Pushing Brilliance

by Tim Tigner

  “How does it work?” Katya asked. “Counter-surveillance, I mean. What do we do?”

  “Well, for starters, there are two types of people who may be looking for us: black suits, and police. The police will have seen our photos as part of a BOLO. But they’ll have other duties on their plates as well. So as long as we don’t do anything conspicuous, we’re not likely to ping their radar. Our primary concern is the black suits. Make sense?”

  “Sure.”

  “In essence, what we’re doing is looking for people who are looking for us. Of course we need to do this in a way that allows us to see them, before they see us. Let’s begin by thinking about where they’ll be looking for us. Any guesses?”

  Katya gave me a mysterious look that made my heart skip a beat. “Obviously they’ll be looking at anyone approaching Saba and Max, if they know that’s who we’ll be meeting. If they don’t, then I guess they’ll be watching the entrances.”

  “Very good. What other focal points would be of interest? What will be the best vantage points?”

  Katya tilted her head. “I suppose any perspective that also yields a view of the faces of people in line for tickets or getting onto trains would be doubly advantageous.”

  “Excellent. Now, how are they going to be doing that? Assuming they’re good and they’re resourceful, which they certainly appear to be.”

  “How are they going to be doing that?” she repeated back to herself. “Hum. In a manner that looks natural, I suppose.”

  “That’s right. Or?”

  “Or ... from someplace they either can’t be seen at all, or wouldn’t be noticed.”

  “For a theoretical mathematician, your analytical skills are pretty practical.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Given all that, how can we expect them to have set up surveillance?”

  “How? You mean hidden?”

  “Exactly. But hidden how? What are the two ways to hide?”

  “Out of sight, or … what’s the word … camo’d?”

  “Camouflaged. How do you camouflage yourself in a train station? Keeping in mind the primary objective, which is studying faces in the locations you noted.”

  “You mean dressed like a ticket agent, or a janitor?”

  “You’re on the right track. Ticket agent would be good if it weren’t for the limited perspective. Although if they were really thorough, they’d have our pictures taped in front of all the ticket agents. By contrast, janitors have freedom of movement, but they’re not going to look natural studying faces, only floors.”

  “Okay. How about conductors or baggage handlers?”

  “Now you’re thinking. Limo drivers looking for their clients would be another example. Also people who would otherwise appear harmless, like a mother watching a child, or a businessman nervously checking his watch while looking around for a late colleague. And as for the hidden, that would be someone watching from above with binoculars, or studying the monitors in the security office. Whoever and wherever they are, our goal is to avoid catching their eye while we try to identify them.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “We begin by blending into the background. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Chapter 45

  Reunion

  I HELD OUT MY ELBOW for Katya. She looped her arm through and we began walking toward a marshroutka, a privately operated passenger van that served as a bus. “We’ll start with the lingo,” I said. “The direction we’re heading is 12, as in the top of a watch face, and our rear is our 6. With our arms intertwined and our mouths conversing, you’ll look natural with your head traversing 9 to 2, and I’ll look natural with mine moving 10 to 3. Also, as long as your eyes follow sudden noises, or track something interesting, like a sexy skirt or a big dog or a running child, it will look natural to glance backwards. The key is to make any head movement look casual. That make sense?”

  Katya swept her head to her 9. “Yes.” And swept her head back to 12.

  “Good,” I said, performing a similar reverse move. “This applies while we’re walking side by side. When we need a three-sixty search, we stop and face each other while I appear to check my phone, or you rummage through your purse.”

  Katya had developed a bounce in her step that I took as a good sign, although whether it meant she was enjoying the lesson or looking forward to seeing Saba, I couldn’t tell. “That gives you the general idea of how to study your surroundings without appearing to do so. Offense, as it were. For defense, we modify not only our behavior, but also the context in which we’ll be seen. Since they’ll be looking for a couple, we want to appear as anything but. We can separate, so long as we keep a live call going, but more preferable is blending into a larger group. That could be as simple as walking beside a luggage porter with a full cart, or blending into a group of people whose outward appearance fits with our own. A warmly dressed Caucasian family would work, but not a hockey team.”

  I guided us so that we were next to another couple approaching the station, walking four abreast with the women in the middle. “As we enter the station, turn to the woman and compliment her on something. Get her talking to you. Try to keep it going until they stop moving.”

  While Katya engaged the woman to her right, I pulled out the paper I’d taken from Scar. It was folded in quarters with the photos inside. I held it in front of me like a ticket, and began glancing back and forth between it and the arc of surveillance points that afforded good views of the entrance. I saw nothing. No stationary figure in a group or alone watching the main entrance. Not near, not far. Not uniformed, not in plain clothes. There were shadows and blind spots I couldn’t examine covertly, but I was confident we’d be all right if they hadn’t sent their A-team.

  The center of the station was bustling and clamorous. The overnight trains to St. Petersburg were the most popular, which was why I’d selected that particular station. There were tired businessmen and couples with quarreling children. There were groups of excited students and large families that appeared to be hauling everything they owned in big bags and brown boxes. All were being serviced by eager porters and weary vendors and sly hawkers and patient conductors. Controlled chaos, with a rhythm shared the world over in transportation hubs.

