Objekt 825 (Tracie Tanner Thrillers Book 9)

by Allan Leverone

  He stopped talking, which was exactly what Tracie wanted. She said, “When we approach the checkpoint to leave Objekt 825 behind, you will say no more than is absolutely necessary to get us through the gate. If you try a repeat of what you pulled back at the parking lot, I WILL kill you and then eliminate the guard or guards, before continuing on in your car. I am about out of patience with you and I don’t need you any longer. That is a dangerous combination for you. Do you understand?”

  The guardhouse was approaching in the distance. Tracie removed her gun from its holster and said, “Do you understand? Answer me or die.”

  “I understand,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “I hope so.” Tracie slipped her weapon under her right leg, shoving it between her thigh and the car seat. She allowed her hand to linger on the seat as Morozov slowed to a stop in front of the closed gate.

  The sentry stepped out of the building. The stern look on his face changed to one of surprise when he glanced into the vehicle and recognized his commanding officer.

  “Good morning, Sir,” the kid said before glancing quizzically at Tracie.

  “Good morning,” Morozov said.

  “Did I miss a call? Ekatarina did not inform me that you were leaving the facility. Had I known you were coming, I would have opened the gate for you and you would not have had to stop.”

  “Yes, well,” Morozov said as Tracie’s hand crept closer to her weapon, “I forgot about this morning’s appointment and was in such a hurry to avoid being late that I did not bother informing Ekaterina of my plans before leaving my office.”

  The sentry nodded. “I see. I hope your meeting goes well, Sir.” He hurried back inside the building and a moment later the heavy gate began trundling across the road. When it had rolled far enough to allow the car’s passage, Tracie said, “Go now. Get moving.”

  Morozov hit the gas and a moment later the guard shack was shrinking in size in the rear window.

  “Was that more to your liking?” the commander asked.

  “Damn right it was.”

  The car rounded a corner and the guard shack disappeared. “Where are we going?” Morozov asked.

  “I’m going somewhere far away,” Tracie answered. “But your journey is nearly over.”

  “You said you would not kill me.” His voice was tight with fear.

  “Yes I did, unless you give me a reason to, which you’ve almost done twice now.”

  “But you just said my journey is nearly over.”

  “And I meant it. Literally, Commander. I’ll be leaving you here, incapacitated, so I can have time to escape Objekt 825. But I’m not going to kill you. Slow down.”

  He eased off the gas and the car began to slow. “What do you mean by ‘incapacitated?’”

  “Jesus, you’re a worrier. I just told you I’m not going to kill you, isn’t that enough?”

  “Incapacitated sounds like—”

  “Stop right here,” Tracie interrupted, and the car jerked to a halt as Morozov pulled to the sandy verge.

  She lifted her weapon from under her thigh and said, “Our time together has come to an end.”

  “That is a shame,” he said dryly.

  “Get out of the car and then take five steps backward, facing me the entire time.”

  He did as instructed and while he was backing away, Tracie slid across the front seat. She plucked her backpack from behind the driver’s seat and then stepped onto the pavement. She flicked her gun barrel in the direction of the car’s rear door. “Get in.”

  “But you just told me to get out.”

  “Yes, so I could be sure you would not go for my gun as I was climbing out of the car. Now I’m telling you to get back in.”

  Before he could comply, a vehicle rounded the corner traveling toward them from the north.

  The vehicle was a Jeep.

  A Soviet military Jeep.

  A patrol Jeep.

  28

  June 25, 1988

  8:25 a.m.

  Access road north of Objekt 825, Russia, USSR

  Dammit.

  Tracie jammed her weapon into her waistband, fearing the motion of lifting it and placing it in her shoulder rig would make what she was doing obvious to the sentry patrolling in the Jeep. She then pulled her blazer over the weapon, hoping to keep it covered unless—until—she needed it.

  She feared this was going to end bloody.

  Through her teeth she hissed at Morozov, “Say whatever you need to say to get rid of this sentry. If you are not successful you will both die.”

  There was no time for the commander to respond, as the Jeep was almost upon them. It slowed to a stop, kicking up eddies of dust that drifted lazily above the dry, sandy pavement.

  For a moment nothing happened, and then the sentry climbed down from his Jeep. He stood next to the idling vehicle and said, “What is going on here?”

  Morozov’s back was to the sentry; he had already turned to face his car in response to Tracie’s instructions. It was clear the young soldier hadn’t yet recognized his commanding officer, but before Tracie could answer his question, that changed.

  The kid took a step forward and said, “Commander Morozov?” The tone of his voice was incredulous, like he couldn’t quite believe his CO was standing with some unknown woman next to his car on the side of the road. “Have you broken down, Sir?”

  Morozov turned slowly to face the sentry, his posture rigid, fearful, as if he expected Tracie to cut him down in a hail of bullets at any moment. “Everything is fine here,” he said softly. “You may continue your patrol.”

  “But…is there something wrong with your car? Why are you standing in the middle of the road?”

  “We are fine,” Morozov repeated. “I am ordering you to continue your patrol.”

  “What is going on here?” the soldier repeated. He took another step and moved his right hand to the butt of his holstered weapon.

