‘What kind of shitstorm?’
‘Merrow wants it wound right down. He sees China as the real threat and aims to bring Russia on our side against it. Defense, State, Treasury are pushing against that.’
‘CIA?’
‘We argue that Russia remains a clear and present danger, that the exercise is routine and takes place every year. They are NATO exercises, which spelt out is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which requires European and North American defense forces to train together in the North Atlantic just as we do with Japan and our other allies in the Pacific.’
‘Merrow doesn’t buy it?’
‘He wants a Nixon-in-China moment with Russia and sees Dynamic Freedom as a hindrance to that.’ Ciszewski picked up the photograph of Artyom Semenov and studied it again. ‘Bringing in a defector and stealing technology doesn’t fit his narrative that we need Russia as an ally against China. We might have thought Holland was bad. He didn’t hold a candle to Merrow.’
The abrasive Bob Holland had lasted just ninety-four days in office, resigning before being impeached. His crime was to open negotiations without authorization on national security issues with both Russia and China when president-elect. Little-known Vice-President Merrow moved into the Oval Office, declaring he had no plans to run for re-election, which gave him free rein to run a tight, secretive White House.
‘My instructions from the President are to switch resources from Russia and Europe to China and Asia,’ said Ciszewski. ‘He told me that the Russians were our friends in the Second World War and they’ll be our friends again in the next one.’ Ciszewski fixed Harry with a gaze of steel. ‘So, no, Harry, I can’t take it anywhere. Not this month at least. But you can, Harry.’
Ciszewski’s stripped his loose black tie through his collar and dropped it on the table. ‘Mary likes the windows shut tight in winter. I like the fresh air. One of those unresolved issues.’ His forehead shone with sweat.
‘You can’t be suggesting we go private?’
‘Don’t lose Semenov. Keep me looped in. I’ll have your back. When you know what he has, we talk again. If and when the President needs to know, I’ll take it to him.’
If the Semenov operation went wrong, Harry’s fingerprints would be everywhere. Both he and Ciszewski knew no one would have his back. Both knew Harry would do it. Ciszewski opened the door. Snow was whipped up. An icy wind hit Harry’s face. He stepped out the door, tightening his scarf.
‘Carrie Walker, the niece whom Semenov called,’ said Ciszewski. ‘Is she half Russian or all Russian?’
‘Mother Russian, Father Estonian. Both US citizens.’
‘I remember now, we ran that check during the Diomedes crisis.’
Not bothering with a coat, Ciszewski walked Harry down the path to the road. ‘They’ve got sensors all over the place. Either I call my security guys and tell them you’re coming out or I walk you down and they watch. They’ve given me four guys, two cars twenty-four/seven on the street to keep the CIA Director safe. I can’t take a piss without it going on my record.’
Harry noted cameras rigged high on the lampposts.
He pressed the key to unlock his car. Orange light from his lamps streaked through freshly fallen snow. Ciszewski held the door as he climbed in. ‘Moscow’s playing cat and mouse games with us. Dynamic Freedom weaves into that.’
TWELVE
Harry left Jane sleeping in his bed to call his ex-wife about Artyom Semenov. The British Ambassador to Moscow listened without interruption. ‘If the Brits want skin in this game, Steph, this is your chance. You bring him in.’
The British were good on Russia. Harry could send in trusted freelancers who knew Moscow. But they wouldn’t have the resources of British agents.
Stephanie took time to formulate her thoughts. She was on her second ambassadorial tour in Russia, tasked with either fixing Britain’s fractious relationship or exposing enough weaknesses to break the regime. Harry and Stephanie had become used to working together as if they had never shared a bed and never split up because they should never have gotten together. Marriage and divorce had made them both better people, according to the one time they had shared a marriage counselor. Whatever the hell being a better person meant.
‘The risk is too high,’ Stephanie finally said. ‘We don’t have resources to bring in a man of Semenov’s caliber. I would have to go through London, both King Charles Street and Vauxhall Cross, which contravenes what Frank Ciszewski asked you to do. I also have to ask myself why our American cousins would want to hand someone like Semenov to us on a gold platter. I can’t answer. Can you?’
