Laynie Portland, Spy Resurrected

by Vikki Kestell

  “And that got you AGFA’s fentanyl purchase how?”

  Jaz bestowed an arch look on Brian. “See, I wasn’t focused only on fentanyl, was I? And if I were just a touch jaded, I’d say the employee who wrote up the order fabricated it. I mean, really, does a small animal clinic out in the boonies of Azerbaijan actually need fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of x-ray film? Particularly when, after investigation, that clinic doesn’t exist?”

  “They hid the fentanyl purchase under another product name!”

  “On the nose, Brain Pan. So then I found the payment for the so-called x-ray film and traced it. Electronic funds transferred to a bank in Hong Kong from a bank in Baku—and multiple points in between—in an attempt to hide the transaction’s point of origin. A vain attempt, I might add.”

  Rusty jumped up. “You found AGFA’s bank account? You tracked the money back to them?”

  “Indeed I—”

  Rusty swooped down on Jaz, yanked her from her chair, and spun her around, whooping it up as he did. Instantly, task force members were on their feet, laughing, shouting, dancing. Rusty pulled them into one huddled, bouncing group hug.

  “You did it! You did it!” Gwyneth celebrated, grinning madly.

  She stopped bouncing and pulled Jaz away from the hug fest. “Wait. You said you had two things. First, you found AGFA’s supplier and the money trail.”

  Jaz slumped into her chair and answered, “Whew. Yah. First, the money trail—but I have more.”

  Rusty’s bellow cut through the bedlam. “Everybody SHUT UP!”

  The celebratory dance hit a wall and fell apart.

  Soraya gasped, “What? What is it?”

  “Jaz found more.”

  The team members regained their usual businesslike manners and turned to Jaz.

  “Thank you, Gwynnie. First, the money trail. Second? The originating bank account in Baku—is registered to none other than one Mohammed Eldar Sayed.”

  “Sayed? No way,” Rusty breathed.

  Brian shook his head. “You telling me he used his real name to open that account? The daring leader of AGFA? What a dufus!”

  “Yup. Stupid Criminals 101: Don’t use your own name, Bonzo. Guess Sayed skipped that class or thought he could bury the payment in anonymizers. Anyway, as long as AGFA doesn’t catch us at it, we can keep following the money into and out of the account, wherever it comes from and wherever it goes.

  “Third, speaking of into the account, how does a hefty deposit of seventy-five thousand dollars from an account in the Cayman Islands just this week sound? An account, I might add, that belongs to a shell company, owned by another shell company, that’s part of a consortium whose majority owner is an attorney for the US Ukrainian mob?”

  Rusty lifted a hand.

  “You don’t have to raise your hand, Rusty. Remember?”

  “Yeah, yeah, but something you said hit me like a brick to the head. The mob paid AGFA seventy-five thousand dollars? For what? A couple kilos of fentanyl AGFA bought for fifteen grand? Even with a stiff markup, that can’t be right.”

  Jaz mused aloud to herself. “What, besides the fentanyl, would the mob pay AGFA for? What do the jihadis have that the mob needs?”

  Task force members furrowed their brows and sat down. Gwyneth and others put their heads together, whispering, seeking an answer that fit.

  Jaz was mulling the same questions when she became aware of the silence growing around her. She glanced up to find her teammates’ attention studiously fixed elsewhere.

  Anywhere but at her.

  “What? What’s going on?”

  “Think, Gwyneth whispered. “The mob overpaid AGFA for the fentanyl, right? Well, what else do the jihadis have? They have Bella. That’s what the rest of the money was for. The mole told AGFA that Bella was headed to Tbilisi. AGFA called the mob and cut a deal with them. To snatch her. To make it look like she died.”

  “Why? What does she know that the mob would pay—” Jaz’s protests died in her mouth. “She knows me. Where I am, and . . .”

  “And that you arranged for the feds to confiscate the mob’s financial records,” Tobin finished. “You. You’re what the mob paid for in return for the rest of the money, and Bella can tell them where to find you.”

  Jaz’s gorge rose in her throat. “But that would mean . . .”

