaken as to the identity of his captive, Ivan would once again look foolish and weak, and foolishness and weakness were two things the top brass in the Red Army would only put up with for so long.

  Still, it had been Andre Lukashenko on the other end of the telephone line this morning, not just some KGB nobody. Ivan was well familiar with Lukashenko’s work; as the man in charge of acquisitions for the Soviet military, Ivan had spent millions upon millions of rubles on equipment and armaments made possible by The Weasel’s skill at stealing or purchasing state secrets and classified materials of the USSR’s enemies.

  If Andrei Lukashenko said he’d apprehended the American
CIA agent who had so humiliated Ivan, he was willing to cancel a few appointments and miss a few meetings in order to check it out. The worst-case scenario was that Lukashenko was mistaken, in which case Ivan would berate the KGB man and send him on his way, chastened.

  But the best-case scenario, oh, that would be heavenly. In the best-case scenario, Ivan would torture the redhead viciously. He would take his time and make her scream. She would regret ever stepping foot on Soviet soil, much less invading Ivan’s home and making a fool out of him.

  He glanced out the window to see the car pulling to a stop outside a set of hangars constructed in a secluded corner of Vnukovo Airport. This was where some of the aircraft reserved for use by high-ranking Soviet military personnel were kept, and idling outside the closest hangar was a brand-new Yakovlev Yak-48 business jet.

  The Yak-48 was a prototype, not even in production yet, a twin-engine business jet capable of seating up to eight passengers. It was small and fast, and the flight from Moscow to Sevastopol would not come close to pushing its potential range.

  The whine of Yak-48’s engines was high-pitched and annoying, and Ivan felt his burgeoning headache ratchet up a notch. He grimaced and walked up the Yak’s retractable stairs, pausing just a moment to salute the two-man flight crew standing at attention. The pair of men Ivan had selected as a security detail followed him into the aircraft.

  Once inside, he turned and told the two soldiers, “Make yourselves comfortable, but please allow me some privacy. I must spend our limited flight time doing some strategic planning.”

  “Yes, Sir,” the men responded in unison, moving to the first two passenger seats and dropping into them.

  Ivan walked to the rear seat, putting as much room between himself and the soldiers as he could. There really wasn’t much “strategic planning” that needed to be done, but Ivan was keyed-up and strangely nervous, and just wanted a little peace and quiet.

  He buckled himself in and closed his eyes as he waited for departure. Ivan had not allowed himself to hope he would ever get the chance for vengeance, despite all the work and expense it had taken to dispatch his bulletin.

  Now that the moment he’d been waiting for was almost here, the anticipation was palpable. He could not wait to arrive at the Sevastopol safe house and get to work on his CIA antagonist.

  39

  June 25, 1988

  12:50 p.m.

  Abandoned factory north of Sevastopol, Russia, USSR

  The Weasel was returning. Tracie couldn’t see his car but she could hear the sound of its engine as he approached and then parked.

  She slipped off the table and waited. She thought she knew why he’d left right after securing her, and if her suspicions were on the money it would represent more bad news for her.

  He entered the factory whistling a Russian folk tune and then stopped just inside the door, feigning surprise at seeing her.

  “Well, what do we have here?” he said as a greasy grin slid across his face. “It appears someone has left a little girl sad and all alone. Do not worry, darling, I will be happy to pass the time with you until our company arrives.”

  “Not necessary,” Tracie said, putting as much venom into her voice as she could manage. “I was perfectly happy while you were gone. Feel free to leave again.”

  “I think I will stay.”

  “In that case, feel free to go fuck yourself.”

  Lukashenko’s smile evaporated, as did his seemingly jovial mood. Tracie knew it was a mistake to push his buttons given the situation and her lack of ability to defend herself, but his smug, taunting condescension was more than she could swallow.

  He glowered at her and began crossing the room, but stopped before reaching her. “You need to learn some manners, little girl. You need to learn how to speak to your betters.”

  “If any show up, I’ll be sure to change my tone.”

  “You are a stupid little cyka.”

  “If only I had a ruble for every time I’ve heard that,” Tracie said.

  Lukashenko ignored her comment and said, “Would you like to know where I have been?”

  “Not particularly. Given the state of your physical condition, I can only assume you were eating a meal with spectacularly little nutritional value.”

  After her first insult penetrated his smarmy, used-car-salesman demeanor, Lukashenko had rallied. He seemed to have decided to ignore her taunts, apparently determining that Tracie’s helplessness was satisfaction enough.

  “Actually,” he said, “I did have a quick lunch, but not until completing some fairly important business.”

