Surveillance (A Chris Bruen Novel Book 3)

by Reece Hirsch

  Zoey waited as long as she could before her departure time, then emerged from the bathroom, went through security, and hurried onto her plane, one of the last passengers to board.

  The cartel had a long reach, so she didn’t begin to relax until the plane had lifted off, rising above the snow-capped Andes. Even then she knew that someone could be waiting for her on arrival.

  After all, she was heading for the cartel’s home turf.

  35

  When they landed in Moscow, Sam was handed over by the SVR agents to a welcoming committee headed by a man with hair so thin it appeared colorless. He wore an expensive-looking dark suit and an affable demeanor, clearly some sort of ambassador.

  “Welcome to Moscow, Mr. Reston. We are honored to have you as a guest of the state.” He extended a hand. “Vladimir Grishin, special adviser to the president.”

  Grishin gave Sam a practiced handshake—firm but not too firm, long enough to convey sincerity but not overfamiliar.

  “Thank you,” Sam said.

  “You must be tired after your journey and all the excitement. I heard about the incident in Prague.”

  “Excitement—that’s one way to put it.”

  “There is nothing so exhausting as being in danger, the release of adrenaline,” Grishin said. “I always sleep the sleep of the dead afterward.”

  Sam wondered how often Grishin had been in life-and-death situations. Perhaps he was simply the friendliest face of the SVR. They walked through the small terminal of a government airfield and quickly arrived at a black limousine idling at the curb.

  “Where are we going?” Sam asked. “Debriefing?”

  “No, I’m taking you to your residence. There will be time for that later. But one initial question—do you have the materials with you?”

  “No, they’re on a secure server, where I can access them.”

  A cloud of dissatisfaction passed briefly across Grishin’s face. “Good,” he said. “Good.”

  The limousine glided through the streets of Moscow, through the Kitay-gorod, a shopping district interspersed with onion-domed cathedrals, past the GUM shopping arcade, past the expanse of Red Square. They stopped before a modern apartment tower only a few blocks from the turreted fortress walls of the Kremlin.

  Sam noticed that the doorman had an automatic pistol holstered inside his suit jacket, and so did the man at the security desk. Grishin led him to the elevator, and they rode to the top floor.

  The elevator doors opened on an expansive penthouse suite on the thirty-second floor. The furnishings were black leather and chrome, expensive but a little flashy and bachelor pad–like for his taste.

  Sam walked directly across the room to the floor-to-ceiling windows and took in the panoramic view of Moscow. He could see the golden onion domes of the Cathedral of the Annunciation on the Kremlin’s main square, and the dark waters of the Moskva River, which ran beside the Kremlin walls. A light snow was falling.

  “Are the accommodations to your liking?” Grishin asked.

  “Very nice,” he said.

  “I see that you didn’t bring a bag. If you will give me your measurements, we can provide you with some clothes until you have time to shop for your own.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The refrigerator is well stocked, but we’d be happy to arrange a dinner for you.”

  “No, that’s fine. I’d just like to sleep for a while.”

  “I understand completely.”

  Sam scribbled his sizes on a pad, and Grishin prepared to leave. At the door he turned and added, “I have a feeling you are going to do great things here, Mr. Reston.”

  Sam nodded absently, staring out the window at the Kremlin.

  “President Putin already knows your name,” Grishin said. “Soon the world will know it too.”

  When Sam awoke the next morning, it took several minutes for his new reality to sink in. He was living in accommodations suitable for a Russian oligarch just a few blocks from the Kremlin. He was a “guest of the state,” but he had no idea when he might wear out that welcome.

  He looked around the penthouse, opening the closets and drawers, taking stock. The bedroom closet was indeed filled with a wardrobe that fit him but would have better suited the bodyguard of said oligarch—there was a charcoal Armani suit with a black silk shirt that was meant to be worn open at the collar, probably the better to display a gold chain.

