Misled

by Anderson Harp

  Now it seemed that Paul and his compatriots wanted another former Marine to disappear.

  Best move fast, he told himself as he strode into the night.

  Chapter 38

  “He’s on the second floor in room two-oh-three.” The officer had just come back from talking to the hotel’s desk clerk.

  “Is he still there?” Boris Mikhailov, lieutenant colonel of the Alfa Group, was taller than the others. He had a scar that ran from above his left eye, across the eye, and down his cheek. Somehow the IED on the road just outside of Kabul had spared his eyesight. But Mikhailov lived with pain that only let him sleep for two or three hours at a time. Before leaving Afghanistan, he had reaped his revenge on anything that moved.

  “The clerk says he hasn’t left, sir.”

  “You think?” Mikhailov laughed.

  A call from above had come, announcing that an operative for the CIA was working in Moscow. The caller had also told Mikhailov that word about the operative had come from a source in the United States. If the American were a true operative, then he wouldn’t be waiting for the FSB to knock down his door. If, however, he was some dumb American who had made his boss angry for some unknown reason, then the man would likely be found in bed with a Russian woman. A knock on the door from the FSB would be embarrassing to the man, but a waste of time for Mikhailov. They’d take the American in, keep him for a week or two, and then release him.

  “Let’s see. Circle the building.”

  Another car showed up; now the building had armed soldiers on every corner. They went inside the lobby and Mikhailov followed his men upstairs to room 203. They heard a shower on. A knock prompted no response. The clerk used his master key to open the door, revealing a reasonably neat room, a tightly-made bed, and the shower still running.

  “A military man.” Mikhailov recognized the hospital folds as something one learned in a Marine boot camp. He had been assigned to a Marine unit at a school in Oberammergau, Germany years ago, before the winds changed. Russia was not a member of NATO, but had enjoyed a “friends of NATO” status for a few years during the thaw in which the Americans, Europeans, and Russians had shared intel and training. Schools previously restricted opened to the Russians. A few training exercises were conducted with the joint forces. And then Putin came into power.

  “He received a call just before we got here.”

  “Of course.” Mikhailov knew that it would be untraceable. “What was said?”

  “We don’t know the word.”

  “I do.” It didn’t require translation for Mikhailov to understand it could only mean “get out!” He didn’t know Apache, but knew an alarm when he heard it.

  “Open the door to the bathroom.”

  The guard used his shoulder to push the door open. It was, as Mikhailov expected, empty. The room was filled with steam, but the towels hung perfectly straight.

  Another soldier came downstairs to report that a door on a floor above had been broken in and foot tracks through the snow had crossed over the tops of several buildings before descending into an alley.

  “What do you want us to do?” the soldier asked, proud to be relaying the information to the colonel. He had a young face, pimples still covering his cheeks, and pitch-black eyebrows, much like the boy soldiers Mikhailov remembered from Kabul.

  “Nothing for now.” The lieutenant colonel knew that the man was long gone. He would resurface, but in a city of over twelve million people, if he were good, it would take a while. If he were bad, it would be quick. “I’m going back to headquarters. I need to find out from our source why they think he’s here.”

  The Lada took its passenger to the old KGB headquarters on Lubyanka Square, deep in the heart of Moscow. A side entrance brought the vehicle down a ramp into a dark garage. It dropped off its passenger at a guarded door. It was the same door that doomed prisoners of the state had been ushered through by the thousands for decades.

  The operation center was well-lit. A sense of energy suffused the air, as if the assembled officers had finally found something real to do for the first time in weeks.

  “Okay, lads, stay alert.” The lieutenant colonel took his seat behind his desk and reached for the telephone to speak with the source of information. The voice on the other end mentioned a name they were both familiar with.

  “Ridges?” Mikhailov lit up a cigarette and took a long drag as he listened to his boss. He laughed. “If they want Ridges that bad, why not just give him back? Perhaps a trade for some oil rights?” His joke fell on deaf ears. It was well known that Putin didn’t know what to do with the man. Perhaps the best solution would be for him to die in a gunfight with a proven CIA operative.

  “I’ll double the guard at his cabin. I’m going to get something to eat at my bathhouse.” He looked at his watch. With the chase on, the American agent would almost surely seek a hole to hide in, like a spider caught in bright lights. “Nothing’s going to happen tonight.”

  Boris Mikhailov guessed wrong.

  Chapter 39

  The Snag Outpost

  The sick fox had become a danger. Karen’s traps had failed to capture him, the same animal she’d followed into the woods. The bait had failed. It was losing its appetite. Soon the creature would collapse somewhere in the forest and disappear in the snow. Then it would only be a matter of time before a pack of wolves found the carcass. They would feast on the easy game, but the virus would quickly spread to the pack.

  Karen had captured one female fox in the early stages of the disease. It hissed when she came close to the cage. She had filled it up with straw that she had carried in on the helicopter. The straw gave the animal some protection from the cold. It couldn’t come inside. The warmth of the potbelly stove would have been too much for a creature. It was built to last through a brutal winter, but not a warm hut. The fox was buried deep in the straw and Karen could hear her panting with each breath.

