The Shield of Darius (27 page)

“What do you think this meeting was all about?” Ben asked.

“This might explain,” Alexeyev said and laid the folded newspaper out on the table. It was a copy of the
Washington Post
, dated three days earlier. The headline above the fold blared “Mystery Jets Strike Tehran!” Below in smaller type it read, “Government claims hospital and school destroyed.”

Ben scooped up the paper and scanned down through the article. “This says nothing about the hotels,” he objected, dropping the paper back to the table.

“But our aerial photos do,” Alexeyev said. “Both of the hotels.

Ben hunched again over the table and dropped his head into his hands.

“Oh, God,” he said. “What have they done? What’s happened to Jim...?” he murmured to himself.       

“We’re very sorry about your friend” Ushakov said quietly. “But we think this is what was meant by ‘if this problem were to go away,’ and why this American agent might think you are dead.”

“Who did this?” Ben demanded. “The Israelis? Or us?”

“Hard to know,” said Ushakov. “But one didn’t act alone.”

“No.... The U.S. wouldn’t....”

“Maybe not the U.S., but maybe people in the U.S. who could make this happen without others knowing.”

“The man on the recording?”

“Again, we don’t have any way of knowing with certainty,” Ushakov said. “But we do know that after we notified your State Department at the highest levels and told them we had you, he was the person who contacted us about arranging a transfer. His name is Christopher Falen.”

Ben sat for a full minute considering what he had heard while the Russians waited in patient silence.

“And what do we do next,” Ben wondered aloud.

“If you want my advice,” Ushakov offered, “I would not notify anyone until I learned more about this Falen and what he is up to. You are an unfortunate problem for the people who wanted this to just go away.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Ben objected. “Wouldn’t it be better to let my wife know I’m here and alive, and she can make some noise about it?”

“Not if it is quite important to someone that you not be alive,” Ushakov said. “Then she might also be in very grave danger.” 

“But surely
you
could make this public. This American agent can hardly do anything to you.”

“Ah,” Ushakov muttered. “Now you have hit upon the crux of the problem for us. Suppose just for the sake of our discussion that we were also missing a number of people and have been trying to locate them. Should we make this problem public here before we send you home, it could raise questions in our contry and become our problem as well. We would prefer, in that hypothetical situation, to keep this just an American problem.”

“I guess you could just have me disappear as well, under those circumstances,” Ben said uneasily.

“We could,” Ushakov replied. “But that would mean sparing your government – and that of Israel – considerable embarrassment. We need to get you home where you can tell your story.”

TWENTY-NINE

Nervousness was foreign to Christopher Falen and had been for over thirty years. Fear and anxiety were reactive; symptoms of not being in control. He had first learned to master them in Vietnam with little mind games, exercises that were as much a part of his daily routine as eating. But the formula had always depended on just having to think about himself. He protected it by not caring, by staying remote from family – what little there was of it – and by limiting his love for women to a general and basic lust. He enjoyed sex and admired women’s bodies in a sculptural, anatomical and practical way that separated them from men, whom he kept at an even greater distance. He wasn’t sexist, he told himself. In his brief affairs he didn’t
use
women. They used each other. Quick, intense, passionate servicing with no commitments. But now he was having to deal with Kate Sager. What had started as a seductive challenge was becoming something of an obsession.

Kate seemed to want him only as a sounding board – someone to talk to about dealing with the loneliness and frustrations of a missing husband she desperately wanted to keep alive.  Falen wanted her because she had a body and a natural sensuousness that made him ache – there was no question about that. But he wanted her more because she seemed so able to resist him. He had never had trouble with a woman who should be this vulnerable, and as he felt other parts of the unique talents that made him Christopher Falen begin to slip, he saw her as a measure of his ability to have the women he wanted. At rare moments, he worried that he had affection for her – affection that was more than just physical and broke the rules of control. And not being in control of Kate Sager made him afraid, a fear that had gripped him beyond his ability to deny it when Fisher mentioned a Russian communiqué to the State Department describing Ben Sager’s escape and rescue. But there was a much deeper fear – one that added to his sense that he was losing that edge. Ben Sager was a loose end, and loose ends ate at him like a cancer until he could clean them up.

