by J A Heaton
“I’m an American citizen,” Billy whined as he composed himself. “I want a lawyer.”
“You’re in the wrong country for that,” Daniel said. “Besides, the Russians are tying up loose ends. Now that you’re blown, they will want to make sure you don’t talk. Cooperate with me now. Or, I’m sure the Russians wouldn’t mind a shot at you.”
Daniel watched the ounce of defiance leave Billy’s face. Daniel knew he had him.
“Where in 1985?” Daniel asked. “And please don’t tell me it was a beautiful woman with a Russian accent.”
“It was in America,” Billy said. “I had just gotten back from West Berlin. It had been damn stressful, and we weren’t having any intelligence success at the time. We always felt like the KGB and the Stasi knew exactly what we were up to. So, when I returned to America, I needed to blow off some steam. Big time.”
“How exactly did you do that?” Daniel asked patiently.
“I met a girl at a bar,” Billy answered.
“What was she like?” Daniel asked. “Can you describe her?”
“And don’t tell me she’s a beautiful Russian woman, you dumb ass,” Rex warned.
“She was a pretty good-looking woman about my age, with dark hair and dark eyes. Met her at a bar,” Billy said.
“And you didn’t think there was anything funny about a good-looking woman being interested in you?” Daniel asked.
“What drew me to her was how smart she was,” Billy said. “She was an accountant at a big business, and she also clearly needed to blow off some steam. So did I. I went home with her, and it was the first time I had ever done that. But I didn’t think anything could go wrong with me starting a relationship with an American woman. But then we got to her house. She did some drugs, and she offered some to me. I declined, but…”
“She was persuasive,” Rex said, finishing his statement.
And what happened after that?” Daniel asked.
“I went back to work the following Monday like normal, but then when I went out for lunch, somebody slipped something in my pocket. When I went to look at it in the bathroom stall, I saw that it was a picture of me taking the drugs at the woman’s house. Needless to say, I was scared, and I knew I would get in trouble, but I was going to report it as soon as I returned from my lunch break. But before I got back to the office, a man approached me.”
“Who was this man?” Daniel asked.
“He eventually went by the name of Isaac, although I’m sure that can’t be his real name. He didn’t look like anything special. Just a pretty average guy, maybe about 5 feet 10. He looked kinda Mongolian, not too handsome, not too ugly, but he seemed fit enough and had on a pretty nice suit. He always wore a fancy watch. He explained that he needed to talk with me about the pictures in my pocket.”
“Why didn’t you run away, or attack him, or yell for the police, or anything other than allow yourself to be compromised?” Daniel asked.
“At first, he told me that the girl I had met was his sister, and he had been trying for years to break her of her addiction, and he just wanted to talk with me to see if there was some way we could help her clean up.”
“And you believed that?” Rex asked angrily.
“It’s obvious in retrospect now,” Billy said, “but back then, I figured I was in America. I was in a safe place. I had simply been with a girl, and we did a few drugs. Thousands of Americans do that all the time. At the time, Isaac seemed sincere and trustworthy. But he eventually told me that he really wasn’t her brother, but that he had to talk to me privately to tell me something. He apologized for lying.”
“How kind of him,” Rex joked sarcastically.
“Isaac told me he was with the Mossad. He said the Mossad needed a little bit of extra help, and I was the perfect man to do that.”
“Why would he think you were the perfect man to do that?” Daniel asked.
“My parents had fled the Nazis,” Billy said. “My parents gave me the nickname Billy so that people wouldn’t guess that I’m Jewish. They didn’t feel comfortable about how I would be treated, as a Jew, in America.”
“So why didn’t you report this, if it really was our allies and friends, the Mossad?” Daniel asked.
“He told me that the Mossad was working with the CIA on some things, but there were some things that the Mossad was more, shall we say, aggressive on than the United States could appear to be. He said the United States was too bogged down in bureaucracy, too bound to public opinion, and too worried about the Arab nations. He promised I wouldn’t have to do anything to betray my country, just a few things here and there that could really help the Mossad.”
