To Piotr it was worth the risk. In the worst-case scenario he would suffer a few minutes of gut-wrenching terror and then everything would go black. But the best-case scenario, which was exactly what had occurred, would allow him to pursue the redhead and destroy not just her career, but also her life. He would ruin her and make her suffer, much more than he had suffered.
Only then would he end her.
And then he would decide whether to disappear. He would gauge the sincerity of his superiors’ promise to allow him to resume his career, and would use his best judgment in determining his next move. He would either return to Lubyanka once the redhead was dead or he would vanish, never to be seen again by anyone inside the Soviet Union.
Either way, at least the cyka would be gone.
He spent the majority of his flight from Paris to Montreal lost in lurid fantasies about what he would do to the woman who had ruined him. He recognized them for the fantasies they were, but it brought him great joy to imagine her squirming and screaming under a sharp knife, or begging for mercy as he systematically fired 9mm slug after 9mm slug into her body in soft-tissue areas that would cause extreme pain but not end her life for a very long time.
Perhaps he would make some of those fantasies come true before he killed her, and perhaps he would not; it would largely depend upon the circumstances of their final meeting. But as he had already spent many days inside the United States, preparing exhaustively for his upcoming mission, he felt he could afford to waste his down time in such a frivolous manner.
He felt as prepared as he could be for what was to come.
The plane touched down in Montreal in the middle of the night, which was just fine with Piotr. The late hour meant fewer people milling about the airport, which meant fewer potential delays as he escaped Canada for his ultimate goal: the United States. More specifically, Washington, D.C.
His diplomatic cover worked as well as ever, and less than an hour after he landed, Piotr had rented a car and begun driving east out of Dorval. A southern route would have been faster and more direct to the United States, and given the time constraints he was currently operating under, he gave serious thought to taking it. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to ensure the redheaded CIA operative was out of his way for this portion of his mission, and it was important he make full use of every minute.
But ultimately he chose the more circuitous route, for the simple reason he’d used it before—many times, in fact—and he knew he would be successful entering the United States. The southern routing was more questionable, and this mission was far too important to Piotr to leave anything to chance.
Now that the airline portion of his trip was over, his diplomatic paperwork had gone straight into his bag, to be retrieved only in case of emergency. United States officialdom was a little dodgier about recognizing his forged documents, and while he knew his paperwork would eventually get him across the border, he’d cooled his heels for several hours at the crossing in the past, and he had no intention of doing so on this trip.
Today’s border crossing would be of the unofficial variety.
After leaving the suburbs of Montreal behind, Piotr sat back and cruised through the Canadian countryside, moving as fast as he thought he could get away with without arousing the suspicions of law enforcement. In Eastman he turned south onto Route Missisquoi, aiming the Ford Granada now squarely at the U.S. border.
Straight through Mansonville and soon it was time to leave his rental behind. He eased off the road and onto a dirt trail that had been specifically engineered by some long-ago Soviet operative for this exact purpose. He stepped out of the car and shrugged an equipment bag over his shoulder, then locked the doors and zipped the key into a plastic bag, which he then weighted with a rock and placed in the crook of a dead tree just past the Granada’s right front tire.
Then he started hiking. The advantage to using this crossing point was the thickly forested countryside, which ran uninterrupted for miles on both sides of the border. The disadvantage was also the thickly forested countryside, which posed a challenge for anyone in less than peak physical condition and also offered ample opportunity to become lost and disoriented should the operative allow his attention to wander.
Piotr would not allow his attention to wander. Neither was conditioning an issue.
He made minimal use of his flashlight, preferring to navigate by moonlight and lessen his risk of being seen. The tradeoff was slower movement and the loss of valuable time, but he simply could not afford to be apprehended crossing the border. His diplomatic paperwork would become much less reliable if he were caught sneaking into the country through the woods just outside one of the most remote crossing locations along the entire U.S.-Canadian border.
Even given his focus on the job at hand, the hike left Piotr’s restless mind with plenty of time to wander. And when it wandered, it inevitably ended up in the same place: his treatment by the redheaded American agent and how that treatment had altered his life.
He felt his face flush with shame and humiliation, even now, months later and alone in the Canadian forest, as he recalled his time spent inside the CIA’s Moscow safe house. The young woman’s size and gender made the torture he’d had to endure so much more difficult to swallow. The fact that such a tiny American—and a woman at that!—had broken him made his blood boil every single time he relived the nightmare.
Piotr’s worst day—even worse than the actual torture—had come when he was forced to describe his captor to his superiors at Lubyanka. While they never admonished him for allowing the petite woman to best him, such a rebuke hadn’t really been necessary. He knew exactly what his handler and the other officials were thinking, because he’d been thinking the same thing. Every single day.
The pain and anger and humiliation fueled him. It had gotten him this far in his plan for vengeance, and it would carry him through to the end.
12
May 16, 1988
9:25 p.m.