The feeling was still gnawing at Falen’s gut as he sat in the lounge of
Die Port Van Cleve
awaiting the arrival of his Russian contact. For the first time since leaving Da Nang, he repeated his mental catechism.

“You are in control. There are no problems. Just difficult opportunities. You know how to handle them as well as anyone can. Keep your head. You are in control.” He drew a deep breath and glanced impatiently at his watch.

“Mr. Eric Snyder. Please take a call at the registration desk. Mr. Snyder, you have a call at the main desk.”

Falen walked briskly through the bar and into the hotel lobby, looking casually about as he approached the desk. The only person in the wide, burgundy-carpeted foyer was the clerk.

“Mr. Snyder?”

Falen nodded.

She handed him the phone and returned to a computer screen at the far end of the counter.

“Hello?”

“This is Ushakov. I am in room 317.”

“I’ll meet you in five minutes.” Falen returned the phone to the desk and ambled over to a wide sofa that stretched along a high mirrored wall in the lobby. He sat for four minutes, casually leafing through a discarded issue of
Bundt
magazine until certain he was not being watched, then passed the elevator and entered the bare, concrete stairwell. As he climbed to the third floor, he drew the Russian’s photograph from his jacket pocket and reviewed the long, lean face, narrow nose and rimless glasses of his contact.

The door to 317 was slightly ajar and he pushed it open, finding the Russian seated beside a low round table in one corner of the room. As Falen entered, the man stood and raised a recently opened bottle of Vodka.

“A drink, my friend?”

“Maybe later,” Falen smiled, and sat opposite the agent from Moscow, the nervousness gone. This was the part of the job Falen enjoyed most.

“I’m surprised we’re meeting inside,” he said.

“We are quite safe,” the Russian said. “I registered without a reservation and asked for this room specifically. Fortunately, it was available.” He pointed to the wall opposite. “Mechanical room on that side, which makes it one of the last they fill. My own people on this side.” He jerked a thumb behind him. “We have scanned the room carefully and we are quite safe.”

“I understand one of our citizens has fallen into your hands under rather unusual circumstances,” Falen said, accepting the Russian’s assurance.

Ushakov smiled. “You Americans. Always right to business. You should take a lesson from your Chinese competitors and learn the art of hospitable conversation before beginning with business.” His voice was soft almost to the point of being hard to hear, and as the bio Falen had received from Fisher indicated, the man had no accent. He had grown up in the U.S. 

“I admire the custom,” Falen said. “But it’s one I haven’t ever been comfortable with. I prefer to get business out of the way first, then indulge in more relaxing pursuits. You should know that about Americans from your time in Chicago.”

“Not a habit I picked up from you,” the Russian grinned. “You will not grow old that way. But as you wish. What do you know about our guest?”

“He was picked up on a boat in the Caspian. His name is Benjamin Sager. He claims to have been held hostage in an Iranian prison in Tehran.”

“You doubt him?”

“Not entirely. We’ve known he was gone, and considered the possibility of an abduction. We’ve also suspected some hostage warehousing might be going on.”

“In Tehran?”

“We’ve been working on location. Tehran seemed probable. Was he able to give you much detail?”

“He is admirably cautious. But it seems he knows the city well. From what little he said, it appears he may have escaped from a building in the south part of the city that was recently destroyed by the mysterious air attack.”

Falen raised a skeptical brow. “The Iranians claimed that was a hospital. Did he mention that location specifically?”

Ushakov smiled. “Just identified the general area. But I believe you know it was not a hospital. Your own intelligence will have shown you that it was two mid-sized hotels.”

Falen nodded. “Could very well be. I’m not privy to that sort of information and have no need to know. Why have you chosen to give Sager up?”

“Give him up? We have no reason to want to keep him. Call it a gesture of good will. His story seems legitimate and we trust that you would do the same in similar circumstances. Plus, Iran is troublesome for all of us at present. We’re missing a few tourists and minor officials ourselves and suspect Mr. Sager will be much more likely to help you solve this puzzle than us. I trust whatever you learn will be shared – and kept very quiet.”

