Enemy of My Enemy (4 page)

When Kendall had defeated Harry Waltham for the presidency two years ago, she should have packed up and gone back to California. But the president-elect had pleaded with her, "I don't know the intelligence business. Without you, the congressional committees will crucify me. I'll be dead in the water."

Faced with a presidential plea like that, Joyner had found it impossible to say no. Acting against her better judgment, she had told President-elect Kendall, "Four years, but only four." She had done it for the country. Not for Calvin R. Kendall.

It was dark outside, but Joyner's corner suite on the top floor of the Company's headquarters in Langley was fully lit. Two secretaries were typing furiously, while an extraordinarily handsome man in his mid-thirties with curly black hair, a soft, winning smile, and sparkling dark eyes that pulled the gaze of people in the room like magnets, sat stiffly in a leather armchair along one wall. He was sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup and reading the morning
Washington Post.

The minute she walked into the office, he sprang to his feet. "Good morning, Mrs. Joyner."

"Sorry to bring you in so early, Michael. After I called you back to Washington, the McCallister matter exploded. This is about the only time that we have a decent chance of not being interrupted."

"Not a problem. Anything that's good for you works for me. Besides, my body's still on Moscow time."

"Well, mine isn't. I need a boost to get started." She nodded in the direction of one of the two secretaries. "Carol here brews a great cup of coffee, and it's already in my office. Right, Carol?"

"Absolutely, Mrs. Joyner."

Michael Hanley picked up the attaché case at his feet and followed Joyner toward the heavy mahogany door that led to her corner office. As she walked, from the corner of her eye she watched Carol watching Michael, who was Carol's age. She wasn't surprised. He had a sensual look that turned women's heads. When he was seated at the circular conference table in the corner of her office, Joyner kicked the door shut and poured them each a cup of coffee.

Michael had been in the director's office only once before. That was when Joyner had given him this assignment. Then, like now, the thought that kept popping into his mind was, If only the walls could talk. So many intrigues against foreign governments. So many operations concealed from Congress and the White House had been hatched in this room.

Joyner took off her glasses and tossed them on the table. The rest of the world couldn't stop because Terry McCallister's kid was shot down. Then she said to Michael, "What you're doing is one of the most important projects this agency has going. I want a personal briefing."

"Certainly, Mrs. Joyner," he said in a courteous voice.

He reached into the attaché case, pulled out two copies of a report in a blue folder, and handed her one. "I prepared this for you last night on my laptop."

"Any other copies?"

"None. The disk is inside the cover of yours. The message from your secretary was that you wanted to meet alone with me. That no one else was to know about it. I've followed that instruction, of course."

"Good." She liked this young man. She was glad she had handpicked him for the project.

"Power Point or paper?" he asked.

Joyner smiled. "I'm from the generation that has to hold papers in their hands and make notes. If I can't touch it, it's not real." She walked over to her desk and hit a button that dropped a screen from the ceiling. "Do your high tech thing," she said, "but leave me a hard copy of the report."

He nodded and began pushing buttons on his laptop while she walked around the room in order to alleviate the pain in her back.

On the screen the words flashed:

 

Assignment:
Determine whether Russia was the source of nuclear weapons recently acquired by Pakistan and North Korea.

 

Michael pulled out of his pocket a silver pointer that emitted a red laser beam.

He hit a button on the computer. The next image flashed on the screen. Following the beam of the pointer, Michael read the words:

The most serious problem now facing the world.

 

~ Over 20,000 nuclear warheads exist in Russia from the former USSR stockpile.

~ Despite ten years of American subsidies, safeguards are still minimal.

~ Soldiers providing protection are underpaid, demoralized, and subject to being bribed.

~ Opportunities exist for theft, particularly of the smaller tactical nuclear weapons.

 

Impatiently, Joyner glanced at her watch. The White House could be calling any minute to reassemble the McCallister crisis team. She interrupted Michael. "I know all of this. That's why I gave you the job. Cut to the guts of what you've learned."

