by David Archer
“Nick,” Allison said, “what about quiet threats of military action? If we go directly to the president, and let him know that we are prepared—and by we, I’m saying the U.S. and its allies—that we are prepared to initiate military action to prevent the reunification of the USSR, would he be able to control enough resources to make sure we don’t have to go that route?”
“I’d say no, and here’s why. Petrov is going to have a lot of the ministers in his pocket. If Feodor does anything at all to try to limit Petrov’s power or curtail his activities, those ministers are going to pull all of their support. Without them, the president is pretty much helpless. It wouldn’t take much for the ministers to orchestrate his downfall, I’m afraid.”
“Then the only real option we have is to find a way to identify the people who actually have power in this faction. You got any clues on that?”
“Well, not yet,” Weber replied. “But bear in mind, I have only just put some of my top people on looking at recent Russian events and traffic from this perspective. They should be able to figure out who’s involved, but it’s going to take a little time.”
“Nick,” the president interjected, “how much time are we talking about? And while we’re at it, how much time do you think we have before this blows up in our faces?”
“Mr. President, a best-guess estimate on how long it will take my people to figure out who’s involved would probably come in around 6 to 9 months. As for how long we got before this faction might try to implement their plans, I’m going to say no more than a year, and probably less than six months. Just the fact that they were ready to launch an operation of this magnitude on such short notice, that tells me there is a lot more going on than we know about.”
“So we could be talking about seeing this happen even before we know who’s involved?”
“I’m afraid that is a possibility, Mr. President.”
Allison cleared her throat. “Gentlemen, I’m going to make a suggestion. Mr. President, Nick Weber is actually on the advisory board that is overseeing the activities of Monica Lord. It’s now necessary for me to reveal to you that Monica Lord is currently sitting in Moscow with two of my teams. When Team Cinderella was arrested, I authorized Team Camelot to conduct an off-books rescue mission. In the course of that mission, Camelot felt it necessary to allow himself to be captured and arrested, and then made arrangements on his own to temporarily sever our monitoring capability on Monica so that his team could recruit her assistance. From what I understand, she has been quite invaluable to them, but I think she may be even more invaluable to us right now. While her methods may be deplorable, she nevertheless has the most extensive network of double agents the world has ever known. Many of them are in Russia, and some are in positions of great power, I’m sure. I propose that we ask her to use those agents of hers to try to identify these oft-mentioned key players.”
“Toward what end, Allison?” asked the president.
“Well, Mr. President, I just explained that I currently have two full teams sitting in Moscow. While assassinating Petrov would probably turn him into a martyr, chipping away at his power base would cripple him. There are only seventeen ministers, but each of them has several deputies, and then there are the heads of about thirty government agencies. Altogether, we are probably talking about less than a hundred individuals who hold true power in Russia. If ten percent of them could be quickly eliminated through assassination, most of the rest would quickly and quietly desert the prime minister, rather than risk getting killed. Present company excluded, most politicians aren’t real keen on giving their lives for what they believe in.”
“Don’t worry about hurting my feelings, Allison,” the president said. “Nick? What do you think about what she just said?”
Nick Weber was quiet for several seconds, then cleared his throat. “Mr. President, I’d have to say I believe that’s the best suggestion I could imagine at this time. I’m not even going to imply that I’m a fan of the idea, because I’m not. I don’t trust Monica Lord, especially when we can’t look over her shoulder. However, Allison is correct in saying that she has the biggest network of double agents in the world. Had she been working for me all this time, I would’ve found a lot better ways to use them, but I don’t even have access to a list of them, yet.”
“Well, do you think it would be better to bring her back and demand that list? Let someone on our end be the one giving the orders?”
“Mr. President, at this point, I feel that the best person to be pulling Monica’s strings is Allison Peterson. We are actually talking about strategic assassinations of functioning governmental officials. I don’t think there’s anyone else I would trust to make the right calls.”
“Allison, that’s good enough for me. I’ve known Nick for about six years and I trust his judgment. I’m going to leave this in your hands, but I’ll be waiting to hear from you on how it turns out.”
The president dropped off the call without another word, and Weber said goodbye a moment later. Allison turned off the phone and looked at Molly and Jefferson.
“Well, that shit didn’t go anywhere near the way I wanted it to go.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Camelot,” Noah said as he answered the phone. It had wakened him instantly when it rang, and the time display said it was almost 7 A.M.
“It’s Allison. Camelot, I’m afraid I’m about to dump a lot of responsibility on to you. I’ve been going over this all evening and I’ve spoken with the president, with CIA, Homeland Security, National Security Agency, everybody I can think of.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Noah said.
