A Hostile State

by Adrian Magson

  I stepped out from the trees, checking the position of other visitors to the park. The elderly woman and her dog were far enough away to be safe, helped by a couple of women who’d heard the ruckus. One was on her cellphone, no doubt calling the police. There was nobody else close by, which was a good thing.

  I checked that Lindsay wasn’t hanging around and placed myself between her and the men, then walked directly towards them, drawing their attention. We were about fifty feet apart and closing fast. Any second now they’d have to make a decision about who or what I was, whether to go after Lindsay or deal with me first.

  I made sure that I stayed centre-point in their field of vision and kept walking.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘Fous le camp!’ one of the punks snarled at me and motioned for me to get out of his way. He was bean-pole thin and the ugly zig-zag tattoo on his throat was shaded red like a blood vessel about to burst. He probably thought it made him look mean and tough, but it didn’t.

  When I didn’t move he upgraded the threat level by producing a handgun. He pushed it towards me, waving me to move to one side. I figured he’d written me off as a no-threat bystander who’d scare easy. Big mistake.

  The way he was holding the gun, gangbanger-style and sideways on was a sure sign he’d been watching too many lousy gangster flicks and thought it looked cool. It was no way to get off an accurate shot but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

  His colleague meanwhile was moving off to one side and shouted something I didn’t catch, but the meaning was clear: he was telling him to blow me the fuck away so they could get the woman and finish the job.

  By now we were twenty feet apart. The man with the gun shouted something else and I could see his knuckles going white as he debated pulling the trigger. That’s the trouble with extremists: they’re short on limitations and high on hate. Anyone who doesn’t agree with them is an enemy and therefore to be pulped.

  It was about as close as I wanted to get.

  I stepped two fast paces sideways and tossed the baguette in his face. He flinched and used his free hand to bat the bread away and discovered that accurate shooting, especially up close, is all about cool nerve and alignment. He had no nerve and the idiot way he was holding his gun meant he instinctively over-adjusted and the barrel wavered off-target.

  Even so he got off a panic shot which went past me by about a yard and snapped harmlessly into a tree-trunk. He pulled the trigger again and scowled when nothing happened. He gave it another try.

  Trigger-jam.

  I didn’t want to take a chance on it clearing, so I shot him in the leg. All this happened within a second or two. The shots were loud, setting off a flurry of birds from the trees above our heads. Someone screamed in the distance followed by some shouting and barking, the dogs latching on to the tension in the air.

  In a hunting-happy country like France and with an armed police force, a lot of people and dogs knew what a gunshot sounded like.

  The wounded skinhead squealed and dropped his gun, then fell over with his leg pumping blood. His pal swore in shock and dragged a gun from his jacket, but he was way too slow reacting. I ran at him before he could untangle the safety on his weapon and slapped him hard under the chin with the Sig. The blow knocked him backwards onto the grass, his eyes wide open with shock. Then the lights went out and he lost all further interest.

  I quickly checked his pockets for ID and found a licence, a cellphone, a crumpled pack of cigarettes and some cash. Extremism on a budget. The phone was switched on but there was no photo. So, not part of the kill-me plot. I didn’t have time to check the other punk so I kicked both guns away and made sure nobody else was near before turning to follow Lindsay into town.

  As I filtered through the trees something made me look back. The two skinheads were still out cold and the dog-walkers had disappeared. But a movement on the far side of the park caught my eye.

  A man in dark clothing was standing there looking my way. He had a cellphone to his ear and I thought for a split second that he might be a cop, in which case I definitely had to get moving.

  But when he didn’t move I realized I was wrong.

  He was a spotter. I’d been here too long.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Callahan was waiting anxiously for news from Portman or Lindsay Citera when he saw David Andrews lurking in the corridor outside. The researcher wore a grin on his face. He beckoned him in and told him to close the door.

  ‘What have you got?’ He wasn’t being totally optimistic, but figured Andrews wouldn’t be looking so chipper if he hadn’t made some progress.

