The Russian Affair

by Adrian D'hage

  Regev put down the phone, deep in thought. For a nuclear scientist, Cohen sure knew how to handle herself. He put the doubts out of his mind. A colonel in Spetsnaz would have been given survival training and self-defense would undoubtedly be part of it.

  The Israeli Defense Force Black Hawk touched down at Ben Gurion and Rabinovich was met by a Mossad liaison officer who ducked below the rotors and cupped his hands to be heard over the noise of the engines.

  ‘I’m not sure who you know, ma’am,’ the young agent yelled with a grin, ‘but they’re holding the flight for you.’ The aircraft had pushed back, but a mobile set of steps had been wheeled up to the front door. ‘Your bag will be looked after – they’ll stow it on board.’ The liaison officer beckoned to one of the airport staff to retrieve the bag from the starboard rear of the chopper and then led Rabinovich across the tarmac to a waiting ‘Follow Me’ car in which a customs and immigration officer was already seated, waiting to stamp Rabinovich’s passport.

  ‘Welcome aboard, ma’am.’ The El Al service was unfailingly good and the charming hostess with a ‘we’re impressed’ look on her face clearly had a similar reaction to the Mossad liaison officer. ‘Your first-class seat awaits, ma’am.’

  Rabinovich returned her smile. She ignored the dark looks from the other first-class passengers, placed her bag in the overhead locker and settled in to her pod for the five-hour flight to Charles de Gaulle.

  The young hostess smiled again. ‘I’m afraid we’re about to resume our taxi, ma’am, so I can’t offer you a champagne, but I’ll be back as soon as we’re airborne.’

  Rabinovich smiled to herself. As soon as the seatbelt sign was switched off she was served a glass of Tattinger 2000 Comtes de Champagne. The icon of the House of Tattinger was only ever made when the winemaker judged the fruit warranted it.

  Tom McNamara got up from behind his desk and joined Murray and O’Connor at the coffee table in his chaotic but functional office. ‘I’ve just had a call from Harris down at Los Alamos.’

  ‘I heard,’ said Murray. ‘My contact in the FBI’s been in touch. They’re none too impressed and Admiral Chandler’s response is unprintable.’

  McNamara nodded. ‘They’re not the only ones. Harris waited nearly 36 hours before he reported the loss. As a result Bartók’s been given a head start. We could have detained him at Charles de Gaulle, but he’s changed his accommodation, so now I’ve got our people in Paris scouring the city to try and find him. Any luck on cracking the codes?’

  ‘I haven’t found the ISIS Dark Web portal yet, but there is some good news. Just before I left Fort Meade to come over here, our big computers out at Utah finally broke the encryptions on Cohen’s phones and on the one they gave to Bartók. I’ve put a trace on all of them, and Bartók’s now staying at La Clef near the Louvre. But it’s a bit murkier than just finding Bartók and the Dragon data. Cohen is due to meet with Bartók at the Ritz, but you may not wish to move in just yet. I say phones, because in Cohen’s case, she’s got more than one encrypted device, and she’s not all she seems.’

  ‘The Mossad.’ It was more of an intuitive suggestion from O’Connor than a question.

  ‘She’s undoubtedly working for the Mossad, but she’s also working for the Russians. She’s a double agent.’ Murray handed McNamara the NSA file marked TOP SECRET – NORFORN. The file not only contained Cohen’s conversations with Regev and others in the Mossad, it also contained the translation of Cohen’s reports to her Russian handlers in Tel Aviv and Moscow.

  ‘So she either speaks fluent Russian or she is Russian?’

  ‘Both. Cohen is, in fact, Rabinovich. I’ve done some digging on Rabinovich’s encrypted communications before she left Russia. One in particular was from President Petrov – a short text congratulating her on the execution of her mission at the Moscow University.’

  McNamara let out a low whistle.

  ‘So the speech was staged,’ said O’Connor.