  We stayed beside our cover couple as we walked right past an oblivious Saba and Max and onto the couple’s train, but then went left as they turned right, with Katya and her new friend exchanging bon voyages.

  “You did great,” I said, stopping by a window that offered a good view of the way we’d come, the only way onto our train.

  “Thanks. That was fun. Saba and Max didn’t even notice us. What now?”

  “Now call Saba and ask them to join us for a minute on the first car of this train.”

  Katya complied while I continued watching the pier that led to our train. We were near the front car, nearly a hundred meters down the pier. It was filling up, with departure just ten minutes away.

  When the familiar Georgian forms came into view, strolling side by side along the pier, I motioned for Katya to stay there in the hallway beside the private sleeper cabins, while I moved to a position near the doorway. I called Saba when the guys were about ten feet away. Once I caught his eye, I turned so they’d follow without fanfare, leading them back to Katya’s side.

  “We meet again.” Max held out his hand to shake mine after hugging Katya.

  “Thanks for coming. Anybody ask about us or follow you or anything like that since we left?”

  The Georgians looked at one another, then shrugged. “No excitement at our end, other than the curious summons,” Saba said. “Katya said you had something for us?”

  I pivoted to unsling the lunch box and felt my cheek burn as the window shattered to my left, and Saba’s head exploded to my right.

  Chapter 46

  Tight Squeeze

  SCREAMS ERUPTED FROM other passengers in the hallway as I dove onto Katya and Max. Three more bullets followed the first in rapid succession as
we flew to the floor, suppressed sniper shots from a single gun, shattering glass and splintering wood. I shouted, “Stay down, but follow me!” and scrambled through the doorway a meter ahead to our right.

  The sleeping compartment I’d invaded had upper and lower berths on each side, and a table against the back beneath a big window. Katya and Max tumbled in after me, stunned and sobbing.

  The thwack of impacting bullets gave way to the silence of expectation as my friends looked up at me with wide eyes. Was the sniper adjusting his angle, preparing to begin another barrage with the first sign of life, or had he packed up and fled?

  I kicked the door closed as soon as they were clear, and threw the lock. Reaching down with both hands, I helped Katya to her feet. She was trembling, but not hysterical. Max appeared to be in shock. “Max. Open the window. All the way down. Can you do that for me? Can you handle that, Max?”

  He nodded.

  The window split horizontally, so when opened it created a gap about four feet across, and a foot high. Enough to squeeze through.

  The clock in my head said it had been about twenty seconds since the sniper’s first shot signaled his presence and position. That sliver of time would feel like an eternity to an exposed professional whose modus operandi was concealment and stealth. It also created what I’d consider an unacceptable risk. By now, a hardened pro would have relocated in anticipation of our next move, and most lesser shooters would have fled. Plenty of mad men and fools also played the killing game, bringing unpredictability and adding risk, but they didn’t fit in with the black suits I’d seen. I ran the odds, and made a call. “Katya, stay down. I’ll be right back.”

  I removed Katya’s backpack and the lunch box from around my neck, then crouched, opened the door, and rolled back out into the corridor. It was empty for the moment, but would soon be swarming with police. I couldn’t low-crawl to Saba through a pool of blood, given what we had to do next, so I duckwalked instead, keeping my head well below the window line.

  Seeing my new friend’s yellow polo drenched in crimson like a perverted New Mexico state flag made me want to forget retreat and go hunt the sniper. I was angry with myself for getting him killed, and I wanted to vent that anger by venting the shooter. But this was no time for self-indulgence. Two living souls were counting on me, and I had a mission to complete, so I did as I was trained.

  I went over Saba’s pockets and person, removing everything I found: watch, wallet, keys, passport, comb, a handkerchief, and a pack of gum. The longer Saba remained anonymous, the safer Max would be. I piled everything into my own pockets, and was about to return the way I’d come when I caught sight of a gold chain beneath his shirt, no doubt holding an Orthodox cross. Removing it would cost precious seconds and make a mess, but a thief would pilfer it if I didn’t, so it went in my pocket as well.

  Back in our commandeered cabin, Katya and Max were hugging and sobbing before the open window. “Time to go,” I said. “Max, you mind going first?” Normally I’d go point, but I wanted to stay between Katya and the killer.

  Max gave Katya an extra squeeze, then climbed onto the table. He worked his right arm and leg through the gap, then he pulled the rest of his body up and over the sill, dropping with a crunch to the gravel below. Katya followed with the grace of a springboarding gymnast, reminding me that she’d been one in her youth.

  I passed the backpack and lunch box through to Max, then handed my new black coat and leather jacket through to Katya, concerned that my chest would be a tight squeeze. “Put my black coat on over your white one, and remove your hat. For camouflage.” I was more concerned with Katya covering the bloody streaks screaming for attention than I was with altering her general profile, but avoided mention of them. I was learning.

  On an exhale, I wriggled myself through the opening without drawing blood, and crunched down on the gravel beside them. We hopped the chain guardrail between the neighboring train’s cars and stepped inside the proximal car with the swoosh of a pneumatic door and a short sigh of relief.

