Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors)

by Stephen England

  A nod.

  9:48 A.M. Pacific Time

  Baker Street Bistro

  San Francisco, California

  When it came right down to it, it didn’t much matter if you were in San Francisco or Istanbul. Clandestine meetings were dicey business. You could never be sure what your “ally” might do.

  Harry’s eyes scanned the bistro as the waiter led them to their table, outside on the veranda. This might have been America, but with the Consulate mere blocks to the west, it was Vasiliev’s turf. He counted at least two Russians near the front of the bistro, one more outside at one of the open-air tables. Might be security personnel from the Consulate, might be immigrants. Frisco was a melting pot.

  Part of his mind insisted that Alexei would never attempt a snatch in public place, an American city—but he knew better, knew the danger of the course he had chosen. If America had made one mistake consistently through the last fifty years, it was what the intel community called “mirror imaging”. The belief that everyone made decisions the same way you did. That their rationale, their very definition of logic was the same. September 11th had proven otherwise, but not everyone had gotten the memo.

  He ushered Carol into the chair closest to the garden wall and took his own seat, the Colt trembling beneath his light jacket. From where he sat, he could watch the front door of the bistro.

  Meeting with Alexei wasn’t a choice. It was a necessity. Unavoidable.

  The tension was palpable, Carol thought, giving her menu a disinterested glance. She could sense it in his body language. This meeting was a bad idea, and he knew it.

  Her gaze lifted from the table, scanning the surrounding rooftops. Nothing.

  Not to say that no one was there. She saw Han enter the bistro, making his way to a table near the front door. Moments later, his voice came over her earbud: “In position.”

  “Copy that,” Harry breathed beside her, acknowledging his receipt of the message.

  Without warning, a shadow fell over their table and she looked up, feeling Harry tense. Vasiliev stood there across from them, one hand clasping the back of the chair, the other held in front of him, index finger extended from a clenched fist.

  A smile played across the Russian’s weathered face, the breeze rippling through his silver hair. “Bang, you’re dead.”

  9:53 A.M.

  The mansion

  Beverly Hills, California

  It was a Nicholas Poussin, or so the head of Andropov’s security had said. Whatever that was supposed to mean.

  Korsakov stood there for a moment, taking a speculative sip from the wine glass as he stared at the painting over the fireplace. King Midas at the Source of the Pactole River.

  It was an ironic choice. Andropov had always been that way. Like the fabled king, everything he touched had turned to gold. And this…this mansion—the gilded fixtures, the Renaissance artwork, these were the fruits of it.

  Korsakov turned, feeling Viktor’s eyes on him. “What do you think, tovarisch?” he asked, raising his glass as if in a toast. The boy didn’t drink—it brought back flashbacks. Memories of being drugged and raped.

  Viktor hesitated, as if rendered speechless by the grandeur of the sitting room. The assassin smiled. “My old comrade has done well for himself, has he not? The Midas touch.”

  The smile vanished from Korsakov’s face as quickly as it had come. Andropov had done well, which was why he was still in bed with his mistress while the two of them cooled their heels on the first floor.

  The privileges of wealth. He threw back his head, draining the wine glass in a single, angry swallow. These cursed capitalists…

  9:54 A.M.

  The Baker Street Bistro

  San Francisco, California

  The Russian looked older than the fifty-eight years his CIA dossier indicated. Much older. He had once been a handsome man, that much was obvious, but his once-lean frame had now begun to carry the weight of middle age. Blue eyes stared out from a face worn and lined by the decades, his thinning silver hair swept back rakishly from the brow.

  “I appreciate you coming, Alexei,” Harry began, motioning for his old adversary to take a seat. “I know it is not without its risks for you.”

  Vasiliev sat down, gesturing for their waiter. “There was a time, tovarisch. There was a time when I would have had to write up a five-page contact report after this meeting.”

  “And now?”

  “And now…I am the head of security. I am, how would you say? Ah yes—a law unto myself.” His hands moving in quick efficient motions, Vasiliev spread the napkin across his lap, smiling as if very pleased with himself. “And who is your sexy lady friend?” he asked, switching into Russian.

