Marta was so much more than their pawn. She would kill them both soon enough. It was just a matter of time and timing. She straightened her stance; stiffened her bearing. She suddenly had to shove down a thought, an image of Lance. Stop it. Don’t think the name again. Why had he invaded her thoughts? She didn’t like it and couldn’t accept it. For the next half a second she saw a fleeting image of herself pointing a gun at him and pulling the trigger. She shoved that one down quickly as well. It caused her pain.
Chapter 5
No one was waiting for him as he walked up the air bridge from the plane that brought him from London to JFK. That was a good thing.
He fell into line with the other international passengers arriving in America; many were tourists making their first visit to the land of plenty. They all pulled out their papers. Most were still blurry-eyed from sleeping on the uneventful 7-hour 30-minute flight. He was carrying a passport that identified him as a businessman from Kuwait City. They were good papers, not real, but good.
He was calm and collected, no nerves at all as he stepped up to the counter for his turn with the bored but vigilant female customs agent. She greeted him by looking into his eyes per protocol. He smiled slightly and handed over his documents. She spent 40 seconds reviewing the passport and Kuwaiti I.D. card. She typed several bits of data into the aged computer sitting beside her on the counter. After reading the data returned to her screen, she turned back to him.
“Mr. Rashidi.”
“Yes.”
“Your visit to the U.S., is it business or pleasure?”
“All business this time.” He continued to smile, but appeared appropriately tired.
“Where will you be conducting your business?”
“Here in New York and in Philadelphia.”
“And what is your home address?” She asked.
He recited the address on the passport and then gestured to the document in her hands. “The information on my passport is current.”
“When will you be returning to Kuwait?”
“I will be flying to Jordan at the end of the month and then home to Kuwait.”
“Do you have your return tickets with you?”
“Oh, no I will be purchasing them within a week or two when my plans are confirmed.”
“Very good,” she was just about done with him. “Your visa requires you to check in with the Kuwaiti embassy and provide them your contact information while in the country.”
He smiled, a tired and weary, but pleasant smile. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to contact them tomorrow. I have the number right here.” He held up his briefcase and patted it. The customs agent handed him his documents and he made his way to the baggage claim.
After grabbing his bag, he stepped outside into the New York night. Instead of turning left to get in the line for taxis, he turned right and walked down the sidewalk. A taxi bypassed the waiting line and pulled over to the curb 50 feet in front of the man. It was a breach of protocol, but the taxi did have its "out of service" light lit.
The man opened the door and tossed his luggage in the back seat and closed the door to open the front passenger door to get in. He and the driver did not speak or look at each other. There would be plenty of time to talk later. First, he needed to visit the blind cleric in a secret location. There was news to share from the leaders. News that could only be carried by trusted couriers and shared in person with true believers.
He had been to New York two times before, but he couldn’t keep from craning his neck and looking up at the buildings as the taxi rolled down the urban canyons of Manhattan. To think, he was in a remote village in the mountains of Afghanistan just three days ago. He looked, but they were too far away to get a good view of the World Trade Center towers down at the south end of the small island. He’d see them soon enough, he told himself.
The man stepped out of his unadorned sedan onto the late evening sidewalk in front of the apartment building he called home. He also called the building his own. Unlike the millions in Moscow trying to scrape by today, only to face a tougher fight tomorrow, he had figured out the game long before coming to the Russian capitol. Politics was the answer. That is where the power is.
Instead of walking to the front entrance where a guard waited to open the door for him, he stepped back into the street and crossed. On the other side, a street vendor stood beside his pushcart. The man, a king among men, walked up to the vendor. The stooped old man bowed as the great man approached.
"How are your potatoes today?" He asked as he reached and lifted one.
"I believe it is an excellent batch in today sir," the vendor stepped aside, holding his hat in his hands. "Please take your pick. Your wife will be pleased with any of these, I believe."
He chose three potatoes and handed them to the vendor who put them into a paper sack. "Excellent choice sir."
"How much?" He asked.
"No charge. Please consider them a gift." The vendor smiled and bowed his head further.
"No, no. I insist. Name your price."
The vendor looked up, the smile faded from his beaten, battered face. "Three potatoes, three thousand rubles." The vendor did not flinch, did not bow his head this time.
If the man, the king, was insulted by the outlandish price, he did not let it show. Inflation was crazy, but the equivalent of $300 for three potatoes was certainly an insane amount. "Now, that is what I like to hear. Capitalism is here. In a capitalistic society the price is flexible, supply and demand. Excellent." And he stepped in close, his face inches from the vendor. The man's guards took several steps closer as well. He waved them off.
"But capitalism also allows for negotiation. So my counter offer to you, my good potato man, is this, five thousand rubles." The man pulled the bills from his pocket. It was a sum many citizens of the Soviet Union, now the Russian Federation, would not earn in six months. "Here take it. The world gives you nothing. You only get what you work for, or have the balls to take."
He handed the vendor the bills, took the sack of potatoes and turned to walk away. "These better be the best potatoes my wife has ever seen." He laughed.
