by Trevor Scott
Reluctantly, Jake followed the man outside.
Once they were alone, Paitrick said, “What is going on?”
Jake shrugged. “Hell if I know. I got a text to come to this briefing. I’m here as a courtesy.”
“I understand that. I’m talking about what happened with the Russians last night.”
Was the guy guessing? Perhaps. But he did see Jake talking with Sofia. “What about it? Almost like Riga. Only there we went to see the Russian. Here they came to see us. But they weren’t looking for a conversation.” This wasn’t entirely true. Jake had a feeling the Russians were there to pick up Zaiga to see what she knew about the summit.
“We’ve got this summit covered,” Paitrick said. “I think you can go back to Germany or wherever you hang your hat now.”
“Yeah, I could.” He turned the right side of his head toward the Agency officer. Jake had taken the butterfly strips off, but he still had a nasty scab building under his hair. “But I don’t like getting shot at. Something is going down here. And I intend to find out what that is. Until I get told to back off by someone higher on the food chain than you. Remember, I don’t work for you.”
“What the hell have I ever done to you?”
Jake considered how undiplomatic he wanted to be, and backed off a little from that stance. “I don’t think you have a clue how to run your region. Nor do you understand what you don’t know. It’s one thing to know what you don’t know. In that case you can study to find out things. But it’s another thing entirely to not know what you don’t know. Then you’re never looking for the real truth.”
“That’s not fair,” Paitrick said, with his hands out and palms up. “I’m new to the job.”
Jake moved closer to the man and whispered harshly now. “Listen, I’ve been here just a few days and have had to shoot it out with Russians in all three of the Baltic States. Plus, Mother Russia. You’ll never get the answers you need if you’re afraid to ask the right questions. You need to get your people out from behind their desks and get their damn hands dirty.”
The Agency man seemed to shrivel into himself. Finally, he said, “What do you have planned?”
Backing away a few feet, Jake said, “I don’t know. At my age I thought I’d be either retired or dead. Maybe I’ll just take in a few good restaurants and drink beer. Unless you have something better for me to do.”
Paitrick shook his head. “Nothing I can think of. Can I get your number in case I come up with something?”
Jake smiled and shook his head. “Not a chance. You’ll probably sell my number to telemarketers. My number is more closely held than the Pope’s. If I need you, I’ll call you. But I’m used to not having back up.” He’d been hung out to dry so many times he felt like a beat up towel on a Montana clothes line.
Paitrick left with disgust on his sour puss.
Part of Jake felt like a total dick, but Paitrick had hung Jake’s son out to dry, huddled in the mire of a bog in Russia. That’s what Jake didn’t tell Paitrick.
Jake hung out in the passageway until the briefing was done. Then he had a brief reunion with Hans Vaino and Kadri Kask, before Jake pulled aside his son for a quick talk. While he did so, Sofia and Zaiga spoke with the Estonian officers.
“What’s up. . .Jake?” his son asked.
“Where are you staying?”
“The Radisson Blu,” Karl said. “I’m in with Hans. Kadri is in an adjoining room.”
“That’s a nice place. I’m guessing you are part of the president’s security detail there.”
“That’s the plan. Kind of. He has his own security detail, though. What are you doing here? I heard you killed a guy in Riga and then another couple last night.”
“We didn’t confirm those last night,” Jake said. “They could have been killed by a combination of our gunfire. A lot of lead hit the air.” He glanced across the hallway at Zaiga and Sofia. Then he moved in closer to Karl and whispered, “Listen, Karl. Keep on your toes. There’s some nefarious shit going down in the next couple of days.”
“Like what?”
“This new group of Russians aren’t acting like the old KGB,” Jake said. “They’re much quicker to pull the trigger.”
“Like last night?”
“No. They were coming for Zaiga. Not to kill her, but to capture her. My guess is they think she could give them some last-minute intel on the summit.”
“How’d it go south?”
“They guessed Zaiga was alone, perhaps. Thought they could simply move in and take her. What was not mentioned in the briefing was that one man got away. I put the guy in a sleeper and left him behind. Then I went to help out the ladies. After the shootout, the guy had gotten up and left.”
Finally, Karl gave his dad a critical glare. “Jesus, what the hell happened to your head?”
Jake touched the sensitive scab on the side of his skull. “It’s nothing. I had a few too many to drink last night and slipped on a wet cigarette butt.”
“Right. It looks like a bullet strike.”
“No. A piece of stone at best. Don’t worry about me, Karl. Watch your back. If you need anything at all, you call me. Understand?”
Karl nodded. “What do you plan on doing?”
“I’ve got no agenda or assignment,” Jake said. “But I plan on taking it to those bastards.”
Looking across the hall, Karl said, “But not alone.”
“They know the country and have contacts.”
“Let me help you,” Karl said.
“No. Your mother will haunt me if I put you in danger.”
His son touched his gun hidden behind his jacket on his right hip. “It might not be your choice. . .Jake. I might be joining the Agency soon.”
“You’ve made up your mind?”
Karl shrugged. “I’m getting closer.”
“Hmm. You could come to work for your old man.”
