“Which explains the invention of the Ninety-nine,” I remarked.
“Exactly. A cover designed to throw people off the scent. But there have been many more quiet deaths. Bright Star agents who didn’t climb quite so high in American society.”
“Robert Carlyle?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Why aren’t you in America?” Dinara asked. “If you were part of the program.”
“Not all of us went,” Yenen replied. “I was a graduate of the last year. By then, the program’s resources had been spread thin. Imagine what it takes to set someone up in a new life in America. To give them help along the way. Connections and money to make sure their business thrives and their life is successful. By the time my class graduated, the well had run dry.”
“Do you know how many there are?” I asked.
“The program ran for four years. There were twenty-four children in my class. My contemporaries in the last class didn’t get deployed, so my guess would be seventy-two people at most.”
“Your guess?” I asked.
“We did not know children from other years. We were kept apart to reduce the risk of exposure. I only know about the man you call Karl Parker because he died and a report was made. The same with Robert Carlyle, Ernest Fisher and Elizabeth Connor. The agents who are still alive are invisible. Their identities a secret only one man knows.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Salko,” Yenen replied.
“Salko?”
“Yevgeny Salko,” Dinara explained. “He’s a director of the SVR.”
“Can you take me away from here, Mr. Morgan? I’ve told you everything I know,” Yenen said.
I nodded. “Let’s get him back to Moscow,” I told Dinara. “Hold him until the case is through.”
“No,” Yenen responded quickly. “This is my chance. My bodyguards work for the Kremlin. They are jailers. This is the first time I’ve been free of them for years, Mr. Morgan. This is my chance to escape. I want you to take me to the American embassy. I want to defect.”
CHAPTER 85
WE MADE OUR way through Moscow in Feo’s pickup truck. I was in the front passenger seat, Feo was driving, and Dinara was in the back with Maxim Yenen, who’d slept all the way back from Volkovo. We weren’t far from the American embassy, and dawn was breaking over the city. Heavy snow was falling, making driving conditions treacherous and reducing visibility to no more than thirty paces. There were four vehicles in our convoy, one ahead and two tailing, and we all moved slowly through the snowfall.
In a few minutes Maxim Yenen would be handed over to the US authorities, identified as an intelligence asset, debriefed and disappeared. This would probably be my last chance to talk to him, but I couldn’t think what else he might be able to give us.
I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the old photograph of Karl Parker, Ernie Fisher and Elizabeth Connor in the Novoko Bar. I hadn’t shown it to Yenen.
I felt a flash of inspiration as I held the photograph.
“Wake him up,” I said to Dinara.
Dinara shook Yenen awake, and he groaned and rubbed his eyes.
“Ernie Fisher, Elizabeth Connor and Karl Parker all knew each other,” I said, showing him the photo.
He focused on the photograph and I saw recognition.
“That’s the bar in Volkovo,” he said. “I went there after I graduated. We heard some of the older kids used to sneak out of the base, but I thought it was just a myth.”
“You said the years were kept separate,” I remarked.
“Yes. We were kept apart to minimize the risk of identification. If we were ever captured and interrogated, the worst we could do was give up those in our class. The other years would be safe.”
His words were like a spark in darkness, and they lit a fuse.
“Karl Parker, Elizabeth Connor and Ernie Fisher knew each other, so must have been in the same class. What if Robert Carlyle and the others were all in that class too? What if they’re being killed because they’re the only ones other than Salko who can identify each other?”
“That’s possible, but why?” Yenen asked.
“To protect someone,” I replied. “To protect someone important. The Kremlin knows it has a leak. It doesn’t know who or where. Here’s this program you say could shift the geopolitical balance. What if one of these Bright Star agents has worked their way into a position of real power? How far would the Kremlin go to protect them?”
CHAPTER 86
FEO FOLLOWED THE lead vehicle and took a right onto Bolshoy Devyatinsky Lane, the street that ran in front of the embassy.
