Assassin km-6

by David Hagberg

  “Double dip merde,” Rencke agreed. “But right now it’s our only shot.”

  En Route to Moscow

  Even over the roar of the jet engines spooling up Elizabeth imagined that she could hear the thump of her heart in her chest. Any doubts she might have had about who’d taken her had been dispelled the moment they’d arrived at the airport and she got a look at the Tupolev jet waiting on the apron. It carried Russian military markings, with the Russian flag painted on the tail.

  Of the eight or ten others aboard, she figured four were crew, while the rest looked like cops or possibly military. All of them were surprised by her presence, but they offered no objections. The one who’d taken her was the boss, and it struck her from the moment she came aboard that he was Leonid Chernov, Tarankov’s chief of staff, and the one who was posing as Yuri Bykov, chief of the police commission hunting for her father.

  The aircraft had been fitted out executive-style with wide leather seats, facing each other in groups of four, a pair of couches with a low table between them in the rear of the main cabin, and a complete galley and bar. She caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a conference room equipped with what looked like radio gear through an open door in the back of the plane. Forward she could see into the cockpit where the pilot and copilot were dressed in military uniforms.

  Chernov put her in one of the seats in the forward part of the cabin, and went back to the others gathered in the conference room, and closed the door.

  Elizabeth considered making a dash for the door, when one of the crewmen closed and latched it. He said something to the pilots, then came back to her.

  “We’ll be taking off now, so put on your seatbelt,” he said pleasantly. He was young, probably not much older than Elizabeth.

  “I’m an American. You have no right to take me anywhere,” she said, and it sounded foolish eve to her.

  “If you refuse to cooperate, I’ve been instructed to drug you,” the crewman warned. “When it wears off tomorrow you’ll have a hell of a headache and cottonmouth. Sometimes it even scrambles the brain for a few days. I’m told that the effect is extremely unpleasant.”

  The airplane started to move, gathering speed as it trundled down the taxiway.

  “I thought things had changed for the better in Russia. I guess I was wrong,” Elizabeth said. She buckled her seat belt.

  The crewman sat down across from her and fastened his seat belt. “As soon as we’re airborne and out of the pattern I’ll get you something to drink. It’s not a very long flight to Moscow, less than two hours, but if you’re hungry I can get you something to eat.”

  Elizabeth looked out the window, willing herself to calm down. She wasn’t going to give the bastards the satisfaction of seeing the intense fear she felt. She’d walked into a trap in Paris, and she’d done the same damned thing here in Riga. The first had turned out okay, but this time she was in big trouble. When she didn’t show up at the train station Jacqueline might guess what had happened, but there would be no proof. Riga had swallowed her, and there wasn’t much that anybody could do to get her back.

  Except, she thought, God help the bastards if and when her father found out she’d been kidnapped. The last people who’d tried that had paid with their lives.

  But they’d been nothing more than a group of ex-East German Stasi thugs, not an entire government. She laid her forehead against the cool window glass as the airplane reached the end of the taxiway and turned onto the runway. Her father was only a man, and sooner or later all of his skills would be no match for an overwhelming force. When it came she would have been the one to lead him to his destruction.

  The airplane took off, and as it circled the city and headed east, she searched for and found the railroad station. She touched the window with her fingers. Jacque line would be getting worried now.

  Five minutes later the countryside below was a puzzle of farmsteads, lakes and rivers, and stands of forests that stretched to the horizon for as far as she could see.

  “Now, can I get you something to drink,” the crewman asked. “A glass of tea, or perhaps some champagne?”

  Elizabeth looked up at him.

  “Champagne is permitted,” he said.

  She turned away without a word, and after a moment the crewman left. She heard voices at the rear of the airplane, but she didn’t look up again until someone sat down across from her.

  “I don’t want champagne,” she said.

  “Neither do I,” Chernov replied reasonably and Elizabeth’s stomach fluttered. “You’re too young to be his wife, so you’re probably his daughter. The question is, what were you doing in Riga? How did you find out where your father was staying?”

