by Dale Brown
Still, it was a tough crowd, and as they broke up for lunch, Breanna sensed they had lost the pitch. General Magnus pulled her aside as one of Dreamland’s colonels met them and led them toward the executive dining area.
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “It’s a problem with the Sabres. Something similar happened the other day and they thought they had it repaired.”
“I understand. Are you OK?”
“I’m fine.”
“The accident—what happened was similar to what happened to your husband.”
Breanna felt her face turning red.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“You already apologized.”
Breanna felt tears welling in her eyes. She felt bad about how she had left things with Zen.
“I think it’s important to get the Tigershark to the air show,” said Magnus. “But only if this sort of thing isn’t going to happen.”
“The Tigershark itself is fine.”
“OK.”
Magnus started to turn away.
“General—I was wondering,” said Breanna. “What do you think—I wonder if I might tag along with you to the air show?”
“Really? You want to go?”
“Well, Jeff and my daughter are actually going to be there.”
“Oh. Why didn’t you say that? Of course. We can take your family.”
Magnus smiled.
“They already have arrangements. My niece is going as well. They’re leaving tonight. He has to go to the NATO conference.”
“Ah—well then, you probably shouldn’t wait for me. I’m not flying out until Monday night. You’ll miss him.”
“Oh.”
“Go out tonight,” said Magnus.
“By the time I get back East—”
“Boss 12 is going out to Ukraine empty,” said Magnus, referring to an Air Force C–20B used as a VIP transport. “They need a backup in case something happens in Kiev. I’m sure they could arrange a stop in Prague. It is on the way.”
“You think?”
“Well, geography never was my best subject,” said Magnus, struggling to keep a straight face. “But I’m pretty sure it’s in that general direction.”
36
Northeastern Moldova
Nuri drew the task of coordinating with the Moldovan government and the CIA field office in Chisinau, which Reid had called in for support. He left for the capital around noon, planning to meet with the CIA station chief around dinnertime. Danny and Flash continued monitoring the farm, watching and planning how to proceed with the raid.
A car arrived shortly after 9:00 A.M. Two men got out and carried luggage into the house. About a half hour later a taxi drove up and dropped off another man at the roadside, leaving him to walk up the long drive on his own. He went in through the side door facing the garage and disappeared. Another did the same a half hour later. Then another car arrived with two men, just like the first.
Nothing happened for a few hours. Danny flipped back and forth through the feeds from the Predators—both were on station now—sipping the awful but free coffee he’d retrieved from the motel lobby.
He tried to imagine Stoner, constructing an image from his memories as well as the intelligence. Six-foot, stocky, square jaw and yet a slightly hollow face, the face of someone who had walked through a desert.
Physically ‘enhanced’?
There was no clear guidance on what that might mean. The intelligence was vague, based on vaguer reports. The Wolves were physically fit and in extremely good shape—that was a given for any special ops type group, which essentially described what they knew of the operation.
But they were more than that. The implication was that, at a minimum, they were using exoskeleton technology to help them run and lift things. And that the technology was more advanced than what anyone else, including the U.S., was using, since it hadn’t been detected.
Which in Danny’s view was highly unlikely.
Even staring at the old pictures, it was hard to see Stoner now. Gray hair? Fuller cheeks?
More than likely he wasn’t here. More than likely he was still at the bottom of that swamp.
Shortly before 1:00 p.m., MY-PID alerted Danny to activity at the back of the farmhouse. Danny hit the hot key on the laptop, bringing up the proper feed just in time to see two figures emerge from the cement stairwell that came out of the basement. Moments later a third and a fourth came out, finally a fifth. They trotted up the steps from the basement, moving around in a haphazard pattern—warming up, Danny thought, like a basketball team.
A sixth figure emerged. The others formed a semicircle around him. They began doing jumping jacks.
It was exactly like a basketball team. Right number, too.
Danny put his finger on the control slider and zoomed to maximum magnification, trying to get close-ups of the faces. He got a partial on one—it was clearly not Stoner.
The man next to him had what looked like the right build. But all he could see was the top of the man’s head. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, with only a small part of his scalp exposed.
“Request facial images,” Danny told the computer. “All subjects.”
The request had to be relayed to the Predator pilot. By the time the aircraft changed its orbit to attempt to see the face, the men had already begun to run around the property. The trees and hills—not to mention the UAV’s altitude—made getting close-ups of the faces very difficult, and the aircraft was only able to obtain two before the men returned to the house via the basement door. Neither man looked like Stoner.
Then again, the images were grainy and obscured by shadows—who could really say?
Flash came in a short time later, while Danny was replaying the warm-up routine.
“You sure we ain’t watching a soccer team?” he asked.
Danny could only shrug.
The farm was quiet for the next several hours. Then, just as dusk began to fall, figures started emerging from the house again. This time it was clear they weren’t an eccentric sports team on retreat—they were in full battle rattle, helmets and vests, rifles and sidearms. They moved over to the large steel building very deliberately, in a combat spread. Once there, they lined up in a close semicircle, waiting as the last figure came out and stepped in front of them.