“Karl Parker called me to New York to tell me something,” I said.
“That’s why Veles didn’t kill us when he had the chance,” Dinara suggested. “He needs to know what Karl Parker might have told you, and contain any further spread of information.”
“We’ve got trouble,” Feo said, and I turned to see chaos materialize through the whiteout.
A Moscow police checkpoint blocked the street fifty yards from the embassy gate. There were a dozen uniformed police officers, along with men in long dark coats who looked far too shady to be cops.
“Those men,” Dinara said. “I recognize two of them. They were with Veles when he killed Leonid.”
They must have suspected we’d seek asylum at the embassy if things got too hot. They were probably also staking out the Private office, and Dinara’s home.
On its own, the roadblock might have been orderly and well organized, but the chaos stemmed from the squad of six Marines led by Master Gunnery Sergeant Marlon West, who was remonstrating with the Moscow police captain. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I could tell West was objecting to the roadblock outside his embassy.
“Back up!” I told Feo, but I was too late.
One of the police officers noticed our convoy, immediately drew his weapon, and shouted to his comrades. In an instant, the cars were surrounded and commands were being barked in Russian.
“Stand down!” West yelled. “Stand down!”
He and his squad drew their sidearms and aimed them at the cops.
“This is sovereign territory of the United States,” West said.
“Not beyond those gates,” one of Veles’ men countered. “Out here it is Moscow. Our city. Our rules.” He turned to the idling vehicles. “Get out! Now! You are all under arrest.”
“Drop your weapons!” West yelled, and he and his squad spread out in fire formation.
Half the Moscow police officers turned their weapons on the Marines, while the others held on us.
“If we can just get inside the embassy,” I said urgently. “Can we break through?”
Feo shook his head. There were four police cars chicaned across the road, and barricades blocked the sidewalks.
The Marines and cops yelled at each other and the tension rose. It would only take one wrong move to trigger a bloodbath.
The rear passenger door of the lead vehicle in our convoy opened, and Anna Bolshova stepped out. She wasn’t wearing her coat, deliberately I suspected, because her Moscow police uniform caught the attention of the officers around her.
“My name is Detective Anna Bolshova of the Criminal Investigations Department, on assignment to the Ministry of the Interior,” she said, and the cops and Marines fell silent. “These men”—she pointed to the two guys Dinara had recognized— “were accomplices in the murder of Leonid Boykov, a former officer of the Moscow police. I witnessed his killing and I saw their involvement with my own eyes. You have been lied to, and you are standing with cop killers. Arrest them now!”
She yelled in Russian, barking sharp commands, and half the officers present turned on Veles’ men. The other half rushed to their sides and soon the standoff had become an internal struggle, with one faction of Moscow cops yelling at the other.
“Come on! This could be our only chance,” I said.
Yenen nodded, and he and Dinara slipped out of the rear pass
enger door. I followed them into the street.
West noticed instantly.
“Protective formation,” he commanded, and his squad formed up around us, firearms facing outwards, bristling in every direction like spines on a sea urchin.
As we ran for the embassy, I saw Veles’ men catch sight of us through the snow. They yelled something in Russian, and Anna Bolshova countered their command with one of her own.
They ignored her and pushed past the officers that had rallied to her cause. We were a hundred yards from the embassy gates, and broke into a sprint.
“Back off!” West yelled.
“Those people are under arrest,” one of Veles’ men shouted. He drew his pistol as he ran toward us. “Stop, or I will shoot.”
“It’ll be the last thing you do,” West responded harshly. “Get those gates open,” he ordered, and his point man raced ahead.
Dinara, Yenen and I were bundled along at the heart of the heavily armed squad, but when we were fifty yards from the gate, I saw another roadblock at the other end of the street. Ten police officers and two men in long dark coats turned as we neared the gates, no doubt alerted by radio. They sprinted toward us.
“This is your last warning,” one of our pursuers shouted.
