by Larry Bond
Maybe that wasn’t really very surprising. Decades of life under dictatorship had taught Muscovites when to look the other way. Especially when they saw a foreign-looking woman being chased by men who were obviously Chekists, secret policemen of some kind.
Erin lengthened her stride again, running faster now as she neared the river. Should she turn north or south once she reached the quay? South would take her closer to where she’d last seen Banich and the others. But north would take her back toward the bulk of Gorky Park, the Crimea Bridge, the giant Hotel Warsaw, and, most important of all, a Metro stop. That cinched it. She would go north. Moscow’s intricate subway system offered her the best chance to evade pursuit and make her way to safety.
Still sprinting at top speed, she broke out of the woods and saw the sunlight sparkling on the river. Tall apartment buildings, the Frunze Quay housing complex, lined the opposite shore. She slanted north, flying down a gentle grassy slope to the edge of the road. An angry shout, more a bull roar than a human cry, told her that the three Frenchmen, breathing hard now, were falling behind.
She was outrunning them!
Her own labored breathing steadied as new energy surged through her body — the same burst of strength and endurance she’d always relied on to win distance races. As she opened the gap, pulling away from her pursuers, Erin felt the exhilaration she always experienced in victory.
And then her euphoria turned to despair.
A black sedan zoomed past her, braked wildly, and skidded sideways to a stop right in her path.
Erin tried to twist away, but she was running too fast and the car was just too close. Her ankle gave way when she tried to turn. She stumbled, lost her balance, and slammed into the side of the sedan while still moving flat out.
Pain flared red and the world went away for several seconds.
When the pain receded slightly, she found herself firmly held, her arms pinioned behind her back. Her captor, a short, narrow-faced man with pale blue eyes and a reptilian gaze, wasn’t taking any chances. From the sound of the short-tempered orders he snapped out to the three sheepish men who’d been chasing her on foot, he was in charge of this whole operation.
Operation, Erin thought numbly. Now, there was a ridiculously neutral term to describe her own kidnapping. Her escape attempt had failed. She was a French prisoner.
The sound of another engine snapped her head back up in time to see a battered gray delivery van pull up beside the black sedan. The van’s side door slid open and Alex Banich jumped down onto the grass, his face carefully blank. Hennessy and another CIA agent named Phil Teppler appeared over his shoulder.
Banich stepped forward, addressing the man who held her in slurred, uneducated, working-class Russian. “Is there a problem here, friend? Don’t you think you should let go of that poor lady’s arms?”
Duroc watched the three men climb down out of the van with increasing irritation. First that ridiculous, comic-opera chase through the park, and now this interference by a few grubby Russian passersby — workmen by the look of their filthy coveralls. He scowled. What should have been a smooth, professional snatch was rapidly deteriorating into a bloody farce.
The first one out of the van, a short, brown-haired man about his own height, said something in Russian — something that sounded hard-edged and menacing despite his soft tone.
“He wants you to let the lady go, Major,” rat-faced Foret translated.
“Does he now?” Duroc sneered. Then he shook his head angrily. They didn’t have time for this chivalrous nonsense. By now, even Moscow’s sleepy militia must be on their way here.
The DGSE agent transferred his grip to the woman’s neck, reached inside his jacket, and pulled the 9mm Makarov automatic out of his shoulder holster. Then he pointed the pistol at the man, sighting on his midriff. “Tell this goddamned peasant to back off, Foret. Tell him this is official business.”
Incredibly, despite the warning and the pistol pointing in his direction, the man took another step forward. His hands hovered near his side.
Exasperated, Duroc flipped the Makarov’s safety catch off and raised his aim. Maybe the sight of death staring him right in the face would knock some sense into this pig-ignorant Russian’s thick skull. “He’s got three seconds to live, Foret. One… two…”
Suddenly the red-haired woman writhed out of his grasp, trying desperately to grab his gun hand.
“Bitch!” Furious, Duroc yanked her back by the hair and then cuffed her out of the way with a single backhanded blow.
