29
The Next Night
Moscow
Max Pauling awoke at ten in his room at the Metropol Hotel, beating the wake-up call by fifteen minutes. He’d forced himself to take the nighttime forty-five-minute nap. Now, wide awake, he remained on his back, eyes open wide, arms stretched to the sides, the city’s lights through the open windows creating shifting patterns over his naked body.
After drawing a series of slow, measured breaths, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, stood, and went to a window. Things had moved faster than he’d expected, engendering conflicting emotions. If things went as planned tonight, his assignment to Moscow would come to an end. That was good, of course, except that it also meant he would be sent back to Washington, which was also good in some ways—Jessica and his Cessna coming immediately to mind—but bad in other ways, the potential for a dull daily existence at the State Department and reporting to Colonel Walter Barton topping the list of negatives.
When he left Washington for Moscow, he’d assumed his task of identifying the source of the missiles would be long and arduous, characterized by false turns and disappointments. That hadn’t turned out to be the case. Lerner had so effectively paved the way through his banker friend, Miziyano, that Pauling found himself having only to run local CIA checks on Miziyano and the mafioso Misha Glinskaya, and to make a few informal queries about them through old “friends” in Moscow’s criminal underbelly—and, of course, follow through with the exchange of money for names. Piece a cake.
But he also knew that having things go smoothly was a recipe for complacency. Complacency was dangerous. Complacent agents working underground seldom survived long enough to grab the pension and live out their final years in the sun, on some island. Although he was not introspective by nature, being on assignments like this generated changes in Pauling that were readable to him. He was aware of how leaving Washington and arriving in Moscow had altered his perceptions of things, and of himself. In Washington, it was as though his senses had shut down, like those of a hibernating animal secure in its winter burrow. Unless you were a politician attuned to subtle shifts in the political wind, there was no need to be on the alert, look over your shoulder, put everyone and everything to the test. It was like dying, he sometimes thought, the body put on idle until finally running out of gas.
But on assignment in Moscow and elsewhere, where death, if it were to come, would be swift and sudden, the animal,
this
animal named Pauling, was never more alive, senses operating at peak frequencies, eyes narrowed, mind questioning what wouldn’t be worth questioning at a desk back at Main State. He was out of his hibernation, reborn, and the predators were everywhere.
Since arriving in Russia, he’d scrutinized every step he took, and steps taken by others. That afternoon, among many of his thoughts, profound and occasionally whimsical, was why, more important
how
, Lerner had so effortlessly laid the answers in his lap so quickly. He answered by reminding himself of Lerner’s long experience in Moscow, and the professional that he was, one of countless dedicated and skilled American men and women representing their country far from home, blessedly removed from Washington’s penchant for political meddling, getting the job done and proud of it. But it had been too easy, and it wasn’t over. If something bad could happen, it would. “You’re always expecting the worst,” Doris had said with some regularity before the divorce. She was right. And he was still alive.
As he dried himself vigorously after setting the shower to the hottest temperature he could stand, his thoughts went to his friend and CIA mentor, Tom Hoctor, who he’d learned was in Moscow with the secretary of state. Why hadn’t Hoctor made contact? Surely, Pauling reasoned, Hoctor hadn’t accompanied Secretary Rock as part of her diplomatic mission. Presumably, he’d come to Moscow to oversee the CIA’s stake in the investigation of the missiles’ origins. Hoctor had made it clear to Pauling at Langley prior to Pauling’s departure for Moscow that he, Hoctor, was in charge of the operation. But he’d also instructed Pauling to report only to Lerner, who would be the conduit of all information between Moscow and Langley. Another convoluted, broken chain of command.
Pauling dressed in jeans, a navy-blue T-shirt that hugged his torso, white athletic socks, sneakers, and his multipocketed tan vest. It was a fair night in Moscow, although low clouds moving quickly over the city promised rain by morning. He searched his carry-on bag on the floor of a closet and pulled from it a nine-millimeter Austrian Glock 17 semiautomatic. He checked the clip, slipped the weapon into the vest’s largest right-hand pocket, then removed two small, spring-loaded devices attached to tiny glass ampules from the bag and placed them in one of a half-dozen pockets on the left side. He then pulled out two slightly longer ampules and also slipped them into his left pocket. Each spring-loaded ampule contained prussic acid. He’d been given them, and the Glock 17, that afternoon by Harold Sutherland, a longtime embassy employee (read CIA) who spent his days behind a locked door in the embassy’s basement. The sign on the door read TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE, a benign promise considering the sophisticated instruments of death the room contained, some personally invented by the CIA’s Sutherland, an acknowledged technical genius. Sutherland’s final words to Pauling were “Make sure when you trip the spring, Max, that the prussic acid goes up somebody else’s nose, not your own. But if it does, break one of the other ampules under your nose and breathe in the nitro, fast!” Pauling had been trained in the use of prussic acid, and the antidote, nitro, but appreciated the reminder.