Now Karl laughed. “Seriously? Kurt Jenkins told me what you did recently in Morocco. That’s not exactly a sedate existence.”
“That was an aberration,” Jake said, but even he didn’t believe his own words. “We all got out alive.”
“Luckily. I’ve seen all of your scars.”
“Those are just the visible type,” Jake said. “This whole business can do a number on your soul, Karl. If you came in with me, we could simply take on missing persons or insurance fraud. Shit like that.”
“I’m not ready for that yet,” Karl said.
Jake could understand his reasoning. “Well, if you really want to join the Agency, then you go all in. Learn everything you can. Be the best officer they have.”
“Yes, sir.”
Putting his hand on Karl’s arm, Jake squeezed down on his son’s biceps as he said, “You take care. Watch your back.”
“You too,” Karl said.
Jake turned and left his son. He nodded his head to Sofia and Zaiga, and the two of them left the Estonian officers to walk with Jake.
•
The U.S. Embassy in Vilnius was less than a mile from the VSD headquarters. Anthony Paitrick had made a beeline from the security briefing to the secure office of the U.S. Ambassador Jane Price, where he sat alone waiting for her to arrive. Not present at the meeting were the embassy security officer and a couple of local Agency officers—none of whom Paitrick would trust with his life. They were too green.
The ambassador came in and took her seat behind her desk. She was a political appointee with no diplomatic experience. Paitrick knew she had been a big donor to the president’s last campaign. The only thing she had going for her was she knew a few Lithuanian words from her youth, which her grandmother had taught her. She was a tall, slim woman in her mid-forties. An east coast blue blood with a propensity and appetite for men the opposite of her. At least that was the intel Paitrick had heard.
“Brief me,” Ambassador Price said.
Paitrick leaned forward in his chair. He quickly went over almost everything that had happened at the s
ecurity briefing. He made the mistake mentioning Jake Adams. But not by his real name.
“Who is this Jacob Konrad?” she asked.
“A former Agency officer,” Paitrick said.
“What is he doing involved with this situation?”
“Good question, ma’am. This guy has contacts in high places.”
“So do I,” she assured him. “It doesn’t get any higher than the White House. Is this man going to be a problem?”
Paitrick shook his head, knowing he sure as hell didn’t want the White House involved, micromanaging his every move. “Not necessary. I know this man. He’s a patriot and has done great work for our country.”
“But he’s not on our payroll,” she said. “How does he get invited to a security briefing in Lithuania? Christ, we only had one person represented there.”
Glancing about the room at the woman’s I Love Me photographs, Paitrick said, “The CIA Director got him in.”
“Bradford? Why?”
Pausing to form his words properly, Paitrick finally said, “This man has the ability to get results.”
“And you don’t?” she asked.
Clearing his throat, Paitrick said, “We work on different levels. He’s a hands on guy. He has this ability to work people. To develop relationships quickly. To grasp a situation immediately. He single-handedly extricated that Army intel officer from Russian soil recently.”
She looked confused. “I heard the situation had been resolved. But I never heard how.”
“This man went in at night on a boat, tracked the Army officer with the help of one of our drones and forward looking infrared, and found the man huddled in a bog. He led the man out, onto a boat, and then on a chase with a high-speed shootout.”
The ambassador seemed to be either intrigued or turned on. Perhaps both.
“I’d like to meet this man,” she said. “And you’re sure he was involved with the shootout last night, killing two Russian SVR agents?”
“We don’t know for sure if the two men were agents or actual officers,” Paitrick said. “And we’re not exactly sure who killed them. It could have been a combination of his gunfire and the two women involved.”
“Still.” She let that word hang. Then she said, “We should be involved with this summit.”
Paitrick shook his head. “Not a good idea. We should be hanging back and simply lending our support.”
“But the Russians are on the move.” She swung her arm in the general direction of the front of the embassy. “There are tanks rolling through Belarus as we speak. Russian warships are cruising the Lithuanian coast. Jets continue to breech our airspace.”
Paitrick pointed over his shoulder, the actual direction of Belarus, and said, “I understand, ma’am. But if the shit hits the fan at the summit, we need to make sure it’s not our failure.”
“You sound like a politician,” she said.
“I’m a pragmatist,” he assured her.
She stood up and straightened her dress over her thin hips. “I want to meet this man.”
Seeing the meeting was coming to a close, Paitrick also stood. “I’ll see if I can make it happen.”
“You’re not in contact with him?”
“Not exactly. But I know who is.”
“Do it. I want to know what his plans are in my country.”
Then she left him there alone so he couldn’t protest. He let out a deep breath. Jesus, help him. This ambassador thought she ran Lithuania.
32
Jake spent the rest of the day hanging low in Vilnius, getting something to eat at a place with authentic Lithuanian food. Then Jake had dropped off Sofia Sepp on the far end of Cathedral Square so she could weave across the square to the other side and check on her dead drop.
While Sofia was gone, Jake sat in the passenger side of the car, with Zaiga at the wheel.
“Something is bothering you,” Zaiga said.
