Long Shot

by Sgt. Jack Coughlin

  “Yes,” confirmed Alan Kiuru, with a satisfied look. “Early birds out catching worms. What happened to your face?”

  The DSS agent’s right eye socket and cheek was a pattern of yellow, black and purple, and his lip had been cut. “My son and I were doing mixed martial arts last night,” he explained.

  The inspector laughed. “Your son is four years old.” She flicked her eyes back to Swanson. I know the family.

  “He got lucky. I’ll get him next time.”

  “I would like to stand here and learn more of that assault, but we are in a hurry right now. We will see you later today, I’m sure. Please say hello to all of my friends over at the embassy.” They stepped aboard the elevator, which had not yet closed its doors. She waved. He waved back.

  The trolley was now in the room, and Swanson signed the chit and the bellman left. James asked what the hell was going on.

  Swanson poured two cups of the hot liquid and took his own over to the bed, where he sat down. “That bitch just dropped by to throw me out of their damned country.”

  James picked up his cup, and the dainty china looked tiny is his hand. He remained standing, his eyes and brain busy absorbing the events of the past few minutes. “Watch your mouth, and don’t call Rikka a bitch, Swanson. She’s a friend. And she is also the best counterterrorism investigator in Supo, and Kiuru is a rising star. If those two came by, the expulsion order came from the top.”

  Kyle fluffed a pillow, lay back and sipped the dark coffee as he thought. “Yeah. She’s no dumb flatfoot. I got that. She ripped through my cover like a paper shredder. Fuck Finland.”

  Lem James picked his cell phone from a pocket. “You get ready to go while I alert our powers-that-be over at the embassy that our Finny friends are acting weird. You know that in one town over here, they have an annual Carry-Your-Wife Contest?”

  Swanson went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. Before closing the door, he called out, “And I think their light-roast coffee sucks!”

  * * *

  “OF ALL THE EMBASSIES in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine.” Bob Carver, the State Department’s regional security officer at the American legation, massaged his temples with his fingertips. His poor Humphrey Bogart impression from Casablanca came from being saddled with a Russian defector who was creating storm waves in the normally placid Helsinki diplomatic pond. The guy hadn’t said anything yet and people were already asking questions.

  Swanson was beside Carver, looking through a one-way glass into an interview room where a man was sitting alone, at ease, and looking back at what was only a reflection. He was about six-feet-tall, slim, clean-shaven and with neatly styled, soft, coal-black hair. The blue eyes were amplified a bit by modern no-rim glasses that perched on a knife of a nose, accentuating the high cheekbones. The mouth was narrow, but not in bitterness. He carried an air of both confidence and competence. He was in a gray crewneck sweater over jeans, with nice shoes, not boots.

  “Tell me again about how he came in,” Swanson instructed. “Step by step.”

  “We had opened the doors of the consular section, which is separate from the embassy itself, as usual on Monday morning. There is a local law security post outside, but they do not interact with visitors unless there is some problem. In this case, there wasn’t. This guy looks just like a lot of others, and he blended in without a problem.”

  “How far did he get?” Kyle knew the drill, since he had worked at several embassies while he was in the Corps.

  “As I was saying, he went through the outer door and got to the public area, which has a few chairs. He didn’t sit down, but went straight into the hard line. At that point, we have regulation private security behind bulletproof glass, with a Marine in a booth, like a teller at a bank drive-through.”

  Kyle understood without being told that that was where things began to get strange. Had the visitor been seeking a simple visa or some other routine piece of business, he would have been buzzed through the barrier, walked through a metal detector and allowed into the secure area to wait in line with others. Not this one.

  “So this dude asks the guard, ‘Can I speak to you privately?’ and the Marine shoos away the civilian security man. When they are alone, he announces, ‘I wish to speak to someone in your intelligence section. I wish to defect,’ and he slides over his ID card.” Carter folded his arms and rocked on his heels, glowering at the man in the other room.