  Looking in the full-length mirror, Sam half-heartedly pointed a finger at the ceiling like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. He laughed to himself and decided to continue wearing the clothes that he had arrived in.

  The kitchen was stocked with milk and American cereals, so he ate a bowl of Cheerios, sipped black coffee, and stared out at the snowy Moscow skyline, with a Russian newscast droning incomprehensibly in the background from a television in the living room. He felt the need to move slowly, like a concussion victim.

  A knock came at the door. Grishin was back, smiling like the bearer of a gift. The Russian stepped aside so that Sam could see his guest, a thin young man with angular glasses, a wispy mustache, and brown hair shaved close to the scalp. As in the familiar press photos and videos, he was pale, with dark circles under his eyes, like a student who had just spent the past week cramming for an exam.

  “I believe you know Mr. Edward Snowden.”

  Sam extended his hand. “Who doesn’t?”

  Snowden smiled awkwardly and shook it. “Nice to meet you. Call me Ed.”

  Sam invited them in.

  “Did you two ever meet while you were both at the NSA?” Grishin asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Sam said. “I’m sure we know some of the same people, though.”

  Snowden nodded. “You’re what Glenn Greenwald was expecting when we met for the first time—someone a little older who had put in an entire career at the NSA.”

  “I was a lifer all right,” Sam said, the past tense feeling awkward as he spoke it.

  Assured that they had broken the ice, Grishin retreated. “I will leave you to get acquainted. I’m sure you will have much to talk about.” To Sam he added, “I’ll return later to make sure you’re getting what you need to get acclimated.”

  As soon as the door shut behind Grishin, Snowden went to a desk near the kitchen and began writing on a yellow Post-it with a ballpoint pen.

  Sam wasn’t going to ask, but Snowden volunteered, “I’m writing down my phone number. You’re going to need a friend over here. Call me anytime.”

  He handed the note to Sam, but it did not contain a phone number. It read, “THEY’RE LISTENING—ALSO WATCHING.”

  Sam nodded and pocketed the note. “I’m sure I’ll be taking you up on that offer,” he said.

  “Nice digs,” Snowden said. “Better than I got when I arrived.”

  “Where do you live now?”

  “Just outside of Moscow. Nice place, nothing opulent. My girlfriend moved over here, and we live together. We lead sort of a normal life—relatively speaking. My residency permit here runs through 2017. We’ll see where things go from there. Maybe Switzerland if they’ll have us.”

  Sam understood that the real conversation would take place later when they were out of reach of the surveillance equipment.

  “I could use a little normalcy. But don’t get my hopes up, right?”

  Snowden looked at the floor and smiled ruefully. “I remember what that was like. It’s hard to believe it wasn’t that long ago. You think you’re never going to have a life of your own again, but it comes back—some of it, anyway. I guess I’m the only person in the world who knows what you’re going through.”

  “I have a lot of questions for you.”

  “I’ll bet,” Snowden said. “Look, would you like to go for a walk? Do you have the clothes for that?”

  “They had a complete wardrobe waiting for me.”

  Snowden chuckled. “They’re very thorough.”

  They left the apartment and took the elevator down to the lob
by. Before they could walk outside, the doorman stopped them.

  “We’re not supposed to let you leave unescorted.”

  “We just want to go for a walk,” Snowden said. “Over to Red Square. Sam would like to take a look at the Kremlin.”

  The doorman raised a hand to keep them waiting, and he dialed his cell phone. After explaining the situation, he listened and nodded several times.

  “Grishin says that someone will need to walk with you—at a distance.”

  Snowden and Sam looked at one another. “Okay,” Snowden said. “That’s fine.”

  The armed guard from the security desk followed the pair outside into a whirling, soft snow that melted quickly on the face and hands, lingering a bit longer in the hair and on the clothes. He gave the pair a head start and then followed about fifty yards back.

  Sam glanced back at the guard. “You think it’s safe to talk now?”

