Authors: Tim Tigner
After crouching in an icy ditch for nearly an hour, Alex was
not nearly as pleased with himself as he had been when he first dreamt up his plan. Witches’ tits and well-diggers’ asses had nothing on him. Regardless of the chilling reminder, he found it hard to believe that he, alone and unarmed, was trying to break into a fortified KGB complex. Was he crazy? He looked up at the crescent moon. Was it smiling at him, or laughing?
The white sheet he was using as camouflage did
not offer much warmth, so he began swinging his arms and legs in long arcs, one at a time, like a demented ballerina. Perhaps he would howl at the moon when he finished, just to complete the picture. The sad thing was, truth be told, he was glad for the extreme cold. It augmented the humor he was using to distract himself from guilt and sorrow.
Alex
was waiting beside the access road to the KGB complex, just out of sight of the entry gate. A couple of yards down from him in the middle of the road, a large cardboard box defied the wind. It was bait. He was betting that whoever came along on the road would stop. Who wouldn’t want to see what treasure had fallen off a truck in the middle of the night?
You could always count on greed
.
If all went as planned, the
driver would stop to inspect the box and Alex would sneak out from the drainage ditch and slip beneath his vehicle. Simple, right? And Alex had thought ahead. He had tied a piece of heavy-duty cardboard to his back to help him slide along the half mile of snow-covered road to the gate. Sure, a list of conditions would have to be met for his plan to work: just one vehicle, suitable clearance, driver alone, engine left running; but given the time and place he figured he had amicable odds.
Amicable odds…
Pulling back his glove to see the time—a quarter-to-six—Alex admitted to himself that he was gambling big time. He was gambling that in the dark, freezing, pre-dawn hours, nobody would be paying much attention to anything. Fortunately there was no fresh snow, so he wouldn’t be plowing the road with his head or leaving furrows with his heels. Nonetheless it was a risky plan, no question about it. Hopping under that jeep would be the point of no return. He could hardly pretend to be casually copping a ride. Nor once inside could he claim confusion. He would be an ex-CIA operative caught breaking into a KGB compound. Yes, he was crazy.
Irrespective
of the risk, fear had given way to boredom and that was now yielding to anxiety. Alex tried laughing at himself and his absurd predicament, but he seemed to have run out of jokes. He rubbed his upper arm, attempting to thaw his humerus. Nothing. There wasn’t a wisecrack to wangle.
He
looked at the luminescent dial on his watch for the third time in as many minutes. It was now six o’clock. If this plan didn’t work within the next forty-five minutes or so, dawn would force him to fall back on plan B—marching through the front gate as Colonel Andrey Demerko on special assignment for General Yarik. He did not have a car, and the busses were not running yet, but he would think of something. Still, he hoped that would not be necessary. Even sleepy guards paid attention when you knocked on the door at this hour.
Little Kimberly was worth it
.
Alex had studied the guardhouse
and entry/exit procedures the day before. He had not walked away with a warm-and-fuzzy feeling. The checkpoint was set up like a border-patrol station, with magnetically sealed doors at both ends of a glass booth. Everyone entering the complex on foot had to stand in the aquarium while the inspecting soldier verified his documents behind a glass partition. Because of the way the doors worked, by the time a visitor knew there was a problem, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. These guys were not amateurs.
At last Alex saw
headlights. His heart leapt as he dropped flat to lie motionless beneath the sheet. It was a jeep, and a general’s jeep no less. Clean cars were a rarity in Siberia in the winter, but this one shone in the starlight and its flag was easy to spot. Would a VIP vehicle stop? It depended on who was driving. He hoped it was just a chauffeur.
Alex held his breath as the headlights illuminated his lure. The jeep slowed … and stopped. As the lone occupant got out and walked toward the front, Alex scurried to the back and slid underneath. He wriggled toward the front axel on his cardboard sleigh as quickly as silence would allow. With each inch his heart tried to pop out the top of his chest and his lungs protested the noxious exhaust, but still it felt good to engage.
