by David Wind
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Chapter Two
Sortavala, the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republic
Saturday night
The chill evening air, blowing in through the open window, kept Kevin Chapin alert. The alien countryside was bare of life. Signposts were as rare as smooth pavement. But he knew there would be a sign soon, if he didn’t miss it.
He was tired. It had been almost thirty-six hours since he’d slept. But sleep didn’t matter; only one thing did—making his rendezvous with Ruby Red.
Had it been only a day and a half since he’d been sleeping peacefully in his apartment in Stockholm? The whirlwind that had begun with a phone call had moved so fast he wasn’t sure of the time scale he was under. Not for the first time did he think he’d stepped a little too far over the line.
He shook his head and cast aside his doubts, because there was no choice once the agent, code name Ruby Red, had sent the special priority code. Either he had to get him out, or he had to go in. Ruby Red, a deep cover agent in the KGB, would only send an emergency signal if his information was valuable enough to warrant blowing his cover. In this agent’s case, giving up his cover meant giving up his life.
When, four hours after Ruby Red’s priority call, Chapin had been unable to find a quick way to get the agent out of Russia, he knew he would have to go in. It had taken two more hours to make the arrangements and send a message back to Ruby Red.
Ten hours after waking, Kevin was freezing on a Finnish fishing boat, heading from the Port of Rauma on the Gulf of Bothnia to the Soviet port of Primorsk in the Gulf of Finland.
Once docked, Kevin changed into the coarsely woven suit he’d brought with him, a suit originally purchased at the state department store in Moscow. The identification in his pocket was authentic, except for the name and stamped photograph, which proclaimed him as one Anatole Charusco, a colonel of the KGB.
A black Zil had been waiting for him, the keys left on the tire and hidden by the wheel well. A nine-millimeter Kalashnikov automatic was under the front seat, two spare clips taped to the grip.
From Primorsk, he drove toward Vyborg. His nerves had been tense from the moment he’d landed on Soviet soil, and hadn’t eased once.
He didn’t castigate himself for not waiting for approval from CIA headquarters, because he hadn’t sent for that approval. He knew he wouldn’t get it, not since the “new” president had begun to run the tumbling Soviet Union.
Rather than take a chance at a turn down, Chapin had taken full responsibility for the mission. As head of Ruby One, he believed there was no choice. His last three operations had been terminated because of infiltration. There was a Soviet counter agent somewhere within either his own special field unit or in CIA headquarters in Virginia. Either way, Ruby Red’s life and identity were too important to risk by alerting anyone.
Stopped by a road check five miles outside of Vyborg, and speaking the faultless Russian of a highly educated KGB officer, Chapin received a perfunctory exam before going on.
That was one of the things that had not changed in the Russia since the new reforms—the KGB and the fear of the KGB were still very much alive.
At Vyborg, Chapin drove to the meeting spot Ruby Red had given. He waited there for over an hour, his tension mounting and his stomach churning acidly until the appointed meeting time was a half hour in the past.
Knowing that Ruby Red wasn’t going to show, Chapin drove off. Heading along the small peninsula between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, he ate one of the sandwiches he’d brought with him.
The sandwich turned to lead. The acid in his stomach increased as he prayed that Ruby Red would be at the back-up rendezvous.
If he wasn’t there, Chapin was dead in the water. The only thing good about tonight, was that in this area of Russia, the vigilance wasn’t as tight as others.
He was worried about Ruby Red. Chapin had been control leader of the Soviet agent for three years, and had grown to like and respect the man. Born in Moscow, the son of Jewish parents, Ruby Red had supposedly given up his religion when he joined the Party. After graduating as a computer engineer, he’d joined the KGB. Chapin had thought he’d been lucky when he’d found Ruby Red. However, on later introspection, he’d realized Ruby Red had found him.
There was a loyalty between himself and the Soviet Jew. Ruby Red’s information had always been accurate, and Ruby Red had never let him down.
He would not let Ruby Red down either. What did the man want? What could be so important he would risk his cover, his life, and even his wife’s life should this not go right?
Whatever it was, Chapin knew it had to be worth the risk.
He stifled a yawn. The day had rapidly turned into night as the fall sunset sped into dusk, and Chapin turned on his headlights. By his reckoning, he was within a few miles of Sortavala.
Ten minutes later, with night full upon the land, the signpost for Sortavala glowed in the headlights. He braked and pulled off the road. He felt good that his luck was holding, and there’d been no other road checks.
He smelled the water on the other side of the town. He closed his eyes and drew on his memory. He was to drive to the third road before the main part of town. There he would turn left, and go five houses in. The fifth house was his destination.
He opened his eyes and drove for six minutes before reaching the turn. Two and a half minutes later, he slowed as he passed the fifth house.
There was a single light in the center window—his signal. Chapin studied the place at five miles an hour. There were no vehicles in front.
He drove for another quarter mile, made a U-turn, and stopped. He searched for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing. His internal senses sounded no alarms.
Reaching under the seat, Chapin pulled out the Kalashnikov and checked and chambered a round. He took off the two spare clips and put them in his jacket pocket. Then he checked the clip. It held eight more rounds.
