Black Rose (The Project Book 9)

by Alex Lukeman

  "That would work," Nick said. "How long will it take to set up?"

  Elizabeth looked thoughtful. "I have to make a phone call or two but it shouldn't take more than a few hours. In the meantime, you can get everything together."

  "What about protective gear?" Selena said. "It's plague. We're going to come across people who have it."

  "You won't be treating anyone. As long as you stay away from them you should be all right. The main problem is that this variety is airborne."

  "We could use M-50s," Lamont said. "They're rated for everything but the kitchen sink."

  "What's an M-50?" Selena asked.

  "A biological warfare mask," Nick said. "Lamont's right, it would protect us against anything airborne. It's a full face mask with a good field of view. Plus it's got twin filters that make it easier to breathe and you can put a voice mike on it. Hot, but it keeps you alive. The filters are good for 24 hours. We do this right, we won't be there that long."

  "How do we get over the target?" Selena asked.

  "Straight from Andrews. I'll send you in a C-130."

  "I always wanted to see Brazil," Lamont said.

  CHAPTER 33

  Ilya Yezhov watched the black Mercedes bearing Konstantine Kamarov approach the private airport where Kamarov's Dassault Falcon waited. Yezhov had dressed like an aircraft maintenance worker, in baggy white overalls, jacket and cap. He stood under one of the wings, pretending to inspect something. A Bizon submachine gun was hidden under the jacket. The 9mm Bizon was light, reliable and lethal at close range. It was one of Ilya's favorite weapons,.

  A second member of his team stood on a step ladder at the rear of the plane, as if he were working on one of the engines. The pilot and crew were under guard in the wooden shack that passed for a terminal. Three men were inside the plane, out of sight. The cabin door was open and the stairs lowered to the tarmac. The rest of the strike team were concealed at strategic points on the perimeter of the runway. One of Yezhov's snipers was concealed behind a fuel truck. He carried a .308 Steyr-Mannlicher SSG-08. Ilya thought the Steyr was the best choice for medium distance targets. The sniper's job was to take down Kamarov's bodyguards. A second sniper was positioned with the heavier .50 caliber Steyr HS50. He would disable the Mercedes before moving to secondary targets.

  All the others on the team carried the new AN-94s. Ilya didn't like them. They were over-engineered, fussy and unreliable in the field, not like the old Kalashnikovs. Great when they worked, junk when they didn't. They'd been forced upon him by the armorer back at the base. He decided to speak to General Vysotsky about it when he got back.

  Yezhov dismissed his thoughts about the AN-94. He spoke into his headset.

  "Target approaching."

  Answering clicks told him everyone was ready. The Mercedes turned off the access road and onto the private airstrip toward the aircraft. It stopped twenty feet away from the foot of the stairway, not far from where Ilya stood. He couldn't see Kamarov through the smoked glass windows but he knew the man was inside. Doors opened on the car and three men got out. They were large men, dressed in dark suits and ties. Ilya knew one of them, a former Spetsnaz corporal who'd been trouble when he was under Ilya's command.

  The man saw him. His eyes widened in recognition. Yezhov's cover was blown.

  "Go," Yezhov said into his microphone.

  The calm atmosphere of the afternoon vanished with the first shot from the Steyr .308. Ilya's former corporal was lifted off his feet and thrown backward as the massive bullet struck his chest. Another shot followed close on the first. The second bodyguard screamed and spun in a bizarre pirhouette before he fell to the pavement. The third man ducked behind the Mercedes but the car suddenly accelerated away from the plane, open doors swaying crazily in the air. It left him exposed. A third shot brought him down.

  Yezhov ran after the car, his Bizon out and ready. He shouted into his microphone.

  "Take the shot, damn it. Stop that son of a whore before he gets away."

  The distinctive boom of the .50 caliber rifle cut through the air. The round tore into the engine compartment of the Mercedes. The car kept moving. A second shot blew through the window on the driver's side. The car slowed and turned left, out of control. Black smoke and oil streamed from underneath. Through the shattered window Yezhov saw the driver slumped to the side, covered with blood. The Mercedes circled back toward the plane and slammed into the nose wheel of the Dassault.

