Korsakov let out a snort of disgust, turning back toward the Suburbans. He reached inside the pocket of his jacket and extracted his phone. Six missed calls. Six voicemails.
He pressed SEND to retrieve his messages, listening to the voicemail, each of them sounding progressively more panicked. Americans had no backbone. How had they ever won the Cold War?
Then the last message. “We have to talk, Sergei. There are people inside the Bureau—they’re starting to get suspicious. We have to tie up loose ends—it may require you sending a couple of your people back to D.C. I know this will require more money, but I swear to God, if you don’t follow through on this, I’ll see you brought down. Call me.”
A sigh. Korsakov stared down at his phone. Sometimes there was little choice but to play the game. He looked back to where Yuri stood over the four drugrunners. “Ubei,” he ordered, his voice ringing clearly through the chill air. “Ubei ih vsekh.” Kill them. Kill them all.
He caught a glimpse of it in the rearview mirror as he climbed into the Suburban, lifeless bodies sprawled on the tarmac. Drug dealers. The scum of the earth…
1:53 P.M. Central Time
A small airport
Rural Kansas
“I’m surprised there was no one here,” Carol observed, coming up behind Harry at the equipment shed. He looked up from the padlock in his hand.
“I’m not,” he responded. “This is Kansas…around here a lot of people still go to church on Sunday. Honest folk—it’s why there’s no perimeter fence here. No security cameras.”
The tumblers moved beneath the pressure of his lockpick and the padlock sprung open, falling easily into his hand.
There was something about the way he’d said it. “You sound envious.”
He looked back to where she stood, favoring her injured right leg. “I am,” he said slowly. “Always wished I could retire to the Midwest. Always wanted to believe that the world could actually be this simple. No guile, no deception—just take life on its face, live it the way it was meant to be lived.”
“How long do you think you’d last?” she asked, inclining her head to one side. Her blond hair fell across her face, and she brushed it back, revealing a look of skepticism in those blue eyes.
It wasn’t so much the frankness of her question that took him by surprise, but the readiness with which the answer formed in his mind. Not two weeks.
He didn’t respond, swinging open the door to reveal the fifty-gallon drums of aviation fuel stacked inside. “Go find Sammy—I’m going to need his help moving these over to the plane.”
2:38 P.M. Eastern Time
Church of the Holy Trinity
Washington, D.C.
“In nomine Patri, et Fili, et Spiritus Sanctum.” In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Michael Shapiro made the sign of the cross over his chest, bowing his head in prayer. It wasn’t often that he made Mass these days, but today was special, with his little son Marc serving as altar boy.
He felt Marc’s twin sister stir restlessly in the pew beside him and a guilty smile crossed the deputy director’s face. She took after him.
His phone began to buzz within the pocket of his Armani suit and he rose from the pew, catching the look of disapproval on his wife’s face as he left the church.
“Yes?” he asked, answering the phone as he strode toward the doors.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Michael.” That voice.
Shapiro stepped outside, a cold, snow-laden breeze cutting through the thin fabric of his dress pants. He was sweating. “What do you want?”
“Complications have arisen. I need you to go back to Langley and remove a sniper rifle from the equipment lockers in the Clandestine Service ready room. A Barrett would be preferable. Make sure you take a couple of magazines of ammunition, as well.”
The deputy director stopped stock-still, unable to answer for a long moment.
“Is there a problem, Michael?”
“That depends,” Shapiro replied, mustering up what was left of his defiance. “What am I do with it?”
“I will call you again in three hours with further instructions. Have it by then.”
A click and he found himself holding a dead phone up to his ear. He stood there for a long moment, listening to the words, the music drifting out of the church behind him. Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep…”
That was what scared him.
5:03 P.M.
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
Three days. That’s all it had taken to turn his world upside down. “I’ll need some time to run that down,” he heard himself saying.
“How much time?” the woman on the other end of the phone asked.