Highwater, Quebec, Canada
Piotr became aware of the bright glow of klieg lighting much sooner than he thought he should, and he smiled grimly to himself. One thing about dwelling incessantly upon his personal failings, it made the time pass quickly. Forty minutes had gone by since he ditched the rental car, and it barely felt like ten.
The Canadian border-crossing station’s exterior lighting served as an effective beacon, and even though he remained far removed from the sight of anyone at the station who might be scanning the forest, he knew he was exactly where he needed to be. He’d made this crossing many times at night and had always been grateful for the unintentional assistance offered up by both the Canadians and the Americans: it simplified the crossing and made getting lost in the massive forest a near impossibility.
He gave the border crossing station a wide berth and then continued south. Thirty minutes of vigorous hiking brought the glow from the American station into view in the distance. As had been the case on the Canadian side, Piotr was too far away and the forest too heavily wooded for him to see any of the buildings or vehicles, but he’d seen all of it before. In typical fashion the Americans had decided to make their facility much larger and more imposing than the Canadians—and much larger than necessary, probably—so the middle-of-the-night lighting would have been impossible to miss even had he been another two hundred yards deeper into the woods.
He left the American station behind and after thirty minutes, risked moving laterally through the woods to the road. The night’s inky blackness would allow him to see the headlights of any oncoming vehicles in plenty of time to melt into the forest before the drivers could see him, and he would make much better time walking/jogging along the pavement of the lonely country road than he would struggling around trees and over fallen branches in the woods.
Fifteen minutes later, Piotr spotted the marker he was looking for: a large boulder jutting out from the edge of the forest, so close to the road it represented a real danger to any driver not paying close enou
gh attention to his surroundings. He passed the boulder and then angled back into the woods and moments later came upon a tiny clearing located far enough from the road that it was likely to go undetected for years in this remote area.
He had hacked the clearing out of the dense forest himself during his previous trip into the states to prepare for this mission, and knew exactly what he would find when he started digging.
Piotr shrugged off his pack and dropped it on the ground in the middle of the empty clearing. He was confident no passing cars would be able to see the glow from his flashlight, but used the lantern only long enough to locate the spot on the edge of the clearing in which he’d buried his secret stash. Then he flicked it off and started digging, using a small foldable shovel he’d hidden away from the clearing and covered with leaves and twigs at the same time he buried his other supplies.
It took some time, and some digging, to find the metal box. Piotr had buried it deeper than he probably needed to, but he’d known at the time that when he needed it, he would really need it. He worked as quietly as possible while also maintaining a rapid pace, and by the time he heard/felt the spade clank against the top of the metal box his arms were burning from the exertion and sweat had begun running in tiny rivulets down his face and neck. It soaked his shirt and made him shiver in the coolness of the night.
He lifted the box out of the hole and fumbled in his pants pocket for the key that would open the heavy padlock sealing it. He inserted the key and flicked on his flashlight and lifted the lid, then smiled in appreciation. Everything was here, exactly as he’d left it:
A pair of Makarov 9mm semi-automatic pistols and several full magazines.
A gun cleaning kit.
A pair of razor-sharp combat knives.
Several thousand dollars in untraceable U.S. currency.
The metal box was filled with everything he would need to carry out his planned vengeance on the redheaded CIA agent. A car he could steal easily enough, but he stood no chance of completing his mission without weaponry and cash. His only concern had been that someone might stumble upon his hidden cache of supplies and remove them—even in a place as desolate as this, it was always a possibility—but it hadn’t happened and now he would be unstoppable.
Piotr sat back on his haunches and breathed deeply of the forest air. He considered the risks inherent in lighting up a cigarette and decided to do it. He was far enough from the road that no one would ever see the tiny flare of light, and there was ample reason to celebrate. His plan had so far worked to perfection. The redheaded CIA bitch was well out of the way in Europe and should remain so long enough for him to complete his next step.
Soon she would be suffering every bit as much as she deserved.
He took a drag on the Belomorkanal cigarette and held in the smoke before releasing it in a slow, easy stream as he considered all it had taken for him to get this far. Piotr’s KGB superiors had no clue as to the identity of the petite redheaded spy who’d become such a thorn in their side, and that made sense. The CIA treated the identity of its operatives with the utmost secrecy, particularly the identities of those operatives working covertly in and around the Soviet Union, for obvious reasons.
But that did not mean operatives’ identities were never compromised. Any time more than one person was involved in keeping a secret it became possible to extract that secret.
Mistakes were made.
Documents were intercepted.
People acted stupidly and opened themselves up to blackmail.
And sometimes, learning a secret became a simple matter of locating the proper individual and taking advantage of the single trait most deeply ingrained in human DNA: greed.
For the right price, virtually anyone was corruptible. The problem was that the cost of taking advantage of that greed in most cases was far too high for the average person to pay.
