Eden's Gate

by David Hagberg

  “The checks will bounce, and word will get back to Moscow.”

  “How soon will you be ready to move?”

  “The entire project should be finished within a couple of weeks from the time you supply me with the four men.”

  Lukashin nodded. “I see no problem with this,” he said. “I’ll get back to you soon. Where can I reach you?”

  “Through Thomas Mann.”

  “Good enough.”

  Speyer, Baumann, and Lane walked back to the car while the Russians stayed behind at the reflecting pool. “Have you ever met Lukashin before?” Speyer asked Lane.

  “I don’t think so. But his face sure looked familiar. Maybe I saw a photograph.”

  “Well, he gave you a double take when he first saw you.” Speyer turned to Baumann. “What do you think, Ernst?”

  “I didn’t notice anything. But if he knows Browne from somewhere, wouldn’t he have said something?”

  “Maybe,” Speyer said. “When we get back I want you to do some checking. Perhaps Lukashin was stationed in South Africa.”

  Lane let a look of surprise cross his face. “Do you think the bastard was involved with the accident that killed my wife?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

  When Lukashin got back to the Russian embassy on Wisconsin Avenue in Glover Park, he went with his number two, Nikolai Mironov, directly into the referentura—the secured room. When the door to the suite was shut and the electronic countermeasures activated, eavesdropping by any means was utterly impossible.

  “I know one of Speyer’s bodyguards, and it wasn’t from Germany,” Lukashin said.

  “You should have demanded his name.”

  “Doesn’t matter the name he would have given me, Nikki, what matters is who he really is.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “It might give us a clue to what Speyer is really after. Whatever it is, it has to be big because he’s willing to pay plenty for it.”

  “What did he offer you?”

  Lukashin had to smile. “He’s going to pay off my house mortgage—that’s about seven hundred thousand—and all my credit cards—that’s another couple of hundred thousand. And you’ll get some.”

  “He’s serious.”

  “That he is,” Lukashin said. “I’ll pull up a recognition program from the mainframe, but in the meantime I want you to get his fingerprints.”

  “How?”

  “I got the license tag number when they drove up. Run it through Metro DMV. I suspect it’s one of Thomas Mann’s cars, which means they’re staying over there with him in Georgetown. That guy was driving and he wasn’t wearing gloves, so I expect his prints will be all over the driver’s side.”

  Mironov nodded. “I’ll take care of it myself once they get bedded down over there. Do you know anything about their security?”

  “No, but you should be able to find out which agency they use and pull something up from their website,” Lukashin said. “Before I start cashing in favors I want to know exactly who I’m dealing with.”

  Lane parked the Town Car in the back and he, Speyer, and Baumann went into the house. Thomas Mann was still at a formal dinner at the British embassy. It was only a few minutes before eleven and Speyer was keyed up.

  “Anyone care for a nightcap?” he asked.

  “I’m going to get on the computer and check out Lukashin,” Baumann said.

  “I’ll have a drink with you,” Lane said. He and Speyer went back to the library where Speyer poured them brandies. They raised snifters. “Success.”

  “Yes, success,” Lane said, and they drank. “I was wondering. What if Lukashin knows me from somewhere? Will that create a problem?”

  “We’ll have to see. But that might depend on you.”

  “In what way?”

  “Let’s say that he was involved in the deaths of your wife and child.”

  “I see what you mean,” Lane said slowly.

  “Revenge would interfere with my plans. I need Lukashin for the moment.”

  Lane looked up, a wicked smile curling his lips. “For the moment,” he said.

  “Afterwards what transpires between you and Comrade Lukashin is strictly your own business.” Speyer finished his drink. “Are we in accord?”

  “What if I were to need some help?”

  Speyer considered it for a moment. “You would get it, within reason, of course.”

  “Of course,” Lane said. He reached for the bottle of brandy and poured them each another drink. He raised his glass. “Success.”

