“Private force, answerable to the defense minister,” suggested Rockman. “Big, though.”
“Why the defense minister?”
Rockman shrugged. “Who else? Yeltsin’s ghost?”
“Could be a mafiya network. Or something we haven’t tracked yet.” She rubbed her finger along her chin, considering the situation. “We’ll have to send Karr up there to see what he can find. It’s too big to ignore.”
“Yeah. Mr. Rubens is going to want to know.”
“Definitely.”
“What do you want to do about Dean?” Rockman asked.
“Have Fashona fly him and the metal back, pack it into a transport, and get it home.”
“Karr’s going to complain about having the Hind taken away.”
“Who’s running this operation, us or him?”
“You know Tommy.”
They were interrupted by Granay. “You ought to listen to this,” she said. “Line Four. And it matches, I checked it.”
Rockman punched the feed button, bringing up the raw intercept in his earphones. He was about to key in a translated overlay when he realized he didn’t have to: the voice being picked up by the tiny bug was speaking English.
American English. Reciting, in fact, a passage from the Bible — one so well-known that even Rockman, who was about as religious as Rin Tin Tin, could recite by heart.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” said the voice shakily in a low whisper. “I shall not want.”
Telach and Rockman looked at each other. They didn’t need the audio library to know the voice belonged to Stephan Moyshik — aka Stephen Martin.
32
Favors begat favors. In exchange for the information that the consultant provided to the FBI on the guitar — information that would be forthcoming from the FBI anyway — Rubens had managed to obtain access to the local police department’s complete investigation file on the Greene murder.
It was a shockingly easy transaction, though it required Rubens to go to the police station in person. The investigator clearly didn’t know who he was. He had accepted the rather bland declaration that Rubens was “looking into the matter on an informal basis for the administration” far too easily. That didn’t speak well for the quality of the investigation, but then, he’d never thought very highly of them to begin with.
And yet, the file was fairly thorough. The interviews with the surviving band members indicated that the guitarist had never jumped into a pool while playing before, with or without his guitar — but then again, they’d never played anywhere there was a pool. He did do bizarre stuff, no question. Plunking himself into the water, wire and all, was completely in character.
The band members didn’t know much about Greta Meandes and were vague on whether she even worked, let alone what she did. Rubens got the impression that they had been playing up the drugged-out airhead band thing for the police, but in any event they had added nothing of substance. One suggested the guitarist had been “boffing” her; the investigator’s notes said specifically that he doubted it.
The notes suggested there was plenty of opportunity for the guitar to have been tampered with. The detective had attempted to put together a time line, but it was full of gaps. Obviously working on the assumption that it was a freak accident, he hadn’t even bothered to speak to everyone on the guest list, though Greta had provided one.
Rubens’ name, of course, was on it. He had to exert every bit of his self-control not to grab it from the file. He surely would have if the detective had left the room.
Not that it would have done much good. By now the congressional committee would know he had been there, though no one had made an issue of it.
Yet.
It required no imagination and even less paranoia to envision the scene:
Congressman Mason:
By the way, did you see Representative Greene the whole time he was in the pool?
Witness:
No, actually. William Rubens was in my way.
Congressman Mason:
William Rubens? [pretends to be shocked] Is that the William Rubens who works with the NSA?
Witness:
I wouldn’t know…
By the end of the hearing, the papers would be printing that the death was an NSA plot. They’d have it all figured out.
Rubens, waiting to clear the last check into the Art Room, wondered how he could prove that his cousin had murdered the SOB. That, and only that, would end the investigation.
But there was no proof. If this were a Desk Three mission, he could have such proof manufactured — a security video showing her playing with the guitar would suffice.
Of course, this wasn’t a mission, and it was his cousin he was thinking of railroading. Nor would he break the law by manufacturing evidence.
Still, if he was convinced his cousin committed the murder, if he had real evidence, he’d definitely give it to the police. That was his duty.
Especially if it would ward off potential embarrassment.
Not that it wasn’t embarrassing to have a cousin accused of murder. But that was preferable to being accused yourself.
Rubens cleared the matter out of his head as he waited for the computer to admit him to the Art Room, substituting his yoga mantra instead. He needed to clear his mind so he could focus on the Russian coup and his plan to thwart it.
If he could only prove Greta did it, he’d save everybody a lot of grief.
Not everybody, but definitely himself.
The Art Room door opened. Telach looked like she was about to explode.
“Martin’s alive,” she blurted. “We have his voice pattern at Veharkurth.”
“Martin?”
“The Wave Three op. Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Matches exactly. We have a possible location. We have the facility sketched out, but we’re going to update. We’ll have a satellite on-station in twenty minutes.”
Rubens’ skepticism grew as Telach detailed the situation. The voice they thought was Martin’s had spoken only for a minute or so, saying a short prayer apparently to himself. Analysis put it in one of two buildings about equidistant from the bug’s location in the northwestern corner of the facility.
“Is it a prison or what?” asked Rubens, looking at the satellite details.