The wealthy man walked across the street to the apartment building. His guards, who had escorted him across the street, stopped at the front door and turned back in the direction of the street vendor who had began packing up his cart. They proceeded to escort the vendor out of the neighborhood and out of this life.
Like many great men, Kirill Cherzny, had lots of others willing to do his dirty work. A street vendor willing to ask an excessive sum for three potatoes today, could be a business owner willing to withhold his monthly percentage next month if word of this incident spread. It didn't.
Chapter 6
Gregor the Terrible was anxious.
His composed exterior gave no indication of his condition. Sitting across from Victor Provodnov, the regional KGB chief for the Caucasus States, Gregor Smelinski heard words and read body language. This man, his hand-picked manager, was lying to him. Lying to his face right now. But, Smelinski's mind was elsewhere.
Smelinski, the leader of all European KGB, now called the FSK - Russian Federation Counterintelligence Service operations, had asked Provodnov quite directly what was happening in Chechnya. The regional chief should know, or at least have a solid grasp on the facts. Instead, he spoke of black market crime syndicates, illegal human trafficking and drug dealers emboldened by wavering leadership in Moscow. The Soviet empire was dying. And the dying bear was unable to control the smaller cubs, the young bears rising in the hinterlands of the Union.
Smelinski knew things were being pulled apart in all directions. He received reports daily from region and station chiefs in each of the republics detailing actions by local governments no longer fearful of retribution by the KGB. There was simply too much change taking place. But Smelinski still had a job to do. When the dust settles on whatever remains of the Soviet Union, there will be plenty of wrongs to right and scores to settle. But some things were
unacceptable. Disruption and chaos in Chechnya was one of those things. The recent violence and instability was driven by something the KGB simply did not have a grasp on. It was undoubtedly the damn Islamic menace.
If his mind wasn’t preoccupied with Marta, Smelinski might have had Provodnov killed right in front of him, or maybe done it himself. But she had shaken up his world two days earlier, like she had many times before. Smelinski left Provodnov alive, but with strict orders to get a handle on things, or else.
An hour later, Smelinski was on the outskirts of Grozny. He truly detested Chechnya, its roads, its people, its overall insignificance. But he knew this little piece of shit state would require his attention for some time to come. Losing influence here was not an option. The dominos must not fall. Not yet, at least.
He cleared his mind and let the flood of the headlights on the broken road before him wash away his thoughts. He needed to be fresh for his next appointment. Marta had resurfaced and requested a meeting with him by way of coded communiqué. He had a great many questions for her.
She had succeeded in tracking Korovin and Kusnetsov in their attempt to sell nuclear warheads to Iraq. But the reports from Baghdad were sketchy at best. U.S. forces apparently killed K&K. Seibel had obviously been there. His fingerprints were all over the operation. But details, crucial details, were lacking. Chief among these was Marta’s whereabouts in the weeks after the mission.
Smelinski had given her a long and flexible leash with her assignment to “go rogue” and create a syndicate of murder and mayhem. It was a clever and multi-layered ruse designed to draw out corrupt elements within the KGB. It was a house cleaning of sorts that Smelinski devised to put things in order in preparation for whatever revolution was coming.
Marta had excelled in her mischievous role, well beyond his, or his few superiors’ expectations. Her assignment was to be a loose cannon, a catastrophe machine that could be pointed at targets requiring eradication. She performed superbly. Sending Marta and her legion of brutal killers to prevent the former KGB agents from selling nukes to third-world crazies was a natural extension of her mission. Her ability to operate outside the law put her on a collision course with K&K.
But something happened in Baghdad. Contact with her and her key players was lost. The firefight in that warehouse district had been something. Satellite images showed hundreds of casualties and then an extraction of U.S. military forces by helicopters, followed by extensive bombing of the site by American air forces. Seibel covered his tracks extremely well. The one post-mission communication Smelinski had with his CIA counterpart confirmed acquisition of the nukes from Korovin and Kusnetsov, as well as confirmation of their deaths. But nothing more. If Seibel knew anything about Marta and her team, he did not mention it, of course. But he was certain Seibel did not know the true motives of her mission. He had kept his contact with her to a minimum and only met with her in private, in locations he selected.
But still, Smelinski was left with a huge blind spot where Marta was concerned. She had gone quiet, “off the grid” as the Americans say. For four weeks, she was silent. She had simply disappeared. Until two days ago, when he received a coded phone call at his home. Only Marta knew both the number and the code. His own call to a number only he knew confirmed it was her. She was short, providing only a day and time to meet. Tomorrow in Belgrade. He wanted to drive part of the route to give him time alone to think. He would drive through the night to Sevastopol, where he would catch a flight to Belgrade. He liked flying in and out of Sevastopol because it was such a popular tourist destination. It was so easy to blend in with vacationers returning to their normal lives after a stay on the Crimean Peninsula. He would be there by mid-day tomorrow, if the damn Chechnyan roads did not destroy his borrowed car.
