The Asset

by Saul Herzog

  He’d just finished his beer when the train started slowing down for its first stop. It was the city of Pervouralsk, not far from Yekaterinburg. The conductor said they would be there for fifteen minutes so Lance got off the train and found a pay phone on the platform.

  He called Levi’s secure line and prayed he wasn’t redirected.

  “Lance?” Levi said.

  “I never thought I’d be so happy to hear that voice,” Lance said.

  “What have you got for me?” Levi said.

  “The lab’s destroyed. Whatever samples they had have been incinerated.”

  “Okay,” Levi said. “That’s good work.”

  “What about Laurel?” Lance said. “What have you got?”

  “We think we might have something. We tracked Timokhin. He’s been visiting a secluded shed in the middle of a forest.”

  “Where is it?”

  “North of Moscow.”

  “Okay,” Lance said. “Listen. I’m on the train. We just left Yekaterinburg. It won’t be in Moscow until tomorrow night.”

  “I don’t think she has that long,” Roth said.

  “Neither do I,” Lance said.

  “You’re going to have to risk the airport.”

  “What do we know about the shed?” Lance said. “Do we have confirmation Laurel’s there?”

  “No. We only know that Timokhin’s traveled there. It looks consistent with the type of place they’d hold someone though.”

  “Can you give me the coordinates?”

  Roth read out the coordinates and Lance memorized them.

  “Are there any flights from Pervouralsk to Moscow tonight?” Lance said.

  “I’m checking. Yes. There’s one. But you’ll have to be fast. It leaves in ninety minutes. If you catch that you’ll be in Moscow before morning.”

  Lance hung up and got back on the train. He went to the sleeper and began writing a note on some scrap paper. Sofia turned on the light.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “I have to go.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He wrote down the name of a hotel in Moscow.

  “I’ll meet you at this hotel,” he said.

  “You can’t leave us here.”

  “You’ll be all right. Just stay on the train until Moscow and then go to this hotel. Get a room. I’ll find you there.”

  They looked at him.

  “I’m sorry we were angry. It’s not your fault Vasily went back.”

  The conductor blew the whistle.

  “I have to go,” Lance said.

  68

  The Dead Hand had a reputation for playing the long game. For watching, and for waiting.

  When you feared no one, and could kill anyone, why rush?

  Why panic?

  Which was why Timokhin found it all the more alarming that Davidov was putting so much pressure on him.

  He’d been fielding Davidov’s calls pretty much hourly since Laurel had been handed over to him.

  “I’ll break her,” Timokhin said into the phone. “I just need a little more time. You know what will happen if I rush.”

  He was in the back seat of his car, his driver in front, and he took a cigarette from the case on the armrest next to him. The driver passed him back the car lighter.

  They were deep in a forest north of the city. It was close to the Vostochny District, where Davidov’s family kept a dacha. Davidov had given him the place, and only Timokhin and Davidov knew of its location. With something this sensitive, Davidov did not want her being brought to an official GRU facility.

  “You’ve given me nothing, Timokhin,” Davidov said. “Not one single thing.”

  “It’s not easy, sir,” Timokhin said. “She’ll take time to break. She’s been trained as highly as any asset I’ve ever encountered.”

  “I don’t care if she was trained by Roth himself.”

  “She was trained by Roth himself,” Timokhin said. “And he put extra work into her. She was his favorite.”

  “I don’t need to remind you what’s at stake, do I?”

  “Of course not.”

  “There’s been an attack in Yekaterinburg. The lab is gone. All the research destroyed.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “You tell me how it’s possible, you worm. Ask the girl.”

  “I am asking her, sir.”

  “Roth’s down but he’s not fucking out. Not yet. The lab’s gone, that slut is still on the loose in New York, and now I’ve got Igor begging me for a seat at the table.”

  Timokhin’s eyes widened.

  “What?” he said.

  “You heard me, Timokhin.”

  “What does that weasel want?”

  “What do you think he wants?”

  “You’re not considering him, are you?”

  “Maybe I need someone with his touch. He specifically expressed an interest in interrogating Everlane. I told him you were on it, but maybe I was mistaken.”

  “You were not mistaken, sir. I am on it.”

