by D S Kane
* * *
Betsy and William trotted from the area surrounding the airport terminals. William searched for a place to hide. But Betsy knew that no matter what she did, she would still look foreign. Not Asian. No hat to shade my face. So out of place. “Willy, they’re looking for you, and I’m like a sign they can read that says, look at them! Maybe we should separate?”
William faced her and nodded. “Sorry.” He handed her a white face mask. “People use these to keep the dust from getting in their lungs. Put it on. It won’t hide your eyes, won’t keep you from being seen as a gweilou. But it’s still better than separating. You can’t read Mandarin or Cantonese. You’d be lost. Five minutes here without a tour group and they’d have you. I’ll bet the cams in the airport have coughed up both our photos by now. No, we started this together.” He donned his own face mask and pulled her by the arm, across to the bus stop at the other side of the street. His whisper held a desperate touch of nastiness. “Keep up with me.”
She sighed and tried to keep pace. She wondered, where will we be safe? Then she realized, we’re running out of time!
* * *
Ann examined the room. It was absurdly small and spare but at least it was clean. The tiny bureau was painted white but it showed signs of massive abuse. When she tugged on one of the drawer handles, it came off in her hand. She could smell stale cigarette smoke.
Once more, she told herself it would do for a few days. She’d spent almost an entire year homeless, living in the tunnels under Grand Central Station after her birth mother overdosed. She shivered with the memory of how Cassandra had saved her from the rapist who’d murdered her brother. The room’s curtains reminded her of the wretched apartment where she and her little brother had lived with her birth mother. Somehow this hotel room seemed more familiar now, more comfortable in some nasty way. Yes, this room would do just fine.
She dropped the bag, removed her coat and gloves, and used the toilet. Now she was ready to face whatever Misha and his friend Chow had to offer.
After donning her coat and gloves again, she knocked on Misha’s door. He held his cellphone in his hand and seemed to be annoyed as he opened the door and terminated the call. He stepped out into the hall, the room’s door slamming behind him. “We go now.” He zipped up his parka and marched to the elevator with Ann trailing behind.
When they reached the street, Chow’s cab was waiting for them. The taxi’s exhaust stank of diesel fuel and clouds of it shrouded the cab. Misha opened the passenger door and they both bounced inside.
After Misha closed the door, he smiled at his old friend. Ann tried to follow the conversation, but it was in Russian. Chow turned and smiled at her as he spoke.
Several minutes later their conversation ended. Chow nodded at Misha and put the cab in gear. He turned back to face the windscreen and backed the cab from the curb, then put the vehicle in drive. He drove off, clanging the gears as he shifted.
Misha faced Ann. “He says State Security computers are housed in the third sub-basement of the Lubyanka Building. Is very cold there. We wear our coats.”
“Will they just let us in? Don’t we need IDs?”
He nodded. “Wait until we get to Lubyanka Square. We manufacture ID’s there, while inside warm cab.”
She nodded, but still remained doubtful about this entire enterprise. She was certain they would be caught and thrown into prison.
It took nearly an hour for the taxi to travel just over two miles. The traffic was heavy or wasn’t moving at all. They finally reached the Kremlin. Nearby, the Lubyanka was a large Neo-Baroque building with a façade of yellow brick. A fortress, squat, brooding and imposing, befitting its former service as KGB headquarters and a prison. Ann shivered looking it.
The taxi pulled to the curb a respectful distance from the Lubyanka. Chow said something in Russian and pulled a camera from his coat pocket. He said, “Smile, moi drugs—my friends,” and snapped photos of Ann first, and then Misha. Then he pulled a small machine from beneath the cab’s front seat. He extracted the SD card from the camera and inserted it into the machine. Ann watched him press several buttons and the machine coughed up a small, plastic rectangular card with Russian Cyrillic print on it. She could see her own photo in its corner. He repeated the process again and a similar card appeared with Misha’s photo.
