The Fall of Moscow Station

by Mark Henshaw

  “I guess I’d be feeling down if one of my old flames died in front of me like that,” Barron said. “Doesn’t help that Kathy left either. She’s the one person who could really help him, but the DNI is keeping her busy. Do you know if they’ve talked?”

  “I don’t think so, not for a few months anyway,” Kyra said.

  “Do you think he’s a danger—”

  “No,” Kyra answered, too readily. “He’s usually pretty morose anyway. I’m sure he’ll come through it eventually.”

  “Keep an eye on him,” Barron ordered. “If it looks like he’s becoming nonfunctional, let me know and we’ll bring him home. The Russians are too good at the game for us to keep anyone in the field who can’t keep themselves together.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “Good hunting.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kyra said. She sat back, closed her eyes, and wondered whether Barron should ever have let her friend come to Berlin.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Embassy of the Russian Federation

  Berlin, Germany

  The etched metal plate by the gated entrance displayed an imperial eagle with two heads, both crowned, holding a scepter and orb, under the words Botschaft der Russischen Föderation. Kyra spoke no German, but the words were plain enough.

  The devil’s den, she thought. Are you in there, Maines?

  She had waited in the rain two hours to get this far in the queue. Every few minutes the line shuffled forward a few feet, and most of the supplicants kept silent. The couple in front of her had said enough to identify themselves as Russians, the family behind her, German. She heard no English. The natives walked past the granite complex without a glance, leaving only the tourists to stare at the building, a mix of trepidation and amazement on their faces. Probably the way the Russians like it, Kyra thought.

  Her disguise was more superficial than she would have liked, but time hadn’t allowed for better. Given a few days’ notice, the Agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology could have turned her into an overweight old man missing a limb. As it was, she was still a woman, though her hair was now raven black and longer, her chest larger, and her face rounder courtesy of glasses and small wads inside her cheeks. The acne was her true masterpiece given the lack of time and supplies, and the ill-fitting jacket and skirt were an insult to fashion. Her false ID was a larger worry. It was good enough to pass cursory inspection, but nothing more. There had been no time to manufacture anything better. If the Russian desk officers manning the visa line were as bored as the U.S. State Department officers at their own embassy seemed to be with the same job, the plastic card might pass muster.

  The true challenge would lie in convincing the Russians to let her into the same room with Maines. Strelnikov’s file had given her a possible way around that problem, but she would have to find a Russian bureaucrat who wasn’t completely obtuse.

  The guards waved her and a few others through the entrance. Kyra walked through the ornate metal doors and wiped her feet on the mat before stepping onto the gray stone floor and taking in the room. The room was more modern than she’d imagined. Her Russian hosts clearly had renovated the space in the recent past. Only the Roman columns standing in the corners hinted at the original architecture. The walls were off-white, with pictures of current Russian officials and the Kremlin breaking up the monochrome. The room was also quiet, with a few Russian staffers speaking German with accents so fierce that even Kyra could tell they were mangling the language.

  The line snaked along inside the building for another hour before she finally reached the visa desk. The consulate officer was a young woman with short, dark hair cut in a bob and unfashionable glasses covering green eyes. “Aufenthaltserlaubnis bitte?” she asked. Her German accent was rough, even to Kyra’s unfamiliar ear.

  “English?” Kyra asked.

  The Russian girl looked up, nonplussed. “English?” she asked. Kyra nodded.

  The girl frowned, stood, and walked into another room, leaving Kyra at the desk. Another ten-minute wait gave her time to admire the friezes bordering the ceiling until a Russian man, neatly dressed in a dark suit and equally black tie approached her. “I am told you need assistance in English?” he said. The accent was still strong Russian, no hint of an accent from the UK or any other friendly country.

  “I’ve come from the U.S. Embassy. I’m here to speak to Alden Maines,” Kyra told him.

  “That is not a Russian name.”

