The Soviet Assassin

by Allan Leverone

  “The structure is located inside Druzhba Industrial Park on the outskirts of Leningrad. It is a small concrete block storage building roughly two hundred meters inside the park on the left-hand side. Commit that location to memory, please.”

  “I’ll remember, don’t worry,” Thornton said.

  “I need you to remember everything we have spoken about today. Do you understand all I am asking you to pass along to your CIA contacts?” the Russian-accented voice said.

  “I understand,” came Thornton’s cool reply. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “Do not answer so flippantly, Comrade Thornton. It is critical this intelligence be relayed promptly, and it is equally critical your operatives do not delay traveling to Leningrad. Speransky will move quickly once Tanner is dead. He will return here, he will clean out his safe house, and he will be gone, and once he has dosappeared you will never find him.”

  “I still don’t understand why your people don’t just eliminate Speransky if it’s that important to you.” A tone of doubt and suspicion ran through Thornton’s words, as if he could not believe the Soviets were truly interested in giving up their own man.

  When the Russian answered, his voice was sharp. Insistent. “You do not need to understand, Comrade Thornton. There are forces at work that you cannot understand. All you need to do is relay the information I have given you, exactly as it has been provided. If you do not, you will find yourself a media star in your home country, and not in a good way. Are we clear on this?”

  “I hate you.”

  “I know. Good day, Comrade Thornton.”

  28

  Stallings pressed the button to stop the tape machine and then picked it up and slipped it back into his desk drawer. He removed a set of keys from his pocket and locked the drawer.

  Tracie watched him work and when he’d finished, she said, “I’ve been in the field for almost ten years. I’ve listened to wiretapped phone calls dozens of times, both of the legal and illegal variety, and that is without question the strangest conversation I’ve ever heard. I’m glad you ferreted out the mole, although I’m sorry it turned out to be someone you trusted so implicitly. But are you buying any of what the Russians are selling here?”

  “Yes,” Stallings said simply.

  “It smells like a trap to me. Why in the hell would the KGB assign Speransky to travel all the way to the United States to kill my father and me, and then offer him up to us for assassination? That’s not how they do business. If they want Speransky dead, they’ll haul him behind a KGB station house and put two slugs in the back of his head and dump him in a shallow grave. Then they’ll wipe their hands clean and move on. They’ve done exactly that dozens of times, probably hundreds.”

  “You’re absolutely right.”

  “Then why the hell do you believe any of it? What the hell is the KGB really up to?”

  “The KGB’s not up to anything.”

  “I don’t follow. It’s obvious from the telephone conversation that the Russian is a high-ranking KGB member. He would have to be to co-opt someone like Roger Thornton.”

  “I know who the Russian is, and you’re right. He’s the KGB’s Leningrad station chief, a man named Vasily Labochev, who has been in his position at the KGB nearly as long as I’ve been in mine here. But the murder of your father is not a KGB operation, Tanner, and never has been. Sure, I believe the KGB would put a bounty on your head after you took out Slava Marinov, but to assassinate a man as high profile as your father, and in such a messy, public manner? The Soviets stand to gain nothing from that. Killing him was a freelance operation on Speransky’s part. Trust me on this.”

  “But that just brings me back to my original question. Why would the Leningrad station chief employ a CIA mole to get us to do what the KGB could do themselves, with much less fuss?”

  “Think about it, Tanner. You’ve spent enough time in Russia and other Soviet states to know how their system operates. What is the time-honored communist business tradition?”

  “To profit on the side from official business relationsh…” Tracie’s voice trailed away as she connected the dots.

  She raised her eyes to meet Stallings’. “Piotr Speransky is not the only one freelancing on this operation, is he? The KGB station chief is doing exactly the same thing. That explains all the talk about money, and how Speransky had to spend so much of his own to get the intel Labochev provided.”

  Despite the seriousness of the conversation, the corners of Aaron Stallings’ mouth curled up in a wry smile. “This is why I put up with all your bullshit, Tanner. Your ability to intuit things is among the finest I’ve ever seen, and I’ve watched a lot of operatives come though Langley.”

  Normally Tracie would have been taken aback by Stallings’ words. He was not a man accustomed to offering compliments, especially to her. Acerbic criticism was more his style.

  Today, though, she was so focused on the Speransky situation she barely noticed his praise. “So Labochev offers to sell Speransky the intel he needs, which is the identity of the CIA operative who tortured and humiliated him in Moscow.”

  “You.”

  “Yes, me. Labochev squeezes his mole. He gets the information Speransky needs and passes it along to the assassin. Speransky comes to the United States and kills my father and is lying in wait to finish the job by executing me.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But the operation hasn’t been completed yet. I’m still breathing. Why is Labochev suddenly reversing course and offering up Speransky to the CIA?”

  “I asked myself the same thing, and there’s only one answer that makes any sense.”

  “Labochev squeezed Speransky for so much cash that he’s afraid Speransky is going to come back and kill him to retrieve all his money once I’m dead.”

