Good and Dead (An Avner Ehrlich Thriller Book 2)

by E. L. Pini

  In the VIP lounge Boris shook the ambassador’s hand and surreptitiously showed him his phone – the message he had on the screen said he was about to hug his wife and pass the material to her.

  “Gila, look who’s here!” the ambassador said, and Boris hurried to embrace her in a long, overzealous hug.

  “What… what do you think you’re…”

  “It’s fine, Gila, it’s fine,” the ambassador said quietly, and Gila gave him an odd look.

  “Gila,” Boris mumbled in her ear, “I’m going to kiss you and pass you a tiny memory card. Be careful not to swallow it. Cough it out into your hand and don’t give it to your husband until you’re back in the embassy. We good?”

  Gila nodded and Boris gave her a quick peck on the lips, pushing the memory card into her mouth. He then hugged the ambassador, whispering, “Your wife has the material. It has to get to Shaul immediately. He needs –”

  “I know,” said the ambassador. “He’s boarding an Air Force flight in an hour.”

  “What was all that with the ambassador’s wife?” asked Shaul on their way to the safe house, where Boris was to wash up, change and assume another identity.

  “Never mind that. Gigolo isn’t answering my calls, I’m going back in there to get him.”

  “You might very well be going into a trap.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I got that final motherly embrace.”

  “Are you coordinated with Ehrlich?”

  “Of course,” Boris lied. “The plan’s already laid out. You run along and pass on the material like we said, and in… four hours,” he looked at his watch, “you’ll already be handing it to Ehrlich.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, let’s move, we’re out of time.”

  ***

  No risk, no reward, Vlad reminded himself, and for the first time in his life called the direct line of Advisor Rasputin, to request an “urgent meeting that must remain discreet.”

  “Both urgent and discreet, you say?” Rasputin chuckled, this time surprisingly amiable. “You work for Khazanovich, up on the 12th floor?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Come to my office. I have a few minutes now.”

  “Immediately, sir.”

  He was through the door a minute and a half later.

  “Sit down,” said Rasputin once he set foot in the office. “Talk.”

  “We received a report from the center for approval, sir, and I –”

  “Look, Vladimir, I don’t need to know how it started. Tell me how it ended.”

  “Yes, sir, thank you. Sir, you have an assistant, Grisha Kaskov.”

  “I knew that already.”

  “Grisha has a friend, though it would be more accurate to say lover, by the name of –”

  “Yefim Vasilyevich, yes, I signed his security clearance. Let the kids have their fun.”

  Vlad, somewhat deflated, went on, “The same Yefim works as a technical draftsman for one Boris Grigorovich, an engineer and manager from an Italian energy company, whose name recently popped up in our database.”

  “Hundreds of people undergo security checks each month.”

  “But he was put there because of a sudden trip to Tel Aviv.”

  “Huh. That sounds a bit more interesting, maybe. What else do we have on him?”

  “He submitted a plan to the ministry for a photovoltaic farm in Novaya Zemlya, with mirrors can that reflect the light from the snow into the receptors.”

  “Novaya Zemlya? Was that our idea or his?”

  “His, sir, written in the original proposal.”

  “Interesting. What else?”

  “He flies to Baku about one a week, on irregular days. He has another solar farm project there, on the Iranian border. And there’s more, sir.” Vlad quickly summarized what he’d learned about the photovoltaic farms, about how they won the bidding war, and about the bombing of the farm in Yemen.

  Rasputin listen attentively, even writing down the occasional note, then rubbed his hands together and leveled his gaze at Vlad.

  “Get me a written summary. Usually your department is useless. This time, maybe – just maybe – you’re onto something interesting. Do you have the dates of his last three flights to Baku?”

  “Here you are, sir – I’ve prepared a list.”

