The Russian Endgame

by Allan Topol

  “And nether will you.”

  He had to make sure she didn’t do anything rash. Like go to the police or the FBI to bargain for anonymity. “Listen,” he said. “I’m about to board a plane to Los Angeles. I’m bringing you a million dollars in cash. You’ll be able to go home to Australia for a while until this blows over.”

  “A million dollars in cash.” She had calmed down.

  “Yes, all in hundreds. I have them in my suitcase.”

  “Okay,” she said sounding mollified.

  “Meantime, call the airline to book your flight to Australia this evening, but stay in the apartment until I get there.”

  “And what do you suggest…” she was raising her voice again, “I do when the FBI knocks on the door?”

  “Those people never move fast. I’ll get there before that happens. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

  Gaithersburg, Maryland

  Craig was greeted in the white and black checkered marble floor lobby of the Rogers Laughton headquarters building by a heavyset woman, mid-forties, with short black hair, wearing a dark brown suit and white blouse.

  “Hi. I’m Wendy Greene, the company’s General Counsel. Bill Merritt asked me to make sure you get everything you want.”

  He imagined she had a nice smile. But not today. She looked somber. This was a serious matter for the company.

  “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

  “Bruce Colbert, I should say General Colbert, because that’s what he likes to be called, our VP for R&D, is waiting in a conference room upstairs. I figured the three of us should talk first. Then you can decide how you want to proceed.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Craig, who was accustomed to forming instant judgments about people, took a liking to Wendy. That was offset by the dislike he took to General Colbert. He was a tall, imposing figure, barrel-chested with lots of gray hair and blue eyes that bore in on Craig. He was seated at the head of the conference room table and didn’t bother to stand when Craig walked in with Wendy, who made the introductions.

  Wendy poured coffee for herself and Craig.

  Once they were seated, Colbert, looking stern, said, “Bill Merritt asked me to hold off talking to the other members of the Epsilon Unit until you arrived, Craig. So I did that.” He sounded annoyed. Then he continued. “However I’ve isolated all four of them in separate offices. I’ve taken their cellphones and cut off their landlines. Also no computer access. As you might imagine, their anxiety levels are high. One of their colleagues is dead. Maybe even murdered. I think it’s critical to learn whether any of them have been approached by the people whom Walters was involved with and what, if anything, they told these people. I intend to keep them separate and question them one at a time while hooked up to a polygraph.”

  Craig couldn’t believe Colbert. He was not only arrogant, but adopting a ridiculous counterproductive approach. He wasn’t running an Air Force unit. All he would do is alienate the other members of the Epsilon Unit whose cooperation was critical and whose loyalty he had no reason to doubt. As far as learning whether anyone had contacted them, Craig believed that he was a good enough interrogator to determine that in informal questioning. Craig realized he was about to make an enemy in Colbert. But he didn’t care. Merritt had told Craig he was in charge of the investigation.

  “I don’t want to do it that way,” Craig said.

  Colbert looked at Craig in disbelief. The General wasn’t accustomed to having people disagree with him. “How then?”

  “We’ll bring the four into this conference room. I’ll make a brief statement. Then I’ll take them off one at a time for separate one-on-one conversations. I’ve found that’s the best way to get people talking in a situation like this.”

  “I want to be present in those interviews,” Colbert said.

  “That would be a mistake,” Craig replied, politely but firmly. “You’re their boss. It wouldn’t work.”

  “You may think that, but I’m still in charge of the Epsilon Unit. I’ll decide how we do it.”

  Wendy broke in before Craig had a chance to respond. “I’m sorry, General Colbert,” she said respectfully, “but Bill Merritt said that Craig is in charge. We’re doing it his way. If you don’t agree with that, we can get Bill Merritt on the phone.”

  The lawyer carried the day. The general became red-faced and looked ready to spit nails, but he didn’t say a word.

  After this outburst, Craig considered barring the general from the group meeting, but decided he could get what he wanted from the one-on-one interviews.

  Wendy said, “I’ll have someone get the four members of the Epsilon Unit.”

  Moments later, Craig watched them file in, dressed casually in slacks and jeans with sports shirts. No suits and ties for this crew. They took seats at the conference table as Wendy made the introductions. Craig tried to read their body language: they were all scared. And being introduced to the CIA Director, not surprisingly, did nothing to allay their anxiety.

  Craig stared at Jill. In person, her resemblance to Elizabeth was even more striking.

  Wendy began, “Craig is here at the request of President Treadwell and Bill Merritt. Craig, do you want to take it from here?”

  I have to level with these people, Craig decided. They’re too smart to mislead. He remained seated. Speaking softly, he said, “Paul Walters died last night… under mysterious circumstances. His body entered the Potomac at Great Falls on the Maryland side and was swept up on the rocks a couple of miles downstream. Cause of death appears to be drowning. At the time he went into the water, we believe someone was with him. Another man. We don’t know whether Walters jumped in or was pushed.”

  Craig’s eyes moved from one of the four Epsilon engineers to the other. He could guess what they were thinking: was Walters a spy for a foreign government? Did he disclose PGS before it was installed in the United States? Jill was the closest to Craig. He saw goose bumps on her arms. All too horrible to contemplate. But what else could explain Walters’ death?