For an instant Michael was flustered. His first-ever presentation to the director, and he was blowing it. He took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and said, "Bottom line is that your hunch was right. Nuclear weapons of the former USSR, supposedly being guarded by Russia, are being sold."

"You're sure?"

He nodded. "And I know who's doing it."

Michael now had Joyner's undivided attention. He skipped ten slides and put up on the screen a photograph of a man with a coarse-looking face, dressed in a suit and tie. He had short gray hair and hard, cruel eyes. He was missing his left ear.

"Dmitri Suslov," Michael said. "More precisely, Gen. Dmitri Suslov."

"Russian army?"

Michael nodded. "Retired five years ago. He lost the ear in Afghanistan. Caught some shrapnel. He was one of the major strategists of their war in that country."

"He must be a brilliant tactician."

Laughter or a smile was called for, but Michael was briefing the director herself. He was too serious for that. "Then Suslov led the crushing of rebels in Chechnya. Commanded his troops to kill everything that moved—even the animals. They were delighted to comply. It was a waste of ammunition, but it sent a message."

"Sounds like a nice man."

Michael moved to the next slide. A series of bullets appeared on the screen. He stopped talking and slid the red pointer from top to bottom, letting Joyner read it herself.

 

~ Resigned from the army.

~ Went into business.

~ Corporate headquarters of Dmitri Suslov Enterprises is former KGB operations center.

~ Incredible success as an entrepreneur.

~ With strong-arm tactics, took control of the third-largest Russian bank, which he uses to dispense money to Mends starting up businesses in return for a piece of the action.

~ With threats and intimidation now controls 60 percent of all pulp and paper production in Russia.

~ Has much of his own money out of the country in Switzerland, Cayman, and Gibraltar.

~ Has a private militia of former army officers, who served under him, as enforcers.

 

She finished reading and resumed pacing around the office, holding her back, thinking about Dmitri Suslov. "So he's one of the handful of robber barons who now control the Russian economy."

"Exactly. I think of them like J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, or others of that crowd who dominated American industry at the turn of the century."

"With a big difference. Over there, all they had to do was grab pieces of the industrial pie with the breakup of the Communist state and the absence of law."

"Agreed." Michael nodded readily. "I suppose, too, that Suslov and the other new economic Czars in Russia are more like thugs. They'll use force to get what they want. One thing is clear, though: Suslov's not happy with the billions he has. He wants more money."

"Sounds familiar," Joyner said. "During the dot-com bubble years in the U.S., a reporter asked one of those captains of industry, 'How much money do you want?' To which the answer was, 'Just a little more.'"

"Well, for Suslov the answer would be, 'A lot more.' Anyhow, he saw a pot of gold waiting for him to snatch."

"Nuclear weapons?"

"Exactly. He knew that most had been moved into Russia from the former Soviet republics at our request and with our money, but that's as far as any real safeguards go. The level of security at storage facilities is a joke."

She stopped on a dime. Her eyes bored into Michael. "You're telling me that Suslov made the sales to Pakistan and to North Korea?"

Michael met her gaze without flinching. "Absolutely, and it's only a question of time until the next one."

Joyner took a slug of coffee, then picked her glasses up and fiddled with them while standing next to the table. "Damn," she muttered. It was worse than she had thought. "How reliable's your information?"

"My main source is Vladimir Perikov, a member of the Russian Nuclear Control Agency."

"The distinguished physicist?"

Michael nodded. "He's frustrated because his agency has no real power... appalled by his government's lax control over the nuclear arms that have been moved to Russia from various Soviet republics after the breakup of the USSR. So he's willing to work with me, though he knows Suslov will kill him if he finds out."

"Are we paying Perikov?"

"Refuses to take a cent. The only honest Russian I've met in the eight months you've had me on this project."

"There's one in every crowd. What other sources do you have?"