  “That if AGFA is torturing Bella, it’s to get your location? I’m sorry, Jaz, but that’s what it means.”

  He hustled toward the door, then stopped. “It also means we need to warn Richard. If AGFA has gotten what they want from Bella and conveyed it to the Ukrainians, an attack on Broadsword could be imminent.”

  LAYNIE WOKE A WHILE later to a stirring in the cave. Voices. Footsteps. Moments later, Ksenia sat down beside her. She had two jugs of water and two plates.

  “Lay-nee. Here is food and your own jug of water.”

  The plate Ksenia handed to her held a fat slice of bread and a serving of warm rice topped with gravy of some kind. Laynie again rinsed her mouth with vinegar water to disinfect it and soothe its sting. Then she used her fingers to shovel rice and gravy into her mouth. The gravy, she thought, had bits of lamb or goat in it. It hurt to chew the warm food, but Laynie’s stomach rejoiced.

  “Soon,” Ksenia said between bites, “they will take us to the soldiers. We will be gone until late tonight.”

  “Will I go, also?”

  “Not yet. The men who bring our food said in two nights. They said . . .” her words trailed off.

  “They said what?” Laynie prompted Ksenia.

  “They said . . . the soldiers are picking numbers for you. To be first on the list. Even though your hair . . . is gone.”

  “I see.”

  They finished eating in silence. Ksenia took their empty plates to the grate. When she returned, she helped Laynie to her feet.

  “Come. I will show you where to relieve yourself.”

  They walked toward the grate. By the light shining from the other side, Ksenia pointed to the wall on the right. They walked to the wall, passing a large bundle of sticks for the women’s fires. They followed the wall away from the grate, into the shadows to a pair of foul-smelling five-gallon buckets.

  Laynie saw that a branch of the cave meandered from the buckets into the dark. With her hand on the wall to guide her, she began to walk that way to stretch her legs. To learn the boundaries of her new cell.

  She had gone several yards when Ksenia grabbed her abaya and stopped her mid-stride. “No. Do not go back there.”

  “What is there?”

  “A deep hole. An empty cistern. If you fall into it, you may break your legs.” While they walked back to Ksenia’s mattress, she added, “If one of us does not submit herself to a soldier, if she persists in displeasing him, Bula will have the soldiers drop her into the cistern.”

  Laynie swallowed. “I see. And . . . what becomes of the woman?”

  “It depends. If she repents and begs them to pull her out, they do. Sometimes. If they do not pull her out, they let her die there.”

  “Are there bodies in the cistern now?”

  “No. After a week or so, Bula makes them remove the dead woman. He does not want disease, you see. We are not very clean here. Neither are the soldiers. Disease in this place would spread very rapidly.”

  They reached Ksenia’s mattress, and Laynie asked, “Is it all right if I sleep on your mattress while you are gone?”

  “Yes, certainly. I . . . I am glad you are here, Lay-nee—not that I wish you to be in this awful place. But . . . the day you spoke to me, you said, ‘I want you to know you are not alone, Ksenia.’ You did not know how long I have been here. Alone.”

  She coughed to hide her emotions. “I am glad, you see, to have someone to talk to. Someone who is . . . kind.”

  “I am glad I can be here with you, Ksenia.”

  Laynie reached her hand toward Ksenia. The girl grabbed it and held it to her cheek, sobbing softly.

  LATER, LAYNIE HE
ARD a stirring from the girls on the other side of the cave. “It is time,” Ksenia said, releasing Laynie’s hand. “We will return in four or five hours.”

  Laynie touched the girl. “Ksenia. Can you . . . can you ask one of the men what day it is?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “To me it does.”

  “For you, I will ask.”

  Ksenia got up and went to the front of the cave where the others had gathered. Laynie crept forward to watch, staying in the shadows. She counted eleven girls total. Three soldiers had arrived. They brought two steaming kettles to the bars.

  Each girl had a rag she pushed through the bars and dipped into one kettle, wringing it out, washing her face, hands, and arms. They rinsed the rags in the second kettle, wrung them, then dipped them again in the first kettle, turning their backs on the soldiers to lift their abayas and wash their bodies, rinsing and replenishing their rags with hot water as often as they needed.