He dropped to one knee and raised his weapon. His companion did likewise, and I waited for the inevitable barrage, but none came. Instead, an ogre-like shape burst out of the snow and tackled both men. It was Feo, and the huge bear rained furious blows down on the men. He was quickly joined by the retired cops who’d helped us abduct Maxim Yenen. They were eager to avenge their friend and benefactor Leonid Boykov.
We reached the gates before the officers from the other end of the street, and were hustled inside the compound by more Marines.
The gate was slammed behind us, and as Yenen, Dinara and I were led toward the embassy building, I saw Master Gunnery Sergeant Marlon West stand at the threshold like an impassable sentinel.
“This is the sovereign territory of the United States of America,” he told the frustrated men on the other side of the gate. “Any aggression against it will be met with lethal force.”
CHAPTER 87
CARRIE UNDERWOOD, THE ambassador’s security adviser, was waiting in the embassy lobby. She introduced herself to Dinara.
“Heck of a way to arrive,” Carrie exclaimed, gesturing at the Marine guard that had accompanied us into the building. Then: “Mr. Yenen,” she said.
“I would like to claim political asylum,’ Yenen replied. “And will offer in exchange everything I know.”
Carrie studied Yenen for a moment. “If you’d like to follow me, we’ll put you somewhere safe while we figure out what happens next.”
Somewhere safe turned out to be a windowless meeting room on the third floor, at the heart of the embassy. I had little doubt it was one of the hardened communications centers designed to provide staff with a secure working environment in the event Russia turned hostile. The long walnut table seated twenty-eight, and the wall furthest from the three-inch-thick door had been given over to screens, computers and communications equipment, all of which were idle. The door matched the table, but there must have been steel beneath the veneer, and the rubber trim that lined the interior and exterior edges looked as though it could inflate to create an airtight seal. I studied the wood-paneled walls and wondered if there were any weapons concealed somewhere within them.
News of Maxim Yenen’s arrival and his role in feeding America information rippled through the building, and a handful of people came to meet the billionaire who’d been leaking Kremlin secrets. After his interrogation at Boltino Army Base, we’d given Yenen some old clothes salvaged from the Residence, and he looked more like a dock worker than an oligarch, but if he felt uncomfortable, he didn’t show it. He talked to the FBI legal attaché, the embassy’s in-house counsel, and a handful of other men and women who didn’t give their job titles, but who could well have been Agency. They came and went, buzzing excitedly, and with good reason. If he defected, Yenen would be the most significant intelligence win for Uncle Sam since Arkady Schevchenko.
After forty minutes, a tall, thin woman with sinewy fingers and a gaunt face entered. Her blond hair was pulled into a bun, and she wore a red trouser suit.
She greeted the three of us, and introduced herself as Erin Sebold, the CIA Head of Section.
“It’s good to finally meet you, Mr. Yenen. We’d given you the codename Bishop, and we had six possible candidates for your real identity. I’m sorry to say you weren’t on the list of possibles our analysts came up with,” she said.
“I’m pleased to hear it,” Yenen replied. “It means I covered my tracks well.”
“When the communication channel dried up, we thought something had happened,” Erin said.
“It had,” Yenen remarked. “To my associate. She was murdered.”
“The Boston Seafood Grill a few nights back,” I remarked.
“Mr. Yenen hired us to find the killer,” Dinara added.
“I had hoped to find out who’d discovered Yana’s identity without risking my life,” Yenen explained. “That’s why I engaged Private. When I realized they were also looking into the Bright Star killings, it was too dangerous to be anywhere near them.”
“Bright Star?” Erin asked.
“It’s one of many things I can share with you once we’ve agreed the terms of my asylum,” Yenen said.
“What do you know about this Bright Star, Mr. Morgan?” Erin asked.
“I know it’s something you need to know about,” I replied. “I’ll leave it to Mr. Yenen to explain.”
Carrie Underwood entered the room.