  “As far as I can tell, Igor’s never had a problem getting these sluts to spread their legs.”

  “It was his agent who created this mess.”

  “And maybe he’s the man to clean it up.”

  “This happened on his watch, Davidov. Don’t listen to anything he says.”

  “Look at it from my perspective, Fyodor. Igor got the decryption key from Agniya. He knew exactly what to make of the database. He contacted me and made overtures. He’s sending all the right signals.”

  “Give me two more hours with her, sir. To hell with it. I’ll drop her from the ceiling if I have to.”

  “Don’t let her die, Timokhin.”

  “I won’t. But she’ll never fucking walk again, that’s for sure.”

  “Just keep her alive, and get me something I can use against Roth. This shit show in Yekaterinburg is making me look bad.”

  Davidov hung up. Timokhin’s heart was pounding in his chest.

  “What are you looking at?” he spat at the driver.

  He got out of the car and threw his cigarette on the ground. Reaching into his pockets he took out his leather gloves and put them on. This was about to get messy.

  He crossed the muddy driveway to the building and used a key card to deactivate the time lock. A minute later, the door buzzed open. The building looked like a forestry barn from the outside. Forestry equipment was scattered around it.

  He entered the barn and used a pin pad to lock the door behind him. Then, using a metal key, unlocked a trapdoor in the ground. He descended some concrete stairs and unlocked the final door, leading to the underground cell Laurel was being held in.

  He entered and turned on the lights. It took a second for his eyes to adjust, and when they did, he saw something that simply was not possible.

  Laurel was gone.

  69

  Laurel didn’t wait for her eyes to adjust. She knew where the door was and simply leapt. If she hit the ground, she would die.

  But she didn’t hit the ground.

  She landed on Timokhin, his massive hulk giving her plenty of margin for error.

  She was naked.

  She had no idea if her muscles would function.

  But she had no other choice.

  She wrapped her legs around Timokhin’s neck and clenched her thighs as tightly as she could.

  Timokhin didn’t know what hit him and flailed wildly, knocking over the lights which smashed, leaving the room completely in darkness.

  Laurel had been in darkness for so long it barely made a difference to her. She moved rapidly. If Timokhin got his bearings, he had the strength in his enormous body to fling her around the room like a rag doll.

  She wrapped the rope around his neck once, then twice, then looped it back inside itself and reached for the wall. She searched for the buttons. She knew they were there, somewhere.

  Her fingers found them but Timokhin’s bearlike bulk pressed
up against her, crushing her against the wall. He heaved himself at her, thrusting forward and grabbing her by the throat with two massive hands.

  As his grip tightened like a vise on her neck, she struggled wildly. She couldn’t breathe. She tried to break free but he was too powerful. She tried to claw at his eyes behind her but couldn’t reach.

  He pushed her forward, knocking her head against the wall, and began shaking her. Her hands searched desperately for the buttons. Her fingers were so ravaged she barely knew what she was feeling. Her head hit the wall over and over and then by some miracle, her fingers found the buttons.

  The green button was the first of the three and she pressed it. Immediately, the rope began to retract.

  Timokhin’s massive hands continued to crush Laurel’s neck but she kept her finger on the button and the rope continued to retract. When it got taut, it began to pull Timokhin away from her and it was only then that he realized what was happening.

  He reached for his neck and tried to untie the rope but it was too late.

  Laurel broke free of his grip and kept her finger on the button. The rope continued to retract. Timokhin was forced to walk backwards. He almost tripped but managed to stay on his feet. It only bought him an extra few seconds before the rope began to pull him off his feet. He struggled wildly, kicking and grasping at his throat while the rope slowly heaved his massive bulk from the ground.

  Laurel let go of the button to turn on the second set of lights.

  Timokhin’s eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw her. She looked at him for a moment, his toes still reaching the ground and preventing the full weight of his body from crushing his neck, then jammed her finger on the button.

  She was going to let him hang, but just as his toes were leaving the ground, the crank pulling the rope jammed.

  He was too heavy for it.

  He clawed at his throat as his feet kicked wildly, struggling to find the floor and keep as much weight as possible from his neck.