  Craig continued, “At this point, we don’t know whether Walters was working for another country, foreign individuals, or a competitor of Rogers Laughton. The answer may be none of the above. Our best information is that someone wanted him to turn over the CDs for PGS, but he didn’t do it.”

  Craig sensed a collective sigh of relief. “In order to round out our information, I’ll be talking with each of you. One-on-one. Informally. No tape recorders. Nothing like that.”

  He glanced at the General, who was fuming. “Before we do that,” Craig added, “do any of you have questions?”

  Darrell asked, “Are we being suspected of espionage?”

  Craig answered. “None of you is being suspected of anything. As I said, we want to understand what happened to Walters and whom he may have been involved with outside the company.”

  Darrell followed up. “Then can we get our cell phones back and use the company’s phones?”

  Colbert responded. “Not until we conclude our investigation.”

  “Some of us have personal issues,” Darrell replied.

  The others looked angry.

  Craig had to head this off. “At two o’clock, everybody gets their phones and computer access back unless I learn something from one or more people that suggests this would be unwise.”

  Roy said, “Should we get a lawyer before we talk to you?”

  Wendy responded in a kindly voice. “I honestly don’t think that’s necessary. As Craig said, none of you is suspected of anything. Speaking for Bill Merritt, I hope you’ll cooperate with us.”

  Craig admired how she said that. The subtle, unspoken threat that failure to cooperate would put a black mark on your employment record.

  Jill said, “I have a twelve-year-old daughter. She has a baseball game at three this afternoon. I was planning to attend. Can I still do that?”

  “Absolutely,” Craig said.

  Gus spoke up. “If we wanted to, could we lea
ve the building now?”

  Through the corner of his eye, Craig saw the General planning to jump in. Before he had a chance, Wendy said, “Of course. This is your place of employment. Not a prison.”

  That evoked nervous laughter. Wendy added, “If you get calls from the press, I would urge you to pass them along to me so I can have the company’s press people respond.” Then she turned to Craig. “Why don’t you start with Darrell. He’s the Epsilon Director. I’ve reserved conference room E, three doors down the hall.”

  Darrell had a shaved head and thin, wire frame glasses. He was 6’2” and skinny. Craig noticed that his fingernails were bitten down.

  “Thanks for agreeing to talk with me,” Craig said.

  Darrell shrugged. His expression conveyed: what choice did I have?

  Craig decided not to take notes. He’d remember anything significant. He didn’t want to risk intimidating them. If he needed formal statements later, he could get those.

  “How long have you been the Director of the Epsilon Unit?”

  “About two years. Ever since it was formally organized. The five we have now—I mean four, since Paul Walters is dead—are the group we started with.”

  “How well did you know Walters?”

  “Just as a work colleague. We don’t socialize as a group outside of work. Jill spent the most time with Walters because they often traveled together to California in connection with the implementation of PGS.”

  “Did you ever observe anything in Walters’ behavior that, as you think about it now, might make you believe he was involved with a foreign government?”

  Darrell thought about the question for a moment. Then he said, “Nothing.”

  “Did anyone ever approach you about divulging information?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Craig spent the next ten minutes going over some of the same ground with Darrell with different formulations. At the end, he was convinced Darrell was telling the truth and didn’t know a thing.

  Craig’s questioning of Gus and Roy followed the same pattern as Darrell’s. Then he was ready for Jill.

  “What position does your daughter play in baseball?” he asked.

  “Pitcher. I missed the last couple of games. I really want to go today.”

  “That won’t be a problem. I played football in high school and college. It always meant a lot when my dad came.”

  “Where’d you play?”

  “Quarterback for Carnegie Mellon. Not exactly a football powerhouse.”

  “Quarterback is still quarterback.”

  Jill had a nice way. He was impressed with how she overcame her nervousness to talk casually with him.

  “Paul Walters,” Craig said. “How well did you know him?”

  “In Gaithersburg, we both worked in the Epsilon unit. We didn’t socialize. In the past six months, we’ve taken three trips to California together. We were the only ones from the unit. We stayed at the same hotel. Not surprisingly, we spent time together. Some breakfasts. Dinners, too.”

  “When was your last trip?”

  “This week. And I’m really glad to talk to you about what happened with Paul. I wanted to tell someone.”

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning.”

  “We had meetings scheduled in Los Angeles Monday and Tuesday related to the installation of PGS. One of our California plants is doing the construction at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Paul and I were supplying the knowledge of the system and the technical input to aid in the installation. I flew out Sunday evening. Paul said he wanted to fly out Saturday. We returned together on a Wednesday morning flight.”

  “Why’d he want to go Saturday?”

  “He didn’t say. I didn’t ask. We were both staying at the Marriott in Century City. I called his room when I got in Sunday evening to suggest meeting for breakfast, but he didn’t answer. He called me at seven the next morning and we met.”

  “Did you notice anything peculiar about his behavior in Los Angeles?”