  At two in the morning Thomas Mann’s house was dark for the evening. Only dim hall lights showed from within and security lights shone in the driveway and parking area. There were no night watchmen, Mironov decided, as he waited across the street.

  After fifteen minutes he crossed the street and slipped into the driveway, keeping to the deeper shadows as much as possible. There was a three car garage in back, but as luck would have it the Lincoln Town car that Speyer and his two bodyguards had used earlier in the evening was parked outside.

  He inserted an electronic key in the trunk lid lock, attached the leads to an encoding device the size of a small electronic calculator, and attached its magnetic backing to the trunk lid. A few seconds later the lights turned green and the Lincoln’s entire electronic system went dead. The door locks popped open.

  He crab-walked to the driver’s door and opened it. The interior lights, also defeated by the encoder, did not come on. Keeping low, he spread his fingerprint kit on the floor, and quickly dusted the steering wheel, gear shift lever, and interior door handle. Several clear prints showed up under a UV penlight. Holding the light in his teeth, he used tape to lift three separate prints, bagged them, then wiped off the powder residue.

  Checking to make certain that he’d left nothing behind, no traces that anyone had been here or what they had done, Mironov closed the car door with a soft click. At the back of the car he reset the encoder, waited until the row of lights shifted back to red, then lifted the device off the trunk lid and removed the key.

  When Lane first spotted the figure waiting in the shadows across the street, he had a fair idea who it might be, though at first he couldn’t figure out why Lukashin had sent someone to spy on the house. When the man crossed the street, Lane went downstairs to the conservatory where he watched from the darkness.

  Baumann came up behind him. “What are you doing down here?”

  “Watching him,” Lane said.

  Baumann came up beside Lane and looked out the window. Mironov pocketed the device and key from the Lincoln’s trunk lid. “Who the hell is he?”

  “A Russian, I think. Looked like he lifted a couple of fingerprints from the driver’s side.”

  “Yours?”

  Lane grinned in the darkness. “I don’t think anybody trusts me.”

  “If you have something to hide, they’re going to find out,” Baumann said. “If it’s something that will interfere with our business, Helmut will kill you. What do you want to do?”

  “I think we ought to help the poor man out.”

  “What do you mean?” Baumann demanded.

  “Come on, Ernst, and I’ll show you what I think of people who sneak behind my back looking for answers instead of asking me what they want to know face to face.”

  Mironov was heading up the driveway as Lane and Baumann slipped out the front door and intercepted him. He reared back and reached inside his jacket.

  Lane was on him before he could pull out his gun. He grabbed the man’s wrist with one hand and shoved his bent elbow up over his head, practically dislocating his shoulder.

  Mironov stepped back and grunted in pain.

  “One more step and I’ll tear your arm out by the root, comrade,” Lane said agreeably.

  Mironov stood stock still, although he was obviously in a great deal of pain. “What do you want?”

  “The question is, what are you doing here in the middl
e of the night?”

  “Watching you.”

  “Wrong answer. You were lifting my fingerprints out of the car I drove tonight,” Lane said. He shoved Mironov’s elbow a little higher. “Why?”

  “Fuck you—”

  Lane squeezed the nerve bundle just above the man’s elbow, and Mironov’s complexion instantly went ashen; his knees started to buckle, but Lane backed off the pressure.

  “I asked you a question.”

  “Ivan knows you from someplace,” Mironov grunted. “He wanted to check it out.”

  “Fair enough,” Lane said. “He looked familiar to me, too.” He let go of Mironov’s arm, and took the Russian’s Makarov automatic out of his jacket. He ejected the magazine from the pistol, grabbed it firmly with his thumb and four fingers. Then, careful not to smudge the prints he had left, replaced the magazine in the gun and replaced the gun in Mironov’s holster.

  “Now what?” Mironov asked, holding his arm as if it were broken.

  “Now you get out of here and let us good people get some sleep,” Lane said.

