Objekt 825 (Tracie Tanner Thrillers Book 9)

by Allan Leverone

  He swung the gun at her again, this time with a little more force behind it. She saw it coming and managed to jerk her head back in time to take some of the sting out of the blow.

  It still hurt like hell, though.

  For the second time she forced herself to avoid rubbing the injury with her left hand, but she couldn’t prevent her eyes from watering thanks to the pain.

  “You should consider yourself lucky,” he spat.

  “I don’t feel particularly lucky at the moment.”

  “Well you are, whether you know it or not.”

  “Fine, I’ll give you the satisfaction of asking. Please, tell me why I’m so lucky, considering I am handcuffed inside an empty building that looks like it’s about to fall down on top of me, while matching bruises swell up on the side of my skull and a man who smells like a dirty sock threatens my life.”

  He glowered darkly. “You are lucky because you are worth more to me alive than dead. If that were not the case, I would even now be shoveling dirt on top of your lifeless corpse in the forest outside Sevastopol.”

  Tracie held his gaze defiantly but had no retort.

  “You had better hope that continues to be the case,” he said. “Now, place your left hand on the table, palm down. Face the table and spread your legs.”

  “Couldn’t you at least buy me dinner first?”

  “Shut your mouth and do as you are told.”

  Head throbbing from two separate blows, Tracie shut her mouth and did as she was told. There weren’t many reasonable alternatives. She inhaled deeply, then blew the breath out and awaited the inevitable.

  Slowly he patted her down. His hands lingered on her body in places where she could not possibly be concealing a weapon. She screwed her eyes shut, refusing to give him the satisfaction of voicing a complaint.

  He found her Red Army ID first, removing the forgery and chuckling. “Olga Koruskaya, is it?”

  “So you do know how to read,” Tracie said. “Congratulations.”

  “I think I will just keep this as a reminder of our little dalliance.” He slipped it into the breast pocket of his suit coat and continued.

  After what felt like hours, his hands arrived at her left ankle and he removed her backup Beretta. He repeated the process with her right leg and pulled her combat knife out of its sheath, whistling softly. “A lot of weaponry here for a woman who claims just to be lost, Olga.”

  “It’s a dangerous world out there.”

  “Oh, yes it is,” he agreed.

  Tracie could hear the amusement in his voice. She debated trying a kick to his head as he was crouched behind her, but decided against it. With her face pressed to the table she couldn’t be certain exactly where it was, and if she didn’t score a direct hit, she wouldn’t get a second chance. He hadn’t put his gun down, holding it in his right hand as he frisked her.

  A single squeeze of the trigger could end her life.

  He tossed her gun and knife away and they skittered across the floor. To Tracie, the metallic clatter was the sound of freedom vanishing.

  Then he straightened, wheezing from the effort, and said, “Any other weapons I need to know about?”

  “Do you really think I would tell you?”

  “Do you want me to strip-search you? It would be my pleasure.”

  Tracie snorted. “I’ll bet it would. No, I have no other weapons on me. Where else would I hide one?”

  “I have a few ideas,” he said tauntingly. “But as tempting as it is to give special attention to those areas of your body, I have other priorities at the moment.”

  “What a shame.”

  “Do not worry, little girl, there will be plenty of time to continue what I have started later.”

  “I can’t wait,” Tracie said, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she fought back against the lightning bolt of fear lancing through her.

  He turned and began striding toward the entrance to the old factory. “I will return soon,” he called over his shoulder. “Do not go anywhere without me.”

  36

  June 25, 1988

  12:15 p.m.

  Telephone booth in northern Sevastopol, Russia, USSR

  It had taken all of Andrei Lukashenko’s willpower to stop beating on the operative once he’d pistol-whipped her the second time. For all his skill at convincing and/or coercing citizens of enemy nations to betray their countries, Andrei was a killer at heart.

  And the messier the kill, the better.

  Over time he had learned to ignore his homicidal urges, to push them away and bury them deep inside his psyche. He had been fortunate to fall into an occupation that was perfectly suited to his skillset, an occupation that, while admittedly dangerous, paid him well and offered adventure and career satisfaction by the boatload. He wasn’t about to risk everything he’d earned over the last couple of decades by going off the deep end and murdering the young woman who might well end up being his ticket to wealth and status beyond his wildest imagination.

  But it had still been hard to stop. He didn’t think he could have pulled it off if he hadn’t seen with his own eyes exactly how badly General Gregorovich wanted to get his hands on the woman with the striking red hair and the jagged scar running down the side of her head.

  That picture he’d seen—the one plastered all over Lubyanka as well as KGB stations all over the USSR—had featured an unconscious young woman lying in a hospital bed, looking surprisingly small and young and frail, covered in blood and with half her head shaved.

  This woman had cut her hair, changing its style in an obvious effort to alter her appearance, but despite the fact it had begun to grow back on the shaved half, the scar was still plainly visible to anyone paying attention. It was a dead giveaway, in fact, as was her incredible beauty. Andrei was shocked the Americans or the British—he still couldn’t decide which intelligence agency she worked for; that was how impressive her language skills were—had allowed her to return to the field so quickly.