‘Frank doesn’t buy Merrow’s argument that we can’t risk trouble with Russia because we need help against China. But he can’t do anything right now because of Dynamic Freedom. He asked me to handle it until we know what he’s got.’
‘Coming to the British Ambassador in Moscow isn’t—’
‘I know, Steph. But it’s too big for private.’
‘Is Frank aware?’
‘He might guess.’
‘Then why doesn’t he come directly? Why throw it back to you?’
‘He doesn’t want a paper trail.’
‘Frank can’t fart without a memo. Why break a habit of a lifetime and go memo-free with Harry Lucas?’
‘Suppose you don’t bring Semenov in as such,’ suggested Harry. ‘Suppose he walks into the embassy. Once inside, you debrief. He’s yours. You own him and his secrets, and your call on how it’s shared.’
‘I still love you, Harry.’ Stephanie gave a short laugh. ‘The big picture guy, unperturbed by the thousand nails that shred footfalls along your fantastical glittering pastures.’
It took a second for Harry to work out Stephanie’s tangled imagery, which he concluded was positive. ‘Is it a go?’
‘It’s a discussion. First scenario, Semenov’s a whistle-blower. Not a defector. The Russians don’t know. He’s experienced, trusts Carrie, his sister’s daughter, wants to do the business, then go back and get on with his life.’
‘The second?’
‘He’s a defector. He comes to the embassy. We’re obliged to get him out of Russia. He can’t stay here like another bloody Assange and we have to assume the Russians know.’
‘He’s made it to vice-admiral. He’ll know how to duck and weave.’
‘Russian navy vice-admirals don’t just walk unannounced into embassies of NATO countries.’
Harry didn’t disagree with her, but he wanted to maintain momentum. Stephanie was the only daughter of a South London used-car dealer who had been raised forging vehicle documents and went on to use her looks and brains to make her first million in the chaos of post–Berlin Wall Russia. ‘Let’s speculate the second scenario,’ he said. ‘Semenov does want to defect. He is a high-value asset. Everyone wants a slice. You have him. Then what?’
‘We get him out. Airports and ports would be out of the question.’
‘Land border.’
‘First choice would be through Storskog in Norway.’
‘Not Finland?’
‘Finland is not in NATO. Norway has better protection. The thirty-kilometer visa-free agreement means the Norwegians could put people inside Russia once Semenov is close enough. I deliver him to the Russian side of the border. You get him through. That way he stays within Moscow station, keeps it away from London, and Britain gets her slice.’
‘Is that a deal, Steph?’
‘I’ll get back to you.’
Harry ended the call. He went to the bedroom. Jane was awake, bed covers up to her chin, hands behind her head, staring up at the high ice-white ceiling. She was eighteen years younger, Harry’s first generational gap affair and he hadn’t been good at it. He had been attracted to Jane as an outsider, an ornithologist, specializing in tropical birds. She was refreshing, new and brimming with enthusiasm and youth. But with all that was going on, it had been a mistake to ask her back tonight.
She flicked her gaze towards him,
then angrily back to the ceiling. ‘You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?’ she said.
Harry stood at the end of the bed, like a visitor. ‘I’m working. Can I get you—’
‘I understand. It takes time for feelings to pass. I get that. I’m not stupid. But if we love each other we can work it through.’ She propped her head on her hand, looked at him and looked away again. ‘What are you doing this time of the morning? Locking yourself away, talking to her all the time. A lot of men can never let go. I can understand if you let me.’
Harry lifted her denim jeans and blue top that hung over a chair and laid them on the bed. He picked up her underwear from varnished teak floorboards, ‘Sorry it hasn’t worked out, Jane. I really am.’ He was about to say I should have known I couldn’t give you what you wanted, but it sounded like a bad line from a movie.
‘You’ve never had feelings for me, have you? Just say it, Harry. Be brave. Be a man for once and say it.’
‘I never had feelings for you.’ Harry wasn’t sure what feelings entailed. Complete trust. Unequivocal love. Total control. Ownership.
