J
ennifer said again, “This is the road where Turbo crashed. Chiclet was up here last week. This isn’t a coincidence.”
Has to be a dead drop. He’s getting a message up here.
My adrenaline fired at the thought of getting evidence of Chiclet conducting an operational act. Of proving this asshole was up to no good, and hopefully making Turbo’s accident mean something.
On the radio, I said, “All elements, I think he’s servicing a dead drop. I’m betting he stops at Asen’s Fortress, just like he did with Turbo. If he does, Jennifer and I will conduct the intrusion. Knuckles, you continue north. Decoy, Brett, finish with the gas station, then you guys block the exit back to Highway 86.”
I got acknowledgment, and it unfolded exactly like I thought. We wound around a mountain road, doing one switchback after another, rising higher and higher. At one turn we passed a segment of yellow tape, strips strung out between the metal guardrail like a Halloween exhibit.
Jennifer said, “Jesus, Pike, that’s . . .”
She didn’t need to finish the statement. It was where Turbo had died. A man who had served twenty-two years in the defense of our nation, fighting in overt combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by clandestine missions in every shit hole on earth, protecting US lives with little fanfare and absolutely no thanks. The only thing heralding his contributions to the nation was a strip of yellow caution tape spread between the torn guardrails. It was sad. And probably all I would get myself someday.
We kept winding around the mountain, and eventually Chiclet parked, exactly like I thought he would. He exited his vehicle in a small lot around the bend, just to the west of the fortress, then wandered across a knoll of picnic tables and a kids’ playground. He crossed the road and took the path into the fortress. Jennifer and I gave him a minute, then followed.
As we walked through the gate, I felt like I was passing into another dimension. The fortress was flat-out amazing, carved through brute strength into the side of a cliff. I could only imagine the feet that had trod the same path I was on. Jennifer, of course, began giving me the background on the place before I even asked, clearly enjoying the surroundings. She had the ability to make any tourist trap the most exotic thing in the world, bringing to life what would have been nothing but moldy passages or broken rock.
We went down a narrow walkway that would have made the safety freaks in the United States pass out, literally a rock passage with a cliff to the right that fell unimpeded for five hundred feet. No railing. I guess the Bulgarians figured if you were stupid enough to hang over the ledge, you were stupid enough to suffer the punishment.
We could learn something from them.
Of course, our lesson would be that we needed to administer a written test before entry to prevent idiots from falling, complete with a new government agency to oversee the testing.
We circled around the walkway until we reached the ancient Orthodox church, constructed when life was still a competition for survival. Carved out of stone on the side of a cliff, I could only imagine the congregation that had attended it. Something from
Game of Thrones
.
From the outside I could see Chiclet sitting in a pew, a reconstructed piece of lumber made to look like something from the hardscrabble life of the people who had created this church.
He was doing nothing overt. Simply staring to his front. Remaining still.
The sanctuary was only about thirty feet long, and had little to see other than stone and a few dripping candles, but Chiclet seemed enamored. We waited outside, pretending to take in the incredible views of the knife-edge mountains dropping to the valley below.
I debated sending in Jennifer. I decided not to. If it was a drop, he’d already retrieved it. Wouldn’t do any good to put her in close proximity. I decided to wait until he left, which he did after another seven minutes.
Jennifer penetrated, then came back to my location, telling me she’d found nothing. The place was clean. No residue from tape, no chalk markings, no nothing. Retro called to say he was on Chiclet in his vehicle, and we left at a slow pace, letting them continue the follow.
I fired up the Volvo and Jennifer said, “Too much coincidence here. He’s doing something, and it isn’t a drop. This place is horrible for that anyway. It’s a damn tourist attraction. Who’d put a drop in here? With all the people coming and going? Especially from a fanatical Islamic sect? Inside an historical Christian church? Not happening.”
I started working the hairpin turns and said, “What else could it be? He was up here with Turbo a week ago.”
She said, “I don’t know. We keep on him and it’ll become clear.”
I had no idea how soon that would occur.
We were rounding the second hairpin, on the steepest part of the road, when my brakes failed. I jammed the pedal into the floor to no avail. We picked up speed rapidly, the force of gravity more powerful than the gas pedal I was no longer using. I pumped the brake again, working the steering wheel to stay on the road.
We began flying down the road and Jennifer’s hand slapped the roof of the vehicle. She pumped her foot on an imaginary brake pedal and exclaimed, “Pike!”
I said, “Hold on. This is going to be tight.”
We screamed through the next hairpin turn and I saw a straightaway dropping down before me, a rock wall on the left and a cliff on the right falling free for several hundred meters to the river below.
I worked the wheel, allowing the gears of the car to keep us in check, then felt a subtle shift in the vehicle. We started to pick up velocity over and above what gravity was providing. My gas pedal was working on its own. My car was trying to kill me.