  The front of the sleek jet dropped onto the hood, smashing the windshield and pinning the Mercedes underneath. A thin tongue of fire shot out from the engine compartment.

  The rear door opened and a fat man wearing a mink coat stumbled out and fell on his knees. Yezhov was on him in an instant.

  "Get up, you fat pig." He dragged the oligarch away from the burning car. The flames started to spread to the plane, buried with its nose in the windshield.

  Kamarov looked at the muzzle of the Bizon. He licked his lips. "Who are you? Do you know who I am?"

  Yezhov slapped him. It was like slapping a side of beef.

  "Shut up."

  Two Skorpion armored vehicles sped across the runway from their hiding spot behind the terminal building and screeched to a stop next to Yezhov and his captive.

  "All units, in," Yezhov said into his microphone.

  His men converged on the two trucks. As they moved away, Yezhov looked back and saw the plane beginning to burn. Thick smoke roiled out of the open door and flames lit the interior. The trucks had reached the access road when the gas tanks exploded. A tall column of orange fire erupted into the afternoon, scattering chunks of the expensive jet in every direction.

  "My plane," Kamarov said. "You will be sorry for this."

  "Let me give you a piece of advice," Yezhov said.

  Kamarov looked at him with pure hatred. His eyes were piggy and red, set back in the folds and creases of his dissipated flesh. Ilya caught a glimpse of the ruthless man who was feared by everyone in Russia.

  "You have nothing to say of value to me," Kamarov said. "I will have you fed to my dogs." He looked away, out the window

  Yezhov took out his knife and drove it into the top of Kamarov's thigh, right to the bone, careful to miss the femoral artery. Kamarov screamed. Ilya withdrew the knife and wiped it on Kamarov's pants.

  "Do I have your attention now ?"

  "Yes, yes." Kamarov clutched his leg. Dark blood welled up between his fingers.

  "My advice to you is this," Ilya said. "You will be questioned. Tell the truth, and you may yet live to think about it. One way or another, we will find out what we want to know. The choice is yours about how painful that questioning may be. Have you heard the value in what I say?"

  Yezhov held up the bloody knife. Kamarov looked at him and for the first time showed fear.

  "Yes. I have heard you."

  Yezhov nodded. "Good."

  The rest of the ride was spent in silence, except for Kamarov's moans of pain when the truck hit a patch of rough road.

  CHAPTER 34

  The mission to Brazil was underway. Stephanie retreated to her computer room and waited for Nick to report in.

  She'd been thinking about Selena.

  Stephanie's life revolved around her work. She was an introvert, happiest when immersed in the world of her computers. For Stephanie, the powerful Crays at her disposal were more than machines. They were friends, almost human, guides into the infinite layers of secrets hidden away on the computers of allies and enemies.

  Stephanie liked to practice her skills by hacking into the files of the world's intelligence agencies. Once she was in, she'd begin looking for information. What exactly she was looking for depended on whether it was related to an assignment or to her personal curiosity.

  Today it was curiosity. She was at her console in the computer room, looking for something that might explain Selena's animosity toward the Russians. She felt a little bit guilty about it. It would be easy to misinterpret what she was doing a
s busybody snooping. It wasn't her intention to snoop, not really. Stephanie was fiercely loyal to Elizabeth and to the Project. She liked Selena a lot, but something was definitely off with her. It might be something that could affect the Project and she was determined to try and find out what it was.

  She'd gone through Langley's revolving firewalls and was into the archived records section, searching for anything they might be related to Selena. CIA was certain to have a file on her. Hell, they had reports on everyone connected to the intelligence community. She'd once looked for her own file and was amazed at the details it contained. It had taken her a day or two to get over her indignation, but in the end she couldn't deny that it went with the territory. If you worked for the government, they had a file on you. If you worked in intelligence, that file would be classified and extensive.

