Black Flagged Redux

by Steven Konkoly

  DECATUR would loiter in the area, scanning for radar signals with its AN/SLQ-32(V)2 Electronic Warfare Suite, while at the same time employing a time tested, low budget method of surveillance. Lookouts. On this particular night, DECATUR employed three times the normal number of lookouts, all equipped with powerful night vision optics to spot vessels far out on the horizon. Just thirty nautical miles from the Chilean coast, this section of ocean needed to be clear of maritime traffic at 0200, when BOXER arrived to launch the strike force. The radar invisible destroyer had a few more hours to ensure that the BOXER would arrive undetected.

  Chapter 47

  7:21 AM

  Obolons’kyi District

  Kiev City, Ukraine

  Feliks Yeshevsky knocked on the thin wooden door and waited with a cracked smile on his face. To the right of the door, his partner pressed up flat against the wall with a retractable metal baton held tightly along the side of his black trousers. Feliks listened for movement inside the apartment. Nothing. For a few desperate seconds he wondered if Mr. Kaluzny had somehow slipped past them on the street. Dragging him out of his office downtown would be less than optimal given their time constraints.

  He couldn’t see how they had missed him. They had seen his wife exit the aging apartment building with their six-year-old daughter. They had walked hand in hand down the street toward the local primary school. Mrs. Kaluzny was dressed formally and carried a large handbag, so they didn’t expect her to return to the apartment. They had waited fifteen minutes before entering the apartment building’s unlocked main door.

  He knocked on the door again and heard a voice from inside the apartment. He widened his smile and saw the light behind the peephole disappear.

  “Can I help you?” Vanko Kaluzny said.

  “Do you mind opening the door? I’m one of your neighbors from a few floors up. I saw something strange yesterday when your wife and daughter were walking into the building,” Yeshevsky said.

  He heard the deadbolt slide open, followed by a small click from the doorknob. He reached behind his back, underneath his thick wool coat, and gripped the compact Makarov pistol tucked into his belt. The door opened a few inches.

  “I’m sorry. What exactly did you see happen to—”

  Yeshevsky didn’t allow him to finish the sentence. He kicked the door as hard as he could into Kaluzny’s face, knocking the man several steps backward into the apartment. The man hidden along the wall sprang forward through the door and hit the stunned man squarely on the head with the metal baton, adding to the confusion and pain suddenly thrust into his life.

  Mr. Kaluzny barely made a sound when hit, which was odd in Yeshevsky’s experience. His partner shoved the man to a sitting area in front of an old television and forced him down onto a flimsy wooden chair. Yeshevsky locked the door behind him and removed a bulky suppressor from one of his inner coat pockets. He started to screw the suppressor to the Makarov’s threaded barrel as he walked over to Vanko Kaluzny.

  “What in hell do you want? Is my wife all right? My daughter?”

  “That all depends on you, Mr. Kaluzny. We’re interested in your university roommate, Anatoly Reznikov. We need to know where to find him.”

  “I don’t know where he is. I haven’t seen him in years,” Kaluzny said.

  Yeshevsky nodded imperceptibly and his partner’s arm flashed, bringing the metal baton down on Kaluzny’s left shoulder. The man screamed.

  “Hold on! Hold on! I don’t understand. Who are you? Russian Federal Security? You have no jurisdiction to—”

  The baton crashed down on the man’s collarbone, audibly cracking it. The force from the blow nearly collapsed the chair under Kaluzny.

  “Fuck! Stop! Stop! Why are you doing this? I haven’t seen him in several years,” he said, exasperated from the pain.

  “That’s not what your mother told us.”

  “You visited my mother?”

  “She’s fine, for now, but she’s not very fond of Mr. Reznikov. Said she found some false identity papers while snooping around his things. Isn’t that why she refused to let him stay there? She could never understand why the two of you were such good friends,” he said, tightening the suppressor on the pistol.

  “Look, I don’t know what he’s doing or—”

  “But you know he can’t travel under his real name?”

