The Perfect Weapon

by Christopher Metcalf

  Lance knew this flight, carrying two generals to Antwerp, Belgium had been scheduled three days earlier. He called the military command control center to add his cover name, rank and serial number to the passenger list. His five-word duty description was sufficiently vague – delivery of decision-support materials. He wore a Lieutenant 's uniform and carried a black briefcase; a chain attached to a cuff on his wrist added to the effect. The disguise said the contents of this particular case were important and would be defended.

  For some reason, this combination of officer uniform and chained briefcase was the single most respected image presented by the military. This simple costume spoke of importance, dedication and capability.

  It was also complete bullshit. If someone, anyone, carried vital information, the last thing you would do is draw attention to yourself with an official-looking black briefcase chained to your wrist. If one were entrusted with top-secret information, it would be in the form of a hidden microfiche or a disk or even sealed in plastic and ingested to be passed at a later time. Wearing an officer’s uniform and carrying a black briefcase often meant the exact opposite. Instead of protecting information, that person was protecting those around him. Your basic security work. And often, the man in uniform was anything but an officer. Look closer and the details give them up for the brutes they often are.

  Thus, sitting two rows behind the two generals being transported this evening, anyone who knew the truth behind the costume assumed Lance was aboard to protect the generals. It was a perfect cover.

  Six and a half hours after takeoff, the Gulfstream touched down at a private field outside Antwerp. The 3,800-mile distance comfortably inside the jet’s maximum distance of 4,200 miles. Customs clearance for three-star and two-star generals and an accompanying lieutenant was way too easy. This is why Seibel preferred this method of travel.

  Anyone watching the arrival of these three passengers at oh-six-hundred on a misty Tuesday morning would assume they were on their way from Antwerp up the road to The Hague. It was a short hour and a half drive. Of course, anyone watching closely would have seen the two generals get into their waiting car and the lieutenant carrying a briefcase and a duffle walk the other way into the mist. But no one was watching as Lance Priest disappeared.

  Chapter 10

  The names were never said. The faces sometimes changed, but the assembled members of Account One were the "who’s who" of U.S. intelligence. They were gathered this late morning for a special update from Geoffrey Seibel.

  He is this elite group's lifeline to reality. Each of them, the heads of the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and White House Office of Intelligence, receive any number of reports back from the field each day. These reports were full of assumptions and errors based on guesses, false hypothesis and on flimsy evidence.

  From Seibel they received only facts. He never relayed anything to this group when he was not 100 percent certain of its authenticity. Today, Account One expected an update on Iraq and the continuing disintegration of the former Soviet Union. Instead, they heard about something called al Qaeda. They had heard bits and pieces before. But Seibel, sitting there with only two sheets of paper on the table in front of him, told them a story they did not expect.

  Each of the members of Account One thought that the war was over. We won. Instead, Seibel informed them that the U.S. was fighting a new enemy. Al Qaeda had declared war on the United States and other western nations in 1989, but resources were just now learning about the network. Seibel detailed what he knew about Osama bin Laden, a few deputies within the organization and their beginnings in the mountains of Afghanistan.

  At the conclusion of his report, he paused for questions from the members of Account One. The looks on their faces resembled that of a principal dealing with a perpetually troublesome student. No one spoke, so Seibel continued.

  “I’ve dealt with a number of small organizations, factions if you will. This is different. This is a movement that supersedes ideology. It is cultural. That is the best way I can describe it. These men, these terrorists, are doing something, setting up something we simply haven’t seen before. We could kill them all tomorrow and another head would grow.”

  CIA was the most informed on al Qaeda and added, “Our analysts are setting up a special task force to evaluate threats like this. We are just beginning.”

  “They are a couple of years ahead of us,” Seibel responded.

  NSA spoke up, “What are they planning?”

  Seibel looked from him to the others. “Everything. Attacks, killings, subversion, evangelical communication, but most of all, bombs. Everything I've seen tells me they are developing a network, a franchise system of bombers and bomb makers.”

  The room was silent for a few moments until the director of White House Intelligence spoke. “What are we doing?” He really meant, ‘what are you doing?’

  Seibel knew what he was asking. So he smiled as he spoke. “Quite a bit, of course. We are deploying agents to the field and initiating new training methods as we continue to reorient resources away from Eastern Europe to the Middle East and points east.”

  That wasn’t the answer they wanted to hear and Seibel knew it, so he gave them what they wanted. “The special team has been given new assignments. They have already begun operations.” He could tell they were still waiting. “Yes. All team members have been deployed, including Preacher."

  That got pursed lips and nods from the men around the table. Preacher’s reputation had already infected this elite group of intelligence professionals. Only CIA knew Preacher’s true identity and he wished he didn’t. He knew plausible deniability was best where Preacher was concerned.

  Seibel put a capstone on the report with a final statement. “Body count will be high with him in the field without a net. They will need to grow their new heads quicker.”