  Stephanie entered the parameters for her search. Two file references popped up on her screen. She opened the first and skimmed through it. It contained basic health and education history, results of Selena's polygraph tests, evaluations and a record of increasing levels of security clearance. It was standard stuff with nothing unusual. The second file reference led to a section of the archive that was locked away behind a new firewall and the highest security restriction.

  Someone went to a lot of trouble to hide this. I wonder why?

  After several minutes she was rewarded with the first page of a file about someone called Joseph Connor.

  Not Selena, Stephanie thought. She was about to click away when she saw Selena's name midway down the page. She read a few sentences and took a deep breath. She transferred the contents of the file to her own computer, shut down access to Langley and began reading.

  A half hour later she sat back in her chair, stunned by what she had discovered.

  Joseph Connor was Selena's father. Her father, mother and older brother had died in a car crash when Selena was ten years old. The file revealed that it hadn't been an accident. Joseph Connor had been an agent for the CIA and he'd been murdered by the KGB. Selena's family had been murdered by the Russians.

  That wasn't all. The file identified her father as a double agent passing information to Moscow. The file was deliberately vague about whether or not he had been working with the blessings of the seventh floor. The report concluded that he'd been eliminated because the Russians no longer trusted him.

  Stephanie sat back in her chair, stunned. If Selena knows about this, it would explain what I'm seeing in her. But how could she have found out? I wonder if Nick knows anything?

  Stephanie printed out the file and put it in a manila folder. She had to go to Elizabeth with this. She stood and went upstairs. Elizabeth was in her office, leaning back in her chair with her eyes closed.

  She looks tired. Stephanie knocked on the open door.

  "Got a minute?"

  "Come on in, Steph."

  "I've got something you need to look at," Stephanie said. "Have you noticed that Selena seems uncomfortable lately whenever something comes up involving the Russians?"

  "Now that you mention it, she did seem a little irritable the other day when we were talking about them."

  "I think I know why."

  Stephanie handed the folder to Elizabeth.

  "What's this?"

  "Read it and then we can talk about it."

  Stephanie sat down as Elizabeth began reading. After a few minutes, Elizabeth looked up and said, "Where did you find this?"

  "Buried in the deepest hole Langley could dig, behind half a dozen layers of security."

  "Does Selena know about this?"

  "I don't know for sure," Stephanie said, "but if she does it would explain why she's so reactive when the subject of Russia comes up."

  "She was fine working with Korov."

  "She'd come to know and trust him," Stephanie said. "He was like one of the team, for a while there. And if she does know, maybe she found out after he was killed."

  Arkady Korov was a Spetsnaz officer who'd worked for General Vysotsky. He'd been seconded to Elizabeth in an unusual alliance between enemies formed out of mutual necessity. He'd been killed in the field while the team was on a mission to stop an unbalanced general from establishing a fascist police state in America.

  "How would she find out about this if it was buried?" Elizabeth asked.

  "That's a good question. I think we have to ask her."

  "You do realize what this could do to her if she isn't already aware of what's in this file."

  "I know," Stephanie said.

  "Why would Langley hide this away?"

  "The file shows that Selena's father was working for the Russians at the same time he was working for us. What it doesn't show is whether or not he was a traitor. The Russians killed him, so they must have thought he'd betrayed them. That would seem to vindicate him."

  "Then why not acknowledge him?" Elizabeth said. "Put it in his record. Put one of those anonymous stars up on the wall at Langley."

  "It could be a cover-up," Stephanie said. "Maybe someone screwed up and blew his cover. Someone high up. It wouldn't be the first time Langley got an agent killed because someone made a mistake. Or there could have been a mole at the agency. Someone who told the Russians he was a double."

  "Not many people would have known what Connor was doing," Elizabeth said. "It would have to be someone with a lot of authority."

  "Someone who was high up the time," Stephanie said.

  "The agency had a lot of failures back then. That was when Aldrich Ames was there. He was right in the middle of clandestine ops, he knew who the doubles were. No one really knows how many people he betrayed. He never told them everything after he was arrested."

