by Saul Herzog
He opened the camera on his phone and took a picture of his two captives, and sent it to Kirov.
Kirov called him back immediately.
“It seems I underestimated you,” he said.
“They’re in a black site, sir. The Clockmaker is dead. I think that takes care of any loose ends.”
“I want them transported to Russia immediately,” Kirov said.
Prochnow looked at the two women. Transportation would be a challenge. He would have to get them across Germany, into Poland, and from there, over the Russian border. That would be the hardest part.
“I see,” Prochnow said.
“You don’t sound pleased.”
“Moving them will be difficult. The CIA will be scanning the region with everything they’ve got.”
“You won’t have to worry about that much longer.”
“Sir?”
“I can’t talk about it, but the CIA’s ability to track movement on the surface will be severely degraded very soon.”
“I see,” Prochnow said.
“You’re to get them to Kaliningrad border. There’s a road crossing at Mamonovo-Gronovo close to Braniewo. Do you know it?”
“I know it, sir.”
“There’s a logistics port in Braniewo. Just off the highway.”
“I see, sir.”
“On the Polish side.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you get them that far, an extraction team from Moscow will take them from there.”
“And the American satellites, sir? They won’t see us?”
“Like I said, Prochnow, that capability will be degraded soon. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to move them.”
52
Kirov was sitting by the window in his hotel room, watching the people hurry back and forth across the square. He wondered what it would be like, just for a day, to be one of them.
To have an ordinary life.
To have a family.
To have an ounce of human warmth in his life.
He hadn’t always been alone. There’d been someone, once, a very long time ago. He was dead now, of course. Everyone from those days was dead.
He was relaxed. Well, as relaxed as could be expected. Things were going according to plan. Everything was in position.
Apart from one detail.
The sleeper agent from Long Island. Kirov regretted sending him. He should never have sent someone so untested, so inept. He’d wanted to scare the girl only. To distract Spector. And he’d used Alex Sherbakov for the sole reason that he couldn’t be traced back to the Kremlin.
But it had completely backfired.
Someone had broken into the airport hangar and beaten up the pilot, and apparently, there’d been inquiries at the consulate into Kirov’s whereabouts.
It was a problem.
The phone rang, and he found himself grabbing for the receiver as if his life depended on it. It was the concierge down in the lobby.
Kirov needed to calm down.
“Your guest is here, sir,” the concierge said, emphasizing guest in a way that signaled disapproval.
One of the things he hated about being back in Russia was the way certain segments of society still tiptoed around the topic of homosexuality as if they’d never met a gay man before.
“He’s early,” Kirov said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then keep him down there. I said not to send him up until I called.”
“Very good, sir.”
Kirov hung up and glanced at his watch. He was annoyed. The guest was early. The last thing he needed was a male prostitute hanging around in the lobby, especially as he was there on state business.
“Nothing personal,” the president had said to Kirov before passing the most draconian legislation against gay rights since the Stalin-era.
“Of course not,” Kirov had said.
“It plays well with the base, is all.”
“I understand, sir.”
“And in any case,” the president said, “you’ve always been the epitome of discretion, Jacob.”
Kirov had kept his face as blank as a white sheet of paper, but he understood perfectly that what the president was telling him was a warning. What he did behind closed doors was one thing, but in public, he had to hide who he was.
The phone rang again, and this time he actually did knock it over. He got down on his hands and knees to pick up the receiver.
“Please hold for the president,” a voice said.
He waited while the connection was made, and then the president’s voice came on the line, clear as a bell.
“Kirov. Update me.”
“It’s done, sir.”
“Both of them?”
“Both of them, sir.”
“Kirov, my boy, that’s good news.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well done.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“She took the bait like the rat she is.”
“She did, sir.”
“Who was the man you used?”
“It was the German who came through in the end. Prochnow. The Stasi agents son.”
“I see.”
“And there was some collateral damage in the process, sir.”
“Collateral damage?”
“The Pole. Chopin. The Clockmaker.”
“He was mixed up in this?”
“His name came up. I had Prochnow look into it, and sure enough, when Everlane showed up, it was at his shop.”
“So he’s dead?”
“He is, sir.”
“So that’s it, then? Everything’s going to plan.”
Kirov swallowed. “There is one matter I wanted to bring up, sir.”
“What’s that?” the president said, his tone suddenly growing concerned.
“The operative in New York, the sleeper agent.”
“What sleeper agent?”
“Alex Sherbakov.”
“What’s he got to do with anything?”
Kirov had planned to tell the president everything. That he’d sent Sherbakov to distract Spector by scaring his girl, but he realized now how bad that would sound. Spector had been completely out of the picture. No one was worried about him. As far as the president knew, Roth was no longer making use of him.
Kirov didn’t want to have to tell the president that because of his misjudgment, and Sherbakov’s fuck up, Spector was now actively trying to track him down.
