by Tom Clancy
“How do you know all this?” the American had asked in his New York office.
The response had been a broad grin, after three double vodkas. “I know these people, of course. Come, you must know what I did before leaving the service of my country.”
“You actually worked with terrorists?” he’d asked, surprised, and thinking about this bit of information, even back then.
It was necessary for Popov to explain in the proper ideological context: “You must remember that to us they were not terrorists at all. They were fellow believers in world peace and Marxism-Leninism, fellow soldiers in the struggle for human freedom—and, truth be told, useful fools, all too willing to sacrifice their lives in return for a little support of one sort or another.”
“Really?” the American asked again, in surprise. “I would have thought that they were motivated by something important—”
“Oh, they are,” Popov assured him, “but idealists are foolish people, are they not?”
“Some are,” his host admitted, nodding for his guest to go on.
“They believe all the rhetoric, all the promises. Don’t you see? I, too, was a Party member. I said the words, filled out the bluebook answers, attended the meetings, paid my Party dues. I did all I had to do, but, really, I was KGB. I traveled abroad. I saw what life was like in the West. I much preferred to travel abroad on, ah, ‘business’ than to work at Number Two Dzerzhinsky Square. Better food, better clothes, better everything. Unlike these foolish youths, I knew what the truth was,” he concluded, saluting with his half-full glass.
“So, what are they doing now?”
“Hiding,” Popov answered. “For the most part, hiding. Some may have jobs of one sort or another—probably menial ones, I would imagine, despite the university education most of them have.”
“I wonder . . .” A sleepy look reflected the man’s own imbibing, so skillfully delivered that Popov wondered if it were genuine or not.
“Wonder what?”
“If one could still contact them . . .”
“Most certainly, if there were a reason for it. My contacts”—he tapped his temple—“well, such things do not evaporate.” Where was this going?
“Well, Dmitriy, you know, even attack dogs have their uses, and every so often, well”—an embarrassed smile—“you know . . .”
In that moment, Popov wondered if all the movies were true. Did American business executives really plot murder against commercial rivals and such? It seemed quite mad . . . but maybe the movies were not entirely groundless. . . .
“Tell me,” the American went on, “did you actually work with those people—you know, plan some of the jobs they did?”
“Plan? No,” the Russian replied, with a shake of the head. “I provided some assistance, yes, under the direction of my government. Most often I acted as a courier of sorts.” It had not been a favored assignment; essentially he’d been a mailman tasked to delivering special messages to those perverse children, but it was duty he’d drawn due to his superb field skills and his ability to reason with nearly anyone on nearly any topic, since the contacts were so difficult to handle once they’d decided to do something. Popov had been a spook, to use the Western vernacular, a really excellent field intelligence officer who’d never, to the best of his knowledge, been identified by any Western counterintelligence service. Otherwise, his entry into America at JFK International Airport would hardly have been so uneventful.
“So, you actually know how to get in touch with those people, eh?”
“Yes, I do,” Popov assured his host.
“Remarkable.” The American stood. “Well, how about some dinner?”
By the end of dinner, Popov was earning $100,000 per year as a special consultant, wondering where this new job would lead and not really caring. One hundred thousand dollars was a good deal of money for a man whose tastes were actually rather sophisticated and needed proper support.
It was ten months later now, and the vodka was still good, in the glass with two ice cubes. “Where and how? . . .” Popov whispered. It amused him where he was now, and what he was doing. Life was so very strange, the paths you took, and where they led you. After all, he’d just been in Paris that afternoon, killing time and waiting for a meet with a former “colleague” in DGSE. “When is decided, then?”
“Yes, you have the date, Dmitriy.”
“I know whom to see and whom to call to arrange the meeting.”
“You have to do it face-to-face?” the American asked, rather stupidly, Popov thought.
A gentle laugh. “My dear friend, yes, face-to-face. One does not arrange such a thing with a fax.”
“That’s a risk.”
“Only a small one. The meet will be in a safe place. No one will take my photograph, and they know me only by a password and codename, and, of course, the currency.”
“How much?”
Popov shrugged. “Oh, shall we say five hundred thousand dollars? In cash, of course, American dollars, Deutschmarks, Swiss francs, that will depend on what our . . . our friends prefer,” he added, just to make things clear.
The host scribbled a quick note and handed the paper across. “That’s what you need to get the money.” And with that, things began. Morals were always variable things, depending on the culture, experiences, and principles of individual men and women. In Dmitriy’s case, his parent culture had few hard-and-fast rules, his experiences were to make use of that fact, and his main principle was to earn a living—
“You know that this carries a certain degree of danger for me, and, as you know, my salary—”
“Your salary just doubled, Dmitriy.”
A smile. “Excellent.” A good beginning. Even the Russian Mafia didn’t advance people as quickly as this.
Three times a week they practiced zip-lining from a platform, sixty feet down to the ground. Once a week or so they did it for-real, out of a British Army helicopter. Chavez didn’t like it much. Airborne school was one of the few things he’d avoided in his Army service—which was rather odd, he thought, looking back. He’d done Ranger school as an E-4, but for one reason or other, Fort Benning hadn’t happened.