  That wasn’t his problem, though, it was theirs. And, of course, it was now hers.

  After he’d cuffed her to the table, Andrei had walked immediately to the old factory building’s front entrance and then to his car. He wished he’d been able to secure both of her hands, but with only one pair of cuffs, it simply wasn’t possible. The support posts running floor-to-ceiling were massive, much too wide for the petite woman to put her arms around and then cuff her wrists together.

  The iron equipment arm he’d cuffed her to featured a square metal top upon which some sort of equipment had once been fastened. It was wide enough to prevent the woman from lifting the fastened handcuff over, but if he’d forced her to climb atop the table and then cuffed her wrists together around the arm, she could simply have lifted them over the square piece.

  She would still have been handcuffed, but she could have disappeared while Andrei went off and made his telephone call.

  The fact that he had to leave and drive offsite just to make a phone call was annoying but unavoidable. Andrei was unaware of this facility’s history, but it—and all of the industrial buildings surrounding it—had clearly been empty for not just years but decades. What had happened to cause the mass closures he didn’t know, but he assumed it had been a nuclear or biological spill, something of that nature.

  Whatever. If the KGB had determined this building was safe to use for the relatively short amounts of time it took to interrogate and intimidate citizens, that was good enough for him. The salient point, though, was that the facility featured neither electricity nor telephone service.

  So Andrei would drive until he located a phone.

  He dropped into the driver’s seat of his car, started it up and guessed at the direction he thought might take him to an area with a sufficient population density that he would be able to find a telephone booth. Obviously, the KGB had selected this site for its remoteness, but with a city the size of Sevastopol not more than fifteen minutes away by car, he knew it wouldn’t take long to loca
te what he needed.

  And he was right.

  Within ten minutes of exiting the safe house, he’d found a rundown telephone booth located in a grimy industrial area not much different than the one in which he’d left the enemy agent, except this one was still in use. Trucks came and went, belching black smoke and driving between factories and warehouses, the area a beehive of activity.

  Andrei eased to a stop next to the booth and reached into the breast pocket of his suit coat. He pulled out a sheet of paper he’d folded multiple times and smoothed it out on the seat next to him, grateful he’d had the foresight to remove one of the many sheets that had been taped to doors and walls around KGB headquarters.

  Then he picked it up and entered the booth. He dialed the number and waited as a series of clicks, whirs and unidentifiable staticky background noises assaulted his ear through the telephone handset. There was always the possibility the call would not go through and he would have to try again, as well as the possibility that he would be cut off in mid-conversation.

  Using the telephone in Russia required a certain amount of patience.

  To Andrei’s surprise, the call went through on the first try. A gruff male voice answered on the second ring and said, “General Gregorovich’s office. Who is calling, please?”

  “Yes, my name is Andrei Lukashenko. I am employed by the KGB and I would like to speak with the general, please.”

  “May I ask why you are calling?”

  “I have something he very much wants.”

  “I am sorry, but the general is a very busy man. You will have to be much more specific or our conversation will be over.”

  “Very well. I have located and apprehended the young woman who entered his home last month and attacked General Gregorovich and his family. Is that specific enough for you?”

  A short silence greeted Andrei’s words, followed by, “What did you say your name was, again?”

  “Andrei Lukashenko.”

  “And you work for the KGB?”

  “Correct.”

  “Please hold, I will see if the general is available to take your call.”

  Andrei smiled. He was pretty sure the general would be available.

  After ninety seconds or so, another voice came on the line. “This is General Ivan Gregorovich.”

  “Good afternoon, General. I assume your assistant conveyed to you the nature of my call?”

  “He did. You claim to have captured the murderous thug who assaulted me in my own home, is that correct?”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I do not claim to have captured her, I have captured her.”

  “How do you know it is the right woman?”

  “General, the jagged scar running down the right side of her head is fairly conclusive. Also, I am currently looking at the photograph you included on the bulletin your office dispatched to Lubyanka. It is the same woman.”

  Gregorovich sighed heavily, so much so that it was clearly identifiable even through the scratchy telephone receiver.

  “Who else have you notified regarding the woman?” the general asked.

  “No one. You sent out the bulletin, your telephone number was provided, so I called you.”

  “Good. Keep it that way. I want you to tell no one, until I instruct you to do so.”

  “I can do that,” Andrei said. This was getting interesting. “I assume you would like me to bring the woman to you?”

  “No, I would not like that.”

  “Where am I to take her then?”

  “That depends,” Gregorovich said. “Where is she now?”

  “I have her secured inside a KGB interrogation facility outside Sevastopol.”

  “I see,” the general said thoughtfully before falling silent. It was obvious he was thinking, so Andrei remained quiet. Half a minute later, Gregorovich said, “I will come to you.”

  “Sir, the facility in which the woman is being held is…primitive. It is not the kind of place you probably wish to visit.”