  He obviously wanted Tracie to ask, so she shut her mouth and waited.

  “Since I know you are wondering,” he continued when it became clear after the briefest of pauses Tracie was not going to take the bait, “I left to make a telephone call. As you have seen, amenities inside this facility are…lacking.”

  “Good for you,” Tracie said. “I’m surprised you could manage it all by yourself.”

  “Would you like to know who I called?”

  “To make a spa appointment for a little personal grooming?”

  Anger flashed in The Weasel’s eyes and then disappeared as his aura of manufactured calm returned. “Not exactly,” he said. “The fact is I was calling an old friend of yours.”

  “I assume by ‘friend’ you mean ‘enemy.’ Unless this is how you treat all of your friends.”

  “All right, then. Have it your way. I was calling an enemy of yours.”

  “In that case, you’re going to have to be more specific. It might surprise you to learn I’ve made more than my share of enemies in your beautiful country.”

  He dropped the cheerful, best-friends-chatting persona for just a moment and said, “It would not surprise me at all.”

  Again Tracie refused to take the bait. She thought she knew to whom Lukashenko might be referring, but couldn’t be positive. She hadn’t been lying when she told him she’d made plenty of enemies inside Russia. Either way, she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of asking. She looked away, examining the fingernails on her left hand in feigned boredom.

  “But back to the subject of our conversation,” he said. “I had a very pleasant chat with General Ivan Gregorovich. Perhaps you recognize the name?”

  She shrugged and Lukashenko smiled, the same greasy grin he’d displayed when he entered the building.

  “In any event,” he said, “General Gregorovich remembers you, and quite vividly. You made a lasting impression on him while assaulting him inside his home and threatening his family.”

  “It’s always nice to be remembered,” Tracie said, “although to say I threatened his family is not even close to being true. The assault thing, though, yeah, I can see why he might have misinterpreted our brief time together.”

  “In my opinion he interpreted it in precisely the proper way. Either way, it made enough of an impression on him that he has gone to great lengths to ensure everyone inside the KGB is aware of you.”

  “I’m honored.”

  “And that is not all,” Lukashenko continued. “General Gregorovich was so anxious to renew acquaintances with you that he is on his way here to do exactly that.”

  Tracie scoffed, attempting to hide the fear racing through her. “You’re telling me one of the busiest, highest-ranking generals in the entire Soviet military command structure is driving to some run-down piece of shit factory building in Sevastopol just because you somehow managed—against all odds—to chain me to a table?”

  “Oh no,” The Weasel said. “He is not driving to Sevastopol. He is flying here, that is how anxious he is to see you.”

  “Isn’t that flattering. I don’t suppose you’ll consider releasing me so I can get cleaned up for The Great Man’s arrival?”

  “I think you know the answer to that question.”

  “So,” Tracie said. “What are you getting out of your little telephone call? You went running out of here so fast earlier I thought the p
lace was on fire.” She asked the question more to keep Lukashenko talking than because she cared about the answer. If he was talking to her, he wasn’t pistol-whipping her.

  Lukashenko shrugged. “I am not expecting any favors from General Gregorovich. I was simply doing what any patriotic Russian would do when confronted with a spy working to tear down my country and harm its people.”

  Tracie burst out in genuine laughter. “Sorry, Comrade, I’m not buying that statement for one second. I know how you operate. If you don’t want to say what Gregorovich promised you, just admit it.”

  Another greasy smile. “I am being truthful, not that I care whether you believe me when I say the general promised me nothing. I will admit, however, it is a very comforting feeling knowing a man as powerful as Ivan Gregorovich is in my debt.”

  “Well, all that matters is that you’re comfortable,” Tracie said drily.

  “I agree,” Lukashenko shot back instantly. “That is all that matters.”

  They fell silent and Tracie scanned the room for probably the hundredth time, desperately searching for something she could use to attempt an escape.

  For the hundredth time she saw nothing.

  “It seems we have run out of items to discuss,” Lukashenko said after a half-minute or so of silence.

  “What would you like to talk about?” Tracie said. “Your favorite American game shows? You’ve spent enough time inside the United States ruining people’s lives and stealing state secrets, you must have developed an opinion on the subject.”

  “The inanity of American television does not interest me. But I appreciate you letting me know whom you work for. I was not certain whether you were an American or a Brit.”

  “Does it really matter?”

  “Not to me, not really. I was simply curious. And now it matters even less, because once General Gregorovich has finished extracting his vengeance, I will be transporting you to Lubyanka, where you will soon wish you were back inside this building, no matter how much pain Gregorovich inflicts on you while you are here.”