The Solomon Effect

by C. S. Graham

  The painful rumbling of Stefan’s stomach reminded him that he’d eaten nothing all day except for a few scavenged wild berries he’d found in the woods. He couldn’t stay here. Groping for his still damp pants, he reluctantly drew them on and reached for his shirt and sweater. He considered for a moment finding the nearest village and turning himself in to the militia. Only, he had no identity papers. Plus, going to the militia, now, would require him to admit his role in an activity that was not only illegal but could easily provoke an international incident. And what if the officials were corrupt? What if they were out there even now, helping the Major look for him?

  Stefan turned toward the stairs, stumbling in his exhaustion and fear. No, he would avoid the militia, he decided; avoid the villages, avoid anyone who might betray him to the men who’d murdered Uncle Jasha and the others.

  If he kept away from the main roads and villages, it ought to take him four, maybe five days to reach home. Until he’d started working with Uncle Jasha, Stefan had lived with his mother on the outskirts of a small hamlet near Yasnaya Polyana.

  He’d grown up there, in a house much like this one, an old German farmhouse with a sweet-smelling hay barn and a pond and a flock of snowy white geese that honked imperiously for their dinner. At the thought, a wave of homesickness swept over him, so intense it brought tears to his eyes. He brushed them away, ashamed of himself.

  At Yasnaya Polyana, he’d be safe. He told himself that once he reached home, everything would be all right.

  At a small private airstrip near Primorsk, the man Stefan Baklanov knew only as the Major glanced at his watch. The Gulfstream was nearly loaded. In another moment the jet would be on its way and the most important segment of their assignment would be completed. All that remained, now, was to clean up a few loose ends.

  Headlights stabbed the darkness and the Major turned. A black Durango braked at the edge of the field. A Chechen named Borz Zakaev climbed out of the car. He was a solidly built man of medium height with the red hair and scattering of freckles one sometimes saw in Chechnya. They were old comrades, Borz and the Major. Years before, they’d fought together in Afghanistan, when the Major had worn the dish-dash and long beard of a mujahideen.

  “Did you find the boy’s body?” asked the Major in his stilted Russian.

  Borz blew out his breath in frustration and answered him in English. “No. We crisscrossed back and forth across the cove for hours. We searched the shoreline. We even searched the beaches to the west, in case the current carried him around the point. Nothing. The only thing I can figure is that the tide must have taken him out to sea.”

  “Or he made it to shore.”

  Borz shook his head. “That water can’t be more than fifty degrees. He didn’t make it to shore.”

  “Did you check the fishing village just up the road?”

  Borz nodded. “Nobody’s seen him. I tell you, he’s dead.”

  “And if he’s not? I’m not taking any chances.” The Major reached into his pocket and drew out the identification papers he’d taken from the Yalena’s strongbox. “His name is Stefan Baklanov.”

  “Baklanov?”

  “That’s right. He’s Captain Baklanov’s nephew. According to the ship’s records, his mother lives in the southeast, near Yasnaya Polyana.” He flipped open the papers to the boy’s picture. In the photograph, Stefan Baklanov was just a skinny kid with big eyes and a shock of dark hair. He didn’t look hard to deal with. “Make copies of this. I want you and your men to cover every road out of the area. Offer a reward. Without his papers, he won’t get far.”

  Borz glanced over at the Gulfstream, its cargo now safely stowed aboard. “Does the General know about the kid?”

  “Yes.”

  Borz swore under his breath.

  The Major slapped the side of the jet and stepped back, “I want this kid eliminated and I don’t care what it takes. Either find him dead or make him dead. This operation goes down in a week. If you haven’t found him in forty-eight hours, go to Yasnaya Polyana and take his mother hostage.”

  “Yasnaya Polyana? You think he’ll go home?”

  “If he’s alive, he’ll go home. Where else can he go?”

