RED Hotel

by Fuller, Ed; Grossman, Gary;

  “Nothing?”

  “Print this, grab the original from Tokyo and come with me.”

  “Bob, I saw him!”

  “Whoa, you don’t knock anymore?” Bob Heath complained when Reilly and Severi burst into his office.

  “I was within a few feet of him.”

  “Who?”

  “Smug. In Moscow.”

  “Impossible.”

  “I did and here he is.”

  Reilly laid both photographs on Heath’s desk. “Tokyo and Moscow!”

  Heath examined the second against the first. “How’d you get this?”

  “Veronica rendered it from my description. I swear to God, Bob. That’s him, alive and well.”

  “Where in Moscow?”

  “In the fucking Kremlin!”

  Bob Heath reached for his phone. This would be Reilly’s first meeting with CIA Director Watts and he was about to lob in a potential political grenade without knowing the ultimate impact.

  “Be specific with the director,” Heath warned while they walked. “Don’t hesitate. Don’t speculate unless he asks. I’ll cover the backstory. You pick up with what you saw.”

  “Does he have a clue who I am?”

  “He’s aware of our relationship.”

  They reached the director’s office. “Okay, let’s do it,” Reilly said, taking a deep breath.

  As they were led in, Reilly reflected on the past few days. Meeting with Gorshkov, standing up to the Moscow mayor, spying for the CIA in the Kremlin. Fuck, he thought. Now the CIA director …

  “Mr. Reilly, good to meet you,” Watts said. He met them halfway across the office. “Coffee?”

  “Wouldn’t mind that at all, Mr. Director.”

  “Bob, you?”

  “Thank you, yes.”

  Watts crossed the room to a bureau on the left side of a door that led to what Reilly presumed was either a private bathroom or a conference room. While Watts poured the coffee in CIA logo mugs, Reilly scanned the space. Brown wood-paneled walls, a framed American flag behind the director’s desk, white carpet, and simple white chairs. Reilly had more memorabilia in his own office.

  The director served Reilly and Heath and invited them to sit in the chairs facing his desk.

  “Bob, what has you moving at light speed?”

  “We’ll start with the attack at the Kensington Royal Hotel in Tokyo. Dan Reilly is the senior VP of International for the corporation.”

  “Got that.”

  The comment told Reilly that the director had enough of an understanding of who he was that he wouldn’t have to go into his relationship with the agency.

  “We have a screen grab of a possible suspect who we’ve been unable to identify.”

  “Got that, too. Mr. Nobody.”

  “We call him Smug,” Reilly interjected.

  “Because?” Watts asked.

  “His expression caught on a Tokyo CCTV camera,” he replied.

  “Do you have the shot?”

  Heath removed the photograph from a manila envelope. “Here.”

  The director examined the photo. “Smug it is. And …” He let the sentence trail off.

  “Well, that and another earlier photo from Germany just after the Wall fell was all we had,” Heath continued, “until Dan’s recent trip to Moscow to represent his company. While he was there, I asked him to gauge Moscow’s intent in regard to Kiev—of course in the context of his corporate position. He was able to wrangle a meeting with the defense minister.”

  Watts shifted his attention to Reilly. “Lukin? You were able to see Lukin? How the hell did you do that?”

  Reilly cleared his throat. “Well, sir, the night before I had a conversation with Gorshkov.”

  “Oh, this just gets better.”

  “It was at a reception for executives doing business in Moscow. The next morning I met with Moscow Mayor Markovich. Let’s say it turned somewhat contentious when he tried to circumvent business assurances I had from President Gorshkov.”

  Watts looked at Heath with a raised eyebrow. Reilly caught the skeptical look.

  “I called Markovich on his fast one, coming a hair short of exposing him. Hours later, just before I was set to leave, Bob asked me to size things up.”

  “On an open line?” Watts asked.

  “Yes, but cryptically,” Reilly answered.

  “And not from the agency,” Heath assured the director. “A phone conferenced through his office. Safe.”

  “Go on,” Watts requested.

  “I returned to Markovich’s office and upped the stakes. Considering I could expose his end run to Gorshkov, I played a card. I told him I needed to meet with Defense Minister Lukin to express my concern for our associates in Kiev if Russia moved against Ukraine.”

