“See, I don’t think you are an asshole,” said Dean.
“You’ve been wrong before.”
“Not about that.” Dean tried to grab her arm, but she pulled away, then spun, and put her finger at his throat.
“Don’t fuck with me, Charlie. Let’s just get it done, OK? This is a shitload more important than anything you’ve ever done.”
“You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“I know everything about you. Everything — Khe Sahn, the highlands, the lowlands, California, South Africa. I know your fuckups and your successes. I know how many medals you have, and how many people you killed. I also know how many got killed saving your ass. I’m not going to be one of them.”
She whirled away before Dean could find something to answer.
* * *
Lia found a small park two blocks up from the housing site. A few mothers were watching kids and talking; she sat on a bench out of earshot, then took her handheld out and punched into the SpyNet portal. It took almost a minute for the system to register and authenticate her; Dean, still sulking, trudged over slowly and sat down.
She wondered if he kept doing things to piss her off on purpose.
“So?” he asked.
“Hang tight,” she said. She thumbed in the most recent satellite picture of the site, then had the computer render it as a schematic. After she deleted the topo lines, she showed it to Dean. “Use the stylus to highlight the places you wanted to look at.”
“Kind of small,” he said after taking the computer.
She took it back and pulled down the zoom. The area was now displayed on four screens. As she started to show him how to go from screen to screen, she noticed that one of the women in the distance was looking at them.
“Put your arm around me,” she told him.
“What?”
“Charlie, do you need an instruction manual on that, too?” Lia leaned into him and he finally figured it out.
A little too well — he leaned down and kissed her.
Not unpleasantly, though she pulled back to break it off. The old biddy who’d been watching frowned and moved on.
“In the line of duty,” he said quickly.
“Four screens,” she told him. “Use the compass arrows.”
She continued to lean on him. She might have admitted it felt good — but only under severe torture.
“I think I have them all.”
“Don’t think you have them—have them.”
Lia waited as he went through the screens again. Probably she wasn’t really attracted to him — he was too old and at times a bit obtuse.
Good-looking, though, with the chiseled shoulders and arms she liked, tight butt, soft but deep voice. He’d be good in the bedroom but probably — certainly — get too attached.
No, she probably wasn’t really attracted to him, except in the most theoretical sense. The problem was that she didn’t have sex enough. This stinking assignment — her fucking life since what, joining the Army? — had turned her into a nun.
Just about.
Karr was nice but too nice, too up all the time; he never turned that bullshit smile off. And Fashona — very nice guy, very not her type.
“Done,” Dean said. “Want me to explain?”
Stuff like that. That’s what pissed her off.
She pulled the computer away and reduced the magnifi- cation. Then she sent the image back to the system for analysis.
“Just because there’s no one there now,” said Dean, “doesn’t mean they didn’t set up already.”
“Really? You think?”
“You want me to help or not?”
The screen came back up. Out of the nearly three dozen places Charlie had identified, only six had had IR readings over the past twenty-four hours. Two were covered by the video cameras the CIA agents had planted, and another was near a microphone.
“These images are made every ten minutes,” she explained. “So it’s conceivable that someone very, very fast could get in and out without detection. But the approaches are being monitored, so really we’re down to four spots.”
“What if they came in a couple of days ago?”
“OK. That screen will take a little longer,” she told him. “The schedule was only set yesterday.”
“They may have staked out the site a month ago.”
“Possible,” she said. “But not probable.”
Extending the analysis to sixty-four hours — that was the longest period available — yielded two other sites.
“I gotta tell ya, I don’t trust all this high-tech shit,” said Dean when she showed him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you guys have been smoked twice. It never works right.”
“Hold on — when were we smoked?”
“Getting Martin out.”
“How?”
“You didn’t know where he was.”
“Well, shit, this isn’t a movie. You think we could have gone in with four people — four people, only two of whom were on the ground — without all our gear? Jesus.”
“How come you didn’t know where he was?”
“He doesn’t have a surgically placed locator,” she told him. “Just like you don’t. You lose your gear and we lose you. Even then, the system has gaps. Shit, nothing’s perfect.” She realized she was talking way too loudly and took a moment to lower her breath. “How would the Marines have done it?”
“Well—”
“That was rhetorical, Charles. I’m not looking for an answer.” She stood.
“I bailed you out at the car place.”
“Yes, you did. Thank you.”
Dean got up, standing close to her. “You don’t say it like you mean it.”
One or two of the women on the playground were staring. Lia turned and looked up into his face. “You know?”
“What?”
Good question, she thought. What?
Dean put his hand on her shoulder.
“Let’s just do our jobs, OK?” she said.
“Fine with me.”
“Then we’ll go our separate ways.”
“Perfect.”
“Start by removing your hand.”
Dean pulled it back with an exaggerated sweep. Lia shook her head and sat down.
“All right,” she said. “We have to get in and check these sites.”