  ‘It appears that way, and I have to hand it to her – she’s the real deal,’ Murray responded, flicking the remote and flashing up pictures of Rabinovich in both her normal role and when she had flown into the United States disguised as Cohen. ‘Several of those FSB agents Rabinovich tangled with in Moscow are dead. It had us fooled, and it undoubtedly fooled our friends in the Mossad as well, otherwise they wouldn’t have brought her into the fold. But when I uncovered Petrov’s message, it exposed Cohen’s makeover. She’s now a blonde version of Doctor Ilana Rabinovich – Russia’s finest nuclear physicist and an adviser to Spetsnaz on nuclear, chemical and biological warfare in which position she holds the rank of colonel. More importantly, as we know, Rabinovich is in charge of developing Petrov’s new suite of nuclear warheads at the Russian laboratories near the closed city of Sarov. It’s above my pay grade,’ concluded Murray, ‘but I would imagine that after what the Israelis have been up to in Los Alamos, we won’t be warning them.’

  ‘No – and not only because they’ve been caught spying on us – again,’ McNamara added bitterly. ‘It would appear the Russians and the Israelis are now both after this thumb drive. That makes it complicated, but neither is aware that we know, so we need to find a way to put that to our advantage.’

  ‘It gets even more complicated,’ said Murray. ‘The Petrov text and Rabinovich’s real identity led me to General Dragunov, the head of their nuclear agency. As an aside, he’s mega wealthy and married to Svetlana Dragunov, a leading television celebrity, and they are both household names in Russia. Dragunov’s currently in Paris, and is due to attend the same conference as Bartók. I’ve tracked his address, and he has an apartment on Rue Lepic in Montmartre.’

  ‘Does he know about the Cohen–Rabinovich mission?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. They would have had to explain Rabinovich’s absence somehow, but our people in our embassy in Moscow haven’t been idle, and as these transcripts show,’ she said, handing McNamara another classified file, ‘Dragunov is on the outer with the Kremlin and Petrov may be about to sack him.’

  ‘And he’s important to this jigsaw because?’

  ‘Because there’s something else going on here as well. There’s a text to Dragunov’s phone from another encrypted phone that I’ve traced to a Doctor Mohammed Pavlenko who also works at Sarov. It’s on page ten of the file.’

  ‘Let me make it clear again, General. If you don’t meet our demands, your dirty little secret will be exposed.’ McNamara read the text aloud. ‘What do you suppose that means?’

  ‘I’m not sure what the demands are, but “our demands” means Pavlenko is not working alone, and clearly they have something on Dragunov. Pavlenko was born in Moscow. Both his parents were teachers, so not wealthy, but comfortable. He’s never married, which may or may not be significant, and the family is Muslim, which again, may or may not be important.’

  ‘ISIS connections?’

  ‘That was my thought, and I’m still working on it. As I said, despite having the most powerful computers in the world, I still haven’t found their portal in the Dark Web, and I suspect that’s where a lot of the answers to this might be found.’

  McNamara was silent. Deep in thought. ‘The Dragon thumb drive is arguably the most highly classified data in the country, if not the world, and we’ve got to get it back at all costs,’ he said finally. ‘But if you think there may be something more to all of this, I agree, we don’t storm into the Ritz just yet. And in any case, Bartók might not have the thumb drive on his person, although we could undoubtedly persuade him to give it up,’ said McNamara, thinking aloud. He turned to O’Connor.

  ‘For the moment, as well as keeping tabs on Bartók, we’ll put Dragunov’s apartment under surveillance. By the time you get to Paris, we’ll have that set up, hopefully with an occupation of an apartment across the road with a clear line of sight. I’ll speak to my friends in the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure and Intérieure.’ The DGSE and the DGSI were France’s equivalent of the CIA and FBI and
Britain’s MI6 and MI5. ‘Our chief of station in Paris is back here in Washington at the moment, and his other two agents are pretty green, but they should have Dragunov’s apartment covered by the time you land at Le Bourget and you can take it from there. The first priority is to recover the thumb drive,’ McNamara directed, ‘but Dragunov’s up to something, and we need to find out what. I’ll call Chandler and bring him up to speed, but this is to be kept very tight.’

  ‘The White House?’ queried Murray.

  McNamara shook his head. ‘They leak like a sieve down there. The next thing we know, Travers will be beating his chest and telling all and sundry that we’re on to the Russians. I’ll have a CIA jet ready for you at Andrews,’ he said to O’Connor, ‘and you can leave for Paris as soon as possible.’

