by David Wind
“I’ll get dressed and be back for you at seven.”
She was gone as quickly as she had appeared. A few minutes later, Kevin poured himself another cup of coffee, and went back over Blair’s files, which had been waiting for him when he’d gotten home.
Once again, Chapin found nothing worthwhile, except for the confirmation that Blair had begun sensing someone following him shortly after he’d started researching the deaths of Mathews’ wife and son.
Chapin knew it was the connection. Blair died because he had looked in the one place he should not have.
He went to the sliding door, opened it, and stepped onto his balcony. The cool November breeze tugged at him. He looked outward in the dusk, wondering if the Sokova plan was too far along to stop.
It couldn’t be, he told himself, or he would have found signs of it. He held the thought. Hadn’t he already found the signs? By connecting Mathews’ family’s death with Blair’s, he was able to see that something was happening. Davidov’s death? Wasn’t that another aspect of the Sokova plan—a preventative measure?
But those were two apparently separate incidents. To make others believe would be to stretch their imaginations just a shade too far. And while the general accepted his analysis of the situation, Chapin knew the DD was waiting for a much stronger grade of proof. Until then, Chapin was out on a limb, and it was already swaying a bit too much.
He went back into the apartment, closed Blair’s file, and put it into his attaché case. Then prepared himself for his date.
At five to seven, the doorbell rang. He called out for Abby to come in. When she reached the living room, Chapin’s chest constricted.
She was magnificent. Her hair, pulled back severely, accented her large eyes and dramatically flaring cheekbones. Her gown was black and white and sleeveless. Her breasts rose above the arching top of the dress. She wore gold drop earrings, and a single emerald pendant.
“You are incredible.”
“Then, you approve?”
“I’d shoot anyone who didn’t.”
Abby laughed and stepped close. He smelled the cloying perfume mixing with her own special scent. He bent and kissed her.
She stepped back and smiled. “Ready?”
He took her arm and started them forward. Just as he opened the door, the phone rang. He almost ignored it.
“I’m sorry,” he said to Abby as he went to it. When he picked it up, he said, “Yes?”
“Mr. Chapin?”
“Yes?”
“Is it a Blue Monday?”
“No.”
“Priority Yellow. Central One.” The line went dead a half second later.
Chapin held the phone to his ear and stared out the window. The “Blue Monday” code was to learn if he was alone. The Priority Yellow and Central One were directives. Priority was an emergency alert signal. Yellow was the stage designation: A quickset operation was under way. Central One was the designation of where to report. In this case, it was CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
“Right away,” he said to the dead line. He hung up the phone and turned to Abby. He held her inquiring gaze for several seconds, until the knowledge grow in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll have to meet you at Kennedy Center.”
“No, I’ll wait here for you.”
<><><>
The meeting was in the DD’s office. Jason Mitchell, Chapin, and two analysts from the Soviet Department were present.
“At seventeen-fifty this afternoon,” the general began, “we received a request from a high-level KGB officer who wants to come over.”
Chapin looked at Mitchell, who was staring at the DD.
“Churbin Vashlev’s assistant is the defector,” the general stated.
Chapin stiffened under the impact of the name. He stared at the DD with astonishment, but remained silent.
He knew a lot about Vashlev, a major in the KGB. The man was the number one man in the Soviet’s American apparatus, and ran all covert operations within the United States.
“Jesus H. Christ on a cross,” Jason Mitchell whispered. “Are you sure?” he asked the general.
The DD nodded. “This man approached someone in whom I have explicit trust. He wants to come over, but refuses to allow the FBI to oversee the operation. He will only agree to a meeting with someone he knows. And, Jason, he knows you.”
“Who is it?” Mitchell asked.
“Alexi Merchenko.”
“No,” Chapin cut in quickly as the name reverberated within his mind. “This doesn’t sit right. Merchenko would not defect.”
The general fixed Chapin with a hard stare. “Why?”
“When I first took over control of Ruby One, Merchenko was involved in an operation. I studied him then. All I can say is that it’s not in his makeup to defect.”