  “You heard your commanding officer,” Tracie said, lifting her own hand slowly toward her waist. “Continue your patrol. We are occupied with a matter that does not concern you.”

  “Something is wrong,” the soldier answered, unsnapping his holster and beginning to lift his weapon. “And I am not going anywhere until I find out—”

  Tracie reached under her jacket and drew her weapon, her hand a blur. Before he could finish speaking—or bring his gun to bear—she’d begun firing, drowning out his words in the roar of gunfire.

  He staggered backward, slamming into the side of his Jeep and squeezing his trigger once reflexively. The gun then fell straight down, and a half-second later so did the sentry, the front of his uniform shirt already soaked with blood.

  Tracie spun, moving before the soldier’s body had even hit the ground, remaining in a shooter’s crouch as she trained her weapon on Morozov.

  He raised his hands defensively. “Do not shoot! Do not shoot! I did what you asked, please do not shoot!”

  She was breathing heavily, adrenaline racing through her, but her gun remained steady in her hands. “I know you did,” she said. “That is the only reason you’re still breathing.”

  In the space of maybe ninety seconds, the situation had gone from manageable to dire. This was a lightly traveled access road, but who knew how long it would be before another patrol came along, or a delivery truck, or a civilian out for a joyride? A Soviet soldier was leaking blood onto the road next to his Jeep. There would be no way to hide that, not without at least thirty minutes of cleanup.

  Tracie doubted she had thirty minutes. She may not have thirty seconds.

  “Face your car and put your hands on the roof. Spread them apart and do not move,” she barked. Morozov complied instantly.

  The moment his hands touched the roof of his car Tracie was moving, hurrying to the downed soldier. She picked up his weapon and tossed it as far into the woods as she could manage, then bent and checked for a pulse, knowing what she would find but doing it anyway.

  He was dead,
exactly as she’d known he would be. Up close, he looked young. Eighteen, maybe twenty. Blood continued to leak out of him, but that would be changing soon. No heart pumping, no blood flowing.

  “Goddammit,” she cursed.

  Time was ticking, and crouching next to a dead Russian kid wasn’t getting her any closer to mission completion.

  Or survival.

  She gave a long look in both directions, grateful for no more traffic. Yet.

  She pushed to her feet and returned to Morozov’s car. He cringed at the sound of her approach.

  “Get in the back seat,” she said.

  Morozov looked back at her, glancing nervously between her face and the gun and back to her face. Then he grimaced and did as he was told, opening the rear door and sliding into the seat, facing forward.

  She shook her head. “Not like that. I want you face down across the back.”

  He surprised her by complying without argument.

  While he was maneuvering, Tracie unzipped her backpack and removed a roll of silver duct tape. She’d left it on top because she knew she would need it, so it took no more than five seconds, and then the pack was re-zipped and placed at her feet.

  “Hands behind your back,” she said after he’d lain down. She wrapped the tape quickly, three times around his wrist before repeating the process with his ankles.

  Then she slammed the door closed and crossed behind the car. Opened the door adjacent to his head and covered his mouth with tape, again using three layers, wrapping them tightly around his skull.

  “Try to scream,” she said.

  He glared but did as he was told, and all that came out was a weak, muffled grunt, something that would be impossible to hear by anyone passing more than six feet from the car.

  It wasn’t a perfect arrangement but it would do. Now that she’d been forced to eliminate the soldier, there was no real reason to leave Morozov alive. He could identify her, but that in itself wasn’t reason to kill him. Plenty of other people from Objekt 825 could identify her, too, including the scientist who’d reluctantly handed over the communication device, the receptionist inside the administration building, and the sentry standing guard outside the front entrance. Undoubtedly they would remember her vividly, particularly given the ugly scar running down the side of her skull.

  She couldn’t very well kill them all.

  Besides, she simply couldn’t bring herself to pull the trigger on a defenseless man, especially a man like Morozov. He was a nervous character, the kind of person who seemed utterly out of place in a military uniform, but he was as innocent as it was possible to be in his situation, a guy just following orders. Tracie was happy she could leave him alive and avoid one more in a seemingly never-ending stream of nightmares based on people she’d eliminated while completing assignments.

  She closed the rear door and slipped behind the wheel. Adjusted the seat and then called over her shoulder, “Hang on.”

  Her words were greeted with another grunt.

  She pulled into the middle of the road, careful not to run over her backpack, which was still sitting on the edge of the pavement. She spun the wheel and shifted into reverse, then hit the gas hard, bouncing across the verge and through the scrub brush before knifing into a gap between two good-sized evergreens. Spinning the wheel one more time, Tracie turned the car sideways and it jounced to a stop behind the tree.

  “Are we having fun yet?” she called to Morozov.

  His lack of a reply led her to believe he wasn’t having much fun yet.

  “Since you’ve been such a good boy, doing exactly as you’ve been told—more or less—I’m going to leave the windows cracked so you can get some air,” she said. “It will probably be awhile before anyone finds you, but considering the alternative was two slugs in the back of your skull, I guess you don’t have much to complain about.”

  Still nothing.