  “Actually, yes. Based on our prior trips, I expected to have dinner with Paul and perhaps plant people Monday and Tuesday. But both evenings, he said he had other plans and we should go without him. Then Monday evening, we had a mild earthquake in Los Angeles about two a.m. I called Paul’s room to make sure he was alright. No one answered. He also seemed a little tired, sluggish, during the meetings. I chalked it up to jet lag. But then he slept on the plane almost all the way home.”

  “What’d you think then?”

  “When I put it all together, I decided Paul was seeing someone. A woman in LA, which really pissed me off.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s a married man, and his wife was back in Maryland. I was on the receiving end of this adultery shit. I would have divorced Hank once I found out, but he never came back from Afghanistan.”

  Craig agreed with her deduction about Walters. He must have been seeing another woman and Craig’s guess was that’s how he had been recruited: the honey trap.

  Craig asked her: “In LA, did you see Paul with any people you didn’t know from the company?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did anyone approach you to discuss PGS?”

  “No one.”

  “Do you have any basis for believing that Paul may have been involved with a representative of a foreign government?”

  “None at all.”

  “Did Paul discuss with you his going to Great Falls last evening?”

  “He didn’t say a word. But speaking of going, I’m scheduled to present a paper next week at an international aerospace conference in Las Vegas. I’ll cancel that if you think I should stay here.”

  “No need to do that. What’s your paper about?”

  “Accuracy of long-range missiles. But of course, I won’t be divulging any secrets. Only summarizing publicly available information.”

  “Your country means a great deal to you, doesn’t it, Jill?”

  “Absolutely. That’s why I wanted more than anything to be a pilot. To follow in my father’s footsteps. He was a hero in the Vietnam War. I wanted to do the same. To serve my country. Hey, the United States isn’t perfect. But it’s a helluva lot better than any other place in this world.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “I figured as much or you wouldn’t be in your job.”

  “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “Yeah. I hope you find the bastard who sucked Paul into this. Who found some pussy to ring the bell of this dull, nerdy, middle-aged engineer who was a decent human being.” Her voice had an emotional edge. “As you can tell, I really have a hatred for spies.”

  “Based on what, if I can ask.”

  “I loved my father a lot. I learned many years after his death, when I did some digging as a student at the Air Force Academy, that someone had given the Vietcong his flight plan. Nobody knew who. But that’s why he was shot down and subjected to years of torture in a POW camp before he eventually died. So I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

  As she left the room, one thought kept running through Craig’s mind: this woman would be perfect to be the dangle.

  But he couldn’t raise it at the six o’clock Task Force meeting at the White House. If he did, Leeds and perhaps others would find a thousand ways to kill an idea that wasn’t theirs. The “not invented here” syndrome. Instead, he’d have to sell it to Treadwell after the meeting. The members of the Task Force would learn about it later.

  He couldn’t risk one of them disrupting his plan.

  Paris

  Sitting in her room on the sixth floor of the Hotel Le Burgundy on Rue Duphot in Paris, Mei Ling was terrified. She had scheduled times for telephone conversations with her son, who was at sea with the Chinese navy, but he hadn’t called today. Under normal circumstances, an adult son failing to call his mother wouldn’t be cause for alarm.

  But these weren’t normal circumstances. Ever since she had tried to coerce Zhou, who was then head of th
e Chinese armed forces, to appoint her son commander of the Chinese navy in return for her silence regarding Zhou’s plan to cut off the flow of imported oil to the United States, Mei Ling realized that she had let Zhou know how much she cared for her son. That evil bastard would have deduced, now that he was in power, that killing her son was a way of gaining revenge against Mei Ling for helping to thwart his Operation Dragon Oil and for challenging him for the Presidency. And she feared that’s what he had done.

  Mei Ling grew weary of staring at her cellphone, resting on the desk, waiting for it to ring. She picked up the phone and called her son’s cell. The call went into voice mail. She tried again ten minutes later. Same result. And a third time, ten minutes after that. More voice mail. Her mother’s intuition told her something terrible had happened to him.

  With trembling fingers, she dialed the cell of Qua Ping, her close friend and ally on the Central Committee. She explained the problem to Ping, who had known her son from birth. “What ship is he on?” Ping asked.

  “The Empress of China.”

  “I’ll make some discrete calls for you. Stick by the phone.”

  An hour later the phone rang. It was Ping.

  “Well,” she said anxiously.

  There was a pause. Then a cough at the other end of the line. She feared the worst. Finally, she heard, “I spoke with one of the top naval commanders, whom I’ve known for many years, and who was a friend of your husband’s. While he kept me on hold, he called an officer on the ship. After a few minutes, he told me there had been an accident.”

  Her hand was wet with perspiration. “What kind of accident?”

  “He said that your son slipped on the deck and went overboard. He drowned. I’m so sorry.”

  A bloodcurdling scream spewed out of Mei Ling’s mouth.

  “I pressed him to tell me about the accident. At first he wouldn’t say anything. Finally, he told me that Zhou had ordered the captain to have your son killed. That’s all he was able to learn.”

  Mei Ling screamed again. “No… No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “One day I’ll make Zhou pay for this.”