“People change.”
“Not people like Merchenko.”
“You’re wrong,” Mitchell said. “It’s exactly people like Merchenko who change. They are asked to kill one too many people, or they get one too many senseless orders, and they begin to question everything. Time takes its toll on people like Merchenko. Time and seeing what life is like on the other side.”
Mitchell looked from Chapin to the DD. “How long has he been here this run? Three years?”
“Three years steady,” the DD agreed. “Seven years on and off.”
“It fits.”
Chapin rolled their words around in his mind. He looked at their angles and at what he knew of Merchenko. “This man isn’t a Davidov. Merchenko is not a defector.”
Chapin turned to the analysts. “You know this man. What do you think?”
Sam Laskow, the senior analyst, said, “There is no way to be sure, but it fits a certain profile. From what we’ve been able to learn, Merchenko was passed over several times for promotions. One source confirmed Merchenko and Vashlev have been at each other ever since the New York embassy scandal.”
Laskow paused and nodded to the second analyst, David Putter. “The powers-that-be, in Mother Russia, laid the blame on Merchenko, even though it was obviously Vashlev who was to blame. Since then, Merchenko’s stock has fallen. So, yes, we think the probability of a Merchenko defection is about eighty percent.”
Chapin stared at the analysts. “You are not dealing with a typical profile. The man has patience, and has overcome problems before.”
“Kevin,” the DD said in a low but steady voice, “he wants to come over. He is willing to bring things with him.”
“What things?”
“The double in Ruby One for example.”
Could it be true? Chapin thought hard about Merchenko. For a year before he had taken over as control for Ruby One, he’d studied Merchenko, trying to find the chink in his KGB armor. He had found nothing. The man liked big women and rough sex, but made no secret of it.
Although Chapin had never met the man personally, he knew him as well as he’d known any of his opposite numbers. He didn’t care what anyone might call it, but his hunch, his feeling, was that they were wrong. It wasn’t in Merchenko’s character to turn.
“It’s a setup. If he does defect, he’s doing so under orders. It’s a setup for something,” Chapin declared. “If he does give us a double, it will be in name only. It’s happened before. A smoke screen to keep a double safe by naming someone else.”
“The director and I have discussed that very possibility. We have determined we must take the chance. Any information we gain from him will be of value.”
“If we gain any.”
“Oh, we will. You can rest assured of that,” the DD said, his voice suddenly hard. “If Merchenko comes over, he will undergo a very long medical debriefing.”
“That’s what doesn’t make sense,” Chapin said. “Merchenko isn’t a defector. And the Soviets wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and plant him on us, knowing the kind of interrogation he would undergo.”
“Exactly,” the general said. “Setting up Merc
henko as a plant would lose them more information than they would gain.”
“That’s why it’s worth the risk to bring him in,” Mitchell added.
“And you want me to bring him in?” Chapin asked.
The DD stared at Chapin, his face expressionless. “No, Mitchell will be doing that.”
Chapin blinked. Then he looked from Mitchell to the general. “Jason’s been out of the field for too long.”
“It doesn’t matter. Merchenko wants someone he knows personally.”
“He knows enough about me to accept me,” Chapin said. “I’ll do it.”
“You can’t,” the general said. “You’re forgetting you’re on detached duty. You are grounded. Besides which, Merchenko was specific. He will only come over to someone he has seen before. It’s Mitchell.”
“Then, what am I doing here?” Chapin asked, unable to mask his anger.
“Kevin, you’ve always shown a real genius at planning out your operations with Ruby One. We’ll need some of that genius for Mitchell,” the general stated. “Jason, leaves on Monday. We’ve scheduled the meeting for eleven p.m. Monday night. I want you and Kevin to work out the details and then submit your operation to me, by noon tomorrow.”
Chapin felt a dark cloud sitting over his head. The defection was wrong. Sending Jason into the field to carry the operation only compounded the wrongness. “Sir, I—”
“No more, Kevin. I understand your feelings on this matter; however, we’ll do this the way I have said. Is that clear?”
“Very clear.”
