“Unfortunately, not me,” Stallings said. “Had I tumbled to it a little sooner, your father might still be alive.”
Tracie thought she now understood how Alice felt after she’d fallen down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. The CIA’s deputy director. She’d been shocked last year when Winston Andrews admitted at least one highly placed agency member was collaborating with the Soviet Union against the interests of the United States, but now she realized he’d undersold the extent of the betrayal.
The deputy director of the CIA.
Stallings sighed deeply. “Are you ready to continue?” He was clearly troubled; Tracie had never seen him this shaken.
She nodded and he punched the button on the tape player and the discussion of murder and treachery resumed.
“I hate you.”
“I know. Am I making myself clear?”
The line fell silent for a moment, and then, “Yes.”
“Good,” the Russian voice said. “Here is what you will tell your superiors.”
“There’s only one.”
“I am sorry?”
“I have only one superior, and it is the CIA director himself.”
“I am well aware of that, my friend. Now, pay attention. It is important this information gets relayed exactly as it is given. There can be no mistakes.”
“Jesus Christ almighty, just get on with it. I know how to do my job.”
“I hope so,” the Russian said. “For your sake. Here is what you must pass along. Comrade Speransky maintains a small safe house in Leningrad. He has doubtless gone underground in your country, while he waits for the opportunity to complete his mission by eliminating Agent Tanner. Once he has done so, he will leave the United States and return to Leningrad.”
“How do you know that?” Thornton asked.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, how do you know Speransky will run to Leningrad? If he’s anything like most CIA operatives, he will have established multiple safe houses all over Russia and probably all of Eurasia, independent of the KGB and unknown to you.”
“I am sure he has.”
“Then how do you know he will choose Leningrad?”
“That is none of your business, my American comrade.”
“It is my business.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. I’m not passing any intel on to my people unless I know it’s accurate and is being provided to me for the stated purpose of eliminating your man.”
The tape fell silent again. Tracie watched the clear plastic reels spinning on the machine, the tiny brown magnetic strip churning between them through the heads as the KGB caller considered Thornton’s words.
“Fair enough,” the Russian finally said. “I know he will come to Leningrad because it is the only one of Comrade Speransky’s personal safe houses that still contains any cash or other items of value. My intelligence does not come cheaply. Comrade Speransky was forced to liquidate his other remaining assets in order to pay for the information he required to even the score with your Agent Tanner.”
“You extorted him.”
“My business dealings are none of your concern, Comrade Thornton. You asked how I knew Speransky would be found in Leningrad after murdering Tracie Tanner, and I have told you. That is all you need to know.”
“I know this: if we’re certain Speransky is going after Tanner, we can save the trouble and risk of placing a team inside Russia. We can simply wait for him to make a move on Tanner here in the states and take him down when he does.”
“I would not recommend that, my friend.”
“Really? And why is that?”
“Piotr Speransky is the finest assassin in the KGB arsenal. His status as such is the sole reason he is not rotting in a shallow grave outside Moscow after causing Slava Marinov’s death. If you try to trap him using Tanner as bait you will never succeed. He is better than anyone you have. He will kill Tanner and slip through your fingers and you will never see him again.
“Your only chance is to wait until his guard is down and execute him then. Once Tanner is dead and Speransky has returned to the Soviet Union, he will assume he has completed his mission successfully and will not be expecting reprisal, at least not immediately. That is when your team will have its greatest—indeed, its only—chance of success.”
Again the tape fell silent and again Tracie found herself questioning reality. Could she really be listening to a high-ranking KGB officer discussing her murder and the murder of her father with the man who occupied the number two rung on the CIA’s organizational chart?
It was outlandish, beyond belief, and yet the evidence was there, spooling through the little tape machine on Stallings’ desk. The evidence was there, in the paleness on Stallings’ normally ruddy face, in his obvious shock at the betrayal of one of his most trusted associates.
The evidence was all there.
Finally the voices on the tape resumed and when they did Tracie was thankful. They enabled her to again concentrate on the operational aspects of the discussion, and not on her stunned disbelief that a man in Thornton’s position could turn against his country and the people fighting to keep it safe.
“Fine,” Thornton said. “Whatever you say. What is the address of Speransky’s unofficial safe house in Leningrad?”
“The structure is located inside Druzhba Industrial Park on the outskirts of Leningrad. It is a small concrete block storage building roughly two hundred meters inside the park on the left-hand side. Commit that location to memory, please.”
“I’ll remember, don’t worry,” Thornton said.
“I need you to remember everything we have spoken about today. Do you understand all I am asking you to pass along to your CIA contacts?” the Russian-accented voice said.
“I understand,” came Thornton’s cool reply. “I’m not an idiot.”
“Do not answer so flippantly, Comrade Thornton. It is critical this intelligence be relayed promptly, and it is equally critical your operatives do not delay traveling to Leningrad. Speransky will move quickly once Tanner is dead. He will return here, he will clean out his safe house, and he will be gone, and once he has disappeared you will never find him.”