  “Holy shit. And we don’t have you on salary full-time?” Watts exclaimed.

  Reilly laughed uncomfortably.

  “What did Lukin say?”

  “Nothing and everything. When I pressed him he abruptly ended the meeting.”

  “And your assessment?”

  “It’s going to get worse before it gets better, if it ever gets better. It might not even be just Ukraine.”

  Watts didn’t reveal what he already knew—that Russia was already bolstering troops at key border crossings up and down the continent.

  “Why do you assume that?” Watts asked.

  “Because he promptly ended the meeting after I asked.”

  Director Watts nodded as though to say interesting.

  “Well, thank you for going into the lion’s den, Mr. Reilly. Most impressive.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe stupid.”

  “Let’s stick with impressive,” Watts replied. “So where does that leave us?”

  Heath pointed to the photo. “Back to Smug. He’s our suspect. But a suspect who seemed to fall off the face of the earth. Until …”

  Heath handed Director Watts the second image. He examined it against the first.

  “Who took this?”

  “No one, sir. It’s a workup from Veronica Severi,” Heath said.

  “Based on?”

  Reilly jumped in. “My description after seeing him in the Kremlin. Mr. Director, if you’ll look closely at the two, the Tokyo photograph and the computer generated image, it’s the same man.”

  “How close were you,” Watts demanded without lifting his eyes from the two printouts.

  “Closer than I am to you now. We had direct eye contact and he got a good look at me, too.” Reilly paused, and then offered something he hadn’t even mentioned to Heath. “And I’m willing to bet he had a similar discussion about me with the FSB that I’m having with you.”

  The CIA director focused on Reilly with real concern. “The FSB or even higher, Mr. Reilly. Even higher.”

  42

  MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

  FSB HEADQUARTERS

  Miklos’ growing apprehension came from the basic fact that the man, who took more than a passing glance at him in the Kremlin hall, did so with a sense of recognition. His unease was amplified because that sense of recognition, a dead-on stare, came from the head of the international division of a hotel he attacked. Now Miklos explained his encounter to the FSB’s deputy director of operational reconnaissance.

  “How difficult will it be to get eyes on him?” Miklos asked Alexandr Vasilev in the directorate office at Lubyanka Square.

  Vasilev pursed his lips. The career officer, with scars on his face that made him look as fearful as any KGB agent from the Cold War, didn’t like to be told what to do. He especially didn’t welcome it from an operative who, according to the record, had no current FSB assignment, yet retained high-ranking privileges.

  “He must travel a great deal for his work. It won’t be a problem.”

  “Hack into his computer,” Miklos insisted. “Track his routine. Check out his family.”

  “That’s a lot of work. But if you’re worried …”

  “I am worried. And if
I’m worried, you should be worried, too.”

  Vasilev bristled, but Miklos gave him no quarter. “I want everything there is to get on this Mr. Reilly. Whoever he talks to, wherever he goes, and who he fucks. Get into his goddamned life.”

  “I will need the authority to do so.”

  “Authority?” Miklos bellowed.

  “Yes, some goddamned authority! Otherwise …”

  “You want a number?” Miklos asked sharply.

  Vasilev responded rudely, clearly under the impression that he was the senior of the two. “Not want. I demand a number.”

  Miklos reached for the closest document on Vasilev’s desk. Ignoring the importance of it, he flipped it over, grabbed a pen from Vasilev’s pocket, and scribbled a private telephone number. He underlined it three times and whipped the paper back around to face the deputy director.

  Alexandr Vasilev didn’t recognize that it was that number.

  “Who the hell does this belong to?”

  “Someone who will likely fire you on the spot for questioning my authority. You’ll recognize the voice. For your own well-being, I recommend you don’t dial.”

  Miklos kept the pen and stormed out, muttering exactly what Gorshkov had in Potsdam all those years ago: “Functionary!”

  Vasilev’s first reaction was to report the belligerency, but that meant paperwork. The better course of action was to lay it off on the directorate’s research department, get some preliminary information, and call it a day. After all, if it were really important, it would have come from FSB Director Nicolai Federov.

