Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2)

by Jack Lively

  “You mean radiation from the people she’s been with?”

  He said nothing.

  I said, “Show me.”

  Hagen thumbed buttons on the phone, a combination of dialer numbers and side buttons. He held it up for me to see. I was looking at a little green screen with numbers on it. Low numbers, with decimal points that made them even smaller. Hagen looked around and pointed to a crop of craggy boulders in the creek.

  He said, “Those boulders are Alaskan white granite. Which is a stone containing trace elements of radioactive stuff. Like uranium, and thorium. This should get a reading. You want me to show you?”

  I gestured for Hagen to continue. I said, “What are you, a nuclear scientist or something?”

  Hagen kept his hands up and walked to the stones. He looked the epitome of a Hell’s Angel, but he was speaking like a college professor. He said, “Actually yes, I am.”

  When he arrived at the granite stone, the device in Hagen’s hand began to click. First slow, then more rapid. Until it was clicking along steadily like a pacemaker on a rabbit.

  Hagen read off the screen. “Zero point four one BQ, which stands for Becquerel. A very low trace, but fine to demonstrate. The device is sensitive.”

  I said, “Geiger counter?”

  Hagen shook his head, “Geiger counter is too crude, it’s fine for Gamma rays. This can detect those and others, like alpha rays. It’s a Scintillation Counter, if you want the technical term.”

  I said, “Why the fancy dead drop with an eight-pointed star instead of a simple phone message?”

  Hagen said, “We don’t communicate interesting information over the phone.”

  I said, “I figure there must be a whole bunch of you out there, graduating in nuclear physics. What is that, a growth industry now?”

  He stood up. Turned to me and shrugged again. “How do we end up doing what we do? I think a lot of it has to do with luck and coincidence, don’t you agree, Keeler?”

  Ellie had kept back. She was listening and she was armed. I lowered the Smith & Wesson, easing off the trigger. “I’m curious about the Porterhouse Bar, where you and Chapman put on that grand performance. That was staged for my benefit alone. You wanted me involved, but how did you know who I was?”

  “We wanted you involved because we needed you. It was Chapman who found you among the fishermen. You were her idea. I just followed her orders.”

  I straddled a large boulder at the water’s edge. Facing Hagen, keeping him between me and Ellie.

  “Okay Hagen, let me take a stab at straightening this out.”

  Hagen looked at me with a little smile on his face, visible in the ambient moonlight coming off the mist.

  I said, “You and Chapman are Russians. I’m guessing that you work for some unit of the Federal Security Service, investigating what my own government has refused or neglected to look into.” Hagen hadn’t moved or changed expressions. The same little smile was stuck inside of that beard. “Correct me if I get anything wrong.”

  He nodded.

  I said, “For you people, this is all about the nuclear submarine. K-349. You must be working for a branch of the FSB that does non-proliferation. I figure you got up here because your people had gotten wind of a black market salvage job.”

  Hagen nodded. “K-349 went down twelve years ago. We picked up chatter about a successful salvage attempt two years ago. It wasn’t any kind of good information, nothing actionable. But it was believable. So, the office developed a team to make computer models.”

  I said, “Like a map of possible places to store a stolen nuclear submarine.”

  “Correct. Believe it or not, there aren’t very many. Not thousands anyway. Distance to the salvage site, depth at port, you get the picture. Port Morris was one of them.”

  “Okay. So far so good. You get wind of the salvaged nuclear sub. It’s Russian, so you people feel a sense of responsibility about it. You lost it, and you failed to find it. Now you’ve got to do something about it.”

  Hagen was picking up pebbles and lobbing them into the water. “Well, in the beginning it was only chatter. Rumors and stuff coming in from the various listening stations.”

  I said, “But you people are devious and careful, and I mean that in a good way. Instead of committing resources yourselves, you decide to move through us. Chapman gets in early, gets her hooks into the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission via a romantic affair with this kid, George Abrams. You people had identified him as a consultant for the USNRC’s Office of Investigations. Being a consultant, he was easier to latch on to because you figured, rightly, that there would be less security around him. Chapman makes the initial approach to George Abrams at the conference in Estonia.”

