by Mark Henshaw
“You will, of course, share any information you obtain concerning her whereabouts with me,” Grigoriyev told him. He didn’t mean it as a request, though he knew Lavrov would tell him nothing.
“Of course. Do svidaniya.”
“Do svidaniya.” The line went dead. Lavrov cradled the phone, then sat in his chair and tried to think through the whiskey-fueled haze that had settled over his mind. He’d drunk too much waiting for that call and now found it difficult to assemble his thoughts.
Stryker is here, but she is not operating out of her country’s embassy or any other. A safe house, then. It had to be, but where?
Grigoriyev’s FSB had the information on that, and Lavrov groaned at the thought of calling his adversary back and having to plead with him for access to those particular files. It would pile shame on humiliation.
Lavrov had considered letting her go and making contact with her in the United States, but that seemed too great a risk. Trying to turn a hostile target on her own home soil could backfire in such spectacular fashion. She had to be brought in.
But does she have to die? Lavrov asked himself. Possibly not. She was an intriguing young lady, and she could be a great help in establishing his own Red Cell in the GRU. He doubted that she would betray her country. She did not seem the type, but he saw no reason not to make her the offer. There was no risk in it for him, and the reward could be a tidy one, however improbable.
But he could not make the pitch until they could talk. So how to find her? he wondered. He stared at the phone, thought about dialing Grigoriyev’s number. There had to be some other way—
Yes, there was another way, and he would have come to it sooner but for the whiskey twisting his thoughts out of shape. The GRU director wondered if Alden Maines might not be willing to give up the information in exchange for some of that fine drink. Probably, Lavrov mused, but why waste it on him? He didn’t need to bribe the American to talk anymore. Fear of the hammer was enough now. He should have asked the traitor about safe houses before but it had not seemed like a priority. With all of the CIA officers forced out, their covert facilities should have been neutralized, left waiting to be identified and sacked at his leisure.
The only questions now were whether Maines had familiarized himself with his former services’ safe-house locations in Moscow, and if the traitor could focus long enough to remember. It was one thing to try to remember information while drinking alcohol. It was another to do so with morphine running through the veins. That brave Spetsnaz officer had done it, but Lavrov suspected that Maines was neither so driven nor so resilient.
He picked up his telephone. “Please tell Mr. Maines that we need to have another conversation in my office. When is he due for his next dose of medication? Very good. Withhold it from him, and let him know that it will be waiting for him when our discussion is done.” Lavrov hung up the phone and retrieved a box of pushpins and a map of greater Moscow from his desk. He wondered how many locations Maines was going to mark down for him.
Moscow, Russia
She had driven for more than an hour into the countryside with the GPS turned off. If she didn’t know where she was, she figured the Russians wouldn’t be able to predict her path either. They were going to try to triangulate on the signal she was about to send and she didn’t want them to have any kind of head start if they had any clue what neighborhood the safe house was in. Kyra’s sense of direction was good and always had been. It was one of the blessings granted by a childhood growing up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where back roads were plentiful and the sun and landmarks were hidden more often than not by the forests that swallowed the gravel roads where she’d learned to drive. Moscow was behind her to the east, and Kyra was reminded how similar the world always looked when there were no signs in foreign languages to remind her that she wasn’t home.
She stopped the truck on some side road, barely a dirt trail that probably belonged to some farmer, and sat in the cab until the sun slipped down below the horizon and the world around her went dark. The Russian stars looked no different from those she’d watched in Virginia as a girl. She was in the right hemisphere to see the familiar constellations. In a few hours, the same sky would hover over her home in the United States, but the thought did nothing to calm her anxiety. The darkness felt oppressive, like it was Lavrov’s personal ally.
She spent the afternoon in the cab of the truck, sleeping on and off, her mind unwilling to let her go for more than an hour at a time. She stepped outside, stretched, ate what little food was in her pack, and then sat in the grass, trying to reason her way through the situation. In truth, there was only one course of action. She only had the name of one final asset and only one means of communicating with him. Kyra crawled back into the cab and lay on the seat. The hours passed by slowly, and she faded out in the truck again, a deep sleep this time. She awoke to see the Milky Way above her head, a sight that was always washed out back home by the light pollution of Leesburg. Stars were everywhere, the sky alive with a picture of the entire galaxy that stretched out above her in all directions. The sight was peaceful and she stared at it for an hour before deciding to move.
Kyra loaded the shortwave transmitter into the backpack, extending the rubber antenna through the port on the top of the pack. She pulled out an LED light and turned it on, pushing the night away from her path and wincing at how bright the beam was. The woman looked around, but saw no lights anywhere in the distance that could suggest another person was anywhere within her line of sight.
There was a hill a quarter mile beyond and she hiked through the grass until she reached it. It was steep but not especially high, less than two hundred feet to the summit, with rocks and roots bursting out of the dirt. Kyra reached the top in less than thirty minutes, checking her watch at a constant rate as she climbed. She was almost out of time and she wanted to get as much altitude as possible before she had to reach out to the asset.