Chapter Thirteen
Sokova paced the circumference of the room. He carefully reviewed everything he had set in motion. Pushing his mind to the limit, he sought for every contingency that could arise from those actions.
There had been no further choices left to him. What he was doing was for the good of the plan and for the good of the world.
No one man can be allowed to disrupt what was in progress. One man meant nothing when tens of millions of lives were at stake.
Kevin Chapin was examining a diversity of areas in which some small facet of information could conceivably lead him into other areas. He could not permit even the possibility of the CIA agent finding something. Sokova had hoped Chapin, after finding enough dead ends would drop his investigation and begin following orders so he would regain the good graces of his superiors. But the CIA agent persisted in pushing his theory forward. That, by necessity, would soon end; and, because of the way it would end, everything Chapin had spoken of to his superiors would be dismissed.
Sokova exhaled a slow breath of relief. In under forty-eight hours, a lifetime of careful planning would be back on the track he had set.
He thought about the election and of how, when the polls close on election night, the world would change.
<><><>
Planning the defection was simple, and after getting Mitchell to agree to presenting the plan to the general the next day, Chapin came home to an empty apartment and a note on his refrigerator. Abby had gone downstairs to pack.
Instead of going to her apartment, Chapin went into the living room. He turned on the stereo and sat on the couch. He looked at the walnut wall unit, and at the pictures of his parents and his sister, sitting on the second shelf from the top.
He had lost his sister in the late sixties. She had been in college, a bright and shining star until she’d met the wrong friends. Someone had given her some tainted sunshine. The poisoned LSD had damaged her brain: The doctors believed she would never recover.
He visited her when he could, but each time he saw her it took a little more out of him. He was glad his parents hadn’t lived to see what had happened to her.
Merchenko wouldn’t defect, he told himself, using the present to push away the sadness of the past. There was something inherently wrong in the defection. The general should have seen it. Chapin was worried about Jason Mitchell. He sensed his friend entering a trap.
What in the hell was happening? Everything was going out of stasis. Why was Merchenko defecting? The timing was wrong—unless it was part of a new Soviet operation. Or, Chapin thought suddenly, unless it is part of a very old Soviet operation. Was it because of Sokova?
Am I reaching too far for connections? he asked himself, his thought sobering enough to make him take stock of what was happening to him.
Chapin stood, wiped a hand across his eyes, and swore at his weaknesses. Then he left the apartment and went downstairs to see Abby Sloan.
She was dressed in pale blue leggings and a royal blue leotard. The combination accentuated the firmness and beauty of her body. She kissed him warmly and led him into the bedroom, where he spotted two closed suitcases and three more that were half-filled. The suitcases were a matched set of burgundy leather. Each case had a tag with Abby’s name embossed on it.
“You’ve been busy,” he commented.
“I have to pack sometime. Are you all right?”
“Fine.”
She stepped close and put her arms around his back. He was all too conscious of the pressure her breasts exerted on his chest and the warmth of her stomach against his lower abdomen.
She looked up at him, her eyes soft. “Do I have you for the rest of the weekend?”
“Until Monday morning.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, lifting up on her toes to kiss him.
When the kiss ended, Chapin held her tighter to him. “I wish...” he began, but cut himself off, knowing how pointless it was to talk about things that could not be changed.
“What?” she asked, her expression expectant.
“I wish my life was different.”
She drew back from him, a half-smile on her mouth. “Somehow, I doubt that. Come,” she said, pulling his hand, “help me finish up so that I don’t have to think about this for a while.”
They worked together for two more hours, exchanging smiles and touches but speaking very little. When the last bag was packed, and with only one small case remaining, Abby declared their task at an end.
“I want to spend the rest of our time in your place.” Her gaze wandered over his face. “I want to pretend that this doesn’t exist.” She waved her hand toward the array of suitcases.
They went to his apartment, where Chapin poured two brandies. They sat in the living room, her head resting on his shoulder, and listened to music until the sun came up.
Then they went to bed, made tender love, and fell asleep in each other’s arms.
