Slingshot

by Matthew Dunn

  “Please, take the money.”

  “Are you attempting to cleanse your conscience?”

  Will shook his head. “No, no.” He gestured toward Maria. “I just want her to have a waterproof roof over her head. That’s all. Please.”

  Alina’s expression became neutral. “No strings?”

  “None.”

  She hesitated, then took the money. “I can’t say it won’t help. What do you hope to find at Lenka’s house?”

  “A secret.”

  “Won’t the police have searched the place and be guarding it?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then you mustn’t go there.”

  Will saw that she was genuinely concerned. “You’re right that I’ve got no idea what’s going on. But I have to go there. It’s my only chance of helping Lenka.”

  She kept her eyes on him, seemed deep in thought, and said quietly, “He told me before our first visit to his home that he’d made the place ‘Maria-proof,’ that he bought a gate for the stairs so that she couldn’t hurt herself by climbing them, that the only dangerous place was the basement, though he kept that padlocked.”

  “Basement? Where?”

  “In the hallway.”

  Will studied her. “What’s in there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes you do! You have no secrets, remember?”

  For a moment, Alina looked angry. Her expression changed. “Lenka told me once that if anything were to happen to him, I should go to the basement. One of the electricity sockets is false. Behind it is a hole. He keeps money and valuable documents in there.”

  “Thank you.”

  Alina shrugged and said in a matter-of-fact way, “I think we’d like it if you came back. Can you eat kotleta pokrestyansky?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then I’ll cook the dish next time you’re in Minsk.”

  Very few women had cooked for Will. For the briefest of moments, he felt totally removed from the real reason he was here. “I’ll trim the pork cutlets, if you like?”

  Alina nodded. “That would be a help.” She moved away from him. “I . . . I’ll write down Lenka’s address.”

  As she walked out of the room, Will placed one of his big scarred hands against Maria’s cheek. She looked at him and smiled. Quietly, he sang her a children’s song, one he remembered from his childhood, and when he finished he stared at her, feeling nothing but guilt. He was sure his decision not to send the message was the right one. It was probable that William would have seen through it and in turn would have killed Lenka and gone after Alina, Maria, and Sarah. But it was possible that the ruse would have worked. He wondered if Mikhail had a young daughter.

  It seemed ever true that in order for him to save one person, at least one other had to die.

  Sixteen

  Tibor walked quickly along the corridors of CIA headquarters in Langley. He was in the part of the building that housed the National Clandestine Service and specifically was moving through the section belonging to the Office of Russian and European Analysis. Most of the doors in the corridor were closed; beyond them were intelligence officers who kept their doors shut to protect their secrets from others within the organization. Tibor smiled as he continued walking, because no number of closed doors could prevent Flintlock having access to the CIA’s secrets.

  As he moved along the corridor, he mentally ticked off the operations and investigations that he knew were ongoing within the rooms on either side of him—a four-person team was planning an attempt to sell a Brussels-based Russian FSB officer a vehicle which, unbeknown to him, contained a beacon tracking device; a case officer was pouring over one of his French agent’s files because he was beginning to wonder if the agent’s intelligence was too good to be true; a team leader was berating her staff after a countersurveillance operation in Copenhagen had gone badly wrong and resulted in a CIA operative being held in a Danish police cell for two days; a nervous officer was making preparations to up the ante after years of grooming a GRU major under business cover, and get on a plane to meet the major in Zurich and tell him that in truth he was not an arms dealer and that the major had instead been passing secrets to an officer of Serbia’s Security Information Agency; an operations officer was at loggerheads with a paramilitary officer because one wanted a mission against a Chechen terrorist to continue to be invisible satellite surveillance and the other wanted to bring it to a head with a joint SOG–SEAL assault; and an intelligence officer was sitting at her desk doing nothing, racked with grief and guilt because one of her best Russian agents had taken his own life to end the constant fear that one day he’d be caught and exposed as a traitor.

  One of the doors opened, and a field operative whose work focused on the Russian target emerged.