The man’s name was Colonel Semyon Petrovich Zhitomirsky. The file said that he was a GRU chief of staff in some office whose name meant nothing to her, but which had some dealings with the Foundation for Advanced Research. Kyra honestly did not know what kind of access the man might have, but he was her last hope as far as she could see. The other assets on the now-vaporized list were all positioned further and further from the Foundation that seemed to be the center of Lavrov’s operation. If Zhitomirsky could not help her, she was out of options.
Kyra set herself and the backpack on the grass. Crossing her legs, she opened up the pack and turned on the shortwave transmitter. The screen lit up the darkness. The communications plan Zhitomirsky’s handler had set up for him five years earlier called for him to monitor a shortwave frequency once a month using a small radio the Agency had provided. Once a month, on the day corresponding to the number of the month—1 January, 2 February, 3 March, until year’s end—the Russian would turn on his radio for one hour beginning at nine o’clock. The handler would speak only one word, a woman’s name, either “Olga,” “Anna,” or “Nina,” each of which would tell the man which meeting site they would use.
The fourth name, “Valery,” would trigger an emergency meeting two hours after the transmission at a prearranged site. Kyra hadn’t bothered to memorize any of the sites tied to the other names.
She twisted the knob, tuning the transmitter to the frequency that she’d memorized from the encrypted file on the classified computer on the receiver. Her earpiece barraged her with a cacophony of broadcasts . . . an American broadcaster discussing the coming End of Days . . . a political broadcast in Spanish denouncing U.S. interference in Venezuela . . . a Frenchman singing off-key some folk song . . . some Chinese broadcast that sounded like a news report from the speaker’s tone of voice, but Kyra really couldn’t tell. She finally pulled the earpiece out to save her ears until the screen reported she had arrived at 26770 kilohertz.
Kyra replaced the earpiece and checked her watch. She had to wait three minutes, and then
held off two more for good measure in case Zhitomirsky was late. Then she picked up the microphone and depressed the button on the microphone.
“Valery,” she said. Kyra released the button, waiting to hear for Zhitomirsky’s response. There was none.
Kyra stared at her watch, waiting until one minute had passed, then pressed the button and repeated the name.
“So you are here, devushka.”
It was Lavrov’s voice.
Despair tore through Kyra like the claws on a bear might rip through her skin. She grimaced hard, squeezing the microphone in her hand until her knuckles wanted to crack and she had to hold back a sob.
Lavrov had Zhitomirsky. She didn’t even know when or how the general had arrested the asset. He must’ve had multiple teams, running multiple operations at once. She was one officer, operating in the black. She couldn’t even begin to keep up.
She’d been a fool to come, to think she could make any difference at all.
I failed, Jon, she told her missing partner. I can’t beat him. He’s everywhere.
Are you going to quit? the voice inside her head asked.
Kyra opened her eyes, and anger rushed into her, taking over. She pushed the button on the mic again. “Yes, I’m here.”
“I had so hoped we could talk again,” Lavrov said. “I would have preferred to see you when we did, but I can accept this for now.”
“And why would you want to talk to me?” Kyra asked, not trying to keep the disgust out of her voice. She wondered who else might be hearing their conversation.
“Because I admire you, young lady,” Lavrov said, not bothering to hide the pleasure in his own. “You are a bold one. I have worked in our business for a long time, longer, I think, than you have been alive, and never have I met one such as you. To walk into our embassy and demand to see a turncoat? How could I not reward such initiative? And then you came here, rushing in when all of your comrades were scurrying out because I told them to. A woman who will not be cowed? Oh, that is its own kind of beauty, and so rare. It must be appreciated . . . but I must ask . . . why did you come here? When all of those who could help you went home, what reason did you have for running toward the sound of the guns?”
“You killed my partner,” Kyra accused, the words escaping through clenched teeth. She wondered how many people around the world heard the accusation. The transmission was unencrypted and shortwave signals broadcast at night could reflect off the ionosphere, traveling over the horizon for thousands of miles. In her fury, she didn’t really care now.
There was a pause before Lavrov spoke. “The man taken at Vogelsang? Oh, he was a brave one too, that one. To throw himself at two of my best men? He must have cared about you very much to do that. I should like to have known him better, but I have little spare time and he is not a talker.”
Kyra’s breath caught in her throat.
Is?
Lavrov was a Russian. Had he misspoken, chosen the wrong word as he translated his speech from his native language into hers? No, the man’s English was too good . . . no broken sentences, no dropped words, too many rhetorical flourishes.
Jon was alive. Or was Lavrov playing on her emotions, trying to unsettle her thinking, get her to make a mistake?
The despair in her mind vanished and Kyra felt the adrenaline begin to take over. She gathered her thoughts, then lifted the microphone to her mouth again. “He’s a talker, if he likes you,” Kyra corrected him. “But he doesn’t like many people.”
“A sensible man, then,” Lavrov said. “Perhaps I shall try again with him. In any case, I do wish you to understand that my admiration for you is quite real.”
“I don’t care what you think about me,” Kyra told the man.
