She scribbled the address and added directions, although she planned to take a cab. “Perfect. I’ll see you in an hour. Thank you.”
She hung up and closed her eyes to think. She had money and an American ID—but Zakhar had uncovered her Elaine Granger alias, and she did not have another I.D. at hand.
Can I fly under his radar for a time? That was the burning question.
I should be able to use other resources under the name of Elaine Granger, resources he knows nothing about, and I can be creative with my arrangements. Keep my footprint small.
Just a few weeks, then I’ll seek out another set of papers.
And yet, regardless of her logic, everything within her tensed. She had been out from under Petroff’s thumb for less than two months. It hardly felt real or lasting, and her instincts advised extreme caution.
What about Marstead? According to the conversation Christor had recorded, this mysterious director, Jack Wolfe has retracted the retirement order Saunders directed against me.
But could she count on what this Jack Wolfe person said?
Trust but verify. That’s what Christor had advised.
She flinched. Christor! I haven’t contacted him since . . . . since Montreal. He must be worried about me.
How far away and long ago that conversation seemed! It would soon be a month since she’d last spoken to him.
Well, I can’t contact him yet. I have more pressing things to do first.
VYPER WAS GIDDY WITH excitement when she arrived at work that morning to check the status of her cron job. She slipped on her headphones and logged into her terminals. A series of chimes greeted her, and she grinned as she pulled up the texts between the Odessa hacker and Zakhar. The latest, in terse, clipped shorthand, made her chuckle deep in her throat.
“Credit crd shows subj on bus Grand Forks 2 Detroit, arr. Fri 9pm. No phone use past 24hr”
Vyper put the first stick of gum of the day in her mouth and chewed, giggling with delight as she did. “And you won’t see any of Elaine’s phone activity, bud. Not as long as my code is running in her provider’s system.”
Vyper particularly liked the idea of Zakhar jumping back into his car to race Elaine Granger’s bus to its imaginary destination.
Detroit.
She laughed to herself the rest of the day.
LAYNIE TOOK THE FURNISHED studio on sight. It wasn’t the best or worst place she’d ever stayed in, but it had the two elements she desired most—proximity to the university’s east campus and Internet service included in the rent. She didn’t need her credit card to sign up for the Internet service—and that was how she would roll from here on out. Cash only.
With keys in hand and having turned over eight hundred dollars of her cash supply to the apartment manager, she stepped into her new digs, dropped her backpack on the sofa bed, pulled out her laptop and modem, and plugged in the broadband cable.
Once she was connected to the Internet, she browsed banks near the university and picked the one closest to her apartment. She left her apartment, walked to the bank branch, and jumped through the hoops required to open an account. She showed her D.C. driver’s license and her passport as proof of her ID and deposited a hundred dollars.
“I’ve just moved here,” she said, but gave the bank a phony Lincoln address, electing to receive her bank statements online.
On the way home, she stopped at a Radio Shack and purchased a headset with a built-in microphone.
“Gamer, huh?” the clerk asked.
Laynie winked. “You know it.”
She returned to her apartment and spent the next hour wiring money from another of her foreign accounts into her new account, then browsing the university’s student directory and campus maps.
It was 3:30 when she bundled up and walked onto the campus to eyeball Burr Hall for herself. The dorm was a dated three-story red brick building across 35th Street from The Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery and kitty-corner from the UNL College of Agricultural Sciences.
She sat down at some picnic tables in the common space between Burr Hall and its companion dorm, Fedde Hall. She pulled out her morning’s newspaper and pretended to read. The seat was cold, and Laynie didn’t know what she expected to see, but she sat, keeping a casual eye on students as they came and went.
Soon after 4:00 p.m., a troop of young men in high spirits exited the dorm onto the grassy commons lot connecting the two dorms. Between them—ten, Laynie counted—they manhandled a number of plywood stand-up structures onto the lawn. Laynie watched with interest as they set up the structures across the field—like walls or obstacles of varying heights and widths—and placed them in a formation she was unfamiliar with.
The boys went back to retrieve two duffle bags and a few more walls that they added to the others, staggered across the grass, forming a course—although for what, Laynie still couldn’t imagine. The walls themselves? It looked to her as if a crazed artist with a penchant for orange had been turned loose on them.
Using her side view, Laynie’s gaze kept returning to the young man whose shaggy and distinctive strawberry-blonde hair had captured her attention and whose face was familiar from photographs Laynie had studied over the years.
“Hello, Max,” Laynie said softly.
By now, spectators other than Laynie were gathering to watch, so she assumed whatever was about to take place was a regular event. The picnic tables were soon occupied by an audience of chattering students who apparently gathered at this time on a regular basis and knew one another.
With a great deal of shouted banter and rearrangement of barriers, the boys declared the course ready. They unzipped the duffle bags and produced over-the-head vests that tied on the sides in two colors, blue and green. They separated into teams—evidently, they’d done so before—donned their team colors, and handed around plastic hand guns and clear tubes filled with orange balls about two-thirds of an inch in diameter.
Then Laynie understood—she was about to witness a paintball battle! The boys were having so much fun getting ready for their skirmish that she laughed aloud with the other spectators.