“Look out, Major!” big Michel Woerner shouted suddenly.
Alarmed, Duroc whirled around.
Too late. He felt something cold and sharp lancing into his own stomach, ripping up under his ribs. Then the pain hit — a tearing, flaming wall of agony that darkened the whole world around him. His lungs were on fire. Major Paul Duroc stared down in appalled astonishment as the brown-haired man stepped back a pace, still holding a wide-bladed workman’s knife stained red to the hilt.
Knife held ready to strike again if the Frenchman tried to use his pistol, Alex Banich watched the man he’d stabbed sag, slump to his knees, and then pitch over onto his side. The DGSE agent twitched a few times, coughed wetly, and died. Rich, red, arterial blood pooled on the grass beneath his gaping, slack-jawed mouth. The pistol fell out of his unclenched hand and lay at Banich’s feet.
Without thinking further, he knelt down and scooped the Makarov up. Just in time.
The tallest of the four surviving Frenchmen snarled something guttural and ugly, clawing for his own holstered weapon. Banich saw the pistol come clear and turn toward him.
“Alex!” Erin screamed.
Damn it. He squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession, firing at point-blank range. The first 9mm round caught the Frenchman in the chest and threw him backward. The second blew the top of the man’s head off. The third missed.
Banich swiveled rapidly, bringing the rest of the DGSE operatives into his sights. Stunned by the sudden carnage and their leaders’ deaths, they paled and carefully raised empty hands.
“Watch ‘em!” At his command, Hennessy and Teppler moved closer to frisk the captive Frenchmen, holding their own unsheathed knives at the ready. Their choice of weapons made sense for agents working under cover. If they were stopped and searched by the Moscow militia or security services, carrying firearms would sign their death warrants, but many Russian workers carried knives.
The French, all fight beaten out of them by the unexpected turn of events, willingly submitted to being searched. One by one, three more pistols were found and confiscated.
“That’s it, they’re clean,” Hennessy said over his shoulder.
Banich nodded. “Good. Okay, here’s what we’ll do…”
“Hold it! Hands up! Get your hands up!” The shout came from higher up the slope, near the edge of the woods.
Banich turned slowly and saw a group of very young-looking Russian militiamen cautiously advancing toward them — emerging from the trees with their weapons out and aimed. Red and blue lights flashed in the distance. Militia squad cars were closing in from both sides of the quay, sealing off any hope of escape.
“Do as they say,” Banich said quietly. He dropped the pistol and raised his hands in surrender. He saw the horrified look on Erin McKenna’s face and felt sick. He’d killed two men to save her from captivity and he’d still failed. Now he couldn’t save any of them.
CHAPTER 33
Preemptive Strike
JULY 1 — MILITIA HEADQUARTERS, MOSCOW
Moscow’s militia, the city’s police force, had its main headquarters in a large yellow-brick building on Petrovka Street, several blocks north of the Kremlin and the Bolshoi Theater. The six floors aboveground contained offices for the militia’s investigators and administrators, forensic labs, an armory, and evidence storage rooms. Drunks and other petty criminals were dealt with by the district stations scattered across the capital and its outlying suburbs, but dang
erous or politically important prisoners awaiting interrogation or trial were held in small cells buried deep in the building’s subbasement, below an underground parking garage.
Bone-weary after a sleepless night, Alex Banich sat hunched over on his cell’s only piece of furniture — an iron-frame cot inadequately cushioned by a single, folded wool blanket. He closed his eyes against the painful glare coming from the single, unshielded light bulb above his head. The light had been left on all night.
All night… Banich straightened up slightly. Since the guards had stripped him of his watch before they’d thrown him inside this cell, he couldn’t be sure of the exact time. But the exact time didn’t especially matter. What mattered was that it had to be close to dawn outside. That meant he and the others had been in militia custody for at least ten hours. So where were the FIS interrogators? He, Hennessy, and Teppler were all operating with false identification papers, but Erin and those French bastards certainly weren’t. Any case involving foreigners was clearly the province of the FIS — not the Moscow militia. Then why this delay in handing them over to the counterintelligence agency? Bureaucratic infighting? Some kind of clerical glitch or other administrative foul-up? Or something else, something more significant?
