by Robert Berke
Vakhrusheva was a fast draw but this other man was already nearly on top of him by the time he had his gun out of his shoulder holster. The other man's foot came up to kick the gun out of his hand, but Vakhrusheva did not let go. The force of the kick nearly ripped his index finger right off and the weapon fired into the air. He saw the other man run into the terminal and he did not pursue. His responsibility was to deliver Ashkot.
He climbed into the plane to see Ashkot's dead body, tongue sticking out. Strangulated and neck broken. Vakhrusheva made it his personal mission to find out who had been responsible for Ashkot's death as Ashkot had no value to him, or to his employers, as a dead man.
Neither the pilot nor the co-pilot were culpable. Vakhrusheva knew this for sure as he had done the questioning of them himself and only the pilot had survived the questioning. They both insisted that Ashkot had been escorted by another man. An American bodyguard who's name was Gonzales. This Gonzales must have balls the size of the moon and the skills to back them up, Vakhrusheva thought. He had never forgotten the name Gonzales. This was already the second time he had heard it and the second time that it raised the bile in his stomach into his throat.
CHAPTER VIII.
Smith's camera picked up Hermelinda first. She was pale, and beautiful, and tired. She looked more radiant than he remembered, as if she were walking in a cloud of light.
Then he saw the baby. Bayron was glued to the monitor watching the left side and the right side of the screen throwing electrical activity back and forth between each other. It was the most activity Bayron had seen in Smith's real brain in a very long time.
"Bring her close, darling." Smith said. "I want to see her." The lights in the room flickered. Bayron made a mental note to increase the power to the room so that the occasional unusual brain activity they had now experienced three times wouldn't draw power away from the lights or other machines.
Hermelinda brought the baby close to the camera lens. The little motors in the lens moved it up and down and left and right. This continued for a several minutes. There was no talking, and no noise at all except for the quiet hum of the motors.
The camera stopped moving, but the silence continued. Bayron noticed that there was now identical activity on both sides of the monitor. Smith was conscientiously trying to use his biological brain.
Hermelinda became nervous with the silence. "Elly..." she said nervously.
"She's beautiful, Hermelinda. Forgive me. I have never felt what I feel right now. I am smitten. Overwhelmed. I want to hold her, to kiss her forehead, to smell her. I want to cry."
"You are crying, Elly," Hermelinda told him. There were, in fact, tears coming from the blind dead eyes in the near-corpse that had been Elijah Smith's body.
"What did we name her, Herme?" He asked.
"I named her for you, Elly."
"Elijah Smith is a terrible name for a girl." Smith quipped. His computerized voice was unusually punctuated. At first, Dr. Bayron thought there was something wrong with the speech emulator, but soon realized what Hermelinda knew from the outset. He was speaking through sobs of joy.
"I named her Ellen." Hermelinda said wiping some tears out of her own eyes.
"Under the circumstances, I'm just glad you didn't name her 'Garp.' Bring her close to my speaker, I want to whisper something to her."
Hermelinda complied. She couldn't hear much, but the baby was definitely hearing something as she held her ear up to the speaker.
The moment was interrupted by a flickering of the lights. Bayron said, with alarm in his voice, "is everything okay?"
"Yes," Hermelinda and Smith replied in unison.
"All of sudden there's no activity at all on the left monitor. A moment ago the left monitor was as active as I've seen it in days and then...flatline." Bayron said.
Smith's camera panned to Bayron's face, Smith was able to confirm from Bayron's expression what he suspected.
A silence descended and lingered. Hermelinda felt suffocated by it.
"Is, is it...?" Hermelinda stammered.
"Yeah," Bayron whispered, "I think so. Your biological brain is no longer functioning."
"I must've literally blown it out," Smith said. His remark was followed by an awkward silence until that silence was pierced by a long series of "ha ha's" from Smith's speaker, followed by Smith's voice which seemed warmer and less tinny than it had before, "funny, I don't feel dead."