  “I’ll be back—”

  Before he could get the whole sentence out, Lane grabbed him by the throat and shoved him backward, almost off his feet. “If I ever lay eyes on you again, Russian, I’ll kill you,” he said, his voice guttural. “Think about it. Think real hard about it.”

  Lane let him go, then disdainfully turned his back on the man and headed back into the house, Baumann right behind him.

  Speyer came down to the kitchen and Baumann made them some coffee. Gloria got up to see what was going on, but Speyer sent his wife back upstairs. Lane poured a little brandy into his coffee.

  “What are they going to find out?” Speyer asked.

  “Nothing more than I’ve already told you,” Lane said. “But I don’t like people sneaking around behind my back. And I especially don’t like Russians.”

  Baumann had a new respect for Lane. “I don’t think that Schweinhund will forget what happened tonight.” He told Speyer everything.

  “What’d you find out about him on the computer?”

  “Well, he was never in South Africa,” Baumann said. “Germany four years ago, France, Iran, Libya, Mexico City, and a few years back he was on some sort of a special assignment in Brazil. Rio.”

  “That’s where I saw him,” Lane said. “There was a joint Russian-U. S. war game down there. Every arms dealer in the world showed up, including some from Cape Town. Which was where I came in.”

  “Will that queer the deal?” Speyer asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Baumann said. “Lukashin wants the money you’ve offered him. And he wanted Browne’s fingerprints, which he now has. So he’s got everything he wants.”

  “But if you missed something on the computer, and he was somehow involved in South Africa he might suspect that Browne is out for revenge.”

  “Even if that was the case, I don’t think it’d stop a man like Lukashin,” Lane said with a smirk. “Even if he screwed me over once, he wouldn’t see any reason why he couldn’t do it again.” Lane shook his head. “He’ll cooperate. He needs the money.”

  “That’s assuming there was a South African connection after all,” Speyer said, thinking out loud. “It’s probably the thing in Rio. A coincidence.” He focused on Lane and nodded his approval. “You did a good job tonight. I had my doubts, but I think you did okay. We’re not going to kiss anyone’s ass for this deal. Lukashin either does what I’ve asked him to do, or he can go fuck himself, and we’ll get somebody else.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Lane said. “He’ll come along.”

  “We’ll see,” Speyer said. “As soon as this is settled we’re heading up to New York.”

  “I thought we were going to Germany,” Lane said.

  “Not so fast. We have a few things to take care of first.” Speyer smiled a knowing smile. “There are some other considerations as well. You’ll be told when the time comes. In the meantime we need to take your picture so that we can get you a new passport. Wouldn’t do for John Browne with an ‘e’ to be traveling on anything but bulletproof papers, now would it?”

  Lane sat by an open window in his bedroom looking down on Avon Place while he smoked a cigarette. His door was locked and the bedside radio was playing just loudly enough to interfere with someone who might be listening in the hall when he used his phone.

  Frances answered on the first ring. “Shipley and Hughes Accounting.”

  “I miss you,” Lane said.

  “That’s nice to know. Are you safe?”

  “Reasonably. Anything new from the Germans?”

  “Nothing yet. Where are you?”

  “About six blocks from home. On Avon Place, a house owned by Thomas Mann.”

  “We’ll check it out. We lost you after the airport, but Tommy didn’t want to get too close.”

  “We’re heading to New York soon, maybe tomorrow. Looks like we’re going after diamonds at a place called Reichsamt Seventeen, some kind of a Nazi genetic research lab where they supposedly used diamonds as a catalyst in their experiments.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Frances said.

  “It didn’t to me either,” Lane said. “But a problem has come up that you and Tommy are going to have to help me with. Ivan Lukashin, the SUR Washington rezident, thinks he knows me and the feeling is mutual. Maybe the Rio war games, but I’m not sure.” Lane told her everything that had happened starting with the meeting at the Lincoln Memorial.

  “I’ll check on him.”