This was the next best or worst thing. His feet rested on the skids as the chopper approached the drop-site. His gloved hands held the rope, a hundred feet long in case the pilot misjudged something. Nobody trusted pilots very much, though one’s life so often depended on them, and this one seemed pretty good. A little bit of a cowboy—the final part of the simulated insertion took them through a gap in some trees, and the top leaves brushed Ding’s uniform, gently to be sure, but in his position, any touch was decidedly unwelcome. Then the nose came up on a powerful dynamic-braking maneuver. Chavez’s legs went tight, and when the nose came back down, he kicked himself free of the skid and dropped. The tricky part was stopping the descent just short of the ground—and getting there quickly enough so as not to present yourself as a dangling target . . . done, and his feet hit the ground. He tossed the rope free, snatched up his H&K in both hands, and headed off toward the objective, having survived his fourteenth zip-line deployment, the third from a chopper.
There was a delightfully joyous aspect to this job, he told himself as he ran along. He was being a physical soldier again, something he’d once learned to love and that his CIA duties had mainly denied him. Chavez was a man who liked to sweat, who enjoyed the physical exertion of soldiering in the field, and most of all loved being with others who shared his likes. It was hard. It was dangerous: every member of the team had suffered a minor injury or other in the past month—except Weber, who seemed to be made of steel—and sooner or later, the statistics said, someone would have a major one, most probably a broken leg from zip-lining. Delta at Fort Bragg rarely had a complete team fully mission-capable, due to training accidents and injuries. But hard training made for easy combat. So ran the motto of every competent army in the world. An exaggeration, but not a big one. Looking back from his place of cover and concealment,
Chavez saw that Team-2 was all down and moving—even Vega, remarkably enough. With Oso’s upper-body bulk, Chavez always worried about his ankles. Weber and Johnston were darting to their programmed perches, each carrying his custom-made scope-sighted rifle. Helmet-mounted radios were working, hissing with the digitized encryption system so that only team members could understand what was being said . . . Ding turned and saw that everyone was in his pre-briefed position, ready for his next move-command . . .
The Communications Room was on the second floor of the building whose renovations had just been completed. It had the usual number of teletype machines for the various world news services, plus TV sets for CNN, and Sky News, and a few other broadcasts. These were overseen by people the Brits called “minders,” who were overseen in turn by a career intelligence officer. The one on this shift was an American from the National Security Agency, an Air Force major who usually dressed in civilian clothes that didn’t disguise his nationality or the nature of his training at all.
Major Sam Bennett had acclimated himself to the environment. His wife and son weren’t all that keen on the local TV, but they found the climate agreeable, and there were several decent golf courses within easy driving distance. He jogged three miles every morning to let the local collection of snake-eaters know he wasn’t a total wimp, and he was looking forward to a little bird-shooting in a few weeks. Otherwise, the duty here was pretty easy. General Clark—that’s how everyone seemed to think of him—seemed a decent boss. He liked it clean and fast, which was precisely how Bennett liked to deliver it. Not a screamer, either. Bennett had worked for a few of those in his twelve years of uniformed service. And Bill Tawney, the British intelligence team boss, was about the best Bennett had ever seen—quiet, thoughtful, and smart. Bennett had shared a few pints of beer with him over the past weeks, while talking shop in the Hereford Officers’ Club.
But duty like this was boring most of the time. He’d worked the basement Watch Center at NSA, a large, low-ceiling room of standard office sheep-pens, with mini-televisions and computer printers that gave the room a constant low buzz of noise that could drive a man crazy on the long nights of keeping track of the whole fucking world. At least the Brits didn’t believe in caging all the worker bees. It was easy for him to get up and walk around. The crew was young here. Only Tawney was over fifty, and Bennett liked that, too.
“Major!” a voice called from one of the news printers. “We have a hostage case in Switzerland.”
“What service?” Bennett asked on the way over.
“Agence France-Press. It’s a bank, a bloody bank,” the corporal reported, as Bennett came close enough to read—but couldn’t, since he didn’t know French. The corporal could and translated on the fly. Bennett lifted a phone and pushed a button.
“Mr. Tawney, we have an incident in Bern, unknown number of criminals have seized the central branch of the Bern Commercial Bank. There are some civilians trapped inside.”
“What else, Major?”
“Nothing at the moment. Evidently the police are there.”
“Very well, thank you, Major Bennett.” Tawney killed the line and pulled open a desk drawer, to find and open a very special book. Ah, yes, he knew that one. Then he dialed the British Embassy in Geneva. “Mr. Gordon, please,” he told the operator.
“Gordon,” a voice said a few seconds later.
“Dennis, this is Bill Tawney.”
“Bill, haven’t heard from you in quite a while. What can I do for you?” the voice asked pleasantly.
“Bern Commercial Bank, main branch. There seems to be a hostage situation there. I want you to evaluate the situation and report back to me.”
“What’s our interest, Bill?” the man asked.
“We have an . . . an understanding with the Swiss government. If their police are unable to handle it, we may have to provide some technical assistance. Who in the embassy liases with the local police?”
“Tony Armitage, used to be Scotland Yard. Good man for financial crimes and such.”
