Sakharov the Bear (Michael Gresham Legal Thrillers Book 5)

by John Ellsworth

  He shakes his head and stares arrows back at me.

  "What?"

  "Don't do this, Mikhail. You will likely fail."

  "Someone has to try."

  "Let me do it, then," Marcel says with exasperation. "I'll lead her out."

  "No," I say, "you’ve got a record here from years ago. They'll have your fingerprints and who knows what else? If you get caught with her you'll certainly die. If I get caught with her there's a slim chance I'll survive it. But with you it's certain death. So it has to be me."

  "Wait with that," Verona says. "Why do either of you have to go with her? Why can't she go alone? Better yet, maybe, why can't I go with her? I can pose as her mother."

  "I was planning on posing as her father," I reply sharply, my patience all but evaporated. I don't want anyone else put at risk. Especially not Marcel and not Verona.

  "Then we'll both go and we'll pose as her parents," says Verona.

  "You're out of the equation," I tell Verona. "I will not let you get involved."

  "You will fail without me. Now hear me out. If we are stopped and questioned or if we are detained I will make the case that our daughter—Anna Petrov—suffers from autism. Thus she is unable to speak or care for herself and we're taking her to Europe for treatment."

  "What if they decide to test her to confirm she's really autistic?" I ask. I'm playing the devil's advocate at this point because, I must admit, she is making very good sense to me in what she's saying, much as I hate the idea of her becoming involved.

  "If they decide to test her? They wanted to evaluate my real daughter at one point. But there were no tests. Today the tests that are done to differentiate between normal brains and autistic brains are capable of being performed accurately only by scientists with the proper background and training."

  "And where is this testing done?"

  “At UCLA."

  I ponder this for several minutes. Then, "Has the same testing been done here in Russia?"

  "No. The Russians are in the Stone Age on this. Even if they wanted to test her, they just don't have the means."

  "So it's nothing simple like a blood test or a DNA test. Nothing like that?"

  "That's right. If you'll hear me out, I can convince any Russian authority who is asking questions that this girl is someone other than who they're looking for."

  "Marcel, what about a history of her birth to Mikhail and Verona Sakharov? Can you make that happen?"

  "How much money do we have?"

  "Try the U.S. Treasury. If they don't play ball with me, then I might suddenly start talking to the press about what I know."

  "That one's easy. They'll simply take you out, Mikhail. That's not the way you want to go."

  "Then Russell's father will fund it. Hell, I'll fund it myself if that's what it takes to get her the hell out of Russia. You have my accounts, now make it happen."

  "Same name?" he asks me.

  "Except for the last name. Ms. Petrov is now Ms. Sakharov."

  "Done."

  "How long?"

  "We can have the papers by morning."

  "Eight o'clock?"

  "Yes."

  "All right. We'll meet here at eight in the morning. Verona, put together a suitcase for you and Anna. I'll bring my own bag."

  "Fine."

  "Tonight—Anna, you stay with Verona tonight. I have to go back to the hotel and meet with Van and I'll be up late. But I'll be here by eight tomorrow morning. Agreed everyone?"

  All three in unison, "Agreed."

  Except the next morning when I'm about to leave my hotel room, there is a note pushed beneath my door. It is in Marcel's handwriting. It informs me that Marcel and Verona and Petrov met early this morning and left without me. Marcel is now playing the role of father to the girl.

  I'm stunned and feel terribly betrayed. I retreat back into my room, cursing and pounding the sofa. Then I cool off and order up a full room service breakfast. After I've eaten every last morsel I'm nowhere nearer to understanding how they all three could trick me than I was when I got their message.

  I'm angry and I'm hurt. But I'm also thinking long and hard about the last line in Marcel's message to me.

  Boss, you are all that's standing between Russell and a firing squad. Now get over my deceit and go win this thing for your kid.

  Only then can I smile. Marcel is very thorough. He has learned a secret from my youth and I'm impressed. How did he do this? Probably with the help of Henry Xiang. This is why he has deceived me, because Marcel has my back. Which means he couldn't let me leave.