  “A lot of people from Russia seem to have that problem nowadays.”

  “Maybe we’ll ask your sister next. Your mother said the two of you were close. Following in your footsteps were her words. I have a few nice pictures of her on my phone. Sent to me this morning. She was on the way to classes at Volgograd State University. Would you like to see them? Maybe my colleagues should yank her out of class for a chat.”

  “You people are crazy,” Kaluzny whispered, staring at the floor.

  “Not crazy. In a hurry. I was really hoping that you would help us right now. I won’t be in such a good mood if I have to wait around all day for your wife and daughter to return. Especially if I’m cooped up all day with your rotting corpse. Just the thought of their screaming and crying at the sight of your bloated body puts me in a foul mood. I’ve never been good around kids.”

  Kaluzny flinched at the baton’s movement and glanced up at Yeshevsky. “He gave me a forwarding address in Sweden. I forward maybe two packages a year for him. 22 Bondegatan, Apartment 3B, Stockholm. Please don’t hurt my family,” he pleaded.

  “Is he at this address right now?” Yeshevsky pressed.

  “I really don’t know. I haven’t heard from him in over a year. I passed a few packages on to the address several weeks ago. 8x10 padded mailers from Novosibirsk. Looked like an air shipping company name. Something with aviation in the title.”

  A few weeks before, FSB agents had found three men murdered at the Nizhny Novgorod airport. Two Chechen mobsters and a guy who ran a VIP transportation business out of Novosibirsk. It was enough to keep Vanko Kaluzny alive for the moment. Yeshevsky signaled for his partner to leave, and they both walked briskly toward the door of the apartment.

  “That’s it? Are you going to kill me?”

  Feliks Yeshevsky stopped and turned his head. “Do you want me to kill you?”

  “No. I just—”

  “Then quit trying to talk me into it. We know where you live. Where everyone you care about lives. If you fucked us over with this address, we’ll kill all of them in front of you. If you somehow miraculously remember a phone number for Mr. Reznikov and try to call him, I will personally arrange the rape, mutilation and live incineration of your entire extended family. If I were you, I’d call in sick at Cragnia Biotech and head to the hospital to have that collarbone examined. Once the shock of our visit wears off, the pain will become unbearable.”

  Yeshevsky followed the other SVR agent out of the apartment and closed the door behind him. He quickly removed the suppressor and placed it back in his jacket. Screwing the suppressor onto the pistol in front of the suspect almost always produced immediate results. As they walked toward the staircase, he pulled out his cell phone and placed a call to Moscow.

  Chapter 48

  6:26 AM

  Sveavägen

  Stockholm, Sweden

  Major Stepan Eristov slapped his cell phone shut and turned to Captain Rusnak. “22 Bondegatan. Apartment 3B. No guarantee he is there. I want both vehicles moving in less than twenty seconds,” he barked.

  “The van goes first,” Rusnak said.

  All of the men scrambled to put on their jackets, which would conceal the weapons attached to specialized slings underneath. The slings allowed them to covertly carry their weapons “hands free,” tightly along their torsos until they needed them. In one swift, practiced motion, each member of the team could put their weapon into action at a moment’s notice.

  Most of the team carried the latest Russian PP2000 submachine guns. Compact and futuristic-looking, it fired the new 7N21 armor piercing 9mm projectiles at a rate of 800 rounds per minute
. Each weapon was loaded with a 20 round magazine for initial concealment, but each team member carried several 40 round magazines on their internal harness rig.

  Two members of the support team would carry AKS-74u assault rifles, which would be stashed within easy reach inside each of the vehicles. The assault rifles would give them additional stopping power and range in the unlikely event that the operation blew up in their faces. Major Eristov and Captain Rusnak also carried silenced Makarov pistols, which would be the only suppressed weapons used by the team. Zaslon training had stressed the importance of minimizing the use of suppressors, which often served to encourage the inappropriate use of firearms during an operation. Eristov envisioned using his silenced pistol to compel Reznikov’s compliance with their abduction, or if that failed, to kill him.