  I grabbed Katya’s hand and led them toward the back of the train and the front of the station, nodding politely to the other passengers we passed while hoping that the panicked looks on my colleagues’ faces wouldn’t cause concern. But I’d forgotten something. I felt the blood rolling down my nose just as the woman started to scream.

  Chapter 47

  Burner

  THE SCREAMING WOMAN raised her tattooed arm and pointed. Right at me. Right at my bleeding face. Didn’t she know it was rude to point?

  I ignored her, but went to work wiping the blood with my left sleeve and hand as I guided Katya and Max toward the exit.

  The woman didn’t scream again.

  We reached the last car about six minutes after the sniper’s first bullet. Six minutes was long enough for the screams to have put the station authorities on alert, but too short for the city police to have sealed the station. I guessed we had another minute or two before that curtain came down.

  It was going to be tight.

  “We’re going to run for the street where we’ll grab the first taxi we can find. Forget trying to blend in, go for speed.”

  “What about the shooter?” Max asked with wavering voice. “Won’t we be exposed?”

  Only the world’s best, battle-hardened professional snipers would have the nerve to stick around this long with the police closing in. Of course Russia was home to many of the best, but the odds were still in our favor. This wasn’t a government operation, it was a private affair, and our choice of transportation hub had been random. “As long as we’re quick, we’ll be out the door before we’re spotted.”

  And we were.

  We ran right into a white Lada that had probably been working as a cab for twenty years. Once we’d disappeared onto the ring road, heading west, Katya turned my way. “I can’t believe the station wasn’t going crazy after the shooting.”

  She was seated between Max and me on the back seat, and speaking in English, lest the driver get involved. While plenty of Muscovites spoke English, the odds of an English-speaker driving a twenty-year-old cab in that economy were slim. “Judging by the lack of reaction, you’d think someone gets shot there every day.”

  “Maybe they do,” Max replied without turning from the window.

  He was right. It wouldn’t be clear until ballistics were performed that a long gun had been used. Meanwhile, a Georgian with his face blown off wouldn’t look that different from a Chechen, and Chechens had been terrorizing Moscow for decades. The police were probably numbed.

  “Do you have someplace you can go for a few weeks?” I asked Max. “A friend or relative you can stay with until I get this sorted out?”

  “You’re going to sort this out?”

  Max’s despondent voice showed a trace of hope. I wanted to play to that, and keep him energized until he was free and clear. “Oh yeah. No doubt about that. No doubt at all. But meanwhile, it would be wise for you to keep out of sight.”

  He turned and leaned forward to study my face, looking for reassurance.

  I saw that he was still on the dark side of despair.

  “I lost a partner once. Also to a distant sniper. Also when I was standing beside him. I made that sniper wish he’d never heard my name. Made him wish he’d never been born. Took me ten days, but I did it, and I did it right. I’m going to break that record with this guy. Count on it.” I lifted my chin and pointed to the spot on my cheek that burned. “If for no other reason than because the bullet was meant for me.”

  Max held my gaze for a few more seconds, then shifted his eyes to Katya for a few more before saying, “I’ve got friends with a couch.”

  “Good. Now, I’ve got something for you. Something you’re going to like.” I passed the lunch box to Katya.

  She passed it on to Max. “Twelve vials of Brillyanc.”

  Max unzipped the box and looked inside. “Make that nine. Three are broken. What’s with the bags of berries? An ice substitute, I a
ssume.”

  “Correct. You’ll need to keep it refrigerated. How long will it take you to analyze?”

  “That depends on when I can get time on the mass spec. Probably a few days at least. Is there a rush?”

  “Oh yeah. If I don’t figure this out in the next ten days, it will be a long time before I get another chance.”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Where are you guys headed? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “Back to the US. But we’ll be in touch. Actually, you should probably keep your cell phone powered off with the battery out until things clear up. Just to be safe. Buy a burner phone to use in the meantime.” I typed our cell numbers onto a note on my phone, and showed it to Max. “Memorize these and call from your burner once you learn something.”

  “Got it. Will do.”

  Chapter 48

  Balancing Act

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, Katya and I were on a different train departing a different station for a different country. This one was headed 720 kilometers west to Minsk. Katya curled up and fell asleep within minutes of my locking our first-class cabin’s door.

  I was bone-weary, but had a call to make. Assistant District Attorney Kilpatrick was expecting to hear from me, and I didn’t want to disappoint. I weighed the pros against the cons and decided to remain in our cabin for the call. The train’s clackety-clack provided good cover, added a bit of intrigue, and I was planning to speak softly enough that Katya would be able to sleep right through.

  In the last 72, hours I’d survived multiple assassination attempts. I’d seen three people killed, and had killed five men myself. But it was dialing a phone number that put a lump in my throat. “Mister Kilpatrick. It’s Kyle Achilles calling.”

  “Kyle Achilles. I’d say good afternoon, but that comment assumes I know what time zone you’re in. Which I don’t. Which I guess gets to the point of your call.”