  Paris was awash with ISIS operatives from which General Waheeb could choose, but for this mission, he tasked just two: Said Jarrah, skilled in break-ins, and Marwan Odeh, one of the best at the technical end, particularly when it came to surveillance. It had taken months of waiting, but they had finally managed to rent an apartment in the building next to General Dragunov’s in Montmartre. General Waheeb’s orders were quite specific. Armed with four of the very latest audio surveillance cameras, each with lenses not much larger than a pin head, Dragunov’s bedrooms, sitting room and study were all to be bugged and with the temperature hovering just above zero, they moved to put their plan in place.

  Odeh concentrated on his keyboard and he homed in on Dragunov’s alarm system, running his software to confirm the set-up. Minutes later, he smiled.

  ‘The company that put this one in should go back to basics,’ Odeh said.

  ‘Unencrypted?’ asked Jarrah.

  ‘Even better,’ Odeh replied. ‘Not only is the silent alert from the alarm to the monitoring home base unencrypted, but I’ve just been inside their system and they’ve issued Dragunov a remote and a password so he can disarm the alarm without having to fiddle about with the control panel. Technically we’re in – time to strut your stuff.’

  Jarrah grinned. There was nothing he liked more than the challenge of breaking in. He checked the tools in his leather satchel and slung it over his shoulder. He’d already reconnoitred the kitchen window lock, and he knew it would not take him long – the window had been locked open with a chain winder. Dragunov obviously wanted ventilation during the periods he wasn’t there, and relied on the alarm system for protection.

  ‘It’s dark, let’s go,’ Jarrah said, leading the way. They climbed over their own wrought-iron balcony and made the short jump across to apartment 6. Odeh set to work on his laptop and Jarrah waited for the all clear. Most wireless house alarms relied on radio frequency systems to trigger them when a door or window sensor was breached. For Odeh, with a knowledge of the unencrypted signals and the remote password, disarming the alarm was relatively easy. Three minutes later, he gave Jarrah the thumbs up. Jarrah scanned the surrounding area. It was a bitterly cold night, and the French occupants of the surrounding buildings had better things to do than stand out on their balconies. Jarrah reached for a medium size diamond lock pick, put his hands in through the small opening and set to work. Minutes later, he turned the handle on the chain winder, opening the window to its maximum extent and in an even shorter time, he’d disconnected the chain itself.

  Odeh followed Jarrah into the apartment. ‘Doesn’t scrimp on the furniture, does he?’ Odeh said, looking around the very expensive decor. Odeh opened the drawer of an exquisite Louis Philippe desk and took out a wooden case. It contained a Makarov pistol. ‘Not keen on visitors either, is our general,’ said Odeh, unloading the gun and replacing it in the drawer. ‘The bedrooms are upstairs.’

  General Dragunov looked out the window of his private chartered jet at the brown and green fields below. Paris’s Le Bourget Airport was surrounded by them. Opened in 1919, it was Paris’s first airport and the oldest in France. On 21 May 1927, after a 33-hour flight from Roosevelt Field on Long Island covering 3600 miles, Charles Lindbergh had landed the Spirit of St. Louis at Le Bourget in the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight between New York and Paris; but Le Bourget had been superseded by the larger Charles de Gaulle and Orly and now it was a hub for business and private jets, which made it a natural choice for the wealthy Dragunov. Whenever he was travelling, Dragunov chartered a jet, both for privacy and to avoid the queues associated with the big airport customs and immigration counters. They flew low over houses and factories, finally crossing a freeway before touching down smoothly on runway 270.

  Dragunov was travelling without an aide, and there was a good reason for that. Aides could be a nuisance if they thought they should know his whereabouts. He swiftly cleared customs and immigration and made his way to the Mercedes Maybach S600 that was parked by the kerb outside.

  ‘Bonjour, monsieur. Bon retour parmi nous. Welcome back.’