Bayron went to the decrepit body that had once been Smith and felt for vital signs. There were none. Hermelinda cried, silently. Sadness filled the room. Even the baby began to cry.
"Boo!" Smith said and he started laughing again.
After Hermelinda took the baby to feed, Smith called for Myra.
Myra came to the infirmary and was glad to have the opportunity to congratulate Smith in person on the birth of his daughter. She was not yet used to speaking into the microphone and looking into the camera, so she walked up to Smith's, now cold, dead body to speak.
Smith noticed this and said, "The body is dead, Myra, that's why I asked you to come here in person. I'm going to need to make funeral arrangements."
Smith knew she would handle the task with the same cool efficiency with which she handled even the most mundane of tasks for him.
It was hard for her to think that she would be making funeral arrangements for her boss and close colleague of many years when here he was right there cracking jokes and sounding as alive as ever.
"You know what, Myra," Smith spoke, "I think I'd like to give my own eulogy."
"Very funny, Boss."
"No, I'm serious. This is a perfect opportunity for us to reveal the technology publicly. Think about it... we'll have all the media there, but mostly the obituary and social guys. They've never had a story like this. What are we going to do, pretend I'm really dead and then publish a scientific paper? Nah! Let's do this with some Hollywood style."
Myra knew he wasn't joking even though his tone was light. "Talk to your lawyer before you decide."
"You know what, fuck the lawyers. What do I have to lose? I'm already dead. Being dead is very liberating! You'll just have to take my word for that."
"I don't know boss. Look, you're all nice and dead already, but I've got a big freakin' company to run here. We should talk to the lawyers."
"Keep the corporate lawyers out of this. They're just going to try and talk me out of it. We'll tell Takahashi. He's knows to let an old man have some fun. In fact, why not put him in charge?"
"You're not an old man anymore. Really, you're a newborn now."
"Seriously, Myra, all the real legal stuff is done. You're taken care of, Hermelinda's taken care of, the baby is taken care of. Even if the company goes bankrupt tomorrow, everyone's going to have more money than they'll ever know what to do with. Let's knock 'em out. What's the harm?"
"Dr. Bayron is not going to be happy about this." Myra warned.
"Listen, he wants to go public with this more than any of us. He has the most to gain: the patents all belong to him, not SmithCorp. He's been trying to publish his results since the day we started. He still gets credit. This is just a more fun way to do it than by publishing in scientific journals. Hell, let him introduce me. He knows more about me than anyone anyway."
CHAPTER IX.
Josey Cruz was looking at a face that Smith had seen in a dream. And like Smith, Cruz had immediately noticed this other man's hands. Josey Cruz remembered his grandfather telling him how the Nazis would inspect the hands of their prisoners to determine who would be put to work and who would be put to death. These were clearly the hands of a worker. The knuckles were red and bony. They stuck out like crumbling pyramids in an arid valley. The scars and callouses, like heiroglyphs on the wall of a tomb, memorialized an ugly and violent history.
And yet this older man in the designer suit and satin hat bore a countenance so gentle, so calming, that Josey would never have believed that he was looking at a man capable of emotionlessly inflicting unsp
eakable harm at a moment's notice. Only the hands gave it away.
"Expected someone younger?" The man said with a smokey, cool voice which drew Josey's attention away from the fascinating hand he now held in his firm handshake.
The question put Josey off and he didn't like that. He didn't know who this man was and had no expectations. All Josey knew was that this man clearly commanded respect from his superiors at the Agency. He knew that this man had access to the highest echelons at the CIA. He knew that the only instruction he had been given when he was dispatched earlier in the day was to deliver a data cd to this man and to follow his instructions from that point forward. He also knew that there was something very special and very out of the ordinary about this mission. The director himself saw him off and gave him a direct dial phone number to his office if he needed any support from any of the local offices around upstate New York. Cruz was assured that all the resources of the agency were at his disposal. These facts alone told him that this man whose hand he had just shaken was someone that he must take very, very seriously.
