by Trevor Scott
Jake was always on edge during meetings like this, since it was tempting to forget that the man across from him was, or had been, and extremely dangerous operative. So, when he saw the man walking toward him with the small dog on the leash, he could see that something wasn’t right.
Ivan simultaneously sensed something out of place.
Pulling their guns in unison, Jake vectored toward the park while Ivan followed him closely.
Then came the familiar cough of silenced guns. Jake shot three times at the man with the dog, his Glock breaking the silence of the night. Ivan shot at the second man as he moved deeper into the darkness of the park.
The two of them found positions behind thick oak trees lining the edge of Bastion Hill Park.
Just as quickly as the shooting had started, the opponents swiftly ran off toward Jake’s hotel and climbed into a waiting car, which sped off to the south. The little dog was last seen running toward the Cathedral dragging its leash.
“What the hell was that?” Jake asked.
Ivan came over and slid his gun back into the holster inside his jacket. Sirens sounded in the distance.
“That was for me,” Ivan said. “The hardliners are trying to silence me. That is why we needed to talk.”
Jake put his gun away, knowing he needed to get out of there in a hurry. “All right,” Jake said. “Time to get the hell out of here. Vilnius.”
“Good luck, Jake.”
He left the Russian alone and walked with purpose to his hotel. Just as he reached the main street in front of the Roma Hotel, police cars echoed their sirens a few blocks away. Jake slipped into the hotel and headed upstairs.
16
Karl had been in a deep sleep in his room at the Roma Hotel when he startled awake with the sound of what he thought was gunfire. In his underwear, he jumped out of bed and went to the window overlooking the park and the monument across the street.
Then he heard a number of shots again, but he couldn’t pinpoint the location. His mind went immediately to his father. He hurried and shoved on his pants—his dad’s pants actually. Then he threw on a T-shirt and found the gun his dad had given him, slipping that into the holster inside his waistband on his right hip.
He started for the door but stopped. If it was his father and he showed up out of nowhere without communications, Jake could shoot him, thinking he was an enemy and not a friend. Now he simply paced around the room illuminated only by the light seeping in from the bathroom.
Karl glanced out the window again and saw a couple of men running and getting into a car on the street below. Then that car burned rubber taking off. But seconds later it slowed to a normal pace. His eyes shifted across the street to the edge of the park. Lingering in the shadows was a lone figure. A woman. But she wasn’t responding like an average citizen who had just heard gunfire. She was interested. Not afraid.
Now he could hear sirens coming from the opposite direction. His eyes concentrated on the scene below and he then saw what he thought was his father walking casually across the street. His heart went from wildly out of control to mildly relieved.
He thought about his relationship with his father, which had been almost non-existent in the past two years since his mother’s death. But Karl didn’t blame his father for that. Jake had been busy working various cases around the world and living somewhere in Italy with his German girlfriend. And Karl himself had been busy in the Army, deployed to countries in the Middle East and now the Baltics. No, there was nobody to blame. It was what it was.
Karl turned when he heard the electronic lock on the door click and then his father slipping through and locking the door behind him.
Jake was surprised to see Karl awake. “What are you doing up? I thought you’d be sleeping until noon.”
Moving closer to his father, Karl took in the familiar odor of gunpowder. Then he noticed something. “I heard what I thought was gunfire.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “You heard right.”
“Your leather jacket,” Karl said. “There’s a hole in the left sleeve.”
Jake looked at his arm and said, “Damn it. Another good jacket messed up. Alexandra bought this one for me in Rome.” He took off his jacket and put his finger into the hole. “I’ve got a guy in Calabria who can fix this.”
“Do you get a lot of bullet holes in your jackets?” Karl asked.
“Bullet holes, knife slashes, puncture wounds,” Jake said. “Leather slows down a lot of bad shit. This is one of my summer weight leather coats. Buy them a little big so you can conceal your handguns.”
Karl sat on the edge of his bed and clicked on a table lamp. “You gonna tell me what the hell just happened?”
Jake removed his holster and set his gun on his bed. Then he checked on the status of his gun, replacing a partial magazine with a full one. He reached into his bag and found a box of ammo and latex gloves, replacing those bullets he had just used, topping off his magazine.
“Does this happen to you a lot?” Karl asked.
Looking up, Jake said, “What?”
“Shoot ‘em ups in random Baltic cities.”
Putting the box of ammo back in his bag, Jake said, “There’s nothing random about this, Karl.”
“What’s going on?”
His father looked hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure if he should trust his own son. It was more likely, though, that Jake wasn’t used to confiding in others. At least not since leaving the CIA.
Finally, Jake sat on his own bed. “I had a meeting set up here in Riga by a former associate in the Agency. It was with a man I knew from the former KGB. A man who eventually ascended to the SVR deputy director level in the external counter-intelligence directorate.”
“Holy crap,” Karl said.
“Right.”
“And he tried to kill you?”
Jake shook his head. “Not exactly. Two other guys took some pot shots at us with silenced guns.”