  Tibor’s smile broadened as he walked toward the man. “Dobrý den, Tim.”

  Tim frowned. He did not know who Tibor was, but reciprocated, “Good afternoon.”

  “If I were you, I’d come clean about the twenty thousand.”

  Tim’s face paled.

  Tibor chuckled as he walked past the man. Tim was unaware that CIA senior management knew that he’d stolen twenty thousand dollars that he was supposed to have paid to a Hungarian access agent, and had decided to give him two weeks to come forward and confess. If he did so and returned the money, they would accept his resignation and his pension rights would be protected. If not, they’d cut off his balls.

  Tibor turned into a corridor belonging to the Office of Middle East and North Africa Analysis. Three men were standing outside a room, talking in hushed tones. One of them was Ed Baker, the head of the office.

  Ed growled at Tibor, “As-salâmu ’alaykum, Tibor.”

  Tibor beamed. “Wa ‘alaykumu s-salâmu wa rahmatu l-lâhi wa barakâtuh. Still grubbing around in the desert looking for crazies?”

  Ed made no effort to hide his hostility. “I hope your star wanes someday soon.”

  As Tibor skipped past the senior officer, he replied, “If it does and wanes low enough, I’ll apply for your job.”

  “Fuck you.”

  The insult heightened Tibor’s good mood. He walked down more corridors until he reached the meeting room. After checking that his tie’s knot hadn’t slipped, he made three rapid knocks on the door and entered. Marcus, Damien, and Lawrence were seated at a table, looking at him. He shut the door, decided not to sit, and instead leaned against a wall and studied his Flintlock colleagues. “I’ve got some news.”

  “Of course you have.”

  “We wouldn’t be here, otherwise.”

  “Though we’re hoping the news is good.”

  Tibor considered how to respond. “It’s bad news that could be transformed into excellent news.”

  Lawrence asked, “Yevtushenko related?”

  Tibor nodded. “We’ve had a call from the golden source.”

  Marcus looked affronted, given that he was the prime point of contact with the agent. “Why did the source call you?”

  Tibor waved his hand with a flourish. “Because I’m the good-looking one. Maybe the source has the hots for me.”

  Damien huffed. “Given the source’s current family situation, I hardly think that’s the case.”

  Tibor pretended to look hurt. “Really?”

  Marcus shook his head. “When the call came in, you should have found me.”

  “Bit difficult given you were on a 747 this morning, flying back from that silly thing you’re doing in Singapore.”

  “It’s not silly. If my operation works, I’ll get three governments to turn on each other and will change the landscape of Asia.”

  Lawrence was becoming impatient. “Any of us can take a call from the source. What’s the news?”

  Tibor looked at them, one by one. “Tomorrow, Mr. Will Cochrane is going to fly to Russia and attempt to break into Yevtushenko’s home.”

  After a moment’s silence, Damien asked, “You think he’ll find something there that will tell him who
’s got Yevtushenko?”

  “I don’t think so. Whoever’s clever enough to manipulate the Polish exfiltration route should also be astute enough to have briefed Yevtushenko not to leave anything behind that could lead men to him.”

  “Then, providing Yevtushenko remains off the radar, there is no bad news.”

  Marcus drummed his fingers on the table while staring at Tibor. “I guess that’s not the issue, is it Tibor.”

  “Nope.”

  Marcus turned to his colleagues. “We never had the chance to brief Yevtushenko to cleanse his place of any evidence that he’d had contact with us. And my God, Yevtushenko’s tradecraft’s so poor that he would have needed that briefing.”

  Lawrence’s mind was racing. “The FSB or SVR would have searched his home; maybe there’s nothing to find or they took anything remotely interesting.”

  “Maybe, providing they knew what was interesting.”

  More silence.

  Damien suggested, “We could send Miss Petrova another note saying that Cochrane’s heading over to Yevtushenko’s home. That should prompt the private boys to get him there.”

  Tibor shook his head. “The source says she’s now cooperating with British Intelligence.”

  “Shit! That means he’s seen our note to her.”

