The Asset

by Saul Herzog

  Then, she stood as straight as she could, pulled her coat around her, and tried to flag down a cab. It took a few minutes for one to stop and every second she had to wait was a frigid torture. Her entire body was shaking by the time she got into the cab.

  The driver noticed her distress. She was blue with cold. She was barefoot. There was blood and dirt on her hands and face.

  It took all her strength to get any words out.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she said.

  “Lady,” the driver said in a thick New York accent, “whatever you been through, it’s over now.”

  “Turn up the heat,” she said.

  He had a coat on the seat next to him and he threw it back to her.

  “You report everything to the police,” the driver said. “Don’t let them get away with anything.”

  “All right,” she said.

  The driver nodded. “Where to then?”

  “Penn Station.”

  He brought her to the train station and when they arrived she told him she had no money.

  “Fair enough,” was the extent of his protest.

  She got out and ran up the steps of the station and through the main hall. There was a storage locker there she’d set up in advance for situations like this. She had a number of them around the city and no one, including Igor, knew about them.

  Sheldon Goldin was a trained assassin. Igor had set a trap for her. She should have picked up on it when he’d called. He’d acted strange on the phone. She wondered how he’d found her out.

  And Lance. He’d screwed her too. She’d thrown caution to the wind, going to the meet even though she knew she was being tailed. She never would have done that if she’d known Lance wouldn’t be there.

  And the female agent.

  Tatyana wondered if she’d survived. She’d seen her go down. She’d done everything right. It was Tatyana’s blank bullets that screwed them.

  Tatyana hadn’t had time to tell her much. If she was dead now she supposed it didn’t really matter.

  Tatyana reached her locker and spun the combination dial. Inside was a backpack. She grabbed it and went back to the main concourse. There were clothing stores in the station but none of them were open. She’d have to wait for that.

  There was a drugstore and she bought a pair of black socks, some tights, some toiletries, isopropyl, and a first aid kit. Then she went to the washroom, locked herself in one of the stalls, and examined the wound. It was beginning to change color. She doused it in alcohol and wrapped it in a clean bandage.

  She cleaned her face and hands at the sink and fixed her makeup.

  There was a hotel nearby that rented rooms by the hour and accepted cash. She went back outside and got another cab. It let her out at the hotel and she paid. She entered the hotel, passing drug addicts and prostitutes on the steps, and when she reached the guy at the counter, she emphasized her Russian accent.

  “I need room.”

  “How long?”

  “All day.”

  “That’s three hundred,” the man said.

  It was the kind of place that didn’t ask questions. It let a woman rent a room, leave every hour, and return with a new man. There were some pimps hanging around in the back but you weren’t required to be with them.

  She searched in her purse and pulled out most of the cash she had. “I have two-twenty,” she said.

  “Price is three hundred.”

  “I’ll go across street.”

  The man sighed and pulled a key off its hook on the wall behind him. “Fine,” he said. “Two-twenty. No shooting up in there.”

  “I know.”

  “You shoot up in there, you’ll get the shit kicked out of you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Worse than you already got.”

  44

  Lance sat on a commuter train from DC to New York. The train passed endless rows of cookie-cutter houses, warehouses, big box retail stores. It looked like the world was becoming one big logistics solution.

  He stretched out and made himself comfortable.

  He had four seats to himself, the two he was sprawled across, the two facing, and the small formica table between them.

  A man with a cart came down the aisle and Lance asked for coffee and a tuna sandwich.

  “I don’t recommend the tuna,” the man said.

  “How about the cheese?”

  “It’s safer.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” Lance said.

  The train wasn’t an express service, it stopped literally everywhere, but that was fine. It was one of those smaller stations he was headed for.

  The file Roth sent for the gunman had an address in Trenton, New Jersey. A house in a quiet neighborhood called Chambersburg.

  Lance doubted anyone was home but he would pay a visit all the same. It was a starting point. He knew Roth was right, that the trail would lead to Moscow, but he wanted to check all the stops along the way.

  The file was surprisingly comprehensive. There was a photo, the address in Trenton, the name of the man’s handler in the GRU.

  Lance couldn’t be sure if the civilian data was original or tied to an identity the man had assumed, but if it was accurate, the man was born in New York, was fifty-eight, and had served in the army. He’d been a lieutenant in the First Infantry Division during Operation Desert Storm. An army medical report said he’d been at Khamisiyah in Iraq when Saddam’s chemical weapons stockpiles were destroyed.

  Lance flipped through the medical report. Complications followed the destruction of the chemical weapons. The man’s unit was sent in to destroy them with C-4 explosive and wasn’t given any kind of protective clothing for the job. The report contained hand drawings by men in the unit of the markings on the weapons. Lance recognized them as Iraqi military markings for munitions containing Sarin gas.

