by Ben Coes
“I bet it makes you look tough,” said Dewey.
Borchardt laughed.
“That Dewey sense of humor,” he said. “You missed your calling. You should’ve been a stand-up comedian.”
“Thanks.”
“I heard you were on some sort of … hiatus?” observed Borchardt. “Word on the street is you have psychological issues. PTSD. Is that true?”
“Yep,” said Dewey. “I’ve gone batshit crazy. Which is why I need your help.”
“My help? I thought you didn’t trust me.”
“I don’t. But I don’t have any other option.”
“What do you need?”
“A ride.”
“Where?”
“Russia.”
“It’s a big country.”
“Saint Petersburg. It needs to be off grid, with a clean insertion and no facial recognition appliances. I also need some weapons.”
“Why not hop aboard an Air America flight out of Andrews?” asked Borchardt, referring to the CIA’s fleet of jets.
“Let’s just say no one reserved me a seat.”
“Interesting. The plot thickens. How much time do I have?”
“I get to JFK in two hours.”
There was a long pause.
“Fine,” said Borchardt. “The plane will be waiting at the private terminal. Look for Carlyle Aviation. It will be a red-and-black Gulfstream 100. Please don’t kill anyone on board or, for that matter, throw any coffee cups. It’s a brand-new plane.”
“I’ll be on my best behavior.”
“There is a price,” added Borchardt.
“I figured that. What is it?”
“I want to know why you need to get to Russia so urgently.”
“You know I can’t talk about it.”
“Perhaps I can be of help,” said Borchardt. “I have many friends in Russia.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Dewey. “Probably a real hip crowd. But I think I’ve got it covered.”
“You don’t seem to understand,” said Borchardt. “I want to know what’s happening. That’s the price. Either tell me or find another way to Russia.”
Dewey shook his head.
“You’re a fucking asshole, Rolf,” said Dewey. He hit Mute, pretending to hang up on Borchardt.
“Dewey?” asked Borchardt. “Calling me names will get you nowhere.”
Dewey remained silent, listening.
“Dewey?” said Borchardt after a few moments. “Did you hang up? Dewey? Son of a bitch. If you’re listening, fine, you don’t have to tell me.”
Dewey unmuted it.
“Hi, Rolf. Glad we worked that out.”
“You really are a manipulative bastard,” said Borchardt.
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” said Dewey. “Oh, one more thing.”
“What?”
“Promise you won’t tell anyone?”
“What is it?”
“Promise?”
“Fine.”
“Say it. Say ‘I promise.’”
“I promise,” snapped Borchardt.
“I need a ticket to the ballet.”
26
REKI FONTANKI
SAINT PETERSBURG
A warm wind off the Baltic Sea rustled the leaves of the ancient white birches that lined Griboyedov Canal. It was Saturday night in the oldest, most historic, and prettiest of Russian cities. Saint Petersburg twinkled in pockets of orange and yellow as cars moved quickly along the crowded streets, and people walked, laughing, some already inebriated, toward cocktails and parties and dinners, to meet friends and family and lovers.
The temperature was in the midseventies, the air dry. It was the nicest evening of the summer. A festive glow charged the night, from golden-hued windows of crowded restaurants, from gaslit lampposts radiating honey orange flames at street corners. It all pushed out against the Russian darkness. There was a sense of giddiness about Saint Petersburg this night, a devil-may-care attitude, anything goes.
Danger.
A dark red Mercedes limousine cruised slowly down Reki Fontanki Avenue. It stopped near the corner.
Fifty feet away, a tall man in jeans and a tan leather Belstaff motorcycle jacket stood alone on Nevsky Prospekt Bridge. He leaned against a waist-high granite abutment, looking down into the black water of the canal, deep in thought.
He was tall, at least six-four, but he loomed larger. He had the beginnings of a thick beard and mustache. His brown hair was long, parted in the middle, but unruly and unkempt, hiding the big man’s rugged good looks.