Chow took a handheld device from the glove box and slid the magnetic barcode of the IDs through the reader. “I’ve hacked their computers and added a wireless access the last time I was there. They never found out and it’s still embedded in their system. FSB systems are ancient tech. Now, as soon as their systems rebuffer, you will be FSB operatives.”
Ann remembered that the Russian Federation referred to the Federal Security Service as the FSB. She was surprised to hear Chow speak English.
“It will take several minutes,” Chow said, “and then, no problem entering the Lubyanka.”
Misha took both cards and handed one to Ann. He passed a stack of US dollars to Chow. Misha smiled as he examined his card. “Backstopped State Security IDs. Worth a fortune. I bet you have a large client base. With these, we can even enter Kremlin, a few blocks away from the Lubyanka.”
Ann felt a solid wall of doubt bordering on sheer terror. “Wait. Tell me, who do these ID’s make us out to be?”
Misha scanned the IDs. “I am Misha Kovich, Lieutenant Colonel, Russian State Police. You are Ann Sashakovich, Apprentice Hacker, State Security Service.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Apprentice? I’m only an apprentice?” Then she realized she’d felt insulted, and laughed instead.
Chow nodded as he opened the cab’s door. “Da. Idea is to get you two in, not make you heroes of the state. You will need me to take you inside the building and get you past security entrance.”
Misha nodded to Chow. “Dasvidaniya, moi tovarish. Goodbye, my comrade.” He opened the cab door and beckoned to Ann.
She followed him into the freezing winds and marched toward the doorway of the formidable building that now housed a division of the FSB. She took a deep breath. “Ohmigod. Can’t believe I’m doing this.”
Sang walked through the revolving door and beckoned them to follow.
Misha just nodded and turned back to Ann before he walked through the door. “Say nothing. Remember, you must speak no English.”
She almost slipped on the ice. “What if someone asks me a question?”
“Your ID says you are deaf and dumb. Computers only, and they accept both English and Russian keyboards. Courtesy of Microsoft. A good plan.”
They stood in front of the fortress-prison.
She nodded at him, but her gut felt queasy. The stakes are so high. What will happen to America if we fail?
CHAPTER 37
Lubyanka Prison, Moscow, Russia
February 24, 4:22 a.m.
Ann studied the street in front of the entryway to the Lubyanka, a sterile gray brick below the yellow brick of the upper three floors. It reminded her of a haunted house. She wondered, how many people had died within its walls? This time it wasn’t the cold that had her shivering.
Misha pointed to the gray building next to it. “That one is new offices. Houses SVR and FSB administration, management for operatives and analysts. We go into the other one, across the street.” He pointed to the yellow one, the one she’d been eyeing. “It now houses a museum in lobby and servers in sub-basement. Those servers are your objective.” He led her to its door. “Ready?”
As they entered, Misha pointed up and she looked at the decorated rotunda ceiling. The decorations appeared to be pictographs of the Russian state’s history. A history of violence.
Ann’s eyes darted around the lobby. She could see an exposed courtyard through a doorway in the center of the building, past the security gate. She’d read that executions were a frequent occurrence, and they were done in that courtyard. She saw guards, conspicuous as they patrolled within the lobby.
Misha and Chow Sang stepped up to the securi
ty gate with Ann in tow. Chow presented their newly coined IDs to the uniformed guard. The guard fussed over their IDs.
The guard flashed the IDs over a screen. The screen flashed back a message. The guard waited a few seconds, then glared at Misha. He spoke Russian. While Ann didn’t understand what he’d said, it was obvious. Misha stared at Chow. “We have a small problem,” he said. “No record of either of us exists in the system.”
Chow shrugged and turned his back, then walked a few meters away from them.
Misha drew his cellphone from his pocket and punched in Chow’s number. They spoke for a few seconds, then Misha handed the phone to the guard. The guard and Chow argued for almost a minute. Then the guard motioned to other guards.
