Eves of Destruction

by Roy Berelowitz

  Gordon paused briefly. “Now, as I said I am going to let you read the details in David Green’s report later but there are a couple items in it I need to bring to your immediate attention and quite frankly why I felt it necessary to call this meeting early this morning.”

  He shuffled through his notes for a moment before continuing. “Firstly, the placement of the bomb is still a mystery. As the pictures indicate, both individuals were clearly naked so it is unlikely one of them was wearing the bomb but according to Green’s report, the explosive definitely seemed to come from between them. Green suspected at first that perhaps a hand grenade had been placed between them but, shrapnel from a hand grenade is very specific and no such shrapnel was found.”

  Gordon paused for a minute to take a sip of water.

  “Secondly, we have already identified the dead woman to be Sophia Zlotnic.”

  He turned to Jane Philips, the Russian specialist. “Dr. Philips I understand you have details on Ms. Zlotnic?”

  “Yes, thank you Mr. Lewis,” Dr Phillips responded. She glanced around the room before she continued. “Sophia Zlotnic has been known to us since Operation Marked Glass which some of you might remember from the early 1980’s. To refresh your memory, OMG was a program designed to try and identify and finger print if possible, every known KGB agent operating in Europe. Suspected agents were followed, photographed and then some object they had touched such as a moist glass was quickly dusted for prints and sent back here. It was a very burdensome program and discontinued after two years but not until a few thousand suspected agents had been identified.”

  She glanced up at Gordon Lewis.

  “Mr. Lewis, I believe Ms. Zlotnic is on the next slide.”

  Gordon pushed a key on his computer and the picture of a young attractive blond woman filled the screen.

  “This,” the young woman continued “was Zlotnic in 1983 when we believe she was about twenty six or twenty seven years old. We know for sure at that time she was an agent in the former Soviet Committee for State Security, or Komitet Gosudarsvtvennoi Bezopasnosti more commonly known as the KGB. We believe her principle job had been an angel, a woman selected for her good looks and alluring personality to seduce men and sometimes women, to gather information or to compromise them. As you all know, they were also occasionally used by the KGB to kill people or set them up for killing.”

  The older woman in the group, whom Casey did not recognize spoke up. “So if this woman was actually twenty six in 1983 that would make her over fifty years old right now. No offense to anyone but doesn’t that seem a bit old to be engaged in this sort of activity.”

  “Exactly,” Lewis responded. “So…” he paused again briefly. “Here are the open questions. What was she doing with this man, this American General and why now? He had limited operational knowledge that could be useful to anyone. And how did they die? Was her death a suicide or accidental?”

  “Sir,” Dr. Phillips interrupted him. “I am sorry to interrupt you but there are two more things I discovered late last night that might be pertinent. Number one, in 1979 Zlotnic was ranked the fastest women in the Soviet Union in the 100 meter dash and had posted the second best time in the world that year.” She paused as she glanced around the room.

  “And yet,” she continued, “she did not compete in the Olympic games that summer in Moscow and despite a pretty thorough search I could not find any evidence of her ever competing again after 1979. It was as if she went from being the Soviet’s best prospect for winning a gold medal in the most prestigious woman’s race in the summer Olympics to oblivion.”

  Just then there was a knock on the door to the conference room and a young man in a dark suit, white shirt and dark red tie stepped into the room carrying a large brown envelope in his hand. Gordon Lewis waived him into the room and quickly introduced him.

  “This is Special Agent Michael Franks. Michael has been chasing down some new developments for me which we will get to in a few moments.”

  As the young agent nodded a quick hello and sat down at the conference table, Gordon Lewis looked over at Casey.

  “All of you know Casey Jennings or at least you know who she is,” he said with a quick smile.

  Casey nodded once briefly as everyone glanced over at her.

  “I know you have all read Casey’s detailed report about the unfortunate events in Afghanistan last year, but I would like you to hear a direct description from her of the abandoned courtyard she stumbled into, specifically the tall wooden post with the metal ring attached. Casey, please go ahead.”

  Casey leaned forward in her chair, unsure why she was being asked to describe something so disconnected from the present conversation but cleared her throat and described what she recalled.

  “The courtyard was about the size of a football field, flat and had obviously been carefully cleared and leveled. My guess is it had been used as some sort of parade ground or training facility, although I have no specific evidence to back that up.” She paused for a moment, glanced around the room and then continued.

  “At the far end of the courtyard was a single wooden post embedded in the ground. As Gordon said it had a metal ring bracketed near the top of the post and was quite nicked and damaged near the bottom. It looked as if someone had made a token effort to clean up the area near the base of the post but there were dark spots in the dirt that looked to me like oil or congealed blood. I did scratch around in the dirt for a few minutes and found a number of metal fragments, which I put into my pocket. They were returned to me with a package of my personal affects soon after I returned to the States, at which time I turned them over to the forensic laboratory, but I never heard back if they were significant or not.”