  When they were finished, they again rinsed their rags then dipped them in the “clean” hot water for a final rinse before hanging the rags on the bars to dry.

  Laynie shuddered as she considered how rampant venereal disease had to be within the soldiers’ ranks . . . and the girls’. As they filed from the cell and were tied onto three leashes, Laynie prayed.

  O Lord God, I promised you that I was done with sexual sin. Please help me to hear and follow your voice when I am led with them from this place—for I will never again submit myself to a man outside of marriage.

  She returned to Ksenia’s mattress and laid herself down. When she could not sleep, she prayed aloud. When sleep did not come, she sang.

  Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

  O what a foretaste of glory divine!

  Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

  Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

  This is my story, this is my song,

  Praising my Savior, all the day long;

  This is my story, this is my song,

  Praising my Savior, all the day long.

  “Yes, Lord. I will praise you all this day long.” Without thought, Laynie scratched at an itch on her head. Her fingers encountered a crusted smear of blood. The reminder that her hair was gone jarred her yet again.

  “I count all things as loss for you, Jesus.”

  A different sensation . . . a quiver of uneasy guilt crept over her. No, not guilt, but something much more insidious. It took her a few moments to identify it.

  Shame.

  Laynie squeezed her eyes shut on sudden tears. “Lord? Please help me.”

  She didn’t know where the passage came from. It welled up inside her, alive and potent.

  So do not be ashamed

  of the testimony about our Lord

  or of me, his prisoner.

  Rather, join me in suffering for the gospel,

  by the power of God.

  “Oh! Do not be ashamed. I understand, Lord.” She turned the verse over in her mind, and mouthed the words aloud.

  Then she declared, “I will gladly suffer for the gospel—by the power of God. And I will not be ashamed, nor will I be shamed by any man.”

  Peace washed over her.

  She murmured to herself, “I am not ashamed.”

  She saw the stick Ksenia used to poke the fire. Fished it out. Pulled up the sleeve of her abaya. Carefully scrawled on the inside of her forearm with the stick’s charcoaled tip.

  Chapter 23

  LAYNIE WOKE UP WHEN the girls returned to the cell. Ksenia shuffled to her bed and sat down next to Laynie.

  “Lay-nee, the soldiers say this past day was December 19. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  Far later in the month than I thought! She began to calculate backward the time she’d been in Sayed’s stronghold and the date she’d arrived in Tbilisi. More than a week. Eight or nine days.

  Did they really keep me unconscious for so long?

  Ksenia hadn’t replied to Laynie’s thanks. She sat quietly. Subdued. Her head on her knees.

  I have been self-absorbed, Laynie chided herself. Not thinking of what these innocents suffer every evening. For weeks. Months. Perhaps longer.

  She grieved for Ksenia and the other young women.

  How many? she wondered. How many men were you forced to endure in just the past several hours?

  Laynie groped for the girl’s hand. “You are not alone, Ksenia.”

  Ksenia sobbed, and Laynie drew her into her embrace. Softly, in English, Laynie murmured into Ksenia’s hair, praying over the girl from Ephesians.

  “Lord God! I pray that out of your glorious riches you would strengthen Ksenia with power through your Holy Spirit in her inner being. I ask that you help me share the gospel with this precious girl.”

  She sensed the Holy Spirit moving, quickening within her, stirring her to action. Felt his presence hovering over her and over Ksenia.

  “Father, I ask that you open Ksenia’s heart to receive the Good News. I ask that you would reveal Jesus to her and that she would ask him to dwell in her heart by faith.”

  Laynie opened her mouth to continue her prayer . . . but strange words, words that made absolutely no sense to her, rushed out. Her prayer stumbled to a stop.

  What?

  She tried again, spoke a string of words—and halted when they were just as unintelligible.

  Ksenia pulled away from her. “Lay-nee. How do you know my people’s tongue?”

  “I-I don’t. I don’t know your language.”

  “But you were speaking it to me. Speaking Kurmanji, the language of the Kurds and Yazidi.”