  He couldn't let me leave, because Russell is my son and Marcel knows it.

  Chapter 27

  Michael Gresham

  That afternoon, after Marcel and Verona and Anna are far away from Moscow, I take a cab from the hotel to the Moscow City Jail. It is overcast, windy and dark when I arrive. Just as I step out of the cab and am paying the driver, it begins sleeting, the whipping ice particles burning my face and eyes. I scurry into the jail, out of the onslaught. I have come to see my son. Who doesn't know he's my son.

  By now they know me at the visitors' window and I'm processed into an attorney-client conference room after a wait of only one hour. I arrive in the room before Russell, who comes in fifteen minutes after me. He looks haggard, unshaven, and his eyes are bloodshot. I can smell the stink on his breath across the table. He nods at me and lowers his eyes.

  "I know I stink. Personal hygiene is not on the top of the list in here."

  "Don't worry about it. I'm here to get you out. I'm not here to judge you in any way."

  Tears come to his eyes and he wipes them away with a grimy hand. He shakes his head violently and his body shudders, obviously angry with himself for the emotional display. "I'm sorry. I find that I'm very weepy anymore. Just feeling sorry for myself."

  "Are they feeding you any better?"

  "Near as I can figure out, they purchase food in bulk. And it changes every few days, what they have for us. Right now we're eating some kind of cold cuts that are rancid and fatty like you wouldn't believe. We get that twice a day. Before that we were doing some kind of white cheese. I never could figure out what the hell it was but that went on for at least a week. Gave me and the guys in my cell the runs. We were shitting in the hole at least a half dozen times a day, each of us. Smelled like a cesspool in there day and night. Thank God they finally used up all of it. The cold cuts are a great relief after that."

  His voice trails off and he still won't make eye contact with me. A part of me wants to hold him close and pat his back and give him comfort as a parent might with a child. But I know better than to do that. So I keep careful boundaries like I always have so far with him and am careful I don't move too close in anything I say. He does not know me as a parent and it will have to remain that way. An unspoken contract I have with Henry Xiang. It's an odd thing, I'm thinking as I'm sitting there making preliminary small talk with my son. Henry Xiang is Asian and has all the facial characteristics you would expect. And Russell has those characteristics—but to a much lesser degree. His mother—with whom I spent one night when we were in college—is also Asian. But I can see my own eyes in the boy, maybe much more.

  "So," I say in my professional voice, "I understand you are a CIA agent. How did that happen?"

  "Growing up, I was exposed to Mandarin Chinese. My dad's siblings, his parents—there were always people around who wanted me to speak it with them. So I began learning the language early on. By the time I was seven or eight I was quite comfortable conversing in Chinese. Then, in college, I minored in Chinese. Which, at Georgetown, is a real bitch. Very difficult major and I struggled before I began to excel. Then, in my senior year, I was called into my advisor's office at the university. Someone wanted to meet with me, someone who didn't want to contact me directly. So I showed up, my advisor led me into his conference room, and there was a man in a suit sitting at the table, his hands folded, with zero expression on his face. My first reaction w
as, Uh-oh, I'm in trouble."

  "Were you in trouble? I doubt that."

  "No. My advisor left us alone and the man introduced himself. We shook hands. He asked me whether I'd ever considered working for the government. I told him I hadn't considered working at all at that point, that I was accepted into law school."

  "You were planning to join your father's law firm, I'm guessing."

  "Actually, no. I was planning on moving to Hong Kong after law school and working in a commercial firm. I was ready for adventure, Mr. Gresham."

  I look around nervously. Then I fiercely type a message on my iPad. "Call me Sakharov!"

  "Who?" I ask, hoping that he twists the "Mr. Gresham" thing into something innocent.

  "Gresham—that was the man's name, I believe. Anyway, I told him that I wanted adventure in a foreign country, Mr. Sakharov. At that point, he actually smiled. Then he showed me his ID. He said he was a recruiter for the Central Intelligence Agency. Well, I all but ran out of there."

