by Ben Coes
* * *
Dewey hit the water hard, slamming legs-first only inches from where Katya’s limp body had plunged into the canal. He dived below the surface just as bullets struck the water near his head. He dived as deeply and as quickly as possible, fighting to get to a safe depth, reaching down frantically into the water with his hands, kicking as hard as he could, despite the pain and what he now understood was a potentially serious injury to his right knee.
As he kicked lower, Dewey wrestled his way out of the leather Belstaff jacket, pulling his arms from the sleeves, then let the jacket fall away.
Dewey opened his eyes beneath the water, seeing nothing but infinite black. Instinctively, he searched for signs of Jacobsson, of Katya’s white pants.
Then Calibrisi’s last words came back to him: We need you in Russia.
He’d arrived in Russia totally unprepared for deep field work, but he understood that the situation was far graver than anyone back in America had predicted.
Whoever this person or this group was, it was clear they were an enemy far more sophisticated than anyone imagined.
In the cold water of the canal, the trauma from the leap through the hotel room window came into sharp relief. Each movement of his right arm and right leg brought acute pain.
Fight through it. You’re not done yet. Not even close.
Dewey had always known how to take pain and compartmentalize it, then put that compartment out of the way, so that even though he was feeling it, it did not affect his work. He would need that strength now. His leg, in particular, felt as if it was dangling, still attached to the knee, but by a thread.
He scanned the water again for Jacobsson and Katya. He would stay in Russia, yet the SDV offered the chance to pick up a medical kit so he could bandage up his leg later.
In the murky water, his eyes suddenly caught a flash of white beneath him. He dived down toward it. It was the white of Katya’s jeans. Jacobsson was pulling her down to the SDV.
He swam after them. As he went lower, the darkness became like the blackest of tunnels. Katya’s white pants remained the only thing that wasn’t black, but they were fading.
Then she disappeared.
Dewey found himself deep in the water, unable to discern which direction was up. He was out of breath.
Let it go.
Dewey stopped swimming. For several seconds, he didn’t move. Slowly, he felt his buoyancy pulling him up. Blackness turned into a light-speckled greenish blur.
He knew the Russians would be waiting, their weapons trained at the surface of the water. But there was nothing he could do now. He breached the surface, gasping for air, then ducked back below the surface, diving down. He waited for the dull staccato of gunfire but heard none. He remained below water for nearly a minute, then surfaced again.
When he looked around, what he saw shocked him. The canal had opened up. The channel’s current had taken him several hundred feet away from the scene. He was thirty feet from shore, along a marina whose wharves were lined with boats.
Dewey struggled to catch his breath. He side-paddled to the far end of a dock that jutted out into the water. On both sides of the wooden jetty, small sailboats were moored, empty and quiet.
Dewey placed his hand on the top of the dock, holding on to it, remaining there for several minutes as he caught his breath and stared at the brightly lit scene up the canal, where a helicopter now hovered, its spotlights scouring the surface of the water. Both sides of the canal were alight with spotlights and the flashing strobes of police cruisers. From the other side of the canal, Dewey saw police speedboats, sirens roaring as they approached the disordered scene. He turned at a sudden noise. Behind him sped another police boat, its spotlights scanning the surface of the water, moving rapidly across the marina. Soon it would be at him. As the light hit the sailboat to Dewey’s right, lighting it up, he dived again, using the bottom of the jetty to hold himself just below the surface. After a half minute, he resurfaced. The police boat was creeping along the canal, toward the Four Seasons, its spotlight panning the canal wall, hunting.
Dewey’s eyes shot to the Four Seasons. Along the terraces, at least a dozen gunmen swept the water with guns, searching. He watched the chaotic scene as several scuba divers entered the water, looking for Katya. Looking for him.
* * *
Jacobsson swam into a small compartment at the aft of the SDV, pulling Katya in with him. He pressed a button inside the compartment. The door shut tight, then locked.
“Go!” barked Jacobsson, still on commo, speaking into his mask to Wray, who was in a separate compartment just a few feet from him, dry.
The SDV moved out, its nearly silent propulsion system sending it forward into the darkness, away from the Griboyedov Canal and toward the open water.
The compartment still filled with water. Jacobsson pressed another button, and a small but powerful pump came to life, pumping out water. Soon the water level in the SDV started dropping. In less than ten seconds, it was empty.
Jacobsson laid Katya on her back. He felt her carotid artery at the side of her neck for a pulse. There was nothing.
He pulled off his mask, arched Katya’s neck gently, and plugged her nose. He started breathing hard into her mouth, in timed puffs, trying to push air back into her water-choked lungs. After more than a minute, she made a soft moaning noise, then started vomiting water.
Slowly, Katya opened her eyes. She looked frightened and confused. She looked slowly around the tiny compartment. Then she started bawling uncontrollably.
The SDV moved quietly through the water, aiming deeper, speeding at fifteen knots toward the USS Hartford.
Jacobsson knocked on the glass, getting Wray’s attention.
“Heat,” he said, asking Wray to crank up the heat inside the compartment.
