by Saul Herzog
Behind the kiosk was a drug store, and he went inside, sipping the tea while he browsed the aisles. He was looking for the dental section, and when he found it, grabbed two packs of floss. Without a gun, he had to be creative.
He paid for the floss and made his way to the platform. There was no one else on the platform. This was the end of the line for this service.
There was a newspaper stand, and he picked up a copy of the free paper, then sat on a bench facing the tracks and waited.
He knew it didn’t look right.
The platform was beneath the main concourse of the station, sheltered from the elements but still very cold. No one would be out there, at the terminal stop of a middle of the night express service, reading a newspaper.
The target was a cop.
She was on the run.
She had her guard up.
All of which meant she would be attuned to anything that seemed out of place.
He reached into his pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes. As the train rushed into the station, he lit one and stood up as if waiting to meet someone.
About fifty people got off the train, and he would have recognized his target if she’d been among them.
She was slender, in her late twenties, with sensible hair that came down around her face about as far as her shoulders. From the picture, she dressed well, in clothing perhaps a tad too expensive for someone on a Latvian police officer’s salary.
He knew what he was looking for.
She was just his type.
As the crowd thinned, he had no choice but to leave the platform with the last of them. If she’d waited onboard the train, his lingering would have alerted her.
He walked to the end of the platform and then stopped and looked back at the train. Stepping off it, in an elegant, camel-colored coat, was a blonde with a cropped haircut. She was holding a black purse.
It was her.
She looked up and down the platform and lit a cigarette. Then she started walking in Smolov’s direction.
Smolov had to keep moving.
There was a rickety old escalator leading up to the main concourse, and he got on it.
At the top, he went back to the kiosk he’d bought the tea at and asked for another.
“You again,” the old woman said.
He nodded and took a bill from his wallet, watching the escalator.
At this hour, the station was close to empty. Even the passengers from the target’s train had all but cleared the concourse by the time she got to the top of the escalator.
She was biding her time.
The fewer people around, the fewer potential dangers.
He took his tea and then asked the old lady what cigarettes she carried. She began rattling off a list of brands, and Smolov put the tea on the counter and reached into his pocket.
He would have to make his move now, in the concourse. He wouldn’t be able to follow her out of the station and get her somewhere quieter. There was too little cover.
He’d expected her to start walking for the exit. That was where the taxis and streetcars were waiting. It was the way the other passengers had gone, the last of them now just standing in the doorway, looking out into the street, perhaps waiting for a ride.
The target didn’t go that way.
Instead, she crossed the concourse toward a Bank Polski ATM, it’s blue and white lights creating a glow that illuminated the smoke from her cigarette.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the floss containers. He pulled about three feet of floss from the roll and wrapped it repeatedly around the cuff of his coat at his wrists, as well as around his hands over the knuckles, the way a boxer would wrap tape.
“Thank you,” he said to the woman behind the kiosk, leaving her and leaving his tea.
He walked directly toward the target.
16
There was too much adrenaline flowing through Agata’s veins to allow her to sleep on the train. She sat, with her head resting against the cold glass of the window, trying not to think that every bump and creak of the carriage was someone coming to kill her.
She knew she was in trouble.
She knew she was out of her depth.
The train station in Riga was one of the most heavily monitored places in the city. There were CCTV cameras everywhere. And foolishly, in a moment of panic, she’d used her credit card to purchase her ticket.
She tried to put it all from her head.
To relax.
If she remained calm, she would get through this.
But the thought that kept coming back to her was that Kuzis, the one person she should have been able to trust, had betrayed her.
He’d sent killers after her.
What did that mean?
What did it mean for her country?
She knew what it meant. It meant that what she’d seen in the forest, what she’d thought she’d seen, was real.
And the Russians were coming.
And there was nothing she could do about it. Not now. She had her hands full just trying to stay alive.
She knew she needed to get off the grid. That meant dumping her bank cards. They’d be able to track her as far as Warsaw, but she would make sure the next ticket she bought, she’d pay for in cash.
Her plan was simple. Get to an ATM and get as much cash out as she possibly could. Then get the hell out of Warsaw.
She would go to Berlin. It was near. It was a NATO member. The long tentacles of the GRU would be less free there to root her out.
She watched the platform as the train pulled in from the station. Instantly, she knew something wasn’t right. There was a man there, muscular, with black stubble and a brown leather bench. He was sitting on a bench reading, it must have been ten degrees below zero, and as the train pulled in, he stood.
Everything in her training told her to trust her instincts.
This guy was off.
She watched him from the window of the carriage while the rest of the passengers disembarked. He waited as long as he could, but as they made their way toward the exits, he knew he couldn’t stay on the platform alone.