  The report concluded with a short recital of information coming out of Russia involving the escalating growth and influence of the Mob right alongside that of new oligarchs, the small group of men rolling up businesses and rolling in cash. Organized crime in the former Soviet Bloc had assumed power and influence that threatened to destabilize nations even more than the money and power grab underway by the new class of oligarchs.

  Chapter 11

  Friday, August 9, 1991 — Budapest, Hungary

  People change. Their temperament or demeanor can be dramatically affected by circumstances. Their life's roadmap altered, unveiling new destinations and options. Marta Sidorova was not taking change well.

  Her circumstances, feelings and disposition had been altered by her exposure to a young CIA agent. But she fought change, literally fought against it inside her head. Moments after he left her presence, and in the months since she had seen him, she attempted to close off a small portion of her mind that held onto memories of him. If anything, she became more resolute, more dedicated to her mission of bringing pain and destruction to those who stood in her way.

  Almost four months after watching Lance drive away from her mountain stronghold, she once again faced change as she placed the smoking, burning hot silencer of a gun to the back of a man’s neck.

  Why did she do it? Because this man lied to her. His lie was one of omission. She had asked a simple question and his response was slow, calculated. He was given the opportunity to join her, but instead, he left a wife and two small children at home waiting for him.

  Marta needed soldiers. She needed unquestioning troops to work on her behalf. This man had been groomed for one of these positions. But when the offer was extended to him a few minutes ago, he fumbled. It turned out he was merely a Budapest puppet watching money for the new oligarchs gobbling up wealth and power in a new Russia. Marta had given him a chance to be a real player, but he refused.

  She smiled and excused herself from the table in the small café near the Erzsebet Bridge and walked to the toilet. She didn’t need to go, just needed to approach the two men sitting at a table nearby from
a different angle. In her peripheral vision, she saw them turn their heads slightly to watch her. The two men were drinking coffee and wearing heavy jackets on a warm night. She had seen them come in 15 minutes earlier and watched them scouting out the location 15 minutes before that. The third man in their team was sitting in car a block over. He was supposed to be watching. But an extra set of holes in his head, courtesy of Marta, relieved him of duty. And life.

  When Marta emerged from the toilet, she held her purse in front of her body while taking the six steps to the table occupied by the two coffee drinkers. A step from their table, she moved the handbag to the left and raised the silenced Glock in her healed left hand. Both men’s eyes bulged, one started to yank the cup from his lips. He didn’t get the cup very far before she put the first bullet through his skull. She turned the gun on the other gentleman and ended his life in a similar fashion. Less than two seconds later she stood behind her dinner date. He didn’t turn around. There was no time and no reason to.

  He tensed when the burning silencer pressed into the skin of his neck and singed a perfect round circle.

  “Do svidaniya.” She thanked him in their native tongue and began to apply pressure to the trigger. His death would be nothing, but then again, it would be something. It would mean pain, suffering, emptiness, a black hole for his family, his children. A full second passed. A lifetime.

  Marta did not see the man sitting in front of her. She did not hear the screams in the cafe. She did not smell the coffee, the baking breads, or feel the cool gun in her grip. Her senses were momentarily lost. She was back months earlier, with him. Lance.

  Try as she might, she could not keep him out. In this moment, she felt the danger, the complications, of this new sensation. She was changed. Marta, the ice-cold killer of dozens, pulled the silencer from the man's neck and turned away.

  An amateur might run from the café. Marta knew that to run is to draw attention. She tucked the gun into her purse, eyed every single person in the room, turned slowly to the door and walked out. A woman near the exit, hysterical at the sight of the spattered blood, stifled her screams when Marta’s eyes met hers. There was ice there.

  She walked out the door, through the crowd on the patio and hung a right at the sidewalk. Behind her, people came out of shock and began moving about and screaming. A man stepped out to give Marta one more look to get a better description for the police. As if on cue, she stopped and looked back at the man. He squinted his eyes and immediately ducked back into the restaurant. When the police showed up, he and everyone else in the room described the same individual. Female, medium height, straight black hair in a bobbed style, square-rimmed glasses, business attire. Her general appearance gave away her ethnicity, even though it was being downplayed. The killer, to everyone’s eyes in the café, was an Asian woman. You could tell by her makeup, her hairstyle, the way she moved. She was Asian, maybe Japanese. But she was trying to hide it by appearing Western European.

  The deception was perfect. Marta knew it. She’d used this one several times. As she rounded a second corner two blocks away, she removed her black wig, glasses and suit jacket and put them in her purse. She pulled out a blue overcoat and removed the pins holding her hair up. She pulled another bag, a light duffle, and put her purse in it. She was a different person. Hair brown, eyes blue, glasses gone. Behind her, the sounds of wailing sirens began. She didn’t worry about others coming after her. She had watched her contact, followed by his two accomplices, enter 20 minutes earlier. She scanned the crowd, walked along the sidewalk, stepped into doorways and alleys and found no one else waiting or trailing them.

  As she reached the car she had parked 45 minutes earlier, she opened the door, threw her purse in the passenger seat and drove away. She was alone, and that gave her time to collect her thoughts.