“And you still didn’t tell anybody?” Daniel asked. He couldn’t believe how easily Billy had been compromised.
“I didn’t want to throw my career away based on using drugs just one time,” Billy argued. “But I decided that if Isaac ever did ask me to do anything other than harmless tasks, then I would report him.”
“And did you ever see that woman again?” Daniel asked.
“No,” Billy answered. “I never saw her again. But I kept seeing Isaac, even when I was posted at different places all over the world. He seemed to almost always show up, whether I was posted in Europe, Eastern or Western, and even in Moscow. Which didn’t surprise me too much because he said he was with the Mossad. But things slowly began to snowball.”
Daniel and Rex sat quietly, as Billy elaborated.
Isaac had begun providing Billy with women and drugs. Eventually, that led to gambling, and then Isaac would cover Billy’s gambling debts.
“And how is it that nobody ever noticed that your life was falling apart with these addictions?” Daniel asked.
“Isaac helped me. He would cover up for me. He even gave me some tips that pointed me in the right direction that gave me success.”
Daniel knew Isaac must have been feeding Billy small bits of intelligence in exchange for the big wins Billy was unwittingly giving Isaac. In the vernacular of intelligence, Isaac was trading chickenfeed for gold dust. Or worse, chickenfeed for a goldmine.
“And I never scheduled any of these romps with drugs or women when I knew a big mission was coming up,” Billy said with a raised finger. “Only after.”
“What did Isaac make you do?” Daniel asked.
“It was only ever harmless things,” Billy insisted. “I was going to report him as soon as he asked me to do anything that would hurt Americans or the CIA. It was always pointless stuff. He would have me go to certain locations and then just sit there for ten minutes. The most he ever had me do was go to a park bench, wait, pick up a newspaper that had been laying on the bench, and then move it to another bench. It was harmless. Pointless.”
“And since Isaac continued giving you women, drugs, and gambling, you felt like that was good payment for doing what you call pointless tasks?” Rex asked.
Billy nodded dumbly.
“I guess I could have been used as a diversion or something. And of course, I soon suspected Isaac wasn’t really with the Mossad, but he wasn’t getting anything out of me,” Billy said defensively.
“As long as the money, drugs, and women kept coming, you didn’t care,” Daniel added. “Tell me what went wrong with Devers. Do you remember the night he was supposed to get a defector out, and it went bad?”
“It was one of the worst nights of my life,” Billy said. “I remember it like it was yesterday, and it is one of my nightmares. Michael Devers was supposed to get the defector and meet up with a Navy SEAL who would sneak them out to an American submarine. Devers left early to go on his route to lose any tails. He was good, so I’m confident he was able to get away clean. But then, he never came back that night. He simply disappeared. When we reported him missing to the police, they started a missing-person investigation. I’m convinced it was all for show. When we raised a little bit of a stink about it, we were told by a representative of the Soviet government, whom I’m sure was told this by the KGB, that we n
eeded to keep a better eye on our agents.”
“Who else knew about Devers getting the defector out that night?” Daniel asked.
“Me, Edwards, and the CIA chief of station at the time, Fitzpatrick. But I am the only one who knew that the defector was coming out on that specific night. Everybody else only knew that he was coming out within the next thirty days or so. I didn’t trust anybody else with Devers and the defector, so I was intentionally vague. I communicated directly with Langley about the submarine and the Navy SEAL.”
“You would claim that you never told anybody outside of Langley about that specific night, am I right?” Rex said.
“No. I never told anybody. Not even Fitzpatrick. I always figured losing Devers was bad luck. We can’t win them all. At the worst, I feared that our encrypted communications with Langley were compromised, but I never suspected it was somebody at Langley itself.”
“And you don’t think Isaac figured it out?” Daniel asked.
“I didn’t tell Isaac,” Billy insisted. “He didn’t even ask me about any operations. So it’s not as though he tricked me into telling him something. I didn’t tell him anything.”