<><><>
Ann Tanaka wiped her eyes with the damp cloth. She set it aside and blinked rapidly several times. She’d been at work since seven and was tired, and while she didn’t mind coming in on Sunday, she wondered if she was chasing some nonexistent ghost of Chapin’s.
Tanaka had three different programs in operation at the same time. Two of the programs worked unseen while the third was on the screen. When her vision cleared, she read from the monitor.
She had accessed the old CIC files on the Mathews killing and kidnapping. It was fascinating reading but, at the same time, frightening.
She didn’t know what to make of it, and felt a strange sympathy with the woman who had died during birth.
Suddenly, in the upper right corner of the screen, two little exclamation marks began to blink.
Tanaka hit a key. The CIC report disappeared from the screen, and was replaced by:
SOKOVA: 2 MATCHES
She hit the appropriate key, and the screen filled:
IRENA SOKOVA BORN 1850:
DIED 1903
MARRIED: ILYA RASTOV ROMANOV
FAMILY: SEE VLADIMIR SOKOVA RASTOV
Tanaka punched the appropriate keys, and the screen shifted and filled:
VLADIMIR SOKOVA RASTOV BORN 1873:
DIED 1918
MINISTER OF FINANCE: 1898-1905 AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE: 1906-1908 AMBASSADOR TO GERMANY: 1908-1909 PERSONAL COUNSEL TO TSAR NICHOLAS: 1913-1918
RASTOV, SON OF IRENA SOKOVA, A ROMANOV AND THIRD CO
USIN TO NICHOLAS II, GREW UP WITH NICHOLAS. RASTOV WAS EDUCATED IN GERMANY, SERVED IN THE RUSSIAN ARMY WITH THE RANK OF COLONEL AND SHOWED HIMSELF TO BE A TACTICIAN OF IMMENSE TALENT BUT A LEADER OF DUBIOUS QUALITY.
IT WAS SAID THEIR FRIENDSHIP WAS THE REASON FOR RASTOV’S HIGH CAREER. IN THE WANING YEARS OF NICHOLAS’S REIGN, NICHOLAS BECAME MORE AND MORE DEPENDANT ON RASTOV’S ADVICE AND FRIENDSHIP. IT IS THOUGHT THAT RASTOV, ALTHOUGH HE DIED A MONTH BEFORE NICHOLAS IN UNCERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES, HAD BEEN THE GUIDING FORCE BEHIND THE THRONE, AND IF IT HAD NOT BEEN FOR RASTOV, NICHOLAS WOULD HAVE BEEN PERSUADED TO ABDICATE SOONER.
ALL OTHER INFORMATION ON THE RASTOV FAMILY WAS LOST DURING THE REVOLUTION AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE RECORDS OF THE IMPERIAL COURT.
MORE INFORMATION:
SEE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION SEE BOLSHEVIK MOVEMENT
Ann Tanaka hit the print button and changed the screen. It found no other matches for Sokova…yet. She gave the computer more instructions, and then shifted the screen back to what she had been reading earlier.
The door opened behind her. She turned and smiled at Jason Mitchell, who said, “Any luck?”
She shook her head. “Nothing yet. What about you?”
“I’ve got to see the DD in a couple of hours. You want some coffee? I’ll buy.”
She smiled, stood, and said, “Why not.”
<><><>
“Come in,” said Robert Mathews.
The door opened, and the head of Mathews’ Secret Service team, Tom Sanders, entered. He went over to the vice presidential nominee. “I have the information on Blair’s death.” Mathews motioned for Sanders to sit down. When the Secret Service agent sat, he opened a large brown envelope and withdrew the contents. “According to the accident report, Blair’s rental car had a blowout and flipped over. His neck was broken. The autopsy showed he had not been drinking.
Mathews nodded. “If it was an accident, why do I feel as though Ed Kline is holding me responsible?”
Sanders flipped through the various papers. “Maybe because he was in Tennessee investigating you.”
“No, that doesn’t make any sense. The only time I’ve been in Tennessee was to campaign,” Mathews said, feeling even more perplexed.
