The Russian Bride

by Ed Kovacs

  “Popov?” Sinclair looked incredulous. “How do I know where he is? You’re the one who was meeting with him every week.”

  Kit fired again, putting the bullet into the leg of the wooden chair Sinclair sat on.

  “You are so dead, Bennings.”

  “You’re the one who’s dead, Herb, if you don’t come clean.”

  “Come clean? You shoot me and there is no rock on planet Earth the Special Activities Division will not look under to skin you alive.”

  “But I’ve already poisoned you, so if I shoot you, it’ll only be in the shin or knee to get your attention.”

  The blood drained from Sinclair’s face, and his jaw dropped slightly. Bennings held up a vial, and Sinclair’s eyes riveted on it.

  “You poisoned me?”

  Kit nodded. “This is the antidote for the greasy stuff that was on the doorknob when you came in. Pretty exotic toxin, absorbs through the skin. Your body will start to ache, you’ll break out in a cold sweat, vision will start to blur … but you have some time yet.”

  Sinclair’s visage had been a mask of righteous anger, but Kit saw an unmistakable crack of uncertainty now spread across his face like a windshield that was slowly shattering.

  Kit gestured to Yulana, and she pulled the sheet from the body on the floor. Sergei Lopatin, the handsome guy who had been romancing embassy employee Julie Rufo, lay still on the floor.

  “Remember Romeo here?” asked Kit.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Put it this way: he’s finally eligible for that management position he always wanted.”

  Sinclair’s eyes darted around the room, but they looked unfocused, like he was trying to concoct a plan but couldn’t think straight.

  “Sergei was a bad guy, who you set up to be a patsy. You kept selling me on the idea that the communications specialist at the embassy, Julie Rufo, was our third mole, giving up the store to handsome here.

  “Sergei talked quite a bit. He was FSB but secretly worked for Popov. He told me where to find Viktor. He even told me Rufo was no mole, that his job was to romance her so as to throw suspicion on her. You were going to generate dummy evidence against her. But then, I’m boring you with stuff you already know.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t know that asshole, except from having surveilled him with you.”

  “I know otherwise.”

  “Screw you, dead man.”

  “Check the time, because are you really going to commit suicide?”

  Sinclair didn’t look so good. He was obviously feeling something inside, and he apparently didn’t like what he felt. A sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead, and he gritted his teeth as if from some inner pain.

  “I didn’t come to Moscow for you,” said Kit. “You’re not important to me. Go over to the Russians—I don’t give a damn anymore. The agency has already tried to whack me, so screw Washington. I want Popov. Give me what I want and you can walk out that door.”

  “You said Sergei gave you the information you need.”

  “I want confirmation from you.”

  Kit could see Sinclair was wavering. The veteran CIA officer slowly removed his glasses, ran a hand across his eyes, and blinked.

  “The symptoms are becoming more pronounced, aren’t they?”

  Sinclair looked very ill. “My mouth is dry. I need a drink.”

  “Later. Right now, you need to talk to me.”

  “Yes, I have information on Popov. And a thousand other Russians in this town. That’s no secret, it’s my job to know things.”

  “When did you start working for him?”

  “I don’t”—Sinclair almost doubled over from sudden, stabbing pain—“work for him.”

  The poison was clearly working, but Sinclair had yet to incriminate himself. Kit knew there wasn’t much time, but he couldn’t appear rushed. “So what’s the arrangement, then? Did he approach you? Did you approach him? Moscow is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and Christians in Action dumped you here. They expect you to survive on scraps, don’t they? Five years undercover on, what? A GS-12 pay grade? Sure, sure, there are bonuses and other perks and expenses they cover, but damn, those five-hundred-dollar-an-hour hookers you see a couple of times a week, I mean, that starts to get expensive. The girls are part of a pool that services Popov’s hackers—Sergei here told me about that. Anyway, hell, just going out for dinner and drinks costs—”

  “What did you dose me with, asshole?!”