  Rasputin’s eyes bore into Vlad for a moment before he took the list and crossed-checked the dates with his own work calendar. The first flight on the list was the morning after his flight with Hamdani to the submarine port at Novorossiysk. The second one was the morning before the Iranian attack launched from Khmeimim, and the third and final flight was right after another meeting with Hamdani, at which they concluded the business with the sub.

  “I confess; this is getting more promising by the second. Good work, boy – although, keep in mind that until we’ve proven otherwise, this is all circumstantial. Just a pile of unfortunate coincidences.”

  Rasputin pressed the button for the intercom. “Grisha, get that zhyd Khazanovich down here.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  “Grisha! Wait.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In fact, cancel Khazanovich for now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sir,” Vlad, emboldened by his success, attempted, “Kim Philby…”

  “What about him?”

  “In our introductory class, they quoted him saying that coincidences aren’t coincidental.”

  “Kim Philby was exceedingly helpful back in the day, but ultimately a fucking traitor. Never mind that. There’s some interesting data here. Listen to me, now, Vlad. Starting now you will drop any other project you may be working on in favor of this. Tell Khazanovich, tell your wife, tell anyone you need to tell that you’ll be staying here for at least the next 48 hours. Good and dead.”

  “The… Vale Tudo slogan?”

  “Yes, and also the password to my computer. Every module after that requires a password of its own, though. You will go over my work calendar, a year back.”

  Vlad nodded and took a quick note. “How do I access the calendar module, sir?”

  “We’ll get there. I want you to cross-reference it with every flight this Boris has taken. You will also talk to Semion from the Iran division. I’ll tell him you’ll be calling. I want anything he has in his systems on this photovoltaic project on the Iranian border. Now, do you know your way around bank accounts?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Okay, talk to Slava from the financial cyber team. She’ll know you’re coming. Come to think of it, she can also give you the dates from my work calendar, so you can stay out of my computer. I want to know everything there is to know about Boris’ bank account, as well as Yefim’s and Grisha’s.” He lowered his voice a bit on the last part. “Overseas accounts, too. When you’re done, call me. And don’t dawdle. If this turns out to be nothing but a coincidence, prepare to spend the better part of the next few years rotting in the archives. But if you do deliver the goods, Khazanovich’s job is yours. Now get out of my office. And not a word of this to anyone.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Vlad hastily collected his papers and left.

  “Khazanovich?” Rasputin barked into the intercom. “Get down here, now!”

  A minute later Khazanovich came through the door, panting.

  “Are you familiar with Colonel Kaskov?” asked Rasputin.

  Khazanovich nodded. “Spetsnaz. Of course. Colonel Kaskov, hero of the USSR. The two of you served beside Naryshkin and the president.”

  “Yes. He is also Grisha’s father,” said Rasputin and nodded toward the reception desk on the other side of the wall. “Kaskov had balls like this,” Rasputin sighed, spreading his arms, “And his son has balls just as big – but rotten, maybe.”

  Khazanovich narrowed his eyes questioningly a
nd Rasputin, lowering his voice, said, “From now on I want full surveillance placed on Grisha. His home, his office, everywhere he goes. He might be providing materials to the Americans. Same for that fucker you gave clearance to, Yefim Vasilyevich. Vlad will fill you in.”

  “Vlad? My Vladimir?”

  “The same.”

  “Okay, sir. Anything else?”

  “No. You can go.”

  Khazanovich left. Rasputin hurried to pour himself a glass of vodka and drummed his fingers on the desk.

  48.

  “They land in 20 minutes,” said Moshe, and asked whether the Samson could land in Sde Dov.

  “I think so,” I said.

  Moshe nodded and immediately asked Bella, “Talk to air control, get the Samson rerouted to Sde Dov. Have Siboni get there and pick up Shaul. I want security personnel in the car with him and another armored vehicle to accompany them. Sirens, the works – we’re past subtlety. You hear from Boris yet?” He turned to direct the question at me.

  “Negative,” I said.

  “Let’s hope Shaul has news. He’s the last of our people to have seen him.”

  “Sde Dov in twenty,” Bella notified.