  "You wanted foreign adventure but not that kind of foreign adventure, I'm guessing."

  "Exactly. All I knew about that stuff was James Bond and Jason Bourne movies. It didn't look like anything I wanted to wake up to every day. So I flat refused him and got up to leave the room. He told me to wait one minute until he finished. So I sat back down."

  "So he sweetened the deal?"

  "Yes and no. He went to work on my patriotism—what there was of it. He talked about nine-eleven and how much the government needed help. Especially, he said, help from young people who have language aptitude, language training. It was really something I'd never even considered. I had minored in Chinese because I thought it would be an easy minor. It wasn't; it was terribly difficult. But that's a story for another day."

  As this young man talks and I get to know him a little better, I'm advancing through several stages of shock and surprise. The kid sounds at times exactly like me and many of his facial idiosyncrasies, as he connects with me, almost make me feel like I'm looking in a mirror. I keep forcing that stuff aside, trying to concentrate on doing my job as a professional, but it's very challenging. This is sure as hell my kid.

  "At some point he must have convinced you that working for the CIA had its good points."

  "He did. He asked me for twenty years of my life. After that, he said, I could retire and go back to school and study law if I still wanted or I could rock."

  "Rock?"

  "You know—rocking chair. Do nothing except sleep and eat and read. Whatever. Actually, that held a great appeal for me. I had thought someday I might like to try my hand at writing. That seemed like a real possibility, the way he made it sound. Plus, by then I would have incredible stories to tell."

  "I'm sure you would."

  "So, I said I was open to discussing it further. Then we talked about pay and benefits and so forth. By the time we were finished, he had me at least half-convinced it was a good thing. But I still wanted to talk to my dad. And I told this to the recruiter. He didn't comment on that but made a follow-up appointment with me in one week. This time I would meet him at Langley for a tour. I agreed."

  "So you talked to your dad?"

  "I did. I wasn't allowed to tell him who it was exactly, that I had been talking to. Only that a government agency had approached me and I was interested. Like always, he told me to do what was best for me. So I did. I visited Langley, liked what I saw, and signed up as a candidate. Beyond that, there's not much else I'm allowed to talk about."

  "Sure, I get that. Now, let's talk about why you were in Russia when you were arrested."

  "I can't really go into that. I'm sorry."

  "There are certain parts of it you're just going to have to trust me with, Russell. As your lawyer, there are certain parts of your story that I must have."

  "That's just not possible, Mr. Sakharov. This room is probably bugged anyway."

  At that point I pulled out my counter-measures device. I sweep the room for electronics and, to my great surprise, the room isn't bugged. I tell Russell so and show him my electronic tool. It looks like a common cellphone, but it's capable of much more than making calls.

  "Actually there are no cameras and no mikes in here. I'm astonished but I trust my equipment."

  "Where'd you get that?"

  "From an old Interpol agent who knows what he's doing. We're clear in here."

  "All right. Mr. Sakharov, I'll tell you what I can. But there are parts I could be executed for if I gave them up to anyone. I'm sorry."

  "Why don't we just play it by ear and see where that gets us?"

  "Fine. Ask away."

  "Why were you in Russia? Is the Russian Federation your normal assignment?"

  "No. We stumbled across some noise when we were working on something else. I came here to investigate."

  "Noise?"

  "Certain keywords. Catch phrases. Things that NSA wants to know more about."

  "So you were here to find out about those things. But why you? Why not someone already here?"

  "Because I happen to have served in the Middle East with the person of interest this time out."

  "That person's name?"

  "Henrik Nurayov."

  "Who is this person?"

  "He's a British officer."

  "As in—military? Help me, Russell."

  "As in MI6. He's my counterpart."

  "So you knew him from before?"

  Russell stretches out his arms, rubbing his shoulders, obviously considering how he wants this line of questioning to proceed.