Misha didn’t seem surprised as they cuffed him and Ann.
Ann felt defeated. Her stomach did loops. Oh, fuck! Could she and Misha find a way to still achieve their mission? Of course not! Ann felt overwhelming terror now. What would they do to her? She imagined herself being raped and then cut to pieces. Fear overwhelmed her.
They were escorted through the lobby to a steel door and taken down a damp concrete stairway to one of the sub-basements. Prison cells were all Ann could see. Ohmigod! I will die here!
A burly guard shoved Ann into a cell, and another guard locked its door. She felt tears bud at the corners of her eyes. She was certain they would now fail to complete their mission.
Instead, we’ll be executed as spies. Millions will die in the invasion. Worse still, the United States will cease to exist. Mom and Dad will be among the casualties.
She collapsed onto the sticky, stained concrete floor.
She heard footsteps as the guards marched Misha further down the hall. Another cell door creaked open and then closed. She heard Misha scream something at the guards before they left them alone in their nearby cells.
In seconds all Ann could hear was her own voice, sobbing. Time passed and she ran out of tears. She scanned the cell. A small window and a thin, rotting mattress on the floor. A hole in the concrete at the corner served as her toilet. She wanted to scream but when she opened her mouth, the nasty odors of body waste, blood, and even more obnoxious filth filled her lungs. She took a shallow breath and wiped her eyes.
But when she remembered her birth mother’s overdose on drugs, her ugly death while Ann and her younger brother Joshua watched in their Brooklyn tenement, she realized this was no worse than the worst she had already suffered in her past life. Joshua’s death later the same day as her birth mother’s death had left her with a hollow feeling. And now, Ann reconciled herself to the fact that her death would follow soon.
Misha had seemed so confident his plan would work. But it failed. She wondered how many other deaths that failure would cause. She folded her arms as she thought about everything that had occurred since she’d first called Misha. Until now, everything seemed to follow a logical, achievable plan. Then she remembered something she’d once heard her godfather, Avram Shimmel say: No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. Her mouth fell open.
We’re fucked. Like totally.
CHAPTER 38
Top floor of the Kremlin,
Red Square, Moscow, Russia
February 24, 5:02 a.m.
President Pushkin scanned the computer screen depicting his army and naval invasion plans. From the Gantt chart, he knew his troops were still waiting to board aircraft in Vladivostok and St. Petersburg. But at least the aircraft were all finally available. They were now fueled and ready. He clenched his lips with anticipation. It was time to vanquish an old enemy.
His next task was to order his generals to coordinate the final step of the invasion with their Chinese counterparts. To trigger this, he needed to speak with Chairman Lin Chow Chang. He nodded at his assistant. “Call Lin.” He faced the computer screen, waiting for the secure connection.
Lin’s face appeared. “We are ready. Have you fixed your problems?”
Pushkin restrained his impulse to glare. “All is ready. Set the time now.”
Lin nodded back. “Begin the invasion in fifty-six minutes, at the turn of the hour.” The screen went blank.
Pushkin remembered reading Caesar’s Gallic Wars when he was a child in school. At the point when Caesar crossed the Rubicon River to invade Rome, he’d said, “The die is cast.” That was the moment when he’d committed himself to becoming the first emperor of Rome. And so it was now for Pushkin and Lin.
Then he remembered Caesar’s fate when it became apparent to others that he might want to become emperor. Pushkin was sure such a fate could never happen to him. He’d thought the plan through so thoroughly. Nothing could go wrong.
* * *
William ran behind the Butterfly, across three lanes of traffic and into the airport parking garage. As they trotted through the structure, he tried remembering the layout of the pathways through the garage. How do we find the path back out of the airport?
Betsy turned and pointed. Bicycles! William saw several bikes chained to a cast-iron bike stand. He nodded back and they approached. Chains with locks attached each bike to the stand. He took a deep breath and pulled his set of ceramic bump-key lock picks from his pocket. “This should be easy.” And he took less than a minute to spring each lock.
