Night Strike

by Michael W. Sherer

  “I’m fine. Just give me a sec.” I left them on the stoop and turned to look for a shirt.

  * * * * *

  The NCIS Northwest Field Office resided in a low-slung building on a football-shaped drive in Silverdale. It seemed like an awful long way to go to ask me a few questions, but I used the time it took to ferry across the sound to sleep. Getting rousted from dreamland by a couple of law enforcement officers might key up the most innocent to the point of insomnia, but I half-expected something like it after a guy died in my car. The fact that NCIS, not SPD, nearly beat down my door surprised me. But since I was exhausted and could do little to alter the circumstances, I slept fitfully, a part of me on guard to hold the nightmares at bay.

  I awoke just as we pulled up to the gate at one of the entrances to the Bangor Naval Base. A master-at-arms stepped out of the guardhouse for a better look at us and waved the car through with a nod of recognition. I stretched as much as I could in the cramped back seat, but stiffness had set in my joints like concrete. When we parked and they told me to get out I wasn’t sure I’d make it. While D.B. shifted his weight on the pavement a couple of times and rolled his eyes, I managed to hook my fingers on the roof above the doorframe and hoist myself up far enough to unfold a leg and place my foot on the ground outside. After that I got out okay.

  They led me to a small conference room and asked if I wanted coffee or something to drink, unexpected treatment that surprised me and had L.B. looking as if he’d just swallowed a bug. When I declined, they told me to make myself comfortable and left. Leaning forward, I put my arms on the table, rested my head on my arms and closed my eyes. I started to drift off again when I heard the door open and shuffling feet. I raised my head and stifled a yawn.

  “We’re not keeping you up, are we?”

  The speaker stood a few inches shorter than the two special agents who had kidnapped me from a comfortable bed. He wore his salt-and-pepper hair cropped close on the sides and brush cut on top. Deep lines creased his lean face around the eyes, but a tan complexion suggested sunlight, not internal sunshine, had caused them.

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “you are. This is the middle of the night for me.”

  He ignored the comment and gestured to the lone special agent who had accompanied him into the room. L.B. set a small digital recorder on the table, turned it on and sat two seats away.

  “We’re recording this conversation so there will be no misunderstandings,” the older agent said, laying the folders in his hand on the table across from me. He spoke to the recorder. “Senior Field Agent Ross Meade, NCIS. July 25, NWFO conference room. Special Agent Cody McDermott also present.”

  He sat and looked at me. “State your name, please, for the record.”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. “Blake Sanders.”

  “You’re a newspaper carrier, is that right? Could you please tell me where you were last night?”

  “Delivering papers on my route, as usual.”

  “Did anything unusual happen on your route last night?”

  I shrugged. I’d had a lot of time to think of what to tell them on the way over from Seattle, but sleep had been more important. I wanted to see where they were going first. I still didn’t know why they wanted to talk to me. I only assumed it had something to do with the dead guy.

  “Look, Mr. Sanders, it would help if you cooperate with us,” Meade said.

  “What is it you want to know?”

  “This morning at—” He opened the folder and consulted some notes. “—approximately 6:45, you called SPD and asked about a stolen gun. What do you know about that gun?”

  “I called a friend and gave him a serial number to check. I don’t know if it belonged to a stolen gun or not.”

  “But you thought it might have been. Why?”

  I hesitated and clenched my teeth to keep stray thoughts from tumbling out of my mouth before I had a chance to edit them. My mind raced, trying to figure a graceful way out of my predicament that wouldn’t require a call to my ex-wife Molly, an attorney. “The serial number looked as if it could belong to a weapon, and the circumstances, uh, suggested that if so, the weapon might have been stolen.”

  He pressed his lips together. “Where did you get the serial number?”

  Again, I stalled, wondering how best to tell it in a way that wouldn’t raise the level of shit I was in that was already up to my eyeballs.

  “Jesus, Ross!” McDermott exploded half out of his chair. “Why are we pussy-footing around with this jackass! Let’s put him in an interrogation room and do this right.”