“It’s two things,” said Telach. “One is a base for a Marine unit that Defense Intelligence says is attached to a Black Sea naval force.”
“Black Sea?”
Telach smirked. “Obviously, something’s wrong somewhere. Look at the right side of the complex. Serious SAM defenses.”
“Unit protection?” asked Rubens.
“Well, I wouldn’t rule anything out,” she said. “But this deep in Russia, not, as far as we know, connected to the standard defense network.”
“Not connected?”
“Doesn’t show up in our inventory,” she said. “Again, not to jump to conclusions.”
“So what else do they do there?” Rubens asked.
“My bet is it’s a lab or a research facility connected to their laser operation,” said Telach. She reached to the console and punched up a new set of satellite photos on the main board. The series showed a thin blue rectangle along roads and wasteland. “There’s a dedicated fiber-optic line between one of the Wave Three targets and the facility.”
The NSA had studied the possibility of breaching the network linking the laser facilities nearly a year before, ultimately deciding that it could not be penetrated without detection. Rubens did not remember this site as part of the network, though of course he could not expect to.
“There were no Marines here then,” said Telach. “Not when the line was built. It was originally tagged as a supply depot and possibly a backup laboratory. I have a call in over to the laser specialists; they may be able to fill us in.”
Rubens looked at the situation map. The Wave Three aircraft had been shot down nearly three hundred miles away; the plane’s target wa
s another hundred or more to the south. The actual weapons facilities were between the Marine base and the Wave Three target. Four other buildings believed to house associated research facilities were within the same grid. The project had probably been scattered to increase physical security.
Obviously, they had a lot of work to do. The connection between the Marines and the laser project was intriguing and had to be fleshed out. But the coup took precedence.
“How are we going to get Martin out?” said Telach.
“It can’t be him,” said Rubens.
“It is.”
“No. There’s no way he got out of the plane.”
“Boss, it is,” said Rockman, from his station. “Trust me.”
“It’s not a matter of trust,” Rubens told them. “It’s physically impossible for him to have escaped from the Wave Three package.”
“The voiceprint is perfect.” Rockman’s voice was uncharacteristically sharp and loud. “He must’ve gotten out before he hit the self-destruct. And you know as well as I do that the contract people on some of our aircraft have packed parachutes. Martin probably did as well. And the pilots.”
It was, regrettably, true.
“Karr found traces of human remains in the wreckage,” added Rockman. “So obviously someone went down with it. But not Martin.”
“We have to get him out,” said Telach.
“If it is Martin, I agree,” Rubens said. “But we need more information. And regrettably, we have something of a higher priority. I need the team in Moscow.”
Telach started to object.
“No, I need them in Moscow,” said Rubens. For the moment, he couldn’t explain why. “We don’t have anything definite and I really need them in Moscow. Tell them to pack up and get out there.”
“If that’s Martin, we have to get him,” said Telach. “And we’re there now.”
“The team isn’t there,” said Rubens, who pointed to the locator map that showed them a good twenty miles farther south.
“Boss, I’m begging you,” said Telach.
Rubens clamped his lips together. He was not an unreasonable man. And truly if Martin was alive, retrieving him was very important. But the coup was more important, ultimately.
Still, he could not appear to be unmoved by his team’s plea. It would undermine their effectiveness.
“Six hours to gather more information,” said Rubens. “Anything beyond that needs my personal authorization. I want them in Moscow.”
“Thank you,” said Telach.
There was so much relief in her voice that Rubens decided to leave quickly, before she had a chance to do something foolish — like rushing over and kissing him.
33
Dean felt her moving toward him even before he heard her. He kept his face down on the bed, turned away from her.
For a second he let himself fantasize that she was coming to slip into bed with him. His desire surprised him, not least of all because he knew she wasn’t coming to slip in beside him.
He opened his right eye, the one closest to the pillow. The lights were still on and the sun shone through the nearby window.
She touched the end of the bed.
“Can’t resist me, huh?” he said. He pulled himself up.
Instead of a torrid comeback there was a shriek. A maid stood near the end of the bed, her face blanched in surprise. A stream of Russian — the tone showed it was not necessarily an apology — left her mouth as she backed from the room.
Lia was gone. The cushions from the seats and the curtains from the windows were piled next to him on the bed, which might have explained why the maid didn’t realize he was there. Light streamed through the windows; it was now past eight o’clock, according to his watch.
Lia had taken all their gear from the room. She didn’t answer when he knocked on the other door. Unsure what else to do, Dean walked out to the lobby area, slowly enough so the clerk could stop him if there was a message but, on the other hand, not trying to look as if he were expecting one. He went outside; the truck was gone.
A small building next to the motel looked like a restaurant. Inside, Dean took a place at a small table; the rest of the room was empty. The woman who came out from the back frowned when she saw him. Somewhere in her rapid-fire greeting he thought he heard a word similar to coffee, and so he said, “Da.” This elicited more words, which sounded like questions. Dean nodded and said “Da” again, but apparently this didn’t suffice as an answer.