Sort of like the bean shooters we used during training. I wonder if Marstead uses paint guns now? No disputing whether or not you’ve been hit—not with a splat of fluorescent orange bearing witness.
Laynie didn’t want to think how many years back that training was.
Their leader or organizer blew a whistle he had hanging from his neck and gathered the players for last minute instructions. “First things. Have you paid Tom your dues? No pay, no play, got it? The ammo and CO2 canisters don’t grow on trees, y’know?”
One player shouted, “Yeah, I know you sound like my dad, man! ‘Thet there money don’t grow on trees, Chad.’”
Amid chuckles and groans, the players forked over their fees to a player on the green team.
The leader continued, “Remember. Any direct hit on your vest, and you’re ‘dead.’ Drop where you are—without firing any last shots. Each player has two paintball tubes. That’s twenty rounds apiece. Use your ammo wisely, ’cause when you’re out, you are dead meat walking!
“If all members of your team die, the other team wins—or if both teams have used all their ammo, then the team with the most players left alive wins. However, in the event that both teams have used all their ammo and the teams have an equal number of players remaining, the teams will each pick a single player to engage in a sudden-death playoff. Got it?”
“Got it!” the players yelled.
The cheering section around Laynie erupted in shouts and screams for their favorite team or player.
The opposing teams ran to the wall at their end of the field, and Laynie leaned forward, more excited and eager to watch what happened next than she’d been in a long time.
At the sound of the opening whistle, the game began. Both teams sent out two players who ran up the opposite sides of the course to attack their opponents from the ends of their wall and draw them out, much like
Berserkers were sent to blow a hole through the enemy’s fortifications. Max, in a blue vest, raced up the side to the midpoint of the field and then—unexpectedly—cut diagonally across the field to skirt around the opposing team’s player who was focused on Max’s teammate.
Realizing he’d been flanked, the boy whirled to fire on Max—except Max had dropped to the grass and rolled onto his belly. His gun came up under his opponent’s arm and fired two splattering rounds into the player’s center mass. Shouting his chagrin, the green player dropped and laid still.
Max, though, had spun quickly onto his back. The opponent he’d left unchecked had crossed the field of play and come up behind him. Max was ready. From his back on the grass, he sent another two rounds into his new opponent’s vest. His team shouted with glee and charged forward en masse.
Good moves, Max! Laynie cheered in silence, a broad smile on her face.
Max and his mate flattened themselves behind walls opposite each other and signaled the remainder of his team to duck behind walls ahead of the field’s midpoint.
The blue captain shouted to Max and his partner, “Advance!” and to his team, “Cover them!”
Max drew enemy fire from the greens but made it to the next shielding barrier unscathed. In the same fashion, his teammate advanced up the opposite side of the field. They were now in position to attack the hunkered-down greens from two sides and drive them out from behind their shelter.
The three remaining green players, seeing their options vanish, decided on full-on attack. They toppled their wall forward and trampled over it, guns popping out little orange balls in quick succession. Much like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, though, they were met by a hail of paintballs from three directions.
Roaring their glee, Max and his teammates surrounded and pelted their opponents mercilessly. Moments later, the entire green team lay defeated on the field, while the blues had lost only one of their players—Max. The greens, admitting to themselves that they were going down, had focused their fire on Max in retaliation for the bold moves that had led to their defeat.
As quickly as that, the game was over. The blues shouted their victory, and the spectator section roared its approval.
That was a whole lot of work, preparation, and hoopla for less than ten minutes of play, Laynie thought, but she was as infected by the players’ enthusiasm as they were.
A physical and emotional break after a long day of classes and assignments? Yeah, I can see that.
The “dead” green players were up now, stripping off their vests, laughing and shouting insults at the winning blue team. Guys from the cheering section swarmed the blue players, pounding them on their backs, congratulating them. They helped disassemble the walls and tote them back to their unseen storage place.
“Tomorrow, same time,” the leader shouted, “for those not leaving early for the long weekend.”
Laynie kept Max, still celebrating with his buddies, in her peripheral vision until he disappeared into the dorm. Then she walked back to her apartment, a small smile on her face.
WHEN HER HEADSET CHIMED, Vyper rolled her chair to her “other” terminal, logged in, and stared at the alert. Elaine Granger had just moved money from one of her foreign accounts to . . . Vyper followed the money trail and zeroed in on the financial institution.
“Lincoln, Nebraska? Still using Elaine Granger, too. Huh! Girl, you really need to get a life—a different life. Don’t you know we’re all on to this one?”
Vyper burrowed into Elaine’s new account, found the address, ran it, and pouted. “That’s a fabric store, Elaine, not your real address—but never you fear. I’ll still find your little bolt hole.”
Vyper pulled together code and added the search parameters—all ISPs within five miles of the branch where Elaine opened her new account.
She ran the program. It returned twelve Internet service providers!
“College town,” she muttered. “Thousands of privileged American students. Faugh!”
Vyper modified her program further—all devices connecting for the first time. Timeframe? Within the past forty-eight hours. She was generous in her timeframe. She preferred to err on the generous side than miss the device she was looking for by being stingy.
