The Moscow Vector c-6

by Robert Ludlum

  “Not enough,” Ivanov assured him. “At most, they have rumors and speculation.” He shrugged. “But we know that they are probing ever more desperately, seeking the answers they lack.”

  The Russian president nodded curtly. He glowered. “Your courier with the HYDRA variant has arrived in the United States?”

  “Yes,” Ivanov confirmed. “He is in New York now, en route to Washington, D.C.”

  “Good.” Dudarev turned back to look out the window. His own distorted reflection stared back at him from the glass. His scowl deepened. “Signal our mole. I want Castilla out of the way at the earliest possible moment. I want him dead or dying before he can conduct this secret conference of America’s allies.” He swung back to Ivanov. “Is that clearly understood?”

  “It is,” the other man assured him quietly. “It will be done.”

  Chapter Forty

  February 21

  U.S. Embassy, Berlin

  Randi Russell stiffened suddenly, feeling a wave of pain race through her body. For a few terrible seconds, the pain was so intense that the third-floor conference room around her seemed to turn red. Her forehead felt both boiling hot and freezing cold, all at the same time. Slowly, she breathed out through her clenched teeth, forcing herself to relax. The pain ebbed slightly.

  “Stings a bit, doesn’t it?” the embassy doctor said cheerfully, taking a close look at the cut he had just finished stitching up.

  “If by ‘a bit,’ you mean ‘a hell of a lot,’ well then, yes,” Randi said drily.

  “It does sting.”

  The doctor shrugged, already turning away to pack up his medical gear.

  “If I had my say-so, we would be having this conversation in a hospital emergency room, Ms. Russell,” he told her calmly. “You have enough cuts, scrapes, and minor burns for any three people, let alone one young woman.”

  Randi eyed him. “Are any of my injuries disabling?” she asked pointedly.

  “In and of themselves? No,” the doctor admitted reluctantly. He shrugged again. “But if you ever slow down long enough for your body to figure out how badly it’s been hurt, you’re going to wish you were lying quietly in a nice, soft hospital bed, hooked up to an IV loaded with the best painkillers on the market.”

  “So I guess the trick is to keep moving,” Randi said, grinning crookedly.

  “Well, Doctor, I should be able to manage that. I’ve never been really comfortable just sitting still.”

  The doctor snorted. Then he shook his head, accepting defeat. He set a small, capped medicine bottle down on the table in front of her. “Look, Ms.

  Russell, if the pain you’re suffering ever does spill over that rather high thresh-old of yours, at least promise me that you’ll take two of these pills. They’ll help you cope with it.”

  She looked at bottle and then back up at him. “What are the side effects?”

  “Minimal,” he said with a slight smile. “Nothing beyond a slight drowsiness.” As a parting shot, he added, “But you should probably be careful when operating heavy machinery—which includes firing automatic weapons, chasing down bad guys, and burning down expensive villas.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Randi told him coolly.

  Once the doctor was gone, she tossed the bottle of painkillers into the closest wastepaper basket. Then she pushed herself up out of her chair and limped over to where Curt Bennett, the head of the special technical team sent out from Langley, was busy trying to pry his way deeper into Wulf Renke’s secure communications network. The short, fidgety man was using a combination of the first telephone number her surveillance team had unearthed —the one registered in Switzerland —and other numbers, these taken from the memory of the scorched and blackened cell phone she had captured at Kessler’s house a few hours before.

  Randi leaned over his shoulder. The computer screen in front of Bennett was filled with what looked, to her untutored eye, like a mishmash of strings of random numbers and symbols. Solid lines connected some of them. Others were linked by dotted lines. Still others sat alone in splendid isolation.

  “How’s it going?” she asked quietly.

  The CIA analyst looked up at her. His eyes were bloodshot, but they still gleamed brightly behind the thick lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses. “I’m making progress,” he promised. “But whoever created this network was reallv v<-‘rv good. It’s a remarkably complicated web of different phone numbers, with a great many loops and blind alleys built into it. Still, I’m beginning to be able to trace some of the patterns.”

  “And?”

