“Crystal.”
“Good.”
“Again, when do I leave?”
“We’ll get to that in a minute,” Stallings said, pushing his glasses up his nose and staring at her sternly. “I have something else I want to say to you.”
“A third prong of the assignment?” she asked with a sardonic smile.
“No. This is personal.”
“I don’t understand.”
Stallings lifted his hand and pointed a stubby finger at her. “What I want to tell you is this: do not make me regret this decision. If you’re captured or killed because I allowed you to go back into the lion’s den against my better judgment, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Don’t worry about me, boss.”
“I always worry about you, Tanner, more than you know.”
“I’ll be okay, I promise.”
“Good. Now, before we discuss your travel arrangements, there’s a piece of trivia regarding Lukashenko’s ear you may find interesting.”
“Well there’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear. What is it?”
“The injury to his ear came courtesy of another of our operatives, someone you’ve had occasion to work with once or twice.”
“Is that right? Who?”
“The operative you knew as Ryan Smith. He tracked Lukashenko to an industrial park outside Leningrad and came within inches of taking the man down. But The Weasel has an almost supernatural ability to sniff out danger. He dove to the ground just as Smith squeezed the trigger and the slug that should have penetrated the man’s brain ripped instead through his ear.”
Tracie subconsciously fingered the gold cross hanging around her neck at the mention of Ryan Smith’s name. The cross had belonged to him, and represented the only thing she’d managed to save during her aborted rescue attempt of the doomed CIA operative in Bashkir last year.
“Why are you telling me this?” she whispered.
“Two reasons,” he said. “First, because you need to understand just how cunning and wily Laska is.”
“Fine,” she said. “Mission accomplished. I understand.”
“And second,” he continued, “because I know how much it hurt you that you couldn’t escape Bashkir with Smith when you found him. Complete this assignment successfully, and you’ll be honoring his memory.”
Tracie nodded, blinking back the tears that were trying to form in her eyes. “When do I leave?” she said.
13
June 21, 1988
9:40 p.m.
Washington, D.C.
Tracie was exhausted. She’d gotten precious little sleep before being awakened at zero-dark-thirty this morning by Aaron Stallings’ phone call, and couldn’t wait to get aboard the CIA’s Gulfstream IV private jet. Her plan was to sleep the entire duration of the flight from D.C. to Helsinki, from whence she would be smuggled across the Gulf of Finland into northwestern Russia.
But there was one more task she needed to attend to before driving to Washington National Airport and falling asleep in the G4.
She drove directly from Stallings’ home to her apartment, stopping only long enough to grab her go-bag. She’d kept the bag ready despite being officially sidelined by the director, having learned long ago that scenarios tended to change quickly in the intelligence business. It took only a matter of minutes to customize the bag with some items she thought she might need during this mission.
Then she was on the road again. The drive to Marshall Fulton’s apartment took less than twenty minutes. She’d considered calling him before leaving her place, because she had no idea whether he would be home or not. Being a Saturday night, there was every possibility he may have gone out for the evening.
After a moment’s hesitation she’d elected not to. She had the vague notion that if he actually answered his phone, she might wimp out and decide not to visit at all. Make up some stupid excuse for the call, get off the line as quickly as possible, and then forget about it.
She forced herself to follow through with Marshall because she felt it was vitally important she see him before leaving for the Soviet Union. She wasn’t sure why, she’d gone overseas many times since beginning to sort-of date him and had never before felt the slightest need to say goodbye.
But something was bothering her about this assignment. Despite the reassurance she’d given Stallings, Tracie had to admit that the combination of events that had taken place during her last assignment were problematic for her. Between assaulting Soviet General Ivan Gregorovich in the process of acquiring intel, and the vicious head wound she’d suffered in her car wreck while racing to recover a rogue nuclear device, Stallings’ point about her being far too recognizable inside Russia was a valid one.
I’m radioactive, Tracie thought. Pun definitely intended. In the world of undercover intelligence, being anonymous was the recipe for staying alive. The last thing an operative wanted was to be in any way memorable. And as various people all over D.C. had reminded Tracie just today, she was currently quite memorable.
She’d gone into every assignment she had ever been given with the certainty she was the right person for the job, and that she would complete the mission successfully and safely. Tonight, she realized with something resembling trepidation, that certainty was nowhere to be found.
So she needed to see Marshall.
She needed to say goodbye. Just in case.
She owed him that much.
***
He was home.
He answered the door in a pair of Louisiana State University gym shorts and a Tulane University t-shirt. Tracie had seen Marshall Fulton in a suit and tie nearly every time she’d been inside Langley back when she was an official CIA employee, and she thought he’d never looked as delectable as he did right now.
She gave a little wave and a crooked smile, feeling silly.
He blinked in surprise. “Tracie? Is everything all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said, suddenly wanting nothing more than to turn tail and head to the airport. But of course it was too late for that now.