  Laynie didn’t answer. Lord? What in the world?

  She was half-afraid to say anything else.

  “Lay-nee, is it true, what you said?”

  Laynie shivered. Lord? She ran her tongue over the splits and cuts on her lips. “Ksenia . . .”

  Okay, that came out right. Oh, sure—because Ksenia is Ksenia in all languages!

  “Um, Ksenia, what did I say when I spoke . . . Kurmanji?”

  Whew.

  “You do not know?”

  “No, I don’t. Can you tell me what I said?”

  “But you clearly said, ‘Dear little woman, if you ask me to be your Lord and your Savior, I will come into your heart, and you will never again be alone.’”

  “Ohhhh . . .”

  The glory of God fell.

  Like a holy blanket, the presence of the Holy Spirit was so heavy that Laynie felt it in the air, soaking into her clothes, permeating her skin.

  She wanted to fall on her face before God.

  Ksenia shook. Her voice trembled. “I wanted . . . I needed to ask you what you meant, who was speaking to me when you said, ‘ask me,’ but before I could ask, you said, ‘I am Jesus.’”

  “O Lord God!” Laynie took a deep breath. “Ksenia, I speak the Russian that you and I share. I also speak English, Swedish, a little German, and some French. I promise you that I do not speak Kurmanji.”

  “Is it Jesus then, who I feel? Who makes me tremble? Is it him?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes, it is.”

  They were both quiet, and Laynie prayed silently.

  Dear Lord, what have you done here? It is marvelous in my eyes! Now, please open Ksenia’s heart to hear the Good News.

  Ksenia leaned toward Laynie and whispered in her ear. “Lay-nee. Please tell me of Jesus. Please. You say he lives inside of you. I do not want to be alone . . . ever again.”

  Laynie gathered Ksenia into her arms. Her own aches and pains forgotten, Laynie held Ksenia like the daughter she would never have.

  “Ksenia, many, many years ago, God looked down on humanity’s sinful, hopeless state and had compassion on us. At just the right time, because of his great love for us, God the Father’s Spirit hovered over a virgin girl and placed the Father’s seed within her. In this way, God sent his Word into the world to be born of a woman.

  “They named the baby b
oy born to her the Lord’s Salvation. They named him Jesus.”

  TOBIN AND JAZ WERE in the conference room, on speakerphone with Wolfe and Seraphim. Jaz had presented their recent findings.

  “Sir, although we knew that AGFA had built themselves a lab, we now know that they weren’t using the lab to make fentanyl. Instead, they bought enough fentanyl from the Chinese for both their own purposes and the Ukrainian mob’s.

  “We need to understand what they are manufacturing. The product of that lab will give us the basis of their third attack. To that end, we are monitoring AGFA’s bank account, tracing every dollar moving in or out of it. Their finances and the private radicalized chat rooms we watch are our best avenues for figuring things out.”

  “Miss Jessup, I agree we need to be looking ahead to AGFA’s third attack, but we can’t forget that we have a more immediate threat before us. New Year’s Eve is exactly twelve days off. Yes, we know AGFA will use fentanyl in the attack, and Cossack tells us the attack will come against ten major cities on the east coast, but none of that information is actionable.

  “The task force has to uncover their plans—the exact where and the exact how. My ability to convince the FBI, other law enforcement agencies, the federal government, and applicable state and municipal governments to act depends upon hard, specific evidence—actionable evidence—of the impending attack.

  “All your work will be in vain if we are unable to stop AGFA from pulling off another terrorist action as devastating as 9/11. I’m being blunt because the facts are blunt. Find the where. Find the how. This is your immediate mission.”

  Inside, Jaz scowled, but all she said was a clipped, “Yes, sir.”

  As Wolfe ended the call, Jaz threw her pen across the room. Threw her notebook.

  Tobin tried to put a calming hand on her shoulder.

  Jaz threw it off, too, and shouted, “This is why I don’t *bleeping* do management.”

  “And that’s why I’m sharing the load with you, Vyper. Come on. We have work to do.”

  “This is not the gig I signed up for.”