  Meade held up his hand. To his credit, he stayed cool and kept his voice calm. “That’s enough, special agent.” To me he said, “Let’s try this one more time. Please tell us what you did last night between the hours of midnight and your call to SPD this morning.”

  “Why isn’t SPD conducting this interview?” I said. “What’s going on?”

  His lips thinned again and turned white at the corners. He shook his head. “You first, Mr. Sanders. If I like what I hear I’ll share what I can.”

  McDermott pushed away from the table in disgust and folded his arms across his chest. I focused on Meade. I liked my chances with him better.

  “A little before three this morning I was in the Montlake neighborhood delivering a stack of papers to an apartment building.” Pulling my hand off the table to hide the sudden shaking, I took a deep breath. “I usually lock my car when I have to leave it. Last night I forgot. When I returned to my car, a man in the back seat stuck a gun in my ear and told me to drive.”

  “What man?” McDermott said sharply. “Describe him.”

  Again, Meade raised his hand. This time his gaze didn’t leave my face. “Go on.”

  “I offered to let him have the car. He wasn’t interested. He asked me to get him out of the neighborhood and drive around for a while. Maybe fifteen minutes later, he told me to find a place to pull over. I drove into a parking lot at the north end of the arboretum and let him out. Later, I found the gun in the car. I called the serial number in to my friend Charlie at SPD because I was concerned about being in possession of a stolen weapon. That’s it.”

  I may have fudged the truth a little, but I didn’t lie outright. I left a few things out, but who the hell would believe a story about Russian hit men, electronic spy gear, circuit boards on contact lenses and a dead guy in my car anyway?

  Meade’s jaw worked. “What made you think the gun might be stolen?”

  I cocked my head and thought about it. “He didn’t seem like the sort to have a gun in the first place.” Though after discovering the contacts, the listening device and the lack of ID or even labels in his clothing, he seemed like exactly the sort to have a gun, but maybe something more refined, less ostentatious. Like Bond’s Walther PPK.

  Focus!

  McDermott squirmed in his seat, neck reddening under his collar, but Meade looked at me patiently. “What sort did he seem like?”

  “Professorial. He was an older man, in his sixties or seventies. Full beard, but neatly trimmed. Nice clothes, but not too expensive. Maybe five-eight, five-nine, not overweight.”

  The two agents exchanged glances. I‘d said something they hadn’t expected.

  “Do you still have the weapon?” Meade said.

  I shook my head. “It made me nervous.”

  McDermott threw up his hands. “Don’t tell me you trashed it.”

  I blinked. “Why would I do that when it’s the only thing that will corroborate my story? I locked it up in a safety deposit box.”

  McDermott’s eyes widened. “Where’d you find a bank open that early?”

  I stuffed my hand in my jeans pocket, pulled out a small key and held it up. “I put it in a locker at the bus station.”

  I set it on the table and slid it down to McDermott. He snatched it. With a nod from Meade, he stood and walked out.

  Meade rose, too. “This could take some time. Come with me, please.”


  I followed him out into the hallway feeling proud for doing my civic duty. Halfway down, he opened a door and motioned me through. I ducked inside and stopped, taking in the austere surroundings—bare cement floor, steel table and four chairs, shackle rings bolted to the floor. Puzzled, I turned and faced Meade.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Like I said, it’ll be a long wait. This way, I can keep tabs on you and get some work done.”

  “Is this really necessary? I’m not going anywhere. I don’t have a car.”

  The tendons on his neck tightened and his eyes sparked with anger, but as fast as it appeared it vanished, leaving his expression impassive.

  “That gun,” he said quietly, “belongs to one of our agents.”

  I frowned. “You think I… Why would I call it in if I stole it?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

  “Wait. How did one of your agents lose his gun?”

  “We don’t know,” Meade said, mouth tightened into a grim line. “He’s missing.”