  His eyes were flat, lifeless. Studying his face, Elizabeth decided that he was younger than his gray hair made him look. It struck her that if he was posing as Yuri Bykov on the police commission, he would have to be in disguise. Certainly enough people had seen him at Tarankov’s side and would have recognized him if he hadn’t changed his appearance.

  “Your father is a brilliant man. But he is dangerous. Do you know what he means to do? And do you understand why we cannot allow that to happen? Your own government does.”

  Chernov had something to hide, which meant he was vulnerable. But she would have to be careful what she said or did. If he suspected that she knew his true identity, she had no doubt that he would kill her.

  “Your father is an assassin. But I think you know this.”

  “He telephoned me in Paris last night,” Elizabeth said. “At my apartment. He wanted me to return to our house in Milford. He said he was flying over tomorrow.”

  “Did he tell you where he was calling from?”

  “I traced his call.”

  “How?”

  “With my computer. It’s easy. Once I found out that he was in Riga, I got into the local phone system, and brought up the line, it’s a pay phone in the building.”

  “That’s very inventive,” Chernov said. “Why did you come to Riga? What did you hope to accomplish?”

  Elizabeth looked away for a moment, as if she were gathering her thoughts, as if she were making a decision, which in effect she was. Damage control, her father called what she was trying to do. If damage has been done, try to control the effects by telling half-truths to direct the inquiries elsewhere.

  She looked into Chernov’s eyes. “I wanted to make sure that my father was telling me the truth and was calling off the mission. Tarankov isn’t worth a bullet. Nobody in Russia is. For all we give a damn, you people deserve whatever happens to you. For a thousand years you’ve been killing each other by the millions. Good riddance.”

  Chernov was impressed, she could see it on his face. “For all we give a damn? Who is the we?”

  “If you had done your homework, Colonel Bykov, you would know that I work for the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence. We’ve agreed to help you stop my father not because we think killing Tarankov is such a bad idea, but because my father’s life is worth too much to risk killing such scum.”

  A flicker of surprise showed in his eyes, but was gone as fast as it appeared. “Then the CIA knows that you came to Riga?”

  “Of course,” Elizabeth said with a straight face.

  Chernov thought about it a moment, then got up. “Do you think your father went back to this Milford?” “It’s in Delaware,” Elizabeth said. “Yes, I do.” He nodded after a moment. “We’ll see,” he said, and then he went back into the conference room and closed the door, leaving Elizabeth to wonder if she’d done the right thing, or if she’d made another terrible mistake.

  Riga

  It was 12:10 p.m. when Jacqueline made it to the French Embassy. The young receptionist at the front desk registered no surprise when Jacqueline flashed her passport, and asked to speak with Marc Edis, assistant to the ambassador for economic affairs. In reality he was chief of SDECE operations for all the Baltics. She’d looked up his name before she and Elizabeth had left Paris. The woman pu
t through the call, and a minute later a tall, slope-shouldered man with drooping mustaches came down the stairs, his expression frankly admiring when he spotted her.

  “I’m Marc Edis,” he said, extending his hand. “How may I be of service, Mademoiselle?”

  Jacqueline shook hands. “I need to speak to you in private.”

  “May I enquire as to the nature of your business with me?”

  The receptionist was paying them no attention, nevertheless Jacqueline lowered her voice. “My name is Jacqueline Belleau. I work for Colonel Guy de Galan in Paris.” The vapid smile left his face. “We’ll go lip to my office,” he said, all business now. “Hold any calls for me, I’ll be in conference,” he told the receptionist.

  Five minutes later Jacqueline was speaking by secured telephone to an angry Galan.

  “Alexandre returned from the apartment an hour ago to report that you and Elizabeth were gone. Possibly shopping, he told me, although there was evidence that some clothing and personal articles were missing. I was getting ready to tear the city apart looking for you. But instead of that, you telephone from Latvia!”