  “No, it’s an American name. Mr. Maines has, shall we say, applied to become a resident of the Russian Federation and is living here at the moment.”

  The man stared at Kyra in surprise. “I am sorry, I do not know of any such person here,” he said.

  “Two days ago, a Russian consulate officer visited FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., to tell my government that Mr. Maines was defecting. As proof, he provided a photograph of Mr. Maines taken at the Schönefeld Airport. So he either came here, or someone here knows where he’s staying in Berlin.”

  The embassy officer smirked. “I cannot help you. Clearly, your information must be incorrect.”

  “Clearly,” Kyra said. “I will need to speak with one of your intelligence officers.”

  “I believe you have been misinformed,” the man said after taking a moment to collect his thoughts. “Unlike many other countries, intelligence officers do not work in our embassies.”

  Kyra smiled faintly at the brazen lie. “Of course not,” she said, her condescending tone lost on the man. She pulled an index card and a pen from her coat pocket, scribbled a word and four Cyrillic letters on it, and offered it to the man. “Show this to whoever is handling Mr. Maines upstairs. He’ll know what it means. I’ll wait here.”

  The consulate officer took the card and stared at it. His face turned sour as he read it, and he turned and left without a word. Kyra smiled at the confused young Russian girl, then walked to an empty chair along the wall and took a seat.

  • • •

  “General Lavrov?” The guards had held the consulate officer in the hallway for a half hour. The doors finally opened and Lavrov and several other men the diplomat didn’t know were emptying into the hallway.

  “Yes?”

  “My apologies for disturbing you sir,” the consulate officer said, walking alongside the senior official, trying to match his pace. “A young American woman came to the visa desk a short time ago and asked to meet with an ‘Alden Maines.’ When I told her that I did not know of any such man, she asked to see an intelligence officer. I advised her that that would not be possible, and she gave me this. I took it to one of the GRU officers in residence and he told me that I should show it to you, that you would know what it meant.” He held out the index card.

  Lavrov stopped, took the card, and read the lettering.

  Strelnikov

  А Б Ю Я

  “Where is the this woman now?” Lavrov asked.

  “She said that she would wait by the visa desk for your answer.”

  Lavrov exhaled, folded the card in half, and placed it in his shirt pocket. “Escort her upstairs.”

  “Where shall I bring her?”

  “The roof.”

  • • •

  Kyra hardly needed her talent for reading body language to see the mixture of stunned embarrassment and anger spread across the consular officer’s face as he crossed the room, but she was in no mood to indulge in schadenfreude. A surge of anxiety rose in her chest faster than she could suppress, and her heart began to pound, the adrenaline adding to the tremors that the Red Bull had left in her hands.

  “If you will please accompany me?” the Russian said, his language more courteous than his manner. She doubted he knew how to change his voice when speaking English to show irritation.

  Kyra stood and followed the man. An embassy guard joined them at the door and walked behind them. She wondered how many CIA officers had ever seen the inside of this building, and this level in particular. It had to be a
small club.

  The officer and the guard led her to a utility stairwell, which they climbed for several stories until it reached a gray metal door. The officer pushed it open and motioned Kyra through. She stepped onto the roof, the guard followed, and the consulate officer closed the door behind them.

  Kyra scanned the open space and saw the British Embassy to the west, the U.S. Embassy just beyond, and the Brandenburg Gate farther west and north. The Russian building on which she stood was larger than both allied embassies together, she realized. I guess you can do that when you own the city around it for fifty years, she thought.

  A man stood on the far edge of the roof, looking down at the Unter den Linden traffic below. Maines? No, the man was too old. She began to trudge across the roof, stepping around the larger rain puddles, hands deep in her coat pockets to hide the tremors. Time to play, she told herself.

  • • •

  Arkady Lavrov heard the footsteps and turned to see a young woman making her way across the wet stone. “And you are?” he said. His English was rusty but his accent was still light.