He put the weapon into his waist and drove back the quarter of a mile. He pulled to a stop in front of the house, shut the ignition off, and got out.
He stood, stretched, and looked about. The sky was cloudless; constellations rode above like a tapestry maker’s fantasy. Breathing deeply, he walked to the front door and knocked.
An old man, his face wreathed in wrinkles, opened the door. “Da?”
Speaking Russian, Chapin said, “I am from Moscow. I have made arrangements to stay here for three nights.”
The old man opened the door wider. “Come.” he motioned Chapin after him.
Chapin followed him into the kitchen. As he entered the kitchen, a man at the old wood-slated table turned to look at him.
Ruby Red’s young face was drawn. Dark half-moon circles underscored his tension and fatigue. He rose and, speaking in Russian, said, “Thank you.”
When the old man nodded and left the room, Chapin closed the distance and took the man’s outstretched hand. “Davi—”
Before he could complete the name, Ruby Red shook his head sharply and motioned Chapin to go with him. He led them out the rear of the house. When the door closed behind them, he said, “He is an old family friend, but the KGB listens everywhere.”
Chapin understood. Ruby Red did not want to expose the man to any more danger than he’d already done.
“Why did you call?” Chapin asked.
The Russian glanced at the sky. “For the past two months, I have been working on a new assignment. Chapin, I...” he stopped, looked back at Chapin, and said, “I have discovered a plan...a plot if you will, designed to take over your country, peacefully.” Holding Ruby Red’s gaze, Chapin forced himself not to let his disappointment show. Far too many times in the past, had he and others in the CIA heard this story. For a brief moment, he felt as if Ruby Red had let him down and exposed him to a danger he should never have been in.
Then, the Soviet agent started talking again, and drew Chapin into his story.
“This new task came because
of my position and my education. Two months ago, they put me in charge of converting a warehouse of old files into computer records for the KGB’s main computer system. The warehouse is a storeroom of records from the early nineteen-fifties. These records were from the MVD-MGB intelligence agencies and were records the KGB stored when they became the overriding intelligence unit for the Soviet Union.”
Ruby Red half smiled at Chapin while shrugging stoically. “At the beginning, it was droll work, having to sift through ancient documents that had been highly classified but are known to everyone at present. It was dull work until two weeks ago, when I came across something unusual.
“When I started to read a notebook from this file, I took it to be the ramblings of an old intelligence officer’s diary. But as I read through all the documentation and began to find actual reports, I knew I’d come across something important.
“I searched through the files until I found a twenty-page document. It was dated in the late forties, and detailed a long-range plan to take over the government of America without anyone in your country knowing until it was too late.”
“Which is impossible.” Chapin studied the taut lines framing Ruby Red’s eyes. “A democratic form of government cannot be taken over in secret.”
Ruby Red spoke in a somber tone. “I pray you are right, Chapin. I pray deeply. Let me finish. At the end of this report, the writer suggests his plan be put into action, and a special installation be set up in the Urals, far from where anyone, Soviet or otherwise, would come across it.”
The Soviet mole took a jagged breath. “I decided to find out if there was such an installation, and I went into the main banks of the KGB computer.” Ruby Red’s expression turned haunted.
“Chapin, I found it— not in the Urals—it is in the Pamirs. The Asian mountains are perfect for this type of an installation. It is classified cobepmehho cekpetho— most top secret. The KGB implemented the original plans for this installation, which the NKVD drew up. The most important facet is that it did not exist before nineteen fifty-one, four years after the original report and recommendation.
“I checked out this installation. Carefully of course.” Ruby Red’s eyes locked on Chapin’s. While the mole stared at Chapin, his eyes took on a visage of dark gut-churning fear that reached outward from him and turned Chapin’s nerves skittish.
“As I worked to find more about the plan, I learned the installation in the Pamirs is a place where only American English is spoken. They permit no one to go there without the direct permission of the chairman himself. And, Chapin, anyone who does go there, who is not a member of the council or a high-ranking KGB or GRU member, never leaves.
“When I tried a direct access for information, I tripped an alarm. That was when I sent you the signal. I don’t think they know who tried to find out about the place—not yet at least—but they will soon enough. I couldn’t hide my trail that well.
“I also learned that the plan itself was set up by a mole. This mole is a man who has grown to great power within the intelligence organizations of the United States. This man’s goal is to take control of the United States. He is known only as Sokova.”
Chapin’s brow furrowed. Ruby Red’s words spoke with the belief and zeal of a man newly converted to a religion, yet Chapin had a hard time swallowing them. As head of Ruby One, Chapin had never heard of a spy with the code name Sokova. “Who is Sokova?”
Ruby Red shook his head hard. A comma of dark hair fell across his forehead, accenting his pale skin. “I don’t know. I spent two days trying to unravel the secret behind Sokova. All I found was that the code name was given to an agent recruited by the old OGPU before the war, and he is a dedicated communist of the old mold. He believes in our government and in the original Marxist principles. But that was all I could find.”
Chapin wanted to believe Ruby Red, but he was afraid that the agent was on the edge of a burnout. The man was talking about intelligence organizations that went out of existence forty to fifty years ago. Chapin had seen the burnout before. It happened when you lived too close to the fire. For six years, Ruby Red had lived inside the fire.