  “I think so,” Snowden said, scanning the nearby buildings, presumably looking for CCTV cameras. “But it’s still best to keep your head down to avoid lipreading.”

  “How’s your experience been over here in Moscow? The unedited version.”

  Snowden shrugged. “Well, it’s not the life I planned for myself. But it’s a better result than I could have hoped for when I started down this path. I thought it was more likely that I would spend the rest of my life in prison.”

  “So does the government leave you alone?”

  “By and large, yeah. By being magnanimous to me, and now you, they score PR points that don’t quit. Are they going to trot us out from time to time for the media? Yes. Are they going to subject us to SVR interrogation? No.”

  “Because we want to disclose our information,” Sam said.

  “Right. But they may press you for some of the documents that raise national security issues, the ones that won’t be shared with the press.”

  “About that,” Sam said. “My disclosures involve the Skeleton Key program. Have you heard of it?”

  Snowden stopped walking. “Are you serious? Sure, I’d heard of it, but I thought it was pie in the sky at best. One of those Hail Mary projects that the NSA sinks money into but no one expects to pan out.”

  “It panned out.”

  “How does it work? No, don’t tell me that.”

  “Don’t worry, I couldn’t explain it if I tried. But there’s something here that our hosts are going to find very interesting. Skeleton Key has allowed the NSA and CIA to decrypt the SVR’s communications.”

  Realizing that their intense conversation in the middle of the sidewalk would arouse the suspicions of the agent trailing them, Sam started walking again, and Snowden followed. They were now in the middle of the expanse of Red Square, before the brick-red Russian Revival facade of the State Historical Museum, which was accented in white by the snow settling on its towers and in its crannies.

  “Are you going to tell that to the SVR?”

  “No, the information about Skeleton Key will go public, but I’m not going to tell them that it’s been used to monitor them. Let them figure it out.”

  “Despite it all, we’re still Americans, aren’t we?”

  “That’s right,” said Sam. “Despite it all.”

  “They will figure it out eventually,” Snowden said. “And you can expect some pretty pointed questions when they do.”

  “But they’ll be polite? Because our presence here is all about the public relations, right?”

  Snowden walked a few paces before responding, and Sam began to grow nervous. “This is about PR, of course. And they care very much about what you say publicly. But they have the means to apply pressure and attempt to control what we say. We’re here entirely at their pleasure. They could take away our visitor status and send us both to prison—and worse.”

  “You know,” Sam said, “I grew up during the Cold War, and I never thought I’d be here. Certainly not like this.”

  “I’m no defender of Putin, but it’s a different era now.”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said. “This war feels pretty cold to me.”

  36

  Damian Hull awoke from an enveloping subterranean sleep to the distant sound of waves lapping. It was dreamy and pleasant, the pulse of the waves nearly indistinguishable from his heartbeat. The pulse grew more insistent, strangely metallic and resonant, like a quarter bouncing on the head of a drum kit.

  As his thoughts focused, Damian decided that it was really more of a feeling than a sound. Someone was applying regular, insistent slaps to his face to wake him up.

  Damian tried to raise a hand to brush away the annoyance, but he found that he was immobilized. At first he was afraid that he was paralyzed, but then he could feel the pull of duct tape around his wrists. He tried to focus his eyes to see who was so determined to wake him up, but he was blindfolded.

  Damian tried to stand and felt his chair rock precariously back and forth.

  He was bound to a straight-backed chair.

  In a place near the ocean.

  Like a double amputee awakening from a dream of running, Damian remembered everything in a rush. Intercepted by members of the Sinaloa Cartel in the terminal of the Quito airport, he, Roland, Serge, and Maria had been hustled into an SUV idling in the passenger unloading area. As soon as the SUV’s door had slammed shut, he’d felt a sharp pinch in his leg, and that was the last thing that he remembered. He could still feel a slight ache in his thigh where the hypodermic had been jammed in.