“I still don’t understand why your people don’t just eliminate Speransky if it’s that important to you.” A tone of doubt and suspicion ran through Thornton’s words, as if he could not believe the Soviets were truly interested in giving up their own man.
When the Russian answered, his voice was sharp. Insistent. “You do not need to understand, Comrade Thornton. There are forces at work that you cannot understand. All you need to do is relay the information I have given you, exactly as it has been provided. If you do not, you will find yourself a media star in your home country, and not in a good way. Are we clear on this?”
“I hate you.”
“I know. Good day, Comrade Thornton.”
28
Stallings pressed the button to stop the tape machine and then picked it up and slipped it back into his desk drawer. He removed a set of keys from his pocket and locked the drawer.
Tracie watched him work and when he’d finished, she said, “I’ve been in the field for almost ten years. I’ve listened to wiretapped phone calls dozens of times, both of the legal and illegal variety, and that is without question the strangest conversation I’ve ever heard. I’m glad you ferreted out the mole, although I’m sorry it turned out to be someone you trusted so implicitly. But are you buying any of what the Russians are selling here?”
“Yes,” Stallings said simply.
“It smells like a trap to me. Why in the hell would the KGB assign Speransky to travel all the way to the United States to kill my father and me, and then offer him up to us for assassination? That’s not how they do business. If they want Speransky dead, they’ll haul him behind a KGB station house and put two slugs in the back of his head and dump him in a shallow grave. Then they’ll wipe their hands clean and move on. They’ve done exactly that dozens of t
imes, probably hundreds.”
“You’re absolutely right.”
“Then why the hell do you believe any of it? What the hell is the KGB really up to?”
“The KGB’s not up to anything.”
“I don’t follow. It’s obvious from the telephone conversation that the Russian is a high-ranking KGB member. He would have to be to co-opt someone like Roger Thornton.”
“I know who the Russian is, and you’re right. He’s the KGB’s Leningrad station chief, a man named Vasily Labochev, who has been in his position at the KGB nearly as long as I’ve been in mine here. But the murder of your father is not a KGB operation, Tanner, and never has been. Sure, I believe the KGB would put a bounty on your head after you took out Slava Marinov, but to assassinate a man as high profile as your father, and in such a messy, public manner? The Soviets stand to gain nothing from that. Killing him was a freelance operation on Speransky’s part. Trust me on this.”
“But that just brings me back to my original question. Why would the Leningrad station chief employ a CIA mole to get us to do what the KGB could do themselves, with much less fuss?”
“Think about it, Tanner. You’ve spent enough time in Russia and other Soviet states to know how their system operates. What is the time-honored communist business tradition?”
“To profit on the side from official business relationsh…” Tracie’s voice trailed away as she connected the dots.
She raised her eyes to meet Stallings’. “Piotr Speransky is not the only one freelancing on this operation, is he? The KGB station chief is doing exactly the same thing. That explains all the talk about money, and how Speransky had to spend so much of his own to get the intel Labochev provided.”
Despite the seriousness of the conversation, the corners of Aaron Stallings’ mouth curled up in a wry smile. “This is why I put up with all your bullshit, Tanner. Your ability to intuit things is among the finest I’ve ever seen, and I’ve watched a lot of operatives come though Langley.”
Normally Tracie would have been taken aback by Stallings’ words. He was not a man accustomed to offering compliments, especially to her. Acerbic criticism was more his style.
Today, though, she was so focused on the Speransky situation she barely noticed his praise. “So Labochev offers to sell Speransky the intel he needs, which is the identity of the CIA operative who tortured and humiliated him in Moscow.”
“You.”
“Yes, me. Labochev squeezes his mole. He gets the information Speransky needs and passes it along to the assassin. Speransky comes to the United States and kills my father and is lying in wait to finish the job by executing me.”
“Exactly.”
“But the operation hasn’t been completed yet. I’m still breathing. Why is Labochev suddenly reversing course and offering up Speransky to the CIA?”
“I asked myself the same thing, and there’s only one answer that makes any sense.”
“Labochev squeezed Speransky for so much cash that he’s afraid Speransky is going to come back and kill him to retrieve all his money once I’m dead.”
“Bingo. And Labochev is using the CIA to get to Speransky because—”
“Because the KGB wants Speransky alive,” Tracie interrupted. “Labochev is the only one who wants him dead, so he has no other choice than to use the CIA to do his dirty work.”
“Exactly. Typically, a KGB operative who’d made the kind of error Speransky made in allowing you to capture and interrogate him would be summarily executed. But because Speransky is so good at what he does, the KGB was willing to overlook his indiscretion in order to continue utilizing him to assassinate their enemies.”
Tracie sat back in her seat, staring at the rear wall of the office over Stallings’ shoulder, seeing but not seeing any of the framed photographs of the CIA director with various presidents, senators and congressmen as she considered the implications of what she’d learned.