  “So far I’ve identified numbers belonging to accounts that are registered in several different countries,” Bennett told her. “Switzerland, Russia, Germany, and Italy—for a start.”

  Randi frowned. “Can you tie any of them to Renke?”

  “Not yet,” the CIA expert said. “Most of those accounts look like fakes to me. Basically, I suspect they’re the electronic equivalents of a post office box rented by someone using a fake name and fake ID.”

  “Damn.”

  “All is not lost,” Bennett reassured her. He raised an eyebrow. “Let’s say you found that real-life post office box. What would you do next?”

  “I’d put a tail on anyone who came to collect mail from it,” Randi said.

  “And I’d trace any mail forwarded from it.”

  “Exactly.” The CIA specialist grinned toothily. “Well, we can do the same thing electronically. As calls pass through those different numbers, we can track them, following them up the ladder to the next set of accounts and so on.”

  “How long will it take you to zero in on the core numbers?” Randi asked quietly. “The ones connected to honest-to-Cod phones?”

  “That’s difficult to estimate,” Bennett said. He shrugged. “Maybe a few more hours. Maybe a couple of days. To a large extent, it depends on the traffic through this secure network. Now that we’re inside the outer layer, the more calls the bad guvs make using their system, the more information we acquire.”

  Randi nodded. “Then keep on it, Curt,” she said grimly. “I need to know where Renke is hiding out. As soon as possible.”

  She turned awav, seeing another CIA staffer hurrying into the conference room. “Yes?”

  “Langley thinks it may have a name for that last man you shot inside Kessler’s house,” the other woman told her quickly. “That scorched passport you grabbed was definitely a fake, but they were able to match what was left of the photograph with one already in the archives.”

  “Show me,” Randi snapped. She took the TOP-SECRET message sent from CIA headquarters. At the top, there was a scan of an old, black-and-white photo, one that showed a thin-faced man with dark hair. He was wearing a military uniform, an East German officer’s service jacket with the four dia-monds of a captain on his shoulder straps. She compared this picture with her mental image of the black-clad gunman who had tried so hard to kill her just a few short hours ago. She nodded tightly. It was the same man.

  Her eyes moved down to the text of the message. “Gerhard Lange,” she read aloud. “A former captain in the East German Ministry of State Security.

  After the fall of the DDR, initially taken into custody by the Bonn government in connection with several political murders in Leipzig, Dresden, and Last Berlin. Released for lack of evidence shortly thereafter. Believed to have emigrated to Serbia one month later. Rumored to have worked as an internal security consultant for the Milosevic regime from 1990 to 1994 before emigrating again, this time to Russia. No further information on file.”

  “Well, well, well,” Randi murmured. “It appears that the good doctor Renke prefers working with his fellow countrymen. I wonder how many other former Stasi goons he has at his beck and call.”

  Cologne

  Bernhard Heichler sat numbly at his desk inside the headquarters of the Bundesamtes fiir Verfassunsschutz, the BfV. He stared down at the urgent reports from Berlin, reports that could easily lead to absolute disaster for hi
m. He groaned aloud and then stopped abruptly, appalled by how far the sound seemed to carry in this strangely silent building.

  At three o’clock in the morning, the offices of the BfV were almost completely deserted, inhabited only by a skeletal night shift of counterintelligence officers and clerical staff. His continued presence would undoubtedly draw raised eyebrows and lead to sardonic comments, especially from his own subordinates in Section V. Heichler was widely known as a man who craved routine and who ordinarily despised grandstanding. Seen in that light, his decision to stay so late at the office to monitor new developments in yesterday afternoon’s massacre of three American intelligence officers in Berlin would strike many of his colleagues as evidence that he was angling for yet another promotion.

  No one would guess Heichler’s real reason for wanting to read those classified Berlin police reports first, before anyone else in German counterintelligence.

  He read through them again, still in disbelief. Police forensics teams had managed to connect the weapons used in the murder of the CIA agents with those found —along with six more bodies —in or around the burned-out home of a high-ranking official in the Bundeskriminalamt. Heichler swallowed hard, fighting down the acid taste of bile. What kind of hellish conspiracy was he now caught up in?