But Piotr Speransky was not the average person. He had been operating as an elite Soviet covert operative for close to two decades, which meant that over the course of his career he’d had dozens of opportunities to earn cash on the side. Hundreds of opportunities. And all of that cash that was unknown to the KGB, unknown to Piotr’s few friends, unknown to his family or fellow operatives.
Unknown to anyone but Piotr.
He had performed lucrative freelance assassinations of high-profile targets, had transported drugs between Soviet satellite states, had made use of KGB files on its citizens to blackmail bureaucrats and politicians. Through his illicit activities, Piotr Speransky had earned sums of money that would make some rich Americans blush, and he had saved virtually all of it, socking it away in various locations around the world that were safe but readily accessible to him.
While he hated utilizing that cash for anything besides its intended purpose—his retirement—Piotr had known he would stand no chance of learning his tormentor’s identity without sacrificing a large chunk of it.
Given the importance of learning her identity, he accepted as the cost of doing business that the money must be spent. He had a plan for replacing it, if his superiors kept their word and allowed him to live.
But that was a concern for the future.
He had known exactly who to bribe. Vasily Labochev had been station chief at the KGB’s Leningrad facility for decades. Labochev was legendary among operatives for two things: his love of hookers and his rumored ability to procure any information on any subject.
For the right price, of course.
Supposedly, Labochev’s connections were so extensive he could wrangle a copy of the ignition key to Ronald Reagan’s presidential limousine, or the banking information—including account numbers—for any sitting or ex-United States senator.
Anything.
But the price had to be right. Ordinary Josefs or Sergeis could not hope to obtain the kind of financing required even to approach Vasily Labochev, much less to purchase his cooperation.
Piotr was no ordinary Josef or Sergei. He raided a half-dozen of his hiding places, emptying them out until he decided he’d collected enough to make a favorable impression even on someone as powerful as Vasily Labochev.
Then he emptied out two more, leaving just one untouched.
Over the course of an exhausting nine days of continent hopping, Piotr wiped out eighty percent of the fortune it had taken him nearly twenty years to build.
But he didn’t care. He still had his most lucrative hiding place. The one he left untouched still contained enough money with which to finance his disappearance, assuming the KGB didn’t eliminate him before he could do so. And if it was going to cost him three million United States dollars to extract revenge on the redheaded cyka who had humiliated him and caused him to lose his career and his reputation, well, in Piotr’s opinion that was money well spent.
He had collected all the money and approached Labochev.
And been summarily dismissed.
Until lining up the three gym bags on Labochev’s living room floor and unzipping them with a flourish, bags filled to the brim with stacks of unmarked U.S. dollars.
Suddenly Vasily Labochev’s demeanor changed, so much so that Piotr was thankful he’d approached Labochev armed to the teeth.
Ten days after that, Labochev provided Piotr with the information he required, in exchange for all those liquid assets. Piotr had no idea how Labochev had gotten the intel, and he didn’t care.
He supposed it was technically possible Labochev’s information was inaccurate, that the longtime KGB station chief had simply made something up to mollify Piotr and get his hands on that mountain of cash. But he didn’t think so. Piotr’s reputation was sufficiently well known to KGB insiders. Labochev would understand the consequences he would suffer for lying to Piotr, particularly given the amount of money involved in the transaction.
That being the case, Piotr felt as confident as he could reasonably be that he’d gotten what he paid for: the identity of his American inquisitor.
Her name was Tracie Tanner. She�
��d been a CIA operative until a little more than a year ago, when she’d lost her job, fired from the agency for insubordination. That was the official version.
Obviously, the official version was inaccurate. Obviously, her firing had been nothing more than a cover allowing the U.S. intelligence service to place her inside the most dangerous and risky locations across the Soviet Union.
The torture of Piotr Speransky and the ensuing assassination of Slava Marinov on the streets of Moscow would have been just such an assignment. Had it gone wrong, and Tanner been apprehended or killed, the United States government would have distanced itself from the operation, feigning innocence and claiming Tanner had gone rogue.
The trace of a smile flitted across Piotr Speransky’s face, all alone and crouched in a small wooded clearing in extreme northern United States. Then it was gone as Piotr’s now-familiar rage and humiliation resurfaced.
The CIA should never have made this Tracie Tanner the blackest of black ops agents, but she bore even more responsibility than the spy agency for the fate she would soon suffer. Had she only killed Piotr after torturing Marinov’s name and location out of him, she would have been home free right now.
He’d never expected her to allow him to live, even after she agreed to do so.
It simply made no sense from a strategic standpoint. Piotr would never have made such a nonsensical mistake. He’d been in similar situations, many times, as the one holding the power of life or death over another, and he had always made the proper decision. It was an easy one to make.
But no matter. Tracie Tanner was the agent’s name.
Tracie Tanner had made a grave error in judgment in allowing Piotr to live.
And soon Tracie Tanner would pay.
13
May 16, 1988
The Soviet Assassin Page 7