by Saul Herzog
The Russians obviously wanted Tatyana back. They couldn’t bear to allow a defector to get away without paying the price.
But he’d also distributed a national security bulletin informing the NATO allies of her defection. Such bulletins served a number of purposes, but they also created risks. And they meant when a message like this came in, there was no way of knowing who it had come from.
There was a chance it had come from another GRU agent who was ready to defect. Possibly someone posted in Riga, although it would be difficult to know without speaking to Tatyana directly.
There was a far greater chance that it had come from some two-bit Russian counter-intelligence officer who wanted to impress his boss by reeling in a defector.
Roth looked at the handwriting, the curves, the slant of the pen. He wasn’t a big believer in reading deep meaning into something like a person’s handwriting, and in any case, if it was a trap, the GRU would have doctored every detail of it to draw him in, but it certainly looked like a woman’s cursive. It was written in English, but the letter formation was consistent with a Latvian or other Eastern European.
The driver circled the block, then pulled up to the front of the hotel, where the valet opened the door for him.
“I’ll call you when I’m ready,” he said to the driver as he stepped out.
“Aye aye, captain,” the driver said.
The driver was new, Roth liked him, but he couldn’t help feel guilt over the death of his predecessor.
He walked up the steps of the hotel and through the brass, rotating doors. The Saint Royal, located on Sixteenth Street just two blocks from the White House and three from the Washington Post, was one of the most sumptuous on the planet. It was the kind of place where the ushers wore top hats and tails, and the concierge remembered your name.
Roth scanned the lobby for any familiar faces. The bar was a favorite haunt for the Washington elite, but it was quiet tonight.
“Mr. Roth,” the host said, stepping forward to take his coat. “Your table is waiting, and I hope you don’t mind, I took the liberty of having a bottle of the eighty-eight Bordeaux opened for you. Compliments of the house.”
“Thank you,” Roth said, following the man to his table.
“Can I pour you some wine while you await your company,” the host said.
Roth nodded and went through the song and dance of tasting the wine. “I’m not going to turn down a free bottle,” he said.
The host poured him a glass and left.
On the table, there was bread in a basket and a pat of butter with rock salt crushed on it.
He ate some while he waited. Laurel had no trouble being on time for work, but for this, she left him waiting a precise fifteen minutes.
He looked at the images of the newspaper again. Read the message.
Needs to talk.
It could be referring to anything, but what got his attention was the reference to Riga. From what the analyst at Cavalier had told him, the DoD’s satellite coverage of the Baltics was one of the most critical capabilities threatened by the new Russian satellite.
It was too early, of course, to conclude that this note had anything to do with that satellite, but Roth didn’t like coincidences, and this had the smell of one.
He sighed.
The GRU knew about the satellite too. They could be using it to entice him.
He knew he needed to ask Tatyana. The only problem with that idea was, he still hadn’t managed to track her down. She’d dropped off the grid, taken her sister and the other Russian with her. He’d find her eventually, he wasn’t worried about that, but this made that search more urgent.
When Laurel entered the restaurant, every man in the place turned to look at her. She was stunning, in a black dress that contrasted with her blonde hair, and a sensual yet demure neckline that revealed just a hint of cleavage. Around her neck was a small, gold pendant.
“Wow,” Roth said when she reached the table.
“Don’t,” she said.
He wasn’t foolish enough to think she’d made the effort all for him, but it still took his breath away. He stood and pulled a chair out for her.
“Laurel, you look beautiful.”
She said nothing.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so dressed up before.”
“Well, if you hadn’t picked the fanciest place in fifty miles…”.
“I’m trying to compliment you.”
She looked at him. She was flustered. She wasn’t sure what this meant. This dinner.
This place.
“I just wanted to meet you here to tell you how sorry I am about how you were treated. What happened, the way the president turned on Lance, you getting caught up in it, that wasn’t right.”
“It’s all right, Levi.”
“You deserve better,” he said.
He poured her some wine, and they clinked glasses.
“To the future,” she said. “May it treat us exactly as we deserve.”
They drank, and Roth said, “I hope you don’t mean that as a threat.”
Laurel smiled.
A waiter came over and asked if they wanted anything else to drink. They both stuck with the wine, so he ran through the features and left them with menus.
“How about some caviar and oysters to start?” Roth said over the top of his menu.
“You really don’t have to do this, Levi. No one would take this job for the perks.”
He beckoned the waiter and ordered a selection of the most expensive appetizers on the menu. He then suggested they try the chef’s tasting menu.
Laurel agreed, and they handed the menus back to the waiter.
“So,” Roth said after the waiter left, “you said goodbye to Lance?”
“Yes, I did.”
Roth knew it was a delicate topic, and he spoke carefully. “I just want to say one thing about him, and then I’ll change the subject.”
“All right,” Laurel said.
“You mustn’t believe everything he says to you.”
“Are you calling him a liar?”
Roth shook his head. “I’m just saying, sometimes, the truth depends on whose perspective you’re looking through.”