  “The Marine takes one look at the credentials and almost has a heart attack. The cards said that he is a colonel in the GRU.”

  Kyle agreed that would be enough to give pause to anyone having duty at the barrier. GRU was the acronym for the Glavnoye Razedyvatel’noye Upravleniye, which was Russian military intelligence. It was only good training that kept the Marine corporal from betraying his surprise or soiling his pants. Instead, the guard politely asked our unusual visitor to have a chair while he made a quick call up the stovepipe and asked a CIA type in the consular office to come down. That guy almost had a bowel problem himself when he met Ivan Strakov.

  “They took him through the hard line and the rover Marine handcuffed and searched him and put him in that very room we are looking at right now. The higher-ups were notified. Strakov remained cool all the way, obviously familiar with the routine. He identified exactly who he was, who he worked for, who his boss was and a taste of what he has in his head.”

  “Which is?” Kyle asked.

  “The organizational chart and layout of a Russian army artillery regiment that moved into the Crimea last week. His recitation was amazing, right down to food- and fuel-consumption estimates for the next three months.”

  “Interesting information, then, and not just bullshit?” Kyle wanted a professional judgment.

  “It is more than interesting, Swanson. It is an intelligence diamond because Moscow denies the regiment is there at all. We got busy with the physical proof and recognition factors, and he even volunteered some DNA. The conclusion was that he is the real deal.”

  Carver huffed and glanced over at Kyle. “When we told him we were satisfied with his identity, that’s when he bombed us with the demand that he would talk only with you; the only American he really trusted. Can you make a physical identification to back up the numbers?”

  Swanson had recognized the Russian on sight. He was some years older than the last time they had been together drinking longneck beers in a cowboy bar, but Ivan was no longer a kid in any way. More than a soldier, too, he looked like a successful hedge fund manager on a day off, and there was obvious arrogance running in his veins. He was fully aware of his importance, and would not sell his goods cheaply.

  “And he wants to defect.”

  “Yes. That’s what he said.”

  Swanson paused. “What’s the plan from here?”

  “He goes out tonight to Washington as part of the diplomatic pouch, aboard the same Gulfstream that brought you in.” Carver spread his hands on his wide hips. “I’ll be glad to be rid of him.”

  “That works for me, since I’m being expelled tomorrow morning anyway. I’ll get what I can in the meantime, then we both wash our hands of him. Also, the sooner the better for our Helsinki pals, eh?”

  “Swanson, I am no genius, but I’ve been in this game a very long time, and I think this guy is going to be big. He has nothing to do with Finland, nothing at all, other than turning up on our doorstep like a baby in a basket. He had to start somewhere, and he chose us, and maybe you will find out why. Do not trust him. Don’t trust any defector.”

  “Of course not.”

  “All of that personal data, you know? The DNA and the fingerprints and the background that proves he is absolutely who he says he is? There is one thing that still puzzles me.” Carver shoved his hands into his back pockets, a movement that made his belly bulge against his belt. The basset-hound eyes turned fully to Kyle.

  “And that is?”

  “That same sort of foolproof material was also used a few w
eeks ago, and delivered results that were just as positive. It proved that, without a doubt, Colonel Ivan Strakov sitting over there in the next room is dead.”

  5

  THE METAL DOOR SET in a metal frame was the color of milk and had an electric lock. It opened only when a five-digit code was punched into a numeric pad on the outside. There was no knob inside the square fifteen-by-fifteen room. Kyle pushed through after a DSS agent tapped his security number, and the door opened with a dull thunk.

  The Russian was on his feet, facing the door, as if some vibe had alerted him. The room was soundproof and the mirrored window was unbreakable. Audio and visual recorders were monitoring every sound and movement. Recessed fluorescent lights were behind metal grates in the white ceiling, while the floor was concrete, layered with a thick epoxy that would not chip. The walls were as thick as those of a castle.