  “Elizabeth had a hunch that her father might be here. But it was just a hunch, man colonel. Since we’d gotten nowhere with our other hunches I thought we would simply fly here, check it out, and immediately return to Paris if we did not find him.”

  “That was stupid and dangerous, Jacqueline. You — should have at least warned Alexandre, in case something went wrong. As it stands we would not have had so much as a starting point to look for you.”

  Edis had tactfully retreated to another office, leaving her alone. She ran a hand across her eyes. She was as tired as she was stupid.

  “Something has gone wrong,” she said. “Did you find McGarvey?” Galan asked.

  “No.”

  “Is Elizabeth with you there at the embassy? Please tell me she is.”

  “She is not,” Jacqueline said. “We went to the apartment that she thought her father had used on a previous assignment. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, so she went in while I waited at the end of the block. Ten minutes later an unmarked van pulled up to the curb, and a man came out of the building with Elizabeth, put her into the van and drove off.”

  “Maybe Riga police,” Galan suggested. “Were your travel documents legitimate?”

  “Out. But I have a hunch they were Russian.”

  “Hunch? What hunch is this now?” Galan demanded.

  “The man looked Russian*”

  “Everybody in Latvia looks Russian, Jacqueline!”

  “If it had been the Riga police there would have been squad cars around. Men in uniform. But there was just the van, the driver, and the man with Elizabeth. No sirens, no lights, no radio antennas.”

  “I’ll have to turn this over to the Americans. They can make inquiries with the Riga police. It’s out of our hands now.” “Maybe the Russians tracked McGarvey here. Maybe they were waiting for him at the apartment when Elizabeth showed up.”

  “It’s possible, but it’s no longer our problem. McGarvey is out of France, if what you say is—” “I can’t abandon them,” Jacqueline cut in.

  “What can you do?” Galan asked. “Nothing, that’s what! I want you back here on the first available flight.”

  “Won.” “Pourqoui pas?”

  “Because I’m convinced that McGarvey is in Moscow, and so is Elizabeth. I want you to send me there, in an official capacity.”

  “To do what, Jacqueline?” Galan demanded.

  “To work with the Russian Police commission. Maybe I can find out something about Elizabeth, or her father. Maybe I can help stop this insanity.”

  ‘“Where did you learn about this commission?” “From Elizabeth. She said she was briefed before she left Washington.”

  Galan was silent for several long seconds.

  “I think that you are not telling me everything,” Galan said.

  “At least let me try, man colonel. I have done questionable things for France. Allow France to do something for me.”

  There was another long silence.

  “First we’ll make sure that Elizabeth wasn’t arrested by the Riga police. In the meantime you can continue to watch the apartment building. Perhaps McGarvey will return there.”

  “Please hurry,” Jacqueline said.

  “Rest assured, ma petite, I will.”

  Moscow

  Touching down at what appeared to be an air force base, the afternoon was clear except to the north where a thick haze defined the city limits of the Russian capital. When they were on the taxiway, a pair of MiGs took off side by side with a mind-numbing roar on tails of black smoke. In the distance several helicopters seemed to be hovering over a stand of white birch. And in some of the hangars they passed, crews were working on partially disassembled fighter interceptors

  Elizabeth had been allowed to use the bathroom, but she’d not been offered anything to eat or drink a second time. She got the feeling that they didn’t care what she did. None of the crew paid any attention to her, and during the remainder of the two-hour flight Chernov had remained in the conference room with the other men.

  Chernov, a smug look of satisfaction on his face, came out of the conference room with the others as the airplane stopped in front of an empty hangar. Several cars were waiting on the tarmac.

  “You should have followed your orders, and not tried to interfere,” one of the men said to her as he passed. ‘ “The CIA should not have involved the man’s daughter, Illen,” another of the men countered angrily. “It’s a bad business that will not have a happy ending for anyone.”