Jacobsson placed his hand on Katya’s forearm, attempting to calm her down. After several minutes of sobbing, she put her first words together.
“Where am I?” she asked.
Jacobsson said nothing.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, the SDV locked in place against the submarine. Jacobsson opened the hatch, picked up the barrel of his gun, and rapped the steel grip against the sub. A moment later, a round hatch lowered, opening.
Halogen lights, beamed up from the sub, made the light blue and eerie. Jacobsson crawled down first, followed by a pair of bare feet beneath soaked white denim jeans. Katya climbed down the ladder, sopping wet and dripping. She was placed on a stretcher and carried to the quarterdeck, her eyes scanning the inside of the submarine, then the half dozen men standing in front of her.
“Bring her to the officers’ quarters,” said Montgomery Thomas, the Hartford’s captain. “Get her some dry clothes. Something to drink if she wants it. Do not let her out of your sight.”
After Katya was led out of the compartment, Thomas looked at Jacobsson.
“What happened to Andreas?”
“I don’t know,” said Jacobsson.
46
MISSION THEATER TARGA
LANGLEY
Calibrisi looked at one of the NCS case officers.
“Get me Montgomery Thomas on the USS Hartford. Use a clean uplink.”
“Yes, sir.”
A few seconds later, Calibrisi’s cell buzzed.
“Monty?”
“Hector,” said Thomas, “I was wondering how long it would take you to call.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Fine. She’s a bit terrified, but we’ve got her in some warm clothing. You need to know something. Andreas didn’t make it out.”
“I know,” said Calibrisi. “We need him in-country. We have a problem.”
“You want to talk to the lady?”
“Yeah,” answered Calibrisi. “I need live stream as she’s speaking, along with your EKG.”
“Hold on.”
Calibrisi put his hand over the phone, then looked at an analyst.
“I want this run through F
ACS along with the VRA module,” said Calibrisi.
Calibrisi, in shorthand, was instructing the NCS analyst to quickly set up two forms of remote lie detection technology for use on Katya. FACS stood for Facial Action Coding System, in which Katya’s facial movements would be quickly cataloged, creating a digital bookmark of what Katya looked like when she was telling the truth and when she was lying.
The VRA was voice risk analysis, a CIA-developed remote lie detection technology. At the same time Langley’s computers were aggregating Katya’s facial movements, a separate software module would attempt to read the inflections in her voice against her heart rate, breathing pattern, and blood pressure.
Together, they would provide a down-and-dirty lie detector, less effective than a classic interrogation setting, but with Katya on a submarine thousands of miles away, it was Calibrisi’s only option.
“Park it on line four, sir,” said the young woman.
“Starting with a baseline,” said Calibrisi. “When you have it, let me know.”
“Roger.”
A few moments later, a soft female voice came over the speaker system.
“Hello?”
The plasma at the front of Targa abruptly cut to Katya’s face. She was seated in front of a steel table. Her hair was slightly messed up, though her beauty was obvious. EKG wires on her arm and neck were visible.
“Miss Basaeyev, my name is Hector Calibrisi. I work for the U.S. government. You were taken out of Russia on my authority. I want you to know that you’ll be treated as fairly and respectfully as you treat us. Which means answering our questions truthfully. We mean you no harm. You know who we’re after.”
“You kidnapped me, and now you torture me and hold me against my will. I don’t know anything. I think you have the wrong individual. Pyotr is not terrorist.”
“You work as a ballerina, is that correct?” asked Calibrisi.
Katya paused for a brief moment, then looked up. She didn’t respond.
“When was the last time you danced in front of a live audience?”
Katya shut her eyes as Calibrisi asked her another question.
“What was the ballet?”
The analyst turned to Calibrisi and shook her head. Without Katya answering the simplest questions, they would be unable to establish a baseline of how the ballerina acted when telling the truth.
“What was your mother’s maiden name?”
Katya opened her eyes, then started crying.
Calibrisi muted the line and looked at Polk.
“This isn’t working,” said Calibrisi. “And we don’t have time to be patient.”
Calibrisi unmuted the line to the Hartford.
“Monty, take me down, please.”
A moment later, Thomas came back on the line.
“Where do you want her?”
“Is there a carrier somewhere in the North Atlantic?”
“Negative. Nimitz is the closest and that’s in Naples.”
“Give me live sat,” whispered Calibrisi.
A digital map appeared. His finger found the Hartford. From there, his finger made a beeline southwest, finding the United Kingdom.
Polk put his hand out, muting the line to the Hartford.
“What about MI6?” asked Polk, referring to Langley’s closest ally in the trade, Britain’s intelligence service.
Calibrisi nodded. “Good idea.”
“You want me to call?”
“No, I’ll call,” said Calibrisi. “You need to focus on getting those men to Moscow.”
Calibrisi unmuted the uplink to the submarine.
“Monty,” said Calibrisi, “get her to Inverness Airport in Scotland. We’ll take it from there.”
* * *
On the USS Hartford, Thomas hung up his cell phone. He climbed a ladder down to the quarterdeck. He went to the digital map, tracing a path with his finger toward the north coast of Scotland. He looked at one of his junior officers.
