Surface to Air

by Gérard de Villiers

  The door now opened completely, and the room light fell on him. Now on the threshold, Alina cried:

  “Malko!”

  Then she had her arms around him. As usual, she had her hair in a bun and was wearing a long dress, buttoned down to her ankles. She pressed against him, muttering something, kissing his neck like a cat.

  Behind Malko, the heavy steps of his pursuer were getting closer. Grabbing her by the arm, he pushed her inside, then slammed the door and locked it.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Somebody’s after me.”

  Just then, the man outside started pounding on the door.

  Alina yelled, “I’m calling the police!”

  That must have given the attacker pause, because silence fell.

  “I never thought I’d see you again,” Alina said. She had stars in her eyes.

  “Neither did I,” admitted Malko. “Your phone was disconnected. I thought something must have happened to you.”

  “It was no big deal,” she said with a smile. “The Moscow FSB questioned me a few times. Reminded me that it was a crime to consort with enemies of Russia. After that, they left me alone. Then I changed my phone number.”

  “Where’s Alexei?”

  “He’s in the hospital again,” she said sadly. “He’s not doing very well. He stopped painting.”

  Alexei Portansky had been ill for some time. From the pain in Alina’s face, Malko could tell she was worried about him.

  She hugged him again, this time pressing her hips against his.

  “I’m so happy to see you!” Then she added, biting her lip, “You’re still doing dangerous stuff.”

  It wasn’t meant as a criticism, and Malko smiled.

  “It’s my life.”

  Suddenly she pulled him even tighter. Her mouth moved over his face, found his lips and tongue. She started kissing him passionately.

  He remembered how exciting Alina had been, with her small, firm breasts and welcoming hips. When he brushed against her stiff nipples, she let out a little cry, then reached down and grabbed his crotch.

  “Come with me,” she whispered. “It’s been so long since I’ve made love.”

  Taking his hand, she led him into a dimly lit bedroom. She threw herself on the bed and pulled up her dress. Then she slipped off her white panties and dropped them on the floor.

  When Malko entered her, she gave a whispery sigh, tightening her arms around him and raising her hips. Her legs were spread and she was trembling.

  “Bozhe moy, that’s so good! Come on!”

  She was wet, and open to him.

  Malko’s excitement gradually rose to match Alina’s joyful eagerness. He bent her thighs back and started thrusting into her vertically. A few moments later, he came.

  They lay silently for a few moments.

  Eventually, Alina’s voice brought Malko back to earth.

  “I’m hungry, but I only have some herring,” she was saying. “Would you like some?”

  “I love herring,” he said, easing himself out of her.

  “Stay there, and I’ll fix us something. I have a little vodka too.”

  —

  Lying in bed with his eyes wide open, Parviz Amritzar couldn’t get to sleep. These might be the last peaceful hours of his life, he realized. Tomorrow at eleven he and Yuri would pick up the Igla-S, and his whole life would change.

  Amritzar turned his head and looked over at Benazir, who was sleeping on her side. He hadn’t told her anything yet. If everything went well today, he would pay for the missile and come back to her in the hotel. The actual attack wasn’t until the end of the following week, when Air Force One was due. Between now and then, he would have time to explain the path he had chosen.

  He got out of bed and once again admired the illuminated mass of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building across Smolenskaya Street. Moscow was growing on him, he realized.

  But he was still too tense to sleep. What if Yuri stood him up?

  He stepped into the bathroom and went back to reading the Igla-S technical manual. Suddenly the letters blurred before his eyes, and he realized he was crying.

  Without quite knowing why.

  It briefly occurred to him that instead of going to the meeting with Yuri, he could leave Russia on the first flight back to the United States. Then, to avoid al-Qaeda’s anger, he would return the $200,000 to Mahmud.

  But that would mean giving up his dream of revenge.