  The crewman opened the forward door as boarding stairs were pushed into place. Everyone got off the plane, climbed into all but one of the waiting cars and drove off, leaving Elizabeth alone with Chernov.

  “Major Gresko is right, you should not have come to Riga, Ms. McGarvey. You’ve accomplished nothing. In fact you’ve jeopardized your father’s safety.” “Will I be allowed to call my embassy?”

  “That won’t be possible.”

  “The Chief of Station here will start making noises pretty soon. President Kabatov is a reasonable—”

  Chernov dismissed her with a gesture. “While it’s true that you work for the CIA, you’re supposed to be in Paris at this moment staking out your father’s apartment with the French intelligence service in case he returns. No one knows that you came to Riga. That, you did on your own. Inventive, I’ll give you that much. But stupid.”

  “My father is on his way to the States.”

  “No he’s not. He’s on his way here to Moscow. Probably in some clever disguise, almost certainly traveling under false papers. The last time I saw him was in Nizhny Novgorod where he was dressed as a soldier. I didn’t know that he was coming then, but I know it now. And I know that he is coming here from Riga. There are only so many trains, airplanes, boat ferries and highways between here and there, and I assure you that all of them are being watched.”

  “Then what do you need me for?” Elizabeth asked defiantly, although she was sick at heart.

  Chernov thought a moment.

  “Because quite frankly, your father is very good at what he does, and I have the utmost respect for him, and maybe a little fear. He might somehow make it to Moscow. He might even be in Red Square on May Day when Tarankov makes his speech atop Lenin’s Mausoleum.”

  “That’s the day Tarankov will die.”

  “I think not,” Chernov said. “Because you will be standing next to him on the reviewing stand. In plain sight for everyone, including your father, to see.”

  Elizabeth didn’t know what to say.

  Chernov had perched on the arm of one of the seats. He got up. “Now it’s time for you to meet him. I think he’ll enjoy talking to you, as I’m sure his wife Liesel will. They’re very persuasive people.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Leipzig

  At first appearances the banker Herman Dunkel and the car dealer Bernard Legler we
re cut of different cloth. Dunkel was an arch conservative who habitually dressed in dark three-piece suits, and was concerned only with the bottom line. Legler, on the other hand, affected American western dress, spoke garishly, and was only concerned with hiding the bottom line from his accountant, and pocketing the money thus diverted. They had several things in common, however. Both had worked for the East German intelligence service Stasi until the Wall had come down. Both were shrewd businessmen who were profiting from Germany’s reunification. And neither man trusted anybody.

  They met for lunch at the Thuringer Hof, a centuries old restaurant tavern downtown, something they hadn’t done in several weeks. They liked to get together occasionally to talk over some of the interesting cases they’d worked on in the Stasi. The darkly paneled bar was quiet and anonymous. Voices did not carry, something of interest to both men who had carefully hidden their true pasts. Legler suspected that this meeting was different, however, because of Dunkel’s abrupt manner this morning on the telephone.

  Their drinks came and Dunkel raised his glass. “Prost.” “Prost,” Legler responded.

  When the waitress was gone, Dunkel gave his old friend a quizzical look. “How is your business with Herr Allain proceeding? Have you received any further orders?”

  “Just the two units,” Legler said. “But his money is good.”

  “He has plenty of money, there is no doubt about that. In fact I made further inquiries into his Barclay’s account — or I should say accounts.” Dunkel glanced toward the door. “I have an old friend over there who has worked for the bank since the mid-eighties. In the past his information was reliable.”

  “It’s wise to have such contacts.”

  Dunkel nodded sagely. “In part because of what I learned, I’ve asked Karl Franken to join us, I hope you don’t mind.”

  Franken was chief investigating officer for the Federal Criminal Bureau for Saxony, also an ex-Stasi officer whose past was buried even deeper than theirs. It was rare that they had any contact with each other.

  Legler held his reply for a moment, but he too glanced toward the door. “What are you worried about, Herman?”