“There are a couple of good windows and the roof in the apartment block,” said Dean, sitting back down as well. “They’re at the far end of the range, but possible.”
“We’ll check them, too. First we get into the site, get that out of the way.”
“How?”
“Technology,” she said, jumping from the seat. “And a little T and A.”
63
Rubens stood at the front of the Art Room, adjusting his headset as he waited for the Moscow assassination team to check in. The Art Room was establishing full contact mode, connecting with the CIA’s situation room and the Tank at the Pentagon as well as its field teams and supervisors. Had-ash paced nervously below the big screen, sweat pouring down his collar.
“Five,” said Al Austin, the CIA supervisor in Moscow. He was at a post near the Kremlin, running the crews keeping tabs on Kurakin and trying to prevent — or at least detect — an assassination attempt.
Two other teams finished the check-in, reporting from surveillance posts that were covering secondary access routes to the capital. Their efforts duplicated that of the NSA’s own sensors, but in an operation like this there was no such thing as too much redundancy.
“All right, now that we’re all on the line, we’re going to run through the latest intelligence,” said Rubens. He introduced Segio Nakami, who ran down the analysis on the latest intercepts.
Nakami was Johnny Bib’s second in command. Johnny had insisted on hunkering with the crypto people, who were working furiously to break down a new cipher that had appeared in the military intercepts. While finding the keys and decry
pting the messages would yield considerable information, they would settle for any discernible patterns of its use that would yield information related to the coup. Rubens agreed that Johnny was more valuable there — and besides, he was acting a little peculiar even for him.
Nakami explained that sixteen different military units had been positively linked to the coup; several others had been ordered to their barracks. All of the orders had emanated from the defense ministry, again pointing to Perovskaya. The one odd thing was that they were in a cipher that had been discontinued some months before, probably because the Russians suspected the Americans could read it easily. This was probably simply a mistake, added Nakami, though they were open to other interpretations.
No one gave any.
All of these units would be cut off when the coup began. Piranha — a virus designed to disable the military computers — would be launched from the Art Room at the push of a small button on Telach’s console. Two other virus attacks were also ready. Communications disrupters — basically very large vans containing equipment similar to that carried by electronic warfare planes — were stationed near the military bases and in several key Moscow locations. These would be used to throw a blanket around the city and the rebelling units.
Other resources had been mobilized to monitor the spread and effect of the attack. Besides the existing sensor and satellite net, four Navy ships and nearly a dozen “joint” project aircraft were either loitering or standing by to launch. A schedule had been worked out to feed them onto stations piecemeal, hoping not to attract too much attention. And of course there was a large number of sensors already on-line to help monitor what was going on.
The individual units gave their own short briefs. The CIA people were more than a little testy, mostly reflecting Langley’s pique that this wasn’t “their” operation. There also was some unvoiced but nonetheless discernible resentment that they were putting their own necks out for the Russian president — a not unreasonable emotion, Rubens thought.
Austin began complaining that he didn’t have enough people to cover Kurakin and managed to detour into a complaint that the NSA team that had been sent over had left without telling him where they were going.
“Are you saying, Mr. Austin, that you can’t handle the assignment?” asked Rubens. Rockman had briefed him on Karr’s concerns and the latest developments; once again the field officer had instinctively followed the right course of action. But that was why Tommy was there.
“No,” said Austin. “I can handle it fine.”
“Then do so.”
“We have movement,” said Telach, raising her hand a few feet away. “Infantry division near Tula.”
“We have one unit moving,” said Rubens, swinging his mike down in front of his face and addressing everyone on the common circuit. “We wait for another unit to confirm. Then we move. As planned.”
He put his hand on Rockman’s shoulder, listening as Telach relayed information about the contact. It was an eavesdropping bug; that was not enough to go on.
“I’m bringing up a satellite image,” she said.
A satellite photo filled about half of the massive screen at the front of the room. The infantry base was laid out like two half-wheels, with barracks as spokes and vehicles parked in large lots to their right. It took Rubens a few seconds to orient himself to the images; at first glance he thought the barracks were the vehicles.
“This picture’s ten minutes old, for reference,” said Te-lach. “Here’s the most recent, ninety-two seconds ago.”
Another image flashed on the screen to the right of the first. They seemed identical — and in fact were, as Telach showed with an overlay.
A fresh overlay thirty seconds later confirmed that the unit had not in fact moved.
“Have the unit on the gate check their equipment,” Rubens told her. “No more false alarms.”
64
Karr took a slug from the tall bottle of Coke, watching the escalator from the corner of his eye. A brunette with big-time knockers blocked his view momentarily; he had to physically step back and pry his eyes free.
And as he did, Martin got on the top of the escalator, eyes scanning the crowd nervously.
Karr took a few steps forward, putting himself just beyond the view from the escalator. He hung back as Martin descended. The meter he held in his hand beneath the newspaper sent a strong stream of clicks through his earphone. Martin was still wearing the markers.