  “Someone who doesn’t make a practice of meeting with KGB thugs,” Carol replied in the same language, an icy calm in her voice.

  The Russian looked startled for a brief moment, then his body shook with laughter. “Perhaps you should have warned me, Harry.”

  “I didn’t know myself,” he replied, shooting her a sharp look. The message was clear in his eyes: watch your step. There was too much at stake.

  “What did you find, Alexei?” Harry asked, leaning forward. “Do you have a name for me?”

  “I do,” Vasiliev replied, scanning his menu as the waiter arrived. “May I recommend the Steak à Cheval?”

  Harry responded with an impatient nod and Vasiliev passed their menus to the waiter, adding, “A steak for the gentleman at the table by the door as well. Just add it to my tab.”

  They both followed the direction of his gaze: Samuel Han. Vasiliev smiled. “You thought I wouldn’t notice, tovarisch? I may be growing old, but I never forget a face. It was February of 2004. Qatar.”

  Harry nodded in remembrance. Han had been there then, on “loan” to the CIA from the Teams. “Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. You were in Doha to kill him. It was the first time I ever worked with the FSB.”

  “The Chechen president?” Carol asked.

  Harry acknowledged her comment with a nod. “And a driving force behind the Islamization of the conflict. We were all well rid of him.”

  The waiter arrived with their drinks, handing a bottle of spring water to Harry and placing an empty glass in front of Vasiliev.

  “You are learning, my friend,” the Russian observed with a smile.

  Harry twisted off the cap, breaking the seal. “I was well taught, by one of your countrywomen. Never drink from anything but a sealed bottle in a public place.”

  Seeing Vasiliev’s look of interest, he continued. “She was a journalist. Dead now.”

  Vasiliev shrugged, pulling a flask from an inner pocket of his coat. “Journalism is a profession not without its…hazards. Particularly in Mother Russia.”

  He held up the flask of vodka to the light, eyeing it critically before pouring a shot into the glass before him. “My own solution to that problem—bring your own beer, I believe you Americans call it. Or vodka, as the case may be.”

  There was something quixotic, even faintly mocking, in the Russian’s posture as he sat there, glass poised delicately between long, slender fingers. “To the future.”

  12:23 P.M. Central Time

  Dearborn, Michigan

  Prices had gone up at the supermarket. Again. If he’d been able to afford the gas, Nasir al-Khalidi thought—he would have loved to have driven around, just to see if prices were the same everywhere, or whether the American government was artificially inflating the prices in Muslim neighborhoods. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. He set the bags on the floor and pulled open the door of the apartment’s small refrigerator. The government he worked for.

  It hadn’t been his choice. Just one of those things that had befallen him. Fate.

  Footsteps on the stairs outside, the rattling of a key in the lock. Jamal came hustling into the apartment, stopping short as he saw his brother.

  “What are you doing home?”

  Nasir balanced the milk on top of the eggs. His br
other was growing more absent-minded these days. As if some great concern was occupying his thoughts. “This is my day off,” he explained patiently, casting a weary glance in Jamal’s direction. “What do you need?”

  It wasn’t like Jamal to be at a loss for words, but he stammered a moment. “I forgot my student ID. With the attacks in Virginia…the campus is taking their security seriously.”

  Didn’t make any sense. At noon? He waited until his brother had disappeared in the bedroom, then put his fingers carefully between the dusty venetian blinds, peering down at the street, at the unfamiliar car that had brought his brother back from campus. A white Chrysler Sebring.

  Something was wrong. Deciding quickly, he grabbed a pen off the card table that formed the centerpiece of their kitchen. The tip pressed into tender flesh as he scribbled the license number into the palm of his hand. Kilo 8 7 November Tango.

  Omar was waiting in the Sebring when Jamal returned. “What took so long?”

  He threw the packet of earplugs on the console between himself and the Negro. “My brother was home.”

