Another angry huff accompanied the jingling of keys, as Morozov selected the proper one and pushed open the door. Tracie was pleased to note that the metal door’s reinforced glass window was pebbled, obscuring the interior of the office from the gaze of anyone passing by in the corridor.
A picture window at the rear of the office featured a set of blinds, and the moment Tracie eased the door closed behind her, she told Morozov, “Close the blinds.”
She stood with her back to the door, her hand inside her blazer on the butt of her weapon while he complied.
“Good,” she said. “Now move to the far corner and face the wall.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I am going to search your desk.”
“The device you are looking for is not inside my desk.”
“I didn’t think it was,” Tracie said. “I want to make sure you don’t sit down and immediately pull a weapon out of your top drawer.”
“I told you, I am not armed. There has never been a reason to keep a gun inside my desk, although I suppose if I survive that will have to change.”
“I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”
She began rifling through the drawers, moving quickly but keeping a close eye on Morozov. A narrow drawer above the foot well, just beneath the writing surface, was filled with pens, pencils, notepaper, a calculator, a stapler, paper clips, and other office supplies the commander of a secret military base might presumably need.
Three deeper drawers ran top to bottom along the left side of the desk, and they next became the focus of Tracie’s search. The bottom drawer contained three thick manuals, specific to the operation of Objekt 825. Inside the drawer above it was a stack of official paperwork that looked as though it had been swept into the drawer in frustration when the commander grew tired of dealing with it.
She guessed the top drawer would be where she would find anything interesting, and she was right. She pulled it open and immediately turned her full attention to Morozov.
“You lied to me,” she said softly, reaching into the drawer and removing a Makarov 9mm semi-auto pistol. She turned it over in her hands before slipping it into the waistband of her slacks at the small of her back. “Or did you forget this gun was here?”
“What did you expect?” the commander answered. “Put yourself in my position. Would you have admitted to having a weapon?”
Tracie realized he had a point, but she wasn’t going to acknowledge that to him.
Instead, she said, “This is not the way to build trust, Commander. Our relationship has gotten off to a rocky start, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Again, what would you expect?”
This time Tracie ignored his comment and re-opened one of the deeper drawers, lifting out a mostly full bottle of expensive Russian vodka. She gazed at it thoughtfully before closing the drawer and returning to the closed office door.
“Move behind your desk and sit,” she said.
26
June 25, 1988
7:20 a.m.
Objekt 825 administration building
Morozov eased into his office chair, eying Tracie warily. It was clear he thought she might lift her weapon and put a bullet between his eyes at any moment, a notion she was only too happy to encourage as long as he didn’t get so fearful he did something unexpected out of sheer desperation.
She wanted him compliant, not panicked.
“Do not lie to me again,” she said softly, maintaining eye contact until Morozov lowered his gaze. “If you do, I will kill you, and without hesitation. Do you understand what I am telling you, Commander?”
He nodded curtly and she said, “That is not good enough. Answer me.”
“I understand.”
“Do not forget,” she said. “Now, this is how the rest of your morning is going to go. You will notify the person in charge of your lab, or wherever the communication decoder is being held, that your KGB contact—that would be me—will be accompanying you to retrieve the device. After we pick it up, we will leave the facility together. We will part company once we have gotten clear of the security fencing surrounding Objekt 825.”
“By ‘part company,’” he said slowly, “I assume you mean you will kill me and dump my body in the forest?”
Tracie shook her head. “If you give me a reason to, I will eliminate you without a second thought. But as I have already told you, I have no desire to kill you, and no intention of doing so, unless you leave me with no choice.”
Morozov’s heavily creased forehead and grim expression told Tracie the commander didn’t believe a word she said, and why would he? Leaving him alive would make no sense from a strategic standpoint. It would give him the opportunity to raise the alarm and call for reinforcements before she’d gotten far enough away from Objekt 825 to have a real chance of escape.
But the bottle of vodka she’d found inside the commander’s desk had given Tracie an idea. She meant what she’d said about not wanting to kill Morozov, and thought she might just be able to avoid doing so, whether he believed it or not.
“I will ask you again,” she said. “Do you understand what I have told you?”
He cleared his throat and reluctantly said, “Da. I understand.”
“Good. Then you have a call to make.”
He lifted the handset of the console telephone sitting on the corner of his desk. Before he could press any buttons, Tracie said, “Let me ask you, Commander. What do you think of my Russian language skills?”
“What?” The handset hung inches from the side of his head.
“Do I speak Russian well?”
“Yes. Very much so.”
“Exactly. Keep that knowledge foremost in your mind. If you try to pass along any kind of message to whoever answers that call, I will know. And you will die before you realize what is happening.”
He shook his head angrily but did not answer. Mashed a red button on the console and jammed the handset to his head.
A moment later he said, “Aleksander, this is Commander Morozov.”