  I vowed I’d kill Charlie the next time I saw him, and during the course of the next several hours, I imagined all the various ways I might do it. I also tried to imagine how the man who’d died in my car might have come to possess a firearm registered to an NCIS agent. None of the scenarios I envisioned had a happy ending.

  An hour or so into the wait, a forensics specialist came in with a fingerprint scanner and got a set of prints from me and swabbed my hands for gunshot residue. I tried sleeping again, but couldn’t find a comfortable position on the hard chairs. Besides, thoughts circled my mind like Dobermans roaming an impound lot, keeping sleep at bay. They didn’t offer me anything to eat, though I was pretty sure lunch hour came and went. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken my meds, and the random progression of thoughts firing in my head made it plain the last dose had worn off. Sometime later, when I reached a point where the only thing keeping me from going completely stir crazy was a bladder so full I thought it might rupture, the door opened and Meade crooked a finger at me.

  “We’re sending you home,” he said as I rose unsteadily on stiff legs.

  “You recovered the gun, I take it.”

  “Agent McDermott will drive you,” was all he said. He turned and disappeared before I reached the door.

  McDermott waited for me just outside the door. Wordlessly, he headed for the front of the building.

  “Hang on a second,” I called. “If I don’t hit the head first, I’ll pee my pants in your car.”

  He stopped and sighed. When I didn’t move, he pointed in the direction of a rest room sign.

  Twenty minutes later he pulled up in front of the pedestrian passenger building at the Bremerton ferry terminal. Late afternoon sun reflected off the glass front and waves of heat shimmered above the pavement.

  McDermott faced me. “Get out.” They were the only words he’d spoken.

  “You’re not taking me back to Seattle?”

  He looked as if he’d rather clean pond scum off the bottom of a public pool with his tongue.

  “The only reason I brought you this far is because I won’t disobey a direct order. Since you can get yourself home from here, I’ve done what I was asked.”

  I opened the door. “You didn’t find my fingerprints on the gun. Whose did you find?”

  He stared out the windshield a moment then faced me again. A muscle along the side of his jaw twitched, and a vein in his temple pulsed.

  “O’Brien’s a friend of mine,” he said. “If I find out you know anything more than what you’ve told us, I will personally see to it that your life becomes a living hell. Now get your ass out of my car before I kick it out.”

  * * * * *

  The metro section carried the story on page one. A kayaker found a man’s body floating in the lake off the north end of the arboretum. I read it as I assembled papers for my route that night. The man had been identified as Anthony D’Amato of Seattle. Authorities said cause of death was a gunshot wound, and suspected robbery as a motive since he was found with no money, wallet, or personal items. He’d been identified by a co-worker. The story went on to give some brief background on D’Amato’s career.

  Questions darted in and out of my head like small fish nibbling at my consciousness for most of my route. Why had the morgue called in a co-worker to ID the body and not a relative? For that matter, why had D’Amato’s name been released? Usually, the cops wanted to inform family first. Unless D’Amato had no next of kin, which would explain why someone from his office had verified who he was.

  But if he had no relatives, who was the girl in the photo?

  Chapter 10

  July 26—Moscow

  Mikhail Subkov stepped out of his apartment building in the Tverskoy District of Moscow and stopped on the sidewalk to drink in the summer day. Though still early in the day, the street was bright with sunlight. Subkov loved the city when it was still half-asleep, the stalwartness, the sheer Russian-ness of it not yet in force. At this hour Moscow was like a beautiful woman who was just stretching her limbs after waking, languid, a bit tousled, but lovely and fresh. Once she put on her makeup, she became one of those hard women who brook no impertinence and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks of her.

  The air was still cool, perfect for walking. Subkov had already alerted his driver that he wouldn’t need the car. In the summer, he often walked partway to work. As his doctor often told him, he needed the exercise. His trousers had started feeling tight again as of late. He strolled down the block to the corner of Spiridonyevskiiy Street taking in the familiar sights and smells, the trees lush with green this time of year, the air redolent of both Moscow’s worsening air pollution and local bakeries. Subkov also caught snatches of floral scents on the light breeze as he passed by small gardens set behind wrought iron fences. The architecture was a mix of old world and new, different eras marked by tsars and Soviet apparatchik.