Chapter 7
Fuchs bumped him sliding past on the right. They were both moving quickly down a pitch-black alley with their silenced M4 assault rifles in firing position. Their movements the epitome of stealth. Their trek over several miles of hilly terrain to get to this sparsely populated village lit only by the dim quarter moon overhead had gone without incident. That would surely change in the coming moments. Lance checked to make sure his rifle’s safety was off.
While Lance and Mikel Fuchs, his unofficial mentor, slithered along the walls of their chosen alley, Tarwanah and Jamaani, their Jordanian comrades, prowled the next street over. Radio headsets and microphones connected the two teams. But no one was talking. They each knew their assignment. They were here to kill and capture, and then kill some more.
Up ahead, there was a noise in the darkness. Lance nodded to Fuchs. The mentor took a few more steps to a corner then dropped to the ground and peered around. He raised his right hand up against the wall and held up two fingers. Lance dropped to his stomach and slid across the dirt street into the open. He put the first of the two guards in his crosshairs and then moved gently to put the other in the center of the intersecting lines. He was still a lousy shot, but from 40 yards, this was definitely in his comfort zone.
“Go.” Fuchs’ whisper was barely audible.
In the next moment, Lance exhaled and pulled the trigger, absorbed the rifle's kick, moved to the next target and gently squeezed the trigger again. Two center forehead hits. Two kills. The silencer transformed the shots into brief hydraulic exhales in the night. Damn, he was getting better.
“Two north.” Lance whispered into his microphone. Without hesitation, Lance and Fuchs were back on their feet on either side of the wider street. Up ahead, a generator purred.
If one listened closely, between the pistons firing inside the generator’s motor, you could hear two more brief hydraulic spitting sounds. Tarwanah had taken out two more guards on the next street over. Intel told them two more sets of guards now stood between each team and their target.
“Two west.” It was Jamaani confirming his partner’s kills.
Approximately 120 yards ahead, their target awaited. Lance went out of body. He had to make his mind’s eye stop at 500 feet. It wanted to go higher to take in the whole village, but Lance was only interested in the street ahead. Looking down on the dirt streets at night did not give up much information. In his head, he reviewed a memorized satellite image of the streets, doorways, windows ahead. He switched to a daytime image he’d memorized. In the photo, a vehicle bearing the same license plates was evident. Back on the ground, Lance could see that Chevy sedan now. It had been moved, but not far. It was still outside the designated building. Two guards leaned on the trunk smoking cigarettes.
At 60 yards, Fuchs would take the shots, unless he signaled that he wanted Lance to take one of them. If intel held true, two other guards should be stationed on the opposite side of the building and right about now, they should be center-targeted by a couple of Jordanian operatives.
“Two south ready.” Tarwanah, this time. They were in position.
“Two north ready.” Fuchs lay flat on the street up against a brick wall. Lance took a knee and put his crosshairs on the gentleman on the left. He didn’t plan on firing, just being prudent.
“Go.” Lance whispered. In the night, four nearly silent rapid breaths could be heard. They sounded like stifled sneezes. Through his scope, Lance watched the guard’s head explode out the back. He moved his scope to the right and saw the other guard falling, at first on the trunk, and then to the ground. Two perfect kills.
“Two south.”
“Two north.”
Four more guards were now dead. That made an even eight. Lance and Fuchs were up and on their feet moving forward in shadows. They reached the Chevy and two dead guards then split up. Lance continued on to a far corner, Fuchs stopped at the nearest corner of the building.
They were at their destination, on time and on target. All team members in place and all guards dismissed from duty and from life. Lance put his hand on the bricks of the building and knew instantaneously they were screwed. It was all wrong. He could sense it. Those tiny, nearly invisible hairs on t
he back of his neck all stood on end. He instinctively ducked, pivoted and swiveled his head to shout, “Abort.”
But before he could take a step or roll to the side, an array of floodlights lit up the night. A low hum turned into the wailing of a siren.
“Boom, you’re dead.” Geoffrey Seibel’s words in their headsets were quiet and calm, like the voice of God. He came walking into the light. Lance thought he looked kind of like God emerging from eternal blackness onto a billowing cloud. The director, the unquestioned leader of his own private army within the Special Activities Division of the CIA, stood and looked at Lance.
“Explosives.” Not a question. Lance shook his head and looked from Seibel to Fuchs walking back around the Chevy in the street. “A bomb.”
“Indeed.” Seibel was close enough now to take off his radio. “A device more than sufficient to blow apart the structure, the four of you and much of the surrounding squalor.”
Fuchs walked up with his gun resting on his shoulder. “A nice little trap.”
“Ah,” Seibel raised his eyebrows and looked over at Tarwanah and Jamaani walking around the corner of the building. “A trap. How could that be?”
The four of them looked at one another. Not surprisingly, the other three all settled on Lance. After meeting the other’s eyes, he smiled.
“If I had to guess, I’d say bad intel. Deliberately bad intel.”
Seibel stepped into the middle of the group. “That would be an excellent guess. But it doesn’t get at the why.”
The Perfect Weapon Page 4