“Okay, now we have a fighting chance.” He hoisted his attaché case into the bike’s basket and mounted. She did the same.
The ride down the ramp was hard to navigate, but soon they were out into suburban Beijing traffic. It had taken them under five minutes.
William remembered the location of the CSIS technology development building that he and Betsy had helped destroy a few years ago. His father had told him that he’d had it rebuilt in the same location using an identical layout.
William wondered just how similar the plans of the new building really were. If it was significantly different, he and Betsy might have problems locating the servers. What if they had changed the layout and moved the servers? They could be on a different floor and then it wouldn’t matter if the building had the same layout.
At least he had a working ID. He’d taken enough time during their flight to China to penetrate a server and reactivate his old ID from years ago, when he worked with his father. Getting in should not be a problem. But getting out…
* * *
The cell on the Lubyanka’s first basement floor remained silent. Misha heard Ann’s curse. He shrugged. The plan had worked even better than he’d hoped. He was glad he hadn’t shared the plan with Ann. If she was tortured first, she might have told their captor something. Especially if they’d started her interrogation before he could put the next phase of the plan into action.
The prison’s cells were two floors above that of the servers.
He pulled out the ceramic lock pick he’d hidden inside his beard. There were no guards roaming the floor right now. This might be their only chance to complete the mission.
He walked to the cell’s door and inserted the pick into the lock. He thought, this used to be so easy. Maybe still it is. He pushed the bump key into the lock’s cylinder and was greeted with a distinct click.
The door sprang open. He sighed. Still easy.
He left the door ajar and sprinted down the hall toward where he’d seen them take Ann.
* * *
William and Betsy were both out of breath. They pedaled the stolen bikes more slowly now, after riding from near Ring Road Five all the way to between Ring Roads Three and Four. It had taken them nearly a half hour. William pointed their new direction, a turn down a wooded road.
They were within visual distance of the barbed wire fence surrounding the CSIS technology development building. There was a thick copse of trees inside the fence but no guard towers or visible security, just as it had been the last time he’d been there. The security would be a host of technology-driven devices, and there would be plenty of them. Some of them would activate and inform its minders; other pieces would simply kill both of them.
; He motioned her to stop.
She pulled her bike up to where his stood and dismounted. “What do we do with the bikes?”
He stood silent for a while, listening for sounds that might indicate they’d been discovered. Except for insect noises, there was silence.
He thought about their options. Really, there weren’t any viable ones. “If this succeeds, they’ll probably kill us as we run from the building. We’ll never reach the bikes. So long as the bicycles stay hidden so that no one sounds the alarm until we’re finished, it doesn’t much matter.” He pushed his bike into the shade of a tree near the fence and dropped it there. She did the same.
“So this is a suicide mission, Willy?”
He frowned and nodded. She pushed herself into his arms. “Just want to tell you, I love you.” She brushed his lips with hers. “If that’s your last thought, I guess everything is okay.”
He whispered into her ear, “Didn’t ever think it would end this way. I love you, too. Just in case you were wondering.”
She grinned. “Ready?”
They walked toward the security gate and their pending appointment with death.
* * *
The basement floor containing the cells was dark and smelled of mold and human filth. Misha didn’t mind the odors, but tears budding in his eyes made it hard to pick the lock on Ann’s cell. Making it harder was the fact that the walls and floor were dark.
She remained silent, her expression a pout.
Misha didn’t blame her for being moody. He hadn’t told her his plan because he doubted she would have approved. He thought it would work better if she remained ignorant until it was time for her to play her part.
His friend Chow had also doubted the plan would work. But he did as Misha had instructed him. Chow had told the guard that the ID’s weren’t valid and were probably forgeries. He demanded the guard imprison Misha and Ann until he could interrogate them, and, of course, the interrogation would be taped, so it would be brutal.