  Casey glanced up at the screen and was surprised to see a picture of the metal fragments she had collected arrayed on a white piece of paper.

  As she paused, Gordon Lewis spoke up. “This is a picture of the metal fragments Casey found. As she said they were submitted to our forensics lab which quickly determined that the fragments were made of titanium but no credible explanation could be found for them and quite frankly, they were quickly forgotten. Until last week that is, when one of our lab technicians started reviewing the material collected from General Cafery’s murder.”

  Another picture flashed on the screen, this time with a lot more fragments and some pieces slightly larger than the pieces Casey had found. There was an audible gasp from some people assembled in the room.

  Gordon said nothing for a moment and then as he nodded slowly he said, “I think most of you have already made the connection. We have a former or perhaps current Russian agent found dead with an American General in Paris whose deaths were somehow caused by a device with identical properties to fragments found in what was probably a Taliban or possibly Al Qaeda training ground in Afghanistan.”

  He paused for a moment and then with his left hand he gestured to the man who had joined the meeting late. “As I said earlier, this is Special Agent Michael Franks. Mike, I believe you have some current information for us.”

  Michael Franks pulled a small notepad out of his jacket’s interior pocket and glanced at his notes.

  “Last night at approximately two fifty eastern standard time or nine fifty Greenwich Mean Time, an American businessman named Gerald Rifkin was killed in London at the Dorchester, a very uh…exclusive hotel located near Hyde Park. He was killed in the company of a woman whose identity has not yet been established. The English detective assigned to the case, Mr. Ian Campbell, described her to me as European, probably northern or eastern European.”

  He paused as he reached into the large envelope in front of him on the conference table.

  “The cause of death has definitely been established as an explosive device. Detective Campbell was kind enough to email me a few pictures of the death scene, copies of which I have here.”

  He waited as a set of pictures was handed around the room to each person.

  “If you look at the pictu
re with the yellow forensic number pad marked #14 you can clearly see a group of metal fragments identical in nature to the ones on the screen.”

  He paused while everyone in the group paged through the pictures he had just handed out.

  “There is one more thing.” Everyone looked back up at him. “Ian Campbell has been a Scotland Yard detective for almost twenty five years. He told me has seen numerous criminal killings by explosives and a number of bomb attacks conducted by the Irish Republican Army. He said this one was particularly strange because it seemed the woman had the bomb on her person during coitus, while they were actually having sex.”

  Michael Franks glanced around the room and shrugged his shoulders. “People’s sexual behavior is hard to predict but, it just seems unreasonable to me that a man would make love to a woman who was wearing a suicide bomb.”

  He closed his notepad and sat back in his chair. There was silence in the room for a moment as everyone tried to absorb what they had just heard. Gordon Lewis cleared his throat.

  “If you connect these dots, it certainly gives you pause,” he said. “Two Americans are killed in Europe by explosives, delivery method unknown. Fragments, possibly bomb fragments of the identical type, are found at each murder site in Europe and at a deserted training camp in Afghanistan.”

  He smiled briefly, but the smile did not reach his eyes.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, as I said earlier we have a set of unanswered questions but there is one fact we do know that is quite frankly giving me real heartburn. If these women do turn out to be some kind of suicide bombers, and it certainly appears they are, they would be the first case of non-Muslim woman engaging in this kind of attack. We all know about the few women used by Islamic Militants in Israel and the Black Widows of Chechnya who have conducted numerous attacks against the Russians, but we have had only one incident of a European woman actually being used as a suicide bomber and she was a Muslim convert.”

  He paused and shook his head. “Officially we don’t do any kind of profiling of potential terrorists and I completely endorse that philosophy. However, let’s be frank; it does make it a lot easier if your enemy does not look exactly like you. If suicide bombers start looking like middle-aged Anglo Saxon women and they have found a way to conceal their bombs so even their lovers seem unaware of them, well it seems like we have a whole new challenge on our hands.”

  Lewis leaned forward and placed both elbows on to the podium, his body language conveying a sense of urgency. “We don’t know if these killings are directly related or if this is something big or small but, I do know we need to get ahead of this. Homeland Security has obviously been informed but I’m not ready to tell them my hair is on fire about a new threat until we have more information but, I can tell you the hairs on the back on my neck are standing up. If my instincts on this stuff are any good and they had better be after twenty five years on the job, something tells me we might have a serious problem on our hands.”

  He turned to the young expert on Russia. “Dr. Phillips, we need whatever information you have on this Zlotnic woman. I also would ask you to get directly involved in helping to identify this second woman who died with the American businessman… what was his name again—Rifkin. Is she also a Russian? Did she work for the KGB or the new FSB? Whatever you can give us.”

  “Well Sir,” Dr. Phillips said, “there is something else that may or may not be related but I think you all need to hear it.”