  ‘I got lucky,’ Andrews said, waving a tablet. ‘I’ve been trawling our files for information on known or suspected Russian agents or sympathizers here in DC area, to see if any have popped up on the watch reports recently. I knew of a few from my previous work and figured it was a good place to begin. I stumbled on this.’ He held out the tablet so Callahan could see it and tapped the screen. A formatted document appeared headed with the name ‘Valentina J. Desayeva’, followed by a list of personal details. ‘This is an FBI surveillance report on this subject from a few weeks ago. Do you know her?’

  Callahan racked his memory. The name was vaguely familiar but he couldn’t place it. Too much was going on in his head at the moment and he needed time to think. ‘Let’s pretend I don’t. Remind me.’

  ‘She’s long been suspected by the FBI of having close connections to people in Moscow, but nothing has ever been proved. She’s a resident in DC and calls herself a businesswoman and charity fundraiser with a lot of friends in social and political circles. Before that she was a close associate of a man named Boranov.’

  Callahan stared at him. ‘Gus Boranov?’

  ‘The same. He was a Russian, the US representative of—’

  ‘BJ Security Group. Yeah, I know. They’ve got connections with state-run companies in Russia and the Kremlin. Boranov disappeared a few years back when things got too hot for him. The FBI had him figured for espionage and were about to take him in for questioning. Desayeva was tied in with him in some way, but with Boranov gone they couldn’t prove how deep it went.’ He recalled now how Desayeva had been investigated, but had come up clean, with Walter Broderick being among her more enthusiastic supporters.

  Being close to Boranov hadn’t been enough to land her in court or even to have her kicked out on the next Aeroflot to Moscow. Instead someone in the State Department had suggested using her knowledge and background to provide information on current Kremlin thinking.

  Beyond sounding a note of caution, which he suspected had been ignored, it hadn’t been part of Callahan’s or the CIA’s remit to be involved so he’d got on with his job and put Desayeva out of his mind.

  ‘Right. I followed the trail of the report back into Boranov’s activities, just to see if there was anything useful like other contact names who were still around. The trail ran dry when I found that some of the reports that included Desayeva’s name had been redacted. It didn’t say why, though.’

  ‘It wouldn’t,’ Callahan said sourly. All he knew was that Desayeva was being used by the State Department for reasons they wouldn’t go into, and that made her beyond suspicion in their eyes. It hadn’t made sense then and it didn’t now. ‘So?’

  ‘It didn’t leave much to go on, but that’s where two lines intersected.’ Andrews smiled, ‘It’s surprising how so much comes back to Washington.’

  ‘Get on with it,’ Callahan growled. ‘Time’s a-wasting. What lines?’

  Andrews lost the smile. ‘Sorry.’ He flicked a finger across the screen to reveal a photo. It showed the interior of a smart looking restaurant. The room was large and airy with panoramic windows at the far side. Waiters in short white jackets were cruising in the background. ‘This was taken four weeks ago at a place called the Pines View Golf Park near Charlottesville. It’s an upscale country club type of place aimed at people who like a touch of class with their golf and a place to chat.’ He
enlarged the screen shot to show a couple sitting to one side. ‘The woman is Desayeva. The man with her has been identified as a Bradley Dalkin, a Washington resident.’

  ‘Is he anyone we should know?’

  ‘Well, referring back to the file you sent me, he was chief of staff to a Senator Howard J. Benson – or was until Benson’s death four years ago. Since then he’s been scratching for work wherever he can get it.’

  ‘Benson? Now that’s a name I know.’ The memories came flooding back. The senator had been a member of the powerful Intelligence Community, set up to co-ordinate and support special activities among the various US intelligence agencies with regard to US foreign policy overseas. Benson had been a rabid CIA sceptic intent on dragging the organization before an investigative committee given half a chance.

  His death, while shocking, had not been universally mourned among those he had targeted. And one person he had seemed especially averse to had been Marc Portman and his assignment for the CIA.