  —

  Malko looked out at the darkened street and shivered. It was almost midnight. After snacking on herring and pickled mushrooms, he and Alina had made love again. This time she had taken off her long dress with its dozens of buttons and enthusiastically yielded to all of Malko’s fantasies, offering him her mouth, her ass, and again, her pussy.

  She left him at the elevator, her lips against his, murmuring:

  “Ya tebya lyublyu”—I love you.

  Now Malko was back in the cold—and the danger. The street appeared deserted, however.

  He walked to Petrovsky Boulevard and, by luck, was able to hail a taxi right away. Five hundred rubles got him back to the Kempinski.

  There were no cops around, and nobody waiting for him, but he didn’t feel safe until he was upstairs in his room. The brush with the man with the black watch cap meant he was under surveillance.

  Good thing Tom gave me the encrypted BlackBerry, he thought as he dialed it.

  It took the station chief a long time to answer.

  “What’s going on, Malko? It’s past midnight!”

  “I know. But somebody tried to kill me tonight.”

  He gave Polgar the details of the attack, then headed for the shower, trying to figure out why someone would want him out of the way.

  —

  It was only seven in the morning, but there were already a lot of cars in the KBM parking lot near the Oka River.

  The river was the shining heart of Kolomna. It was a neat, prosperous little town, with a red-brick kremlin, wide avenues, shiny trams, and a modest statue of Lenin.

  This was the real Russia.

  Arzo Khadjiev was sitting behind the wheel of a yellow Lada 1500 parked opposite a Vera store with an odd pink façade. The young Dagestani with the fox-like face was watching the only entrance to the KBM factory, which sprawled across a lot on the banks of the Oka, some distance from downtown.

  Vehicles would come out of the gate, drive uphill from the river along the big white factory building, and merge onto the city streets.

  Two brass plaques at the gate informed visitors that the factory had been awarded the orders of Lenin and Red Star during the Great Patriotic War. Originally it had been a cement plant, built on Stalin’s orders. Only later did it become a missile research and development center.

  Operating under the unremarkable name Konstruktion Buro Manufaktura, KBM was the place where next-generation surface-to-air missiles were developed. These included the Igla-S used by the Russian military and widely sold abroad. They were manufactured in Izhevsk, in the Urals, but prototypes and small batches were produced at KBM.

  Suddenly Khadjiev stiffened. A black Volga van had just emerged from the factory gate and was climbing the hill toward him. When it passed him, Khadjiev glimpsed two men inside. He grabbed his cell phone, spoke a few words, and took off after it.

  The van drove along Maktova Avenue by a big McDonald’s drive-through, a row of colorfully painted wooden izbas, and some typical fifteen-story apartment buildings.

  Then it turned onto Leninsky Avenue, passing the town’s handsome kremlin and a church with green and yellow domes. Glittering in the rising sun, they almost looked like gold.

  Khadjiev again picked up his cell, this time to relay the license plate with the Kolomna prefix of the van he was following.

  The two vehicles drove around a long green tram and took the road leading to the M5 Moscow–Chelyabinsk highway.

  The van passed a gas station and took the on-ramp towar
d Chelyabinsk. But within a few miles it took an exit that circled around and under the highway, leading to an on-ramp in the Moscow direction. A light haze lay on the nearby forest. The area was completely deserted.

  Khadjiev watched the black van slow to take the turn and go under the highway.

  As it entered the sunken passageway, a Mercedes truck coming the other way suddenly appeared and blocked its path.

  Dmitry Pankov, the van driver, cursed and slammed on the brakes. The big truck seemed to have skidded, and was now stopped across the roadway.

  “Bozhe moy!” growled the driver. “What an asshole!”

  He honked his horn, but the other driver didn’t move. Pankov could see three men in the truck. Its passenger-side door opened, and a man got out and started walking toward him. He was wearing a fur-lined jacket, a watch cap, and jeans.

  “I wonder what this jerk wants,” snapped Pankov’s passenger, the KBM shipping escort. Then he noticed that another vehicle, an old yellow Lada, had pulled up behind them, hemming them in.