  “I need to give you a name,” she said to the small creature. It was a mistake. She was giving too much to an animal that had no chance of survival. Once the disease showed symptoms, the end was inevitable.

  “Hope, maybe?”

  Maybe this was the fox that would help them figure out how to stop the virus.

  Maybe not.

  Karen headed for the cabin, where she’d left the fox cage up high, above the stacked firewood; the wolves would not dare come that close. It was a false belief that wolves picked fights with man. They knew better.

  A board locked the door. It was dark inside, except for a soft glow from the potbelly stove. Karen put in a few pieces of kindling, which brightened the room considerably.

  Time to check in.

  Karen dialed the satellite phone and got her boss’s voice mail. She shrugged.

  Done.

  She turned to her computer. In one of the last trips she convinced the CDC to put both a satellite dish and small generator in Snag. Still, the satellite reception was intermittent at best. Her inbox was full with emails. She looked for one in particular. A note had come in some time ago from Will in Paris.

  “Paris?” she said aloud, scowling. She’d expected Georgia or even California, but not Paris.

  “Why Paris?” she asked herself. No one in the cabin provided an answer. She shrugged. “Hope he’s safe.”

  Then, as perfectly timed as it could be, the howls resumed in the darkness.

  “Right,” she said with a sigh. “As if any of us are safe.”

  Chapter 40

  The Department of Treasury FinCEN Center

  FBI agent Thomas Donahue sat outside the security door to the FinCEN facility, waiting for Virginia Peoples’s boss to come to the front desk. He seemed uncomfortable and looked at his watch several times. He looked up as the door was opened from the operations center.

  “Can I help you?” Virginia’s boss came through the door. “I’m
Darrel Byrd.”

  “I need a moment of your time.” The agent showed him his FBI field credentials. “I’m Tom Donahue.”

  “We are rushed, as you can imagine, with the loss of Virginia.” Byrd sounded frustrated. “It’s like someone just handed us a load of extra projects.”

  “I understand. It’ll only take a moment.” The visitor’s pass admitted Donahue into the center. They went up a flight of stairs above an open bay of computer terminals, with numerous FinCEN agents only pausing for a second to glance at the stranger.

  “I thought this was a matter for the Arlington police. A detective already interviewed me.”

  “Well, she was a federal officer and had a high-level clearance, so we were asked to make sure it was just a case of terrible luck. What was she working on?”

  “I am not sure if I can answer that. We…ah…need to sort out what we can share.”

  Agent Donahue hadn’t expected such evasiveness from Virginia’s superior. “I understand.” He proceeded to ask a few standard questions. “Anyone have a reason for wanting to hurt her?”

  “Oh, no. She was smart and sweet.”

  “And you saw her that afternoon?”

  “Of course. I can say she had just started a new project. It followed a sizable promotion.”

  “Oh, is that right?” said Donahue. “You know, I became an agent based on my accounting degree. Got my CPA in New Jersey.”

  “Yeah?” The boss fidgeted with his pen. “Perhaps we could get you transferred here?” Byrd joked.

  “I wouldn’t mind following money trails, to tell you the truth.” Donahue watched Byrd continue to fidget with the pen. “Well, that’s all I have. I’m sorry to intrude on your busy day. I’ll ask my superiors if we need to go into what she was working on and how we get permission to do it.”

  Before the interview, Donahue had assumed that the time spent on today’s FinCEN visit would be a waste. Now he wasn’t so sure. At the very least, he would seek access to the woman’s files, he decided.

  As he headed out of the building, he dialed a number.

  “Hey, I’m just leaving.”

  The tone of the person on the other end of the line was dismissive—an assumption that the FinCen visit was a waste of time—which is why the case had been assigned to a relatively junior agent like Donahue, after all.

  Now Tom wanted to see more.

  “Isn’t this a waste of time?”

  “No,” Donahue told the senior agent. “There’s something here.”

  Chapter 41

  Near Beaver Creek in the Yukon

  Kevin Moncrief pulled the pack over his shoulders, balancing himself on the two small snowshoes, and then slung the Marlin rifle over his shoulder. It had a big barrel that gave it much weight. The .45-70 caliber bullet was the size of a marble or the tip of a man’s finger, and a gun with a magazine full of those big slugs weighed heavily. It was not the rifle he would have selected to carry in the mountains of Afghanistan. But it would stop anything he ran into in these woods.

  His mind wandered as he pulled the hood up. There was still light for several hours. It was a good time to start out. The sun peered high over the mountain range to the west.

  What would I carry? he asked himself. The journey was long and the only person he could speak to had the rifle slung over his shoulder. The question was an age-old debate among combat soldiers. Many would overpack, taking a long-range bolt action rifle for the long shot and an HK416 for fast, short firepower. And then they’d need to lug ammunition for both, plus perhaps a pistol and water. One soon became a pack animal.

  It was no wonder the Taliban could move and shoot as they did. They carried a single weapon with only a few shots, a handful of bread from the tandoori oven, and nothing else. Body armor didn’t matter, as death meant a direct trip to a blissful afterlife.