She threw off the covers, flipped her hair so it fell half down her back and half over her breasts. ‘So, you fuck off to your work and I’ll go get on with my life.’ She stood up, her unclothed body bathed in soft ceiling light as if to show Harry what he would be missing. His phone vibrated with a call from Stephanie. He left and took the call. ‘Guarantee that Semenov isn’t tailed,’ she said. ‘Ensure Moscow doesn’t know we have him and yes, Harry, we have a deal.’
‘Done,’ he replied, knowing that in the world of intelligence nothing could be guaranteed.
THIRTEEN
Washington, DC
Rake walked into the hotel bar in the Holiday Inn Hotel on Rhode Island Avenue and Mikki said, ‘There’s a general looking for you. Says he’ll be back.’
The bar was functional, plain, and near-empty, which suited Rake fine. The less glitz the more he liked a place. There was a wiry Hispanic guy washing glasses, a hulk of a black guy with a vacuum cleaner working the dining room next door, and Mikki with a beer, on one of the dark faded pink stools that lined the bar.
‘Was it about Norway?’ Rake took a stool next to Mikki, who said to the barman, ‘He’ll have a Bud.’
‘I asked him that and he looked at me blankly, but he must have known we came from Norway, knew who we were and where we were.’
Rake laid his phone on the bar showing the clearest picture he had of the marking cut into the severed ear. ‘Been trying to work out what it is. Any idea?’
‘It’s something, Rake, but God knows what.’ Mikki examined the small round patch in the outer ear, dirtied with blood, but a distinct line following the contours, could be a full circle, could be just a short curve. He ran his finger around his own ear. ‘Damn thing’s got ridges and dips.’
Rake enlarged the picture. ‘There’s a line at right angles to the curve.’
Mikki narrowed his eyes and peered. ‘Looks like a frigging ice pick. Could be a million things. Not our job anymore.’
A Pentagon car had brought them to the hotel, a few minutes’ walk from the Center for Political and Global Studies where Rake was speaking. A full-dress uniform had been sent to his room. Somewhere deep inside the Pentagon were people deciding how Rake Ozenna should look, what he should say, and who he was. Media advisors had told him to get rid of his buzz cut because it gave him a bullish, hostile look. He now had neatly trimmed black hair. They told him a soldier needed to have a good family story. Rake argued that his family skills were rusty, if they had ever existed at all. He hadn’t really known his mother and father, had no siblings, just orphaned kids he had grown up with. Rake had made best efforts with relationships, even been engaged to be married, but shit got in the way and no sensible woman with ideas about children and a settled home would give Rake Ozenna a glance. The army was undeterred. Families had fragmented like broken vases on redeployments from Iraq and Afghanistan. They used Rake’s lack of family as a story of its own. How to pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and keep walking.
The Pentagon had sent through talking points for his panel, familiar jargon, insurgent marginalization, counter-ideology, population-centric, as if the more syllables in a word the more credible it would be. Rake showered, changed, checked that Carrie had not replied to his message, decided against sending another, called to check in with his adoptive father, Henry Ahkvaluk, on Little Diomede, and headed to join Mikki at the bar.
Rake closed his phone. Mikki was right. He was intrigued by Norway, but he needed to shut it out of his mind. He curled his fingers around his cool glass of Bud. ‘Did you get the general’s name?’
‘General Jim Whyte, US Marines.’
‘Is it me or both of us he’s looking for?’
‘Said I would need to leave because you and he would be having a private discussion. Hope that don’t mean we might not be hitting those bars in Miami.’
‘We might not, anyway.’
Mikki gave Rake a thin, curious smile. ‘Don’t tell me: Carrie called. You’re getting married and I’m your best man.’
‘Even better,’ said Rake. ‘I spoke to Henry, told him we were back from Europe. Turns out he’s gotten Ronan into an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, asked if we could be there for him.’
Ronan was another of Henry’s adopted sons, around twenty years old, no one knew his exact age. Ronan didn’t want the army. He had a skill in carving walrus tusk. Rake had been paying for his college. A couple of other youngsters from the Diomede and settlements around were getting drawn into the trade because of Ronan. Rake and Henry had started a company to sell the carvings. Mikki wanted no part of it.