Karl considered this carefully, but it wasn’t making much sense to him. “Who set up the meeting?”
“That’s not important. I trust him.”
“And the Russian?”
Pointing directly at Karl, Jake said, “Only trust a Russian so far.”
“Who was the Russian?”
“A guy named Ivan Bragin. The only reason I trust this guy is because he trusts me. I saved his life at that very location before you were born, during the height of the Cold War.”
Karl was confused. “But you were enemies then.”
“How do I explain it,” Jake said. “This was the Soviet Union back then. I was here to bring back a West German weapons developer who had gone missing in Berlin. I found out the guy had been brought to Riga by a brutal Stasi operative. It turned out the East German Stasi officer had been working outside the control of the KGB, and was planning on selling this weapon to an Iranian general. It’s very complex. Anyway, to make a long story short, the KGB and the CIA actually worked together on that case. I could have been kicked out of the country, but Ivan Bragin fought to have me stay. I saved him from getting killed by the East German and his men. He was like the lion with the thorn.”
“And now he wants to help you?” Karl asked.
“Something like that.”
Karl let out a deep breath. “Jesus, that’s crazy. I always guessed that the CIA and KGB were mortal enemies.”
“We were, Karl. But when we had a mutual interest, there was professional courtesy and cooperation. Well, it was more like they wouldn’t do anything to fuck with us in the process of achieving our objective.”
“Professional courtesy?”
“It’s like in the Army when you capture someone on the battlefield. True professional armies don’t summarily execute those captured. They treat their enemy with dignity and respect, for they are only doing their duty for their country. You should never try to hate your enemy. You do everything to defeat them, but if you make them inhuman, you could lose your soul.”
“What did this Russian want with you
?” Karl asked.
Jake hesitated, obviously considering his options. “He had a warning for me. These new Russians in power are trying to prove something, wanting to return to an ideal that never existed.”
“A new Soviet Union?”
“That’s right.”
“We’ve been briefed on that,” Karl said.
“Well, this Russian, Ivan Bragin, has just confirmed what we’ve all been thinking.”
“Do you trust him? After all, he was in charge of their clandestine service.”
“He’s got no reason to lie to me, Karl. He’s pissed off at the direction his country has taken. There’s no professional courtesy with these new Russians. You saw that tonight. They shoot first and simply walk away.”
“More like scurry away,” Karl said. “I saw the two men get into a car on the street below. And then there was the woman.”
Jake looked up quickly. “Woman?”
“Yeah. Right across the street just inside the park next to a thick tree. She watched the men get into the car and drive away. But she didn’t seem concerned or scared. She simply drifted into the darkness of the park.”
“Did you see me?” Jake asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Did she see me?”
“Possibly. Why?”
Jake quickly turned off the light, closed the door to the bathroom, and went to the window to peer around the edge of the curtain. Only the street lights shone in on them now.
Moving next to his father, Karl said, “What is it?”
“I can’t believe I missed that woman.”
“With that line of trees along the park on both sides, she had the angle to see you, but there would be no way you could see her.”
Jake looked back again and said, “Perhaps. She was either with the shooters or following the shooters. Now we have an unknown.”
Karl had heard many stories about his father over the years from his aunt, who had acted as his mother for all those years as he grew up. She had never disparaged him, but had simply said that the man, his father, had been a dedicated warrior, whose love of country was more acute than his ability to love others. Now Karl wasn’t sure that was the case. He guessed few knew the real Jake Adams. But he guessed his real mother knew. And Karl had to believe that Jake loved her.
17
Jake didn’t get a lot of sleep that night. Too much had gone on in the past twenty-four hours. Still, he had slept in as long as possible before finally getting up and taking a shower. His son had already showered and was watching TV news on a Russian/English propaganda channel.
“Anything interesting there?” Jake said, toweling off his short hair one last time before throwing the towel back into the bathroom. He was wearing only his underwear.
Karl looked at him with concern. “What are all of those marks?”
He had forgotten about most of his wounds. But he went through pointing out bullet and knife wounds he had gotten over the life of his career.
“Jesus,” Karl said. “Why are you still alive?”
Jake found a T-shirt that was only partially used according to the sniff test, and pulled that over his head. “A little luck,” he said.
“More like a lot of luck,” Karl remarked.
Sitting on his bed, Jake pulled his pants on, stood up and buttoned them to his waist. “You probably don’t know this about your mother, Toni, but she had a few scars of her own.”
“My mom, or aunt, told me she was highly decorated, but she never told me about any injuries.”
Jake lifted his shirt and pointed at a scar on his right abdomen. “I was shot here and your mom took a bullet to the left shoulder on the same mission. She was one tough woman.”
“I wish I could have known her more.”
“I knew her better than most, Karl. She was a wonderful woman.”
“Why did she give me up to her sister?”
“For your protection. Every operation she went on was dangerous. It put her life in danger, and yours, if the bad guys knew about any family.”