He followed them, and Agata got off the train and followed him. If he’d come for her, then her one advantage was that she was behind him and could see where he was.
She made her way up the escalator, fully expecting to see him waiting. When she reached the top, there he was.
He was making a purchase at a kiosk, and she walked right by him, making sure he got a good view of her. There was a bank across the concourse, and the walls around the ATM’s were of mirrored steel.
She walked toward them, watching him in the reflection as he followed her. While she walked, she reached into her coat and undid the safety on her gun. She was still carrying the gun she’d taken from the man in her room, it was the same model as her own, a Glock 17.
As she reached the ATM, he quickened his pace to gain on her. He reached out with both his hands as if about to hug her, and she turned around.
He was surprised.
He hadn’t expected it.
He’d seen the blonde hair and expensive coat and assumed she was a deer in headlights.
She fired twice, striking him both times in the chest. He stared into her eyes and shook his head very slowly from side to side.
Then he dropped to his knees.
Agata looked around the terminal. She knew she was being filmed by a dozen security cameras. Her face would be all over every Polish news networks within the hour. Whoever was chasing her would see exactly what she’d done.
There was nothing she could do about any of that now.
Across the concourse, a smattering of passengers looked in her direction. They’d heard the two gunshots and were still processing what had happened.
Agata decided there was no point trying to hide it now.
The assassin was still on his knees, kneeling in front of her, blood pulsing from the wounds in his chest.
She took a single
step toward him and raised her gun. She pressed it against the center of his forehead.
The people in the concourse turned and ran.
“Tell me who sent you,” she said.
She fully expected the man to lie. She knew the game. He would try to waste her time. Every cop in a ten-mile radius was on his way.
She only had seconds.
But he didn’t lie. He didn’t swear.
He said, in the perfect Russian accent of a Saint Petersburg native, “Lady, you don’t know how fucked you are.”
She took a step back away from him, she didn’t have time to wash blood splatter from her clothes, and pulled the trigger. His head yanked back and then came forward, and the man slumped to the ground.
Agata stooped down and wiped the back of her hand on his jacket, then took his wallet from his inside pocket.
17
Agata looked frantically around the terminal as the wail of a hundred police sirens closed in on her.
The concourse was empty.
Everyone had run.
It was just her and the body of the man.
In less than a minute, police would storm through the front entrance, guns blazing.
She looked down at her coat, her hands. A few drops of blood, but nothing that would give her away at a glance.
She stood, turned back in the direction of the platforms, and ran. She leaped down the escalators, sliding on the steel bank that separated the two, and when she got to the platform, jumped down onto the track.
She ran until she was out of the station. The track led her into a long tunnel that was illuminated periodically by orange LED emergency lights. She followed the lights until she reached one that was green and saw that it marked the location of a ladder.
She climbed the ladder, gripping it’s thick, sooty rungs as if her life depended on it. At the top was a cast iron manhole cover, about two feet in diameter, and she put her shoulder against it and heaved. It was extremely heavy. The ladder groaned under the weight of it.
She pushed, and eventually, it budged. It moved only slightly, but once it had, it was unstuck, and she was able to create enough of a gap to pry her fingers through.
Slowly, she was able to nudge it bit by bit, gradually inching it out of her way, and as soon as she’d created an opening wide enough, squeezed through it.
She found herself in an open lot. It looked like a storage depot for the railway, and had been cleared of snow. At one end of it were large coils of copper wire on wooden spools, and around all of it was a chainlink fence, about six feet high, with no razor wire on top.
Agata ducked behind the spools of wire for cover as more and more police cars sped by, lights flashing, sirens wailing.
When the coast was clear, she climbed onto the wire and over the fence. It wasn’t too difficult, but on her way over the top, her coat caught on the fence and ripped.
She examined the tear and swore under her breath. The coat was one of her favorites. Then, as the wail of yet another siren approached, she made her way down the street in the direction away from the train station.
At the first intersection, she crossed the street, then turned down an alley and walked through a park.
The sun would be rising soon, and she needed to get as far from the train station as possible before dawn.
There was an ATM up ahead, and she decided it was as good a time as any to use her cards and get all the cash she could.
She went up to the machine and withdrew the maximum amount from her checking, her savings, and all of her credit cards. Then she broke each of the cards in half and put them into the slot beneath the machine.
The streets were beginning to come to life, and she got onto a passing streetcar without knowing where it would take her. It brought her down a wide boulevard, away from the rising sun, and as the first rays of light poured down the street, she saw up ahead an enormous sign for the city’s second train station, Warszawa Zachodnia.
She wasn’t far from the place she’d shot the assassin, and entering the station was a risk, but she needed to get out of the city. Every passing minute let her pursuers zero in closer, cutting off routes of escape.