“Give me the range on an Osprey V-22.”
“A thousand miles, sir.”
“What if we load it with fuel?”
“With internal fuel tanks, double it, sir.”
He picked up one of the submarine phones.
“This is Montgomery Thomas on the USS Hartford. We have an Emergency Priority. I need a V-22 as soon as you can get it here, loaded with enough gas to fly to Scotland.”
* * *
Under a black, starless sky, the Hartford rose to the surface of the water, gray-black steel against gray-black sky and gray-black water.
Thomas climbed onto the platform as, in the distance, the low growl of a plane cut above the noise of the ocean.
Behind him, two men lifted Katya by her flex-cuffed arms to the top of the ladder. She was dressed in navy blue pants, black rubber boots, a navy blue shirt, and a fleece jacket. All of it was too big for her. A nylon life vest was strapped around her, tight around her chest, torso, and legs. A pair of large steel O-rings—for transport—dangled from the vest at the waist.
The lights of the plane appeared through the cloudy sky, as the Osprey’s turboprops grew louder. Suddenly, a triangle of bright halogen lights illuminated the plane’s white fuselage. The lights pivoted and scanned the black ocean until they found the hulking steel of the submarine.
The Osprey descended quickly. For a brief moment, it appeared as if it might fly straight into the ocean. Then it stopped immediately overhead. The props abruptly flipped from vertical to horizontal, like helicopter rotors, enabling the plane to hover overhead.
A steel door opened in the bottom of the plane. A flashing light appeared.
The flashing light, attached to a cable, descended. With a grappling hook, Montgomery grabbed it and clipped the cable to the O-rings on Katya’s vest. He checked it to make sure it was secure. Then he held his left thumb up in the air.
The cable went taut, and Katya was yanked up from the deck of the Hartford. She disappeared into the fuselage of the plane. The steel door shut, then the plane’s engines screamed out of sight, ripping southwest, into the night.
47
ELEKTROSTAL
Cloud listened to Katya’s phone ringing for the third time. When it went to voice mail, he shut his eyes and listened.
“Hello. I’m very sorry but I can’t talk right now. Please leave me a message.”
Cloud hung up the phone, then hit Redial. As he waited for something he knew would not happen, something that would never happen again, namely, for Katya to answer, he shot Sascha a look.
“Have you been able to reach any of the men?” asked Cloud, referring to Katya’s bodyguards.
Sascha shook his head.
“I have tried Roman twice, Vladimir three times, and the other. There is no answer.”
Katya’s phone started ringing, then, after two rings, a voice came on: “Who is this?” the man asked. Russian.
“Where is she?” asked Cloud.
“This is Colonel Polyan from FSB. Who am I speaking to?”
“I am … Katya’s father,” said Cloud. “I have been trying to reach her.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the officer. “She is not here.”
“Where is she? There are news reports—”
The phone went dead.
Cloud stood up, a psychotic look on his face. He hurled the cell phone at the wall, where it smashed into pieces. He kicked his chair away and walked to the stairs.
“Cloud,” said Sascha.
Cloud ignored him.
He descended the stairs three steps at a time. When he reached the basement garage, he climbed onto his motorcycle. He turned it on, revving it hard, then screeched forward, pulling up the ramp to street level. As he was about to accelerate onto the dark street, a figure appeared and lurched in the path of the Ducati. Cloud slammed on the brakes.
It was Sascha.
“Come back inside,” he said, panting heavily from his run down the stairs, holding up both arms as if he could direct Cloud to do what he wan
ted. “Something has happened.”
“I have to go to Saint Peters—”
“She’s gone, Pyotr,” snapped Sascha.
Cloud stared into his friend’s eyes for several seconds. He didn’t say anything. Sascha stood as still as a statue, holding his arms up. Then he put them down and stepped to Cloud, walking to his side, moving to within a few inches of him. Gently, he placed his hand on Cloud’s shoulder.
“We knew this was a possibility,” said Sascha. “Going to Saint Petersburg will get you nothing, except caught. Now come back upstairs.”
Five minutes later, Cloud followed Sascha to his computer.
“The CIA is sending more men into the country,” said Sascha.
Cloud went behind Sascha and read the screen. It was a transcription of a CIA conversation.
709
get brainard and fairweather to moscow
710
tell christy she needs to take the bullet out herself
711
then get word to dewey
712
he needs to stay in theater
Their eyes met. They both knew what it meant. They were coming for him.
“They’re coming to meet Andreas,” said Sascha.
“They’re going to try,” said Cloud. “Find out where the safe house is. There are agents already there.”
Cloud went to his computer. He joined Sascha inside the CIA network, then placed a piece of tracking code, similar to a cookie, on the records of the agents Langley had dispatched to Russia to assist Dewey. Any activity involving either Brainard or Fairweather would trigger an alert, which Cloud could then examine.
When he finished, he looked at Sascha.
“Put Andreas’s photograph out on the wire,” said Cloud. “Law enforcement, news agencies.”
“What about his identity?” asked Sascha.
Cloud was silent as he considered the question.
“Not yet.”