  “Bingo. And Labochev is using the CIA to get to Speransky because—”

  “Because the KGB wants Speransky alive,” Tracie interrupted. “Labochev is the only one who wants him dead, so he has no other choice than to use the CIA to do his dirty work.”

  “Exactly. Typically, a KGB operative who’d made the kind of error Speransky made in allowing you to capture and interrogate him would be summarily executed. But because Speransky is so good at what he does, the KGB was willing to overlook his indiscretion in order to continue utilizing him to assassinate their enemies.”

  Tracie sat back in her seat, staring at the rear wall of the office over Stallings’ shoulder, seeing but not seeing any of the framed photographs of the CIA director with various presidents, senators and congressmen as she considered the implications of what she’d learned.

  “So if this isn’t a trap, if the intel about Speransky’s safe house in Leningrad is accurate, I actually have a chance at avenging my father’s death,” she said wonderingly. She refocused her attention on her boss, drilling her eyes into Stallings’. “Assuming you meant what you said about allowing me to complete the mission, of course.”

  “I meant it,” he said. “I wouldn’t have called you here if I didn’t.”

  “I swore I would devote the rest of my life to taking out Speransky if that was what it took,” she said. “But, honestly, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to dig him up once he slithered under a rock somewhere. And now it looks like he’s fallen right into my lap.”

  Stallings nodded.

  “It will make my final CIA mission my most rewarding.”

  “Your final mission? Why would it be your final mission? I refuse to accept the resignation you offered the last time you were here, by the way. I fully expect to refuse it in the future.”

  Tracie shrugged. “I have to choice but to resign. My cover is blown. The Soviets know my identity. I’ll never be able to work covertly again.”

  Stallings smiled. “I know you’ve had a lot to absorb, between your father’s murder, the funeral service and now this tape recording.” He nodded toward his closed desk drawer. “But there’s one more dot you haven’t connected yet.”

&nb
sp; She shook her head. “What am I missing?”

  “The Soviets don’t know your identity. Only Labochev does, and we can be certain he hasn’t shared that with anyone else inside the KGB, because if he does that, he has to explain why he robbed Speransky blind to give him the intel he needed to complete an official mission. There is no way Labochev has told anyone in any official capacity about you. None.”

  “Unless KGB leadership knows Labochev is getting rich selling intelligence.”

  “No way.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because if that were the case, they would want in. In fact, I’ll take it a step farther and say they would demand to be cut in. Labochev must keep his operation a secret from everyone in the KGB or he’ll find himself on the outs. He’ll end up with nothing. His bosses will extort everything from him that he extorted from Speransky, and presumably from others before him.”

  Tracie nodded slowly. “Wow,” she said. It was all she could manage.

  “Yes,” Stallings agreed. “Wow.”

  “And this Vasily Labochev lives in the same city where I’ll be renewing acquaintances with Piotr Speransky.”

  “Yes he does.”

  “And if he dies, so does the information about my identity.”

  “Yes it does.”

  “And if Labochev dies, my mother will be able to live the rest of her life without looking over her shoulder.”

  “Yes she will.”

  “And I’ll be able to continue my career without worrying my cover’s been blown, assuming I survive when I go up against Speransky.”

  “Yes you will.”

  Discussing the murder of her father when he’d only been dead a few days was like rubbing heavy-grade sandpaper over a fresh wound, but Tracie was discovering that if she concentrated on the details of the mission she was about to undertake, and not on how badly it hurt to suddenly have such a massive hole in her life, she could think clearly and—she hoped—plan properly. She would have to be able to do both to stand any chance of taking down Piotr Speransky, even with the advantage of surprise on her side.

  This wouldn’t be like any other assignment; it was far too personal for that to be the case. But the mere act of listening to the wiretapped tape recording and discussing the ramifications of the intel it contained with her handler had an almost soothing effect.

  Here was a mission to be undertaken. It was concrete and specific, similar in many ways to dozens of other assignments she had completed over the years.

  This was familiar ground.

  This was the work to which she had devoted her entire adult life.

  This was doable. And if she failed, she would die knowing she had at least done all she could to avenge her father’s murder.

  She chuckled softly. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “The Druzhba Industrial Park is where I’ll finally come face-to-face with Speransky again.”

  “So?”

  “’Druzhba.’ It’s Russian for ‘friendship.’”

  29

  May 22, 1988

  12:30 p.m.

  Gaithersburg, Maryland

  Piotr Speransky was tired of sitting around doing nothing.

  He was a man of action, a predator, a lion among sheep. To hang around a shabby little safe house day after day, deep inside the country he despised, when the target of his hatred was practically within arms reach more than tried his patience; it stretched his patience to the limit.

  But the cyka named Tracie Tanner had not suffered enough through the death of her father.

  Not yet.

  Not even close.

  In a perfect world, he would allow her to dangle on the end of the string of misery he had constructed, guilt-ridden and suffering, not just day after day but week after week. And then, far down the line, when she finally began to feel like herself, when the memory of her father’s torture and murder began to fade, only then would Piotr take her.