  There had been questions about Portman’s possible role in Benson’s murder, but concrete evidence proved he’d been in Arlington in the company of a trusted CIA staff member at the time, over sixty miles away from where Benson had died.

  Callahan skim-read the details on the tablet. Desayeva’s name had come up on a list of targets kept under regular review. These were mostly mid-to-low-level foreign nationals, especially Russians, who had popped up on the FBI’s radar but lacked anything substantial with which to charge them. A two-man team had been put on her for a few days to scrape off whatever barnacles they could find.

  Usually such reviews proved little and took up time, shoe leather and money, but were considered essential to the fight against espionage. This particular surveillance had coincided with Desayeva taking a trip out of Washington and the team had decided to follow her to see who she met with. Now it seemed that a routine and previously uneventful surveillance might have turned into something else entirely.

  ‘Dalkin doesn’t play golf,’ Andrews said, filling in the next answer, ‘and as far as the team could tell he wasn’t there for the ambiance or the food. Same with Desayeva. They met, talked briefly, during which Dalkin passed something across the table to her. It could have been a slip of paper but it was too quick for the team to see. The team said it seemed like they’d met before; there was no shaking hands or that stuff. She left immediately afterwards and returned to her apartment in DC. Dalkin waited for a couple of minutes then also left. He didn’t appear to be conscious about being followed.’

  ‘He wouldn’t – he’s a bureaucrat.’ What if it had been a brush-pass, Callahan wondered? It was a common piece of tradecraft for passing on information and one which worked well enough to still be in use. However, with no clear visuals on what had been passed, they were no further forward.

  ‘Did the surveillance include audio?’

  ‘It did but the restaurant’s mood music blanked it out. They got plenty of CCTV coverage though, showing them arriving, meeting and leaving.’

  Callahan sat back. It showed a connection and possible intent but it was a long way off proof that anything untoward had gone on. Desayeva was a charity fundraiser, so she could claim the meeting was all done in the name of some noble cause. And if Dalkin backed her up they’d never prove otherwise.

  ‘That’s good work.’ He picked up the tablet again to give himself time to think. His big problem was how to progress this further. He couldn’t ask Andrews to do field work because he wasn’t trained for it. But while passing any job off to the FBI went against the grain, protocol demanded that that was exactly what he should do. There was no other option.

  Andrews jumped in and solved the problem for him. ‘I’ve done some research-liaison work for a Special Agent Bill Warner over at Pennsylvania Avenue, and I know he’d love to get his teeth into this.’

  Pennsylvania Avenue was the FBI’s address in Washington.

  ‘Warner? I know him. He’s a good man.’

  ‘You want me to speak to him?’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Well, they could arrange more surveillance, wiretaps, checking out this Dalkin guy’s financial status … that kind of thing. And I could tag along to make sure they got everything.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yes. My girlfriend says I need to get out more and this would be a good excuse.’

  Callahan made a decision. Andrews was onto something, he could sense it.

  ‘Do it. I’ll leave it to you to sell it to them. If they seem unwilling let me know. Focus on Dalkin first. He’s new and we still don’t have anything on the Russian. Keep me informed.’

  THIRTY

  The leafy streets surrounding Bradley Dalkin’s Rockville apartment building were quiet when David Andrews and two FBI Special Agents arrived. Quiet was good but some traffic was useful for cover. Too many older singletons behind curtained windows and with time on their hands could easily spot a strange vehicle and take too close an interest to consider calling the cops. Result, one busted surveillance job.

  Special Agent Charles Cahill, thirty-two, clean-cut and innocent-looking, made a phone call to Dalkin’s apartment number, ready to slip into a call-centre script in case Dalkin should pick up. He hung on longer than eight rings in case Dalkin was busy on his cellphone. Eight was the norm for most people’s annoyance limit to trip in, but it seemed like he must be out.

  Special Agent Bill Warner suggested they do a sweep of the area before entering. A thickset man nearing retirement, he had a calm voice and exuded authority and experience.