  ‘Merci, Henri.’ Dragunov settled back into the plush, handcrafted leather of the Mercedes for the trip through the chaotic Paris traffic to his apartment in Montmartre. The price had been north of €2 million, but Dragunov had bought it as soon as he’d seen it. It was on the top floor of a Haussmannian building constructed from sandstone in the style of Louis XV. The windows of the bedrooms in the attics protruded from a grey slate roof and narrow corridors lined with Dragunov’s books connected the bedrooms and a central bathroom. On the floor below, French doors led onto a balcony overlooking the cobblestone street and elegant sconces lit a sitting room furnished in the style of Louis Philippe. The kitchen was typically French – small but functional, with copper pots and pans hanging above the sink. A solid wooden chopping table was supported by four sturdy legs and Dragunov had installed a compact commercial coffee machine. The apartment was only a short walk from the wine shops, patisseries, bakeries, chocolate and cheese stores for which Montmartre was famous, and more importantly the apartment provided Dragunov with a home where he could indulge in his secret life. The General unpacked, checked that the printout of his opening address for the conference was secure in his briefcase, reached for his phone and dialled his contact at a nearby bordello, although Dragunov wasn’t in search of an ordinary brothel.

  For centuries, Paris had been famous for accommodating the oldest profession, and Montmartre had her fair share of residents. The bordellos were known as maisons closes, or ‘closed houses’ – legalised brothels that were often opulent and a symbol of French civility and common sense. Le Chabanais, at 12 Rue Chabanais near the Louvre, was one of the earliest and one of the most expensive. The well-heeled clientele were first shown into the Selection Salon, where they could take their pick of house ladies attired in scanty negligees, lounging on velvet and tiger skins. ‘Bertie’, the future King Edward VII of England, was such a good client the house had a fellatio chair made, to make oral sex for two or three that much easier. And it wasn’t long before The One Two Two, Chez Suzy, Le Sphinx and others sprang up in competition. For the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Ernest Hemingway and other celebrities, a visit to a high-class bordello, and a bath in champagne, was just part of a visit to Paris. During the war, the Nazis protected the brothels with armed soldiers while the likes of Hermann Göring partook of the wares on offer inside. But after the war, there was a backlash, and although prostitution remained legal, over 1400 maisons closes were shut down. In 2016, even tougher laws were introduced, with a €1500 fine for those caught wanting to pay for sex. Despite the laws, aimed mainly at sex trafficking, prostitution between consenting adults still flourished in Paris, but the laws against Dragunov’s proclivities had been in effect in most cities around the world for a very long time.

  It was dark by the time Dragunov left his apartment and he pulled his black fedora down to cover his face and tightened his scarf around his neck for the short walk to a dead end on a narrow cobblestoned street off Rue Lepic. The entrance to the unremarkable building was hidden behind a copse of trees and Dragunov inserted his key. The membership of the club was a clos
ely guarded secret, and it catered mainly for out-of-town, very wealthy guests.

  ‘Come this way. It’s cold outside, but things are definitely hotting up inside.’ The insipid-looking ‘concierge’ led his guest past the doors of what looked like apartments, but were actually rooms that were made available to members. The concierge lifted the carpet to reveal a trapdoor in the floor. He unlocked it and stood back.

  ‘Profitez bien, monsieur. Enjoy yourself, sir.’

  Dragunov tipped the concierge €100 and descended the spiral stairs that led to the sandstone basement. Another youth took his hat and coat, opened a heavy oak door and ushered Dragunov into a large room with a dance floor and a bar at the far end. The darkness was punctuated by intermittent shafts of light emanating from spinning balls suspended from the heavy wooden ceiling. Several young men, sweat running down their tanned, fit bodies, were grinding their hips together to the pulsing beat of the theme from Shaft. Dragunov paid them no attention and he headed for one of the large padded black leather chairs at the bar.

  ‘Quel plaisir de vous revoir, Monsieur Egor. Nice to see you again, Mr Egor.’ Dragunov had a thick Russian accent, so although he used a pseudonym, he’d never hidden his origins and Dominique was always unfailingly polite. Dragunov tipped him the customary €100 note.

  ‘Je vous remercie. The usual?’

  Dragunov nodded and a short time later, Dominique returned and placed a large Grey Goose vodka on the bar. ‘We have three for you to choose from tonight, Egor,’ he whispered.

  ‘Très bon.’ Dragunov began to salivate with anticipation and he settled back into his chair. He banked on not being well known outside of his native Russia, and he’d always been comfortable travelling without security in cities like Paris. In the half-light of the pulsing Moon VIP Club, he felt perfectly at ease. He downed his vodka and signalled Dominique for another.