In an effort to slow our progress, I jerked the wheel, hammering the wall of stone to my left, causing the car to grind against the rock. It worked for a split second, the engine still screaming as if I had floored the accelerator, then the car skipped off the wall and hurtled straight down.
I knew we were going too fast to make the hairpin. The velocity was much too great to navigate the turn, and the only way to stop it would be to kill the engine. I jammed the “stop” button and jerked the wheel in one more futile attempt.
Jennifer screamed my name again and I attempted to ram the gearshift into park, getting no response. We picked up speed until we were doing over sixty miles an hour. Jennifer slapped her hands on the dash, and time actually slowed. I could see the yellow tape marking Turbo’s death in front of me, lazily flapping in the breeze.
I shouted, “Stiletto! Kill this fucking thing!”
Jennifer whirled around and grabbed her purse, yanking out the EMP weapon and saying, “Where do I shoot? What do I hit?”
We got within fifty meters of the turn and I screamed, “Anywhere! Kill it before we go over!”
She pulled the trigger, I heard a small whine, then the entire car went dead. Radio shut down, lights quit, clock on the dash blinking out. Our velocity slowed immediately, but we continued to roll forward, the weight of the vehicle struggling to overcome the lack of power. Straight to the yellow tape as if it had a suicide pact.
I manhandled the wheel, the action much harder with the power steering dead, like dragging a chain through the mud. The front wheels split the tape, and we went over, landing on a slope and picking up speed again. It was a false cliff, but the real one was right in front. I tried to open my door, but the dead electronics had left it locked. I ripped the handle back and forth in frustration, then tried jamming the brakes again. I couldn’t stop the slide over the edge. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jennifer jerking her door handle with the same result before diving into the rear of the vehicle.
I saw the edge of the cliff grow like a cancer in my vision and knew I was done. Following in Turbo’s footsteps. In a land of violence, another embarrassing death.
Jennifer rolled onto her back and mule kicked the glass hatchback with all of her might. I heard her shout something unintelligible, and in the rearview mirror saw the hatch fling sideways, held on by one hinge. She kicked again, and it fell free, exploding in a shower of glass as soon as it touched the ground. I abandoned the steering wheel and followed her into the back, clawing my way past the driver’s seat like a drunk on a bus.
She had her grapple in a fist and flung it out, the rope snaking through her hand. She tossed me the end of the line and I felt the car lever over, exactly like a child’s seesaw. With us inside. I wrapped my hands into the nylon of the running end, watching the hook scrape and bounce across the ground. The car crossed the point of no return and I felt the sickening drop of gravity in my stomach. We went into free fall.
I closed my eyes, and the hook bit, cinching the rope into my hands hard enough to draw blood and jerking us both out of the vehicle. Jennifer, holding on to the rope four feet above me, slammed her legs into my head just before my body smashed into the rock of the cliff face.
I held on for dear life, seeing the car bounce down the precipice before shattering on the rocks below. It ticked for a minute before a low
wump
split the air, and a fireball burst far beneath me.
Jennifer’s feet left my shoulders and began scraping against the rock, seeking purchase. I did the same. When I found some footing, some stability to prevent me from falling after the car and becoming a sacrifice for the inferno below, I took stock.
I said, “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m okay. I think.”
She started to climb back up the rock face, toward the yellow tape and the road. I held what I had, letting her get out first. I took a deep breath, willing myself to relax, and everything that had just happened clicked in my head. A crystal truth that sliced through my tumultuous thoughts like a razor carving out gangrenous flesh.
Not an accident.
I said, “Jenn, quit climbing. Hold up.”
She said, “Why?”
My mind was still working through the event, and hanging on the side of the cliff wasn’t helping my decision making, but one thing penetrated the fog.
Turbo was murdered.
I said, “This wasn’t an accident. Someone’s probably on the road watching to confirm we’re dead. They won’t hang around long, but I don’t want them to see you.”
The more I tossed the idea about, the more certain I became. Someone had set a trap. Someone had purposely killed Turbo and Radcliffe.
Someone just tried to murder Jennifer and me.
As the realization began to take root, an impotent rage bubbled up. The murderers, whoever they were, had perfected a kill zone, and I had blindly walked right into it. A unique targeted killing that looked like a simple accident. They were very, very good, but they weren’t immune to mistakes. They’d made the biggest one on the side of this mountain.
They’d left me alive.
Y
uri saw Vlad raise his glass of water, signaling one of the Efbet Casino waitresses, and Yuri pointed to his own while listening to his cell phone.
He caught Vlad’s eye and nodded, saying, “Understood. Return to base.”
He hung up and said, “Mission complete. Second team interdicted. Dmitri confirms the car went over, and that nobody could have survived the fall.”