The final item removed from the bag was an envelope containing twenty ten-thousand-dollar bills, which he slipped into an inside vest pocket and zippered it closed. He pulled a slip of paper with a phone number written on it from his jeans pocket, said it aloud a few times, then burned it in an ashtray.
He rode the elevator to the opulent lobby, went into a bar off it, and sat alone sipping bottled water with lime. At eleven-fifteen, he stepped out onto Teatralny Proezd. The streets in Theatre Square were busy as more than two thousand people spilled out of the Bolshoi Theatre after enjoying a performance by the world-famous ballet company bearing its name, joining hundreds of others, many tourists, coming to and from the impressive light show on the Kremlin’s towers, a five-minute walk from the square.
Pauling got into the first taxi in a long line of them and told the driver to take him to Gorky Park. Traffic was sluggish, but the driver took less congested side streets until pulling up in front of the House of Artists, home of the Russian Artists’ Union, directly across the street from the entrance to the park. Muscovites were out in droves there, too, enjoying the 275-acre park, Moscow’s most popular recreation center. It struck Pauling as he watched the vibrant street scene that the resiliency of the Russian people, gripped as they were in a brutal recession exacerbated by Yeltsin’s decision to devalue the ruble, was to be admired. He doubted if the majority of Americans, certainly those whose lives were basically free of hardship, would fare nearly as well if faced with similar adversity.
He checked his watch: eleven-fifty. He crossed the road, entered the park, and strolled along its tree-studded walkways. A jazz concert was in progress in the ten-thousand-seat open-air Zelyony Theatre, and the giant Ferris wheel that dominated the horizon was in action, its tinkling music and the shrieks of delight from children blending with the jazz band to create a surprisingly compatible sound.
He continued to walk until reaching a boating pond and stopped beneath a tree at its edge. Another glance at his watch: a few minutes before midnight. He was sure he had the right place. Lerner had told him to wait by the tree closest to the stand-up cafe on the north side of the pond.
A minute later, he saw Glinskaya emerge from behind the cafe. The young Russian mobster wore a black, Italian-cut suit and black-and-white shoes. Two other men were with him, one on either side. When they were closer, Pauling recognized them from the back room of the Red Cat.
“Pauling, on time, huh?”
“Of course. I keep appointments . . . and promises.” Pauling looked for another person to join them, the arms dealer Glinskaya was supposed to deliver. When no one did, he said, “Missing someone, aren’t we?”
The Russian smiled, shrugged.
Pauling made a show of looking at his watch. “Are we talking here, or are we going someplace else?”
“The impatient American way,” the Russian said.
“Maybe you haven’t noticed but it works,” Pauling said.
Glinskaya’s face hardened, and Pauling regretted his flippancy. But then the slick man smiled and nodded vigorously. “I like you, Pauling. Direct, huh? You are always direct.” He looked about; the only people near them were his two colleagues, who stood a few feet away. “You have the money?” he asked.
“Yes.” Pauling pressed his right elbow against the Glock 17 in his pocket. “It stays with me until I have what I’m paying for.”
Without a word, Glinskaya pulled an envelope from the breast pocket of his suit jacket and handed it to Pauling. “Go ahead,” he said. “What you want is in there.”
Pauling looked at the envelope.
“Read it,” said Glinskaya.
The Russian’s two men moved closer to Pauling, taking up a position on either side. Pauling got the message: Read what was in the envelope but don’t think about walking away without paying.
Where they stood was in deep shadow. Pauling removed the single sheet of paper from the envelope, squinted, then slowly moved into a shaft of light from the cafe. The two men moved with him, as in a ballet.
The note was written in English, good English. It was fifteen lines long, the sentences properly punctuated, capital letters where they should be. But Pauling wasn’t focusing on the note’s syntax or style. It was what it said that had his full attention.
“So, Pauling, you are satisfied?”