Following him would be child’s play. Karr hoped to get at least a rough idea where Martin was planning to go next before grabbing him.
Rather than heading toward the airline reservation desks to Karr’s left, Martin continued straight ahead, walking in the general direction of the street. Somewhat surprised, Karr followed along leisurely.
Moscow. So that probably meant one of the intelligence agencies.
Or not. A mafiya connection, a relative, a car rental place that wasn’t as conspicuous, another airport, a safe house, the Army, the Navy, the U.S. embassy — any of a million places.
Karr began trotting as Martin reached the door. A father and a small boy pulled their suitcases in front of him; he nearly fell as he spun out of the way. Karr tossed down the soda bottle, running flat out now.
Martin was walking up toward a car.
Black-market taxi. Another break. He ought to play the lottery today, truly.
“The city,” said Martin to the driver in Russian.
“Ckopee!” added Karr, grabbing the door and pushing Martin in with him. “Hurry!”
The driver started to look back, but his eyes caught the hundred-dollar bill Karr had dropped onto his seat. He responded the way any taxi driver would — he hit the gas.
“We are in a hurry, aren’t we, Stephen?” said Karr.
“Yes.” Martin couldn’t have looked more stunned if Lenin had come out of his tomb.
“Boy, you know, it’s awful funny,” said Karr. “I thought you were supposed to take a plane over to — was it Finland? No, that wasn’t it. I think it was Sweden. Yes, as a matter of fact, it was.”
“There were problems,” said Martin. “I was followed.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I was on my way to the embassy.”
Karr leaned back against the corner of the seat and the door. He stretched his legs as much as he could, which wasn’t all that much. “I’ll give you this — you’re not as dumb as you look. But then again, neither am I.”
“Why do you think I’m dumb? I was on my way to the embassy. What would you have done?”
“Embassy. OK.” In Russian, Karr told the driver to take them to the U.S. embassy. The driver started to protest that he didn’t know the way until Karr reached into his pocket and pulled out another hundred-dollar bill. “My friend can direct you once you’re in the neighborhood,” he said. “He says he knows it.”
“I’m not sure I do,” said Martin.
“Beautiful place. Bugged all to hell by Russians. Pretty clever, the Russians.”
Martin didn’t answer.
“How long have you been a scumbag? Did they turn you, or were you born that way?”
Martin remained silent.
“Do me a favor, Stephen. Lock your door. The embassy’s in a pretty high crime area.”
Martin made a face but reached over and locked it.
Largely because he did, Karr was ready when he pulled the gun on him a minute later.
“I was kind of hoping you were telling the truth,” Karr said. “Even though I knew it was a fantasy.”
“Screw yourself.” The gun was a small.32-caliber revolver.
“Did you have the gun here, or did you get it past the detectors somehow?” said Karr. “I’d kind of like to know, because I’m always looking for new techniques.”
He was also wondering if Martin had been met by someone at the airport, which would mean they were probably being tailed.
Martin didn’t answer.
“I’m kind of hoping you do
n’t shoot me,” said Karr.
“Start praying.” Martin’s hand twitched, but not so much that Karr was going to risk rushing him.
“Come on now. I did save you. Even if you didn’t want to be saved.”
“Stop here,” Martin told the driver in Russian, looking at Karr.
The Russian started to protest; they were still on the highway and a good distance from the central city, let alone the embassy. Martin said they’d paid enough money for him to stop anywhere they wanted. He kept his eyes on Karr’s the whole time.
“Aim for the heart,” Karr told him as he raised the gun. “If I’m going, I want to go quick.”
“I know about your vest.”
Karr jerked his right arm upward as Martin pushed his hand forward to fire. His hideaway Glock was in his hand and he fired point-blank, the bullet crashing against Martin’s left shoulder just as he fired. Karr had loaded the gun with rubber bullets — he wanted Martin alive — but even lead wouldn’t have stopped Martin from pressing the trigger.
But Karr had succeeded in throwing off Martin’s aim. His bullet flew forward, shattering the plastic shield between the passenger and driver compartments. Shrapnel flew into Karr’s face and his eye caught fire.
The car turned sideways, jumping a curb. Karr felt a hard thud against his chest, then fired the Glock again.
65
It was amazing what two shirt buttons could do.
Dean watched Lia loosen them, then walk up to the plainclothes detectives at one of the side gates to the complex. She had foreign press credentials saying she was a Singapore television correspondent. He tagged along, bodyguard/driver whose job was to keep his mouth shut. Her spiel was all in Russian, but the outlines were in a universal language:
“You’re cute; I’d like to see what’s inside so the TV cameras don’t get tripped up; you’re cute.”
“Sure, but I have to frisk you first.”
“Go for it.”
Dean was frisked, too, though considerably quicker. They’d stashed their weapons; the guards seemed more interested in Lia’s cosmetics than her handheld or the small satellite phone, both of which looked like normal business items.
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