  Alexandr Vasilev looked at the number Miklos had rudely written down.

  “Fucking asshole,” he proclaimed. He examined the other side of the paper. A file on a dissident. At least that was important.

  43

  WASHINGTON, DC

  Reilly had work to catch up on at his office. More acquisitions, a quarterly report that would be due soon, a birthday present for his ex, and the endless requests for interviews. He could parse out some to Brenda Sheldon, but most of it fell to him.

  He began to create a list of priorities and assignments, however the computer rendering he’d created with Veronica Severi interrupted his thought process. Smug, or as Director Watts called him, Mr. Nobody. He couldn’t get him out of his mind.

  Reilly rose from his desk and focused on various items in his office. All of them related to his world travels and his experiences. There were carved marble elephant figurines from South Africa and India, boxes inlaid with turquoise and quartz from Vietnam, photographs he had taken at each of the Seven Wonders, a captain’s chair with the logo of his alma mater, and a framed commemorative US Army citation accompanying his Bronze Star Medal.

  Reilly read the text. “This is to certify that the Secretary of the Army has awarded the Bronze Star Medal to Captain Daniel Paul Reilly for exceptionally meritorious service.”

  He stood back from the honor and recalled the event that led to the decoration: saving Bob Heath’s life in Afghanistan.

  It filled him with pride, but now also dread. His military record was easily researchable. How long would it take the FSB to make the connection that the man he rescued was a career CIA officer and that they likely maintained a relationship?

  Reilly went back to his desk and called KR’s IT wizard, Spike Boyce, with questions that sent shivers up the young executive’s spine.

  “How secure are we from the most sophisticated international hacking possible? And how do we prevent it from happening—fast?”

  Next, Reilly called Heath’s cell. He didn’t get through, but he left a message. “Hi buddy. Looking at that wonderful honor in my office and thinking of you. It’d be great to see you again.”

  Reilly didn’t need to go into more detail. Heath would decipher the intent. His next call was to Brenda.

  “Yes?” she answered.

  “I need you to set a time for me at Harvard.”

  “Harvard? Sure. Who?”

  “Colonel Harrison. William E. Harrison, my old grad school professor. He’s in my contacts.”

  “Will do. I’ll call you when I have him.”

  “No,” he said, correcting her. “A meeting. I’ll go to Boston. Also when Spike Boyce calls back, I’ll take it no matter what.”

  44

  CAMBRIDGE, MA

  The next afternoon, Reilly knocked on a familiar door, though he hadn’t been there in years. A booming voice came from inside. “Mr. Reilly, if that’s you, you’re late with your paper!”

  Colonel William E. Harrison kept a strict calendar and had a wonderful sense of humor. Reilly was indeed on time to the minute now, but he had missed a paper deadline in his graduate school history class.

  Harrison, dean emeritus of the Harvard history department, retired US Army colonel, and former advisor to President George W. Bush, maintained his office at his last college teaching post. No one in the faculty or administration had the wherewithal or the guts to ask him to give it up. Instead, Colonel Harrison came to campus every day to write newspaper op-eds, forewords to history books, and blogs. Rumor also had it that he often advised the current Joint Chiefs.

  “How about one more extension?” Reilly offered as he opened the door.

  “Another, what, twenty years, Mr. Reilly?” Harrison laughed. “I suppose the world can wait a little longer for ‘Why the Romans Fell Despite Their Superiority.’”

  “You don’t miss a beat, Colonel.”

  “Not when it comes to history.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” Reilly said. He gave the octogenarian a warm hug.

  “Sit, sit,” said the colonel. “We’ll get caught up, then walk across the yard to dinner.”

  Reilly obliged. They recalled the years since they’d last talked, which principally covered Reilly’s career at Kensington Royal and Colonel Harrison’s full-time non-retirement. After forty minutes Harrison looked at his watch.

  “We have a twelve minute walk to the restaurant. We will be on time for the reservation if we leave now.”

  Reilly responded the best way possible. “Yes, sir.”

  Once standing, Harrison sized him up and down. “You’re no worse for the wear, Mr. Reilly.”

