Laynie Portland, Spy Resurrected

by Vikki Kestell

  “Every person is afraid, my daughter. A brave one looks to Jesus and says, ‘I will do what you ask of me, even when I am afraid, for you have promised never to leave me nor forsake me.’ That is brave, Ksenia.”

  Ksenia’s trembling hand crept into Laynie’s. “Maybe I can do that.”

  Maybe I can too, my little daughter.

  “A WARNING, DIRECTOR Wolfe?” Huffing with disdain, Svitlanya lowered herself again to the cold bench. “Make your point, please. I am freezing.”

  “As am I, but what I have to say is critical to both of us. We believe the third attack is poised to happen within the month, perhaps sooner.”

  “And what? My people will magically be implicated?”

  Wolfe gentled his voice. Cajoled her. “While the victim of the first attack was supposed to be a high-level Russian official, the attack’s purpose was to spread disinformation about Russia’s role in 9/11. What did the girl shout when she splashed the acid on Petroff? It was ‘Death to all Russian cowards!’ to which she added, ‘You knew about the 9/11 attacks ahead of time. You knew about them and you did nothing.’

  “Word of Petroff’s ugly, grotesque death would have spawned an international incident. The assassin’s shouted manifesto should have been the headlines on every newspaper and the lead of every newscast in America. Her words and Petroff’s death were intended to fuel suspicion in the minds of the American people and kindle animosity toward the Russian government.”

  He took a breath. “After all, we Americans didn’t think our nation was vulnerable before 9/11. In its aftermath? Most of us want someone to blame. We want justice. Some in the government might even jump at the chance for payback. For revenge.”

  Svitlanya lifted her chin. “I understand those sentiments. We lost people that day. Friends and family members who were in the vicinity of the twin towers. I nearly lost someone quite dear to me who was on that other flight into New York—the hijacking stopped by the two air marshals.”

  “I . . .” Wolfe stumbled to a halt.

  Marshal Quincy Tobin and Marta Forestier . . . Laynie.

  The sense of someone higher than himself at work, of something much larger than what he could wrap his mind around, rolled like a wave down Wolfe’s back and prickled the skin on his arms.

  Svitlanya frowned. “Director Wolfe?”

  Wolfe shook himself. Refocused. “AGFA’s second attack was more blatant—it should have been devastating. Hundreds of thousands of poisoned pills were supposed to cause mass casualties—mostly young Americans. Who would America blame this time?”

  Wolfe glanced up. “Please tell your people I’m going to retrieve a sample for you.”

  She turned her head and murmured something, then nodded to him.

  He reached numb fingers into his Burberry’s pocket and, courtesy of the FBI, pulled out one of the tabs. “The pills were manufactured in Russia, each one in its own individual transparent wrapper, the wrappers fused on both ends.”

  He offered the tab to her. “Have it analyzed if you doubt me—but be careful with it. Oh. And when you pull the wrapper apart? Look between the fused ends. Use a magnifying glass. I think you’ll find the name Bogolyubsky Confectionery Concern in Russian. A wholly owned Russian Federation candy company.”

  Svitlanya slowly took the pill, stared at it, then slid it into the pocket of her fur coat. She unconsciously wiped her gloved fingers on her coat. “How does this involve us?”

  “The pills and the confetti cannons used to distribute them arrived in the US on a Ukrainian ship, but the cargo originated in Russia. It was shipped down the Caspian, offloaded in Azerbaijan, trucked across Georgia, and loaded onto that Ukrainian ship in a Georgian port. Your organization, Svitlanya, your people took receipt of those pills on December 21.”

  “Y-you cannot prove we had knowledge of what they were!”

  “And I told you we aren’t interested in your crimes today. By agreement with the US Attorney General, we are going to let your unintentional involvement slide . . . for the moment.”

  “For the moment. You will now explain about the third attack? Will you ever get to your so-called warning?”