He shuffled his feet anxiously on the floor. Michael had hoped to avoid this topic, but he wouldn't lie to Joyner. "I've developed a relationship with a woman, Irina, who works as a secretary in Suslov's office. She confirmed that North Koreans and Pakistanis came visiting at about the right time period."

Something in Michael's voice told Joyner there was more to this than he had just said. "Tell me about Irina."

He briefly closed his eyes. "She also sees Suslov from time to time. Socially, you might say. She doesn't really like him, but he's supporting her family. You know how that goes."

Joyner frowned. "And you're seeing Irina from time to time, socially, as you just put it. I know how that goes, too."

He looked down at his hands resting on the table. The nails were manicured. Michael cared about his appearance. He didn't dare tell Joyner that Irina excited him in a way other women did not. To impress Irina when he returned to Russia, he had stopped at a Washington hair salon yesterday to get a decent cut. In Moscow they were all hacks. "Not yet, but hopefully I'm headed in that direction. I may also be helping to support her family, too, if I can set it up."

"Company funds?"

"If it's okay with you. She would be a valuable asset."

Michael was charming, and he had the looks of a magazine model for high-priced Italian suits. "You're playing a dangerous game."

Michael appreciated her concern for him. She was not only smart, but she cared about her people, which wasn't always the case for someone atop a huge bureaucracy like the Company. Still, he shrugged, brushing aside her cautionary note. He was in the process of extricating himself from a bad marriage with Alice, a dull, whiny woman, and his relationship with Irina was a heady ride. It was like being on a giant roller coaster. Swept up in the exhilaration, nobody ever remembered that the structure was built on a bunch of wooden sticks, rotting and aging, that could come crashing down at any time.

He was soaring with Irina. Alice, on the ground, seemed small and remote. He wondered what he had been thinking three years ago when he married her. She knew that he traveled a lot in his position with the Company, which he couldn't talk about. Then she had said, "Gosh, that's exciting." Now it was, "Why can't you get a job as the director of security at a company in Philadelphia so we can move up there and be near my parents?" There was no way he would do that. He loved the thrill and excitement of being a spy.

Then, Alice couldn't get enough of him in bed. She had one of the most talented mouths he had ever encountered. Now the only tubular object she placed in that mouth of hers was a cigarette. Fortunately, there weren't any children. He had hired a lawyer a month ago. The divorce papers were winding their way through the court system, clogged with similar divorce filings by others who had found that what they got wasn't what they thought they had bought.

"Sometimes it's worth living on the edge," he said glibly.

"Being reckless won't help anybody," Joyner shot back sternly through a tightly drawn mouth.

"Sorry," Michael said. "I didn't mean to convey that impression."

"You ever hear of Clint Darling?" Michael shook his head in bewilderment. "One of our top people in the seventies," Joyner said soberly. "Constantly putting his life on the line."

"And?" Michael said nervously.

"He ended up dying a fiery death in a car with an East German scientist we wanted to get our hands on. Clint tried blasting his way through an armed border crossing. His recklessness did more than cost him his life. We desperately wanted what that scientist knew."

"I get the picture," Michael said.

He sounded chastened, but Joyner's guess was that it was an act for her benefit. Still, she softened her expression. "Okay, let's move on. Use Irina if you think it'll help. I'm willing to do just about anything. The goal has to be to assemble enough evidence to take to the Russian president and have Suslov arrested."

Michael nodded his head up and down. "The only way to do that is to catch him in the act on his next sale. He's paying off too many people. Unless we catch him red-handed, Drozny will never move against him."

"Is another sale planned?"

"Not yet. I don't think so."

"Then what do you think we should do?"

Michael's eyes lit up. He was ready for this one. "My sources claim the Pakistan and North Korea sales brought in a small fortune. Estimated amounts are laid out in the folder. It's as good as printing money. I say we set up a sting. Bring someone to Suslov pretending to be a buyer. Say from a Colombian drug cartel. Or from an international terrorist organization. Catch Suslov when the exchange takes place, and hold him until the Russkies come."

"Which means he goes off to jail, and you get Irina."