  “Comrade Lukashenko, I have not always worked behind a desk. I served in World War II, where I nearly froze to death defending my homeland from Nazi Germany. I am quite certain I can handle your KGB facility, no matter how ‘primitive,’ it is.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course, Sir. I did not mean to imply—”

  “I do not care what you did or did not mean to imply. I will fly to Sevastopol immediately and meet you as soon as possible. I can be there by midafternoon. When I arrive, I intend to interrogate this woman personally. She has much to answer for.”

  “I understand, Sir.”

  “When I have finished with her, you may transport her to Lubyanka. She is a foreign operative, and our government will want to extract as much intelligence from her as possible before she faces a firing squad.”

  “I understand,” Andrei repeated. He assumed that by “interrogate,” Gregorovich meant “torture,” and he hoped he would be permitted to observe. Or maybe even participate.

  “Thank you for the notification, Comrade Lukashenko. Your excellent work will not go unrewarded.”

  “Thank you, General.”

  “I will see you soon. Goodbye, Comrade.”

  “Uh, General, I have not given you the address of the facility.”

  “That will not be necessary. I have a complete list of KGB interrogation facilities, including the one outside Sevastopol. All you need to do is secure the woman for three or four hours until I arrive.”

  “I understand, sir. Goodbye,” he said, but Gregorovich had already hung up.

  37

  June 25, 1988

  12:15 p.m.

  Abandoned factory north of Sevastopol, Russia, USSR

  No sooner had The Weasel strutted out of the building than Tracie began examining the handcuffs Lukashenko had used to secure her to the iron equipment arm bolted to the long metal table. They looked identical to cuffs used by law enforcement everywhere, and Tracie knew within seconds of starting her visual examination that there would be no breaking a link, forcing the bracelets open, or otherwise removing them.

  Had she had her lock-picking tools, maybe, although it would have been far from a sure thing. Picking locks had not been one of her strong suits during training at The Farm, and her success ratio at that task in the field had been less than stellar.

  It certainly wasn’t happening here, today.

  She turned her attention to the equipment arm around which Lukashenko had secured the second handcuff bracelet. It was constructed of heavy iron, and a cursory glance revealed it would be impossible to snap in half without benefit of a hydraulic tool like the Jaws of Life, used by rescue crews to extricate car accident victims from their mangled vehicles.

  Tracie cursed under her breath and squinted as she considered the method the Soviets had used to secure the arm. Heavy iron L-brackets had been bolted to it on all four sides and then affixed to the table via more bolts inserted through holes drilled into the metal.

  The factory had been empty for decades, and had probably been in use for decades before that. Heavy rust flaking off the bolts was a sign of corrosion, and Tracie guessed these were original equipment, probably vintage early 1920s, shortly after the Russian Revolution.

  Maybe with the application of sufficient force, she could snap enough of the weakened bolts to allow her to topple the arm.

  She placed both hands on the arm, as close to the metal plate on its top as possible, in order to achieve maximum leverage. Then she pushed as hard as she could.

  It was no good. She couldn’t manufacture sufficient torque. Her body was positioned at an angle, probably close to forty-five degrees, and the moment she tried to exert any force, her feet slipped out from under her on the smooth concrete floor.

  Goddammit.

  She wasn’t ready to give up on the idea of snapping the bolts yet, though. She clambered onto the table and then crouched in front of the equipment arm. Lowering her shoulder to the arm, she tried again, shoving
against it with as much force as she could generate.

  Still nothing. Her feet slipped and slid on the table, exactly as they had done on the floor moments ago.

  She backed up on the table as far as she could, given the fact her wrist was secured to the iron arm. Then she lunged forward and rammed into it with her shoulder, grunting from the effort, beginning to sweat from exertion even in the coolness of the massive, shadowy room.

  Nothing. There was no indication any of the bolts were even close to snapping, and the arm stood tall and straight, seemingly taunting her with its indestructability. All she had accomplished was to bruise her shoulder, adding that pain to the pair of bruises on her skull from being pistol-whipped, and the steady throbbing of her injured ankle.

  She swiped her face on her upper arms, doing her best to clear the sweat, and eased into a sitting position on the table. It wasn’t exactly comfortable. To sit with her legs dangling off the table meant that her right arm was stretched behind her, wrist forced to remain inches away from the equipment arm.

  The vantage point offered her a decent view of the room’s interior, though, and Tracie swept it with her eyes, moving left to right as she searched for something, anything, that might offer her the chance for escape. She didn’t know where Lukashenko had gone, thus had no idea how much time it would take for him to return, but she doubted his absence would continue much longer.

  Her backup gun and her knife lay within a couple feet of each other, still on the floor where they’d come to rest after Lukashenko tossed them away while he frisked her. They were well out of her reach, at least two-thirds of the way between her position and the building’s front wall.

  If I could only get to that damned gun.

  She knew her primary weapon was also exactly where she’d dropped it, back in the hallway running the length of the offices and storage rooms. Lukashenko had walked right behind her as he forced her onto the production floor and had never backtracked into the hallway before leaving the facility, so it stood to reason the gun was still there.

  Two guns and a knife, all less than fifty feet away, all utterly useless to her.