The man didn’t seem to notice the red Mercedes limousine that had just pulled up near the corner. But he had. He knew that inside were two agents; Joe Oliveri, a commando from Special Operations Group, and Pete Bond, from Political Activities Division.
The man’s demeanor was aloof, standoffish, taciturn. To anyone passing by, the message was clear: Leave me the fuck alone.
Had someone been able to look into his eyes, he would have found little except for a suggestion of loneliness, a hint of anger, and above all else a blank aspect. Most would mistake that for coldness, but those few with a certain type of experience would recognize it for the danger that lurked within.
He lifted a pack of Davidoff cigarettes from his coat pocket, removed one, then flicked a lighter and sent a small flame into the air. He took a long drag, exhaled, glanced at his watch, then looked across the canal at the red marble pilasters of Mariinsky Theatre.
The grand front entrance was alight as well-heeled Russians mingled outside. It was intermission of the Kirov Ballet’s Swan Lake, starring Russia’s most famous ballerina, Katya Basaeyev.
“Hi, guys, I apologize for the wait.”
In the man’s ear, affixed to a minuscule thread of tape, a two-way communications device the size of a Tic Tac connected him to a windowless conference room in Langley.
“We’re waiting for sign-off from the White House, but I need to get you briefed right now. We don’t have a lot of time.”
The voice was that of Bill Polk, director of National Clandestine Services at the Central Intelligence Agency.
“We’re in pursuit of a Russian,” continued Polk. “He’s a computer hacker known as Cloud. He’s also a terrorist. A few days ago, Cloud purchased a nuclear device and that device is now on its way to the United States of America. It’s big enough to do a lot of damage—a lot more than the one we dropped on Hiroshima. This may be the only shot we have at capturing this guy before it’s too late. Each of you was handpicked for this mission. We need flawless execution in the kill zone.”
The man on the bridge took a drag on his cigarette and stared down at the water as he registered the words in his ear.
“This is a two-phase line operation involving surgical penetration into Russia,” said Polk, “so we need to be extra fucking careful. Our comrades in Red Square would not be happy if they knew we were trespassing.”
The man on the bridge put a hand in his pocket, as if by reflex, making sure it was still there: weapon.
Know where your weapon is at all times.
“Phase Line One, Moscow, has the lead,” Polk continued. “The team consists of three commandos, who right now are thirty-five thousand feet above Ukraine headed for the Russian border. Johnny, you guys good to go?”
“Yeah, Bill, we’re good.”
The voice was Dowling’s, lead commando of the first phase line, Moscow, the front edge of the operation.
“Fifty miles inside Russia, you three say good-bye to your British Airways flight and perform a high-altitude high-opening parachute landing at a dacha outside Moscow. According to our intelligence, Cloud is attending a dinner party. You guys will grab him and move to a safe house about a mile away. We will interrogate him there. I repeat, this will all go down in-theater.”
“Why?” asked Dowling.
“We can’t risk anything going sideways during a border cross.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mission vide
o will start running when you’re airborne,” said Polk. “You’ll get to see the landing zone along with a few more photos NSA was able to dig up.”
The man in Saint Petersburg remained quiet. He unzipped his leather coat. Beneath, he wore a red T-shirt with a faded Boston Bruins logo on it.
“Phase Line Two, Saint Petersburg, should already be active,” continued Polk. “Pete, you two there?”
“All set here,” said Bond from the red Mercedes.
“Saint Petersburg is our insurance policy,” said Polk. “Hopefully it’s unnecessary. Cloud’s girlfriend is in the city. She’s a ballerina named Katya Basaeyev. If everything goes smoothly in Moscow, we’ll leave her alone. But if something goes sideways at the dacha, we’re going to exfiltrate her. We will grab her when she leaves the theater. This is important. We don’t know where she’s staying or what kind of manpower she’ll have around her. We need to take her off the street and get her to water. SEAL Team 6 is already in the harbor. SDV will take her to the USS Hartford a few miles off the coast. We’ll bring her out of the country and see what she knows. But that’s only if Moscow doesn’t go as planned. Got it, guys?”