  Tracie shrugged and climbed out of the car, moving quickly. Her escape wasn’t complete yet; there was still plenty to do. She picked her way through the underbrush, lifted her backpack onto her shoulder, and then disappeared into the woods on the other side of the road, skirting the Jeep with the dead soldier lying next to it.

  She forced herself to ignore all the blood.

  29

  June 25, 1988

  8:40 a.m.

  Sonnoye Utro Motel, Sevastopol, Russia, USSR

  Andrei Lukashenko pushed the bed sheet off his naked body and groaned. His head was pounding. Too much cheap vodka last night and nowhere near enough sleep made for a rough morning, but he’d never been one to sleep the day away and he wasn’t about to start now. He would probably receive a new assignment in less than a week—maybe a lot less—and once that happened there would be no telling when he could relax again.

  So even though he felt like a steaming pile of der’mo, he intended to enjoy as much of his time off as possible.

  He eased into a sitting position and smiled, holding his head in his hands. As badly as he felt right now, he imagined his companion from last night was feeling even worse. Marisha had nearly matched him drink for drink inside the little seaside bar where they met, and she was probably seventy kilos lighter than he, tiny and pretty and young.

  They had made an odd-looking pair as they strolled out of the bar arm-in-arm, more likely to be mistaken for father and daughter than for sexual companions. Andrei didn’t care, though. He had always enjoyed the company of much younger women, and despite his steadily expanding paunch and lack of any features the opposite sex might consider attractive, had never had any problems finding those women.

  He’d known the minute he checked into the motel that he would search out someone with whom to spend the evening, and while last night’s paramour was probably prettier than his average date, she wasn’t all that unusual, either. They had strolled back to his room—more like stumbled back, he thought with a rueful grin—and then proceeded to spend the next several hours exploring various sexual positions and more than a few of his favorite kinks.

  By the time they’d finished, Andrei was a sweaty, exhausted mess. Marisha had indicated in no uncertain terms her desire to continue, but one thing Andrei had learned over the years was that while you could always lead the horse to water, as that horse got older there was a very definite limit to how much it could drink.

  And Andrei had drunk his fill.

  So he kicked her out.

  He chuckled at the memory. She’d been spitting mad, calling him names and swinging her fists at him like some diminutive prizefighter, until he’d been forced to slap her a few times, not enough to hurt her exactly, just enough to remind her who was in charge.

  Maybe she hadn’t gotten her release yet, but he had certainly gotten his, several times over, in fact. And by Andrei Lukashenko’s reckoning, that was all that really mattered.

  Besides, he’d allowed her to throw her skimpy outfit back on before shoving her out the motel room door, so what did she have to complain about?

  Nothing, that was what.

  He rose shakily to his feet as his stomach rumbled dangerously. No more drinking for me, he thought, before laughing out loud at the absurdity of that thought. He’d been having it after a night of debauchery for nearly thirty years, and he found it as funny now as he did the first time he’d had it.

  All he needed was a shower and some breakfast, and he would be good as new.

  ***

  “Good as new” probably wasn’t entirely accurate, but the shower water was warm enough, and the breakfast was decent, and after two cups of strong black tea, Andrei decided things were a whole hell of a lot better than they’d been when he rolled out of bed.

  His plan had been to spend at least two days in Sevastopol before beginning the long drive north to Moscow. Upon reflection, though, maybe hitting the road and stopping in a different seaside town a little farther up the coast might be a better idea. Although a decent-sized city, Sevastopol wasn’t so large he could be certain not to run into Marisha
again, and the last thing he needed after selecting tonight’s companion was to risk running into last night’s girl and having her drive the new one away with an angry diatribe.

  He paid the check and admired the ass of his server as she was walking away. Then he rose and stretched and wandered up the street to his motel. After packing, Andrei checked out at the office and tossed his bag into the back seat of the Volga.

  Then he performed a ritual he’d done hundreds of times since beginning his career as a KGB operative, maybe thousands: he checked the underside of his vehicle for bugs, tracking devices, or other electronic gadgetry. It wasn’t a precaution he took every time he drove, but he’d gotten into the habit of doing so a couple of times a weeks, and over the course of his career had uncovered an unwanted passenger at least a half-dozen times.

  It was a small number but, he thought, a significant one.

  He bent and reached up under the vehicle, dragging his hand lightly along as he moved, concentrating on the bumpers, frame and wheel wells. It was always possible something could have been attached to a more central location, which would require him to crawl under the car to locate. But in Andrei’s experience, sticking something right up inside the wheel well was much easier and just as effective, since most people would never have occasion to look up there unless they were changing a tire.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered as he pulled what looked like a small ball that had been sliced in half out from under the car. It wasn’t a Russian expression, but he’d learned it years ago operating inside the United States and had fallen in love with it, and now he liked to use it whenever he could.

  He turned the object over and over in his hands, examining it while trying to decide whether it was Soviet in origin. He didn’t think so; he’d had plenty of occasion to use similar devices, both inside and outside the USSR, and had never seen anything utilized by the KGB that looked like this.

  Of course, it was always possible this was some new development, brought into use inside Russia while he’d been away, and if that were the case he could be in big trouble. Angering the KGB was never a good idea, even if you were an employee.