And what about the three DGSE agents who had survived that bloody encounter in the park? Had they already been released? He’d heard cell doors clanging open and muffled voices down the corridor some time ago. He nodded grimly to himself. For all practical purposes, France and Russia were already allies. Kaminov’s security chiefs might have some pointed questions about what the French had been up to, but they weren’t likely to jeopardize their leader’s hard-won ties with Paris just to have them answered. Not when they had four other captives to quiz.
Banich found himself running through different scenarios and options using his knowledge of the Russian agencies and personalities in play. Realistically he knew the effort was probably a meaningless mental exercise — akin to asking a blindfolded man to find one particular person in a crowded football stadium. Still, it helped him fend off his fears for Erin, his men, and himself for a little while longer.
Not that he had many illusions about his likely fate. Murder convictions under martial law carried one sentence — death. If the FIS broke his Ushenko cover story and identified him as a CIA agent, the sentence would be the same. Only the method of carrying it out would change — a secret death after prolonged interrogation and torture instead of swift public execution. The French were bound to insist on at least that much as compensation for their two dead spies.
Faced with the evidence against him, he doubted Langley would want to make much of a fuss over his “disappearance.” Senior Agency field operatives were not supposed to kill rival intelligence agents — especially in broad daylight in an ostensibly neutral capital. They certainly weren’t supposed to get caught.
And what about Erin and the others? Despite the close, confined, muggy air in his cell, Banich felt suddenly cold. He knew how Kaminov and those who toadied to him thought. Four “disappearances” were as easy to explain as one. Maybe even easier, since there would be no one left alive to dispute whatever story the marshal’s military junta concocted.
Boots rang on the bare concrete floor of the corridor beyond his cell, coming closer. They stopped right outside the cell door. A key grated in the lock, and he barely had time to stand up before the door slammed open. Four militiamen waited outside, a flabby, middle-aged sergeant and three leaner, fitter privates. All had their pistols drawn. Through the rising tide of his despair, Banich found a moment’s pale amusement in that. Clearly these Russians at least regarded him as a very dangerous fellow indeed.
“You! Come out of there.” The sergeant jerked his head back down the corridor. “You’re wanted upstairs for a little chat.”
Banich sighed. This was it, then. The Russian counterintelligence agency had finally shaken off its curious bureaucratic lethargy and come to inspect its prizes. He thought about squaring his shoulders, but then decided that a stoop-shouldered, dejected look would be more in character for a bewildered, hard working Ukrainian merchant caught up in events through no fault of his own. Although he doubted his cover identity would hold up for very long under determined investigation, he planned to play it out for as long as possible. Every hour that passed gave Len Kutner that much more time to find out what had happened to the four of them. If nothing else, he might be able to buy enough time for the rest of his field team to get clear.
He stepped warily out into the corridor. The militiamen closed in around him, with the sergeant and one private in back, and two more ahead.
“Move!” Banich felt a pistol barrel grind painfully into his back, just above his left kidney, prodding him onward. He stumbled into motion, trying to mask a sudden flash of anger beneath a properly submissive, frightened expression. Nikolai Ushenko was a man of money, not a man of action.
They marched him down the narrow basement corridor at a brisk pace, past rows of other locked cell doors. The clipboards hanging beside each bore only a number — never any names. Russia’s new military rulers hadn’t abandoned their old and ugly penchant for dehumanizing those who crossed them, he thought scornfully.
Banich’s guards led him up two flights of stairs and out into an empty hallway toward the rear of the militia headquarters. The marble floor, faded photographs and paintings of senior officials, and crowded notice boards told him they were somewhere in the more public areas of the building. This early in the morning there were very few militia officers or civilian clerical workers in evidence. Occupied offices were indicated only by a light under the door, and occasionally by the soft rattle of keys on a word processor or the low, whooshing hum of a photocopier in operation. The Petrovka Street headquarters, like the rest of Moscow, was just starting to come to life.