  The entire unit got sick afterward, they couldn’t breathe and suffered uncontrollable muscle spasms. They had to be medevacked to an army hospital in Saudi Arabia, and from there to Germany. Some of them died in Germany, it was unclear how many, and there was talk of a lawsuit but it never materialized.

  When the train arrived in Trenton, Lance got a cab to the address on the file. The place looked like a good, working class neighborhood, no different from a thousand others built in the sixties. The house was modest, but there was an expensive black town car parked in the driveway. Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat.

  Lance got out and knocked on the window of the car.

  “You the driver?” Lance said.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “Law enforcement.”

  The driver raised his hands. “Hey, I don’t know what this guy’s mixed up in. I just go where I’m told.”

  “You want to get out of here for a while? This might not be pretty.”

  The driver didn’t need to be told twice. He turned the ignition and pulled out of the driveway.

  Lance went to the door of the house and knocked on the window.

  A voice from inside called out, “Hang on.”

  There was some activity inside and then the man opened the door. He had a five o’clock shadow and was dressed in a ratty robe and slippers. He didn’t look much like a high-paid GRU assassin.

  Behind him, Lance could see through to the kitchen where an elderly woman, also dressed in a robe and slippers, was sitting at the table.

  “I’m sorry,” Lance said. “Is this your house?”

  “No, it’s my mother’s house.”

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt your breakfast.”

  “Where’s my driver?”

  There was a newspaper on the step and Lance bent down and picked it up. He handed it to the man. The man’s shoulder was bandaged. He moved it tenderly.

  If they got into a fight, there wouldn’t be much to it.

  “Well?” the man said.

  “Can I come in?”

  “What for?”

  “I want to discuss the Sarin poisonings in
Iraq. The legal case.”

  The man made to shut the door in Lance’s face and Lance stopped it with his foot.

  “I’m from Veteran’s Affairs. We’re looking into compensation.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “But you were there when the poisonings happened.”

  “I ain’t talking to no one.”

  Lance nodded. “All right,” he said. “All right.”

  The man made to shut the door again and Lance said, “Don’t make me do this in front of your mother.”

  The man froze. He looked at Lance again as if seeing him for the first time.

  “You’re not from Veteran’s Affairs.”

  “Don’t fight me,” Lance said. “She’ll only have to watch.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying we can do this civilized. What is she? Eighty years old? Seeing you die in front of her will destroy her.”

  The man’s fist was clenched around the door handle. He was thinking about his wounded shoulder. Calculating.

  Lance needed information from him more than anything else. He didn’t want him to run.

  “That shootout in the Village,” Lance said. “The American woman was one of ours.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The girl you shot. The one was a Russian GRU operative.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The old lady called out from the kitchen. “Who’s there?”

  Lance looked around the man. He saw that she had a boiled egg in front of her and was tapping the shell with a spoon.

  “How about you invite me in, give me some tea, and tell me what I want to know.”

  “Mister, you’re out of your mind.”

  “Maybe I am. Maybe we all are. Looks to me like we both have a little in common. You served in the 82nd. I served in the 82nd.”

  “So what?”

  “We both had reasons to quit Uncle Sam too.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “I know they covered up the toxin exposure.”

  “Mister, why are you here telling me this?”

  “Because I want you to invite me into your house so I can ask you some things.”

  The man shrugged. It was as if he’d gone limp. Lance could read it on his face. Some men were defeated before you ever got to them.

  “I just want you to know, I never betrayed my country,” the man said.

  “That’s fine by me,” Lance said. “I’m not here about anything like that.”

  “I never targeted Americans. The woman, your agent, that was never supposed to happen. She opened fire on me first.”

  Lance entered the house. He didn’t bring up the cab driver or the innocent bystander who’d been shot on the street.

  “Who’s this?” the mother said from the kitchen.

  “It’s nothing, Ma.”

  “Why’s he coming in?”

  Lance took a seat on the sofa and acted like he didn’t hear her.

  “He’s from the VA, Ma.”

  “What do they want now?”

  “It’s work. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He came into the living room and shut the door to the kitchen.

  “You always lived with her?” Lance said.

  “Not always. Now what did you want to talk about?”

  “You shot my colleague.”

  “Like I said. She shot me first. Through the windshield. I had no choice.”

  “All the same,” Lance said.

  The man sighed.

  “So, just so you know,” Lance said, “I’m going to have to make that good.”

  “I understand.”

  “You understand?”

  “I always knew my time would come. You don’t get into this line of work thinking it will end well.”

  “No you don’t,” Lance said.

  The man looked toward the kitchen door.

  “So, what are we dealing with?” Lance said.

  “She ain’t dead, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “Where is she?”

  The man sighed again.

  “Just tell me.”

  “I’ll tell you what. I don’t want to die here today.”

  “Well, you lead me to my colleague and maybe it won’t come to that.”

  “I never killed Americans. That was the thing I told him. I’d do his dirty work, but I’m not a traitor.”

  “Who gave you the orders?”