  The black man closed his eyes. So much must be sacrificed for the jihad. At times even families must be separated. “Will that be a problem?”

  “Of course not. My brother…” Jamal hesitated. “My brother finds the decadence of America alluring, but he would never betray us. Not after what happened in our homeland, not after our father was killed, American weapons in the hands of the Jew.”

  Omar considered that for a moment, then put the Sebring in drive. “Insh’allah.”

  10:32 A.M. Pacific Time

  Baker Street Bistro

  San Francisco, California

  “The name of the man you are looking for,” Vasiliev began, dabbing his thin, bloodless lips with a napkin, “is Valentin Stephanovich Andropov. Former Spetsnaz colonel, weapons dealer, and current expatriate oligarch. He made his millions selling weapons to Sudan, Somalia, a hundred other godforsaken backwaters. He’s the man who brought Korsakov’s team into the US.”

  “You can prove this?” Harry asked, taking another careful glance around them.

  The Russian regarded him with a look of disbelief. “Since when have you and I concerned ourselves with proof, Harry?”

  Vasiliev shook his head. “ ‘Innocent till proven guilty’ isn’t even in our lexicon. Andropov has the money, the power, the access with the mafiya. If anyone could bring a spec-ops team into this country, it would be him. And he and Korsakov served together in the first Chechen War.”

  Guilt by association. Harry had seen it kill men before. Sometimes, in the ever-shifting war on terror, association was all you had to go on. Leads vanishing into the mist.

  “Where is he?” he heard himself ask.

  Vasiliev snorted. “Living peacefully in Beverly Hills, with his bodyguards, his son, and his current mistress, typically one of your blonde starlets, much better endowed physically than mentally.”

  “If all you say is true,” Carol put in, the skepticism clearly visible in her eyes. “then why isn’t Andropov on our watch lists? Why is he living free here in the United States?”

  Vasiliev let out a tired sigh, reaching for his phone. He ran a calloused thumb across the screen, scrolling through a series of photos. Finally he turned the screen to face them. “He’s re-cast himself as a benefactor of the common good—a philanthropist. Here you see him, during the 2008 Republican primary, at a dinner with Senator John McCain. And here—five months later—standing at the side of Barack Obama in Los Angeles. When Roger Hancock ran, a PAC bankrolled by Andropov was one of his biggest supporters.” The Russian leaned back in his chair, pocketing the phone. “Let’s face it, he’s played your country’s political system.”

  “Like a Stradivarius,” Harry mused. “So you’re saying he’s untouchable.”

  Vasiliev toyed with his knife, gazing intently across the table. “No man is untouchable, tovarisch. For some, though…you need asbestos gloves.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  A smile. “I suggest nothing. I ask nothing, save one simple question: how far are you willing to go?”

  10:42 A.M.

  The mansion

  Beverly Hills, California

  Andropov’s mistress was awake at the very least, already stretched out facedown on a blanket by the heart-shaped pool. Nothing mattered more than a tan in California, Korsakov thought, eyeing her critically.

  About the only point in her favor was her youth. Twenty-one, twenty-three at most. No doubt hoping that sharing the oligarch’s bed would further her career.

  Bleached blonde, burnt flesh, and undeniably spoiled—there was a time when his old friend had possessed better taste in women. Times had changed.

  “Sergei!” a familiar voice exclaimed, the door opening behind the assassin. He turned on heel just in time to see one of the bodyguards usher Andropov into the room.

  Times had changed. The former colonel had aged in the ten years since they had last met face to face. Andropov had never been a small man, but his frame now carried the bulk that went along with fine dining and a sedentary lifestyle.

  “You look well, comrade,” he whispered, embracing Korsakov and kissing him on both cheeks in the traditional Russian greeting.

  “As do you,” the assassin lied, forcing a smile to his face as Andropov guided him to a seat on the sofa.

  The oligarch nodded his head toward Viktor. “I have heard much about you from Sergei—you are a genius with computers, yes?”

  The boy flushed, looking down at his feet. The traumas of his childhood had left him socially awkward, but he seemed particularly so in these opulent surroundings.

