by Saul Herzog
“How is that possible?”
“You don’t know as much as you think you know.”
“Sir.”
“Don’t play coy with me, Igor. I knew the instant you accessed the database. You’ve been on it all night, brushing up on the answers, getting ready for this call like it’s some sort of school exam.”
“Direktor, sir. Please let me explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain.”
“Sir, please. I have kompromat on everyone. Thousands of Americans. The NSA. The CIA. Whoever you want.”
“You’re referring to your collection of sex tapes?”
“They’re valuable, sir. Let me prove it.”
“How?”
“Roth. I can get you Roth.”
“I think that maybe you read too many secrets, Igor.”
“I know you want Roth, sir,” Igor said. He was begging, pleading for his life. He was desperate and they both knew it. He’d accessed the Dead Hand’s database. That meant either he prove his worth on this call, or he was a dead man.
“I’m begging you, sir. Let me go after Roth for you.”
“Roth’s on the ropes,” Davidov said. “I’ve hacked his network. His assets are dead.”
“Let me finish him off for you.”
“I don’t need you to finish him off for me. The American president is shutting down the Special Operations Group as we speak. Roth is done. A week from now, he won’t even have a Secret Service detail.”
“Sir,” Igor said. This was it. His last ditch attempt. It was all or nothing. “I see the big picture.”
“Oh, bully for you, Igor?”
“I know what you’re doing, sir. I’m not just another yes man like Timokhin. I’m more valuable than him.”
“You think so?” Davidov said.
Igor could hear the sneer in his voice.
“This pathogen in Yekaterinburg. I understand why you’re letting it out.”
“Letting it out?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re not letting it out. We’re doing everything in our power to contain it.”
Igor was reaching. He was acting on a hunch. The database had said nothing about the outbreak and Igor was sure Davidov himself wasn’t totally sure what was going on up there. But it was a problem, and Igor was going to solve it for him.
“You want the Americans to know about this leak.”
“That leak has killed over a thousand people, Igor.”
“Casualties of war, sir.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what all master strategists know. I’ve seen it in your plans. It’s genius.”
“What is?”
“I know how to read between the lines, sir.”
He had Davidov’s attention. He’d found something Davidov wanted to buy. Now, all he had to do was close the deal.
“Why don’t you enlighten me,” Davidov said.
“Well, sir. What’s the point in having a weapon as destructive as this pathogen if no one knows of its existence?”
“Continue.”
“It would have no deterrent effect.”
“Perhaps we don’t intend to use it as a deterrent.”
“As a tactical weapon it has no value. It would be like mustard gas. It would go everywhere. Kill everyone. It would kill as many of our men as the enemy’s.”
“Then why did we develop it?”
Igor knew the true answer. It was the same answer as why they did anything. They’d developed it because they could. Because they were ordered to. Because it was powerful. In a purely destructive sense, it was as powerful as an army.
The Russian president was a paranoid. Igor knew that. He’d seen the clinical reports. He was obsessed with holding onto his power, of holding back the wave of political reforms that threatened his presidency, and the wave of NATO-backed power that threatened to relegate Russia’s place to the history books.
“You developed it because you want the Americans to think we’re preparing for war.”
“We can’t win a war with the Americans,” Davidov said.
But Igor already knew he was on the right track.
“We don’t have to win a war,” he said. “We only have to keep the president in power.”
“Igor, there’s no risk to the president’s position.”
“I know that, sir. Of course there’s no risk. The president is more secure than ever.”
There was a pause. They both knew that was not true.
Igor filled the silence by saying, “We’re simply putting our pieces on the parts of the board we want to hold.”
He waited.
Davidov was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Are you a student of history, Igor?”
Igor took a deep breath. He wasn’t out of the woods yet. “I am, sir.”
“Do you remember what the Germans said before the First World War?”
“I do, sir. They said, better now than later.”
“That was a war they couldn’t win,” Davidov said.
“And they knew it, sir. That was why they wanted to fight it in 1914 rather than in 1920.”
“Exactly.”
“I understand that, sir,” Igor said. “And I can help you make others understand it.”
Davidov sighed. “Maybe,” he said.
Igor knew he’d done it. He could feel it. He’d saved himself.
Igor cleared his throat. “Tatyana Aleksandrova,” he said. “I taught her everything she knows. Let me find her for you.”
“You don’t have the first clue where she is.”
“But I know her, sir. I know how she operates. I know how she thinks.”
“If you knew her so well, she never would have slipped through our fingers?”
“Sir, Timokhin ran that hit.”
“Careful what you say about Timokhin, Igor.”
“Give me this one chance, sir. You want her back. I know you do. We can’t let her get away with this betrayal.”
“I don’t even trust you to bring her in.”
“Of course I’ll bring her in.”
“Why should I believe that?”