Carter glanced across the op-center to meet the eyes of Danny Lasker and he looked away. Didn’t know whom he could trust—not anymore. “Twenty-four hours, Marika. Do you remember how to get to my apartment?”
“Of course, Ron,” the FBI agent replied. “How could I forget? Do you still have Maxwell?”
Carter stifled a laugh. Maxwell, named after the lead character of the ‘60s spy show Get Smart, was his cat, a Japanese Bobtail he had brought back from Okinawa when he’d been in Air Force intelligence. “Yeah, Max is getting old, but he’s still with me.”
“Glad to hear it.” Her voice changed, refocusing. “Twenty-four hours, Ron. Don’t let me down.”
The analyst closed his phone, returning it to its resting place in his shirt pocket. As he did so, the familiar sound of the op-center doors opening struck his ears and he looked up to see Director Shapiro leaving.
What had the Banker been doing here…on a Sunday?
3:43 P.M. Mountain Time
The Cessna
Over New Mexico
“Alexei Vasiliev,” Han repeated thoughtfully. “I remember him.”
Harry didn’t reply, his eyes focused on the sky before him—concentrating on keeping the Cessna Skylane below 3,000 ASL. “More specifically,” the SEAL continued, “I remember him trying to kill you.”
A shrug. “You can hardly blame Alexei for that—we were trying to take out his principal. He was just doing his job.” Harry smiled. “Six months later we were having lunch in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower and debating religion late into the night. I’ve known worse guys.”
“Leave him out of this, Harry,” Han admonished, a shadow passing across his face. “He’s former KGB—there’s no way you can trust him.”
The New Mexico desert continued to flash past below them, the sinking sun casting long shadows over the foothills. They were going to have to land before nightfall, or face all sorts of questions as to why they hadn’t filed the mandatory IFR flight plan.
“Assuming he’s in a cooperative mood, Alexei will be able to give us the information we need,” Harry replied, looking over at his old team member. “But I had no intention of trusting him…”
8:35 P.M. Eastern Time
Anacostia
Washington, D.C.
Five minutes late. Yuri shifted his body weight in the front seat of the Escalade, checking his watch. The lights of the SUV were out as they sat there, looking out into the river.
They’d already seen two Coast Guard cutters go by in the chill moonlight. No doubt about it, this city was on a war footing. Which is why they didn’t want to stay here any longer than necessary.
“You know,” Yuri announced, looking over at his partner, “sitting here in the dark would look much more natural if you were a hot blonde.”
His companion, a Latvian Yuri knew only as Kalnins, laughed. “This is true, tovarisch. And both of us would be much happier.”
Lights crept down the road toward them and Yuri’s hand moved to the Beretta at his side. He could feel Kalnins tensing in the darkness. A police car was the last thing they needed.
He’d had a bad feeling about this contract from the beginning—not that his opinion had mattered
to Korsakov. Success…success had the ability to make men arrogant.
The sedan slowed to a stop across from them and briefly flashed its lights. Yuri returned the signal and left the headlights of the Escalade on as a short man in a trench coat exited the sedan, a suitcase in his right hand. The Russian consulted the picture filling the screen of his smartphone. It was him: Michael Shapiro, Deputy Director(Intelligence)…
9:35 P.M. Mountain Time
Motel 6
Cedar Springs, Arizona
Carol was sitting cross-legged on the bed when Harry came back into the motel room, her Dell only inches from her bare feet. “Internet?” he asked. It certainly hadn’t come with the room.
She arched an eyebrow. “The network password is… ‘password’.”
“Welcome to the twenty-first century,” he observed, a wry smile on his face as he placed the briefcase containing the UMP-45 on the top of the dresser.
“Do you think they suspected anything at the airport?”
Harry thought for a moment. They had landed at the small airport outside Cedar Springs just before dusk and left the plane in the keeping of the airport’s two employees, one of whom had driven them into town.