  “Hello, Gunny.” The voice was controlled and revealed no discomfort, despite what had to be a mental storm raging inside the defector’s brain.

  “Hello, Ivan. Or should it be ‘Hello, Colonel Strakov’?” Then, in a calculated bit of tradecraft to break the ice, Swanson extended his hand and the GRU officer shook it. The grip was warm and dry, and the gaze was steady, giving no sign of nervousness. “It has been awhile, hasn’t it?”

  The Russian officer’s face surrendered a bit of a smile that was more amusement than sincerity, for he knew how the game was played. He had interrogated many men and women, at times using what the Americans quaintly called enhanced techniques. Feigned friendship was also an effective ploy. Nevertheless, he was truly glad to see Swanson again. Not only did it mean the Americans had caved in to his first demand, but he really did hold a reluctant personal admiration for the sniper. “I am very pleased to see you again, Gunny.”

  “Word has it that you are dead, Ivan.” Swanson moved to a chair and sat down. “A plane crashed in Lake Baikal, way the hell up in Siberia. Two people were aboard, you being one of them. That seems a little peculiar to me.”

  Ivan replied with a line from a Robert Service poem about strange things being done in the land of the midnight sun.

  “We have been here less than a minute, and already you’re spouting poetry. Screw that. Explain the crash.”

  The Russian crossed his legs. “Yes, I had been scheduled to fly to Irkutsk for an inspection aboard a small military aircraft that most unfortunately crashed in Lake Baikal. At the last moment, I could not make the flight and therefore sent the plane on without me, telling the pilot I would catch up with him later. My name remained on the flight manifest, my schedule stated I was to be aboard, and there was a substantial amount of additional evidence to prove that I was going to that barren place. The trip had been a month in the planning. As you know, Baikal is the deepest freshwater lake in the world, more like an ocean, and when the plane went down, the wreckage sank without a trace. It was most unfortunate.”

  “In other words, you set it up.”

  “I required a bit of misdirection, Kyle. You appreciate that in evasion and escape. Without my GRU colleagues hunting me, it would be less difficult to travel in the opposite direction, say, for instance, to the American embassy in Helsinki.”

  “You murdered the pilot.”

  “That is merely a technical term. I needed it to serve the greater good. So what? What is your point, Sniper?”

  Swanson looked steadily at the Russian. There was no need to get into the morality of killing, or arguing the finer points of death, on orders versus deliberate and personal. The colonel was in custody, across the table from him in a locked room and the only real question was: Why? Not the moment yet to ask that outright, Kyle decided, and changed the topic.

  “Last time we were together, Ivan, you were just a punk sergeant in the naval infantry. Now you are a colonel. Tell me about that magic carpet of promotions.”

  “That is thanks to you, Kyle. When you flunked me out of the program, you ended my career as a sniper and advised me to find some other way to serve my country. Within a few months, I had put down my rifle and volunteered for military intelligence. I did not have a college, but knew that I was pretty smart, Kyle, always good with numbers and computers and techie stuff. After a lot of testing, they discovered not only that I had an off-the-charts IQ, but that I also was an eidetiker, which means that my memory is almost photographic. They were so happy that they started me as a captain.”

  Swanson was quiet for a moment, trying to reconcile the scatterbrained young Russian he had known with the certified genius he was interviewing. “Still, your age does not fit your rank, Ivan. That makes us think that there is something else going on with this so-called defection.” Strakov was a sergeant in his late twenties when they were on the range, but the official record had him graduating a few years later from the Moscow Military Institute of the Federal Security Service, coming out as a lieutenant colonel. Then the blank, dark years of his work within the GRU and back to school at the Academy of the General Staff, graduating as a full colonel. A general’s star was surely on the horizon. It reminded Kyle Swanson somewhat of his own recorded history, which painted a picture with a lot of parts missing.