  “Yes. However, let’s recap. AGFA provided your organization with fentanyl to increase your heroin profits. In return, you did a few favors for the American arm of AGFA. Provided them with hydrofluoric acid and delivered a shipment of confetti cannons and more than half a million poison pills to them. Seems an equitable trade.”

  Svitlanya said nothing, but a nerve jumped at the corner of one finely creased eye.

  Wolfe moved ahead. “On to the third attack. Having stirred animosity between America and Russia with the first attack, and having blamed tens of thousands of American deaths on the Russians with the second attack, AGFA would now be champing at the bit to deliver a follow-on blow so egregious as to guarantee an American retaliatory strike on Russia, a strike that would escalate into war—except for one little problem. Neither the first nor the second attack performed as planned.”

  Svitlanya exhaled, and Wolfe realized she’d been holding her breath before she responded. “I see. Hardly the buildup an ‘egregious’ third attack requires, yes?”

  “Yes, but do you recall my saying that nothing would turn AGFA from their course? My experience with their organization to date tells me that the hand on the switch isn’t entirely stable. Do you follow?”

  Svitlanya stared. Wolfe saw a slight tremor roll through her.

  He said softly, “My people made additional calculations last week. The results caused them to rethink their previous conclusions. Turns out you don’t need more than a few pounds of fentanyl to double the profits on a ton of heroin. Mix half the normal amount of heroin per hit with an equal amount of some harmless white powder, then drop in a single grain of fentanyl? You’ve just doubled your profits.

  “With that in mind, we recalibrated our assumptions. We had assumed that AGFA was manufacturing fentanyl. That assumption had to go. Shoot, if they sent you twenty or thirty—even fifty kilos of fentanyl—that amount might last you a year or better.

  “But see, we knew they had bought lab equipment. Our mistake was in presuming they were using the lab to manufacture the fentanyl they sold to you. All that cost and trouble for a mere twenty kilos of fentanyl? Once we realized our mistake, we had to wonder what they were really manufacturing.”

  “What indeed, Director?”

  “Ah, I see I have your attention now. You’re wondering—as we did—where they got the fentanyl they sold you. Without giving away our methods and means, let me just say that we uncovered AGFA’s orders for the drug. Yes, orders. AGFA actually bought fentanyl from a Chinese source and shipped it to you at significant cost. Interesting, yes?”

  She frowned. “Quite.”

  “Once we knew they were not making fentanyl, the lists of lab equipment they ordered no longer made sense. So, we went hunting for the chemicals they would be using in their lab. It took a while, but when we found them, it took a DEA chemist to tell us what we were looking at. Are you familiar with carfentanil?”

  “No.”

  “I wasn’t either. It’s best known and used as an elephant tranquilizer. Carfentanil is so lethal that even rubbing your nose with a finger that has touched the drug will kill you.”

  “Again, what has all this to do with us?”

  “We asked ourselves the same question. What in the world would incentivize the Brighton Beach bunch to take receipt of a shipment of carfentanil for AGFA? It couldn’t be money, because AGFA has no money to spare. In fact, they have nothing at all to offer you. But then we figured it out. Do you know what we came up with?”

  He watched Svitlanya’s color fade and her eyes narrow.

  “Seems that you lost copies of your financial records a few months back—the records your boy Syla had on his servers? The FBI swept up those servers when they raided Syla for marketing pornography. And how did they know about the porn in the first place? Someone tipped them off.
<
br />   “To sum up, the FBI has your records—all the evidence they need against you. If they could open those files, your organization would be cooked. However, the files are so highly encrypted, that the FBI hasn’t been able to crack them. Yet. Maybe they never will, but that’s doubtful. And can you take that chance?”

  Wolfe sighed. “You know and I know that your records were delivered to the FBI courtesy of a hacker whose handle is Vyper.”

  Svitlanya’s face went from white to an angry red.

  Wolfe kept going. “I’d like to make two points about Vyper. First, you know we have her. Frankly, you’ve bent over backwards trying to get at her. You even sent a hit squad to her apartment complex. People in my organization died, Svitlanya, because you want Vyper that badly.”