Laurel nodded.
Roth knew there was more to what had happened between him and Lance than he knew. The ugly business with Clarice Snow.
He regretted it, and he understood that he might never know the whole story.
He looked at Laurel and wondered if Lance had told her anything.
“I’m sure you didn’t bring me here just to talk about Lance Spector,” Laurel said.
Roth looked at her carefully. She had good instincts. She was the right person for the role he’d set out for her.
And it was no small role.
He’d chosen her, in effect, to be his predecessor.
He’d spent decades building up the Special Operations Group. It was the nation’s most elite intelligence unit and building it had been his life’s work.
Laurel was young, she had a lot to learn, but when the president named him CIA Director, Roth knew there was no one else for the role. It had to be her. The president hadn’t been so sure, but Roth insisted.
“She’ll grow into the role, sir,” Roth had said. “Mark my words. Long after you and I have been put out to pasture, she’ll be giving the Kremlin, Beijing, the whole lot of them, a run for their money.”
He felt for her.
He knew the toll the job would take.
She would never have the type of life other people took for granted. She wouldn’t have children. Marriages, she might try them, but they wouldn’t work out.
She would be doing a job that most people, even people inside the intelligence community, were ashamed to admit existed.
They hated that it was necessary.
And they’d hold it against her.
She’d get used to commanding death, to saying a name, and then seeing a photo of the person she’d named with a bullet through his head
. And there’d be mistakes. There would be collateral damage. The intelligence would be wrong, or the wrong person would get in front of a bullet. There would be times when she’d make orders, knowing there’d be civilian casualties.
All of that had an effect on a person.
It changed them.
He looked at her now, sitting in that beautiful room, in that beautiful dress, the sparkle in her eyes utterly intoxicating.
She was as beautiful as any woman he’d ever seen.
And all of that beauty was going to be destroyed because of the job he’d given her.
The waiter brought them cutlery and a tray of a dozen oysters on a bed of crushed ice.
Laurel wasn’t shy. She picked up a shell and poured the contents into her mouth without any horseradish or even lemon juice. He liked that about her. She wasn’t afraid of things for what they were.
And what these were, was expensive mouthfuls of seawater.
He followed her lead and embarrassed himself by slurping.
“Have you given any more thought to where we should work out of?” Laurel said.
“I thought you had some ideas.”
“As it happens,” she said, “I do.”
“And?”
“I think we should operate out of a hotel suite.”
Roth thought about that. It would have its advantages. A special agreement with the right hotel would be needed. Special equipment would have to be installed. But it would certainly be easy for her and her team to come and go without drawing attention to a specific location. And they could switch locations at the drop of a hat.
“I can see that working,” he said.
“There’d be some practicalities to iron out.”
“I’m sure you’d manage to get what you wanted.”
Laurel fixed him in her gaze. Her eyes glittered with the chandelier’s reflected light. “Are you suggesting something?”
Roth was going to respond, say something witty, but his voice caught.
“Are you all right?” Laurel said as he cleared his throat.
“I’m fine.”
She handed him his water glass, and he drained it.
She eyed him carefully.
He felt he’d never dined with a creature quite so intoxicating.
The waiter brought them over the next course, an amuse-bouche made out of foamed sea urchin.
Laurel examined it with the tip of her fork, and Roth said, “I’ve got something to show you.”
He took his phone from his pocket and pulled up the images of the newspaper from Berlin.
“What’s this?” Laurel said.
He handed her the phone.
She zoomed in on the message and read it aloud.
“Tell Roth that Tatyana Aleksandrova’s friend from Riga needs to talk.”
She looked up at him.
“What do you make of it?” he said.
“It’s a trap.”
He smiled. Everything’s black and white for you, isn’t it?
“It’s a trap, Roth,” she said again. “You know it is.”
He said nothing.
“You’re not seriously thinking of sending her in?”
“I’m thinking of speaking to her about it.”
“They want her back, Roth. They’re livid that she’s on our side. If you put her on a plane, they’re going to kill her.”
Roth put the amuse-bouche in his mouth. It tasted like seaweed. He forced himself to swallow.
“We received it a few hours ago.”
“Where?”
“The embassy in Berlin.”
“Look at it,” Laurel said. “Happy hour? If you send her into that bar, that’s the last we’ll see of her.”
“We can’t ignore it, Laurel.”
“Why not? If someone wants to speak to Tatyana, they can give us more than that.”
“There are other factors in play.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Baltic. Latvia in particular. I’m worried about it.”
“Send me,” Laurel said impetuously.
“Absolutely not, Laurel.”
“Why not?”
“You’re the head of the Special Operations Group.”
“Right now, it’s a group of just one person.”
“It will grow.”
“If this is a trap, I’ll sniff it out.”
“I can’t,” Roth said. “It’s too great a risk.”
“Look,” she said. “I’ve got no intention of being one of those spies who sits behind a desk here in Washington while other people get their hands dirty. If that’s what you think, you can find someone else to run your precious group.”