Whatever she’d seen, there could be no doubt now that some very powerful people in both Latvia and Russia didn’t want it getting out.
She got off the streetcar and walked up the steps to the train station, keeping her gaze down and avoiding eye contact. Four policemen stood at the top of the steps, just in front of the entrance, and she hurried past without looking up. There were security cameras everywhere, but there was nothing she could do.
Once in the concourse, she scanned the stores and saw one that sold women’s clothing. It wasn’t open yet, but the proprietor was out in front of it, scrubbing the floor with a mop and bucket.
Agata walked up to her and offered to pay double for a long, black trench coat in the window. The woman let her into the store, and she exchanged her coat for the new one.
She went back out to the concourse and was relieved to see that it was filling up with early morning commuters.
She found the public washrooms and had to pay an attendant to be let in. Inside, she checked herself carefully in the mirror. She looked a fright. It was a miracle no one had stopped her on the train from Riga. Her makeup was a mess, her hair looked like it had been backcombed for a Halloween costume, and she saw a faint splatter of blood on the collar of her shirt. She didn’t know whose blood it was, but did up the buttons on the coat and raised the collar.
She also washed her hands and face, scrubbing furiously with the cheap soap and cold water.
Then, she took out her compact and quickly daubed on some makeup, trying to adjust her appearance as much as she could.
She left the washroom and made her way to the closest platform. More and more people were arriving at the station. They were moving in the opposite direction to Agata, but she stayed as close to crowds as possible and never once looked up. Her eyes were glued to the floor as if she was searching for something she’d lost.
The first escalator led down to a commuter platform, and she was about to descend when she noticed six police officers standing in the center of it, large guns slung across their chests.
She turned abruptly and took the escalator to the adjacent platform. It was for express trains.
When she reached the platform, she saw that there were quite a few people on it, and she was able to blend in among them easily. A train glided into the station, and she saw from the sign it was headed for Berlin Hauptbahnhof.
That was good.
What was less good was that there would almost certainly be police on board. So soon after the shooting at Warszawa Centralna, it was inevitable. They’d be checking all the international trains. They wouldn’t have a very clear image of who they were looking for, but they would have a description.
Woman with short blonde hair. Long coat.
Something like that.
She would be able to slip through if she kept her cool, but she would have to be careful. She might be questioned. She could speak both Polish and German with near fluent accents but would need a story.
She decided she would be a history teacher at the University of Poznań. The train would be passing through that city.
As she waited, the group of police officers on the other platform ascended the escalator and disappeared from view. A moment later, they appeared at the top of the escalator to her platform and began making their way down.
The train had stopped, and the people were ready to board, but the doors had not opened.
The police officers began mulling through the passengers. When they reached a blonde woman, they asked where she was going, where she’d come from, what business she had in Berlin.
Agata moved closer to a man in a heavy coat holding a briefcase, trying to make it look like she was with him, and it must have worked because the police walked past her to another solo female traveler.
The doors opened with a pneumatic h
iss, and she got on board and found a seat by a window facing the direction of travel. The train wasn’t crowded, at about fifty percent capacity, and she had four seats and a little table to herself.
She sat down and looked out the window. On the platform, the policemen were lighting cigarettes.
18
Oleg Zhukovsky sat in his tent with his feet in two buckets of hot water. He was getting too old for this. His body ached. Old wounds burned as hotly as the day they’d been inflicted.
When he tried to sleep, memories came back to him of wars so far in the past that the world they’d been fought in no longer existed.
What had he fought for as a young man?
What had been the Soviet objective?
What did he hope to win, and from whom?
Today, such questions were so long forgotten that even the historians rarely dusted off the old tomes that dealt with them.
But for Zhukovsky, every time he shut his eyes, he saw the faces of the men he’d killed. The men he’d tortured. The Mujahideen called him the flayer. He’d been an expert at removing a man’s skin without killing him.
And when they caught him, they made him pay in kind.
The forests of eastern Latvia were not the coldest place he’d ever been, where he lived in Moscow was colder, but it was a different cold. There was a dampness here, a misty, foggy, marshy stench, that infected your bones.
His camp was close to a village called Ostrov, just a few miles inside Russian territory, and the cadets from the GRU training facility in Saint Petersburg had just arrived.
Initially, he’d been told to oversee a military action, a full-scale ground invasion by the Western Military District, and he’d been able to oversee the army personnel from the comfort of a local hotel.
But Kirov had given him a new mission.
An action, he called it.
And it was not to be carried out by soldiers, but by fresh GRU recruits, straight from the training farm.
“They were more impressionable,” Kirov said.
And impressionability was certainly something that they were going to need to pull this off.