  “Relax, I have the antidote right here. What was I saying? Oh, yeah, I remember how you complained that those Langley suits have been making their careers on your back. For five years they’ve kept squeezing and wringing every last drop from you, wanting you to do more and more with people you didn’t even know, risking your cover, because what were you to them? Just a cipher. A file number.

  “And so you decided to start selling some of what you knew. Or did Popov roll you up and give you no real choice but to sell out?”

  “Give me that antidote!”

  “Why? Decided you want to live, after all?”

  “Give it to me!”

  Kit just looked at him. Sinclair was one tough bastard. Even in death. “Where is Popov’s HQ?”

  “Nikolskaya Ulitsa, number nine, right off Red Square.”

  “Is Yulana Petkova’s daughter there? The three-year-old they kidnapped to blackmail her mom?”

  “Yes, that’s what I heard.”

  He’s speaking faster now, thought Kit. He’s weakening, he knows he’s out of options. I’ve almost got him. “What’s the real target in Las Vegas?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Liar!”

  “It’s about information. Some massive database he will exploit … sell access to. He’s already raking in money from it. He’ll make billions. Megabillions.”

  Sinclair winced and held his stomach. Sweat dripped from his chin as he blinked his eyes.

  Kit lifted a travel bag from the end table next to him and heaved it toward Sinclair.

  “We found thirty million rubles in your mattress. Where’s the rest? Numbered account in Dubai? Vanuatu?”

  Sinclair squeezed his eyes shut from the pain. And maybe from the questions.

  “How much did you sell out for? How much?!”

  “Five million U.S. Now give me the damn antidote.”

  “You sold me out after I showed up here in Moscow. You told Popov I ran a Red Team against Sandia, didn’t you? How else could he have known that? That’s not in my two-zero-one file, because I didn’t use my real name. Even when I took the army’s Red Team Leader course at Fort Leavenworth, I was using an alias. But you knew it, Herb. You knew I ran the Red Team against Sandia.”

  “Lots of people knew that.”

  Kit shook his head. “No. Very few people knew, and they’re not the kind of people who would talk.” Kit fixed Sinclair with a penetrating gaze as if he could read the man’s thoughts. “Before I came along, Popov was going ahead with his plan to use a homemade Russian EMP weapon. But thanks to you, he saw the chance to use me to get a much more dependable device. I’d already broken into Sandia, it would be easy for me to do it again. All he needed was some leverage to force me to act.”

  “Yes, I told him about you! But I didn’t know he would hurt your family,” said Sinclair through gritted teeth.

  “You’re the third mole, Herb. It wasn’t someone inside the embassy. It was the guy outside the embassy who was spying on our people better than the Russians were spying on our people. You asked Popov to order one of his men to seduce Rufo. Sergei didn’t get the assignment until after you and I identified the first two moles. The idea was for you and me to eavesdrop on her passing a secret to Sergei, and that would have been a wrap. But if Sergei couldn’t turn her, you’d just falsify some kind of communications intercept. We’d ID Rufo as the third mole, I’d go home, our secret investigation would close, and your risk of exposure as the real mole would end.�
��

  Kit took another sip of Dos Equis.

  “You pushed Popov on the idea of using me to steal the e-bomb. You desperately wanted me out of Moscow. You were afraid.”

  A wall of pain surrounded Herb Sinclair; he knew it was over. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Kit looked on with no satisfaction as the CIA legend crumpled in front of his eyes.

  “I asked seven times for them to bring me in from the cold. They wouldn’t, so to hell with them. I was already on my own, I figured I might as well cash in. It was a hell of a ride while it lasted. Need someone to blame? Blame the suits at Langley.”

  He wretched, then stood on wobbly legs.

  “Antidote. And then I’m walking out that door.”

  “I won’t stop you, I told you I wouldn’t. But I did … what’s the word the politicians use when they’re forced to admit they told a bald-faced lie? I ‘misspoke.’ See, I did come to Moscow to kill you. There is no antidote.”

  Bennings reached over to the end table and turned off a tape recorder that was hidden by a piece of paper. He pocketed the recorder as Sinclair fell to the floor in the throes of death.