Despite his fatigue, Banich noticed that all of his senses were fully alert and finely tuned. Sights, sounds, and smells were all magnified as the animal side of his brain sensed danger ahead and began reacting — preparing to fight or flee. The world, even this small, sterile portion of it, seemed clearer and sharper than ever before.
The sergeant stopped outside a solid-looking, wood-paneled door and pushed it open. “Inside.”
Still in character, Banich turned toward the NCO with a pleading whine on his face and in his voice. “Please, Sergeant, I swear that I am an honest man, not a criminal…”
The sergeant snorted, “Of course.” He shoved Banich through the doorway. “Inside, pig!”
They pulled the door shut behind him.
The room was not what he’d expected. Instead of a drab interrogation chamber, he was alone in a handsomely appointed conference room — complete with dark wood paneling, carpet, a long, polished table, and upholstered armchairs. He sniffed the air, caught the scent of fresh, hot tea, and turned.
Tall glasses in metal holders stood on a sideboard next to a samovar. A nearby tray held slices of lemon, spoons, and a dish of fruit jelly. Banich arched an eyebrow in surprise. What the hell was all of this? A ploy to soften him up before the gloves came off? Was the tea drugged? he wondered.
He stood uncertainly for a few moments, then shrugged and moved toward the sideboard. He had to react as Nikolai Ushenko, not as a professionally suspicious American intelligence officer. The Ukrainian commodities trader he’d created would never pass up the chance for a free cup of tea. Even if it was drugged, at least pouring his own would give him some control over the dosage.
“I’ve always thought that you led a very interesting life for a simple merchant, Mr. Ushenko. Now I see I was right.”
Banich replaced the glass he’d selected and turned toward the familiar voice. Colonel Valentin Soloviev stood poised in the doorway, holding a dossier in one hand. As always, the Russian soldier’s dress uniform looked freshly pressed. He was suddenly conscious of his own bedraggled, unshaven appearance.
Soloviev came in and closed the door.
“I
don’t see why I’m being held prisoner like this, Colonel,” Banich protested automatically, thinking fast. What was Soloviev doing here? “All I did was help a poor woman who was being mugged.”
“Killing two French security agents in the process.” The Russian seemed amused. “And the woman turns out to be an American diplomat who is also suspected of being a spy. A curious coincidence, indeed. Almost impossible to believe, in fact.” His voice turned harsher. “But not so hard when one realizes exactly how you came to be in that particular place at that particular time.
“Let’s be honest with each other. There was no good reason for a man named Nikolai Ushenko to be in Gorky Park yesterday afternoon, or for such a man to interfere in what must have looked very much like an official arrest — not a ‘mugging.’” Soloviev smiled thinly. “But we both know there was a very good reason for an American CIA officer to be there, don’t we, Mr. Banich?”
Shit. He tried to brazen it out. “Who?”
“Don’t play games with me. Neither of us has any time to waste.” Soloviev opened the dossier he was carrying and tossed two black-and-white surveillance photos onto the table.
Banich looked down at them. Both showed him in a suit and tie, holding a drink in one hand. They must have been taken at one of the innumerable trade conferences he’d attended shortly after arriving in Moscow. Damn it.
Soloviev nodded. “Unless you just happen to have an exact double stationed at the American embassy, those pictures identify you as Alexander Banich — ostensibly a somewhat simpleminded deputy assistant economic attaché.”
The colonel shook his head in mock disappointment. “It seems that my secret-police colleagues at the FIS have been rather sloppy, Mr. Banich. Their file describes you as ‘a nonentity, an Ivy League drone, and a borderline alcoholic.’” He shrugged. “I must admit that your work has been brilliant. I suspected that the man I knew as Ushenko might be feeding confidential information back to Ukraine. But I never dreamed you were an American espionage agent.”