‘Jesus, Rake.’ Mikki rolled his eyes. ‘You know how I hate this shit. Have us carve an animal, call us Native Americans, plaster us with a sheen of goodness, and everything will be wonderful.’
‘This is different.’ Rake took a long, measured drink of his beer. It hit the back of his throat perfectly. ‘Ronan’s got a thirty-seven-inch tusk. One of the biggest. Nine and half inches in diameter. It’s intact, beautiful, and curved like a hammock. The boy’s a genius. He’s carved it like one of those Indian erotic pieces with everyone fucking everyone, walrus, seal, bear, humans, Russians, Americans all entwined.’
‘You have a photo?’
‘Nope. Needs to be kept secret until it’s unveiled. But here’s the selling point. He’s built a glass showcase framed from walrus penis bone.’
Mikki chuckled.
‘The people in Chicago had never heard of a penis bone,’ Rake continued. ‘They don’t know a lot of mammals have them. That’s the draw. The penis bone brings in the crowds because they think sex. The walrus tusk is the art. Ronan’s created a masterpiece. The top exhibit in this Chicago show on Arctic Native Art.’
‘Arctic, not American Native—’
‘Correct.’
‘The Diomedes ain’t even in the Arctic.’
‘Walrus is. It’s an Arctic tusk.’
‘Arctic is good. They keep calling us Native Americans, but we’re not. We’re Eskimos from the Diomedes and we must never let ourselves forget it.’
Rake was familiar with Mikki’s dogmatism about identity. They had all had unusual childhoods. Henry and his wife Joan had been their only anchors. Things like real family, language, heritage had been tossed about and never settled. Downtime moments like this, Mikki would have a few beers and chase impossible answers. Rake found women a better fix. Warm human flesh, a little talk, no chemical unleashing monsters in the mind. Today Nilla. Yesterday Carrie, although over the past few years, Carrie kept butting into other women’s space.
‘Yes. You’re right. Never forget it.’ Rake softly agreed and was about to talk about Chicago bars when he saw General Jim Whyte striding toward them. Whyte had a long, thin face with cold, marble-gray eyes. He wore a jungle camouflage uniform, tunic sleeves neatly rolled above the elbow, a matching cap held l
oosely in his right hand and brown leather bag hooked over his shoulder. He ignored Mikki and said, ‘Major Raymond Ozenna?’
Rake nodded.
Whyte showed his room tag to the barman. ‘Charge whatever these gentlemen have had to my room.’ His gaze shifted through to the empty dining room. ‘We’ll move to one of those tables.’
Mikki stayed. Rake followed Whyte past a water cooler and through an arch to a dull empty dining area with tables laid for a breakfast. They took a corner table by a stainless-steel buffet counter which had nothing on it.
‘I’m the reason you’re in DC, Major.’ Whyte pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘We’re both speaking on the panel tomorrow about military–civilian operations. You speak for seven minutes and make no direct reference to any operations. Do not mention Norway. In the Q & A, if you don’t know the answer, say you cannot speak for security reasons. Is that clear?’
They could have had this conversation in the morning. Whyte was moving in as if he owned Rake, which he didn’t. Whyte was a US Marine and although many of the public did not realize, the Marines were under US Navy command. Rake’s orders came from the Brigadier of the Alaska National Guard, whose commander-in-chief was the Governor of Alaska, unless the President put it under Federal control, which he hadn’t. In Afghanistan, Rake had been seconded to a unit of the 1st Special Forces Command, an army operation. Paperwork would be underway to have him transferred back to the National Guard or anywhere else. Maybe to Whyte. But as of now Rake hadn’t received any orders.
‘Before your latest deployment, you were assigned to examine vulnerabilities on remote US military bases,’ said Whyte. ‘Is that correct?’
It was, but Rake wasn’t going to say. In Afghanistan, he had tested outlying positions and found gaps that insurgents could use to breach defenses. After that, he was assigned doing similar work on home soil.
Man on Edge Page 6