“Because she’s a traitor, sir,” Igor said. “And look what I do to those who betray me. Look what I did to my darling Agniya. I’ll cut this slut’s throat out, and I’ll rip her heart out through the slit.”
56
Laurel was strung up like a slaughtered steer. The rope had rubbed the flesh raw on her wrists and she could feel the blood dripping down her arms. Her bullet wound had been cleaned and bandaged but it burned in agony.
She was in a pitch black room, cold, and the pain in her arms had gone from extreme, to absolutely unbearable, to completely and utterly numb.
She had no idea how much time had passed. It could have been days, it could have been hours. She fell in and out of consciousness.
When the lights finally came on, and she saw an enormous bear of a man entering the room, it was almost a relief.
“Laurel Everlane,” the man said.
Laurel was blinded by the floodlights, which were pointed right at her.
“Tell me about your friend, Levi Roth,” the man said.
He wasn’t the man she’d seen at the airport hangar. This man was some sort of giant, a freak of nature, and in his hand was a long, thin blade. The steel glinted in the light, and reminded her of the knives used to scale fish.
He pressed a yellow button and a crank began to turn, slowly lowering the rope that held her until her feet brushed the ground. As well as the yellow button, Laurel saw there was also a green one, and a red one.
She was too weak to hold herself up and as the crank continued to lower her, she slowly crumpled into a pile. It was only then she realized she was naked.
The room had the feel of a cellar. No light got in from outside. The floor was wet. Water was dripping somewhere. The ceiling was about twenty feet above her with a small ventilation shaft above a crossbeam.
Apart
from the rope, and the machine that held it, and the lights, the room was empty.
The man pushed the green button and the rope grew taut again, gradually pulling her up, pulling her arms, then forcing her to her knees, then her feet, and finally lifting her back off the ground toward the beam.
She cried while it happened. She tried not to but she couldn’t help it. And when her limbs were forced to take the full weight of her body again, she screamed.
The man let it raise her about a foot from the ground and then said again, “Tell me about your old friend, Levi Roth.”
She said nothing, but the way he spoke, so jovially, so casually, it made her feel like it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if she told him just a little of what he wanted to hear. She could lie to him. What harm would that do?
The man pushed the yellow button and again, she was slowly lowered to the ground, the weight on her feet relieving her arms, her shoulders, her elbows and wrists. She crumpled back onto the ground and the man came over to her.
“I met him once,” he said. “We were friends then.” He looked at her for a reaction. “It’s true. He poured me a very fine scotch. A bottle he’d been given by the president, if I remember correctly. You’d never believe it now of course, it’s hard for people your age to imagine, but the CIA and the GRU were the best of friends back in those days. Gorbachev and Bush were practically golfing buddies. We were all friends, all backslapping, all full of promises.”
Laurel lay on the ground, struggling to breathe, struggling with the fire of agony in her limbs, the freezing cold.
“So gullible, you Americans,” the man said. “You thought, because Communism was collapsing, because the Wall was coming down, that you’d won the war.”
He let out a chuckle, “Wars like that never end. They only move from one theater to another.”
He reached out and touched Laurel’s cheek.
“He likes the ladies, doesn’t he, your boss?”
His thumb caressed her cheek.
“I’ll admit, I’m no angel myself. But your boss.” He whistled to emphasize his point. “It really was quite shocking. I never thought America would tolerate behavior like that. What, with all your political correctness and what not. But he was as bad as any GRU direktor. I have to give him credit for that.”
Laurel summoned the strength to push the man’s hand from her cheek.
He smiled and grabbed her hair suddenly, yanking her head back.
“It always was blondes with him, too. Yes, always blondes, and always young. So very young. Too young if you ask me.”
Laurel knew what he was doing. At some level, deep in her mind, her logical brain knew the techniques he was using, and the results they were designed to elicit. She knew how it worked. She’d been trained in all of it.
But it was so hard for her logical brain to make itself heard above all that pain.
“He never had a liking for you, did he?” the man said, letting go of her hair. “I mean, I would understand it if he did. A pretty blonde like you. Young enough to be his granddaughter. I could forgive him even. I mean, look at you.”
He took her chin in his hand and turned her face toward him.
“But that wouldn’t be right, would it? He’s your boss after all. It would be an abuse of his position. There are rules in America against that sort of thing, aren’t there? I mean, we all know they’re not always obeyed, but you still pay lip service to them, don’t you? You try to obey them, am I right? You wouldn’t ever let a man like him get under your skirt, my dear, would you?”
He got up and went back to the wall, where he pushed the green button. The rope pulled her back up above the ground. When he stopped it, he said, “It goes higher, you know. All the way to the ceiling.”
Then he put his finger on the red button and looked at her. She was sure she’d never seen a face so vile. He smirked at her as he pressed the red button and she dropped suddenly. She fell hard against the ground and screamed in agony. When the pain receded enough for her to think, she was sure he’d broken her legs.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, my dear. I must have pressed the wrong button. Let me try that again. I’ll have to get it right this time because you’re going to be so much higher.”