  The colonel shook his head. “There are official records and then there are nonofficial records; just as there are riflemen, so must there be fighters in higher ranks.” Ivan dodged the question with a stanza from “The Scythians”:

  We shall ourselves no longer be your shield,

  no longer launch our battlecries;

  but study the convulsive battlefield

  from far off through our narrow eyes!

  “So you became a spy. One more damned poem and I walk out.”

  “No. I ran the spies.” Strakov shifted his position again. “Look, Kyle, all of this is unnecessary. The CIA is going to wring me dry, and I will spill my guts willingly. I hate what is happening to Russia, and it’s up to people like me to stop the slide in any way possible—including defecting to you guys.”

  “You are still arrogant, Ivan. What makes you think you have anything that we don’t already know?”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. There are two names with which everyone in the modern intelligence world is familiar—Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and your renegade NSA computer whiz Edward Snowden.” Strakov rose and took a few slow steps to face the big mirror, knowing that more Americans were watching from behind the glass. “That is the level on which I have come to play. I have spent several years planning this personal exodus, Kyle. You and your people should consider me a Snowden from the other side.” He smiled genially into the mirror and said, “I’m going to rock their world.”

  Swanson got up and stretched, then took his time finding a place to lean against the thick wall. He was really happy that all of this was being recorded on video and audio. “Why me?”

  The Moscow spymaster turned to face him, falling smoothly into a professorial mode. “The first step was to make my escape. That has been accomplished. Next I have to prove that I have information that is worthwhile.”

  “You already gave up some material about some artillery regiment in the Ukraine, right? More of that kind of thing?”

  The Russian began to slowly pace, with his hands in his pockets, his blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “Not at all. That was nothing. Your satellites would have caught most of that anyway, eventually. No, I wanted Kyle Swanson because I need to send you out on a mission. That’s what I really trust; your ability to get the job done.”

  Kyle barked a laugh. “You want to send me on a mission? No way.”

  Strakov was unruffled and continued. “Oh, you will go. The people in the next room will make that a priority. Right now you are all convinced that I am real and alive, although listed as being dead. Now you will determine if my information has value.”

  “And how are we going to do that?”

  “You take a quick trip, Kyle. Go south, into Finland’s little neighbor of Estonia, and conduct a surveillance of a certain place through your sn
iper eyes. Be as thorough as possible. Then you return and I will explain to you and a committee of experts what you saw. It will only take a few days and there should be no hostile opposition.”

  “Well, Ivan, that won’t work.”

  “Why not? It is a simple in-and-out.”

  “I can’t return to Helsinki, even if I wanted to. I’m being expelled.”

  “No matter. You Americans were going to ship me somewhere else anyway, right? Where?”

  “A safe house, I would guess.” Swanson avoided a direct answer. “I don’t know any of the details.”

  “Right now, they are thinking of putting me somewhere in Maryland or Virginia, a place that is handy to your intel agencies. They can forget that. I will need to be around Belgium or France.”

  “You don’t get to pick and choose, Ivan. It may just be a dark hole on the hard side of Detroit.”

  Strakov continued, as if Kyle had said nothing. “When you return from this mission in Estonia, I predict with great certainty that your people and a lot of others are going to want me close to NATO headquarters in Brussels. Nobody knows where Estonia is right now, Kyle, but in about six months, it will be on everyone’s map. There is a whisper of war in the air.”

  “That’s not another poem, is it?”

  “No,” replied Colonel Strakov. “It’s a promise. Take a powerful scope or binos up to the highest point you can reach in the big castle in the eastern border city of Narva in Estonia, and have a good hard look across the river into Russia. Then come back.”

  “A castle in Estonia?” Kyle cocked an eyebrow.

  “Yes. It was built in the thirteenth century. Now go up in the castle.” Then Ivan clammed up again.

  * * *

  EVERYONE AGREED. THIS had all the ingredients of a terrific video game: A council of elders would decide whether to send a brave warrior on a quest to a spooky old castle in a faraway medieval land to find a magic sword held by a fearsome enemy and save the world. All that was needed was a princess and a dragon.