“Who wrote this?” Pauling asked, moving back closer to Glinskaya.
“The one who knows.”
“Who?”
“No, no, Pauling, that is not important. I asked him to meet with us. He refused. But I convinced him to write down about the missiles, who he sold them to. Believe me, Pauling, this is the man who sold the missiles that shot down your planes. Now, you give me the money and I will give to him his share for the information.”
If Pauling had even a fleeting notion of not paying, he knew it wouldn’t work. He now knew the truth—if what was in the note was truthful. Time to pay up. He unzipped his jacket’s inside pocket, withdrew the envelope containing the two hundred thousand dollars, and handed it to Glinskaya, who pocketed it without bothering to count what was in it.
“We made a good deal, huh?” Glinskaya said pleasantly, slapping Pauling on the arm. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“No, thanks,” Pauling said, remembering the number he was to call once the transaction was completed.
“Pauling, again, I get agitated when you say no to my hospitality. Come on, one drink. To celebrate.”
“All right,” Pauling said.
“There is a good bar close by. I, ah, am a partner in it. You will like it. Real liquor and real women available for a price. Maybe you will take a liking to one.”
Pauling didn’t respond, simply fell in step with Glinskaya as his two goons followed close behind. They left the park through the main entrance and walked a block along Krymsky Val until reaching a narrow alley leading to another street. Glinskaya entered the alley but Pauling stopped. Glinskaya turned and said, “Hey, Pauling, come on. The bar is on the next street. We take this, what do you call it, this shortcut?”
Pauling still hesitated, but the two men in suits nudged him into the alley. He slipped his hands into his jacket pockets and fingered the Glock 17 in the right, the prussic acid vials and nitro ampules in the left.
The alley was not as deserted as Pauling initially thought. There were a few small shops, an occasional open door to a ground-floor apartment revealing the life of its occupants, and three vagrants with their backs against a wall, two asleep, the third muttering in Russian and extending a tattered paper cup. Pauling was surprised when Glinskaya dropped coins into it.
They reached the street at the end of the alley, a commercial thoroughfare lined with bars and restaurants with gaudy neon lights heralding their names. Pauling had been on that street before during his seven-year stint in Moscow. Many of the bars were owned by organized crime, and he’d met with contacts in some of them.
“Over there,” Glinskaya said, motioning with his hand for them to follow. His bar was a hundred feet down the strip, on the same side of the street where the alley emptied out. They reached it and Glinskaya pointed up at the flashing sign in Russian, which Pauling translated: THE GOLD COIN. While Glinskaya proudly indicated the sign, and Pauling and the two henchmen briefly looked up at it, the first shots crackled, one after the other, automatic-weapons fire, four guns, four shooters in a black Mercedes that had pulled up to the curb simultaneous with their arrival.
Pauling instinctively threw himself to the ground, knocking over a flower seller, an elderly woman, on his way down. His right hand came out of his pocket holding the Glock 17 but he held fire as he tried to take stock of the situation. Passersby screamed and tried to get out of the way. Pauling saw Glinskaya lying in a heap on the sidewalk. One of his men was down, too. The other returned fire but a barrage of shots from the Mercedes sent him stumbling back, arms flailing as he went through the bar’s plate-glass window, sending a shower of glass inside and to the sidewalk.
Pauling’s immediate thought was that he’d happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, in the midst of a Russian mob hit. Did the men in the car know he wasn’t part of Glinskaya’s mob? Or was he the target? A street lamp stood between Pauling and the car, not enough to prevent anyone in the vehicle from shooting at him, but enough of a barrier to hinder a clear view. Pauling came to his knees, raised the Glock with both hands, and trained it on the Mercedes, which he expected would roar away, its job done. Instead, three of the four doors flew open and the men who’d gunned down Glinskaya and his henchmen came through them, AK-47s in their hands. Pauling didn’t hesitate. He and the Glock were no match for them, and he knew it. The older woman he’d knocked down was gone, and those who’d been in front of the Gold Coin when the attack began had either scattered or were on the sidewalk moaning and pressing hands to their wounds. Pauling looked back over his shoulder; an alley ten feet away separated Glinskaya’s bar from another. He rolled in that direction, six or seven turns, then sprang to his feet and took off down the alley. A flurry of shots ricocheted off the walls, whizzed past his head, skipped up from the concrete at his feet. He ducked, zigzagged, considered returning fire but decided distance was a better defense.