He pressed the green button and the machine began cranking her up again. He held it down until she was not one foot above the ground, but two.
“Anything to tell me about your old friend?” he said.
She spat, and blood came out of her mouth.
“I’ll tell you what. You tell me if he ever fucked you, and I won’t press this red button any more. I mean, I don’t see why you should suffer for a secret like that. Do you? He never should have done it in the first place. It was illegal. He should have kept it in his pants. Why keep that secret for him here? Why pay in agony for his pleasure? Especially when you paid so dearly for it already.”
Laurel said nothing and the man put his finger on the red button. She braced for the pain. There was something about this line of questioning though, it got under her skin.
She tried to speak but no words came out.
“What’s that?” the man said. “Throat a bit dry, is it?”
Laurel moaned.
“No, didn’t quite make that out,” he said. “Maybe another spill will loosen you up.”
“He never laid a finger on me,” Laurel managed to croak.
“Very good,” the man said. “He never laid a finger on you. Good for him. And good for you, my dear. What would people say about you around the office if he had?”
57
“Get into the apartment,” Lance said in Russian.
He was holding one woman in front of him, his CZ 75 pistol pressed against her temple. The other was frozen in terror.
“Go on, get inside,” he said again.
The door was unlocked.
The woman he was holding was beginning to panic. She couldn’t breathe. Her friend was about to scream and Lance said, “Don’t make a sound or she dies.”
The friend stepped into the apartment, and Lance, still holding the other woman, entered behind her and kicked the door shut.
“Are you armed?” he said to the friend.
She didn’t respond. Her eyes were glued to the two dead soldiers on the ground in the middle of the room, blood pooled around their heads like crimson halos seeping into the white carpet.
The cat mewled desperately from the bedroom. Lance had locked her inside to keep her away from the bodies.
“Sit on the sofa,” he said to the friend.
She sat and he pushed the other woman onto the sofa next to her. The two women stared at him, numb with terror. They were already exhausted, he could see that much. They were close to their limit. He knew who they were, knew they were doctors, and knew what they would have been through in the past few days. He doubted either of them had slept properly since the beginning of the outbreak.
He pointed the gun at them and told them to put their hands on their heads. Then he patted them down and checked they weren’t armed.
He stood back and looked at them.
The woman Roth had showed him pictures of, Sofia, looked like she was about to burst into tears.
He went to the bedroom and let the cat out.
“I fed her,” he said.
The cat immediately jumped into Sofia’s lap and she started to cry.
Lance put the gun in his belt.
“I know who you are,” he said. “You’re Dr. Sofia Ivanovna, director of the Permafrost Pathogen Institute.”
She looked at him but said nothing.
“And you’re Dr. Olga Abramova from the Infectious Disease Center.”
Olga looked at Sofia.
“She’s got nothing to do with this,” Sofia said, wiping her face. “She’s just my friend, a doctor, from the hospital.”
“Well, I can’t just let her walk out of here, can I?”
Olga reached out and took Sofia’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere without you, Sof
ia.”
Lance went to the door and made sure it was locked.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “We’ve got to move.”
“You’re American,” Sofia said.
“What gave it away?”
She shrugged. “You need to work on your accent.”
“All right,” Lance said.
The women looked at the two soldiers.
“They were here when I got here,” Lance said.
“Like that?” Sofia said.
He shook his head. “No. Not like that.”
“Oh,” she said, realizing her mistake.
“Did you know soldiers were looking for you?”
“I should have,” she said.
Lance looked at the women. They weren’t fighting him. They seemed relieved he was there. They’d be willing to help.
“I’m here to destroy the bioweapons research being conducted at the institute,” he said.
“All right,” Sofia said.
Lance looked at them. “Will you help?”
“I don’t know how,” Sofia said.
“I can get us in there,” Lance said, “but I need you to show me what’s what. Without you, I won’t know what I’m looking for.”
Sofia looked at Olga and then back at him.
“It will be dangerous,” she said.
Lance nodded.
She thought for a moment. Looked again at Olga. Olga nodded.
“All right,” Sofia said. “I can show you the live samples. And the servers where the research data is backed up.”
Lance nodded. “We’ll need to hurry. There’s not a lot of time.”
“There are some files here I want to destroy first,” Sofia said.
“All right,” Lance said. “But don’t try anything.”
She nodded and got up. Lance and Olga watched as she gathered some papers, a laptop, and two external hard drives.
“Is that everything?” Lance said.
“What about the soldiers?” Sofia said as she stepped over them.
“They won’t be troubling anyone.”
“They’ll think Sofia killed them,” Olga said.
“I’m sorry, ladies,” Lance said, “but that ship has sailed. You’re both fugitives now.”
Olga looked scared but Sofia said, “We were already on the run, Olga.”