  6

  Algiers Naval Support Activity, New Orleans: Saturday

  24 October 6:00 P.M. local time

  Tobie found the Colonel at his desk, his head bent over his keyboard. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

  He looked up, his eyes crinkling into a smile. A big man, still solid and upright despite his sixty-odd years, he’d spent most of his Army career as a psychologist working in intelligence. He was officially retired now, although he still saw a few VA patients on a volunteer basis, in addition to working with Tobie on the remote viewing project.

  “Have a seat, Tobie. I just got clearance to tell you about the target for today’s viewing.”

  She slipped into the straight-backed wooden chair on the far side of his desk. Feedback sessions were an important part of a remote viewer’s training. Only, this hadn’t been a training session; it had been a real tasking. She leaned forward, conscious of the same welling of dread she’d always experienced when a teacher started handing back tests. “And?”

  “The target was an old World War II U-boat that sank off the coast of Denmark near the end of the war. U-114.”

  She drew a quick breath, then another, remembering the claustrophobic fear, the desiccated skulls of long dead men. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “That explains it.”

  Then she frowned, recalling the images that followed, the endless stretches of deserted docks and empty warehouses, the barren, windswept trees. The first part of the viewing, obviously, had been right on target. After that, she must have veered seriously off target.

  “I’m sorry, Colonel,” she said, sinking back in her chair. “I don’t know what went wrong after those first impressions.”

  “What? Oh.” McClintock shook his head. “Nothing went wrong, Tobie. Someone salvaged the U-boat. From what you saw, we think it might have been taken to a shipyard in Russia.”

  She studied the Colonel’s tanned, inscrutable face. “Why exactly is the U.S. Navy interested in an old German U-boat? Can you tell me that?”

  He nodded. “It’s part of why the base has been on high alert for the past forty-eight hours.”

  She listened, her heart racing, while McClintock gave her a quick briefing on the missing U-boat, the shipment of Nazi gold, and its connection to the NSA warnings of an impending terrorist attack on the United States. “I can’t believe the CIA is really going to use what I saw,” she said when he had finished.

  He cleared his throat. “There’s been some resistance, of course. But Vice President Beckham is backing us up. The DCI agreed to send one of his men to Kaliningrad.”

  She frowned. “Exactly who are they sending?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  Pushing up, she began to pace the room. “You know what’ll happen, don’t you? This CIA guy will take a quick look around, say it was all a waste of time, and go home.”

  “At this point, it’s out of our hands, Tobie. We’ve done our part.”

  She swung to face him. “You know how you always had that theory, that one of the reasons remote viewers were never very successful at finding things as opposed to simply describing them is because in the past the viewers were never let out into the field?”

  “Y-yes,” he said slowly. “But I don’t think I like where you’re going with this, Tobie.”

  She flattened her palms on the surface of the desk and leaned into them. “Colonel, in the past, the military always kept their remote viewers at Fort Meade, and sent other people out into the field. The field guys had to try to interpret what the viewers had seen and it just didn’t work. But what if—”

  “No, Tobie.”

  She leaned forward. “Please, Colonel.”

  “Tobie, I’m not sending you undercover on a CIA mission to Russia.”

  “Colonel—”
r />   “You have no experience with this kind of fieldwork.”

  “So? I won’t be alone, right? I’ll be working with this guy from the CIA.”

  The Colonel sat very still.

  She said, “I even speak Russian. Fluently.” It was one of the advantages of growing up with a father in the military and a stepfather in the oil industry—she’d lived everywhere from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur, and developed a knack for learning and remembering languages.

  “I know,” said McClintock. “But Tobie—”

  “Please, Colonel. I know what I saw. But you and I are probably the only two people in the country who believe I actually saw it.”

  “You’re forgetting Beckham,” said McClintock quietly.

  Tobie eyed him anxiously. “Will the Vice President support us on this?”

  “I’m not sure I’m supporting you on this.”

  “Colonel—”

  He held up one hand. “All right, all right. I’ll see what I can do.”