  “He has, and though he’s got no knowledge of us he’s smelled the whiff of our business cover operation against Yevtushenko.”

  Lawrence said angrily, “We can’t allow Cochrane to get anywhere near us.”

  Tibor smiled. “Of course not.”

  With deliberation, Marcus asked, “So how can we turn this impending disaster into excellent news?”

  Tibor folded his arms. “I’ve got an idea.”

  His colleagues were motionless.

  “Yevtushenko’s property is almost certainly going to have some kind of police presence, but I reckon it’s going to be minimal . . . couple of cops, not much more. And they’ll be there just to make sure the house isn’t contaminated after the security services searched it when Yevtushenko disappeared.”

  “Cochrane will easily get past them.”

  Tibor held up his hand. “Thankfully, he will.” He pointed at Marcus. “Have you still got Valerii and his men on your payroll?”

  Marcus nodded.

  “Good. So, I’m thinking you put a few of them around Yevtushenko’s property—at distance and with long-range scopes, but in positions that ensure they’ve got every inch of the property’s exterior covered.”

  “A hit? That could lead back to us.”

  “Let’s make it a bit more subtle. Valerii spots Cochrane enter the property and then immediately makes an anonymous call to the cops saying he’s a concerned passerby who’s seen an armed man smash into the house.”

  Lawrence smiled, “Armed man? That’s good. Suggests he’s not a petty criminal who can be dealt with by the cops guarding the place. Instead, and given the significance of the property, it suggests he’s an IO. The cops will take that break-in very seriously.”

  “And will immediately deploy in numbers to grab him.”

  “Though Cochrane will resist capture.”

  “And as a result, there will be a fight.” Tibor drummed his hands against the wall. “We do need to be subtle, but we can’t allow Cochrane to escape. If he gets out of range of the cops, he’ll run into Valerii’s ring of steel. And they’ll use Russian police sidearms to gun him down.”

  Seventeen

  At 1330 hours the following day, Will was walking through the arrivals section of Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport. Dressed in a business suit and overcoat, he’d entered Russia using a passport that was in the name of Christopher Jones and contained a multi-entry visa for business trips into the country. In his wallet and attaché case he had documentation to support his identity, including bank and business cards, a smart phone and laptop crammed with data showing he was a self-employed headhunter specializing in sourcing executives for the oil and gas industry, and a legitimate letter from a Moscow-based office-leasing agency saying that his meeting with them was confirmed for 3:30 P.M. this afternoon and that they’d be delighted if he decided to set up a subsidiary branch of his business in their premises.

  Aside from his passport, so far none of this documentation had been needed, as he was not questioned by the airport’s immigration or customs officers.

  He moved to the Avis desk, gave his car reservation details to a female employee, and was supplied keys and instructions to locate his prebooked E-class Mercedes sedan. Ninety minutes later, he was heading northwest out of the center of Moscow. As he did so, he recalled that the last time he was in the city, he, Roger, Laith, and three Russian assets had been chasing an extremely dangerous man, culminating in the hostile escaping and most of the team being captured and tortured by soldiers. Then, Russia had been on the brink of war with the United States. Now the city looked busy, yet normal and peaceful.

  Within one hour, he was on the outskirts of the city, driving through suburbia. Soon thereafter he was moving through countryside. He estimated it would take him forty minutes to reach the man who was going to give him the equipment he needed before going to Yevtushenko’s house. Maybe today he could find out what was going on. Or maybe not. He hated the feeling of not being in control, though he was resolute that he would get to the truth.

  The six Russian men were by the back of the SUV, finishing getting dressed in their white arctic clothing. They were in a deserted area of woodland sixty miles north of Moscow.

  After donning his balaclava and pulling his jacket hood over it, Valerii looked at his colleagues. “Four miles on foot to the valley; then we split up and move to our positions. Understood?”

  The men nodded.

  Checking that his Bushnell PowerView 20x50 surveillance binoculars were firmly in place within his jacket, Valerii added, “Do it exactly as we planned.”