SDV stood for SEAL Delivery Vehicle, a small, nearly silent submarine used to ferry SEALs deep into enemy territory, just below the water’s surface.
“Affirmative,” said Bond.
“Can you give us any more background on Cloud?” asked Dowling from the plane.
“I told you what we know,” answered Polk. “This guy’s a ghost. Virtually unknown. Chief, you got anything more?”
“Yes,” said Calibrisi, joining the briefing. “There’s a rumor he helped disrupt air traffic control systems on nine/eleven.”
“What’s ROE?” Dowling asked, referring to the rules of engagement that would govern their use of deadly force during the mission.
“There are none,” said Polk. “But remember, we need Cloud alive. Try not to harm anyone else, but if you have to, your weapons and ammo are Russian and they’re sanitized.”
“How many are we expecting?”
“We don’t know.”
“What if he’s not there, sir?”
“Go to your standard protocols. Everything you need—cash, ID, visa, et cetera—is at Moscow Central Station. Split up and move out of the country.”
“Roger that, sir.”
“By the way,” Polk said, “the dacha is going to be well guarded. Expect ex-operators, Alpha Group, Vityaz, Spetsnaz. You know the type. Russians are assholes to begin with, but I’d expect these guys to be particularly ornery, especially when they comprehend you’re operational.”
The man on the bridge had listened to the entire CIA briefing, remaining quiet. He studied the Mariinsky Theatre, then glanced to his right, making sure no one was near him. He took a final drag on the cigarette, then flicked it into the air. He watched as the ember somersaulted through the sky and then hit the water.
Dewey wasn’t supposed to be here. Not in Saint Petersburg. Not in Russia. Certainly not listening in on a live CIA OP briefing. He was supposed to be in Arizona, at the CIA’s Sedona Clinic, a highly secure mountainside lair where operators with mental problems were sent to try to bring them back to reality. PTSD was the primary condition the doctors at Sedona treated. Dewey already knew he had it. It wasn’t the first time either. By his reckoning, Jessica’s murder, in front of him, had caused his fourth bout with the condition.
But Dewey also knew that sitting on a leather couch for six months would make him even crazier. He knew how to deal with PTSD. It wasn’t the clinical way to do it, but Dewey had forged his own unique approach. Bottle it up. Put it in a box. Bury it. Then forget about it. Cut off the memory that sent you reeling. Cut it off and kill it. Like burning down a forest, the process of eradicating his memories left him a colder, harder, meaner man. But it was the only way Dewey could go on.
He felt a hard lump pressing against his torso: Colt M1911A1 .45-caliber semiauto, eight-inch Osprey suppressor threaded to the muzzle, a strip of black hockey tape wrapped around the grip.
It had been sixteen hours since Calibrisi took him off the operation. He’d flown to Russia on a private jet, courtesy of Rolf Borchardt. He wasn’t sure why he’d come. He’d been kicked to the curb and he should’ve been pissed. And he was, but at himself. At his self-indulgence, self-pity. Most of all, his weakness.
Dewey told himself he was there for redemption. But even that wasn’t true. Deep down, Dewey knew the real reason. He had nowhere else to go. He had nothing else.
He zipped up his coat and walked toward the theater. A slightly shit-eating grin crossed his lips. They’d neglected to ask for his mission gear back, including the earbud, which now allowed him to eavesdrop on the operation. If Calibrisi or Polk knew he was listening in, he’d be disavowed forever.
“Fuck ’em,” said Dewey.
27
MISSION THEATER TARGA
LANGLEY
The mood inside the high-ceilinged, low-lit amphitheater was tense, even electric, despite the hush that kept the windowless CIA mission theater quiet.
Polk glanced at a large clock on the wall. He muted communications with the two phase line teams. He looked to his right at a man leaning against the wall, arms crossed, tie loosened, a mop of black hair combed haphazardly back: Hector Calibrisi, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Two lines of desks were arrayed in front of the screens, staffed by technical managers who were there to feed the screens with whatever inputs the operation commander requested.