  "But why cover it up? Ames is the most public example of a traitor within the CIA that there is. There wouldn't be any point in hiding something he'd done from an internal point of view."

  Elizabeth tapped the file with her pen. "The last entry is dated nineteen eighty-seven. Ames was still there when this was written. Maybe he buried it. He wouldn't want anyone to find out he'd betrayed Connor to the Russians. It wouldn't have been difficult to make it look as though Connor was the mole. The agency knew they were harboring a traitor and they were looking for him. If Ames set Connor up, it would have taken some of the heat off him."

  "You think Ames framed Connor?"

  "It's possible," Elizabeth said. "Either way, we have to talk to Selena about this."

  "What about Nick?" Stephanie asked.

  "What about him?"

  "If Selena knows about this, it's a good bet Nick does too. I think he should be here when we talk with her."

  Elizabeth opened her desk drawer and took out a bottle of aspirin. She washed three tablets down with cold coffee.

  "We have to wait until after they get back from Brazil to do it. Steph, can you find out anything else about Connor? The accident? Who was his handler?"

  "That's another thing," Stephanie said. "His case officer was William Connor, Selena's uncle."

  Elizabeth tried to rub away the headache growing behind her forehead.

  "This gets more complicated all the time."

  Stephanie said, "DCI Hood was around back then. Do you think he might know something about it?"

  "It's possible," Elizabeth said. "I have to think about whether I should approach him about this. Whatever her father did or didn't do, it's nothing to do with her. I don't want her to feel that she's under suspicion because of what's in this file."

  "It might be useful to find out who ordered his death," Stephanie said. "Connor was stationed in East Berlin for two years before he was killed. A lot of the Stasi and KGB records from back then were discovered after the wall came down. Finding out more about Connor's death could help us decide if he was a traitor or a patriot. If we can clear him, it would make things a lot easier for Selena."

  "All right. We'll talk to her when they get back. That should give you time to find out whatever you can."

  "I'm on it," Stephanie said.

>   Elizabeth looked at the row of clocks on the wall across from her desk.

  "They should be over the drop zone just about now."

  CHAPTER 35

  Helmets, battle dress and MP-5s. Pistols and plenty of ammunition. Ronnie carried a separate pack with C4 and detonators, just in case. Tropical air blew through the open hatch of the C-130. With it came the smell of the Brazilian rain forest rushing by four thousand feet below. Nick waited for the green light that would signal it was time to jump. The voice of the jump master sounded in his headpiece.

  "Get ready. Thirty seconds."

  Behind Nick, Selena felt the first rush of adrenaline. This was her second jump since she'd joined the Project. The first had been a high altitude jump over the Himalayas from 23,000 feet. This looked like a piece of cake compared to that.

  The light turned green. "Go!" Nick said.

  He leapt from the plane, counted seconds and pulled his rip cord. The harness grabbed him hard in the groin and pulled as the chute blossomed open. The ground was coming up fast, a cleared field on the border between the rain forest and the Indian reservation. Nick pulled on the steering toggles and guided himself toward what looked like a soft spot. He looked up and saw the others above him.

  So far, so good.

  The landing zone wasn't as soft as it looked. Pain shot up his spine as he hit, a reminder of the last time he'd done this. He struggled to his feet and pulled the chute in. Five minutes later, everyone was gathered on the edge of the clearing.

  "You're limping," Selena said.

  "It's nothing." Nick took out a map.

  He looked up and scanned the drop zone. "We're right where we wanted to be."

  A fast running stream bordered the far edge of the clearing. Beyond, a narrow path disappeared into the trees. He pointed at the path.

  "That's where we're going. It will take us close to the clinic. We won't know what we're up against until we've got eyes on it. The people living here have nothing to do with this, so don't assume everyone is hostile. But don't get careless either. It's a safe bet any Europeans you see could be part of Schmidt's group. If you see Schmidt, don't kill him. We want him alive."