A momentary silence as the person on the other end of the line responded, then he said, “I am fine, thank you. But there has been an unexpected change in plans. I need you to box up the device that was delivered to the facility yesterday. It is being transported back to Lubyanka.”
Another silence, this one longer. “I understand we just took possession of it. I understand you have not had the opportunity to begin examining it. But do you want to know what else I understand? I understand that we are all bound to follow the orders of our superiors. If Lubyanka wants the device returned, the device will be returned. Please prepare it for release to my KGB contact.”
This silence was the longest one yet, as Aleksander apparently made his displeasure with the orders known. It didn’t matter, though. He would do as he was told. He had no choice.
A moment later Morozov said, “Thank you,” into the handset and dropped it heavily back onto the console. He looked across the desk at Tracie with hooded eyes and said, “It is done. Are you satisfied?”
“Not even close,” she said calmly. “I won’t be satisfied until I have the device in my possession and I am far from Objekt 825. Hopefully I will never see the inside of this place again.”
“Finally, we agree on something,” Morozov said.
She gave a “stand up” gesture with the barrel of her gun and said, “Now, let us go put this plan into motion.”
He shook his head. “The research department needs a few minutes to prepare the device for transport.”
“Prepare it for transport? What do they have to do? They can’t possibly have begun disassembling it yet.”
He shrugged. “I do not know. But believe me when I tell you, I want this over with as much as you do. Probably more.”
“How long do they need?”
“The research supervisor said just a few minutes. He will call me when it is ready.”
“Fine,” Tracie answered. �
��That gives us a little time to begin working on your second assignment.”
“And what is that?”
She lifted the vodka bottle. “You’re going to start drinking.”
He looked at her like she’d lost her mind. Tracie thought maybe she had.
“I do not understand.”
“You don’t have to.” She reached across the desk and handed him the bottle. “Drink.”
***
The call back from “Aleksander” took no more than ten minutes, but in that time Morozov had begun making a significant dent in the amount of liquid remaining inside the bottle. The first three or four swigs, Tracie had been forced to remind him to drink more vodka, but after that he seemed to get the idea, lifting it to his lips and taking a healthy jolt every thirty seconds or so. He seemed to be an enthusiastic vodka-lover.
When the phone rang, Tracie lifted her weapon as a reminder to the commander of just what was at stake.
He frowned at her and then lifted the handset to his head. “Yes?” Then, “We will be there momentarily.”
He hung up the phone and Tracie stood while he placed the bottle on top of his desk and then rose. She noticed him sway slightly. He’d had a large amount of vodka in a short amount of time, and she knew even an obviously experienced drinker like Morozov would have to be affected.
She re-holstered her weapon and followed Morozov out the door, her tension rising thanks to force-feeding the man alcohol. As the strong Russian vodka began to take effect his behavior would become less predictable, and quite possibly less controllable. Her goal was to render him incapacitated by the time she made her escape, but she hoped her attempt to avoid eliminating him didn’t wind up getting her killed instead.
Morozov turned right. As they walked, Tracie could see that all the offices on both sides of the corridor were now occupied; the commander’s was the only one fitted with frosted glass for privacy.
At the end of the hallway, Morozov stopped in front of a closed door that appeared to be constructed of reinforced steel. He removed a set of keys from his pocket and picked through them until finding the one he wanted, then he unlocked the door and swung it open.
They descended a set of metal stairs constructed inside a metallic shaft. The sound of their footsteps boomed, echoing around the enclosure, and the air felt warm and humid. At the bottom they paused again, Morozov repeating his previous exercise, unlocking another reinforced metal door with a different key.
Tracie knew if Objekt 825’s commanding officer were willing to sacrifice himself and begin shouting at this point, there was simply no way she would ever escape. Armed soldiers would appear and take her down long before she could kill Morozov, steal his keys, and then determine which ones opened which doors through the process of trial and error.
She wouldn’t make it through the first door, never mind out of the facility.
She tried to swallow and realized her mouth was bone-dry.
After Morozov had found the proper key—it took longer than the first time and Tracie began to wonder whether he might be stalling—they stepped through the door and entered what looked to Tracie like the world’s largest laboratory. Submarine components lined the massive room on shelves, some as large as an automobile and others so tiny she could barely make them out.
She wondered how much of the material inside this lab might be classified, wishing she could have a couple of hours in here, alone and with a camera.
But it was not to be, and after that first quick glance around the periphery of the room, her attention was drawn to an angry-looking older man standing just inside the doorway. In his arms was the package she’d seen The Weasel deliver yesterday, the box containing the Marine Technix underwater communications decoder. The man’s right foot tapped the floor incessantly, and the look he gave Tracie when he caught sight of her would curdle milk.
“Here,” he said, shoving the box at Morozov. “Here is the device.”
Then he looked at Tracie and said, “Please do me a favor and thank your superiors for wasting my time.”