Roth looked at her and sighed. “There’ll be plenty of chances to get dirt on your hands, Laurel. Believe me.”
27
Alex Sherbakov was the type of man people forgot even while they were still looking at him. He left no impression in the mind. That was what made him so dangerous.
He was out of shape, in his mid-forties, not handsome but not shockingly ugly, with a jowly face that caused his neck to slump slightly over the collars of his cheap button-up shirts. He had a faint Long Island drawl, and bought his coffee, which he pronounced cawfee, every morning at Dunkin’ Donuts. He took it with three creams, three sugars, and most days, with an accompanying French cruller.
For fifteen years, he’d stubbornly refused to sell the house in Bethpage where he’d grown up, and commuted every day from Long Island, all the way to his job as a technical analyst on Wall Street. The traffic was brutal. To this day, he blamed sitting in traffic on the I-495 for almost two hours, every day, each way, for his obesity.
He was a creature of habit.
Change, novelty, anything out of the ordinary, he regarded as a threat.
He’d tried everything to stay in that house.
The I-495 to the Queens Midtown Tunnel.
The Brooklyn Queens expressway to the Williamsburg Bridge.
Even the Throgs Neck Bridge north through the Bronx and down FDR Drive.
Nothing made a difference.
The traffic only got worse.
Unless someone bought him a helicopter, he was going to have to either change jobs or move closer to the city.
The commute simply ate up too much of his life. It hijacked every attempt he made to get more exercise, to lose the extra weight around his gut.
It would have made any kind of social life next to impossible, were it not for the fact that he’d waived his right to a social life a long time ago.
Alex Sherbakov was the last person in the world anyone would expect of being a Russian illegal. He was part of an SVR program that was so secretive, it was run out of a Cold War nuclear bunker two miles beneath the Kremlin.
As far as his handler was concerned, the fewer people Alex knew, the fewer women he slept with, the less risk there was of a breach.
That said, it was his handler who’d finally ordered him to move closer to his job.
“You work on Wall Street,” the handler said. “You make good money. Get yourself an apartment, something with a view. Maybe in a building with a gym.”
Alex did as he was told. He chose a building with a great gym. And according to his condominium-issued security pass, he had accessed it twice in the last thirty-six months.
He was the ultimate ‘Average Joe,’ and that was how the SVR liked it.
Born on Long Island, he knew the name of every Islanders player of the 1980s. As a child, he had a poster of Butch Goring on his wall and would have been able to recognize the faces of Ray Ferraro and Pat LaFontaine far better than those of Nikita Khrushchev or Mikhail Gorbachev.
He didn’t know what people in Moscow ate when they went to a movie theater.
He didn’t know how the Communist Party elected its leaders.
If he’d been asked to name the members of the Warsaw Pact, he’d have had to guess blindly.
His favorite music was a metal band from the eight
ies called Tesla, and his favorite movie was Top Gun.
His favorite food was medium chicken wings with ranch. He wouldn’t touch the carrots or celery sticks.
His parents moved from Moscow to Calgary under a secret Sleeper Program then administered by Leonid Brezhnez, but initiated by Stalin himself. They moved on to Long Island as soon as they’d acquired Canadian citizenship.
That meant, despite all appearances to the contrary, Alex Sherbakov was a weapon decades in the making. He was the payoff for more than half a century of Soviet intrigue and planning, an asset cultivated and maintained through the most profound political developments and regime changes.
Governments rose and fell, agencies were constituted and reconstituted, Alex’s handlers retired, or died, or were replaced. Not a few of them found themselves, at one point or another, in the dungeon beneath the Lubyanka.
Sherbakov remained on the books through all of it.
Of course, he didn’t know what he was when he was born. It was not until the night before his eighteenth birthday that he learned that little bombshell. And bombshell it was. Until that night, he’d fully believed he was an ordinary American boy, an Islanders fan, a Def Leopard fan.
People sometimes said there was a job they were born to do. For Sherbakov, that was quite literally the case. Even his parents’ marriage was part of the legend, typed out on the KGB’s unusually thin office paper, and put into a file in the Lubyanka in 1955. At that point, they hadn’t even met. The fact of his mother’s pregnancy, even the desired dates, was all in there.
The file even told his parents how to name him, with “an ordinary American name,” and that he, or she, was to be given “as ordinary an American childhood as possible.”
And that was exactly what happened.
It was ordained. Some secretary at the KGB typed it up, and as surely as if it had been written by God, it came to pass.
Alex absorbed the information. He took it in the same way someone might when told they were adopted. He realized the relationship with his parents, while still valid, while still something, wasn’t quite what he’d thought it was.
There was something professional about it.
He was part of their job, their service to their country.
From that day onwards, they treated him more as a colleague than a son. He began a training regime. He learned how secrets of the trade. How to communicate with Moscow. How to work with a handler. How to take on things he scarcely understood, things he could in no way relate to, and live as if they were the most important things in his life.