Moscow Sting

by Alex Dryden

  She slipped the padlock out of the catch and went inside. It was hardly less cold inside the hut, but she knew he was right. Nobody would stand around chatting outside at dawn on a January morning at the Seventieth Street pier, not without attracting attention.

  She sat on an upturned bucket and looked at the tools that hung on the walls, a jacket with fluorescent yellow shoulders, and a couple of orange plastic helmets. He joined her a moment later.

  He wasted no time. “What is it you want, Anna?”

  It was two years since they’d met, for the only time, and then they’d been delivering Finn’s corpse to the British embassy.

  “The Americans want to know about Icarus,” she said. “A British source in Russia has given them information that there’s an agent code-named Icarus in a leading U.S. defence establishment and passing secrets to Russia. They don’t know if Icarus is an individual, or if it’s a collective code name for more than one individual. They’re giving it the highest priority. That’s all I know.”

  He didn’t reply at once.

  She looked at him. Now he’d removed his hat, she saw that he had aged since the only other time they’d met. She remembered the thick black hair, and saw now that it was greying and thinned.

  “That’s it?” he said.

  “They want you reactivated, as they call it.”

  He grunted. “You and me? Like with Finn? Is that what they think?”

  “I know that’s the most you’d consider,” she answered him. “I told them that.”

  “You’re right. But do you really think they’d trust you to be the sole intermediary? The Americans are great meddlers.”

  “Mikhail, I don’t know.” She looked at him directly. “The only promise I made either to them or myself was to ask you.”

  “My position is precarious. Even more precarious than it was when Finn and I worked together. I may be close to Putin, but these days such familiarity is a cause more for suspicion than for innocence. Putin is become like all dictators or men of power. Those closest to him are the most watched, the most fragile. The certain is what’s most uncertain, the close most distant, the friend the most likely enemy. They will not rest until they find Mikhail.”

  “What shall I tell them?”

  He didn’t answer her directly, but put his hand on hers.

  “You too are on moving ground. I see it behind your face, Anna. What is your fragility?”

  “They have my son. Finn’s son.”

  “A hostage?”

  “No. Not explicitly. But perhaps I can buy his freedom at least.”

  “I see.”

  They sat in silence. Then he broke the silence.

  “What is he like?” Mikhail said.

  “I think you would see Finn in him.”

  “Ah, Finn. He was a beautiful man.”

  “Yes,” she said. “He was.”

  He looked at her, but didn’t touch her this time.

  “As you know, Anna, you are the only person in the world who knows my identity.”

  She nearly choked as she spoke. “There’s another now. An American. Burt Miller.”

  He looked at her sharply, but she saw no hostility or even alarm in his eyes.

  “The head of Cougar.”

  “Yes.”

  “They must have great pressure exerted on you for you to have told him that,” he said. “Is it just him? Him alone?”

  “I believe that.”

  “I see,” he said again. “The knot tightens.”

  “He’s acting outside the CIA, according to him. Just his own intelligence company. He wants Cougar to have you, and Cougar alone.”

  “Very wise of him. I don’t want the CIA.”

  She was surprised. He was echoing Burt’s own position.

  “I believe Miller has at least a chance of controlling a source,” Mikhail said. “But for how long?”

  “I told him the deal, as far as I was concerned, was that all information should go to the CIA from now on.”

  “Not a good idea. Including my name?”

  “No. Excluding that.”

  “What makes you think the CIA will go along with that? The failure in the Iraq War was due to secondary sources. That’s where the false information came from. Secondary sources of the British and Americans who had been reliable up to that point, but were wrong in their assessment of Iraq’s capabilities. The current directive at MI6 and, I believe, also at the CIA is that no more decisive information will be accepted from secondary sources.” He looked at her. “In this, you would be the secondary source, as far they’re concerned. They’ll want direct access to me.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “So no CIA,” he said.

  “They’ll try to blackmail you if you don’t agree to work with them,” she said. “If they ever find your identity.”

  “Maybe Burt Miller too. They will threaten kompromat against me, threaten to reveal my identity to the Kremlin. Of course they will have their threats. But I’m sure I will also convince the Kremlin that it is so much black propaganda, an attempt to sow seeds of suspicion on the Russian side. Their threats will not have any solidity. In the world of paranoia, paranoia itself can be your friend as well as your enemy.”

  He sighed.

  “One day I would like to see your son, Anna,” he said.

  “I hope so,” she replied.

  “So.” He clapped his hands on his knees and stood up from the pile of tarpaulins he’d been sitting on. He dusted the back of his coat with his hands.

  “I’ll look for Icarus,” he said. “We’ll see how we do. The future will take care of itself.” He withdrew a piece of paper from the pocket of his coat, wrote something down, and gave it to her.

  “Our next meeting,” he said.

  They kissed each other on the cheeks in the Russian way. She was taken aback.

  “Unlike me, you are ageing quite well.” He smiled at her. Then he held out an arm towards the door. “Until the next time,” he said.