“When was the next time you saw Isaac after the debacle in Leningrad, or, St. Petersburg?” Daniel asked.
“Not for a long time. I don’t remember exactly how long, but I think I next saw him on a short stint in Vienna.”
“You didn’t suspect Isaac at all?” Daniel asked.
“Not at all,” Billy said.
“When did you have your next romp, as you call it, after Devers disappeared?” Daniel asked.
“The night after,” Billy said. “Originally, I had planned it as a celebration of getting the defector out, and whatever commendation or promotion I might receive from it. Instead, I was trying to escape and drown out my problems.”
Daniel and Rex sat quietly, but Billy slumped over and began crying. Tears did come this time.
“I had a romp Sunday night. Just the other night,” Billy said through his crying. “After I left you at the Intercontinental Hotel. Patrick caught me. He confronted me. And then…”
“Patrick was murdered the next morning,” Daniel said. “You were compromised by Patrick, so Isaac had Patrick killed.”
Billy nodded his head up and down, and he continued crying. “Patrick was my only friend. My only friend. And now he’s dead because of me.”
“Let me guess,” Daniel said to Billy. “The woman was at the Intercontinental and wore a brunette wig.”
Billy managed to confirm Daniel’s guess despite his sobbing.
After a few moments, Daniel tossed Billy his clothes and said, “Get dressed. You’re getting on the next flight to America.”
Daniel and Rex stepped out of the room to talk privately. They were waiting for an embassy vehicle to arrive and take Billy away. Gunner and Walters stayed inside to keep an eye on Billy until then.
“It seems to me that Billy fell prey to a false flag operation,” Rex said to Daniel. “He was intended as a diversion. If the Wolf ever came under fire, they had Billy framed up to be taken down as the Wolf. The harmless tasks were just to make him look suspicious, if need be.”
“I think you’re right,” Daniel said. “But we still don’t know who the Wolf is. It may be down to Fitzpatrick and Edwards.”
“Edwards?” Rex asked.
“Can’t rule him out,” Daniel explained. “And it doesn’t look like Dmitri left a clue behind. Unless Muhammad cracks that coded message, I think we’ve only got one lead left.”
“Isaac, Nigora’s husband?” Rex asked.
“Yes,” Daniel confirmed. “Isaac had good reason to suspect that Billy had a big mission the night Devers disappeared. Billy had planned a romp. Besides, now that we know Isaac is involved in the murder of Patrick Riley and the attempted murder of Max on US soil, I say we go after him hard.”
“I like the sound of that,” Rex agreed. “If Russia is using Isaac and the mafia to protect the Wolf, we’ll make sure Isaac tells us who the Wolf is.”
Though some lesser men would have complained of an impossible task, Pavel viewed it as a challenge. On Misha’s orders, he and his men had to abduct three Americans.
And since all three are connected to the US Embassy, they are coddled, Misha thought to himself as the final, large SUV pulled into the warehouse on the outskirts of Tashkent. At a minimum, three would be necessary, but five would be ideal. At least one SUV had to survive the altercation to get the Americans away to safety.
Although Pavel knew it was best to use finesse to quarry the Americans, he secretly hoped he would have to use the force of violence. That unfinished business in the mountains to the south had left him disgruntled, and he thought a rough fight followed by a kill would make him feel better.
Except for that American, Pavel reminded himself. Misha wants him to survive at all cost. But all others are expendable.
Pavel watched his men prepare the SUVs. An armed driver in each one plus three armed passengers not only provided enough firepower to capture the Americans, but it also allowed seating to get away with them.
Although it was against his habit, he tried to guess what Misha’s plan was with the Americans.
And those cases I had sent all the way up here.
But Pavel soon gave up. Without knowledge of the cases’ contents or why the American must survive, he contented himself with the pleasure of carrying out orders and the anticipation of inflicting pain on others.
16
Daniel woke from his nap with a start. Jet lag plus staying up nearly all night in the mountains near Shahrisabz had destroyed his sleep cycle. He rolled off the office couch at the US Embassy and checked the time. Just after 10 PM.