Danny could easily picture the scene from the ground. He’d done it a hundred times.
OK men. This barn is our target. We infiltrate through the open door. We move through silently to the second floor. This is just to warm up…
Flash leaned forward next to him, watching.
“That’s not Manchester United,” he said.
They switched to the penetrating radar. From above, the image looked like a maze, with rats running through it.
“They firing, you think?” asked Flash. The infrared cameras weren’t picking up any gunfire.
“First time through, probably not,” said Danny. He’d already checked the general layout of the building interior. It didn’t match the building where the NATO meeting was taking place in Kiev. But then again, it looked fairly generic to him.
He keyed up the sensor display on the laptop that revealed electric currents. There were computer hard drives active all through the building. Six were moving—the assault team was equipped with portable computers.
“Gotta be training devices,” said Flash. “Smart helmets. They’re working with a combat information system.”
The group worked through the northern quadrant of the building twice, then reassembled for a third try. There were flashes of heat energy inside the building—flash-bangs. A takedown simulation.
The drill went on for another hour. Then the unit emerged, again one by one. They formed up outside the building, then moved out into one of the nearby fields, heading toward a small cluster of ruins. MY-PID analyzed the team based on the images. They were all between six-four and six-six, seemingly in excellent physical condition as they sprinted up the hill at an under si
xty seconds per four hundred meter pace. Their weight was more of a guess, but MY-PID pegged it at just over 250 pounds apiece.
They were well equipped with what appeared to be Russian weapons—four brand-new AEK–971 assault rifles and a pair of Pecheneg squad-level machine guns. The assault rifles were using scopes the computer had not encountered before. The scopes employed what appeared to be short-range radar as well as the standard infrared. Danny guessed this was some sort of training device; he couldn’t puzzle out any other use for the radar.
Finding out about the gear would be a side benefit from the raid.
“They’re going to take that building there,” said Flash, pointing to the screen as the team split into two groups.
“I don’t know,” said Danny. “That small a force—would you split up like that?”
“Maybe. Three guys is an army, if you got the right three guys.”
But they didn’t circle the area. The groups headed to two different buildings, about a hundred meters apart. They didn’t assault them, though they were careful about getting inside.
The building on the right exploded, gray smoke blossoming on the screen.
The other building followed.
“Look,” said Danny.
A small helicopter materialized from the cloud of smoke that had consumed the first building. It looked like a stripped down Ka–126, a vintage 1960s helicopter still used in Russia for crop dusting and other utility tasks. It had two counterrotating propellers overhead, which allowed it to fly with a double tail rather than a powered rotor. The helo was little more than a metal frame strapped beneath the engine. The bulkhead for the cockpit held two seats forward and a double bench behind. There were six places in total on the benches.
A similar helicopter flew out of the roof of the second cottage. They headed north to a cluster of ruins. The team members jumped from the helo, humping toward a low mound next to a half-buried foundation. Two of them knelt down. It looked to Danny as if they were going to pray. Instead, they lifted part of the ground, revealing a dugout with a pair of SUVs hidden below.
“We didn’t see that,” said Flash. “The radar couldn’t see through the roof. The building looked empty.”
The cottages that had “exploded” were still intact—the roofs had simply opened as smoke grenades went off. The material on the roof was somehow able to deflect the penetrating radar, without revealing that it was doing so.
Not technically impossible, but not easy either.
“We didn’t see it at all,” repeated Flash.
“Yeah,” said Danny. “The question is, what else aren’t we seeing?”
37
Chisinau, Moldova
The CIA officer in charge at Chisinau was Malcolm Gleeb, an old Eastern European hand who had served with the Agency since the Reagan administration. Gleeb greeted Nuri warily. He’d already done considerable legwork, working contacts in the military and national police force as well as contacting the interior minister. But Reid had been purposely vague on details of the operation, and Nuri could tell as soon as he met Gleeb that he was annoyed. Station chiefs could be very territorial, and anyone running an operation within what they perceived to be their domain had to tread gently.
Treading gently wasn’t Nuri’s forte.
“We have an appointment with the interior minister at nine,” Gleeb told Nuri when he picked him up outside the capital’s fanciest business hotel. “He doesn’t know what’s up, but obviously he knows it’s important.”
“The appointment isn’t supposed to be until tomorrow night,” said Nuri. “We don’t want word to get out.”
“The minister is leaving on vacation in the morning,” said Gleeb. “Unless you want to go with him, this is the best we can do. His deputies are not dependable.”
Nuri, who didn’t want to deal with the Moldovans in the first place, folded his arms in front of his chest and said nothing.
“You didn’t check into the hotel, did you?” asked Gleeb.
“No. Why?”
“You have a room?”
“I just got here.”
“I thought so.”
Nuri tightened his arms. He felt as if he was being interrogated. This was his operation, and Gleeb had better ratchet down or he was going to take the guy’s head off, gray hairs and all.