Vlad said, “Good. Akinbo should be on a bus by now, headed to Istanbul. I want you to take your team and do the same.”
Yuri hesitated, then said, “Sir, taking my team to Istanbul is a risk. Turkey is still looking for the people that hit Musayev in 2011. My previous Control wouldn’t allow it for that reason.”
“Your previous Control was a dilettante playing at espionage. They’re looking for Alexander Zharkov, correct? Isn’t that what your passport said?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And does your passport say that now?”
“No, sir, but I might have given them biometric data when I entered under that name, and they’ll definitely be scanning for our electronic footprint. The FSB cover we used there, the e-mails, the encryption protocols, all of that is compromised, but I don’t have anything new to replace it.”
He saw Vlad’s face grow dark and hastily added, “I’m sure Control was going to give it to me soon. I didn’t mean it was the service’s fault.”
Although that was precisely the truth.
Vlad said, “Don’t worry about it. For one, you’ll be driving, and the border crossing isn’t as sophisticated as the airport. You won’t go through an iris scan or give up a fingerprint. For another, I don’t want you to do anything active. I just want you available should I need it. Get there, get a hotel in the Russian area, and lie low.”
Vlad slid across a slip of paper and said, “Use this address to communicate with me.”
“Is it encrypted? I’m telling you, sir; they’re looking for our encryption scheme. They might not know what’s being said, but they’ll definitely know Russians are talking. That’s what I was trying to tell my last Control. We don’t need to be found standing over a body to get compromised. All we need to do is use the same old methods.”
Yuri opened the paper as he talked. When he read the address he said, “What is this?”
Vlad said, “Secure comms without a signature. Download Pretty Good Privacy encryption and use it for every e-mail you send from that address.”
“Sir, the US national security agency can break PGP.”
“Yes, they can, but the Turks can’t. And the NSA won’t be looking at that e-mail address. Read it.”
“AP dot org?”
“We have an asset inside the South American bureau of the Associated Press. That’s a real e-mail address, and coupled with the encryption protocol PGP, it’ll be just as secure as our own encryption because the NSA won’t look past the address. We know the range of their reach now. Make no mistake, it’s changing on a daily basis, but one thing they won’t touch right now is the press. Calypso’s revelations confirm it.”
Yuri recognized the code name. “You’ve met him? You actually talked to him?”
Vlad gave him a sour look, and Yuri backpedaled. “Of course you have. Sorry. I just thought . . .”
Vlad said, “Yes, I’ve met him. I was one of the first, and he’s not impressive. He’s a child playing a man’s game, and yet the US let him go with his treasure. Let him walk away. Makes me wonder how we lost the Cold War. If we’d have done the same with Litvinenko we would have been eviscerated on the world stage.”
Yuri wondered if Vlad had mentioned the name as a warning. Alexander Litvinenko was a traitor just like Calypso/Snowden. He’d fled the Russian state and began spouting all he knew about Russian transgressions. Right up until he’d been killed in London by radiation poisoning in 2006. Assassinated by the man across the table.
Yuri said nothing, waiting on his next command.
Vlad took a sip of water and said, “I have indications that the Mossad agent did in fact get some information from Boris. I’m hearing about a thumb drive.”
Yuri now knew the Litvinenko story was for his benefit, as was the thumb drive threat. Nothing had happened at the meeting with the Mossad agent, other than the Russian traitor having a heart attack. Vlad was simply keeping him on his toes.
“Sir, I watched the meeting. Nothing was passed before I killed Boris. Whoever is telling you otherwise is wrong.”
Vlad said, “I agree. Nothing was
physically
passed. The thumb drive is apparently in Istanbul, waiting on the Mossad man to claim it. He doesn’t know where it is, but he’s working to find out.”
The answer confirmed that Vlad was using the story as a means of instilling fear in Yuri that he had somehow failed. There was no way Vlad or the FSB had penetrated Mossad, no matter how good they pretended to be, so there wasn’t a way for Vlad to learn about any mystical thumb drives.
Yuri said, “What do you want me to do?”
“Get your team to Istanbul via the border crossing. Don’t take any weapons with you, and ditch any cell phones you have now before you cross. I’ll provide replacements when you arrive. Once you’re in place, send me a message using that address. The priority is Akinbo.”
“Yes, sir. You’re confident that he’ll follow your instructions?”
“No. But all the equipment I gave him has tracers embedded in it. I was pretty adamant with him, and he has another Associated Press e-mail account. As long as he doesn’t call anyone already tainted with the new phone I gave him, he should be pretty secure. I’m more concerned about the Americans. You’re confident they didn’t follow him to the bus station?”
“No way. One of our men is still on him, and they would have called if they’d seen the Americans. Trust me, they’re focusing on something else right now.”