  She looked through two small grilles at either end of the hut, and when she was assured there was nobody to see her, she left too. She jogged for a few hundred yards, memorising the details he had given her. Then she screwed the paper into a ball and hurled it into the river.

  Chapter 31

  SHE DECIDED TO JOG. She was dressed for it; the hat and earmuffs covered enough of her face to make her sufficiently anonymous, and she guessed they would not be looking for a jogger, even if they should happen to be aware of her passing figure. And it was only fifty blocks.

  She set off downtown, keeping under the West Side Highway in the protection of the concrete pillars, then cut back out to run along the river path to check in front and behind her. After ten blocks she cut in towards Eleventh Avenue and, turning right, continued in the same direction towards Chelsea. It took her less than half an hour to reach Twenty-third Street, and she paused at the end of the street and stood in the shadow of a newsstand to take in the block ahead of her to her left.

  Then she ran on, pausing a block at a time, until she reached the block where the apartments were.

  She checked the phone box and saw it was empty. Wherever they were, she didn’t expect there to be a heavy presence right under their own noses.

  She entered the box, called the number, and imagined the flurry of activity in the rooms that stretched eight windows along the fourth floor. From the box she could see them on the far side of the street.

  A boy took the call. She asked for Burt, and there was another pause so they could again gain time to zero on her location. Finally Burt came on the line.

  “Well, good morning,” he said. “I hope you slept well.”

  “I did. Are you going to let me in?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Looking at your window.”

  She heard Burt chuckle. “I’ll send Larry down. He hasn’t had much sleep, I’m afraid, so be nice to him.”

  She put the phone down and jogged across the str
eet, up past the underground garage, and saw the door open and Larry standing there.

  “Hello, Larry.”

  “Hi, Anna.”

  “I’m starving.”

  “You’d better come in, then.”

  They stepped into the elevator, Larry opening his arm to usher her inside.

  On the way up she said, “I’m sorry for the trouble, Larry.”

  He grinned at her, but she saw exhaustion in his eyes.

  “I’ll tell you, we turned half of downtown over last night. I saw places I never dreamed existed.”

  “Is Logan up there?”

  Larry grinned again. “I saw your note. What are you planning to do to him?”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “I don’t know what your gripe is.”

  “The biggest.”

  “I’ll break the little creep’s arms any time you say.”

  “I’m sure I can manage that myself, thanks, Larry.”

  “I’m sure you can.” He nodded.

  Burt was waiting personally for them at the elevator. He took her alone to an empty room at the far end of the corridor, where there was no surveillance equipment, just two chairs. Dupont arrived then with a third chair and shut the door behind him.

  “France . . . ,” Burt began.

  “Never mind that,” she replied. “It’s the past.”

  He looked at her with the admiration of someone meeting a true genius for the first time.

  “I met with Mikhail,” she said.

  “Good,” Burt answered, back to the present. “What’s the score?”

  “We have another meeting. He will tell me then about Icarus.”

  “Good. And Vladimir?”

  “Work in progress. He knows what you want. I passed on the message.”

  “And further contact?”

  “Yes,” she said. She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t press her to.

  Burt’s phone rang.

  “Five minutes,” he said, and clicked it off. He looked at her. “Adrian’s arrived,” he said. “Another jackal in for the kill.”

  “What does he want?”

  “Same as everyone—Mikhail. But we have Mikhail, don’t we, Anna? Just us.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “He committed to nothing beyond looking for Icarus.”

  “Then the door is ajar.”

  “Maybe,” she said again. “But I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

  Burt laughed, enjoying himself.

  “Like I say, expectations are for dummies,” he said. “You’ll want to take a shower,” he said expansively. “Marcie has your clothes. How did you spend the night? Comfortably, I hope.”

  “Very.”

  Burt laughed hugely.

  “I hope this is the beginning of a long friendship between us,” he said.

  “Be careful, Burt, that’s a hope,” she replied. Then: “A shower would be good. I’ve had a long run. And I’d like to call Little Finn. I didn’t manage it yesterday.”

  “Of course,” he said. “You’ll be seeing him very soon too.”

  “And Logan?” she said. “I don’t trust myself if I see him.”

  “I told him it was better he didn’t show up this morning,” Burt said. “It seems we all have a lot of thinking to do.”

  She stood up. Nothing else seemed to be immediately required. Burt was completely relaxed. He would want to examine her story later, no doubt, but with Burt it was business as usual, which meant, apparently, watching things unfold as they did so, and things always seemed to unfold to his satisfaction.

  “You caused me great distress by kidnapping my son,” she said. “In the circumstances, I’ll forgive for you that. But I won’t forgive Logan.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  She left Burt and Dupont in the room and walked down the corridor. Marcie was waiting for her at the far end. She saw Adrian standing by the window of the conference room, looking out onto the street below, but he didn’t turn, and she didn’t acknowledge him.

  She and Marcie went along to the far end of the apartments, where the bedrooms and bathrooms were, and Marcie gave her a towel and an armful of clothes.

  “You ran rings around them for twenty-four hours,” Marcie said. “Congratulations.”

  Then they both laughed, and Anna disappeared into the bathroom.