“So if this isn’t a trap, if the intel about Speransky’s safe house in Leningrad is accurate, I actually have a chance at avenging my father’s death,” she said wonderingly. She refocused her attention on her boss, drilling her eyes into Stallings’. “Assuming you meant what you said about allowing me to complete the mission, of course.”
“I meant it,” he said. “I wouldn’t have called you here if I didn’t.”
“I swore I would devote the rest of my life to taking out Speransky if that was what it took,” she said. “But, honestly, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to dig him up once he slithered under a rock somewhere. And now it looks like he’s fallen right into my lap.”
Stallings nodded.
“It will make my final CIA mission my most rewarding.”
“Your final mission? Why would it be your final mission? I refuse to accept the resignation you offered the last time you were here, by the way. I fully expect to refuse it in the future.”
Tracie shrugged. “I have to choice but to resign. My cover is blown. The Soviets know my identity. I’ll never be able to work covertly again.”
Stallings smiled. “I know you’ve had a lot to absorb, between your father’s murder, the funeral service and now this tape recording.” He nodded toward his closed desk drawer. “But there’s one more dot you haven’t connected yet.”
She shook her head. “What am I missing?”
“The Soviets don’t know your identity. Only Labochev does, and we can be certain he hasn’t shared that with anyone else inside the KGB, because if he does that, he has to explain why he robbed Speransky blind to give him the intel he needed to complete an official mission. There is no way Labochev has told anyone in any official capacity about you. None.”
“Unless KGB leadership knows Labochev is getting rich selling intelligence.”
“No way.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because if that were the case, they would want in. In fact, I’ll take it a step farther and say they would demand to be cut in. Labochev must keep his operation a secret from everyone in the KGB or he’ll find himself on the outs. He’ll end up with nothing. His bosses will extort everything from him that he extorted from Speransky, and presumably from others before him.”
Tracie nodded slowly. “Wow,” she said. It was all she could manage.
“Yes,” Stallings agreed. “Wow.”
“And this Vasily Labochev lives in the same city where I’ll be renewing acquaintances with Piotr Speransky.”
“Yes he does.”
“And if he dies, so does the information about my identity.”
“Yes it does.”
“And if Labochev dies, my mother will be able to live the rest of her life without looking over her shoulder.”
“Yes she will.”
“And I’ll be able to continue my career without worrying my cover’s been blown, assuming I survive when I go up against Speransky.”
“Yes you will.”
Discussing the murder of her father when he’d only been dead a few days was like rubbing heavy-grade sandpaper over a fresh wound, but Tracie was discovering that if she concentrated on the details of the mission she was about to undertake, and not on how badly it hurt to suddenly have such a massive hole in her life, she could think clearly and—she hoped—plan properly. She would have to be able to do both to stand any chance of taking down Piotr Speransky, even with the advantage of surprise on her side.
This wouldn’t be like any other assignment; it was far too personal for that to be the case. But the mere act of listening to the wiretapped tape recording and discussing the ramifications of the intel it contained with her handler had an almost soothing effect.
Here was a mission to be undertaken. It was concrete and specific, similar in many ways to dozens of other assignments she had completed over the years.
This was familiar ground.
This was the work to which she had devoted her entire adult life.
This was doable. And if she failed, she would die knowing she h
ad at least done all she could to avenge her father’s murder.
She chuckled softly. “Ironic, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“The Druzhba Industrial Park is where I’ll finally come face-to-face with Speransky again.”
“So?”
“’Druzhba.’ It’s Russian for ‘friendship.’”
29
May 22, 1988
12:30 p.m.
Gaithersburg, Maryland
Piotr Speransky was tired of sitting around doing nothing.
He was a man of action, a predator, a lion among sheep. To hang around a shabby little safe house day after day, deep inside the country he despised, when the target of his hatred was practically within arms reach more than tried his patience; it stretched his patience to the limit.
But the cyka named Tracie Tanner had not suffered enough through the death of her father.
Not yet.
Not even close.
In a perfect world, he would allow her to dangle on the end of the string of misery he had constructed, guilt-ridden and suffering, not just day after day but week after week. And then, far down the line, when she finally began to feel like herself, when the memory of her father’s torture and murder began to fade, only then would Piotr take her.
And torture her.
And eventually, when he’d tired of making her suffer in fresh and original ways, kill her.
But this was not a perfect world, far from it. In a perfect world, he would never have fallen victim to the petite woman less than half his body weight. He never would have been interrogated by her, and made to suffer humiliation at her tiny hands.
He certainly would never have cracked under that interrogation.
But he had, thus proving beyond a shadow of a doubt the imperfection of this world. And while the fantasy of causing Tracie Tanner months of suffering before torturing and murdering her was enough to sustain him during the long days spent huddled inside the empty wreck of a home he was using as a safe house, his craving for vengeance demanded he move.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 161