“Come on in,” he said, opening the door fully and stepping aside. “Let me get you a drink.”
“Thank you,” she said, “but I can’t stay. I only have a minute.” She pointed at his t-shirt and then his shorts. “What’s the matter, can’t decide who to root for?”
He grinned. “I just want to support my home state, is all.”
There was that damned syrupy accent again.
“I’m going to take a wild guess,” he continued, “and say you’re on your way out of the country again. It’s about this morning’s phone call from Director Stallings, isn’t it?”
“I’d almost forgotten you were there for that call. It feels like it’s been a lot longer than, what, fifteen hours since then?”
“More or less,” Marshall agreed. He stepped closer, concern in his big brown eyes. Gazed at her for a moment and then said, “You seem somehow…different. I’m going to ask again, is everything alright, Tracie?”
She nodded. Scuffed her shoe on the carpet. “I’m okay. Honestly. I just wanted to…I don’t know…I think…never mind, this was stupid. I’ve gotta go.”
She turned to exit the still-open front door but Marshall grabbed her from behind, one beefy hand on her shoulder. He turned her around gently and enveloped her in a hug. As was the case this morning, her head injury hurt like hell from being crushed against his chest, and just like this morning she didn’t care.
“I have something I want to say to you,” she mumbled.
“I’m listening.”
“I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you always being there for me,” she said, “even when I go months without seeing you, or even checking in. I want you to know how much you mean to me. I don’t think I’ve ever told you, and—”
“Don’t worry, I know,” he whispered, that sweet, syrupy accent coming through again. “I know. And I love you, too.”
That was when Tracie realized she had
begun crying again, soaking Tulane’s crest with her tears. It felt like all she’d done since the day she learned her father had been killed was cry.
She squeezed him hard and said, “I’ll be back. I promise. I’ll be back,” and she wondered whether she was trying to convince Marshall or herself.
14
June 23, 1988
11:55 p.m. local time
Sevastopol, Russia, USSR
Tracie stifled a yawn as she stretched. She felt as though she hadn’t gotten a good night’s rest for weeks. The flight from D.C. to Finland—with a stop at Aviano Air Force Base in northern Italy for fuel—had gone off without a hitch, and she had fully implemented her plan to sleep through the trip.
Since deplaning in Helsinki two days ago, though, Tracie had been on the move almost constantly. She’d crossed the Gulf of Finland into northwestern Russia courtesy of the CIA contractor she called the “Gorton’s Fisherman” in a particularly unpleasant journey, weathering rough seas and dodging multiple Soviet patrol vessels.
From there she had driven via CIA-provided Lada—several years old, rusty and anonymous—southeast through Russia to the Crimean peninsula. The distance was roughly twenty-two hundred kilometers, or a little less than fourteen hundred miles. It wasn’t the kind of non-stop drive anyone would want to make alone, without breaks, but it was exactly what Tracie did.
Desperate to move as quickly as possible, knowing Andrei Lukashenko had departed the United States more than a week earlier, she stuck to major highways as much as possible. She reasoned that a direct route via secondary roads would likely take longer than a more roundabout route via highways.
Her plan was easy enough to execute during the early part of her journey. Highways skirting large metropolitan areas like Leningrad, and particularly Moscow, were relatively well maintained if not always particularly well engineered. But as she left Moscow’s sprawling cityscape behind and moved steadily south into less heavily populated areas, the thoroughfares became smaller, narrower, and harder to navigate.
She stopped every four to six hours for gas and food and to pee, otherwise staying behind the wheel with her foot on the accelerator. As was often the case while working in the field, she had no concrete plan of attack, other than to get to Sevastopol as quickly as possible and then take stock of her situation, continuing to move forward in some manner.
This was the part of working undercover within Russia that she had grown to detest over the years: traveling from one location to the next inside a nation so vast it was literally possible to be constantly moving for a week and still be days away from your desired location.
In that sense, she decided she was fortunate only to have to travel to the Black Sea coastline. With dogged determination and the willingness to forego sleep, Tracie knew she could reach Sevastopol in less than thirty hours.
That was exactly what she did.
She’d taken a room at a large inn located on the southeast side of the city. Typically, she would have searched for smaller lodgings, preferably located in a remote area. But Sevastopol was a decent-sized metropolis, with more than three hundred fifty thousand residents, and its location on the Black Sea made it a Soviet tourist destination to boot.
This time of year, the height of Russian beach season, Tracie guessed the population of Sevastopol proper and surrounding suburbs probably ballooned to well over than half a million. She guessed she would have no trouble blending in, provided she took basic precautions regarding her head injury.
Renting a room was a calculated risk, but given the circumstances of this assignment—she was, as usual, operating alone, and with virtually zero intel regarding the facility from which she would likely have to steal back the electronic communication device—Tracie assumed tonight would represent her final opportunity to get any significant rest for the foreseeable future.