“Nothing, sir. But I tried to contact him today, for another matter, unrelated.”
“And?”
“And I haven’t been able to reach him.”
“I hardly think that’s a priority right now, Kirov.”
“Of course not, sir. I’ll look into it myself. It’s only been a few hours. I’ll get someone to pay him a visit.”
“We need to focus on the task at hand, Kirov. I don’t need to remind you how long our nation has waited to regain this lost territory.”
“I understand what’s at stake, sir.”
“Our nation has been operating like one of those war veterans who’s lost a limb. He wakes up in the morning trying to move it, his phantom limb, thinking it’s still there, and then he remembers it’s no longer there. He remembers what he’s lost. He remembers that he’s incomplete.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“He’s incomplete, Kirov. Unformed. Lacking the wholeness even of his own body.”
“Of course, sir.”
“It’s unnatural, Kirov. It’s a searing, raging fury. And that is the fury I feel every time I look at the map.”
“I understand, sir.”
“The time has come for us to right this wrong, Kirov. Latvia will be brought to heel. And after she falls, so will the rest of them, like dominos.”
The president hung up, and Kirov sat very still.
The Sherbakov thing was a problem. He could feel it in his bones.
Spector was engaged.
And Kirov realized that if Sp
ector didn’t find him, the president would kill him himself when he found out what he’d done.
Nothing could get in the way of his precious invasion. It was the first step in the reconstitution of the Soviet Union.
Kirov knew that if he didn’t find Spector and stop him, that it was likely going to cost him his life.
He picked up the phone and dialed the concierge.
“Mr. Kirov, sir?”
“Send up my prostitute.”
53
Lance flew into Berlin Tempelhof on a military-owned C-21A Learjet. When he boarded the plane, a CIA secure pouch was waiting for him with all the details of what Roth knew.
There was a copy of the original message handed into the Berlin embassy.
There was also a file, typed up by Laurel herself for the Group database, that detailed the extraction plan she and Tatyana had agreed on in case things went south.
It involved a Soviet intelligence asset code-named the Clockmaker, who operated a business on the Kurfürstendamm.
Lance had heard rumors of the Clockmaker and was surprised to see his name here. According to legend, he was the longest-serving and most effective assets the Soviets had in Berlin. He’d managed to remain undetected there for the entirety of the Cold War, and in the opinion of some, was nothing more than a myth.
Lance wasn’t surprised that he existed. He’d seen the evidence of his handiwork more than once. In fact, Lance knew that Roth had considered him one of his most serious adversaries for a very long time.
What surprised him was that he would be helping Tatyana, a known Russian defector.
With Tatyana’s information, Roth had been able to pull together a file of sorts about the Clockmaker, and Lance read it with interest. He was a Pole by the name of Cedric Chopin, who’d been stationed in Berlin since the fifties.
He was in his eighties now, but at some point, he and Tatyana had forged an alliance of sorts, and she trusted him.
Tatyana had a knack for making friends, it seemed. There was the cop in Riga, the Clockmaker in Berlin, she’d even made friends with Lance in Syria.
And it wasn’t an act.
The alliances were genuine.
Lance called Roth from the plane.
“I just read this file you cobbled together.”
“Can you believe it?” Roth said. “I’ve been hearing whispers about this guy since my first day on the job. He’s been there since the very beginning, Lance. He predates all of us.”
“And in all that time, he’s never signaled a willingness to come over to our side?”
“Not even a hint.”
“Ever?”
“Well,” Roth said, “decades ago, there was a serious campaign from our side to get him to cross over. There was a meeting arranged, and then, the four men we sent to the meeting ended up dead, their bodies found floating in the River Spree.”
“He killed them?”
“That was the consensus at the time,” Roth said. “And nothing I’ve seen since has persuaded me to reassess. This guy has been loyal to the Russians since day one. Right back to the early days, Lance. The Bay of Pigs. President Kennedy. That’s how far back he goes.”
“And he’s still loyal?”
“There’s nothing in our system to suggest otherwise, that’s for sure.”
“Strange position for a Pole to adopt, isn’t it? Considering all that’s happened since the collapse of the Soviet Union.”
“Some men are true believers,” Roth said. “And from what I’ve been able to unearth, this guy has some very personal reasons to explain his position.”
“What personal reasons?”
“I haven’t confirmed it yet, but it looks like his mother was raped by a German.”
“I see.”
“So, you know, as far as he’s concerned, spying for Russia is his way of ensuring the fascists never rise again.”
“Then why is he helping Tatyana?”
“The only thing that explains it,” Roth said, “is that he has some sort of personal relationship with her that outweighs his political allegiance.”
“That’s a big ask from someone with a sixty-year record, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know that it’s that far-fetched,” Roth said.