  Yesterday the men had reconnoitered the valley containing Yevtushenko’s isolated house. They’d chosen three locations that collectively would give the team complete coverage of the property’s exterior from distances ranging between four hundred and six hundred yards. And they’d chosen two backup locations for each angle of observation, in case they needed to move because Will Cochrane was approaching the house on a route that was too close to their positions. The men would be in two-man teams: one to watch the house, the other to watch their backs. All of them were armed with MP-443 handguns, the standard issue firearm carried by police officers in this part of Russia, though Valerii had instructed them that they were only to use them if it looked likely that Will would escape the police. But if it came to that, they’d know what to do. They were former Spetsnaz operatives—experts in concealment and surveillance, long-range marksmanship, endurance, and close-quarters combat. As their commanding officer, Valerii had led the men on numerous successful missions. Now he commanded them in far more dubious, illegal, and very profitable operations.

  “It’s crucial he’s in the building before we call it in.”

  One of the men asked, “What should we do if the cops open fire on us?”

  Valerii pulled out his handgun, checked its workings, and shrugged. “Don’t do anything to them until Cochrane’s dead. After that, you can do what you like.”

  Will stopped his vehicle in what was technically a farmstead, though it was rather more a junkyard. Around him were corrugated iron huts, three cars that were resting on bricks and had no wheels, a barn whose timber had completely rotted away down one side, a small house that retained sturdy walls but had no roof, bits of mangled and unrecognizable machinery, and a trailer. Beyond the farmstead was uninhabited forest. He got out of the car and stood on snow-covered ground.

  A middle-aged man—medium height, ruffled jet black hair, a handlebar moustache, numerous old scars on his face—emerged from the trailer. He was wearing oil-stained blue overalls and was holding a double-barreled shotgun in one hand.

  Will looked around before calling out in Russian, �
�Good to see you again, Arman.”

  “You’re on your own?”

  “I didn’t bother to check”—Will grinned and nodded toward the gun—“because I knew you’d shoot anything that tried to creep up on me from behind.”

  “Nice car. Is it yours?”

  “It’s a rental.”

  “You’re lucky. If it was yours I could have put both barrels into you and sold the Mercedes for parts.”

  Arman Shpalikov walked quickly toward him, despite the limp he’d had since serving as a Soviet captain in the war in Afghanistan. Shaking Will’s hand with an iron grip, he replied, “Good to see you too, Philip. You want tea, coffee, vodka?”

  From previous experience, Will knew that none of the options were preferable. “Black coffee.”

  “But vodka when you’ve done your work—right?”

  “If I have time.”

  He led Will to his trailer. Inside were a tiny bed, a single-ring gas stove, a sink that was overflowing with dirty dishes and cups, a torn leather seat that ran flush against three sides of the trailer, and a two-foot-square table.

  Will sat. “How’ve you been?”

  Arman placed his gun on the table, put a pan of water onto the stove, struck a match, and lit the gas. “You know. Every day’s a blessing.”

  It was. A piece of shrapnel was lodged inside Arman’s body. One day it would reach his heart and kill him, but the stubborn old warrior refused to have an operation to remove it because he believed the shrapnel made him embrace every moment of being alive.

  “How’s business?”

  The Russian grabbed two mugs and began rinsing them. “It shifts with the times.”

  Arman did many things: as a former tank commander, his forte was vehicle and machinery repair work, though when the work wasn’t there he also made money by hunting wildlife and selling the catches at the local market, felling trees and turning them into logs and planks, buying and selling scrap metal, washing floors at a nearby restaurant, collecting refuse, and providing logistical support for MI6 operations in Russia.

  Will had recruited him six years earlier because the Russian was an expert at sourcing things—guns, vehicles, communications equipment, fake documents, men who’d not think twice about killing someone for cash—and had a network of contacts who could help MI6 personnel move covertly across Russia in trains, boats, trucks, and other modes of transport. Though Will paid him for his service, Arman’s motivation to work for him was grounded in his hatred for the Soviet Union and by extension his hatred for Russia, because in his view both countries had been run by the same set of psychopathic bastards.