  “My name isn’t important,” Kyra told him. “I’m with the U.S. Embassy—”

  “I think not, but that is not important at this moment,” Lavrov replied. “Why are you here?”

  “I think my request to your people was clear.”

  “It was,” Lavrov said. “Quite forward of you to come here and make such a demand.”

  “You’re the ones who told us he was defecting and sent a photo to prove it. You had to know that we’d figure out which airport he was in,” Kyra replied.

  “Of course,” Lavrov mused. That had never been in doubt. That the Americans would be so brazen as to walk into the embassy and demand to see their most recent Judas was the real surprise. But the FSB general was a soldier and appreciated the willingness to take the initiative. “Still, walking in and asking to see a potential defector is hardly the customary way of handling such affairs.” He held up the card Kyra had passed to the embassy functionary. “Nor is admitting that you know the dead-drop signals we had assigned to the asset.”

  “Diplomatic protocols in matters such as these can be tedious, and tedium costs time. I know that yours is valuable, and it would benefit both our countries to resolve this matter quickly,” Kyra advised.

  Lavrov turned his head and stared at the woman, as though the American had lit some spark of interest in him. “If Mr. Maines has requested asylum in my country, then it is a matter for the Foreign Ministry, not for an intelligence service,” he said. There was a playful tone in his voice, as though he was enjoying some new game.

  “That would depend on why Mr. Maines requested asylum and what he’s offering for it,” Kyra replied. She clenched her hands and ordered her heart to slow down. It disobeyed.

  “Any man who would draw such a bold response from your organization would surely have much to offer us. So the question naturally must turn to the counteroffer your friends would be willing to make.”

  “Oh, I think that’s premature,” Kyra disagreed. “Obviously, we couldn’t determine that until we confirm his location and what . . . assets he may have already used to establish his value.” You show me yours and I’ll show you ours.

  “I understand that desire, truly, but you realize that I must consider any future opportunities we may have to attract talented individuals from your organization in the future. It would become difficult if prospective converts knew we were open to returning them to their home countries for a price.”

  Kyra nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Forgive me, sir, but you appear to be an older gentleman. Did you spend any time here in Berlin before the Wall came down?”

  “I did,” Lavrov said. Did this American know who he was, know his biography? If so, this game would be far more interesting than he had thought. “I was here the very night that the Wall fell; on this roof, in fact. We could see the Wall there, to the west of the Gate.” Lavrov pointed toward the Brandenburg Gate, waving a gloved hand to the northwest. “The plaza was full, people were on the Wall itself. To shoot them would have started a massacre. I saw that much, but I could not understand why the guards would not pull them down at least.” He dropped his hand. “That was the night the Warsaw Pact fell, you know. The historians say that came later, but it was that night. The Wall coming down was a shot to the belly . . . a painful death, and a lingering one.”

  “I’m sure it was a memorable night for you,” Kyra said, speaking directly for a moment. She’d been a toddler when it had happened. “So you knew about the East German practice of having the Stasi arrest political prisoners and ransom them back to the West as a way to generate hard currency?”

  Lavrov shrugged. “I heard that such things happened. Why do you mention it?” He’d helped arrange a few such kidnappings-for-ransom in his youth. Did this woman know? If so, how? Had the CIA uncovered something in the old East German archives?

  “Only to point out that ransom payments aren’t unheard of in our business.” She wondered if this man would give up Maines for money. Not likely, but stranger things had happened between intelligence agencies.

  The Russian didn’t bite the hook. “But if Mr. Maines has applied for asylum, then he is no hostage,” Lavrov noted. “Quite the opposite would be true.”

  “I doubt that,” Kyra said. “Your country told mine that Mr. Maines was defecting. That act made Maines a fugitive from justice in the United States. You invited him here, then closed his door back. Now he can’t set foot on the street here without risking arrest and extradition, leaving him no real leverage for any bargain. So you don’t have to pay him one ruble to make him talk, do you? You can extort him for everything he knows just by threatening to run him out the front door and calling the German police ten minutes before you do. So I think if Maines is here, he’s very much your hostage.”