  “My son Pyotr is about your age,” Andropov continued, “a junior at UCLA.”

  Small talk. Korsakov remembered it well, the colonel’s way of putting people at ease…before moving in for the kill.

  “He should be getting a fine education, wouldn’t one think?” The oligarch didn’t wait for an answer—he had clearly mastered the art of the one-sided conversation. He threw up his hands in a dramatic flourish. “He might be if he actually bothered to study, instead of partying away his nights in some bar, an American whore sitting on his lap.”

  Korsakov gazed idly out the window at the sunbathing form of Andropov’s mistress. One had to wonder where the son had developed those proclivities.

  “Competence,” the oligarch sighed. “It is such a rare trait these days, my old comrade. It is all the more reason that I have been glad of your aid. Someone I can trust.”

  With those words, his voice shed every last vestige of pleasantry. His eyes bored into Korsakov’s face. “What is the status of the contract, Sergei?”

  11:01 A.M.

  Baker Street Bistro

  San Francisco, California

  “Does the FSB keep these type of files on every Russian citizen?” Carol asked, looking up from her laptop. The waiter had cleared the plates away, and left them alone after Vasiliev had pressed a fifty-dollar bill into his hand.

  The Russian chuckled. “Only those we deem likely to cause trouble. In a word…yes.”

  Harry looked over at the screen, watching as the file transfer approached 100%. He could feel Carol’s irritation with Alexei—there was nothing remotely humorous about Russia’s treatment of its citizens, of its journalists.

  Reforms? They had been little more than window dressing. The shackles of slavery freshly adorned with the garland of freedom. Men like Vasiliev had moved from the old world into the new and scarce noticed the difference. “We appreciate your help, Alexei,” he replied, his voice neutral as he pulled the thumb drive out of the laptop and handed it back to the Russian. “This should give us all the information we need. As far as I’m concerned, this meeting never took place. You were never involved.”

  Vasiliev tucked the drive in his shirt pocket, a strange look on his face as he regarded Harry. “Would that life were so simple, tovarisch.”

  “What do you mean?” Harry as
ked. His hand moved beneath the table, coming to rest on his thigh, only inches away from the Colt.

  “You still need me.” The Russian reached for his glass, tossing back another shot of vodka. He looked over at Carol, a smile on his face. “Our friend Nichols is a strict teetotaler, and yet he has never once lectured me on my drinking. I admire his reserve.”

  Harry transfixed him with a cold stare. “Perhaps I simply believe the world would be a better place were you to die of cirrhosis.”

  “Well said,” Vasiliev laughed, nearly choking on his drink. “Well said, but I fear that my demise is in no way imminent. I have been thinking…how was Korsakov able to find you in West Virginia?”

  The million-dollar question. The one Harry had asked himself a thousand times. No good answers, and from the look on Alexei’s face, he knew as much.

  Vasiliev went on without waiting for a response. “I won’t patronize you by asking if you swept her for a tracker, Harry,” the Russian said, inclining his head in Carol’s direction. “I know you would have. And you probably found at least one. Am I right?”

  “Two.”

  A raise of the eyebrows. “Redundancy. We Russians are thorough. What I’m more interested in is what you were unable to find.”

  Vasiliev reached into his shirt pocket, laying a small plastic capsule about the size and color of a grain of rice on the tablecloth. “Ever seen one of these before?”

  “It’s a GPS tracker,” Carol replied. “The US did pioneer the technology, after all.”

  The Russian’s only immediate reply was a nod. He stared across the table at them for a long moment, as if deliberating on his next words. “You may have been the pioneers, but you have been eclipsed. By China, now the world’s leading developer of the technology. It is only due to the industrial espionage of my partners in the SVR that Moscow has access to this little gem. A self-contained unit, with over three months of battery life.”

  “Exactly why do you think this would have escaped my scanner?” Harry asked, his eyes locked on Vasiliev’s face. Looking for the faintest trace of duplicity. Of guile.

  Nothing.