A dozen men and women stood along the back wall or else were seated. These were the various operations officers, collection management officers, staff operations officers, and targeting officers, there to answer questions that arose during the OP.
All attention, including Polk’s, was trained on a pair of large, brightly lit plasma screens on the front wall that were tracking the operation.
Polk moved toward the screens and put his hand on the shoulder of one of the analysts seated below it.
“Where’s the plane?” Polk asked.
The analyst, Jerry Lesesne, hit a few keystrokes. The left screen lit up. It displayed, in bright blue, a map of Ukraine extending east into Russia. An orange pictograph representing British Airways flight 319 flashed at the center of the screen.
“We cross the Russian border in four minutes, sir,” answered Lesesne.
Polk looked at Calibrisi.
“We’re about to penetrate Russian airspace, Chief,” he said, a concerned look on his face. “We need sign-off from the president.”
Calibrisi glanced at his cell. On the screen was a live CNN broadcast of President J. P. Dellenbaugh, standing on a stage, delivering a speech. He had the volume turned down. He had been following it to see when Dellenbaugh would be finished. He looked back at Polk.
“What’s the call?” asked Polk.
28
DETROIT CONVENTION CENTER
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
President J. P. Dellenbaugh smiled and waved for the fourth time as the large crowd gathered at the Detroit Convention Center continued to applaud. Finally, he held up a hand. He waited until the crowd became quiet.
“It’s great to be home,” said Dellenbaugh. Cheers arose again, but he quickly quelled them by holding up his hand. “But I want to say something serious now. I want to make a wish, and I want you all to help me.”
At the corner of his eye, Dellenbaugh saw his aide, Holden Weese, holding up four fingers. He’d been doing so for the past few minutes.
The CIA director is on the line, and it’s urgent.
“No, it’s not for world peace, or economic prosperity, or anything like that,” he continued.
Dellenbaugh was dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. His thick mane of black hair was combed neatly back. The president, who was raised in a two-bedroom Cape by a father and mother who both spent their entire careers working the General Motors assembly line down the road, had a common touch that came from
the simple fact that he’d been there too. That touch was like gasoline on a fire, and the blue-collar crowd—mostly Democrats—was going nuts. Dellenbaugh was American—blue-collar American—and the annual summer meeting of the Teamsters Union let him know that despite the fact that he was a Republican, to a lunch-pail-carrying man and woman they recognized J. P. Dellenbaugh was one of them.
The crowd was hushed and quiet as they awaited Dellenbaugh’s final words.
“I want the Red Wings to win the damn cup next year!”
The crowd erupted into wild cheers.
“Thank you, Big D!” said Dellenbaugh. “Man, I love coming home. You all have a great Fourth, now, will ya.”
Dellenbaugh waved one more time to the enormous crowd, then walked offstage.
Once on the other side of the curtain, he charged behind Weese in a hard run down the hallway. He came to a secure holding room, guarded by plainclothes Secret Service agents armed with machine guns and carbines.
Inside, a military attaché in a dark blue Navy uniform held a small black briefcase, extended from which was a portable phone. Near the attaché, two men held what looked like small antennae. These were jamming devices, which would scramble the president’s conversation to anyone trying to eavesdrop, beyond the significant layers of encryption the signal would already have.
Dellenbaugh grabbed the phone.
“Go, Hector,” he said.
“Sorry for the interruption, Mr. President,” said Calibrisi. “We’ve found Cloud. I need your authority to send in some men and try to capture him. It’s a tight time frame. He’s supposed to be at a dinner party in less than an hour outside of Moscow, and it might be our only opportunity to capture him.”
“What about the boat?” asked the president.
“It’s through the Strait of Gibraltar, sir. They have open ocean to the East Coast.”
“Are we working with Russia?”
“Negative.”
“Why not?”
Pause.
“Enough said. What’s the ask, Hector?”
“Emergency Priority,” said Calibrisi, “hostile exfiltration. We have a team in the air right now. The intelligence is hours old. It’s likely to be the last time we have a shot at him.”