He shook his head. “No. Doesn’t really matter if they did—this is the Navajo Nation.”
A glance into the mirror told him that she hadn’t understood the comment. “I had a friend at college—a schoolteacher coming back for his master’s. Said the Nation was the best place in the States to get your foot in the door of the education system. If you lived long enough. Folks around here have never warmed to the thought of calling in the feds.”
There was a long silence between them, then Carol looked up over the screen of her laptop. “You should know that I agree with Han—bringing an outside party into this is only going to complicate matters. You and I both believe that my father knew who was behind the assassination—it’s just a matter of figuring out what he knew.”
“And how do you propose to do that?” Harry asked, staring across the room at her. It was a rhetorical question—they’d been over this ground before. “Even if there was a way, it would leave us exposed.”
He paused and she could see the uncertainty in his eyes. As if realizing his vulnerability, he turned away from her and unlocked the briefcase, withdrawing the submachine gun and extending its folding stock. “West Virginia was as secure as it gets—and Korsakov tracked us down there. I still don’t know how.”
“All the more reason to leave Vasiliev out of this.”
“Alexei has connections, connections we need,” he repeated, looking back over his shoulder. “All you need to know is that wherever I need to go, whatever I need to do—I will protect you.”
Whatever I need to do. There was no bravado there, no pretense—just a simple statement of fact. It sent a chill through her body. Carol ran a hand through her hair, her eyes running down the webpage before her. The CIA dossier on Alexei Mikhailovich Vasiliev.
Date: 2003. An SVR agent in Chechnya taken hostage in the mountains by Muslim guerillas. Vladimir Putin had dispatched Vasiliev to negotiate his release.
His method of “negotiation” had been effective, if reminiscent of Capone’s Chicago in its brutal simplicity. For every body part sent to Grozny, he’d executed two members of the rebel leader’s family, starting with his wife. It hadn’t saved the agent, but it was the last time the Chechens messed with the SVR. “Is this true?” she asked, turning the laptop’s screen toward Harry.
It was a moment before he responded, his face veiled in the shadows of the motel room. She couldn’t see his eyes, and she found herself glad of it. “There’s no Boy Scouts in this business, Carol…”
Chapter 13
7:45 A.M. Eastern Time, December 17th
An apartment
Clarksville, MD
One of the benefits of never calling in sick was that when you actually did it, no one questioned your integrity.
Carter leaned back in his desk chair, interlacing his long fingers behind his head. It had taken him nine hours to access the FBI’s servers. Using his own log-in, it would have taken all of three minutes, but that was like leaving your business card at the scene of a crime.
As it was, when the Bureau eventually realized their list of users had been hacked, the trail would run cold in a maze of Bulgarian servers and IP addresses.
A meow, and Maxwell the cat launched himself up onto the desk, pale yellow eyes staring him down.
“Easy, Max,” Carter whispered, a weary smile crossing his face as he swept the bobtailed cat away from the computer keyboard. He’d never forget how Maxwell had knocked over a cup of coffee on his laptop one day, frying the hard drive. Never forget the half-sheepish look on the cat’s face, as though he was emulating his namesake.
Catastrophe averted, the analyst went back to his work, filtering through another layer of security on the Bureau server. Marika had been sure that someone had hacked into their network and compromised the West Virginia op. If she was right, the hacker should have left some sort of a trail…
10:01 A.M.
The safehouse
Culpeper, Virginia
“We’ve got a hit.” Those quietly spoken words were enough to bring Tex Richards instantly awake.
Thomas shook his head. He’d never known the big man to truly be asleep—maybe it was the Apache blood running through his veins. “Where?”
“Arizona,” Thomas replied, tapping the screen of his laptop. “His American Express card was used to rent a Ford Expedition at an agency in Flagstaff—fifteen minutes ago.”
“He’s crossed the continent in less than thirty hours,” the Texan observed. “Somewhere—somehow, he got on a plane.”