  As the operatives piled out of the apartment, Dmitry Solomin grabbed Eristov. “Bondegatan is south of Stockholm in the Sodermalm district. Get over to the Klarastrand immediately. Head south on Sveavägen and take a right onto Radmansgatan, then a left onto Dalagatan…”

  “We have maps, Dmitry. I’ll call you when we’re finished,” Eristov said.

  “Bondegatan is a one-way street headed east. Tight quarters with plenty of cafés and stores. You’ll need to be very careful.”

  “We’ll take that under advisement,” he said and shut the door on the SVR agent.

  Chapter 49

  12:29 AM

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  The National Clandestine Service’s Operations Center was fully staffed and buzzing with activity in anticipation of the impending covert operation in Stockholm. They had no idea when or if the operation would proceed, but most of the CIA personnel currently locked into the glass chamber wouldn’t see daylight until it was finished, or the mission was abandoned.

  Similarly, a small private chamber in the White House Situation Room was manned by the most trusted members of the national security advisor’s inner circle, along with a similar group aligned with the Secretary of State. They had access to a live, classified feed of the operation. A CIA operations technician ensured that none of the data fed to the White House directly compromised CIA operatives in the field. The White House would see a slightly watered down version of what was seen and heard in the Operations room.

  Bauer and Manning had managed to convince White House bureaucrats that any premature release of information to European allies could be intercepted by the Russians, with horrifying results. Any sniff of a western intelligence agency alert in Stockholm had the potential to cut off their inside source at the FSB. Without Reznikov’s address, the Russians would dispose of the rogue scientist, leaving them with no leads to chase down the deadliest bioweapon ever mass produced. The White House agreed to give the CIA team one shot at recovering Reznikov before bringing the rest of Europe into the fold. The CIA was gambling everything on the success of Sanderson’s team.

  Berg glanced over at the bioweapons specialists assembled around one end of the table. They had borrowed a few scientists from the Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center to analyze the lab results from Helsinki. The scientists had been asked to stay in the Operations Center to provide technical support to the team in Stockholm. None of them had any idea what they might find in Reznikov’s apartment. Manning had suggested they stick with Edgewood personnel for now, until the next phase had been decided. The scientists were assigned to the U.S. Army and much less likely to slip away for a private phone call than their Center for Disease Control colleagues.

  The scientists had stressed the serious implications of the laboratory examination performed on the intact brain sample retrieved from Monchegorsk. The subject’s temporal lobe showed multiple localized lesions, in addition to a generalized neuropathy throughout the entire brain. The severe damage to the limbic system, specifically the temporal lobes, explained the erratic and violent behavior seen by Petrovich’s team on the streets. The CIA’s chief psychiatrist had added her own assessment and explanation of the bizarre behavior witnessed by Petrovich’s team and confirmed as widespread by Major Sabitov.

  In her opinion, the encephalitis virus had been genetically modified to mimic the behavior of the Herpes Simplex Encephalitis (HSE) virus, which was the only form of encephalitis known to localize in the limbic system. She explained that the temporal lobes were critical to the mediation of aggression. Psychiatric literature strongly suggested that patients with severe temporal lobe damage frequently exhibited a tendency for marked destructiveness and impulsiveness. It was not uncommon for patients to look emotionless or unresponsive, followed by sudden, unpredictable fits of uncontrolled motor activity and aggressive behavior. She called it intermittent explosive disorder (IED), but one of the scientists from Edgewood called it the ultimate weapon.

  He suggested that the virus may have been engineered to maximize the impact of the symptoms described by the psychiatrist. Untreated, Herpes Simplex Encephalitis (HSE) resulted in rapid death in roughly 70% of cases. Lab analysis suggested that this strain had been modified to reduce lethality. They wouldn’t know for sure until they could get a sample to Edgewood, but the implications of this modification were frightening.