  I was watching Hagen. He gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Go on.”

  I continued. “Chapman hooks into Abrams the consultant. She feeds him the K-349 story, in some subtle way that makes him think it was his own idea. He feeds it to his boss, Valerie Zarembina. So far, so good. It’s the next part that I have trouble with.”

  Hagen scooped up a handful of pebbles and started grinding them in his hand. He said, “Yes to all of what you just said. But of course, none of that mattered because Zarembina’s own people at the USNRC didn’t believe her about K-349.” He chuckled, shook his head and looked at me with a smile. “The bosses didn’t think there was enough evidence and they refused to commit resources to it.”

  “But George Abrams managed to make Zarembina into a believer.”

  Hagen said, “Yes. Ultimately, yes.”

  “Zarembina sends Abrams up on a freelance mission, because she’s sure it’s real.”

  He nodded.

  I said, “And that’s why we don’t have a thousand federal officers swarming over town right this moment.”

  Hagen said, “That’s correct. I’m sure they’ll come eventually, when it’s too late.”

  I said, “But we aren’t dealing in eventually, we are the ones right here, right now. Let’s go back to you, Hagen. The team is you and Chapman. She’s the senior officer. I figure she’s got a degree in physics, but you’re the real scientist. You look like a guy who kills bears with his hands but you’re more of a geek. She’s the real soldier. You come up here before Chapman, preparing the ground. You join up with Deckart via the security job at the cruise ship. You look the part, and no doubt you’ve got some faked credentials to prove it.”

  Hagen said, “You don’t need much for that job, Keeler. Once we’d found a probable location for K-349, we did a lot of research. We found this Mister Lawrence group. Tried everything we could to get in with their organization, but they run a tight ship. The next thing was to look around at their contractors. Sort of the same thing we did with the USNRC. Found Deckart and took it from there.”

  “Not bad work.”

  He shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t quite enough actually. We didn’t expect the resistance we got from the Mister Lawrence people, or how deep they’d dug themselves in here.” He laughed once. “Felt like we were back home in Russia or something.”

  I said, "And then what, figured you needed a little extra help?”

  We were about ten feet from Ellie’s position. Hagen emptied the handful of stones into the creek. “Something like that. It was Chapman’s call. We were stuck. Going nowhere fast. She decided that we needed to insert a little chaos into the equation. Boris Spassky’s got a famous chess proverb. Something about when you’re stuck in a stalemate position, the best thing to do is make completely unpredictable move and see what possibilities open up. You were Chapman’s move, Keeler.”

  I said, “I was the element of chaos you needed. Smart choice. Smart how Chapman allowed Zarembina to think she’d made the call herself.”

  Hagen said nothing. I said, “What?”

  He said, “Arrogance. That’s what made her easy to control. To be honest.” He looked up from the creek.

  I said, “What was Abrams supposed to do up here?”

&
nbsp; Hagen said, “Abrams works on non-linear acoustics. Which is a complicated and dry topic. The important thing to know is that he’s the kind of guy who figures out how to either find something underwater or hide something underwater.”

  “Give me the cliff notes version.”

  “The simple version is that you can’t use regular vision to find things underwater. It isn’t practical, and there’s a far better way to detect stuff because of how sound waves travel through liquid.”

  “Sonar. Like a beeping version of radar.”

  Hagen said, “Correct. You throw a sound wave at something, measure the way it comes back. Seems simple, but it isn’t. You need the academic minds in there to figure it out.”

  I said, “So Abrams was like the Seal Team Six of underwater detection, but what about hiding stuff?”

  “Abrams’ research was all about figuring out how to make sounds that can hide an underwater asset, rather than finding it. He was able to construct precise noise fields built from frequencies that were designed to absorb the sonar pings.”