  “Alright, I’m going with Siboni,” I said. Moshe nodded.

  We sped to the small airport, and I felt some relief upon seeing Shaul coming out of the plane. I waved at him and he nodded and hurried over, handing me the tiny memory card once he was in the car. “You can watch it on your phone,” he told me.

  “Thank you,” I said, and thought, the fewer people see this, the better, putting the card in my pocket.

  Siboni made a screeching U-turn and headed toward Highway 2. On the way Shaul told me how worried Boris was about possible Russian activity, and about the odd oral encounter with the ambassador’s wife. He concluded that in his opinion, I should never have allowed him to fly back to Russia in his current state.

  “What state is that?”

  “Panic. He’s certain that the KGB or the FSB or whatever they’re calling themselves these days have already gotten their hands on this Gigolo character – and if they did, then what? He goes in and singlehandedly rescues him from their clutches?”

  “I see. When are you flying back?”

  “I thought, since I’m already here, I could go spend the weekend with my folks,” said Shaul.

  “Next time,” I said, patting him on the shoulder, and a cloud of disappointment moved across his face.

  “As soon as you can. Locate any loose ends Boris might’ve left, though he almost never does,” I said, and thought to myself that I’m quite fond of Boris, that talented bastard who wantonly disobeys orders to do what’s right. At least, what he thinks is right. I couldn’t help but feel he reminded me of someone.

  “Okay, boss. I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “That might not be enough,” I said. “I get the feeling that Boris is doing everything in his power to stop us from finding him… this time we might need to do whatever we can’t, as well.”

  Shaul looked at me. “You never approved his return to Russia, did you?”

  “That doesn’t matter now. Has he contacted the Moscow branch?”

  “Negative.”

  “Has he mentioned Hamdani in any way?”

  Shaul considered this a moment before saying, “Not, not even once. Hamdani’s that guy from Tehran, right? No, he never came up. Only that Gigolo.”

  I mentally ran some scenarios, finding home in none of them. I felt as though an electron gun had been implanted in my skull, accelerating thought particles, blasting them against the walls of my brain. There was nothing; no way. Boris was back in Moscow, for a completely understandable and wholly idiotic attempt to rescue Gigolo, while doing everything he could to stop us from going after him. The exact opposite of the combat doctrine, not to mention my explicit orders: the second anything goes awry, you get the fuck out. Just drop everything and take one of several possible escape routes out of Russia. I was far more worried about him than I was about the Kusinka mat.

  “There isn’t a piece of information in existence worth risking the investment we’ve made in you,” I had told him, repeatedly, and he would say that I need only to present him with the appropriate tax invoice and he would happily return said investment – just as long as I got the fuck off his ass.

  I called Moshe and Froyke while we were still in the car and shared my trepidation with them.

  “Our job is to save the country, not ourselves,” Moshe concluded, and Froyke supported him in absolutely forbidding any attempt to go to Russia and look for him.

  “So what can I do? We can’t just do nothing.”

  “I’ll talk to the local branches in Moscow and Leningrad,” said Moshe. “Anyway, don’t forget the meeting. You’re on your way, I hope?”

  “Moshe, that isn’t enough.”

  “We’ll talk to O’Driscoll. Ask him to activate some of his own agents,” Froyke suggested.

  “Okay. Thank you,” I said, thinking that only God knew what would happen now, and that fucker hardly knows anything at all.

  ***

  The intelligence community’s emergency forum convened, along with the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, the commander of the navy, the current Head of Maf’at31, Berger, and the previous Head of Maf’at, Major-General (res.) Prof. Yitzhak Ben David, a scientific-military mastermind. This impressive bunch was urgently summoned by Moshe, “to be brought up to speed and examine the regional impacts of the shared Russian-Iranian maneuver”. The members of Nora’s steering committee were there as well. All in all a highly intelligent group, accustomed to solving multivariate equations, and as such, none of them honestly thought this meeting was about “regional impacts of the maneuver” etc. But they didn’t expect to get a one-hundred-megaton hydrogen bomb between the eyes, either.