“Take him with you,” Tawney ordered. “Report back directly to me as soon as you have something.” Tawney gave his number.
“Very well.” It was a dull afternoon in Geneva anyway. “It will be a few hours.”
And it will probably end up as nothing, they both knew. “I’ll be here. Thank you, Dennis.” With that, Tawney left his office and went upstairs to watch TV.
Behind the Rainbow Headquarters building were four large satellite dishes trained on communications satellites hovering over the equator. A simple check told them which channel of which bird carried Swiss television satellite broadcasts—as with most countries, it was easier to go up and back to a satellite than to use coaxial land-lines. Soon they were getting a direct newsfeed from the local station. Only one camera was set up at the moment. It showed the outside of an institutional building—the Swiss tended to design banks rather like urban castles, though with a distinctly Germanic flavor to make them appear powerful and forbidding. The voice was that of a reporter talking to his station, not to the public. A linguist stood by to translate.
“ ‘No, I have no idea. The police haven’t talked to us yet,’ ” the translator said in a dull monotone. Then a new voice came on the line. “Cameraman,” the translator said. “Sounds like a cameraman—there’s something—”
—with that the camera zoomed in, catching a shape, a human shape wearing something over his head, a mask of sorts—
“What kind of gun is that?” Bennett asked.
“Czech Model 58,” Tawney said at once. “So it would seem. Bloody good man on the camera.”
“ ‘What did he say?’ That was the studio to the reporter,” the translator went on, hardly looking at the picture on the TV screen. “ ‘Don’t know, couldn’t hear with all the noise out here. He shouted something, didn’t hear it.’ Oh, good: ‘How many people?’ ‘Not sure, the Wachtmeister said over twenty inside, bank customers and employees. Just me and my cameraman here outside, and about fifteen police officers that I can see.’ ‘More on the way, I imagine,’ reply from the station.” With that the audio line went quiet. The camera switched off, and shuffling on the audio line told them that the cameraman was moving to a different location, which was confirmed when the picture came back a minute later from a very different angle.
“What gives, Bill?” Tawney and Bennett turned to see Clark standing there behind them. “I came over to talk to you, but your secretary said you had a developing situation up here.”
“We may,” the Intelligence section chief replied. “I have the ‘Six’ station in Geneva sending two men over now to evaluate it. We do have that arrangement with the Swiss government, should they decide to invoke it. Bennett, is this going out on commercial TV yet?”
Bennett shook his head. “No, sir. For the moment they’re keeping it quiet.”
“Good,” Tawney thought. “Who’s the go-team now, John?”
“Team-2, Chavez and Price. They’re just finishing up a little exercise right now. How long before you think we declare an alert?”
“We could start now,” Bill answered, even though it was probably nothing more than a bank robbery gone bad. They had those in Switzerland, didn’t they?
Clark pulled a mini-radio from his pocket and thumbed it on. “Chavez, this is Clark. You and Price report to communications right now.”
“On the way, Six” was the reply.
“I wonder what this is about,” Ding observed to his command sergeant major. Eddie Price, he’d learned in the past three weeks, was as good a soldier as he was ever likely to meet: cool, smart, quiet, with plenty of field experience.
“I expect we’ll find out, sir,” Price responded. Officers felt the need to talk a lot, he knew. Proof of that came at once.
“How long you been in, Eddie?”
“Nearly thirty years, sir. I enlisted as a boy soldier—age fifteen, you see. Parachute Regiment,” he went on, just to avoid the next question. “Came over to S
AS when I was twenty-four, been here ever since.”
“Well, Sar Major, I’m glad to have you with me,” Chavez said, getting in the car for the drive to the Headquarters Building.
“Thank you, sir,” the sergeant major replied. A decent chap, this Chavez, he thought, perhaps even a good commander, though that remained to be seen. He could have asked his own questions, but, no, that wasn’t done, was it? Good as he was, Price didn’t know much about the American military yet.
You oughta be an officer, Eddie, Ding didn’t say. In America this guy would have been ripped from his unit, kicking and screaming or not, and shipped off to OCS, probably with a college degree purchased by the Army along the way. Different culture, different rules, Chavez told himself. Well, it gave him a damned good squad sergeant to back him up. Ten minutes later, he parked in the back lot and walked into the building, following directions up to Communications.
“Hey, Mr. C, what gives?”
“Domingo, there’s a chance we may have a job for you and your team. Bern, Switzerland. Bank robbery gone bad, hostage situation. All we know now.” Clark pointed both of them at the TV screens. Chavez and Price stole swivel chairs and moved them close.
If nothing else, it was good as a practice alert. The preplanned mechanisms were now moving. On the first floor, tickets had already been arranged on no fewer than four flights from Gatwick to Switzerland, and two helicopters were on the way to Hereford to ferry his men to the airport with their equipment. British Airways had been alerted to accept sealed cargo—inspecting it for the international flight would just have gotten people excited. If the alert went further, Team-2 members would change into civilian clothes, complete with ties and suit jackets. Clark thought that a little excessive. Making soldiers look like bankers was no easy task, was it?
“Not much happening now,” Tawney said. “Sam, can you roll the tapes from earlier?”