Jake checked his watch and knew they had to get going to make their meeting.
“Where are we going?” Karl asked.
“S.A.B.”
Karl shrugged.
“The Constitution Protection Bureau of the Republic of Latvia. Otherwise known as Satversmes Aizsardziras Birojs.”
Jake slung his gun over his shoulders and covered that with his leather jacket.
“Why there?”
“You’ve been working for a man who looks like a mad scientist, right?”
Karl laughed. “Unofficially, on temporary duty.”
“Right. Well that man, Anthony Paitrick, is in Riga. Which is also why I brought you here for your debrief.”
They checked out of the Roma Hotel at exactly 11 a.m. Then the two of them walked into the Old Town. They each bought a few dark T-shirts, an extra pair of pants, underwear and socks. Karl picked up a black duffle bag to hold his stuff. Then they headed west and crossed the Daugava River.
Once they got to the far side of the river, Karl stopped and pulled on his father’s arm. “I’ve noticed you stopping periodically at seemingly random moments. You’re checking our six, right?”
“Yes. And when the two of us stop together like this to speak, you should be casually observing over my shoulder while I check over yours. Anyone not knowing what to look for would just see two men stopping to talk with each other. Did you notice our tail?”
Karl’s eyes shifted around.
“Don’t be so obvious,” Jake said. “Your eye contact should be on me.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
“I mean, I see her. Back on the bridge. She’s wearing the same coat as last night—a black leather material, just covering her butt. Slim yet fit woman. Mid-thirties. Dark curly hair.”
“Is she still walking toward us?”
“No. She stopped on the bridge looking down at the water.”
Jake pulled out his phone, pretending to talk with someone. As he did so, he twisted around and got a better look at the woman. Then Jake looked down at his phone and texted his old friend, Kurt Jenkins.
“All right,” Jake said. “Let’s go to our meeting. We’re supposed to be there at noon.”
“It’s twelve fifteen,” Karl said.
They walked toward a street crossing.
“I know. But we needed those clothes and we couldn’t take a taxi to SAB headquarters. My guess is that the brunette works for them.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She’s wearing their uniform. Black from top to bottom with sensible shoes. Also, she looks very athletic.”
“Who did you just text?”
“An old friend. He’ll clear us into SAB.”
A second later and Jake got a text. He looked and it said that he had already been cleared to enter.
In a couple of blocks they wandered into a non-descript building that could have been either a government office or a foreign bank. When they got to a security area, Jake showed the man his passport. He checked on a list and saw Jake’s name recently entered. Karl could have been a problem, since he didn’t have his passport. He had left it behind before the operation in Narva the night he was taken by the Russians. But the security man checked his screen, scrutinized Karl carefully, and waved the two of them through. Of course they set off the metal detectors with their weapons, but the security officer just nodded his head for them to continue through.
As they got onto the elevator, Jake glanced back and saw the brunette woman at the security desk speaking with the two men there.
The two of them rode the elevator alone to the top floor.
“They could have jacked our asses up with these guns,” Karl said. “You must have friends in high places.”
Jake put his finger to his lips. “Assume you are being video and audio recorded.” He waved at a camera in the corner.
When they exited the elevator, they came upon a
n older receptionist that could have been a hold-over from the old KGB. She gave them both a brutal stare and simply waved her head for them to continue through double doors.
Inside, a gaunt man with a morose expression came to them dressed in a nice gray suit and shook each of their hands in the center of the office. His cold skinny fingers were near skeletal to Jake.
“Oskars Liepa, SAB director,” the man said. Then he looked at Karl and said, “You are the American taken by the SVR recently.”
Karl glanced at Jake and then back to the Latvian, but he said nothing one way or the other.
Jake bailed his son out. “Let’s just say that the Russians might have overplayed their hand a bit.”
“There is a lot of that going around right now,” the SAB director said. “We are all a bit on edge.”
Perfect opening, Jake thought. “Is that why you have your officer tailing us?”
The Latvian narrowed his thin brows toward his long nose. “Excuse me?”
Jake put his hand up to about his eyes and said, “About this high. Dark curly hair. Not unattractive in a sort of athletic body. Black leather jacket down to a nice soccer player’s butt.”
The director held back a smile. He went to his desk and said something in Latvian to his secretary through his intercom.
Seconds later the woman in question came through the office door and stood quite erect.
“We call it football here,” the SAB director said. “And she is a former Olympic biathlete.” Then he introduced her as Zaiga Ulmanis.
Jake and Karl shook her hand. She was very strong. But unlike her boss, she was actually able to smile. Jake found her much more attractive up close. Perhaps she was not on edge as much in the privacy of this office.
The SAB director came back to the center of the room, stared at Jake, and said, “Zaiga says that you got into a little shootout last night by the Freedom Monument.”
Jake looked at the younger woman, who seemed icy at this moment. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Finally, the woman spoke up and said, “You are not in trouble, sir.” Her English was nearly perfect, with just enough accent to make her even more attractive.