Officer Carter should be sending approval for the mission to get Isaac soon, if she hasn’t already, Daniel thought to himself.
Moments later, Daniel walked down the hall and knocked on the door. Just in time, he remembered to use the secret knock: Shave and a haircut, two bits.
Rex unlocked and opened the door from inside for Daniel to enter. Rex quietly shut and relocked the door.
“Can’t allow anybody to see what we’re up to,” Rex said as he motioned towards the model he had constructed out of paper and office supplies on the table. A schematic and floorplan were drawn up on a whiteboard.
“Did Officer Carter call with approval yet?” Daniel asked.
“Not yet,” Rex said. “But she will. It might take longer than usual since we must keep it secret from Edwards and Fitzpatrick. She thought Peters would be able to get approval without alerting anybody who could inform them.”
“Where are Gunner and Walters?”
“They’re getting equipment ready for tonight.”
“What’s your plan so far?” Daniel asked.
“Basically, I’ve got a diversion planned, and then we’ll sneak in, grab Isaac, and get him out of there.”
“Please tell me your plan is a little more detailed than that,” Daniel said.
“While you were sleeping, I did the best I could to reconstruct the layout of Isaac and Nigora’s home. There’s some guesswork involved, especially on the interior, but I’m confident we can get in and snatch Isaac before his bodyguards cause any real problems.”
“What should I be ready for?” Daniel asked.
“About that,” Rex said. “You won’t be going in with me on this one.”
“I’m not going to let you do this again,” Daniel argued. “What do you think I’ve been training for? You’ve trained me yourself. What’s the point of all that I’ve busted my ass for if I don’t use it on a mission?”
“You’ve come a long way,” Rex said calmly, “but you’re still not ready for a mission like this. You’re better than you were, but you’re still no pro.”
Daniel tried another tactic.
“You will need me to communicate with Isaac.”
“From Billy, we know that Isaac speaks English, not just Uzbek and Russian,” Rex co
untered. “And if anything goes wrong on this mission, then you and Tina can still catch the Wolf.”
Daniel considered pulling rank and insisting that he join Rex on the mission when a chime on a laptop indicated an incoming call.
“That could be Officer Carter,” Rex said as he pressed a button on the laptop.
Officer Carter filled half of the screen and Muhammad the other.
“Greetings, gentlemen,” Officer Carter said. “I have approval from the top to extract Isaac, and then we’ll bring him to the US. If successful, we’ll learn who it is that he’s been protecting for the Russians. This is all outside of the normal extradition process, so if you get caught, we will disavow you. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Daniel and Rex said in unison. Rex gave Daniel an annoyed look before Officer Carter continued.
“Peters was cautious and gained approval without doing anything that could alert Edwards or Fitzpatrick to this unique mission. It’s vital that you maintain that secrecy. If the Wolf learns about it, he’ll surely tip Isaac off, and then we’ll have a mess on our hands.”
“We’ll be careful,” Daniel said. He was about to plead his case to Officer Carter to gain her endorsement to go on the mission when Muhammad jumped into the conversation.
“Jenny is digging into Billy’s past more now, but I found something suggestive in Max’s past. Max knew Fitzpatrick, and had met him on a few occasions when Max was in the Peace Corps. If Fitzpatrick is the Wolf, that could be how he first ensnared Max. Previously, there was no known connection between Max and Fitzpatrick.”
“Suspicious,” Rex agreed. “But I think we’ll know the truth by tomorrow morning if my mission succeeds tonight.”
“That will be vital because Muhammad uncovered more about Max and Fitzpatrick,” Officer Carter said.
“Around lunchtime in Tashkent,” Muhammad began to explain, “somebody used Max’s credentials to access top-secret information. Lots of it. Suffice to say, we know it wasn’t Max because we’re holding him here. They used the computer in Patrick Riley’s office in the US Embassy in Tashkent.”