“Oh, I do know that,” Lavrov replied. “Courage and disdain for the opinions of others grow together. You could not be what I admire so much if my thoughts and desires matter to you at all.” There was a pause in his speech, and then Lavrov spoke again. “But now you must care what I think, devushka. I have a choice to present and you will make it. I want you to work for me. The other gentleman you met on the embassy roof that day is no longer in a position to feed me useful information, but you could return home and fill that role. Agree, and I will release your partner to you. You will go home, a hero who pulled her partner out of the ashes. Refuse, and I cannot let you go free. I will catch you. The Rodina is my home, my battlefield, and you will lose. So I offer you the only way out that exists. Go home with your friend but in my debt, or not at all, Miss Stryker.”
Kyra stared down at the microphone in her hand in horror. Lavrov had called her by name, her true name, not the one listed on her passport and other identification papers. Maines gave me up, she fumed, anger burning hot in her chest. She should have expected it. The man had given up every other bit of information in his head, why not her name too?
She shook her head. No time for that, she ordered. He wants you confused, angry, off balance, so you’ll say or do something stupid. She had to focus on Lavrov’s choice.
No, not Lavrov’s choice . . . a Hobson’s choice, she thought.
No, he wants you to think it’s a Hobson’s choice. He still doesn’t know where you are. He has Jon, so he thinks he has leverage over you. He thinks he knows what choice you will make. Kyra thought for a moment that it was Jon’s voice, but realized that it was her own.
He hadn’t really spoken to her since Vogelsang, she knew. It had always been her own thoughts. So what are you going to do? Become another Maines? An Aldrich Ames? A Robert Hannsen?
Kyra searched her own feelings. It took her only a few seconds to settle on the answer she had really known all along.
“Moln labé, General,” Kyra told Lavrov.
“Ah, an educated woman,” Lavrov said. “We are at the pass at Thermopylae, you are Leonidas and I am Xerxes, am I? ‘Having come, take?’ But you came here, to me.”
“We say things a little different back home. ‘Come and get me.’ ”
“You do not like to let others set the rules of the game, do you, devushka?” Lavrov replied. “You will reconsider . . . but my patience is not infinite. You can contact me on this frequency any night at this time.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll meet you soon,” she told him.
“Indeed,” Lavrov said. “I do look forward to it, Miss Stryker.”
Kyra turned off the transmitter and the screen faded. Assume Lavrov isn’t lying. He has Jon, but Jon’s alive, she told herself again. Where are they holding him? How do I find him? Even if I can find him, how do I get in and get him out? How—
Why do you always run straight in? Jon’s voice repeated in her head. Find a better way for once.
• • •
Kyra lay on her back in the grass, staring up at the stars. She did not move until the answer came.
When it did, she pulled out her smartphone, launched the secure recording app, and began to talk. “This is GRANITE. I have reason to believe that all assets in this AOR have been compromised . . .”
The “Aquarium”—old GRU headquarters
Sokolov pulled the keys from his pocket and unlocked the door to the incinerator room. He pulled it wide open and held it as the guards led the accused in. The man shuffled along as best he could with the shackles keeping him from taking a full stride. The interrogator was patient and let the prisoner move at his own pace. There was no hurry now.
Sokolov dismissed the guards. “Stand outside until I call you, please,” he said. They nodded, took up their places in the hall, and closed the door. He pulled out a chair for the prisoner. “Please, sit,” he said to the man in chains. “I’m sure that it was a difficult walk.”
The prisoner looked at him, suspicious, but reclined in the chair.
Sokolov reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the folded papers he’d carried there. “You are Semyon Petrovich Zhitomirsky,” he said.
“I am,” the prisoner replied.
“And you were a colonel?”
“You were,” Sokolov said. “Your commission in the Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye has been revoked, I’m afraid. That is the first and least punishment given to traitors to the Rodina.”
“I have been convicted of nothing. I have confessed to nothing,” Zhitomirsky countered.
“It does not matter,” the interrogator told his prisoner. “You have been identified as a spy for the United States of America. The source who revealed you is unimpeachable, or so I’m told, and the evidence found in your dacha leaves you guilty beyond question.”
“Lies. I am innocent.”
“You did not even try to run.”
“As I told you, I am innocent.”
“And you have proof of your innocence?” Sokolov asked.
“I cannot prove a negative. Neither can I prove that our fellow officers planted their evidence in my home—”
“Please, sir, you insult me,” Sokolov scolded him. “The evidence was neither planted nor fabricated and we both know it. You are not here to defend yourself. Your guilt has been confirmed to the satisfaction of the highest authorities and there will be neither a trial nor appeal. You are here because I am offering you a chance to heal your conscience, if you still have one. If you are a religious man, you may think of me as a priest to whom you can confess your sins. If you are not, you may share with me any words you might care to have recorded. Beyond that, there truly is nothing to say.”
Even in the harsh fluorescent light, Sokolov could see Zhitomirsky’s face turn white, almost the color of his dress shirt. “No!” the shackled Russian protested. “This is not the Soviet Union! Not anymore! The old ways . . . we don’t—”
Sokolov sighed as the prisoner ranted, then waved his hand in the air, signaling for silence. “Sir, protesting to me is pointless. Even if I had the authority to release you or alter your sentence, I would not because then our superiors would execute me in your place. But you are here because you chose to be here—”
“I did not!” Zhitomirsky objected.