  In the room that she had just left, Dupont remained silent.

  “We’re on a home run, Bob,” Burt said. “You seem anxious.”

  “What’s the deal with the British?” Dupont said.

  “We share with them.”

  “Mikhail?”

  “Mikhail’s information. Once we have Icarus, Mikhail will prove to be a long-running bestseller. Take it from me, Bob, only Anna can achieve that. She’s the key to Mikhail, and Mikhail is the key to a very profitable chamber of secrets. Mikhail is going to be the jewel in my crown, Bob—the jewel in our crown. We’ll be the biggest game in town for a long time to come. Nobody will ever have made such profits simply by helping their country.”

  “You trust Adrian?”

  “Of course not.” Burt chuckled. “But I know he knows he has more chance of making a deal with me than if he blows this open and has to deal with Langley. You think Langley cares what the British want? I can carve a nice exchange with Adrian out of this.”

  Dupont was silent.

  “Cheer up, Bob,” Burt said. “It’s always been a game of chess. We finesse Langley out of this one, keep them away from Mikhail. There’s still work to do, but it’s loose ends, just loose ends now.”

  “You know Logan ate with Adrian last night,” Dupont said suddenly.

  “You don’t say!” Burt replied.

  “It’s damn cheeky, if you ask me. What are the Brits doing talking to our operatives?”

  “It’s a free world,” Burt said casually. But behind his insouciance, he was wondering, not why Adrian would wish to dine with Logan, but why Logan would want to dine with Adrian.

  “Listen, Bob,” he said. “The only important thing in this is Mikhail. Only two people in the world know who Mikhail is. Me. And Anna. And if anything happened to me, you’re next on the list. That’s arranged under lock and key.”

  “It’s need-to-know at a crazy level,” Dupont burst out.

  “If the CIA know Mikhail, what do you think the security clearance will be? Five . . . six people, maybe more? More than three times the risk, in other words. The fewer the better, you know that’s right.”

  Dupont was silent, but he assented with a small nod of the head.

  “Let things ride, Bob, we’ll get there in the end,” Burt said.

  Chapter 32

  WHEN LOGAN RECEIVED BURT’S call at just after nine o’clock that morning, he was about to leave the service apartment. Burt’s instructions not to come in afforded him a wave of relief. He would need no excuses now.

  How long did this hiatus in Burt’s requirements give him? Twenty-four hours if he were lucky. Time enough to get out of the country, in any case, and be well clear by the time the hue and cry began.

  He had a plan, ill-formed but becoming clearer through the sleepless hours of the passing night.

  When a triumphant Larry had shown him Anna’s note the day before, and Burt had explained that she knew, it had almost broken him. What he wanted most of all was to speak with her. But he knew also that it was impossible now. His mind raged with grief, with guilt, and with a desperation to see her and to explain. But he knew it would be useless. And so the plan had formed. It was all that came to him in the night, and its clarity was what he hung on to. In the turmoil of his rage at himself, it was the only thing he could do. It was his road to absolution.

  He didn’t pack much, even in the small bag he had; he took a very expensive suit, that was all. Otherwise he took roubles that were still part of his emergency pack. Anything else, he could buy where he was going.

  He put the thing he would most need in the pocket of his jacket—the spare
, unused passport in the false name that would guarantee his anonymity for long enough.

  Then he left the functional service apartment with its soulless air of other anonymous people like himself, other empty lives like his own who had passed through.

  He walked to Pennsylvania Station and took the train northwards that linked to Toronto. There would be no record of his departure from American soil. From Canada, he could be in Moscow almost before they even knew he’d disappeared.

  As he sat on the train that ground its way northwards, he made notes, to be destroyed later certainly, but for now a guide through his mind, befuddled from sleeplessness and despair.

  It was the unexpected invitation from Adrian the evening before that had opened the door to his plan. Over dinner at a chic Italian restaurant uptown, Adrian—supremely confident, arrogant in his expectations—had not so gently pumped him for anything that might be useful concerning Burt’s operation. Logan had demurred on the issues that were classified, but in the course of the evening Adrian revealed to Logan the name of a man.

  He was a man Adrian was after himself, it seemed, and now he was the man Logan would hunt. Adrian had given Logan the man’s current occupation—or at least one of his no doubt many occupations.

  It never occurred to Logan that Adrian had deliberately given him the name of the man, for his own reasons.

  And then, back at his apartment, Logan had obsessively pursued his own enquiries, while New York slept and it was daytime in the East. In Logan’s fourth phone call of four, made at just after five o’clock that morning, he had finally located an old source of his, a Russian now residing in Cyprus. This man had filled in the yawning gaps left after Adrian’s artfully imprecise description.

  Logan’s target turned out to be an MP in the Russian parliament, but that was more like an honorary title than an elective post in the modern Russia. That was his reward from the Kremlin, it seemed. In truth he was no politician; he had no history at the barricades of Putinism. He was a small-time nobody, a petty crook from Prazshkaya, south of Moscow. Those, at any rate, were his origins, and they were origins from which he’d never strayed very far.