“You’ve got Monica over there. It’s time you put her to work. Out of all the people she has managed to blackmail, there’s bound to be quite a few in Russia. We need to know as much as we possibly can about who the key players are in this faction that wants to bring back the Soviet Union. Specifically, we need the names of any of the ministers or agency heads who are involved, any of the wealthy elite, anybody whose name would be recognized in the news over there. Have her gather that information as quickly as possible and then select some of them for termination. Notify me of who you choose, but I’m giving you blanket authorization to use your judgment. The idea is to undermine the prime minister as thoroughly as we can. If being part of this faction is going to cost them their lives, most of these people will abandon it in a heartbeat. What I want you to do is give them every reason to believe that the price truly is that high.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Noah said. “I’ll get her on it right away.”
“Very good. Report when you have opportunity.” The line went dead.
“Allison?” Sarah asked beside him. The little house had only two bedrooms, and she had commandeered one for herself and Noah. Neil and Jenny got the other one, so everyone else was camped wherever they could, except for Monica and Catherine. Monica was curled up in a comfortable chair, while Catherine was sleeping on the small sofa.
“Yes. She wants me to have Monica use all of her resources in Russia to find out the names of any high-ranking or important people involved in this plot. Once we have a list, I’m to start choosing some of them for assassination. The idea is simply to make them all afraid that being part of that will get them killed, so that the prime minister doesn’t have the support he thinks he’s got.”
“Okay,” Sarah said tiredly. “I will start the coffee.”
Noah pulled his pants and shirt on and padded out to the living room in his bare feet. He gently tapped Monica on the shoulder until she woke, then motioned for her to follow him into the kitchen. It took him only a minute or two to explain what Allison wanted, and she nodded sleepily.
“You’ve already met one of my people,” she said. “Boris Petroski; he actually works for the prime minister, so he should be a good source. And she’s right, I’ve got several others.”
“I’m just curious,” Sarah said as she sat down at the table, “but how do you keep track of them all? You must hav
e hundreds, right?”
Monica grinned. “Over a thousand. And no, before you ask, I haven’t personally been involved in getting what I need to have control over them. In a lot of cases, I simply found out about their particular proclivities from someone else. It’s amazing what people will tell you when they think you can destroy their lives by sending an email.”
“Good grief. Do you keep a little black book with all their names and phone numbers or something?”
Monica shook her head. She tapped her temple and said, “Nope. It’s all up here. That way, nobody can get it without my consent. It really isn’t that hard to remember things, if you try. I read a book on how to memorize long lists many years ago and I never forgot it. No pun intended.”
Sarah just shook her head.
When the coffee was ready, they each got a cup and sat down at the table again. By then it was well after seven, and Monica took out her phone. She looked at it for a moment, tapped a particular icon, then dialed a number and set it to speaker.
“Good morning, Boris,” she said. “I trust you made it home safely?”
“Yes, about an hour ago. It has been an interesting night. I handled everything the way you wanted, so there does not seem to be any problem.”
“That’s very good. I have something new, however. I understand you overheard some of what was said before everything got exciting last night. I was speaking of the reference to your employer and his plans.”
“I heard it,” Boris said. “Is this of interest to you?”
“Yes. I need you to find me the names of those who are high in its ranks. Ministers, other politicians, heads of different agencies, businessmen and -women, anyone involved in those plans.”
There was silence on the line for a moment, and then Boris asked nervously, “Is it going to be bad for me if I am on that list?”
Monica slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. She got herself under control in just a couple of seconds and turned back to the phone. “You are safe, as long as I can trust you. That’s how it has always been. Do you have such a list already?”
“There is one. It is not here at home, but at my office. I was planning to stay at home today, but…”
“Boris, get me that list. You know how to send it to me. How soon can you get there and send it off?”
Boris sighed. “You will have it within the hour. May I say that I was forced into this thing. It is not something that I would have wanted.”
“Good for you. Give me the list.” She cut off the call and looked at Noah. “Damn, that was easy.”
“Assuming he has a reasonably complete list, it was very easy. On the other hand, you said he works for the prime minister? I can imagine that it would have been hard to keep this whole thing secret from him in any case. It was probably safer to recruit him than to risk him finding out on his own.”
“I’m just curious,” Sarah said, “but do you think this guy might be in danger? I mean, wasn’t he sent out there to die, as well?”
“That’s possible,” Monica said. “The way I’m reading it right now, he probably wasn’t actually in any danger. If he’s privy to the prime minister’s involvement in this thing, he was probably there to act as Petrov’s eyes and ears.”
“I hope so. It’d be a shame if he got to his office only to find out he was going to be arrested and executed.”
Monica scowled at her. “I think you’ve been around Noah too long, you’re such a pessimist.”
“I’m not a pessimist,” Sarah said. “I just naturally expect things to go wrong.”
An hour later, Monica asked Noah to wake Neil. She had a special web server set up that allowed for people to send her documents untraceably, but she would need Neil’s computer to get to it. Noah went down the hall and tapped on the bedroom door, and Jenny called out for him to come in.
He opened the door and found the two of them cuddled up together on the bed. Neil was awake and looked up at him.
“Need you and your computer in the kitchen,” Noah said. “Monica needs to retrieve a document from online, somewhere.”