  He retrieved the heavy bag of money and crossed to Yulana. “If we live through this … college tuition money for Kala.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Larry Bing, commanding officer of the Activity, had gone out on a long limb to help Kit Bennings and Yulana Petkova acquire what they needed to get out of the United States and into Moscow. Even though Bing had gotten a heads-up from the SECSTATE days before telling him Bennings was a “special case” and not to believe allegations he might hear about the major, he provided help without tapping army resources or active personnel, just to be on the safe side.

  Hence, Kit Bennings and Yulana Petkova had been well equipped for the confrontations with Sergei Lopatin and Herb Sinclair. And thanks to Angel Perez’s doings, CIA/FBI/CID were scouring the Mexican border area for the fugitives. Angel had driven the van Kit had stolen off of Nellis Air Force Base all the way to Gila Bend, Arizona. There, he had used Kit’s ATM card at a dive that didn’t have security video, and then he abandoned the van, making sure to leave a few other incriminating items inside.

  That diversion had given Kit the confidence to use the goth decorated apartment in Moscow—the one connecting his old apartment via tunnel—as his and Yulana’s temporary safe house. They’d already made a round-trip using the tunnel to retrieve weapons and other gear from his real apartment.

  They had also stopped at Herb Sinclair’s workshop and found a secret room crammed with esoteric electronic equipment he used for his snooping.

  And they found a weapons cache and small-scale supply depot. The SAD counted on Sinclair to be able to support a wide range of missions on a moment’s notice, and so they had invested heavily in creating a unique, well-stocked storeroom of items, ranging from the nonlethal, like CS gas, to the very lethal, such as plastic explosives and poisons.

  Kit and Yulana had gathered quite a few pieces of gear that might come in handy for the incursion at Popov’s HQ. Kit also found thermite grenades, nasty little canisters that created superintense heat and were used to destroy weapons and materiel. A thermite grenade could melt right through the engine block of a truck. Herb had had them in case he needed to destroy his electronic spy gear in a hurry. Kit had packed twenty-three of them into a backpack to make sure he could demolish Popov’s computer servers.

  So right now, at 2:37 A.M. Moscow time, as they sat on the dilapidated couch in the goth safe house while listening to Buddy Guy belt out “Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues,” Kit sent an e-mail containing a “key” number to one of Margarite Padilla’s private e-mail addresses. Then he used Darknet software to send the audio file of Herb Sinclair’s interrogation and confession into the ether. Pieces of the heavily encrypted audio file would be distributed to many “points.” When Padilla submitted the key number to Darknet, the program would go out and gather up the pieces of the encrypted audio file and reassemble them for her.

  He was telegraphing his presence in Moscow by sending her the audio file, but knowing how Padilla operated, he knew he had fourteen to sixteen hours before the CIA would come looking for him. And the unmasking of the third and most important mole—a CIA agent at that—would cut him a lot of slack and be more ammo for Padilla to use against the DCI, John Stout.

  Kit checked his TAG Heuer chronograph and rubbed the pressure point on his hand. The migraine he’d been keeping at bay with hand reflexology during the last few days was on the verge of taking root; he was experiencing an “aura” precursor—a slight blurring of his vision, a symptom he knew well. Stress, lack of sleep, having been shot … made him so run-down that all the acupressure in the world couldn’t keep this migraine away. It would probably hit him full force in the next hour or two.

  “Three forty-five in the afternoon in Las Vegas,” said Kit. “One call to make before we go.”

  “Have a drink with me first, then make your call.” She poured vodka into two small glasses and handed one to him.

  “You’re a bad influence on me, do you know that?”

  “Nyet, I’m a good influence,” she said matter-of-factly. “I can’t believe all of this has happened.” She shook her head. “I’m just a research scientist, but now I feel…”

  “Different?”

  She nodded. “Even if we find Kala, what can I do then? How can I go back to my old life? I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  “We’ll get Kala back, and I’ll get my sister back. That’s the meat of it. Don’t worry about the rest.”