“Would you turn traitor after sixty years of service?”
“For Tatyana? I might bend a rule.”
“Very funny,” Lance said.
“She had a relationship with you, didn’t she,” Roth said.
“Of a sort, yes.”
“She didn’t betray her country, but you helped her, you saved her life, and she remembered that. She formed a loyalty to you that went outside the bounds of her political position. It was personal.”
“So that’s what she has with the Clockmaker?”
“There’s certainly been opportunity for such a relationship to develop. She’s been in Berlin on multiple occasions, and the GRU used her repeatedly on particularly dangerous missions. God knows, she’d have had need of an ally of some sort.”
“Maybe they had it in for her,” Lance said, thinking back to the position she’d been in when he first found her.
“There were some close calls in Berlin,” Roth said, “but she always managed to come through intact.”
“And you think it’s because of the Clockmaker? Some loyalty the two of them shared that went above and beyond their loyalty to the GRU?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Then where’s Laurel?”
“I know what you’re thinking, Lance.”
“I’m thinking this Clockmaker was part of the trap.”
“Maybe,” Roth said, “but has Tatyana ever been wrong about someone before? She has good instincts, Lance. And she told Laurel to go to the Clockmaker.”
“No one’s right a hundred percent of the time,” Lance said.
Roth sighed. “Just tread carefully, Lance. There are a lot of moving pieces in Berlin right now.”
“There are always a lot of moving pieces in Berlin,” Lance said.
Berlin was a singularly complicated city. Most cities stood clearly in one camp or the other. Washington, blue. Moscow, red. London, blue. Beijing, red.
You always knew whose territory you were operating in.
Hostile or friendly.
And it had a way of coloring every decision you made after that.
But Berlin had always been a creature of its own.
It had gone from being the capital of Hitler’s Nazi empire, to one of the principal capitals of the Kremlin’s Warsaw Pact, to a beacon of democratic governance and reform as part of the European Union.
Berlin was all things to all men, it seemed.
“Just tread carefully,” Roth said. “I think this Clockmaker was Tatyana’s friend. If something bad has happened to Laurel, I’d be willing to bet something bad has happened to him too.”
54
The plane landed at Tempelhof, and Lance looked out the window at the dreary day that awaited.
He caught a cab into the city, and his mind focused on the task at hand. Laurel and Tatyana were in trouble, and he couldn’t afford to let his own grief, his own rage, cloud his judgment.
Lance had always thought of Berlin as a city of bones.
A city of graves.
He hoped to add one more before this day was up.
The cab moved slowly through the afternoon traffic, and hot air from the car’s heater blew in his face. It was so warm inside the cab that flakes of snow melted the instant they touched his window.
“Could you turn down the heat?” he said to the driver in German.
The driver nodded and turned it down a little.
“You mind if I smoke?” he said.
Lance shrugged.
As soon as they reached the Kurfürstendamm, Lance told the driver, “I’ll walk from here.”
He got out, and the cold air revived him.
The street was quiet, and it was beginning to get dark.
A few p
eople went in and out of the stores, and some sat in warm coats and scarves in the streetside cafés, smoking and sipping drinks.
Lance walked on along the street and, as he approached the Clockmaker’s shop, even from a distance, could tell something was not right.
Two police cruisers were parked on the pedestrianized street, their lights flashing, and access to the shop had been blocked with police tape.
A van belonging to a local television station was parked outside, and Lance approached one of the cameramen.
“What happened here?”
“Big story,” the cameraman said, sucking on the last of a cigarette before flicking it away. “The murder at the Memorial Church. This was the guy’s store?”
“What murder at the Memorial Church?”
“Don’t you watch the news?”
“I must have missed it.”
“Someone was shot at point-blank range. An old man. Right in front of the statue of Christ.”
Lance shook his head.
“They’re saying it might have been some religiously motivated thing.”
“That’s shocking,” Lance said.
The cameraman sighed. “You do this job long enough, nothing will shock you after a while.”
“I believe it,” Lance said.
The cameraman leaned in closer to Lance and lowered his voice. “It hasn’t been made public, but the body smelled like piss,” he said.
“People lose muscle control when they’re shot like that,” Lance said.
“No,” the cameraman said, shaking his head. “Not from the old man. From the shooter.”
“You’re not serious,” Lance said.
“That’s what the cops said. Whoever killed the old man went ahead and pissed on him.”
“Why would someone do that?”
The cameraman shook his head.
“In front of the statue of Christ?” Lance said.
The cameraman continued shaking his head.
“What’s the world coming to?” Lance said, walking away.
The Remembrance Church wasn’t far, and he made his way directly to it. When he got there, he saw even more police cruisers and television people than had been at the Clockmaker’s shop.
There were police guarding the church, keeping the public out, and Lance didn’t think he’d be able to get in without causing a stir.