  He cleared his throat. At least he wasn’t gagged. Damian debated whether it was wise to say something, call out, scream. Maybe it was better to listen awhile longer to get a better sense of his surroundings. Before he could decide on a strategy, he heard a voice in front of him.

  “Look who’s awake,” said a male voice in lightly Spanish-inflected English.

  Damian’s blindfold lifted to let in the glittering, assaultive sunlight. When he was able to stop squinting, he observed the men standing before him. The man closest to him was probably in his midthirties, with the lean zero-body-fat look of a distance runner. He was wearing an expensive silk short-sleeve shirt open at the neck, pressed jeans, and oxblood-colored slip-ons. His thick inky-black hair was combed straight back off his forehead.

  “Your friends said that you were the leader of the crew,” the man said. “Is that true?”

  “I liked to think of it as more of a democracy, you know? My door was always open.”

  The man smiled. “A good boss. I like to think that’s what I am too.”

  “Who are you?”

  “You really want me to tell you my name?”

  “Does it really matter at this point?”

  The man nodded. “I suppose not. Arturo Salas.”

  Damian attempted a grin. “I’d shake your hand, but . . .” He was struggling to control his fear, and so far he thought he was doing a pretty good job. “Damian Hull.”

  “Yes, I know. As I said, I’ve spoken with your colleagues.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Oh, they’re around here somewhere.”

  Damian didn’t like the sound of that. “I suppose you have questions for me.”

  Salas shook his head. “Not so much, really. I already know how you cracked our system, where the funds have been parked. I even know that your friend Zoey Doucet is still on the loose and in Mexico City.” Salas glanced at the older man standing next to him, who wore a sand-colored suit and had the put-together look of a businessman. “What was the name of the one who was so helpful?”

  “Maria,” he said.

  “Right,” Salas said. “Maria was more than willing to offer up that information.”

  “So, no questions?”

  Salas walked over to a window that stretched along the wall behind him. From the open expanse of sky, Damian assumed that he was staring out at the ocean.

  “Well, it’s not so much a question,” Salas said. “More of a comment.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’r
e like a lot of tech guys I know. You think the smartest guy in the room always wins.”

  “It’s a failing, I won’t deny it,” Damian said. “You try to remember that there are real risks, but it becomes a game.”

  Salas’s eyes narrowed. “You thought that stealing five hundred million dollars from the Sinaloa Cartel was a game? You thought it was some kind of fucking game?”

  “Well, when you put it like that . . .”

  Damian didn’t feel nearly as glib as he sounded. At this point the only thing that remained under his control was whether he went out with a bit of style. And even that might not be possible, depending upon what they decided to do next.

  Salas turned to the man in the sand-colored suit. “Do you believe this guy?”

  “No,” he said, followed by a short sentence or two in Spanish.

  “He says you must have been very desperate for money. Is that so? Were you desperate?”

  “I already had more money than I knew what to do with,” Damian said. “I was the guy who hacked the Federal Reserve.”

  Salas turned to his companion and rolled his eyes. “He says he didn’t need the money. Do you hear him?”

  The man in the suit shook his head and said something in Spanish.

  Salas turned back to Damian, anger still in his eyes. “What am I going to do with you, Damian?”

  “I take it that’s a rhetorical question.”

  Salas smiled the tiniest and most perfunctory of smiles. “Yes, I actually do know what I’m going to do with you.”

  “Have you recovered the money yet?”

  “No, but we know how to get it back.”

  “You think you do. You might want to keep me alive until you know for sure.”

  “You raise a good point. But I am an impulsive person. It sometimes gets the better of me. Just as your arrogance seems to get the better of you.”

  “We all have our flaws.”

  “Yes.” Salas turned away and spoke to the man in the suit in Spanish for a while, then said to Damian, “I’m instructing my colleague to go and find Zoey Doucet in Mexico City. We can’t have anyone thinking that they can get away with this sort of thing. We need full remediation.”