  He smiled, toasted with her, and pretended to take a sip of the vodka. The truth was, he felt far from sure he could free Kala, considering Popov was holed up in a veritable fortress, but there was no good in sharing his doubts with Yulana.

  * * *

  Angel snoozed on a couch in a three-bedroom suite at the Venetian. Buzz sat on the terrace in a pair of shorts reading the paper. Jen had four laptops going on the kitchen table, as usual, when her sterile cell phone rang.

  She wiped it down with a cleaning wipe before answering: “Go ahead.” The tone of her voice and the look on her face suggested she didn’t know who was calling.

  “I’m closing in on Popov’s headquarters here in Moscow.”

  “What?!” She held the phone away from her and yelled, “Buzz! Angel!” She waved the men toward her and put the phone on speaker.

  “Whatever Popov hit in Vegas gave him a massive info dump. He’s got a data center set up staffed by hackers that are evaluating the information. Information he can sell for billions,” said Kit.

  “Billions?” asked Buzz.

  “And he pinched it during a blackout,” said Angel.

  “What did you say?” asked Jen.

  “I said he pinched it, which means he stole it.”

  “A ‘pinch’ means something else to telecom people. Kit, give me a second, I might know what they hit.” Jen’s fingers flew over one of her keyboards.

  “Jen, what is it?”

  “This is not good,” she said scanning her monitors. “America has two main fiber-optic trunk lines that go coast-to-coast, maintained by AT&T. Buried underground all the way across the country, in trenches that are anywhere from fifteen to thirty feet deep. But the trunks, which are literally as big around as a tree trunk, have to come up into facilities nicknamed PICs—repeater stations—you know, like a huge relay switch to keep the information going. I didn’t realize it, but the southern trunk runs right through Las Vegas.”

  “What kind of data is on these trunk lines?” asked Kit.

  “The cream of the crop: government agencies, including three-letter agencies, the big global banks, stock exchanges, investment houses, credit unions—I mean, we’re talking all of Wall Street and some of the most sensitive stuff coming out of D.C., including the White House and their hotwires.”

  “Jeez Louise,” said Angel.

  “But AT&T must monitor the signals closely so bad guys
can’t tap in,” said Kit.

  “They do. And I don’t think it’s possible to intercept all of that traffic simultaneously. There are something like thirty thousand fiber-optic strands that make up one trunk. AT&T has good system scans. A bad guy would have to physically splice in to each and every fiber-optic strand, one at a time, and if that happened, an alarm would go off at AT&T.”

  “If they did the splice during a blackout?” asked Buzz.

  “No alarm.”

  “What if Popov figured out how to splice into the whole trunk—all thirty thousand strands—during a blackout?” asked Kit.

  “He’d have the whole enchilada!” said Angel.

  “Yes and no. If Popov is somehow intercepting the contents of the entire trunk, there would have to be equipment in the PIC right now. But they couldn’t know which of the thirty thousand strands had the golden data, because ninety percent of the traffic on the trunk would be of no resale value. It would take time to find the ten percent, the three thousand strands that have high-dollar or intelligence value.”

  “But I thought you said they might have intercepted the whole thing?” asked Angel.

  “Even if they have, how could they transmit out what they’ve spliced into? They’d have to have thirty thousand fiber-optic strands to send the information to Moscow, and they don’t have that. They could only be transmitting out and examining the contents of a few strands at a time at most. At most.”

  “How much time does it take to examine each strand, Jen?” asked Kit, rubbing his temples.

  “Fifteen minutes or so is my guess. Maybe less if there is a lot of data traffic on it.”

  “Where in Las Vegas is the PIC?”

  She zoomed in the map on her laptop screen. “South Las Vegas Boulevard, just a few miles from us. The Russians will be set up in some kind of basement room where the fiber-optic trunk comes up out of the ground and runs into a huge relay switch, then goes out the other side and back into the ground on its way to the next repeater station.”

  “Recon the PIC first. The Russians might be watching it. And think about how they gained access—I mean, how could they be set up in there without the AT&T technicians knowing it?”