  Even among patients immediately treated with high-dose intravenous Aciclovir, fatality rates hovered at thirty percent and less than three percent ever regained normal brain function. An effective, widespread attack with this virus would be devastating. Unlike nerve agents or traditional biological weapons, the effects of this bioweapon would expand far beyond the original target. It would create a pocket of sick, uncontrollable patients that would require massive resources to manage effectively.

  With the frightening potential to transform entire cities into violent playgrounds filled with irreversibly brain-damaged citizens, the world would never recover from the psychological damage caused by the release of Reznikov’s virus. The resources required to house and treat the mentally disabled survivors would serve as a constant reminder to the public. In his opinion, the Russians had taken the easy way out in Monchegorsk.

  The most frightening aspect of the entire situation stemmed from a casual comment made by one of the Edgewood scientists. In passing, Berg heard him tell one of his colleagues that he highly doubted the virus had been genetically modified in some “half-ass laboratory trailer in the middle of Kazakhstan.” Berg didn’t pursue the comment, but kept it in the back of his mind. It might explain why the Russians wanted to find Reznikov so badly. Maybe their biological warfare program hadn’t died on the front lawn of the Novosibirsk facility in 1978, along with Anatoly Reznikov’s father.

  He started to walk over to Audra when his cell phone rang. Berg took one look at his BlackBerry’s screen and nodded at Thomas Manning. The bustling conversations within the operations center ceased instantly, and every face stared at Karl Berg as he raised the phone to his ear.

  “Berg here,” he said.

  “Reznikov’s address in Stockholm is 22 Bondegatan, apartment 3B,” a deep Russian voice said.

  “22 Bondegatan. 3B,” he said to the operations analysts.

  Berg didn’t pause before speed dialing Petrovich. “22 Bondegatan. Apartment 3B,” he spoke into the phone and paused to scan the screens.

  “South of the city. Stay on the line and we’ll get you there as fast as possible. I have a CIA employee on the ground within ten city blocks of that location. She’ll provide us with live intel,” he said.

  “Patch her voice into the center! I want to hear everything she says!” Berg said.

  He glanced up at the main screen in the Operations Center, which displayed a city map of Stockholm, resized to encompass two locations. The team’s starting point on Odengatan and the ending point on Bondegatan. The street was one of Stockholm’s notoriously tight one-ways.

  “Tell them to get over to the Klarastrand. They’ll have to backtrack a bit off of Odengatan, but it’s the fastest route. Traffic should still be light at this time of the morning. Tell the team to watch th
e pedestrian traffic on Bondegatan. Lots of cafés doing brisk coffee business. Still too early in the year for permanent outdoor seating, so it should be relatively clear of any crowds,” said an analyst from their Scandinavian Section.

  Berg nodded and relayed all of the information to Petrovich, who acknowledged it and informed Berg that he would be in receive only mode until they were on the road.

  “How long to get there?” Berg said.

  “Fifteen minutes with no delays,” the analyst said.

  This promised to be a long fifteen minutes.

  Chapter 50

  6:48 AM

  Sodermalm District

  Stockholm, Sweden

  Farrington guided their Volvo V60 sedan out of the South Way Tunnel onto Folkungagatan, accelerating the car through traffic toward the yellow traffic signal ahead. The intersection was crowded with people headed for the Metro station entrance at the far left side, and Daniel cringed as their car narrowly missed a cluster of pedestrians leaning into the street. The signal turned red a few moments before they entered the intersection, clearly visible midway down the front windshield. Daniel looked around for any police cars and marveled at their luck.

  “Take it easy, Rich,” he said and glanced behind them.

  “Fuck, they stopped at the light.”

  “We don’t slow down. They’ll be there for us,” Farrington said.

  Daniel didn’t respond. He picked up the radio and spoke to Schafer in the van.

  “We’re proceeding to the target. Take the first right after the light. Bondegatan is the third street on your left. Stop the van just out of sight before the street. Schafer, I want you on foot covering us from the street corner, just like we discussed. Hubner, be ready to move that van in front of the apartment. It’s on the right side of the street.”

  “Roger,” Schafer replied.

  “Berg, what are we looking at?” Petrovich said.