Covert One 6 - The Moscow Vector (56 page)

Castilla shrugged. “That’s not a lie that’s going to stick, Viktor. I’d advise you to come up with some other story, real quick.” He glanced out the window, catching a brief glimpse of the blinking red and green navigation lights of his fighter escort. “Let’s talk instead about the fact that you’re going to turn

around those three hundred thousand or so troops you’ve massed near Ukraine, Georgia, Kazahkstan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan and send them marching back to their peacetime barracks … and pronto.”

“Can I speak candidly, Mr. President?” Dudarev asked grimly.

“By all means,” Castilla told him, grinning across the small cabin at Klein.

“I always enjoy candor. Especially since I hear it so rarely from you.”

“If I really did have so many tanks, soldiers, and aircraft ready for war, why would I abandon my plans so easily? Do you think your voice is so frightening?”

“Not in the least, Viktor,” the president said easily. “I just don’t think you’re

ready for an all-out conflict with the United States—and with NATO. You’ve been thinking in terms of a lightning campaign against weak and disorganized local forces, not a slugging match with the most powerful alliance in history.”

“But you have no defense agreements with Ukraine or Georgia or the rest,”

Dudarev pointed out sharply. “Nor any forces stationed on their territory. And somehow I do not believe that your country —or your allies —will oppose us so seriously. No one in London or Berlin or Paris or New York will support a war against Russia for the sake of a few bare-assed Azerbaijanis and the like!”

“Maybe not,” Castilla agreed. He straightened up. “But they will if your attacks put Americans at risk, especially political leaders who are pretty well known and respected.” He paused modestly. “Like me, for example.”

“What?” the Russian leader demanded. “What are you talking about?”

Castilla checked his watch. Outside, the noise of the 747’s four big engines was changing as the jet began its gradual descent. “I think you should know-that I’ll be on the ground in Kiev in a little less than forty-five minutes. And that I don’t expect to be leaving Ukraine for a few days. Their new leaders and I have a lot of business to transact, especially negotiating a mutual defense treaty.”

“Impossible.”

“Not in the least,” Castilla said carefully. His voice hardened. “Ukraine is an independent country now. I guess you forgot that one little fact, Viktor.”

Dudarev said nothing.

“And so are the other former Soviet republics,” Castilla continued.

“Which is why a host of U.S., NATO, and Japanese senior officials, including my secretaries of State and Defense, are going to be visiting those countries over the next several days. And if a single Russian bomber, tank, or foot soldier

crosses those borders, I can guarantee that you’re going to wind up dragging your country into a war it cannot afford—a war that it will most certainly lose.”

“You are insulting,” the Russian leader snapped.

“On the contrary,” Castilla said coldly. “I’m being remarkably patient. But let me assure you that neither my country nor I will ever forget or forgive your decision to unleash the HYDRA weapon on us.”

“HYDRA?” Dudarev asked, but for the first time there was a discernible note of uncertainty, perhaps even of fear. “I do not know what you are talking about.”

The president ignored him. “There’s an old, old saying that when you lie down with a dog, you get up with fleas, Viktor. Well, Professor Wulf Renkc was one damned, dirty dog, and now you have one hell of a case of fleas. When we caught up with Renke, we found something very interesting in a little case he was carrying—a whole set of glass vials filled with some kind of liquid.”

Dudarev said nothing.

“Now, the interesting thing about these vials is that many had Russian names on them—and one of them was yours, Viktor.”

Even across the thousand miles separating them, Castilla could hear the other man suddenly swallow hard.

“But I’m a civilized man, unlike you,” the president went on, not bothering to hide his utter contempt for the Russian leader. “So I’ve decided not to see how you like the taste of your own weapon when it’s thrown back at you. Instead, well, we’ll just hang on to these so-called HYDRA variants for the time being. As a form of insurance against any future bad behavior by you or by your pals in the Kremlin.”

“That is blackmail,” Dudarev growled.

“Blackmail is such an ugly word, Viktor,” Castilla said calmly. He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’ll let you know when I think of a better one.

Da svidaniya.”

He pushed a button on his phone, cutting the hot-line connection. Then the president looked across at his old friend. “Well?”

“I think you enjoyed that, Sam,” Klein said, grinning crookedly. “But then, for a politician, you’ve never been the most diplomatic fellow around.”

“Nope, I’m not,” Castilla agreed contentedly. “But what I’m really going to enjoy is watching Czar Viktor’s pedestal start wobbling. Hell, I may even decide to give it a few, well-timed kicks myself. With a bit of luck, the Russians will get a chance to make a new start for themselves one of these days in the not too distant future.”

“You think Dudarev’s regime is going to be in serious trouble?” Klein asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I do.” The president nodded seriously. “Once the word of what Viktor and his chums were up to leaks out, there’ll be hell to pay inside Russia. Some very influential folks will be mad at him for almost dragging them into a war, and others will think he’s a weakling for backing down at the last minute. This fiasco will be the first real chink in his armor.” He shrugged. “Once that sense of invulnerability wears off a would-be dictator, it’s pretty much the beginning of the end. It’ll take a while, and my guess is that he’ll cause us some more trouble before he goes down, but I’d say that Dudarev just gave his political enemies a big piece of the rope they’ll use to hang him.”

March 15

U.S. Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

Camp Five, one of the several maximum-security facilities at Guantanamo Bay, was reserved for high-level terrorist detainees, most often senior members of al-Qaeda or other dangerous terrorist groups. It was also used, on rare occasions, to house “ghost detainees”—those men and women whose names were kept out of any official records for security and intelligence purposes.