  "I knew him from before, I knew he was MI6, but I can't tell you what we suspected him of doing. That might compromise our own security."

  I smile. "Russell, as your lawyer, what you tell me is confidential. It's not like I'm going to go out and repeat these things because I'm not."

  His dark eyes bore in on me. "Maybe not voluntarily. But there are people out there who can get you to say anything, Mr. Sakharov. These people can learn anything you have in your head. Trust me on this."

  "I do. All right, that makes sense. So we won't go into details of the mission. But you came to Russia to look into whatever and you wound up getting arrested. The court papers say you killed Russian citizens and that you absconded with government secrets. Let's take those one by one. First of all, have you actually killed anyone since you've been here?"

  He nods solemnly. "I have."

  "Who was that?"

  "They, Mr. Sakharov. They."

  "Was this on official business?"

  "Since you put it that way, yes. I know what you're asking."

  "Where did this happen?"

  "At Henrik's dacha, just outside of town. North of Moscow."

  "Can you describe the circumstances?"

  "These people I shot were looking for me to shoot me. I happened to shoot first."

  "Was anyone else with you?"

  "I can't say. I can't compromise another officer. That's a crime punishable by death."

  "Then don't. It's not that critical at this point anyway."

  "Thank you. The people I killed were Russian FSB agents. I have been advised that one of them was the son of a high-ranking FSB official. I've created a huge uproar between our countries, Mr. Sakharov."

  "Do you know this person's name?"

  'No."

  "Do you know the father's name?"

  "Yes. The father is Igor Tarayev, the chief of the Moscow FSB."

  "Oh, hell."

  "Yes. Evidently his son was a junior G-Man and I put him down."

  "How does this Henrik Nurayov figure into this?"

  "Tarayev's son was providing security for Henrik Nurayov. Let's just say a deal was going down."

  "What kind of deal?"

  Russell looks around the room, his eyes darting from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. Then he returns his gaze to me.

  "Military items were being sold. Military items that the United States was compelled to learn about."

  "Military arm
s that someone was trying to bring into the U.S.?"

  "Exactly," he says. I'm not sure he would have told me this if I hadn't guessed it. I believe we just crossed a line he wouldn't have crossed just to save himself.

  "So is Nurayov selling British arms to the Russians?"

  "Not quite. He's acting as a go-between. There is an arms dealer on one side of the world and there is the FSB on the other side. The FSB wants to see certain military materiel make its way into the United States so that acts of terrorism can be carried out. The FSB—Russia—is paying a huge sum of money for these items and Henrik Nurayov is walking off with more money that he could have made in a a hundred lifetimes as an MI6 officer. Or as a CIA officer."

  "And the CIA—NSA, rather—got wind of this and sent you to investigate because you knew Nurayov from before?"

  "Yes, but there's more."

  "As in?"

  "Nurayov's wife is my wife's sister. I met my wife through Nurayov when we were working the Middle East. There was a Christmas party, of all things, and Nurayov was posing as a low-level diplomat whose wife had accompanied him on his posting. Her sister came to town as cover so it appeared the Christmas holiday was a normal, family holiday. The sister turned out to be someone I fell in love with and married on returning to the States. Small world, Mr. Sakharov."

  "So it must be extremely difficult for you to now find yourself on the other side of the fence from your brother-in-law."

  "We were never close at all. There’s always been something about Henrik that puts people off. He's oily and always working some agenda and people pick up on it. Henrik Nurayov has never been a well-liked person. Then about five years ago, he and my wife's sister separated for a year and then divorced. So at this time there is no connection and I had lost track of the man. But the CIA hadn't lost track of him and hadn't lost track of my connection to him. When he surfaced on their radar they immediately turned to me and here I am."

  "Wow, some history there. Were you—were you here to kill Nurayov?"

  "Yes."

  "Were you going to carry that out?"

  "Absolutely. It's only business. Plus he's trying to create a mass attack in the U.S. He deserves to die and I'm absolutely ready to make that happen."