Perhaps it was the loosening of the tensions within the Soviet Union, the struggling economy, and the chaos within the political ranks turning Ruby Red’s life awry. The double agent had spent so many years fighting the system he lived in, that the knowledge his work was ending could have been the catalyst that gave birth to this wild story.
Chapin started to say something, but stopped from demeaning Ruby Red. The man believed what he was telling him. “What is this place in the Pamirs used for?”
Ruby Red shrugged. “A training site, definitely. But much more. The whole thing...they plan to take over your government without anyone’s knowledge until the deed is accomplished. But I’ve said so already, haven’t I?” Ruby Red asked as he looked around nervously.
Chapin nodded.
“Kevin, I am frightened by this. Your elections are almost upon us. Everything I found, every shred of evidence tells Sokova is manipulating your elections. I—”
The night exploded behind them, cutting Ruby Red off. The double agent’s eyes widened at the same instant that blood spurted from his chest and splashed across Chapin as Ruby Red catapulted backward under the force of the bullet. Chapin dropped to his knees, spinning as he pulled his pistol. He fired blindly, and then raced to Ruby Red’s body. He grabbed the downed agent by his collar and started to drag him away.
Five feet later, Chapin looked down. The man was dead. The bullet had torn through his chest, blowing out his heart.
A sick hatred overcame him as more shots followed. One hit the dead agent; the other barely missed Chapin’s head. He released Ruby Red and backed away. Two shapes emerged from his left. He spun and fired twice. The two went down. He turned and fired at the house. Nothing happened—the pistol was empty.
Back stepping, Chapin popped the clip and rammed a new one home as three men came out the back door of the house.
One man called for him to give up, in Russian.
Chapin fired a four-round burst. When the oncoming men scattered, he raced around the side of the house, toward his car.
He was eleven miles from the Finnish border. But it might as well be a thousand, Chapin thought as he sped around the side of the house.
It took an instant to realize he would not be able to make it to his car. A dozen Soviet soldiers blocked it. In the distance, headlights raced forward.
Chapin ran straight from the house and onto the narrow road. The soldiers shouted at him. One spun and fired haphazardly when Chapin dove into the woods at the edge of the road.
Without a thought for caution, Chapin plunged ahead. Either he would make it, or he would die. As head of Ruby One, capture was not an option. The blue pills sewn into his underwear and under the lapel of his shirt would see to that.
Chapin ran for ten minutes before stopping to catch his breath. The woods were dark; the night cold. Then he felt anger instead of fear. For all of Ruby Red’s caution, the man’s cover was blown, and a trap set for Chapin or whoever would come.
Behind him, how far he couldn’t tell, were the sounds of men forging in the darkness.
He rested for a full minute and when his breathing eased, started using his head. He checked his weapon. He had three rounds left in the clip. A full clip, his last, was in his pocket.
He thought back to the rain forests in Viet Nam. He knew if he tried to make it to the border on foot, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
Standing, Chapin moved. Only this time he wasn’t going to the border. He was heading back to Sortavala.
He made a wide sweep, always keeping the sounds of his pursuers as far away as possible. At one point, when he sensed he was parallel to them, he hid behind the boles of three tightly grouped trees. His heart pounded. His muscles screamed for release, but he held himself stiff and unmoving.
A few seconds later, several soldiers walked by him; their rifles unslung.
He listened for two minutes before leaving the safety of the trees. Then he backtracked toward the road, walking carefully, making sure he sounded no alarms.
Fifteen minutes of walking brought him to the edge of the road, a hundred yards from the house at which he’d met Ruby Red. He looked at the house. Every window blazed with light. The road was jammed with vehicles. Drivers in uniform milled near their trucks and cars.
Chapin knew, belatedly, the KGB and the soldiers must have been hiding in the woods when he came out. The vehicles had been brought over after he’d made his escape.
He estimated that in addition to the KGB, there was a full platoon of soldiers. Suddenly, Chapin knew what had happened tonight was proof that Ruby Red’s information wasn’t about an old intelligence fantasy; his information was real, and deadly factual.
“Dear God,” he said under his breath, knowing he had to find a way to get out of the country, and to get the information back home.
Chapin started across the road, cautiously zigzagging between two driverless trucks. Just as he emerged from between the trucks, a soldier stepped out of the back of one and came face to face with Chapin.
Chapin was the first to react. Using the hard edge of his hand, he struck the soldier in the throat. A low strangled gasp bubbled from the Russian’s lips. Chapin covered the man’s mouth and applied pressure to his neck.
Twelve seconds later, Chapin laid him on the ground and, grabbing the soldier’s rifle, made his way past a darkened house. He thought if this were the States, all the lights would be on and the people would be watching what was happening. But this wasn’t the States, and he had no witnesses to point fingers at him.
He cut behind the house and started toward the main road. When he reached it, he headed toward Sortavala.
His mind moved at a furious pace as he tried to figure out his next move. Before he had gotten far, a set of headlights flared in the distance. He almost ducked off the road, but decided to brazen it out.