  She said nothing, but she watched him as warily as he watched her.

  “My second point about Vyper? She might not be able to crack Syla’s encryption either, but maybe she could do something just as good. See, we figure Vyper is the only hacker in this hemisphere who could breach the FBI’s firewall and destroy your files—which, as long as the FBI no longer has them, is a win for you.”

  “You have a wild imagination, Director Wolfe.”

  “I don’t need to add my imagination to the mix. This situation is already as complex and far-reaching as any novel on the New York Times Best Seller list. But back to my point? AGFA agreed to deliver Vyper to you in exchange for your organization smuggling a sealed sea can into the US. However, I can promise you right now, you will never get your hands on Vyper. But, let’s just say if you did somehow manage to? I would personally hunt you down, Svitlanya, and make you pay—a life for a life.”

  Svitlanya stared back at him. “Perhaps we can come to some other kind of agreement regarding our data?”

  “Perhaps we can. I’m open to discussing the situation later, depending upon the resolution of this crisis.”

  “Crisis? What crisis? I do not understand. AGFA’s first and second attacks failed to sufficiently strain relations between America and Russia, did they not? Therefore, their plan to start a war between the two nations can no longer work, can it?”

  “No, for those reasons it cannot. It also cannot work because we know their objective was to incite war between the US and Russia, yet regrettably, I don’t believe the leader of AGFA has the good sense to pull back, do you? Not when he has an opportunity to hit America like the heavy hitters of al-Qaeda did on 9/11.

  “AGFA’s leader is a megalomaniac. To him, calling off the attack would be the same as admitting defeat—it would ruin his standing before his own men and other terrorist organizations. But to kill an entire city with one blow and strike terror in the hearts of Americans? Now that is a feat to elevate him in al-Qaeda’s eyes and earn him a greater level of credibility.”

  “Kill an entire city? How? How does this carfentanil kill a city?”

  “We had to wonder the same. What does AGFA intend to do with an entire sea can of carfentanil? A sea can you agreed to deliver to them.”

  “You keep angling for an admission from me, Director, one I will never provide. And where is this warning you spoke of earlier when you insisted the separatists were playing us for fools?”

  Wolfe leaned toward Svitlanya. “Bet you also don’t know that carfentanil is water soluble, so I need you to think on this. An entire sea can of carfentanil—several tons of it—dumped into a city’s water supply. No purification system would detect it as it made its way into thousands, perhaps millions of homes, its unsuspecting citizens drinking it, bathing in it, giving it to their children.”

  Her face froze in horror. “Where? Which city—”

  “We don’t know which city or cities. Our worst-case scenario says Washington, DC, where the drug would kill thousands and would, for some time, render our seat of government a wasteland. We don’t, however, have evidence that the target is DC. Since we cannot allow the same fate to befall any US city, we much prefer confiscating the shipment before it makes port.

  “So, let’s consider the facts, shall we? If you were to deliver the carfentanil to AGFA and they were to proceed with their attack as planned? With the Russians off the hook, on whom, exactly, would the blame fall?”

  Wolfe sat back. “This, then, is our warning. If AGFA succeeds in their attack, they will also ensure that your people, Svitlanya, are implicated—in which case we will not hesitate to prosecute you and yours for an egregious act of domestic terrorism and seek the death penalty for all involved. Please do not doubt me.”

  Svitlanya bit back a curse. Staring at Wolfe, she said, “I must take a moment . . . to consider what you’ve said.”

  She turned away from Wolfe. Listened to the voice whispering in her ear. Answered a question, listened again, and muttered an agreement. Turned back.

  “Director Wolfe, before we go further, I require assurances.”

  Wolfe nodded. “I’m going to reach into my breast pocket. Please order whoever has my head in their sights to take their finger off the trigger.”

  For the sake of all listening ears, Svitlanya growled, “Stand down. Do it.”

  A second later, she nodded to Wolfe. “You may proceed.”

  Wolfe slowly unbuttoned his Burberry and reached inside his suit’s breast pocket. Pulled out an envelope. Handed it to her.