“I’ve had assurances from my government that what we learn will be passed along. And we are as anxious that this remain quiet as you are. Where are you planning to transfer him?”

Ushakov laughed again. “Such impatience! We have considered three possibilities. From Siberia across the Bering Sea to Alaska. Across the Black Sea into Turkey. Or west into Finland and on into Sweden through Turku. Perhaps you have a preference.”

Falen had anticipated the choices. The Russians hated to use former Soviet Block countries for this kind of thing, and moving Sager south through a Muslim republic in central Asia would be risky. Iranian intelligence probably was not good enough to follow the transfer, but just in case, why chance that they could interfere? For that reason, he also guessed Ushakov was not seriously considering Turkey. In addition to growing Islamic radicalism, Turkey’s eastern frontier was the haunt of roaming bandits and tribal chieftains loyal only to themselves. The Russians wanted a place where the transfer could be made directly between Russian territory and a country that was neutral or friendly to the West. The Soviets wanted Finland or Alaska.

“Our choice would be Finland,” he said. “We can’t insure the degree of security we want in Alaska. Some journalist protecting whales might see us and get curious.”

“Our thoughts as well,” Ushakov agreed. “There is, as you know, only one road through the border north of St. Petersburg to Vyborg and the Finnish city of Kotka. We can arrange a quiet exchange there.”

“I have another suggestion,” Falen offered. “A rail line also leaves Vyborg and crosses over to Lhati. It joins a line coming up from Kotka at Kouvola. I recommend you bring him across on the weekly passenger train and we will have someone pick him up at Kouvola.”

Ushakov arched a carefully trimmed brow. “You’ve given this considerable thought. The rail crossing can be arranged. That train runs from St. Petersburg on Friday evenings. It would reach the station at Kouvola about one in the morning.”

“You have the schedule memorized,” Falen smiled.

“We have also given this considerable thought.” 

“Twelve-fifty Saturday,” Falen agreed.

“That will be four days from now. Do you Americans want to wait that long?”

“I assume you are taking good care of him.”

“Just as you would one of ours,” Ushakov smiled.

“We’ll have someone at the station waiting for him.”

“And you wish this to be a very private exchange?”

Falen nodded.

“Will you provide him with documentation when he arrives?”

“We will.”

“Very good,” Ushakov said, leaning back in his chair and fingering a glass that sat beside the bottle on the table. “Tell me...,” he continued thoughtfully... “does ‘The Shield of Darius’ mean anything to you?”

Falen studied him without expression. “Not that I can think of.  What is it?”

“You mentioned that there was some concern that Iran was warehousing hostages – presumably to use as human shields if they were threatened by an attack. We’ve heard of such a possibility, and that it is code named ‘Shield of Darius.’”

“Interesting...,” Falen said. “How did you become aware of this operation?”

“As I said, we’ve been losing some people ourselves and suspected some kind of hostage situation. This name kept coming up as we listened to Iranian intelligence transmissions.”

“Hmmm...” Falen murmured. “As I said, I’m afraid that kind of information is above my pay grade. But I’ll mention it when I get back to Washington. Thank you.”

“If there were such a situation...and if a country decided to ‘lower the shield,’ so to speak, by eliminating the hostages, that might explain the raid on the hotels in Tehran,” Ushakov suggested. 

“A very interesting and compelling theory,” Falen smiled. “I will also mention that when I return.”

“And if such a raid occurred in an effort to eliminate the problem, and it were then discovered that one of the hostages had escaped – was still alive and could expose the fact that a supposedly civilized nation had killed its own citizens to cover up an embarrassing and potentially compromising situation – that would be most awkward.”

Falen nodded thoughtfully. “And you think this Sager might be such a person,” he suggested.

Ushakov shrugged, and said nothing.

“Then this might be a very interesting homecoming,” Falen said. “I will watch for his return with even greater interest.”

Ushakov lifted the glass. “May I assume then that we have reached the point of hospitable conversation?” The Russian pushed a second glass toward Falen and raised the bottle.

“I believe we have,” Falen said.