“Okay,” Neil said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
Noah stepped out and pulled the door shut behind him and immediately heard giggling. He went back to the kitchen and sat down and noted that it was almost ten minutes later before Neil finally showed up. Jenny was with him, and both of them were smiling.
Neil set his computer up on the table and opened it, then slid it over to Monica. “I’ve entered all the right passwords, so it’s ready for you.”
Monica stared at it for a minute, then looked at Neil. “Where’s the browser?”
Neil groaned, then reached across and pulled the computer back over to himself. He touched an icon on the screen and something that looked a little like a web browser opened up. He pushed it back over toward her again.
“Sorry,” he said. “I forgot you wouldn’t know that. I don’t trust any of the commercially available browsers, so I wrote my own.”
Monica grinned. “Not a problem. Maybe one of these days when you’re not too busy, you can help me with some of my own Internet security issues.”
Neil shook his head. “Call geek squad,” he said. “You can’t afford me.”
Monica typed in a URL and then entered information into several fields of the form that appeared. It took only a couple of minutes, and then she clicked on a link and a scanned page opened up. It was a list of names, and as she looked down it, her eyes went wide and her mouth came open.
“Holy cow,” she said. “Look at this. All but two of the ministers are involved, almost all of the department heads—Noah, he’s got half the government behind him. No, more like three-quarters of it.”
Noah slid his chair over and looked at the list, which was headed “Committee for Restoration of the Communist Party.” There were fifteen senior ministers on the list, more than three dozen deputy ministers, twenty-six agency heads and about a hundred other names. Noah didn’t recognize any of them.
“Do you know who any of those people are?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Monica said. “Serge Chernov is Minister of Defense, Ivan Grichkin is minister of transport, Alexander Trepov is the finance minister, Boris Stolpin is minister of agriculture… A lot of important names on here.”
“Let Neil copy that list,” Noah said. “I need him to start locating some of these people. Jenny, you and I are going to have to start taking them out. We need to start with the ministers, I think. They’ll have the most impact on the prime minister, and then we can move on to some of the others if it’s necessary.”
Jenny grinned. “I’m ready when you are,” she said.
Neil took the computer and copied the list into another file, then started hunting the individuals on it. An hour later, he sent something to the printer and turned to Noah.
“I’ve located six of the ministers,” he said, “and I’ve been able to find their itineraries for the day. They each have some light security, but nothing you can’t handle.”
“Good. Send the list of their names to Allison, then find me photographs so that she and I can study them.”
“I’m ahead of you, boss,” Neil said. “I’m printing out a quick dossier on each, with itineraries and photos attached.”
By that time, everybody else was awake. Noah sat down with Sarah and Marco and began planning for the three ministers he would take out, while Jenny took her own team into the living room and began working on hers.
“I wish we had your computer, Jim,” Jenny said.
“I have one in my car,” Catherine said. “Is there wi-fi here?”
“Not the usual kind,” Neil said. “My computer goes direct to satellite, but I can turn on a wi-fi sharing program, so another computer can log on through mine. Go ahead and get it and I’ll set it up.”
The only real problem was transportation. The only vehicles they had were the Nissan Armada that Sarah had rented and the BMW Catherine had acquired from th
e British Embassy. Noah didn’t want to risk either of them being spotted, so he picked up his phone again and called Larry Carson at the U.S. Embassy.
“Carson,” Larry said as he answered the phone.
“This is Camelot,” Noah said.
“Holy shit,” Larry said. “I heard you guys all escaped last night, but I sure didn’t expect you to call me. You got any idea what’s going on around the city right now?”
“Not really. Care to fill me in?”
“Well, the FSB and SVR are both in uproars. At the moment, they’re each blaming the other for letting you get away, but there was one guy down there who claimed he was hiding in a closet and said it was a bunch of Russian soldiers who came and got you. Is that true?”
“Let’s just say it’s true enough and leave it at that. Have you been advised of the current situation regarding the plot to return to the USSR?”
“Um, I’d have to say no. Can you tell me?”
“Probably not. I’d imagine it’s coming through the proper channels for you, but for now I need some wheels, gear, and some weapons. You still got that Russian supercar I drove before?”
“Oh, yeah, the Marussia B2. It actually belongs to the CIA, but I can get it if you need it.”
“I do. I also need a second vehicle, something with power. Any suggestions?”
“Well, the only other thing we’ve got with any power is a year-old Nissan sedan. This one was actually custom-built for the embassy, and it’s got a V-6 cranking over three hundred horsepower. Ought to get you where you want to go in a hurry. Will those work?”
“As long as you can rig it so they don’t trace it back to the embassy. I can’t guarantee I can bring them back in one piece, and my mission isn’t one you want to be connected to.”
“Well, that changes things, doesn’t it. Let me think for a minute.” He was quiet for nearly 30 seconds, then came back on the line. “Well, I can’t give you either of those. What I can do, on the other hand, is call on a guy we use when we need a disposable car in a hurry. Can I text you on this number?”