  She opened up a folder in front of her and pulled out a small black and white picture. “I’m sorry I didn’t have time to make copies of this picture for everyone but this man,” she said as she held up the picture, “is Vladimir Kosnar. He was one of the KGB’s senior agents during the late seventies and eighties. He is fluent in a number of languages including French and English. We believe that on many occasions he was used for security details, protecting Soviet diplomats, but he was mostly engaged in clandestine activities with KGB’s elite First Directorate in Afghanistan, where he was involved in suppressing the attacks by the Mujihadin against Soviet troops. We do know he was quite effective and there was actually some discussion about the US Army hiring him as a consultant for our current efforts in Afghanistan. It was for that reason we have been paying attention to him lately, but right after he visited the FSB he suddenly quit his well paying security job with one of the very rich Russian oligarchs and left for London.”

  “Why do we think his departure is significant or related to these explosions?” Gordon Lewis asked.

  “Well, we don’t have any direct knowledge it is related to the explosions, but once we saw the report David Green had put together, we suspected his presence in Paris might not be coincidental. However, it is my opinion, and I feel pretty confident about this, Kosnar has not been sent to aid this program but to stop it.”

  “What do you mean, Dr. Phillips?”

  “Well, I believe and let me be clear,” she said as she delicately brushed her shoulder length hair behind her ears, “this is just pure conjecture on my part now, but I believe one or more people within the Russian security services has activated this program. Who and for what purpose I cannot begin to guess but if I am correct, then I am quite certain that given our current relations with the Russians, it is not being done with any high level sanction. On the contrary if my conjecture is correct, then this is part of an unsanctioned rogue program.”

  As Dr. Phillips stopped speaking, Gordon Lewis sighed briefly and then rubbed his forehead as if he was fighting off a bad headache.

  “Are you saying there might be some cooperation between Al Qaeda and Russian intelligence?” he asked, a note of disbelief in his voice and face.

  “Nothing formal,” Dr Phillips responded, “but it certainly would not be the first time rogue elements of the former KGB worked with terrorist organizations. As you all recall there was some evidence during the early 1990s’s that former and even current KGB agents were trying to smuggle uranium out of the former Soviet Union.”

  As Dr. Phillips stopped speaking, Gordon Lewis turned to Casey Jennings.

  “Casey, this is going to be your primary assignment for now. In fact, I want you on a plane for London today. I need an experienced field agent, to give me a personal analysis of what we are dealing with. Get over there, hook up with David Green, get hold of the autopsy documents, better yet go the to morgue and learn what you can, check out the hotel room, talk with this English detective… uh Campbell and get his take on things and then come back here right away.”

  He turned to Michael Franks. “Mike, please give Casey the contact information for Detective Campbell and then give him a heads up call that Casey is flying in. Ask him if can’t arrange some professional courtesies for Casey on my behalf, transportation and the like. Scotland Yard is usually pretty accommodating to us so I’m sure it will be no problem.”

  He turned to face Dr. Phillips shaking his head slightly as he faced her. “This Russian agent, what’s his name again…Kosnar. I don’t know but it sounds like a bit of leap to me.” He paused for a moment and then continued. “Look, stay on it and see what else you can find. See if there is any kind of buzz coming out of Moscow on this thing and keep me posted.”

  He glanced around the room making eye contact with each person. “Any questions? Great, OK. Let’s go folks.”

  CHAPTER 11

  VLADIMIR KOSNAR SAT in the back of the limousine staring blankly out of the window, looking out but seeing nothing. He blinked slowly and sighed once deeply as a wave of anger washed over him. He was angry at General Siminov and the old corrupt and malevolent Soviet System of which he was both a product and a part, but which now felt so alien. He was disgusted with what he had learned today, the abject disregard in which the KGB had held its own citizens, former elite athletes that it simply decided to ‘re-use’ in the cause of communism. It was an example of absolute power exercised in the most brutal manner possible.

  Next to him was a letter sized manila envelope Siminov had giv
en him as he left the office. He glanced down at it for a moment and then picked it up, untying the red string that secured the envelope and slid the pages out, tossing the envelope back on to the seat. The document consisted of five pages, held together by a single staple on the top left corner. On each page, arranged in rows of four were twenty portrait pictures of women, some in color and distinct, others in black and white and less clear. Beneath each picture was a name and approximate current age of each of the women.

  Placing his index finger on the first picture, he slowly scanned them one by one as he moved his hand across and down the page. After reaching the last picture on the first page, he flipped the page and did the same thing again until he stopped towards the middle of the forth page. He lifted the page up to his face, turning the document slightly towards the window to capture the light and stared hard at the picture in the third row. Then he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and carefully withdrew from it a picture encased in a small plastic sleeve. He looked first at one picture and then the other for a few moments until the sound of a cell phone ringing interrupted him. The young officer riding in the front seat answered the call and then quickly turned around and handed it to him. Vladimir took the phone and put it to his ear.

  “Kosnar,” he said.

  General Siminov got directly to the subject without engaging in pleasantries. “Devskoy is in London. We have just heard that another bomb has gone off in a hotel in London and the characteristics of the bombing seem to be his handy work.”