“I suspect you’d like a shower,” said Gleeb. “And a chance to straighten up your clothes. We have enough time. Just.”
“I’m a little hungry, actually.”
“We’ll eat after. If you need a sandwich or something, I’ll find you something at my flat.”
Nuri realized he looked a little rumpled and very possibly did need a shower—the water pressure had been a joke at the motel. Gleeb took him to his residence. The shower was tiny, but the hot water was strong. While he was showering, Gleeb found him a sport coat that came close to fitting.
“Space has been secured on a military base in the northeast, if it’s necessary,” Gleeb told Nuri after he dressed. “My contacts in the state police will cooperate, if there is authorization to do so. It’s up to the minister.”
“Uh-huh.” Nuri adjusted his shirt collar in the small mirror on the bathroom door.
“You don’t really want the Moldovans to help, do you?”
The comment took Nuri by surprise. “Why do you say that?”
“I’d be a very poor agent if I couldn’t tell how unenthusiastic about this you were,” said Gleeb.
“No, I don’t.”
“How long have you been with the Company?”
“Couple of years,” said Nuri.
“You’ll learn. Politics is everything. At every level. Shall we go?”
Nuri resented the I’m-an-old-hand-and-you’ll-learn tone, but there was no question that Gleeb was acting professionally otherwise. Nuri tried to restart the relationship in the car on the way to the minister’s, asking how long Gleeb had been with the CIA. It was a subtle nod toward the older man, without pretending to fawn, which Nuri couldn’t have stomached and Gleeb certainly would have scoffed at.
“I’ve worked with the Company longer than I can recall,” said Gleeb. “I’ve been just about everywhere in Europe. My first assignment was in Moscow. I never looked back.”
He’d become a field agent just before the end of the Cold War, when human intelligence assets—spies—were still the most valued commodity in the business. Gleeb regaled him with stories as they drove, telling of elaborate dinner parties where he and KGB agents vied over contacts and beautiful women.
Mostly the latter, Gleeb confessed.
Nuri had heard these sorts of stories before, but Gleeb’s had just enough of a self-depreciating spin for Nuri to be interested, or at least not bored by them. Gleeb abruptly brought the subject back to the present as they neared the minister’s residence.
“He will be suspicious, but that’s to be expected. I’ve told him you’re working with the UN. I doubt he actually believes that, but he won’t question it.”
“That’s a convenient attitude.”
“Very. Lay out what you need and ask for his cooperation. Let him think it’s up to him.”
The tone grated again. Gleeb was stating the obvious.
“It is up to him,” said Nuri.
Gleeb gave him the most fleeting of smiles.
Nuri guessed, belatedly, that the minister was on the Agency payroll. It would certainly be a subtle arrangement, money coming from some sort of grant to his department or maybe a pseudojob for a family member, but it would be leverage nonetheless.
The arrangement was a mixed blessing as far as Nuri was concerned. While it undoubtedly would make the minister somewhat more compliant, it also meant that he could be bought. Whether the U.S. was the only buyer was an open question.
The minister’s residence overlooked an old castle about a mile outside the capital limits. The castle looked like something out of Frankenstein, dark and ominous, high on a hill.
“That’s their old fami
ly estate,” said Gleeb. “They used to own just about everything you see here.”
“What happened?”
“Communists came in. Not that they would have necessarily kept it anyway. The family fortune was ebbing by the end of the nineteenth century anyway. They went through some harder times, until World War Two. His great-grandfather was a hero of the resistance, and apparently he personally saved some relative of Stalin. Or took the credit for doing so.”
Gleeb made a clicking sound with his mouth; he was wearing dentures, and not particularly well-fitting ones at that.
“That’s the minister’s house on the left,” said the CIA station chief as he took a turn just beyond the castle. “A little different, huh?”
The house was a set of modernistic boxes set into the hillside. Gleeb told him it had been built by a famous European architect for more than three million euros—an enormous sum in Moldova.
No wonder he’s taking money from the CIA, Nuri thought.
A maid met them at the door. A pair of bodyguards stood at the side of the foyer, watching them carefully as they came in. Nuri nodded in their direction without receiving a response.
“The minister is waiting for you in the library,” said the maid in English. “Please.”
The library was a small room to the right of the entry. Two more bodyguards, arms down at their sides, waited near the door. The minister was working at a small desk next to a large bookcase that filled one entire wall of the room. The bookcase, constructed of thick, worn wood, seemed out of place; Nuri wondered if it had been scavenged from the castle.
“Mr. Gleeb, very nice,” said the minister. “I will be with you presently.”
“The minister spent time in London as ambassador for the last government,” Gleeb told Nuri. “He speaks the King’s English. It’s certainly better than mine.”
“Ah, when my guests flatter me, it is time to find them a drink,” said the minister, putting down his pen.
He rose and wagged his finger at the guards, who promptly disappeared.
“Our sherry is passably pleasant,” said the minister, going over to a sideboard. Like the other furniture in the house, it was a sleek, modern affair, made of chrome and lightly colored wood.