Nonplussed, Josey went straight into the briefing as he had planned. He slid a thin manila file across table. "The data cd is here. My boss tells me you already have the encryption key. Mine has been destroyed. The security level on this is TS4. The only instruction I have received so far was to meet you here and provide this information to you. It is my understanding that until this mission is concluded I report to you and only to you, that you would brief me further, and that the nature of our mission is not to be disclosed to anyone, not even anyone at the agency."
"And you accepted this mission with so little information?" the older man asked.
"A mission is a mission, Sir." Cruz replied. "Sometimes I have more information sometimes I have less. I do not see that as being a reason to refuse a mission."
"In that case," he said, nearly smiling, "may I treat you to a cup of Coffee?"
"Black." Cruz answered.
Marco Gonzales waved a large, leathery hand at a passing waiter. When the waiter looked over, Gonzales pointed to a coffee pot, and held up two twisted fingers.
"I've been watching you for a long time, Mr. Cruz and I specifically requested that you be assigned for this detail. I'll be honest, I am loath to work with partners, but I also recognize that the world has passed by me with a lot of technologies. Encrypted cds," he began to say as the waiter brought the coffees and quickly left. "As I was saying," he continued, "Encrypted cds, are an example of the tools in use these days. Tracking satellites, cell phone triangulations. I'm really just an old assassin when it comes right down to it. I need someone on my team that knows and understands this current world of communications technology and as far as I can tell, you're the man for the job," he said motioning to the manila folder which he had not even touched since Cruz had slid it across the table.
"Here is what you need to know. First, I do not work for the CIA. If you receive an order from your bosses at the CIA which is contrary to an order from me, you follow my order. You will bear no ill consequence from this. The Director himself answers to me and not the other way around. For this same reason, if I ask you to request a CIA resource, even a resource that is outside of your normal authority, you request it. You will find that you have the authority to do so.
"Second. Our mission is nothing short of saving the world. If we fail, I can virtually guarantee nuclear devastation and worldwide chaos. That is a heavy responsibility and not one that most men would undertake lightly.
"Third, this operation is an operation of the IAEA Field Operations Unit. I am certain that you are aware of the International Atomic Energy Agency, its been in the news a lot lately. But the existence of the Field Operations Unit has never been officially acknowledged and never will be. As of now you work for us. Have I made myself clear?"
Cruz had a feeling from the moment his contact had started talking that he had been thrust into another league. The IAEA Field Operations Unit was almost mythical in the intelligence community. After the fall of the USSR the Russian nuclear arsenal was dispersed in many different directions. The United States and its allies quietly formed and funded the IAEA Field Operations Unit to find and track all the nuclear devices known to exist in the former USSR, to destroy what could be destroyed, neutralize what could be neutralized, and recover what could be recovered. According to legend and rumor, the FOU's incredible efficacy was the singular reason that there has not been one single unaccounted nuclear detonation in the world, ever. The fact that nearly every legitimate government in the world provides support and immunity for the members of the Unit, while requiring it to answer to none, factors heavily in its ability to act quickly, quietly, and decisively. To this extent it remains a virtual meta-intelligence agency: using intelligence from many countries which would never voluntarily share their intelligence with each other.
The fact that the IAEA Field Operations Unit received intelligence from all of these other agencies but was strictly prohibited from sharing any of the intelligence it gathered with any individual nation was why it had a mythic quality in the Intelligence field. The hand of the Field Operations Unit was felt all over the globe, but their actual involvement in anything was completely unverifiable.
Cruz deconstructed the words he had just heard in his mind. He recognized that he had not been asked to join the IAEA FOU. He had been told that he already worked for them. He was only asked whether he understood that fact. Cruz understood well enough. He wasn't certain he understood all of the implications of it, but he understood enough. "Eminently clear, sir," Cruz answered repeating a line he had heard in a movie and thought sounded intelligent. He immediately felt foolish for not having answered with a simple "yes".