U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Henry Farmer knocked politely on the wire-mesh door of the cell occupied by Prisoner Number Six. “Time for your lunch, sir,” he said, sliding a tray through the slot at the bottom of the door.

Number Six, a tall, white-haired man with high cheekbones and pale blue eyes, sat up wearily from his bunk and padded over to collect the tray. “Thank you, Sergeant,” he said. He tried to smile. “I’ll hope that the chef has taken a refresher course since yesterday’s disaster.”

“Maybe so,” Farmer said with a disinterested shrug. “Just to let you know, your next session with those fellas from Langley is scheduled for a little later this afternoon.”

The prisoner nodded moodily. His discussions with the CIA debriefers were never very pleasant. He carried the tray back over to his bunk and then began eating.

Farmer watched him in silence for a moment, then turned, and went on with the rest of his duties.

Later that afternoon, the sergeant found the time to go for a stroll along the beach. He found a stocky, gray-haired man waiting for him, a man whose passport and sober business attire proclaimed him to be Klaus Wittmer, a visiting representative of the International Red Cross.

“Was there any trouble?” the gray-haired man asked.

Farmer shook his head. “Not a peep.” He tossed something to Wittmer, who caught it one-handed and held it closed in his palm. “And the rest of my payment?”

“Will be made on schedule,” the gray-haired man assured him placidly.

Once the American noncom was trudging away down the beach, Alexei Ivanov, the head of Russia’s Thirteenth Directorate, opened his palm. An empty glass vial glinted there, reflecting the warm Caribbean sun. Frowning, Ivanov stared down at it for a few seconds more. A futile gesture, he thought grimlv, but then what other options are open to us now?

Abruptly, the Russian spy chief turned and tossed the vial out into the bay, well bevond the waves lapping gently at the shore. Then he, too, turned and walked away.

The last HYDRA variant had been delivered.

March 22

Alexandria, Virginia

The small Vietnamese restaurant on King Street, across the Potomac from Washington, D.C., was a favorite among those who appreciated good food, reasonable prices, and quiet, unpretentious service. In other words, Jon Smith thought wryly, studying the menu, it was not fashionable —just popular.

“Is this seat taken?” he heard a familiar voice ask.

Smith looked up with a welcoming smile. A slender, pretty woman with short, golden hair stood there. She smiled back, but he thought her eyes looked wary. “Hello, Randi,” he said, getting up to greet her. “I was afraid the boys at Langley had decided to lock you up after all.”

Randi Russell shrugged. “The seventh-floor quill-pushers can’t seem to make up their minds,” she said calmly. “Half of them, including the DCI, think I’m a lone-wolf menace to the Agency who ought to be slung out on my rear end before I cause a major scandal. The other half of them, including my boss in Operations, think nailing Renke was worth cutting a few corners.”

He waited until she sat gracefully and then took his own chair. “So which half do you think will win?”

“Oh, the Agency will keep me on,” she said confidently. A slight smile creased her lips. “The top-echelon gins will compromise, just like thev always do. So I’ll probably wind up with another few pages of scathing comments in my personnel file—and maybe an extra week’s leave that I’ll never find the time to take.”

Smith laughed. “You’re getting cynical.”

“I was born cynical, Jon,” she told him. “That’s why I fit in so well at the CIA.” She picked up the menu in front of her and then put it back down. “You heard the Germans have finally confirmed the identity of their mole?”

“Heichler, right?” he guessed. “The guy who shot himself the day after we grabbed Malkovic?”

She nodded. “It took a lot of digging, but thev managed to trace a whole slew of cash payments to him from one of Malkovic’s front companies.”

“I heard about Malkovic, too,” he told her quietly. “I guess Guantanamo Bay isn’t quite as secure as everyone thinks it is.”

Randi raised an eyebrow. “Word gets around fast in those rarefied circles you travel in —whatever circles those are. With so much egg on people’s faces for letting the Russians get to him before we were through wringing him dry, I thought the details of his death were strictly top-secret.”

“I may have a few friends who tell me things the) shouldn’t,” Smith admitted.

She snorted. “Spare me.” Randi picked up her menu again. “I understand that Ms. Devin is out of the hospital and up and around,” she said casually.

“So I hear,” he said carefully.

“I don’t imagine she’ll be very welcome back in Moscow.”

Jon grinned. “Not exactly.” He looked across the table at her. “But it seems that Fiona is the type who always manages to land on her feet. Apparently, she’s already wangled a job at some prestigious think tank headquartered in New York.”

Actually, he knew that it was Fred Klein who had arranged the assignment for Fiona, since it would give her useful cover for other Covert-One missions.

“New York’s not very far from here,” Randi commented coolly.

“Nope, I suppose not,” Smith agreed. Then he took pity on her. “But it’s an awfully long way from Moscow and air tickets aren’t cheap. So I have a funny feeling that Oleg Kirov’s clients are going to find their consulting bills going up.”

She looked narrowly at him. “Kirov?”

He nodded. Once Klein was convinced that the Kremlin had no knowledge of the part played by Kirov in recent events, he had allowed the Russian to go back to his own country. So the former FSB officer was still in play as a deep-cover Covert-One asset.

“Oleg Kirov?” she asked again, still skeptical. “And Ms. Devin?”

Smith crossed his heart. “Honestly. No lie.”

“Gee, that’s nice,” Randi said innocently. Then, smiling to herself, she sat back in her chair, studying the menu with real interest now. “So, what do you recommend?”