  His phone chirped suddenly, frighteningly loud in the unnatural quiet of his office. Startled, Heichler snatched the receiver off its cradle. “Yes? What is it?”

  “An incoming call from America, I lerr I leichler,” the operator said. “From Herr Andrew Coates, a senior aide to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He wants to speak to the ranking officer in Section V.”

  “Put him through,” Heichler said harshly. His hands trembled. “Hello?”

  “Bernhard?” a familiar voice said into his ear. Coates was the liaison between the CIA and Germany’s confusing array of foreign and domestic intelligence organizations. He and Heichler met fairly frequently to exchange information. “Boy, am I glad that you’re still there! Listen, I wanted to bring you up-to-date on our investigation, and to let you know that we’ve had some good news. One of our people survived that goddamned ambush. Not only that, but we’re pretty sure that she’s managed to get her hands on some crucial evidence that will lead us to the bastards who ordered the attack — “

  Heichler listened in growing terror while his counterpart in the CIA shattered any hopes he had harbored of easily escaping the noose of treason and betrayal drawn so tight around his neck. Somehow he managed to make it through the ensuing conversation without screaming. When the American at last hung up, he sat staring into space for several minutes.

  Then, slowly and reluctantly, with hands that shook harder than ever, Heichler picked up his phone one more time. If the Americans captured those responsible for butchering their field officers in Berlin, they were sure to uncover evidence that would lead them right back to the BfV— right back to him. Once again, he thought despairingly, he had no real choice. None at all.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Moscow

  Konstantin Malkovic sat calmly at the breakfast table in his luxury apartment, which occupied the top floor of a building overlooking the Kitay Gorod financial district. He sipped the last of his morning tea while reading through summaries of the overnight trades made by his commodities brokers in the United States and Asia. For the first time in the past several days, the billionaire felt able to concentrate on the routine operations of his far-flung business empire. Brandt had the two Americans—Smith and Devin—safely in his grip, and last night’s late news reports from Berlin were also extremely satisfying.

  HYDRA was once again completely secure.

  Quietly, one of his servants appeared, holding a phone. “Mr. Titov is on the line, sir.”

  Malkovic looked up in some annoyance. Titov was responsible for manag-ing the Moscow offices in his absence. What was so important that it couldn’t wait until he arrived at Pashkov House a bit later in the morning? He took the phone. “Well, Kirill?” he demanded. “What’s the problem?”

  “We have received an e-mail addressed to you personally,” Titov told him.

  “It is marked urgent. I thought you should know about it.”

  With an effort, Malkovic suppressed his irritation. Like many Russians who had grown up under the old Soviet system, Titov had difficulty acting on his own initiative, without explicit orders from his superior. “Very well,” he sighed. “Read this e-mail back to me.”

  “Unfortunately, I cannot,” Titov said carefully. “It appears to be coded using the SOVEREIGN encryption program.”

  Malkovic frowned. The SOVEREIGN cipher system was one reserved for the most sensitive communications, those involving his most secret and illegal enterprises. Only Malkovic and a few of his most trusted subordinates possessed the ability to decode these messages. “I see,” he said, after a pause.

  “You were quite right to bring this to my attention. I will handle the matter myself.1!

  After breaking the connection with Titov, he rose from the breakfast table and went back into his study. With a few quick keystrokes on his computer, he brought up the e-mail and ran it through his decryption program. It was a frantic report sent by one of his top operatives in German}-, a man who controlled the various puppets and spies Malkovic had planted in several of that country’s most important government ministries.

  Malkovic read through the message in increasing alarm. The hunter-killer team sent by Brandt to Berlin had been wiped out. Worse, this man Lange and his men had failed in their primary mission. The Americans were still hot on Renke’s trail. The HYDRA secret was in greater jeopardy than ever.

  Coldly, the billionaire contemplated the likely reaction to this news by the Russian president. He grimaced. Dudarev’s threats had been explicit. Could the details be kept from him? The Russian leader had his own sources of information, and one way or another, he would soon learn of this disaster. When he did, it would be unwise in the extreme for Malkovic to rely on his forbear-ance. With his armies already on the march toward their unsuspecting enemies, too much was at stake for Dudarev to easily forgive failure.