  “Some creep in Moscow. His name’s Timokhin. Fyodor Timokhin.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Sure you have.”

  Lance shrugged. “What did he get you to do?”

  “Honestly, it was mostly killing other Russians. They have more leaks than a sieve. He had someone he wanted me to take care of every few months.”

  “And you did it?”

  “Sue me. I fucking did it. It paid.”

  “What did he tell you about your target the other night?”

  “She was a Russian agent. She was meeting someone. They wanted me to find out who she was meeting.”

  “And kill them?”

  “I already told you, they opened fire on me first. That was a fuck up.”

  “A fuck up?”

  “She was a Russian agent who was selling secrets. She knew what she was signing up for. Rules of the game.”

  “Rules of the game?” Lance said. “I guess I could say the same thing about you right now.”

  The man shook his head. There was a pack of Pall Malls on the table and he took one out and lit it.

  “What did the Russian pay for a hit?”

  “Thirty. Forty. It varied.”

  Lance looked around the room. The house didn’t look like it had seen forty grand in a while.

  “I got my own place in the city,” the man said. “There’s a few strip clubs I go to. I spend it all on the girls.”

  “Look at you. A regular philanthropist.”

  The man said nothing.

  “All right, I’ll tell you what I’m proposing.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m not going to kill you right now.”

  The man said, “I could tell you were a gentleman by the way you came up to the door.”

  Lance smiled.

  The man offered him the pack of cigarettes and Lance took one and lit it.

  “You shot my girl, though. If she dies, or if something bad happens to her, I’m coming back for you.”

  The man nodded. “I put her in the car,” he said. “I drugged her. Then I brought her to Teterboro.”

  Teterboro was a small airport in the New Jersey Meadowlands. It had a weight limit that made it unusable for major airlines. It was mostly private jets and charters.

  “What happened at Teterboro?”

  “There was a jet waiting.”

  “You ever put someone on a jet before?”

  “I delivered some people to some places before. Not to a jet on the tarmac, though. No.”

  “Where was the jet going?”

  “I didn’t ask, but I figure Russia. Everyone there seemed Russian.”

  There was an ashtray on the arm of the sofa and Lance put his cigarette out in it. At the same time, the door to the kitchen opened. It was the old lady and she was holding a Glock 41.

  Lance leapt forward, just in time to dodge three bullets. The old lady had good aim. The bullets landed within inches of each other, right where he’d been sitting.

  Lance grabbed the man by the head and swung himself behind him.

  The old lady followed him across the room, firing off bullets, but she stopped short of hitting her son.

  Lance didn’t hesitate. With one hand on the man’s chin and the other on his opposite temple, he yanked his head to the side with all his strength. There was a loud crack and then the man went limp. Lance held him up as a shield.

  “You killed him,” the old woman cried, unloading the weapon into her son’s chest. />
  45

  Igor wasn’t sure why he was there. He’d been sitting by the receptionist’s desk for twenty minutes. It was humiliating. He was used to being the one who made people wait, the one with flags by the door, and guards, and a receptionist behind a desk.

  He looked at the clock.

  Thirty minutes.

  “Is he going to show?” he said irritably to the receptionist.

  “He said wait,” the receptionist said.

  “I know he said wait. I’ve been waiting. Now I’m asking how long.”

  “If you want to leave,” the girl said, indicating the elevator.

  Igor scoffed. He’d have enjoyed a chance to teach this girl some manners. The image of Agniya’s face as he strangled her flashed across his mind.

  Another thirty minutes passed before the girl finally told him he could go to Timokhin’s office.

  “He’s been in there this entire time?”

  The girl shrugged.

  “He made me wait on purpose.”

  She’d remained in her seat.

  “Well, aren’t you at least going to show me to the door?”

  “You remember the way,” she said.

  “No I don’t,” he said.

  She sighed and got out of her seat with an immense display of effort. When they reached the door, Igor entered without knocking. The guards looked at him but Timokhin, who was inside the anteroom smoking a cigarette, waved them away.

  “Ah, Igor, thank you for making it up,” he said, leading them to the inner office.

  “You kept me waiting an hour,” Igor said.

  “You strangled Agniya Bunina to death.”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “Come now, Igor,” Timokhin said, eyeing the nasty scratch across Igor’s face.

  “You were using her to spy on me,” Igor said.

  “It wasn’t me who was using her,” Timokhin said. “And you better hope that whoever it was doesn’t take this personally.”

  “If it wasn’t you, who was it?” Igor said, suddenly worried.

  “You’ll find out soon enough, my friend. Right now, we have a more urgent problem.”

  “What problem?”

  “We haven’t found a body for your girl.”

  “Tatyana?”

  “No need to sound so pleased.”

  Igor shook his head. It was no secret he’d been upset at the order to kill her, but now that he was on the top floor, he would have to start playing by all the rules. It was difficult though. He should have been worried that Tatyana hadn’t been found, but a part of him couldn’t help hoping she’d escaped.