  Kyra studied the man, hoping that the Russian’s body language would scream his thoughts and emotions to her, but his control was practiced and very precise. She could only divine small glimpses, but for the moment, his pleasure was obvious.

  “Zamechatel’nyy!” he muttered. “I truly wish you would tell me your name, young miss.”

  “I must disappoint you,” Kyra said. The Russian might find out anyway. She’d seen at least three security cameras here on the roof and doubtless they’d passed a few dozen on the way here. They would have her picture and her disguise was not total.

  “But you intrigue me so very much, devushka,” Lavrov said. “I will consider what you have to say. But for the moment, I suggest you enjoy the view from our rooftop. The view of the Gate is quite nice.”

  Kyra stared at Lavrov, tried to read his face, and finally gave up, unable to tell what he was hiding behind his smile. That had almost never happened to her. “Most kind of you.”

  Lavrov bowed slightly. “Until our next meeting.” He turned on his heel and walked toward the rooftop door.

  U.S. Embassy

  Strelnikov’s file was spread out on the table, the man’s photograph pinned to the wall.

  Jon had been staring at the papers since Kyra had left for the Russian Embassy. Research was his preferred remedy for anxiety and his younger partner was a bottomless source of it. He’d wondered sometimes if she wasn’t an adrenaline junkie, an addict whose preferred fix was risk. She’d almost succumbed to alcoholism two years back and he suspected that her addictive personality was always seeking another outlet. But there was nothing he could do for it at this moment. She was inside the Russian building and he could hardly go charging in after her.

  Kyra had been right that the file was thin, but the reports officer who had assembled it had been organized and thorough. The Russian’s grandfather had been Jewish, Lithuanian by birth, and a farmer until the Nazis had invaded from the west. No requests for money, personally wealthy, so he didn’t commit treason out of greed. Retired at flag rank and made the head of the Foundation for Advanced Research a year ago . . . so you’re not like Maine
s, not angry because some superior didn’t give you your due, Jon thought. Ideological defector? Soft spot for Israel? He checked the date of the first report. Ten days after Kyra found Iran’s nuke in Venezuela, he realized.

  Ideological defectors want to make a difference, to protect something they love or cripple something they hate, he reasoned. A Russian GRU general, even a retired one, would have had access to a huge amount of material, but another pass through Strelnikov’s reports showed that the Russian had given up nothing that wasn’t directly related to the Foundation. You wanted to protect Israel, but you didn’t want to hurt Mother Russia? Jon reasoned. So assume he’s ideological. No way for Strelnikov to make a difference in Iran’s nuke program unless the Foundation is involved in the program. Even so, the general’s tranche of reports revealed nothing about the Foundation’s actual research projects. The man had restricted himself to revealing its organization, budget, manpower, areas of interest, but nothing that would have allowed CIA to cripple a specific program. Perhaps the good general’s conscience had been putting up a fight.

  Jon hunted for Strelnikov’s biography, laid on top of the pile, and started to read again.

  The Russian had been well traveled. Afghanistan in the eighties, Berlin when the Wall came down, Serbia in the late nineties, Baghdad during the war, Venezuela in the late aughts when Chávez was cutting deals with Ahmadinejad and the Iranians . . . all of the hot spots.

  The connection to the Iranian program was apparent. Kyra had uncovered Iran’s illegal nuclear device in Venezuela the year before, and Strelnikov had been in that country when the foundation for that ugly partnership had been laid. Maybe he brokered it?

  Something else was pulling at his thoughts. What am I not seeing?

  Jon stared at the biography for another hour before he saw it. Idiot, he cursed himself. It had been there, on the page in plain sight.

  The Embassy of the Russian Federation

  Kyra stood in the drizzle for another fifteen minutes before the door opened again. She heard the rusting hinges squeak in the rain and looked at the new visitor.