The driver kicked the box and shouted “undisciplined fools” loud enough to be heard above the rumbling engine. Alex strained his neck to see his host but could only see his feet. The man wore spit-shined shoes, and his sharply creased pants had an officer’s stripe. Alex slipped a leather belt around the filthy front axel and then wrapped one end around each wrist as the officer opened the door.
Forgive me if I don’t salute
.
As the jeep lurched forward, the picture of two bloody stumps clutching a belt flashed through his mind. Did he really know what he was doing? Whether he did or not, he was now committed.
The officer seemed to listen to Alex’s telepathic command, and slowed but did not stop while passing the gate. Excellent. From this side of the gauntlet all Alex had to hope for was that they weren’t headed for covered parking. He did not relish the idea of being dragged over bare asphalt. Regardless, he could not let go for fear of being spotted in the rear-view mirror.
The jeep neither stopped nor drove over bare asphalt. This puzzled Alex and it wasn’t helping his back either. The main entrance to the KGB headquarters was just fifty meters or so from the guardhouse. Surely a
general would have priority parking, especially at this hour. What was happening?
Anybody got an aspirin?
Alex felt the road beneath the snow turn from asphalt to gravel. Should he release—there were no lights around now so he wouldn’t be seen—or should he hold on to see what it was that pried
a KGB officer out of bed at five thirty in the morning? Alex decided to give it two more minutes. After that, the hike back would be too long, and he would be in trouble with his dentist.
It took five minutes, but as soon as they stopped Alex
knew he had chosen wisely. That was two gambles that had paid off today and the sun wasn’t even up yet. He wished he were in Vegas.
Alex
looked up at the mammoth chimney silhouetted against the starry Siberian sky and enjoyed one of those deep smiles that warms you from the inside out. The officer had parked before the abandoned nuclear power plant. This virtually confirmed a suspicion he had been harboring ever since Anna told him the story of her brother’s death. Another piece of the puzzle slid smoothly into place.
He waited motionlessly while the
officer entered the building. Unarmed and under a jeep was no way to engage the enemy. That line wasn’t from Sun Tzu, but he was sure The Master would agree. Besides, if his hunch were right there was no great hurry.
Alex watched the red second hand on his compass-watch make one full sweep and then he rolled out from under the jeep. It took just
twenty seconds for him to stash the remnants of his cardboard sleigh in a snow bank and hide himself behind an evergreen that yielded good views of both the entranceway and the approaching road. In the distance to his left, Alex saw the moonlight reflecting off the lake that had guided him to this place, and he felt a rekindling of something that might actually be pride. He had come a long way.
Reflecting on the current situation, Alex figured there were three likely scenarios: one, the
officer had come to the complex this early to retrieve something; two, he had come in to meet someone who, given the absence of any other vehicles, had not yet arrived; or three, he had come in early to work. If it were either of the first two, it would be a mistake to move now. So Alex decided to wait for ten minutes and see what happened.
Where could he get a cup of coffee?
As it turned out, he was still warm from the under-jeep-adrenaline-rush when the officer
emerged. He had been inside just four minutes. As the officer walked briskly to the jeep, Alex caught sight of the star on his shoulder board.
Thank you, General
.
Seconds later the jeep’s taillights were fading fast down the gravelly road and Alex found himself with only the ghosts of the past to keep him company.
Time to rock and roll
.
This was one of those moments in life when you know the adrenaline can’t get much higher. He was single-handedly staging a pre-dawn break-in to a restricted, potentially irradiated, top-secret KGB facility fourteen time zones from a friendly face. All-in-a-day’s-work didn’t quite cut it.
Alex caught himself holding his breath as he swiped Yarik’s card-key through the reader. He had moved from craps to roulette, and now he was betting big on green. What would he do if an alarm sounded? His only option would be to run across the surrounding field of virgin snow. Yes, he was betting big indeed. But his color came up, there was a click, and he was in. Too easy? He wasn’t home yet.