  7

  Miami, Florida: Saturday 24 October 7:00 P.M. local time

  A powerful monument in marble and steel, the Walker Pharmaceuticals Tower thrust up directly from the shores of Miami Bay. More than just a corporate headquarters, the tower stood as a visible testimonial to the success of the man who had built it: James Nelson Walker III. Less than two decades had passed since Walker earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from MIT, but he’d long since taken the modest drug-manufacturing business he inherited from his grandfather and turned it into one of the most powerful pharmaceutical companies in America.

  He stood now beside the softly tinted glass walls of his offices at the top of the tower, his gaze on the gleaming blue waters of the bay spread out below him. Small and wiry, he was in his forty-sixth year, his tightly curled, short dark hair little touched by gray, his body kept hard and lean by a vigorous regimen of diet and exercise. He wore a meticulously tailored navy suit and hand-sewn leather shoes, and he had just closed a new deal with the Chinese that would earn him a cool hundred million in the next twelve months.

  “Miss Greenwald is still waiting to see you,” said his secretary from the door.

  “Tell her to come in.”

  “Yes, Mr. Walker.”

  “And Sherry?”

  The secretary turned in silent inquiry. She was an attractive woman, intelligent and efficient and fiercely capable. As a wife or a lover, she’d make a man’s life hell. But as an executive assistant, she was priceless.

  He gave her a slow smile. “Go home, and enjoy what’s left of the weekend.”

  Her face relaxed. “Thank you, Mr. Walker.”

  Walker stayed where he was, only shifting slightly as Judith Greenwald strode into the room. She was tall and unflatteringly slender, with straight brown hair and gaunt cheeks and an earnest expression that had etched frown lines in her high forehead. Years of exposure to the harsh sun and wind of Africa had fanned more lines into the delicate flesh beside her hazel eyes, making her look closer to forty-eight than to the thirty-eight he knew she was, for she’d been the college roommate of his ex-wife. Yet, for some reason Walker had never understood, she stubbornly refused to have any “work” done. She’d never even bothered to refashion the large beak of a nose she’d inherited—along with everything else—from her father, shipping magnate Max Greenwald. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t afford it. Her pink Chanel suit and strappy Jimmy Choo shoes cost enough to feed a good-sized village in Africa for a thousand years.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me on a Saturday like this,” she said, shaking his hand.

  “I had to come in anyway. Please. Sit down.”

  She settled onto one of the soft yellow leather sofas overlooking the bay and came straight to the point. “You’ve had a chance to look over our proposal?”

  “Of course.” In addition to the untold millions old man Greenwald had left his daughter, he’d also funneled another fifty million or so into a charitable trust that Judith now administered. Her cause du jour was AIDS in Africa, and she had come here, today, to see Walker because Walker Pharmaceuticals had recently released a new and highly promising AIDS treatment.

  She gripped her Chanel purse in both hands. “And?”

  “I’m afraid what you’re asking is impossible.”

  “I don’t see why. It’s not as if we’re asking Walker to give us the anti-viral drugs. Only to supply them to our operation at cost.”

  Walker let out a soft laugh. “What you’re essentially asking for is a donation worth millions of dollars in lost profits.”

  “Profits you wouldn’t have earned anyway.”

  Walker went to where an iced pitcher of acai and pomegranate juice stood on a tray with glasses. “Juice?” he asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  He poured himself a glass. “It just so happens we do have a new product we’re willing to supply to your organization at cost. It’s showing promising results in the treatment of tuberculosis.”

  Tuberculosis was a growing problem amongst AIDS patients in Africa. She tilted her head, her eyebrows drawing together in a frown as she stared up at him. “I take it that when you say ‘new,’ what you really mean is, ‘still under development’?”

  “That’s right.”

  “In other words, we pay you for the privilege of testing your drug for you. And if it turns out that it kills more people than it cures?”

  “What difference would it make? They would have died anyway.”