"Now that you are part of my team," Gonzales continued, "you operate above the law in almost every part of the globe. You report to no one but me."
"Does the CIA know that I've been recruited by the FOU?" Cruz asked suddenly worrying about things like his health insurance and 401(k).
"Those who need to know, know."
"If you have any reservations about this mission, you better air them right now." Gonzales insisted.
Cruz did not hesitate. "Saving the world is what I do best, Mr. Gonzales. I wouldn't trust that job to anyone else."
Marco Gonzales recognized the self-assurance in Josey Cruz's answer and knew that he had picked the right man to accompany and perhaps succeed him in his ongoing mission.
"Good, then we have an accord," Gonzales said as he took the encrypted cd from the manila folder held it to the light and inspected it carefully. He turned it around in his fingers and then with a sudden, almost imperceptible flick, he crushed the cd into shards. "Your agency has a bad habit of providing its operatives with partial information and half-truths. I mean them no disrespect, they do that out of an abundance of caution. But this," he said, inspecting one of the shards, "probably does us more harm than good."
Cruz struggled to keep his cool. Even though it was clear to him that he now answered to a higher power, Cruz was a loyal agency man and did not like to hear any criticism of it. Gonzales, however, knew he was breaking his new pupil down. Gonzales quickly swept his finger across his lips and Cruz understood, and accepted, the fact that now was a time for listening and not speaking.
Gonzales continued, "Now, let me tell you what you don't know- what the agency has kept secret even from you: the person we are after is Yuri Ashkot. Do know who Yuri Ashkot is?"
"I know who Yuri Ashkot is. He's the Russian General who was involved in the war crimes in Chechnya." Cruz replied feeling somewhat offended by the old man's presumption.
"If that is all you know then you don't really know." Gonzales said matter of factly. "You only know what your agency knows and most of that is speculation. Gonzales replied and quickly turned the subject back to the mission. "On your cd," Gonzales continued, still toying with one of the broken shards between his fingers, "was a transcription of an intercepted conversation between Dmitry K
ovaretsky and Vladimir Vakhrusheva. It seems they are talking about gaining the ability to launch a black market warhead which they refer to as ‘the asset'".
"As I would assume you also know, Ashkot was released from custody here in the United States as part of a prisoner exchange with the Soviet Union."
Cruz nodded in confirmation of what Gonzales had just told him, that was indeed the gravamen of the content of the encrypted cd.
"This is what you don't know. What Kovaretsky and Vakhrusheva refer to as the asset is not a single nuclear warhead. The asset consists of several dozen nuclear warheads. Those warheads were under Ashkot's command and each was guarded by three separate codes. None of the warheads can be launched without the third code, a code which was known only to Ashkot. The other thing that you and your agency do not know is that Ashkot is dead."
"Are you certain that he's dead?" Cruz asked.
"I killed him myself." Gonzales said with a hint of pride as he pantomimed a strangulation with his large, leathery hands. "He was dead before he returned to Russia."
"It could be that Ashkot gave the code to someone else." Cruz posited.
"We consider that possibility to be negligible for several reasons. First of all, Ashkot was under lock and key in the U.S. while he still held his position as a General in the Soviet Army. He was a military man to the core and not likely to have disobeyed an order to keep his code confidential. But there is an even better reason to believe that no one else knew that code."
"What is that?" Cruz asked.
"The fact that none of those warheads have been either sold or detonated." Gonzales answered.
"So then Kovaretsky must have been bluffing..." Cruz proposed, "if Ashkot was dead before he was returned to Russia, then the missiles stay dormant. So it has to be a bluff of some sort."
"Think first son, then talk." Gonzales said condescendingly. "Surely Vladimir Vakhrusheva would have known that Ashkot was dead too. He and Kovaretsky are on the same team. Think. If it's a bluff, then who are they trying to bluff?"