  “Thank you. I try to keep fit. Most of the time in gyms on the road.”

  “Keep it up, young man. You never know when you’ll need to turn up the juice,” Harrison advised.

  “Doing my best.”

  “Well, what’s really on your mind?” Harrison asked as they began their walk across Harvard Yard to the colonel’s favorite Cambridge restaurant, Harvest. “I suspect something urgent.”

  “Chalk it up to current affairs.”

  “I live in the present, Mr. Reilly, with eyes on its relationship with and relevance to history. More specific.”

  “Russia.”

  “Ah, very current.”

  “In particular, two questions. Would you consider Russia a terrorist state?”

  “Interesting. The second?”

  “What’s Russia’s biggest threat?”

  Harrison smiled. “You thinking of joining the Foreign Service?” He stopped and looked at Reilly. “It’d be a perfect complement to all your travel.”

  Reilly deflected his comment. “No, just need to know more about the countries we’re in, and …” he paused to weigh the importance of the next thought, “the dangers.”

  “Well then, let me address your second question first with some background. What’s Russia’s biggest threat? There are actually two threats, one internal and one external. With the migration of Muslims from Syria and the high birth rate among Arabs in Europe, many countries are experiencing a dramatic surge in their Muslim populations. Taking Europe as a whole, demographers predict the Muslim share is expected to increase by nearly one-third over the next twenty years. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it will, in the majority, be fundamentalist or radical, but it will affect governments, laws, representation and accommodations, and eventually borders. Ru
ssia is not immune to this cultural and religious wave.”

  Reilly listened as they continued toward Brattle Street.

  “For the sake of argument, stepping outside of Russia, this could most threaten Ukraine, Romania, and Poland, and for that matter the Baltic countries to the north, which all border Russia. What worries Moscow is that those former Communist nations contain populations of fiercely independent ethnically-Russian minorities. In Gorshkov’s mind, these peoples suffer discrimination and indignities at the hand of the democratic governments. And in truth, some do. That said, Moscow’s growing inclination is to use the argument to support Russian partisans wherever they are. In a nutshell, that opens up a wide door to Russian land grabs in the name of humanitarianism and ultimately a way to reestablish satellite states loyal to the Russian Federation. A new Soviet Union, if you will.”

  Colonel Harrison delved deeper. “Gorshkov is irate about how Russian minorities are treated in the Baltics. Take Latvia for example. Within the population of two million, 10 percent—more than 250,000—are Russian-speaking former Soviets, many of whom have not been granted Latvian citizenship. A second-class country within a country.

  “Here’s how it works,” he explained. “Anyone whose ancestors weren’t living in Latvia before 1940, which includes the majority of Russians there today, must pass an examination on Latvian history, culture, and language as a path to citizenship. Gorshkov has railed against that and the absence of an official status for the Russian language in Latvia.

  “So, my tardy student, how does this affect the price of eggs in Russia?”

  “If ethnic Russians voted in the majority, they could open a back door for Moscow to enter,” Reilly answered.

  “Almost right, Daniel. Except it would be the front door with the NATO membership left out in the cold. When you stop to think about it, it’s actually an elegant approach. Gorshkov uses nationalism as a means to imperialism. And when that doesn’t work, there are always other means.”

  “Military?” Reilly suggested.

  “Too noisy. Try espionage, followed by military action,” the colonel continued. “Not too long ago, an Estonian Internal Security Service officer, intelligence grade, was abducted by Russian agents and charged with spying against the Federation. Add to that the list of assassinations on Moscow’s streets, the disappearance of a Latvian movie producer who was going to produce an anti-Russia film, and all the oligarchs thrown into jail. You get the picture. But Moscow’s incursions into Georgia also qualify. Punishment for its NATO membership aspirations. And after annexing Crimea, I have no doubt Russia has a parallel strategy for South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Moldova is in the Kremlin’s crosshairs after Moldova moved too far and too fast into the European Union. And then there’s Ukraine, very much in the news now. When it was close to joining NATO, the Kremlin risked losing its Black Sea port, critical to tactical and timely military maneuverability. It also put the historically ethnic Russian population on the ropes. No surprise Gorshkov snatched Crimea.”