The last parameter was the exact build of Elaine Granger’s Dell laptop.
She tunneled into the twelve ISPs, one at a time, and ran her program against their system records.
On the eighth ISP, one record popped.
“Got you.”
Chapter 28
LAYNIE WOKE UP EARLY Thursday morning to reconnect with Christor. He picked up on the second ring.
“Linnéa? Linnéa, is that you?”
Laynie blinked in surprise. No one has called me Linnéa in weeks. I’m not Linnéa any longer.
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Thank God! I have called you every day. I was beginning to think . . .”
“I’m okay, Christor. I’m fine, in fact. I just . . . I figured I should assure you that I’m okay.”
She changed the subject. “How are Klara and the baby?”
Laynie could hear Christor smile across the miles.
“They are great. Our little one is twenty weeks along now, and Klara is getting big.”
“I’m so happy for you both.”
They said nothing for a few seconds, then Laynie figured it was time to get into the business at hand. “Listen, I need to know what you’ve heard about Petroff.”
Christor, too, became serious. “It’s sort of strange, Linnéa.”
“What is?”
“Petroff has dropped out of sight. No one has seen or heard of him in, well, in weeks.”
“What?” Laynie let the news sink in, turned it over in her mind. Would Petroff’s disappearance explain why Zakhar had continued chasing her? “What’s Marstead’s take on Petroff’s disappearance?”
“They are worried. Concerned, but uncertain.”
As am I, Laynie realized.
“Possibilities?”
Christor sniffed. “He could be dead or in FSB custody.”
“But that would imply that the FSB knows about me, that my cover is blown—and would, furthermore, make the entire Marstead organization suspect.”
“Word from on high came down ten days ago. All Marstead operatives within the Russian Federation were to cease active operation, take extreme precautions, and prepare to evac on a moment’s notice. Things here are very tense, Linnéa.”
“I don’t understand! Could someone have intercepted the package I had you send Petroff?”
She swallowed. This is my fault. If I’d stayed . . . Then her reasoning kicked in. If I’d stayed, I’d likely be dead now. This is on Marstead, not me. I begged them to bring me in. I told them I couldn’t maintain my cover under Petroff’s thumb any longer.
They should have believed me.
“It’s not just because of Petroff’s disappearance that Marstead is on high alert, Linnéa. The whole 9/11 thing has the world on edge.”
“Nine eleven thing?”
“September 11. 9/11. That’s what it’s being called.”
“Sorry. I’m a little out of touch.”
She shook her head to clear it. “What can you tell me about Zakhar? With the evidence I sent to Petroff, he should have recalled Zakhar to Moscow immediately, and yet Zakhar managed to follow my plane to New Brunswick and then track me to Montreal, where he nearly caught me. I think—I hope—I’ve lost him again, but I’m being extremely cautious.”
“Zakhar? Sorry, I have nothing about him to report.”
Now it was Christor who changed the subject. “Listen, Linnéa, Marstead still wants you to come in. They aren’t hunting you, I swear. The word is out. If anyone sights you or hears from you, we’re to convey a message and a phone number. Only that. No attempt to bring you in.”
“Yeah? What about ‘trust but verify’?”
“I think that’s the idea. The message is, ‘Call in. Talk to them. Ask fo
r any assurances you need, written or otherwise.’ You could probably ask them to get Zakhar off your tail.”
Laynie sighed. “Okay. What’s the number?”
Christor rattled it off, and Laynie filed it in her memory banks under “To be used as a last resort.”
VYPER HAD THE GRANGER woman’s laptop. She had its ISP and current IP address. Hacking into Granger’s computer and planting the Trojan horse was a walk in the park.
So, when her headset chirped that Laynie’s laptop was online, Vyper jumped on with her. Elaine had initiated a point-to-point VoIP call.
VoIP? Nice touch—how very cutting edge of you. Let’s see who this Christor is. Romantic liaison, perhaps?
Talk about Christor’s wife and coming baby eliminated that possibility—and the security roadblocks Vyper encountered while attempting to hack into Christor’s laptop told her she was not dealing with an amateur. Furthermore, her attempts to locate the end point of Elaine’s call bounced her from country to country all over the world. She had no idea where this Christor person physically was—nor would she push to find out at present.
Unwilling to jeopardize her newfound lock on Elaine’s location, she backed her way out and left Christor’s laptop alone. She satisfied herself with recording their conversation.
Information, after all, was power.
“Linnéa? Linnéa, is that you?”
Linnéa? Linnéa what? Her real identity?
When Elaine asked about Petroff, Vyper froze. Petroff was a new name—and wasn’t Zakhar working for Baskin, not this Petroff?
I assumed Baskin was a mid-level bureaucrat of minor importance. Did I miss something?
She listened more intently, grateful that she was recording the conversation and could review it afterward.
She was shocked further to hear Elaine say, “What’s Marstead’s take on it?”
“They are worried. Concerned, but uncertain.”
“Possibilities?”
“That Petroff could be dead or in FSB custody.”
“But that would imply that the FSB knows about me, that my cover is blown—and would, furthermore, make the entire Marstead organization suspect.”
Laynie Portland, Retired Spy Page 34