  Moncrief followed the Alcan—or Alaska-to-Yukon Highway—south of Beaver Creek, where he parked the rented truck. From there he had to go overland. He followed the river to the east. It was more than seventeen miles across the rough snowbound country as the crow files, but with the bend of the river, the deep snow and the thick woods, it was more like thirty. The hike would be slow. He didn’t want to rent an airplane or helicopter, as it was important that no one would follow a trail caused by his use of some type of air transportation. Also, if he flew, there was the chance that she would tell him to just get back on the airplane and turn around. He recalled from Somalia that Karen Stewart could be best described as having a Katharine Hepburn type of personality.

  He was also nowhere near any help. The terrain lost its features quickly, raising a very real risk of getting lost. And this was not the kind of backcountry in which one wanted to get lost.

  “You know how cold it gets out there?” the gas-station attendant at Beaver Creek had asked as he studied Moncrief, who had the look of an Inuit, but whose clothes were clearly off the rack.

  “Yeah.”

  “Didn’t know that there was any reason to go to Snag even in the summer.”

  “Not much there?”

  “Snag?”

  A common response, he’d learned.

  Moncrief hoped to leave as early as the light would let him, ideally arriving at Snag before it became dark.

  “When does it get dark around here?”

  “You won’t be able to see your hand by three or four, this time of year.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, sir. And we got some wolves. I wouldn’t mess with them.”

  “Not planning on it.”

  Moncrief made it to the river and followed the bends for several miles. The hours passed as he treaded through the drifts of snow. The hike took much longer than expected and it was getting dark.

  Damn. A large brown object stood in his direct path. He grabbed his rifle, chambered a round, and held still while his eyes focused in the low light. A giant bull moose had sought shelter in the tree line, along the river and in the valley below the mountain range to the west. The bull snorted and his breath projected like steam from his nostrils. Moncrief didn’t move for some time, waiting until the beast decided to take the first step and finally headed north. He could feel his heartbeat in his chest. Moncrief had seen a lot in more than a dozen combat tours; however, the element of surprise never got old.

  I don’t need to be wandering around in the dark.

  It was cold in the woods, but not a brutal cold. Deep in under the trees, some warmth could be found. He used his snowshoes to clear off a small area below the protection of a large spruce tree by stomping on the snow until it packed down to a base. The EV2 tent took only a few minutes to set up, and he was soon in it and out of the cold. Between the sleeping bag and the shelter, he quickly warmed up. Moncrief laid the rifle next to his bag and used his backpack as the pillow. He pulled a Snickers out of his pack and ate it to increase the heat in his sleeping bag.

  I can’t be more than ten miles from the airfield.

  Moncrief used his flashlight to look at a satellite photo of the area. With the short days, he didn’t need to rush to move out. The sun’s rays would not penetrate the forest until well into the morning. Likewise, he didn’t want to arrive in darkness. A stranger suddenly appearing out of the dark in the Yukon could be shot before he could make an introduction.

  “I wonder what Will’s Russian bride looks like,” he asked as he lay in the dark in the small tent, remembering her striking face and blond hair. Photographs didn’t always tell the whole story, particularly with a Russian bride.

  Kevin looked at the glow of his watch and calculated the time difference. On the other side of the world, the Russian bride was the least of his friend’s worries.

  Chapter 42

  The Hidden Casa

  It was a bad sign. Todd Newton had received nothing to eat for several days. The lack of food meant that
they cared little about their captive’s survival. He was losing body fat at an alarming rate. His rib cage was starting to show through.

  “I have to think of something that will keep me alive.” He spoke the words through his beaten and sore mouth, trying desperately to find a reason for hope. The water was now gone. Todd looked up at the open beams and the slats of wood that made up the ceiling. The wood was old, as was the hacienda, and sturdy despite its age. He looked at the logs that made up the beams and counted them one by one. It was a mind game he used to channel his thoughts. He recounted them several times.

  Just like code. A rhythm. A purpose, he thought as he tried to keep his mind off of the starvation that was setting in.

  He needed something to buy time.

  “Hey! Hey!” He yelled out the words as best as he could.

  He received only silence in return. It seemed that his captors were gone or taking a nap.

  “You sons of bitches!” he yelled again. The words were barely intelligible through his damaged mouth.

  Finally, he heard footsteps cross the floor above. Soon, they were coming down a stairway; then the door opened. The man he most feared came into the room. His bulkiness gave him a hunched-over look in the small space. He didn’t say anything.

  “I know what Ridges was working on. I know how to do it.” He said the words despite the fact that now his mouth was as dry as if he had eaten a bale of cotton. The man looked at him with a puzzled look. It appeared that his English was not as strong as his partner’s. He turned to the door.

  Todd thought of all those spy movies in which, at this exact point, the agent would ambush and overpower the man. They didn’t account for the chains and exhaustion caused by his being starved for days, having little water, little sleep, and probably several broken ribs.

  The man yelled something in Spanish upstairs.

  Moments later, another set of footsteps could be heard crossing the floor. The partner came down the stairs and stood so close to Todd that the smell of onions and a cheap cologne filled his nose. Todd might have expected that it would make him crave food even more, but instead, it made him sick to his stomach.