“I’m just a dumb American,” he told her, shrugging. “Bring me what you got.”
The woman didn’t laugh, but her answer didn’t seem particularly belligerent, either. She tried her question again, this time speaking very slowly.
Dean nodded, having no clue what he was agreeing to.
The woman shook her head, then retreated into the back.
“Saying you’re a dumb American rarely works, because they figure it’s pretty much a given. You know what I’m saying?”
Dean slid around in his chair, trying not to look surprised as Karr walked over with his big grin and pulled over a chair from a nearby table.
“When did you get here?” Dean asked.
“Couple of hours ago.” As if to emphasize that he’d had little sleep, Karr rubbed his eyes with the middle finger of each hand. It looked like a not-so-subtle obscene gesture, the kind kids might make to a teacher soon after learning the significance of the middle finger. “Some shit irritated my eye,” said Karr. “Think the damn eye duct’s clogged or something.”
“Looks red.”
“Yeah. Have to find something to throw in it. I’d go to a doctor, but all they’d offer is vodka.”
“Where’s Lia?”
“I told her to call the Art Room and see what the hell’s going on. Fashona’s doing some business with the helicopter. Let’s have some breakfast.”
The woman reappeared with Dean’s order — a shallow bowl of fish covered with a thick, oily white liquid. Karr choked back a laugh, then began conversing with the woman. She frowned but soon retreated into the back, leaving the dish.
“What is this?” Dean asked.
“Got me. I just ordered some potatoes and chay. We can share.”
“What’s chay?”
“Tea.”
The woman soon appeared pushing a cart with a monstrous bizarre-looking urn made of steel. She fussed quite a bit with large glass cups, placing them before Karr and Dean and adjusting small saucers of jam next to each one. Then she fetched a tin teapot from the bottom of her cart and poured water from the spigot of the urn. She then retreated into the back.
“She getting us bread?” Dean asked.
“No, the jelly’s for the tea.”
“The tea?”
“This is a high-class place,” said Karr. He gestured at the urn. “Samovar and everything.”
The woman soon returned with a pitcher. She poured small amounts of dark tea into the glass cups, then took more water from the samovar and added it to the cups.
“The pelmeni is probably really good here,” said Karr, who added about half the jelly to his tea. “But I’m not all that hungry. Pelmeni—they’re dumplings. Try ’em with vinegar sometime. Blow out your taste buds.”
Karr could’ve been a college kid talking about the local diner. Hell, he looked like he was in high school, with his golden hair and offhand smile.
“You’re pretty good with Russian,” Dean said.
“Nah. I screw up the accents. Because of my mother. She was Russian.”
“Blond Russian?” asked Dean.
“My dad’s Norwegian.” A big Karr grin. “Lia’s actually better than me. Don’t tell her I said that, though. Go to her head.”
“She wouldn’t believe it if I did.”
“Sure she would. She’s got the hots for you. Princess is in looooove.”
“Fuck you, too.”
“I’m not busting your balls. She does.”
Dean shook his head. Karr really was
a kid, still raw, still jokey, not sure where the line was between being serious and goofing around.
When Dean was Karr’s age, he’d known the line. He had to. He spent his days pushing through jungle as thick as a Persian rug. His life was stark and simple, focused on an uncomplicated goal — kill a specified Vietcong operative or officer, expected to be at a specific place and a specific time.
Of course, those specifics usually turned out to be fiction. The only thing you could really count on was fear. It boiled in the middle of your chest and came out in your piss and sweat; it kept you from sleeping and then made you sleep too well. At twenty, Charlie Dean was an old man in Vietnam. He’d grown considerably younger since.
Dean tried the tea without sweetening it. It was very hot and bitter, but the caffeine had an immediate effect. He pushed his fish dish to the very edge of the table, waiting to share Karr’s potatoes.
The door opened, and Fashona came in, his face creased downward in a deep frown.
“Problems,” said the helicopter pilot.
“Sit down,” said Karr, pulling over a chair. “Have some mud.”
“Nah.”
But Karr’s eyes seemed to cast a spell over Fashona, and he sank down just as the Russian appeared with a large platter of potatoes. They weren’t the home fries Dean had expected. Rather, they seemed to have been boiled in some sort of thick white sauce. It tasted something like mayonnaise, slightly acidic. Probably an acquired taste, thought Dean, who was nonetheless so hungry he quickly ate about half the plate.
“Problem getting fuel for the Hind?” Karr asked Fashona.
“Nah, easy. That Helix came from a Marine base, and they want us to check it out. Lia’s still getting the whole story.” Fashona stopped as the woman reappeared with a teacup and a large round of very black bread. The table shook as she cut through the bread, which proved to be a country rye — tough on the teeth, Dean thought, though Karr raved about it.
A half hour later, Lia still hadn’t appeared. Karr got up, taking a few bills from his pocket without bothering to wait for a check.
“More than enough, don’t worry,” he told the others, waving to the woman and bowing as he told her the food had been wonderful.
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