  “I don’t like the looks of this,” he said tensely. “Call the factory.”

  Just as Pankov reached for the radio, his door was yanked open. He only had time to see a swarthy man’s unshaven face, then just the pistol with the silencer aimed at him. In his last moment of consciousness he heard a soft pfut!

  The shipping escort raised an arm to protect himself, and it took the first bullet. The second one blew the top of his skull off.

  Two more men jumped out of the Mercedes truck, raced around to the back of the KBM van, and threw its cargo doors open.

  Standing next to the Lada, Khadjiev watched the off-ramp behind him.

  This was the critical moment.

  “Davai, davai!”—hurry up!—he yelled.

  Stacked in the van were eight long, square cases. The men hauled them out and carried them to the Mercedes truck, running.

  The entire operation took no more than two minutes. Slamming the truck’s cargo doors shut, the three men jumped in. It backed out of the underground passageway, made a quick U-turn, and took the M5 on-ramp toward Moscow.

  Khadjiev got into his Lada, drove around the stopped KBM van, and took the same on-ramp, racing to catch up with the Mercedes.

  No one had witnessed the attack. The sunken passage under the highway couldn’t be seen from the road or the nearby fields, which were empty in any case.

  Within moments, the two vehicles were speeding toward Moscow together, and Khadjiev relaxed. If a pursuit were launched on the M5, it would be sent south, toward the Caucasus. It would never occur to the cops that someone might steal missiles and bring them to Moscow.

  As he drove, Khadjiev took his cell phone, dialed a number, and had a very short conversation.

  They were on a roll.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Jeff Soloway exited the American embassy by the north gate and undertook the most perilous part of his mission: getting across the Garden Ring. He waited for a red light, then sprinted across the wide avenue to join the FSB agents in a blue Opel parked near a drugstore on the other side.

  Even on their best days, Moscow drivers view pedestrians as a species of noxious vermin. Which is why most people on foot use the tunnels under the major avenues.

  Panting, Soloway reached the Opel and got in. The FSB agent next to the driver turned around and said:

  “Good morning, I’m Anatoly Chelovev from the FSB. We’ll drive you to the rendezvous. Where is Gospodin Amritzar?”

  “He’s meeting us there. Is everything ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have the device?”

  “It’s on its way.”

  The driver pulled out and merged with the crowded ring road traffic.

  Soloway was nervous. Months of effort were coming to a head, and he wanted everything to go smoothly.

  “What are your exact instructions?” he asked.

  “We’re taking you to the workshop where the missile will be delivered,” the Russian said in a neutral tone. “You’ll give the signal to go into action. As soon as you get the money from Amritzar and decide everything is in order, you’ll identify yourself as an FBI agent. We’ll then display our badges, identify ourselves as FSB, and arrest him.

  “Amritzar will be taken to the Lubyanka for interrogation, and then jailed at Lefortovo. The attorney general will send you the file along with the audiovisual evidence. How does that sound?”

  “Great!” said the excited American.

  Soloway relaxed until the moment when the Opel slowed and passed through a gateway leading to Malya Street. As is common in Moscow, the entrance gave access to roads to apartment buildings scattered over several acres.

  The car stopped in front of a workshop with a big wooden door with flaking paint and a sign that read “Garage.” The two FSB agents got out. One opened the door and switched on the lights.

  It certainly looked like a garage. It was about twenty by fifty feet, with crates and a big table in the center. An old Volga stood on blocks in a corner. The place smelled of dust and motor oil.

  “This is one of the places we use,” said one of the agents. “Everything can be taped and filmed.”

  “Where’s the missile?” asked Soloway.

  “Don’t worry, it’s on its way. It’s coming from outside Moscow, and the traffic is bad. Want a cup of chai?”

  “No, thanks.”

  The two Russians stepped into a glassed-in back office to make the tea.

  Soloway lit a cigarette to calm his nerves, then called Bruce Hathaway.

  “We’re all set,” he said, without giving any details.