  ‘Why are we doing that?’ queried David Andrews. This was his first time on a field operation and he was eager to see what they did next. Somehow this calm, low-level approach hadn’t been what he was expecting. Where were the fast stops, slamming car doors and bursting into buildings he’d always imagined?

  ‘To make sure there are no competing factors in play,’ Warner explained.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘If Dalkin is talking to the Russians through Desayeva, they might have put a watch on him to make sure it’s not a set-up. Or there might be another agency taking an interest. We don’t want to run into any traffic and tip our hand.’

  ‘Or if he’s just a traitorous weasel of a scumbag bureaucrat,’ suggested Cahill sourly, ‘which he probably is, he might be looking out for us to turn up and shake his tree.’

  ‘Don’t mind him,’ Warner said. ‘His last girlfriend got snaffled by a bureaucrat and he’s never going to forget it.’

  Andrews nodded. ‘Are we going in?’

  Warner gave him a tolerant look. ‘You haven’t done this before, have you, son?’

  ‘Not a lot.’ Andrews felt a flush growing on his face. ‘Actually, not at all.’

  Warner nodded, inscrutable. ‘Just so’s we know. There’s a couple of rules I need you to bear in mind.’

  ‘Oh. OK, sure. What are they?’

  ‘Follow our lead and do not speak.’

  ‘Right. Is that it?’

  ‘That’s all you need to know. Stick to that and everything will work out fine.’ He smiled to take the sting out of the comment and explained, ‘We’ve been trying to nail Desayeva for a long time and tying in this Dalkin guy with her could be our way in.’

  ‘It’s good you got the CCTV footage on them, though. We wouldn’t have had a clue otherwise.’ Andrews was referring tactfully to the video footage at the Pines View golf club, but which had not been followed up until now. He hadn’t raised the issue before in case they felt insulted and told him to get lost.

  Warner wasn’t fooled. ‘If what you’re saying in that roundabout superior spook-trained manner,’ he growled, ‘is that we missed an opportunity earlier to find out who Dalkin was, then yes, I guess we did. Our bad. I’ll make sure the agents responsible are tarred and feathered and flayed at dawn. That do you?’

  Andrews swallowed and nodded. ‘No offence.’

  Warner indicated a walkway between buildings and they all tu
rned in. ‘I hear you’re some kind of Russian expert, is that right?’

  ‘I guess. Why?’

  ‘We could use some of that knowledge, you ever feel like a change of office scenery. The coffee’s shit but it’s served by a machine that knows its place.’

  ‘I’m not sure, but thanks for the offer.’ Andrews felt a warm glow at the idea that he’d been acknowledged as having something special to offer. That didn’t happen every day. ‘Can I quote that offer on my résumé?’

  ‘No, you fucking cannot,’ Warner muttered mildly. They turned back into the street running past Dalkin’s apartment building and approached the front door. ‘You ready, tovarich?’

  ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  I caught up with Lindsay in the town centre. She was standing outside a crêperie and looked nervous, which was no surprise. Going by the calm street scene the news of the action in the park hadn’t caught on up here yet and people were going about their business seemingly unaware that there had been gunfire in their quiet little town.

  She said, ‘I wondered if you were going to come.’ She held my phone up. ‘Callahan rang off. I told him you’d call later when we got clear.’

  ‘Walk casually and smile a lot,’ I told her, and took the phone. I put her arm through mine, heading for the street where I’d left the car. ‘We’re just two normal people doing everyday normal things, taking in the sights and about to leave this place as quickly and as calmly as we can. If you feel like laughing any time soon, do so; it’s a great way to dispel tension.’

  ‘I’ll try to remember that,’ she said, and broke out a rough facsimile of a laugh which sounded anything but real.

  I said, ‘On second thoughts, best not do that again. People might think I’m taking you hostage.’

  A thin wail of approaching police sirens drifted up the hill, and I guessed that they were a mile or so off, maybe less. Damn, that was a fast response time. We hadn’t got long before they’d have the town closed down tight.