She hardened her expression and leaned forward, making a show of examining the man’s ID, which was hanging around his neck on a lanyard. “Do not worry, Comrade Taraschenko, I will do exactly that. I will let Lubyanka know precisely and in no uncertain terms how displeased you were about the events of this morning.”
To his credit, the man held her gaze, although his face seemed to turn a shade paler than it had been previously.
She said, “Is there anything you would like to add, or does that complete your message, Comrade?”
He opened his mouth to speak, then slammed it closed. He turned and walked away without another word.
When he’d gotten out of earshot, she told Morozov, “Get us back up to your office. You’re doing well, don’t get yourself killed now.”
27
June 25, 1988
8:10 a.m.
Objekt 825 administration building
Once back inside Morozov’s office, the commander moved immediately to his desk as Tracie closed the door behind them. He took a long belt from the vodka bottle and then slumped down into his desk chair. He grimaced as the alcohol burned its way down his gullet and then closed his eyes and sighed in satisfaction.
“What now?” he asked without opening his eyes.
“Now you stand up.”
“And?”
“And we leave the facility.”
He looked up at her, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Why did we reenter my office if we were only going to continue out of Objekt 825 anyway?”
Tracie smiled. “I wanted to give you a moment to collect yourself. You looked as though you were about to pass out while we were inside your research laboratory.”
He sighed but didn’t argue. “I have never been forced to commit treason at gunpoint before.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “In fact, if it makes you feel any better, you’re not committing treason at all.”
“I do not follow.”
“It would only be treason if you handed over the communications decoder of your own free will. Since, as you mentioned, I’m holding you a gunpoint, you’re not actually committing treason, you’re being robbed. It’s a small but significant distinction.”
“Try telling that to the KGB. The real KGB,” he added dryly, “not your fantasy version.”
“Would you like me to call Lubyanka following my escape and convince them you did everything possible to prevent me from reacquiring this device?”
A flicker of hope lit up in his eyes for the briefest of moments, before disappearing as a drunken scowl creased his face. “Very funny.”
“I would just like to remind you,” Tracie said, “that while my KGB credentials may be a fantasy, the gun I’m threatening you with is very real, as is the magazine filled with 9mm slugs inside it.”
“Do not worry, I remember.”
“Good. Then stand up like I already asked once, and let us get out of here.”
He climbed immediately to his feet but then lifted the vodka bottle to his lips one more time and took another massive swig. “Just in case I do not survive beyond the next few minutes,” he said after swallowing.
“I told you, while I will not hesitate to kill you if necessary, I have no intention of doing so unless you leave me no choice.”
“I do not find that as comforting as you seem to believe.”
“And I don’t care,” Tracie said. “Believe me or don’t believe me, it makes no difference. Now, for the last time, get moving. We’re going to walk straight to your car. You will get behind the wheel and I will climb into the front passenger seat. Then you will start your car and drive where I tell you. Do you understand?”
Morozov nodded wordlessly. He gave one long, lingering glance in the direction of his liquid courage and then walked around his desk, opened his office door, and turned in the direction of the lobby as Tracie fell in next to him.
They crossed the lobby and
exited the front doors without incident. As they passed the guard shack, the sentry called though the open door, “Good morning again, Commander.”
“Good morning,” Morozov called back. He hesitated and then said, “I have a meeting to attend with Lieutenant Koruskaya, but it should be brief. I will return soon.”
Without missing a beat, Tracie turned to him and said. “I am sorry, Commander Morozov, but you are confusing this morning’s meeting with last month’s. That was a brief one but this one will take considerably longer. You may not even return to the facility today.” She spoke loudly enough to be certain the sentry could hear the exchange.
The commander attempted a smile that came out more like a grimace. “Ah. That is right. Please forgive me, I have been so forgetful recently.”
Tracie glanced into the guard shack to see the sentry watching them with a curious look on his face. She nodded officiously in his direction and said, “Have a nice day.”
Then she turned to Morozov and said, “We really must be going, Commander, or we will be late.”
Once inside Morozov’s car, Tracie said, “Start the car and drive out of this parking lot in the direction of the water. Do it right now.”
The commander complied, and as the accelerated away from the administration building, she continued speaking, her voice shaking with anger. “You are a very lucky man.”
“I do not feel lucky.”
“Well, you should. You were roughly one-half second from being shot through the heart back there.”
“I do not understand.”
“Don’t give me that,” she said as the car made the gradual right turn northbound along the rocky shoreline. “You were trying to tell the sentry to begin a search if you were gone for any length of time.”
He shrugged. “The man would have been suspicious if I did not give him some idea when I would return.”
“Shut up and drive.”
“As I am sure my receptionist is suspicious,” he continued, “by the fact I did not check in with her as I was leaving.”
“Maybe I should give her reason to be suspicious and shoot you between the eyes right here and now.”
Objekt 825 (Tracie Tanner Thrillers Book 9) Page 14