Let it ride
.
As the door swung open, the stench of stale air greeted his nose while nothing but the blackness beyond met his eyes. Had there been a doormat, Alex would have expected it to give way at this point, dropping him into a pit or a moat, but all remained still and silent as the crypt everyone was supposed to think it w
as. Alex stepped in decisively and closed the door behind him. As the latch clicked, dim emergency-level lighting switched on to reveal a corridor with a dozen doors each on the left and right. Which way to go? The dilemma reminded Alex of the Dungeons & Dragons games he had enjoyed as a child. Fortunately, Detective Ferris did not have to guess.
He followed the
general’s trail along the dusty floor to a door at the left end of the corridor. There was another card reader there. Once again, he bet his only chip on green—and won. As this door opened, the scent of chlorine assaulted his nose and a concrete stairway greeted his eyes. It led down into darkness with no end in sight. He had already gone from Schwarzenegger to Nancy Drew on this trip. Alex hoped Stephen King wasn’t next on the list. “Cujo?” Nothing but silence. “Good doggy.” Nothing. He hardened his resolve and stepped down into the void.
As he descended through the dark, a dozen horror films, mystery novels, and detective shows assailed his imagination and ripped at his resolve. None of them had happy endings. This was
not the eccentric neighbor lady’s basement that had frightened him as a kid. This was the KGB, and the fright was man style.
Thirty-eight steps later, his sweaty hand came into contact with a door.
This was it. He had gone one-on-one with Yarik to learn what was on the other side of that door. Andrey had given his life to get Alex here. He found the handle, gave it a firm twist, and walked into wonderland.
In sharp contrast to the dusty
abandon above, the subterranean suite surrounding him was reminiscent of the White House Situation Room. It was not a large setup, but it was an extremely well equipped one. He would have liked to take the tour, but could not risk the time. For all he knew, Yarik had a twin too.
Alex crossed the common area to what appeared to be the executive offices of the clandestine organization whose headquarters he had infiltrated. There were no names or titles on the doors, but
the suite was obviously equipped to service a triumvirate. He assumed Yarik was one of those three, and wanted to find his office. The odds were best that no one would discover him there or notice if he disturbed anything. That might be splitting hairs, but his victories on this case had all been razor thin, so split he would.
He had three doors from which to choose. Once again, he was living a logic puzzle. Despite the giant’s intelligence, Alex was intuitively certain that Yarik was not the top dog, so the central of the three offices was out. That gave him a fifty-fifty choice between the two flanking suites. What else could he infer? Yarik exhibited an underdeveloped sense of right and wrong, an
d displayed an unabashed disregard for society’s rules. He was a man of passion, of instinct. That indicated right-brain thinking. Right brain people prefer the right side of the room. Conclusive? No. But Alex played it conservative nonetheless, and went right.
He went straight to the computer and began the boot sequence.
If he could not hack his way in, his backup plan was to take the hard-drive with him. He hoped it would not come to that. Actually, “hack” was not the right word. Alex hoped to walk right in the front door; he was betting on human nature.
Passwords and human nature go together like ice cream and tuna fish. The discord
arises from the fact that passwords are
supposed
to be as long, complicated and illogical as possible, when of course what you
want
to use is something that is short and easy to remember. Now, since even computer nerds know enough about human nature to understand that
want
will inevitably get the best of
supposed
, they usually take preemptive measures to ensure that the company store isn’t guarded by Foofy or Fido. They do this by requiring a specific length and format, and then tagging on an expiration date. Well, as a P.I. and student of human nature, Alex knew that you couldn’t beat lazy that easily. As though following some secret genetically programmed instruction, people the world over tended to respond identically to their network-administrator’s challenges by writing their passwords down. Alex was hoping that this was one area of human nature where Yarik was not an exception.