  Tonight meant four for four. She had approached a quartet of contacts in the preceding months and found each turned. This was the work of someone in power; someone with the stroke to uncover her associates, invade her network and turn those previously under her spell against her. It had to be Smelinski.

  As she accelerated onto a freeway out of central Budapest, she thought back to her last meeting four months ago with her mentor in the waiting room of a basement clinic in Belgrade. It was three days after Lance -- she gripped the steering wheel tighter -- after he left. She shook her head and Lance’s image ebbed from her mind.

  Gregor the Terrible was waiting for her as she walked in. She was purposefully late because she had scouted out the location for the previous half hour and found no hidden or latent resources. She gave Smelinski the location for the meeting only 40 minutes earlier, and had been at a fourth-story window looking down as he arrived 29 minutes ago. After the KGB master entered, she scanned all directions from her vantage point. She saw no patterns, no suspicious movement. From the street six minutes later, she saw nothing out of order. Marta used a small pair of binoculars to scan windows looking down on the clinic entrance. She saw no movement, no slightly parted window drapes or shades. She worked her sightline along the rooftops and saw no black shadows, no radios, no glint of glass from scopes mounted on rifles.

  She entered the clinic from a street-level door on the opposite side from the main entrance and took a set of stairs down to the basement. Smelinski greeted her with a nod, genuinely pleased to see her alive and well. They sat down next to each other like strangers waiting their turn to see the doctor. Their muted conversation couldn't be overheard by the half-dozen patients and family members in the waiting room.

  “So good to see you are well,” Smelinski whispered under his breath, looking away from her.

  “And you, sir.” She was always deferential with Smelinski. It was a role she mastered before their first meeting nearly a decade ago. Seibel had coached her how to do it. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Of course. I was beginning to wonder about your status. It appears Baghdad was even more exciting than we expected.” Smelinski had a smile in his voice.

  “Indeed it was.” No smile in hers.

  “Tell me. Tell me everything.” Smelinski picked up a booklet and leaned on the armrest of his chair to get closer to her. “Everything.”

  “Perhaps another time sir. I am not here to talk about Iraq.” She shut down this direction immediately. She had another agenda. “You know what I know, I’m sure. The Americans took out Korovin and Kusnetsov. They then captured the weapons. They obviously had help from other elements either within the Iraqi Mukbarat or Israeli resources on site.”

  “And you lost your team but survived, thank God.” Smelinski was monotone in his deliver.

  “No thanks to God. A Delta team had us all in their sights and took out my men. I did not escape unharmed.”

  “Which explains your absence these past weeks, correct?”

  “Correct. Recovery after surgery.” She brought her left hand over to her right armrest to let Smelinski see the raw scar where one of two bullets fired at her by Lance had struck. “It is nothing, though.”

  “Your first time being shot?” Smelinski was still monotone.

  “Yes.”

  “Then welcome to an even more elite club.” Smelinski smiled at this. “We all pay a great price for our work. Physical pain is a given. Death is a certainty.”

  “I didn’t ask you here to discuss wounds,” Marta changed the subject for good. “I need your permission to begin the next phase of our project. I have established a new target.”

  Smelinski put the brochure down and leaned his head back against the wall. “I assumed you were ready to get back into action. And I assumed small talk would be short, as usual.”

  “I’m pleased you understand my need to proceed without delay.”

  “Who have you identified?” Smelinski had his eyes closed as he asked. When Marta spoke her next words, he kept his eyes closed, but she couldn’t help but see the movement of the eye under the lid.

  “Kirill Cherzny.”

  The name wa
s not well known outside of Russia. Those who knew the name, knew that Cherzny was the very latest and least known oligarch rising to the top in the former Soviet Union. Unlike other oligarchs earning a bad reputation through unmitigated arrogance and excess, Cherzny was amassing a fortune quietly, as an elected official.

  Marta knew Cherzny was a huge and moving target - a meteor shooting across the sky gathering others into his orbit. But she didn’t know what hearing the name did to Smelinski. He kept his breathing in rhythm and opened his mouth several seconds later.

  “Why Cherzny?”

  “He is positioned differently than the others. He has diversified his holdings from day one. He has reach into almost every segment of the economy and every sector of the government.” Marta had been secretly researching Cherzny’s operations for well over a year.

  “His reach and influence in various segments can be a problem. Cherzny has many, many friends.” Smelinski still had his eyes closed. Hiding them from her.

  “Those friends are who we need to reach, correct?” She leaned her own head back against the wall.

  “Some of his friends are people we might not want to interfere with, not now.”

  “Are you telling me not to go after him?” She turned to the KGB veteran of three plus decades. He finally opened his eyes and turned to her. He was different.

  “I’m saying no such thing. He is perhaps the greatest example of those we have been working to bring down these past three years. He is corrupt, allied with forces that would destroy our nation, and willing to kill those who stand in his way,” Smelinski chose his next words carefully. “I am merely telling you that you must take great care should you proceed down this path. Even my assistance and support may not be sufficient to protect you. Please think about it.”