“Let’s face it. Our boy’s brilliant.”
Tex’s lips compressed into a thin, bloodless line. “We’ll see about that. Run back over the last twenty-four hours—see if you can track down any incidents at general aviation airfields this side of the Mississippi. Anything abnormal.”
“How soon do we leave?”
“We don’t,” came the terse answer.
Thomas looked up in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“A stern chase is a long chase—something our corpsman used to say in A-stan. We don’t follow Harry, we find someone who knows where he’s going.”
Thomas looked back to see his partner holding up a printout of the surveillance photo Carter had provided. “Rhoda Stevens…”
9:43 A.M. Mountain Time
I-40 west of Ash Fork
Arizona
There was dead silence in the SUV as he dialed the number, and it wasn’t out of courtesy. Harry knew that much. More like disapproval. And he knew why.
Three rings, then four. Five before it was answered. “Hello?”
“Kak dela, Alexei?” How are you?
There was a moment’s pause, then Vasiliev chuckled. “With half your nation’s hounds out after you, I hardly expected to hear your voice.”
The Russian was good. He hadn’t used his name, nothing for the SIGINT boys at Fort Meade to grab hold of.
“I suppose it would be pointless to ask how you got my private cell number?”
“Hey, you’re a public figure, whether you like it or not.” Harry smiled. “A celebrity.”
A laugh. “So, tell me, tovarisch, what is so important that you must rouse me from bed with my wife?”
“Indeed? Please accept my congratulations. I was unaware that you were married again.”
“She’s a beautiful girl, my friend,” Vasiliev replied. “The love of my life.”
Well, he’d heard that line before. Regarding Mrs. Vasiliev #1 and #2. “We need to meet, Alexei. As soon as possible.”
“Why?” the Russian asked, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice. Perhaps he was remembering their last meeting.
“You have a security problem. One of your countrymen has brought in—specialists…I need your advice.”
“The same specialists
responsible for the Dominion fireworks show?” The bombing in Virginia. Yeah, Vasiliev didn’t miss a beat.
“Da, Alexei. The same.”
“Then, if what you say is true…I agree with you, tovarisch. We do need to meet—perhaps at the bistro on Baker Street for lunch tomorrow? Ten hundred hours?”
Harry looked over at Han before responding. The Asian SEAL inclined his head, then nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Then I will see you there—one more thing.”
“Yes?”
He could hear Vasiliev clearing his throat. “Put a gun to my head again and I will kill you. And this time I won’t miss…”
2:52 P.M. Eastern Time
An abandoned apartment complex
Clarksville, MD
The apartment complex had been a casualty of the 2008 collapse of the housing market. Half-completed, it had remained empty ever since. The owners hadn’t been able to raise the money to finance completion—and with Maryland’s real estate plunging through the floor, they hadn’t been able to unload the property either.
It had become a virtual no-man’s land, the habitat of drug addicts and the homeless.
“Target reacquired,” Yuri announced, closing one eye to focus down the scope of the Barrett M98B. Careful.
Slow, shallow breaths. The firing reticle centered on the black man’s temple, holding steady.
A couple hundred meters—just across the street, really. No crosswind. An easy shot.
The sniper rifle was set up well back of the window, resting on a pair of packing crates and stabilized by sandbags. As rock-solid as it got.
He saw the target’s hand move downward, beside his computer, to a phone on the desk. “Ready?”
Kalnins nodded, moving closer to the window on his hands and knees. Bracing himself, the Latvian aimed the laser microphone across the street, focusing on the window of their target’s apartment.
A couple moments’ delay and then the vibrations on the glass of the window came filtering back through the software on Yuri’s laptop, broadcasting once again as human voice.
“This is Carter. Yeah, I’ve been in the system for about seven hours, going over their user profiles. A lot of anomalies. This is going deep, Marika. A lot deeper than either of us thought.”
Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors) Page 21