  “Call me as soon as it’s done,” said the FBI chief. Hathaway was also feeling tense. Because of the time difference, Washington was still asleep. He figured the operation would be wrapped up by the time FBI headquarters opened.

  —

  A black Audi sedan pulled up and parked about twenty yards from the garage door. Inside were four Moscow FSB agents, ready to arrest Soloway as soon as he received the $200,000 from Amritzar. Alerted by their colleagues in the FSB, they would charge him with espionage, for trying to obtain a missile covered by defense secrecy laws.

  Since an FBI agent in Moscow didn’t have diplomatic immunity, they could interrogate Soloway as long as they wanted to, and his protests wouldn’t make any difference. The attorney general had been alerted and would pursue the matter as ordered.

  What happened after that wasn’t the FSB’s concern.

  The Audi left its motor running. The few passersby who noticed the car gave it a wide berth.

  —

  Rem Tolkachev had a report on the previous night’s events in front of him. It didn’t make for satisfactory reading. The Spetsnaz assigned to liquidate Malko Linge had totally failed in his mission. Though unarmed, the CIA man had managed to get away and return to the Kempinski.

  Tolkachev could have Linge arrested there, of course, but on what pretext?

  It would be stupid to attack him now, the spymaster decided. In two hours, the trap he’d set for the FBI would be sprung, and Linge’s presence hadn’t upset the plan. Tolkachev decided to write the operation off for now and settle the CIA agent’s fate later.

  His mind at ease, he turned his attention to other reports.

  —

  In the passageway under the M5 highway, three politsiya cruisers surrounded the black KBM van; one of its doors was still open.

  A passing motorist, who’d been forced to drive around it, had called the police a half hour earlier. The van driver lay slumped against the steering wheel and appeared to have fainted.

  A black Volga now joined the police cars, and two men stepped out, looking serious. One showed them his business card. He was Ivan Babichev, the KBM plant manager.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  The politsiya sergeant pointed to the van.

  “The two people in the vehicle were shot and killed at close range,” he said
. “Nobody saw or heard anything. Doesn’t make sense, since the van was empty.”

  “Empty?” shouted Babichev, shaken.

  Then he got a grip on himself.

  “This van was carrying extremely sensitive equipment,” he said. “It’s been stolen.”

  He couldn’t believe it.

  Stepping aside, he called the Kolomna FSB chief. This was a matter of state security. Only terrorists could have stolen the missiles, he knew. The thought gave him goose bumps.

  In moments, he had the officer on the line.

  “I’ll set up roadblocks on every highway heading south,” the FSB chief immediately said.

  South meant the Caucasus.

  The rebels down there usually got this kind of gear by buying it from Russian troops stationed in Chechnya or Ingushetia. This was the first time any had been stolen near Moscow.

  —

  Through the taxicab window, Parviz Amritzar studied the front of the building. It was number 45, all right, and he recognized the wooden garage door Yuri had described.

  Amritzar paid the five hundred rubles and got out. He immediately started shivering, partly from the freezing Moscow weather, partly from nervousness.

  His heart in his throat, he rapped on the wooden door. When it creaked open, his pulse shot higher. But seeing Yuri standing in the doorway, he relaxed. Entering the garage, he found it as cold inside as outside.

  Amritzar was surprised to see two other men in the office.

  “Who are those people?”

  “Friends of mine,” said Soloway. “My bodyguards.”

  “Is the Igla-S here?” Amritzar asked anxiously. “I have the money.”

  “It’s coming with the men who will look after you. Do you want some tea?”

  Amritzar shook his head no. He couldn’t have swallowed a thing. The garage was plunged in icy cold and metallic silence. He had brought the Makarov pistol Yuri gave him but figured he had no need for it. In an hour he would be back at the Belgrade with Benazir. For her safety, he had decided to send her back to the United States after he explained why he was staying behind.

  Leaning against an empty workbench, he said:

  “Let me give you the money right away, Yuri. That way it’ll be done.”