  “Like a composer or something. A counter-surveillance sound artist.”

  Hagen snorted. “Something like that, although nothing that can be detected by the human ear.”

  I said, “But you never found out what he discovered up here in Alaska.”

  “From what George Abrams told Chapman,” Hagen said, “His job here was to listen for exactly the kind of sound fields that he would have used to hide something like K-349. But the kid disappeared. It hasn’t worked out very well in the end.”

  I shook my head. “You’re wrong there, Hagen. It’s working out fine, far as I can see. The kid disappeared. He took one for the team, which is a message all by itself. It says that he found something. It’s like he was putting a gift in a box, but didn’t have time to finish the job. Now we’re going to wrap this all up and tie a bow on it.”

  Hagen said, “I wish I were as optimistic as you.”

  “You would be, if you were an American. But you’re not. What we’ve got here is a situation gone FUBAR. It isn’t looking good for George Abrams. Best case scenario, the whole thing just ends.”

  He said, “And what’s your proposition for ending it?”

  “I’m working on it. The only thing I’m quite sure of is that it’s going to happen tonight.”

  Hagen said, “So you agree that we’re on the same side, with the same intentions?”

  I said, “More or less. Who are the Russian boys working for Mister Lawrence?”

  Hagen nodded. “That’s the other complication, and one of the reasons we needed to go in with a low profile. Mister Lawrence was smart enough to hire Russian mercenaries. Maybe they knew that we would be the most interested in tracing our missing property. The mercenaries are known as the Wagner Group. Very efficient, and very dangerous. All veterans of the war in Syria.”

  I nodded. “I know them. Killed a few, happy to kill more. Slightly weird, Russians going up against Russians.”

  Hagen shrugged. “Internal competition, same everywhere. Wagner group is run-out of our military intelligence agency, the GRU, we’re the FSB. They won’t hesitate to kill us all.”

  Ellie’s boots crunched gravel. We both looked at her. The Ruger was down at her side. I said, “All good?”

  Ellie said, “I’ve got a question.”

  I spoke to Hagen, “This is Ellie.”

  He looked at her and nodded. “Shoot.” He smiled, like he’d made a joke.

  She said, “How did you know that Chapman was going to be at the Rendezvous? She had no phone.”

  Hagen broadened the smile and looked at me with raised eyebrows.

  I said, “Give me your wallet, Hagen.” He pulled the wallet out of his jeans pocket, tossed it at me. I caught the tight leather package in my left hand and flipped it open. About a hundred and twenty in cash. Including one ten and a five. I hesitated and chose the five. I handed the bill to Ellie. “See if you can find a message on there.”

  Ellie used the light from her phone to scan the five-dollar bill. She found what I had expected her to find. She said, “RDV dash 5. Written right on Abe Lincoln’s forehead in ballpoint pen.”

  Ellie handed the five back to Hagen. “What’s RDV?”

  I spoke to Ellie. “RDV is the French contraction for the word Rendezvous. The other part is what, fifth toilet counting clockwise?” Hagen nodded. “Chapman gives the bum a five-dollar bill, and then you show up and offer him a twenty in exchange for five in change.”

  Ellie said, “Did the drunk guy even know what he was doing?”

  Hagen said, “I don’t think he did, no.”

  I said, “That’s a nuclear scientist for you. Smart.” I looked at Hagen. “How did you know he wouldn’t spend it?”

  Hagen smiled very slightly. “No such thing as zero risk right Keeler?”

  I turned the Smith & Wesson around and handed it to him. He took the gun and inspected it. “Thanks.”

  I said, “Your uncle really gave that to you?”

  “Some kind of an uncle, yes.”

  “Tell me something Hagen, how does it end. I mean as far as you and Chapman are concerned. What’s a satisfactory outcome from your point of view.”

  Hagen shrugged. “We need to get the nuclear materials out of the hands of the thieves and into the hands of a responsible party.”

  “Such as the government of the United States of America.”

  Hagen nodded. “Yes.”