  I walked into the conference room just as Shaike from Naval Intelligence and Nora were presenting updates from the maneuver, in the current phase of which the Iranian and Russian submarines were already commencing their exercises in the Persian Gulf, a maritime spitting distance from Eilat. Other Russian subs and various marine vessels were maneuvering in the Mediterranean, perhaps hinting to the Americans that both Haifa on one side and the Atlantic on the other are well within Russia’s operational range, or perhaps this entire maneuver was a cover for an Iranian attack, moving towards us after the Americans’ desertion. Either way, the pressure was on. Shaike was just describing the foray exercise performed by about twenty tiny assault subs, each one about 30 feet long, manned by only two crewmembers.

  “Each of these is, de facto, a manned suicide torpedo.”

  “What about their silent killer?” asked Ben David.

  “The Rostov.” Nora glanced at the screen. “Nothing. Not since December 2015, back when it popped up out of the literal blue next to Haifa port, then sailed to Latakia, where it surfaced again to destroy some fortified ISIS bases in Ar-Raqqah. A barrage of cruise missiles. Until it surfaced, we had no indication whatsoever that it was anywhere around us. As far as I know, neither did the Americans.”

  Ben David looked at the unlit pipe in his hand and said, “I find it odd that their Rostov would be absent from a maneuver carried out as a demonstration of force for the United States. Or at least, that is what we hope… In fact, according to our knowledge, the silent killer is the only Russian vessel that presents a clear technological advantage over its Western counterpart. No other sub comes close to the Rostov.”

  Nora shrugged.

  “Assuming that its stealth level is absolute,” said Dovik, frowning conspiratorially, “It might be participating in the maneuver without our knowledge. As a show of force – they pop it out at the perfect moment, maybe just before the finishing formation when media coverage is highest, and we all shit ourselves.”

  Ben David nodded, puffing up his cheeks, and
asked,

  “How many Iranian subs have been identified so far?”

  “Nine,” said Nora. “Eight of which we recognize, and have positively identified as Iranian submarines with a distinct sonar print.”

  “And the ninth one?”

  “We have only a silhouette, no sonar print.”

  “That’s the one I’d bet on,” said Ben David.

  I took advantage of the resulting pause to signal to Moshe that I had the material, and he told everyone to take five for coffee and a smoke for whoever needed one. We went into his office and quickly reviewed the clip in which Gigolo describes his talk with Grisha and Boris’ summary. Moshe looked stunned. It took him a few seconds to level his eyes at me and ask, “Do you trust this Gigolo?”

  “I trust Boris. If Boris trusts him, so do I.”

  “So we don’t know where the bomb is now?”

  “No. I’ve already told everyone relevant, including the Americans and our friends in Europe, to put it on their EEI.”

  “Good.”

  “So what are we telling them now?”

  “All of our findings,” Moshe said, decisively. “Only the findings.”

  “Oh? I thought we’d send them the video.”

  “This isn’t funny, Ehrlich. None of this is funny.” He added that the PM had been waiting for a call back from Putin for over two weeks.

  When we got back to the conference room, Moshe said a few words about what he had dubbed, “Supreme secrecy,” and stressed that the information he was about to present was both volatile and current.

  “What Ehrlich is about to present, really,” he added and for a moment his voice seemed to tremble. Every eye in the room turned to me, eyes so grave, nearly threateningly so, that I had the sudden insane urge to laugh. I took a deep breath and began to review the primary data, including what I now knew from the video – the Tsar Bomb’s target destination, its specifications, the Iranian team’s training. Hamdani’s involvement. I also mentioned his ever-increasing devoutness, which I thought might be relevant.

  Nora followed me, reviewing everything we had learned from her “family trip” with Moshe – the bomb and the new weapons Putin had developed to “return order to the world.”