“Erin, you mind if I grab these two?” she asked, indicating Dinara and me. “The ambassador wants to see them.”
“Sure,” Erin replied.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“You ever been the cause of an international incident?” Carrie asked. “I don’t know what you’ve been up to, but the Russians are mad, and it looks like all hell is about to break loose.”
CHAPTER 88
AS AN FSB agent Dinara could never have dreamed of getting inside the American embassy, and yet here she was as a private citizen, not only inside it, but on her way to the ambassador’s office. She knew she should have been impressed, but there was no lifting the shroud Leonid’s death had placed over the world. She was still numb and his passing was too recent for her to feel much beyond hollow grief.
Dinara followed Carrie Underwood and Jack Morgan through the building. The common areas were deserted, since the embassy was closed to the public on Sundays. When they reached the large, traditionally decorated room on the top floor, Ambassador Thomas Dussler was waiting with Master Gunnery Sergeant West. The Marine was in a somber mood, but the ambassador was genial and upbeat.
“Well, you sure know how to anger the bear, Mr. Morgan,” Dussler said. “Have a seat.” He gestured at a couch and some chairs.
“This is Dinara Orlova, the head of Private Moscow,” Jack said as they all took seats.
“Thomas Dussler. Pleased to meet you,” the ambassador replied.
“Thanks for getting us inside,” Jack said to West, who responded with a gracious nod.
“The Russians have lodged a formal complaint with State, saying we’re harboring a couple of murder suspects,” Dussler revealed. “They say you’re wanted in connection with the murders of Ernie Fisher and Leonid Boykov.”
“We had—” Jack began, but Dussler cut him off.
“West filled me in on what happened to Ernie, God rest his soul. And Carrie gave me an update on Mr. Boykov’s tragic death, so we know the Russians are trying to play us. What I’d like to know is why.”
“We believe they’re trying to protect an espionage operation codenamed Bright Star. They want to know what we know about it. A Russian operative known as Veles, the man who’s really behind the murders of Ernest Fisher, Leonid Boykov and others, has already tried to interro
gate us.”
There was a knock at the door, and the CIA Head of Section, Erin Sebold, entered.
“You’ve brought us a tremendous gift, Mr. Morgan, Ms. Orlova,” she said. “The man we’d codenamed Bishop is downstairs, sir,” she told Dussler. “He’s agreeing terms with legal.” She pulled up a chair.
“That’s quite an achievement,” Dussler congratulated Dinara and Jack. “The Kremlin keeps all its top people on a tight leash. The question we have now is what we do with you both.”
“Ambassador Dussler,” Jack said. “Mr. Yenen—Bishop—told us the man running the Bright Star program is SVR Director Yevgeny Salko.”
“Salko?” Erin remarked. “He’s an old-school hardliner of the worst kind.”
“I’d like to see if we can access his files to discover the real name of the man codenamed Veles,” Jack said.
“We can also see if we can get intelligence on Bright Star,” Dinara added. “Find out who the deep-cover operatives are.”
“When you say ‘access’ …” Dussler left the remark hanging.
“We know Salko’s calling the shots. We know where he’s based. We access his computer and see what we can find,” Jack replied.
“Access an SVR director’s computer?” Erin scoffed. “Like it’s a terminal in a public library?”
“I think my team can do it,” Jack replied earnestly.
“I can get us inside,” Dinara added.
“My tech can get round his security,” Jack said.
“Mr. Morgan,” Dussler replied. “If you’re seriously planning to hack the computer of a director of the SVR, I’m afraid I have to officially advise you against such a reckless and criminal course of action.”
“And there’s no way the CIA could condone an operation like that,” Erin chimed in somberly. “Of course, if you’re successful, we’d appreciate a look at whatever you find,” she said with a smile.
“And speaking off the record,” Dussler remarked, “if you ignore my official advice and go ahead with the reckless and criminal action, I wish you every ounce of good old-fashioned American luck.”
Private Moscow Page 22