  As he worked his way up Malaya Nikitskaya Street toward the “Sadovoye Koltso”—the Garden Ring, second of the many annuli around the city center—his mind strayed down other avenues and alleyways that had brought him to this place in life. He and Svetlana had lived in a cold, cramped Soviet-era concrete apartment building on the outskirts of Moscow when they’d first gotten married. After leaving the military, he’d taken a job as a beat cop in Moscow. He liked being a cop. It appealed to his sense of order. His delight in the job must have shown because he hadn’t stayed on patrol long before they moved him to Moskovskiy oogolovniy rozisk, or MUR, the criminal investigation division headquartered on Petrovka ulitsa in the Tverskoy District. He spent years as a detective, both traditional and undercover, and found that he took to the covert roles, the clandestine operations.

  The increased responsibility and pay had allowed Svetlana, little Minka and him to move to the district in which he worked. He thought the move would be good for them, giving Svetlana easy access to the shops, the nightlife, the culture of the neighborhood, home to great parks, the New Opera house, theater, great restaurants and more. But he’d been chained to his job, and she wouldn’t go out without him, so had never really taken advantage of any of the district’s offerings except the shopping.

  After he’d been hand-picked for internal affairs, his job grew even more dangerous and intense. But it had been a life that hadn’t included his family, so by the time Pedrovsky tapped him for a move to the GRU, he and Svetlana hardly knew each other anymore. She’d left him years earlier to be closer to Minka and Arkady, her husband, and their two children, Valentin and Iriney, in St. Petersburg. How old were the grandchildren now? Subkov couldn’t remember exactly, but he knew Svetlana loved being their babushka, and that they were spoiled rotten.

  He allowed himself a small smile as he approached the Barrikadnaya metropoliten station near the zoo. He hurried down the stairs into the subway station, one of his favorites—the framed archways, the marble platforms, the recessed domes in the ceilings lit by elegant
sconces, the art deco chandeliers lighting the tracks. The station was one of many on the Tagansko–Krasnopresnenskaya line, probably the busiest in the entire Metro system. Running from northwest to southeast, it transected the city through its heart, and carried far more than a million riders daily. Already, the platforms filled, though the crowds thickened faster on the opposite side as the approaching rush hour took more people into the center of the city. Subkov didn’t mind the crowds. Since he intended to ride only one stop farther he could easily stand if no seats were available. And he always felt a sense of power when he moved through the throngs of people unnoticed.

  Losing himself among all those people also was one of the ways in which he insured his anonymity. Through force of habit, he’d watched for a tail ever since he’d left the apartment, and continued to do so now, moving behind a pillar, reversing direction, popping out on the other side, alert to whose eyes might be watching, whose reaction registered surprise or panic at his unusual movement. He stood still for a moment, as if lost in thought, gaze unfocused but taking in everything, looking for what had changed and what was the same since the last time he’d checked. Foreign faces, the blue sweater, the businessman in the ill-cut suit, the nervous tic, shifting eyes. He saw nothing that alarmed him.

  Few people knew he worked for the Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye, the Main Intelligence Directorate. Those who did had no idea that he possibly was the sixth most powerful person in Russia after President Putin, Chief of Staff Valery Gersimov, Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu, Intelligence Director Igor Sergun, and Subkov’s boss and mentor Fyodor Pedrovsky. Subkov was one of the few high-ranking officers within the GRU without a military commission. Though a civilian, his background as a cop and especially his years in internal affairs uniquely qualified him for military intelligence. He’d been a spy nearly half his life, and like a good spy, he was unremarkable in appearance. He blended in. They’d called Vova Putin a “Grey Cardinal” during his years in St. Petersburg politics because he got things done behind the scenes, keeping a low profile. Subkov had gained a reputation in GRU as prizak, a ghost.