  With my other hand, I removed the Glock from my jacket pocket. I saw his expression change, from friendly to cautious. I said, “There’s one more thing I need to tell you.”

  Hagen watched me. “What’s that?”

  I said, “Once it’s done, I’ll need you on a boat back to Russia. Either that or I’ll bury you here.”

  For a while Hagen said nothing, remained motionless as if his pause button had been depressed. He said, “You would bury me, personally with your own hands?”

  “I meant that proverbially.”

  He nodded. “I understand, yes. That’s how it is going to be.”

  He held out a massive hand and I brought mine up to meet it. Hagen said something in Russian which I didn’t understand. He said it again in English. “Russian proverb: Better to have a hundred friends than a hundred rubles.”

  “Amen brother.”

  Forty-Six

  We split from Hagen at the creek.

  I wanted to look at the plans Ellie had retrieved from the code enforcement office. She and Hagen discussed the details of how to get to her house. Hagen climbed past the boulders and up the bank to his vehicle. Ellie and I returned the way we had come, stepping across the creek over stones. Now that I wasn’t focused on Hagen, I noticed other sounds. There was the wind and the water, and there was something else. Which made me look to my left. Several forms moved in the mist, animal shapes. The shapes came with sounds and smell. The sounds were low and guttural, the smell was heavy and pungent. I realized that we were sharing the creek with other creatures. I looked at Ellie.

  She turned to me with a grin. “Bears drinking. Isn’t that cute?”

  When we emerged from the woods back to the roadhouse, old-school country music was seeping out of the Rendezvous. A couple of men were sitting on the porch drinking from tall beer bottles. As I crossed the lot, a woman came out the front door, banging it loudly and shouting.

  When we arrived back at the vehicles, Ellie turned to me. “Let’s summarize.”

  I leaned back against the Land Cruiser. “You want to go first or want me to go first?”

  “You were closer to him, so you heard it better. I’m a little fuzzy on the details.”

  “I thought you wanted the summary.”

  “Okay I’ll go first. You fill in anything I’m missing.” She leaned against the truck next to me.

  I said, “Shoot.”

  Ellie was looking up at the place where dark sky ran into the treetops.

  “The big guy and Chapman
are Russian spies with an anti-proliferation unit of the FSB. The Russians figured out where the stolen submarine is located but they wanted proof before committing.” She looked at me. I nodded.

  “So far so good.”

  “So rather than send in a bigger team, they figured they’d get the Americans to do the heavy lifting for them. Chapman has an in with the USNRC via the hook up with George Abrams as an unwitting agent. She feeds him information that he feeds to Zarembina. That leads to George Abrams getting sent up here to investigate. But I don’t get why he came alone.”

  “You missed an important step Ellie. Valerie Zarembina wanted to investigate. I met her. She was smart and tough, maybe fearless even. The kind of woman who would go all the way if she had a strong intuition. Zarembina felt that whatever Abrams had was good enough, but someone further up the ladder in the USNRC didn’t agree. So, at that point the investigation is blocked. My guess is that Chapman slipped Abrams something extra, enough to push Zarembina over the edge and send young George up here alone. Probably she wanted to gather irrefutable proof.”

  Ellie was nodding. “Right. Which is why we’re here now. George stopped responding. I guess Zarembina freaked out and came up here to try and clean up the mess, hoping to extract her agent.”

  “And behind all that is Chapman and Hagen, quietly scheming.”

  She said, “Yeah but we’re talking about stolen nuclear materials. There’s more at stake than George Abrams or any other individual person. Like you said, Abrams took one for the team. Am I supposed to blame the Russians here?”

  “I don’t. They had a major problem and needed it solved. Institutional failure both ways. Their people lost the sub, ours lost the opportunity to get the hint from Zarembina. Or worse, the Mister Lawrence people go deep and somebody’s bank account got a bump.”

  Ellie said, “And now Chapman’s put herself in the middle of it. Woman’s got courage.”