  “They have my fingerprints, so Tommy will have to plug the leaks,” Lane said.

  “Okay. As I’ve already pointed out, darling, this is not rocket science. So if it looks like Lukashin is on to you, I’m ordering out the marines for a rescue mission with or without your cooperation. Capice?”

  Lane chuckled. “I love it when you talk dirty.”

  Frances got up and walked across the hall into Tom Hughes’s office on the third floor of what supposedly was a U.S. Navy think tank, Omnibus Projects. Most of the rest of their very small staff had long since left for the evening, though because Lane was in the field they were all on call.

  “He sounded in good spirits,” Hughes said.

  “The cheek. You eavesdropped. Is nothing sacred?”

  “Not in this place.” Hughes chuckled. He was a very large man, pushing three hundred pounds on a bad day, and he was not handsome: His face looked like an alcoholic’s with broken red and blue veins, puffy, red-rimmed eyes, and a round, pockmarked nose. But he was brilliant and he was kind. He had a Ph.D. in foreign studies from Georgetown University; he read, wrote and spoke eleven languages fluently; and his wife of twenty years, their six girls, two cats, one dog, and an assorted menagerie adored him. In his home he was benevolent king; and if the girls could eat, drink, or sleep for their father to save him the trouble they would fight amongst themselves for the honor. Uncle Bill and Aunt Frannie were family, and nothing they could ever do or say would change that. They had been adopted.

  He had brought up Lukashin’s SVR file on his computer. “He was down in Rio at the same time William was there, which is actually a break for our side. Dear William was masquerading as a South African intelligence officer that time, too.”

  “What about his fingerprints?”

  “Already done, Frances. Whatever databases the Russians turn to, including their own in Moscow, they’ll either come up with nothing, or they’ll run into a blank wall in Johannesburg.”

  “Which is all they would find if he had really worked for South African Intelligence.”

  Hughes smiled, his eyes twinkling. “They do tend to protect their own.”

  “What about the business with the diamonds?” Frances asked.

  “I’ll make a couple of telephone calls in the morning, but I know just enough about genetics to know that I don’t know. In the meantime you can get started on Reichsamt Seventeen. There should be some sort of a record somewhere, one wou
ld think.”

  “I’ll check with the BKA in Berlin.”

  Hughes looked up at her. “Actually why don’t you go home and get a few hours’ sleep, my dear? We can call the Germans later this morning.”

  “What, and leave you here all alone?” Frances said. She shook her head. “Not a chance, you nasty man. Moira asked me to keep an eye on you at all times.”

  “Why might that be?” he asked in mock indignation.

  “Because she knows that if you’re left to your own devices for too long, you’ll start smoking again.”

  “Gads!”

  Gloria Speyer lay in bed staring up at the ceiling as her husband paced back and forth. She’d never seen him this agitated.

  “The Russians have taken the hook,” he said.

  “How did Browne do tonight?” Gloria asked.

  “He did all right,” Speyer said.

  Gloria looked at her husband; he was staring at her. “You still don’t trust him, do you,” she said.

  “I don’t trust anybody.”

  “Am I included?”

  “You especially.”

  She laughed, and she could feel a warm glow in her belly. “Then you most definitely have a problem, my darling. You want him to work for you, and you want me to watch him.” She laughed again. “Maybe I’ll fuck him. Is that too high a price for you to pay?”

  “On the contrary, sweetheart, that’s exactly the price I want to pay, because it’ll give me something to use against both of you. It’s all about control, you know.”

  She plucked the ashtray off the nightstand and threw it at him. But he just stepped aside and laughed at her.

  As the sun came up, Lukashin stood at the window of his office looking out toward the wooded grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory, his thoughts lost in the new start the German had offered him on a sliver platter. He was drinking a cup of coffee, another habit besides going deeply in debt that he had picked up in the States. For the first time in as long as he could remember he could see the light at the end of the tunnel.