  Still scowling, Malkovic deleted the damning message and shut down the computer. For a short time longer, he sat moodily staring at the blank screen, mulling over possible courses of action. HYDRA could still be salvaged, he knew, but the work would be best done personally—and from well beyond Dudarev’s reach.

  Abruptly, with his decision made, he pushed away from his desk and stalked over to a wall safe concealed behind a centuries-old icon of St.

  Michael the Archangel. Keyed by his fingerprints, the heavy metal door swung open, revealing an assortment of CD-ROMs, folders of photographs, and a small box full of audiotapes of surreptitiously recorded conversations.

  Together, this material documented his secret transactions with the Kremlin.

  It also included a detailed summary of everything he had learned about Russia’s military plans.

  Quickly, the billionaire began transferring the contents of the safe to one of his briefcases. Once he was safely outside Russia, he would be able to use this information to renegotiate his agreements with Dudarev, securing iron-clad guarantees of his personal safety in return for bringing HYDRA to completion. Malkovic smiled thinly, imagining the Russian president’s outrage at being blackmailed by his confederate. Then he shrugged. Fortunately, like him, Dudarev was fundamentally a cold-eyed realist. Their alliance had never rested entirely on the basis of mutual trust.

  Outside Moscow

  Jon Smith was drowning, sinking down and down through the waters of a bot-tomless black pool. His lungs were on fire, straining against the increasing pressure as he tumbled deeper and deeper into the crushing depths. He writhed in a desperate attempt to claw his way back up to the surface. Then, to his horror, he realized that his hands and his feet were frozen, completely im-mobile. He was pinioned and helpless, falling ever faster headfirst into nothingness. There was no escape.
/>   “Wake up, Colonel!” a harsh voice demanded suddenly.

  Smith shuddered and gasped, retching as another bucketful of ice-cold water hit him right in the face. He coughed violently and then doubled up in pain. Every nerve ending felt raw. Warily, he forced his eyes open.

  He was lying on his side in a puddle of freezing water. His hands, bound behind his back, were numb. So were his feet, tied together tightly at the ankles. A rough, worn stone floor stretched away into darkness. For a long moment, nothing he could see made any sense. Where was he? What the hell •lad happened to him? He could hear what sounded like a woman moaning softly nearby. Slowly, wincing involuntarily at the agony it cost him to make even the slightest movement, Jon turned his head to look upward.

  A tall, blond-haired man stood there, staring down at him with an appraising look in his winter-gray eyes. The tall man studied him for a bit longer in silence. Then he nodded in cruel satisfaction. “Now that you are conscious, Colonel, we can begin —all over again.”

  Unwelcome memories rushed back, flooding into Smith’s pain-clouded mind like a rising river bursting through a weakened dam. The gray-eyed man was Erich Brandt. And he and Fiona Devin were Brandt’s prisoners. They had been dragged into this dank cellar not long after the ambush that had killed Oleg Kirov.

  The cellar itself lay below the ruins of a church, part of a Russian Orthodox monastery that had been closed by the Bolsheviks after the 1917 Revolution. Jon remembered seeing hundreds of bullet holes pockmarking the walls and hearing the tall German explain, with grim amusement, that this chamber had been used by Stalin’s secret police, the NKVD, as a place of execution for political prisoners during one of the dictator’s brutal purges. Now the monastery’s grounds and its buildings, what was left of them, were wholly abandoned, slowly being swallowed up by the surrounding forest.

  The terrible hours since they were brought here had passed in an endless procession of torment as Brandt and two of his grim-faced henchmen took turns interrogating them. Every question they asked was punctuated by pain, either by a short, sharp punch to the ribs or the head, or an open-handed slap to the face, or by the application of electric shocks. In the brief intervals between these sessions, Jon and Fiona had been drenched with freezing water, and bombarded by a dizzying succession of shrill, earsplitting sounds and blinding strobe lights—all as part of an effort to disorient them and weaken their resistance.