“Yeah. A lot is bothering me. I got an email at lunch saying the Russians have moved additional ships off the coast. Including a couple of submarines. They’re waiting on satellite confirmation on the progress of tanks they’re moving by train to the southern border of Belarus.”
“Do you think we are close to war?” she asked.
“About as close as you can get.”
“What will we do?”
That was a damn good question. The Baltic States had been trampled on so many times in the past, but for the younger people all of that was learned from history books or placards in museums. Zaiga would have been too young to even remember the Soviet years.
Jake had to give her some reassurance that all would be fine. “Hope like hell that NATO doesn’t abandon you.”
“They will stick with us,” Zaiga said. “They must.”
He wasn’t entirely sure that NATO still had the balls to keep to Article Five of its charter—an attack on one is an attack on all. He hoped she was right.
“Let’s not worry about that,” Jake said. “We need to just do what we can do to stop this.”
“You really think the Russian SVR is here to kill our leaders?”
“Absolutely. They have regressed back to the old ways of the KGB. As I told you before, even if they don’t actually succeed at taking out your leaders, this could be a Fifth Column offensive. Subvert and sabotage from within to bring down the Baltic governments.”
“Why can’t people just get along?” she wondered aloud.
“Most of the people of the world are good, Zaiga. They want what you want—peace and prosperity. But there will always be a certain segment of every society that prefers chaos and destruction. You could see this throughout history. Some people are just evil. You can love them all you want, but they will never love you back. The Russian people are generally good. Their leaders are another story. The current man seems to have small dick syndrome, like Napoleon and Hitler.”
Zaiga laughed. “You’ve thought about this before.”
“Yeah. I’ve been trying to understand the human race for dozens of years. The only constant I understand is good and evil. The first must be praised and the other destroyed. And I do think of the people of this planet as one people—the human race. There are no other races. Under the skin we are all the same.”
She placed her hand on his and said, “You are a good man, Jake.”
He wasn’t so sure about that all the time. She might not think that way if she knew all the crap he had been forced to do over the years. Sure those he had killed over the years had it coming. But maybe Jake had it coming as well by now. Those on the other side would surely see him as a bad man.
Jake glanced across the large square and saw Sofia shuffling toward them. Based on the smile on her face she had found a message waiting for her. But he turned on his comm unit and said, “You get it?”
“Yes,” Sofia said. “Looks like he’s willing to meet me.”
By now she was almost across the wide square. Only the four-lanes of traffic divided her from their Skoda. She stopped to cross the street.
Suddenly, a panel van without windows on the side pulled up to the curb. Jake heard muffled sounds on the comm unit.
“Start the engine,” Jake demanded to Zaiga.
She did as she was told.
When the van pulled away, Sofia was gone.
“Pull a U-turn and follow that white van,” Jake said.
Zaiga checked traffic and hit the gas, turning them around in a hurry and taking up the tail.
Jake spoke into his comm and said, “Are you all right, Sofia?”
Sofia said something in Lithuanian.
“What was that?” Jake asked.
Zaiga said, “She said she’s fine. But they took her gun.”
Then Jake heard Russian and he picked up only about half of what the man said.
Now Sofia switched to English. “Where are we going?”
“You asked for a meeting,” the Russian said.
Then there was more in Russian and Jake wished his
son was there to interpret.
“Isn’t Russian one of your languages?” he asked Zaiga.
“Yes,” she said. “He just told his driver to turn right.”
The van made the turn on the next street. By the time the Skoda reached the intersection, Jake and Zaiga had to stop at the light behind a car.
“Run the light,” Jake said. “Go around him.”
She hesitated. Then she cranked the wheel and pulled around the car, making oncoming traffic stop for her. Now she picked up speed to catch up.
“Not too fast,” Jake said. “Keep your distance.”
Zaiga nodded. She left the van two blocks ahead. By now they were traveling along a park on the north side of the Vilnius Old Town, with the Neris River to their left.
“Do you know this area?” Jake asked.
“Kalnu Park,” Sofia said over the comm.
Seconds later and the van pulled into a small parking lot on the edge of the park.
“Pull to the curb here,” Jake said.
She did as he said. Then Jake got out and looked back into the car at Zaiga. “Keep going, turn around and park up the street. Keep your comm open.”
Zaiga nodded as Jake closed the door. Then the Skoda pulled away.
Jake stepped slowly toward the parking lot. He slid his right hand into his jacket to feel his gun, and then walked casually toward the parking lot over a block ahead.
“Where are we going?” Sofia asked in Jake’s ear bud.
There was no answer.
“This trail leads only to the three crosses,” Sofia said.
“Shut up,” the Russian said.
Jake got to the parking lot and considered what to do. He drew his gun and came up alongside the right rear of the van. There was nobody in the rearview mirror, so he checked the front seats. No one there. Then he quickly slid the back door and pointed his gun inside. Also no one. Okay, they all went for a walk. He quietly closed the door and gazed up the trail at the end of the parking lot. By now the Russians and Sofia had gone behind trees.
“I’m on the trail,” Jake said into his comm for both Sofia and Zaiga. “How many Russians?”
“I’ve been here two times before,” Sofia said.