She had no desire to spend the night sleeping in the back of her Lada.
Among the items Tracie had included in her go bag before leaving the states was the Soviet Army uniform and associated identification she’d last used in Bashkir during her unsuccessful rescue attempt of Ryan Smith. The paraphernalia had served her well then and she expected the same results now.
She had selected the inn at which she would stay on the basis of one simple criterion: it was situated as close as reasonably possible to the secret submarine base known as Objekt 825 while still catering to the crush of Russian summer tourists.
The condition of the highway had steadily improved as she approached Sevastopol, and twenty kilometers or so before entering the city, Tracie found a relatively secluded area in which to pull to the side of the road. She changed quickly into her Soviet Army uniform, doing her best to smooth out the wrinkles. She had folded and packed the uniform with as much care as possible, but six thousand miles of travel while stuffed into shoulder-carried duffel had done a number on clothing that was meant to be stored in a closet and carried inside a garment bag.
Once dressed in her uniform, Tracie continued into Sevastopol, selecting her lodgings and registering under her Olga Koruskaya persona. She’d covered her head injury as much as possible with a scarf before entering the office, but it had felt like wasted effort. The bored middle-aged woman behind the desk barely took the time to glance at “Olga’s” identification, much less check her out in person. Tracie got the impression she could have used her real name and registered as a visiting American and the woman wouldn’t have batted an eye, as long as she’d paid in cash.
Long experience had taught Tracie that cold, hard cash was always welcomed by people living under the thumb of authoritarian governments. Using it to pay for transactions like hotel stays in the USSR did not generate the same kind of suspicion a similar activity would in the United States.
And that suited Tracie’s purposes just fine.
After paying for a single night’s stay, she hauled her bag directly to her room. She hung up her uniform and fell into bed. She was asleep within fifteen minutes.
15
June 24, 1988
5:30 am.
Sevastopol, Russia, USSR
Tracie felt as though she’d been asleep for no more than half an hour when the bedside alarm began jangling in her ear. She slapped at it three times before finding the button to return blessed silence to her room.
It was tempting to go back to sleep.
Really tempting.
But there was a lot of work to do, and she’d been playing catch-up since leaving Aaron Stallings’ home. She felt guilty enough about sleeping five hours, even though she’d desperately needed the rest. Remaining in bed any longer would be a dereliction of duty.
She threw the covers aside and stumbled into the bathroom. Brushed her teeth and showered quickly. Depending on how things went from here, it was questionable when she would have the chance to do either thing again.
Then she repacked her go-bag and slipped out of her room.
She was on the road by 5:45.
***
Finding Objekt 825 on a road map would be impossible. The town of Balaklava no longer officially existed, having been scrubbed from existence decades ago. And the location of a secret Soviet military submarine base would certainly not be included on any map available to ordinary civilians.
But from the limited intel she’d received, Tracie knew the base was located south of Sevastopol. And since its purpose was for the maintenance and refitting of Soviet nuclear submarines, it would had to have been constructed along the Black Sea shoreline.
So after leaving the inn, she drove due west until reaching the water. It didn’t take long.
Then she turned south and followed the coast. At this time of the morning there was little traffic, even in a city the size of Sevastopol, but it quickly became apparent to Tracie that the roads on this side of the city were rarely traveled by anyone outside of the Soviet military.
Within three miles of leaving the city limits behind, two things occurred simultaneously: the road narrowed
drastically, and signs featuring large block letters and framed in red began popping up with increasing frequency.
WARNING: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
KEEP OUT.
Even ARMED PERSONNEL AHEAD.
Tracie knew the distance from Sevastopol to the now-defunct town of Balaklava was minimal, probably not more than eight miles. By the time she’d driven five of those miles and begun seeing the dire warning signs posted closer and closer together, she decided it was time to ditch the car and continue on foot.
Despite having entered closed Soviet cities twice previously, the sense of isolation she felt as she approached the officially nonexistent settlement was as strong now as it had been on both prior occasions. She hadn’t observed a single other vehicle since probably two miles south of Sevastopol.
If she hadn’t seen for herself the bustling city not much more than a stone’s throw behind her, she would have had no idea it was there.
She slowed until the car crept forward at barely more than a walking pace, scanning both sides of the road for somewhere she could stash the vehicle where it would remain accessible but still have a reasonable chance at avoiding detection by patrolling Red Army personnel. Her search was complicated by the fact that the Lada had not been built to drive off-road, and if Tracie weren’t careful she could find herself stuck in the terrain just when she needed the car most.
Eventually she settled on a small, sandy verge next to the road that quickly transformed into heavy vegetation. She shifted into reverse, backed up ten feet or so, and then drove off the road, across the verge at as close to a ninety degree angle as she could manage, and straight into the vegetation. She turned the wheel at the last moment to slip the car behind a stand of good-sized trees.
Objekt 825 (Tracie Tanner Thrillers Book 9) Page 8