  And torture her.

  And eventually, when he’d tired of making her suffer in fresh and original ways, kill her.

  But this was not a perfect world, far from it. In a perfect world, he would never have fallen victim to the petite woman less than half his body weight. He never would have been interrogated by her, and made to suffer humiliation at her tiny hands.

  He certainly would never have cracked under that interrogation.

  But he had, thus proving beyond a shadow of a doubt the imperfection of this world. And while the fantasy of causing Tracie Tanner months of suffering before torturing and murdering her was enough to sustain him during the long days spent huddled inside the empty wreck of a home he was using as a safe house, his craving for vengeance demanded he move.

  The end result would be the same, even if the timeline of Tanner’s suffering were shortened. Piotr would ensure the young woman’s physical pain more than compensated for the emotional trauma she would avoid by being taken so quickly after learning the fate of her father.

  He might even use her sexually before killing her. Rape wasn’t typically a part of his torture routine—and he had quite firmly established a routine after torturing so many dozens of victims throughout his long career—but in Tanner’s case he thought he might make an exception. Most of his past victims had been men, and none of the few women he’d worked over had even been close to a match for Tanner where beauty was concerned.

  But that remained to be seen. It was entirely possible the fantasy of using her in that way would be far superior to the reality, and Piotr wanted nothing to spoil that delicious fantasy.

  He would play it by ear. Either way, he would ensure she suffered plenty before finishing her. By the time she took her last miserable breath, she would have been begging to die for hours.

  For days.

  He packed his few belongings and prepared to exit the empty shell that had at one time—years ago, by the looks of the structure—been a small, secluded single-family house. A retirement home for an elderly couple, maybe, or some rich landlord’s rental property.

  Whatever. The place had served Piotr’s needs and that was all he cared about. It was located deep in the woods outside Gaithersburg, Maryland, far from the similar empty wreck inside which he’d tortured General Tanner before killing him. One thing he’d learned from his operations inside the United States was that there were plenty of places available to use as hideouts, even for days or weeks, thanks to the disposable culture so prevalent in the decadent West.

  Even houses often fell victim to that culture.

  Piotr shrugged his pack over his shoulder and took one last look at the implements of torture he had stored inside the home during his previous visit to the country. Then he nodded, satisfied they would be sufficient to cause all the suffering he wished on the woman he hated more than anyone else in the world.

  This was where she would scream and beg and plead for her life.

  This was where her blood would be shed.

  This was where she would perish, but only after he had wrung every last ounce of misery from her small body.

  He enjoyed his fantasy a few seconds longer and then crossed the room and pushed through the creaky front door. It hung drunkenly off the frame, so locking it behind him was a pipe dream, but that wouldn’t matter. Nobody had been inside this structure in decades, and if someone happened to be here when he returned with his prospective victim, say a homeless man in search of shelter or teenagers looking for a place to drink and party, Piotr would simply kill them before getting down to work.

  It wouldn’t even slow him down.

  He tossed his pack into his stolen car and started the engine. Then he turned around in the weed-strewn front yard and headed down the long gravel driveway.

  ***

  Piotr wasn’t concerned with Tanner’s whereabouts. She would either be home when he broke into her apartment or she would not. Life would be easier if she were there upon his arrival, obviously, but if that were not the case h
e would be happy to await her return.

  He would certainly be more comfortable killing time inside her apartment than he’d been over the past few days. He’d familiarized himself with the location of her home, although he had never been inside it. But no matter how rudimentary its furnishings—and as a woman who spent most of her time working in foreign countries, Piotr doubted Tanner would have wasted much time or effort decorating her apartment—it would have to be in better condition than the abandoned house in which he’d spent the last few days.

  The abandoned house inside which she would soon die.

  He pulled into the parking lot next to her apartment building and automatically scanned the cars in the lot for hers. It was the middle of a workday, so there weren’t many to examine. This was a working-class building and most people could not afford to spend their time during the week holed up inside their apartments watching soap operas.

  Tracie Tanner’s car was not here.

  Piotr was disappointed but not particularly surprised. At least if he had to spend the rest of the day awaiting his victim’s return, he could make good use of his time and maybe find something decent to eat inside her refrigerator. He’d had more than enough of his recent diet of American fast food.

  He backed the car into a slot next to the parking lot’s exit. It meant a slightly longer walk, meaning he would be exposed for a few extra seconds after kidnapping the cyka, but that minor negative was more than offset by the advantage of being able to hit the street and disappear once he forced Tanner inside the vehicle.

  He unzipped his pack and removed his lock picking tools, stored inside a smart-looking leather case. His Makarov was secured inside his shoulder holster and covered by a light windbreaker, and between the gun and the tools it would be all he would need to kidnap Tracie Tanner, CIA operative or no.

  After sliding out of the front seat, Piotr closed and locked the doors, double-checking to be certain he got them all. The car was old and dented, certainly not one any thief with a modicum of self-respect would be interested in stealing, but his pack was stored under the front seat and he absolutely could not risk that disappearing.