  “Read it now but not aloud. If you agree, we need an immediate response.”

  She withdrew the folded sheet of paper and scanned it. “All right. We’ll give you the ship, the number of the sea can, and our Chechen contact here in the US.”

  “No.”

  Svitlanya’s chin jerked up. “What?”

  “We have a different plan. First, give me your earwig.”

  “I—”

  “You have your signed letter of immunity—nothing said here can blow back onto you or your organization. But we won’t go any further down this road until you hand over your earwig, its transmitter, and the bug that’s listening in on our conversation.”

  She thought for a moment. Listened to the voice in her ear. Made some monosyllabic comments. Nodded.

  Wolfe had to believe old Semion Davydenko himself was speaking to Svitlanya.

  She reached into her fur hood and removed a device from her ear. Pulled the wire from it.

  “Now the transmitter and the bug.”

  She unbuttoned her coat and retrieved them.

  Wolfe dropped them on the asphalt at their feet.

  “Sorry about this.” He used his heel to crush them, then reached into his pocket and flipped a switch.

  “I just turned off my own listening device. Leveled the playing field.”

  “Now what?” she demanded. “I said we would give you the shipment information.”

  “Yes, and we will certainly take it, but I . . . we need a little something more.”

  “Oh?”

  “You have spoken directly to AGFA’s leader, haven’t you? When I said he was unstable, you shuddered a little—because you knew and agreed with my assessment. Why? Because you have spoken to him or listened in on calls to him. Now I need to know how you talk to him, Svitlanya.”

  She sat taller and her eyes hardened. “You have gone beyond the scope of our agreement, Director Wolfe. We agreed to give you the carfentanil shipment in exchange for immunity—but now you want something more?”

  “Call it a favor.”

  “No.”

  Wolfe nodded. He’d come back to it when the rest of the details were settled.

  “All right. Then about your AGFA contact—we don’t want him. We’d rather that you use him to identify all the members of AGFA’s American branch.”

  She sneered. “Do the work for you and then give them to you?”

  “No.”

  Wolfe wondered if she would understand what he was implying. She got it faster than he thought she would.

  “I see.”

  “As I said, Americans want justice. Some of us want it sooner than the wheels of an overburdened syste
m can deliver. And some of us believe sooner is safer for this nation.”

  She shrugged. “It may take a little time. When the shipment fails to reach them, they will hide as fast as cockroaches do when the lights come on. But, until then, I will have my people follow our contact and begin to identify his crew. I can promise that, eventually, they will all disappear . . . permanently.”

  “Thank you.”

  She gathered herself and started to stand. This time, Wolfe did place a hand on her arm, and she lowered herself to the bench with an angry toss of her head.

  One last chance.

  “Svitlanya, who was on the plane that was almost hijacked on 9/11? The person special to you?”

  “What has that to do with any of this?”

  “Humor me, please.”

  She lifted her chin higher. Studied him. “If you must know, it was my daughter. Returning from England.”

  “I am glad she survived.”

  “As am I. Losing her would have been an insurmountable blow.”

  Wolfe slowly nodded. “Our children are the purest part of the dirty world in which we live. They are the ‘right’ we cling to when what we do is often wrong.”

  She said nothing, but moisture sheened her eyes. “I must agree.”

  “Svitlanya, I need to tell you something.”

  Those lines between her eyes appeared. “What now?”

  “The two marshals who saved your daughter’s flight? Everyone assumed that both of them were sky marshals, but actually only one was. The other was my operative. Without hesitation, she jumped in to assist the marshal.”

  Svitlanya cocked her head. Listened intently.

  “Five hijackers died before they could wrest control of the plane from the pilots. The marshal killed two of the five terrorists, but he was shot and wounded during the exchange. My operative killed the other three hijackers. Three of them.

  “Without my agent on board, the sky marshal, by his own testimony, would have failed to save the plane. We found out that the hijackers had intended to fly the plane into a hospital. They wanted to kill a thousand sick people—and your daughter. ”