  She pushed to her feet, two unattractive splotches of color riding high on her cheekbones. “I’ll convey your generous offer to our board.”

  Walker raised his glass to his lips and took a sip. “You’re sure you won’t have some juice?”

  “Thank you, but no. Good evening,” she said, and swept from the room, leaving a cloying scent of haute couture and expensive French perfume and bleeding-heart-liberal hypocrisy.

  Still sipping his juice, Walker went to stand again at the window, his gaze on the wind-ruffled expanse of blue water and the puffs of white clouds building on the horizon. If things went according to plan, Judith Greenwald and her kind would soon have far too many problems of their own to waste time worrying about AIDS and Africans.

  The beep of his private line brought his head around. He reached for the phone. “Walker here.”

  The General’s voice was abrupt, his usual Texas drawl clipped. “I’ll be at your house by 2100 hours. There are things we need to discuss.”

  Walker drained his glass. “Good news, I hope.”

  “I think you’ll be pleased.”

  8

  Langley, Virginia: Saturday 24 October 7:15 P.M. local time

  Jax was at his desk skimming through an article on submarine salvage operations when Matt stuck his head around the edge of his cubicle.

  “You’re booked on the next flight to Berlin, with a connection tomorrow morning to Kaliningrad.”

  Jax looked up. “Please tell me this is a lead from one of our agents.”

  “Well…” Matt dropped a file folder on the desk in front of him. “I guess that depends on whether or not you consider Tobie one of our agents.”

  Jax sat very still. “Let me get this straight. We’ve got a terrorist attack about to go down in this country and the DCI is sending me all the way to Russia on the strength of some remote viewing session?”

  Matt tapped one finger on the top of the folder. “Look at the report on her viewing. I think you’ll find it impressive.”

  Jax didn’t move.

  Matt sighed and handed him another folder. “Then look at this. After we got the Colonel’s report, we checked with the National Reconnaissance Office. According to their latest satellite photos, there’s something at an old shipyard near the Vistula Lagoon in Kaliningrad that wasn’t there two days ago.”

  Jax flipped through the NRO report. “Something? What do you mean, ‘something’?”

  Matt scratched behind one ear. “Whatever it is, the Russians have set up camouf
lage nets over it. But it’s about the right size and shape.”

  “About?’ Oh, that’s encouraging.”

  “The Colonel’s pretty sure about this, Jax.”

  When Jax still didn’t say anything, Matt sighed again and handed him a bulky envelope. “Here’s your legend.”

  Jax tipped the envelope to spill its contents across the surface of the desk: a well-used U.S. passport, credit cards and business cards, driver’s license, and assorted pocket litter, all in the name of Jason Aldrich. “Aldrich? Again?”

  “There wasn’t a lot of time. Plus, it’s a cover you’re familiar with.”

  Jax gave a soft laugh. “Not only me. I suspect our friend Jason Aldrich has been blackballed by every car rental agency in the world with a computer system.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think car rental agencies in Kaliningrad have computers.”

  A tense silence fell. Matt shifted his weight and looked away again.

  Jax watched him with a growing sense of unease. “Out with it, Matt; what else aren’t you telling me?”

  “Ensign Guinness has asked to be let out into the field on this one.”

  “They turned her down, right?”

  “Not yet.”

  Jax shoved up from his chair so fast it went skittering across the floor. “Are they nuts? What the hell do they think she’s going to do? Hold a séance on the beach or something?”

  Matt snorted. “I think the idea is that she can help interpret what she saw in her viewing.”

  “Right. What’s to interpret? I go there. I see there’s no U-boat. I come home, and the taxpayers take another dredging picking up the bill for a wasted trip. End of story.”

  “And if U-114 is there?”

  “Let’s just say for the sake of argument that by some miracle the U-boat is there; what the hell would I need a remote viewer for?”

  “It doesn’t hurt to have a backup.”

  “A backup? October Guinness? You’re kidding, right? She’s not a field operative. She’s a linguist…with a couple of screws loose.”