  She looked at him as he struggled like a fish on the end of a hook. His face purple, his eyes popping, his fingers digging so deep into his throat they were drawing blood. He was in for a very slow strangulation. It was a cruel fate. It would have been kinder if the crank had lifted him into the air.

  Laurel knew if anyone deserved an agonizing death like that, it was Timokhin. But she also knew that if she inflicted it, if she watched it, if she took pleasure in it, she would be one step closer to becoming him.

  She walked behind him and took his gun from his belt. Then she went back around to face him.

  “Any last words?” she said.

  He clawed at her desperately, gasping and gurgling.

  She was still naked and before killing him, she removed his enormous jacket. She didn’t want it covered in blood.

  “You don’t deserve this,” she said.

  Then she pointed the gun at his forehead and pulled the trigger. His head leapt backwards, blood spraying onto the wall behind him, and his enormous body went limp.

  She put on the jacket, which was more like a tent, and pulled it around herself. Then she checked his pockets. Apart from the gun, he had a wallet, some keys, and an electronic keycard.

  Before leaving, she carefully checked her legs, ankles, and feet for injury. There was bruising but nothing seemed broken. She could walk.

  She left the cell and climbed the staircase to a room that looked like the inside of a work shed. It was built of corrugated steel and had a concrete floor. It was cold inside and light was coming from a small window next to the door.

  She glanced out the window and saw that she was in a forest. There was snow on the ground. There was a car parked outside and a man in a driver’s uniform was leaning on it, smoking a cigarette, his back to the shed.

  She went to the door and tried to open it but it was locked. There was an electronic pad next to it and she tried the key card she’d taken from Timokhin. The lock beeped and a green light flashed.

  She drew the gun and checked that it was loaded. Then she crept out the door and ran for the nearest trees. The snow hurt her feet. She reached the trees and crept slowly toward the car, careful not to make a sound.

  When she was about twenty feet from the driver, she rose up and pointed the gun at him.

  “Hands up,” she said, approaching the car.

  She expected him to offer no resistance but instead, he moved like a trained agent, diving for cover behind the vehicle and pulling a gun of his own.

  Laurel instantly leapt onto the hood of the car. She slid across it, into the man, and before he could overpower her, jammed her gun into his ribs and pulled the trigger three times.

  70

  Tatyana got off the train in New York and called Roth.

  “I’m in the city,” she said as she crossed the terminal.

  “All right,” Roth said. “I just got the location.”

  “Where is the bastard?”

  “The Four Seasons.”

  Tatyana stopped in her tracks.

  “What?”

  “I know,” Roth said. “It’s where you were staying the night you were attacked.”

  “The GRU practically own that place,” she said. “Going back will be very risky.”

  “Tatyana. You don’t have to do this. We can call it in. It will take some time, but we’ve got more than enough proof to persuade the president.”

  “No,” Tatyana said. “We can’t wait for that.”

  She hung up and caught a cab outside the station. She told the driver to let her out a block from the hotel. As she walked toward the entrance, she felt an overwhelming rage at what had happened to her.

  She’d had no time to really process it, but now that she was back, the depravity of what they’d done to her made her skin crawl.

  They’d ordered her to seduce her own assassin, to let him have his way with her, to let him do whatever he wanted, knowing that later that night he would kill her.

  She knew Spector had already killed the man, or more accurately, that his elderly mother had killed him, but she still had rage for the GRU men who’d set it up.

  She’d always known her job was dangerous. She’d accepted that fact a long time ago. And she knew she’d put herself in extra danger by leaking that vial to the Americans. She’d betrayed her country.

  There was a price that had to be paid for that.

  But the way Igor and Timokhin had played her, getting her to fuck her own killer, that went beyond the bounds of what she was willing to accept. That added insult to injury.

  No man would ever have to die that way.

  She had the Glock in her coat and ran her fingers over its cold steel.

  As she entered the hotel, everything she’d done in her years as a GRU agent came flooding back to her. She’d slept with targets, she’d slit their throats, she’d furthered the interests of power-hungry, evil men.

  But worst of all, she’d broken her own code.

  She’d let them fuck her.

  “Men will do many things to you in your life,” her grandmother had told her. “They’ll do things you’ll think will destroy you. They’ll have their way with you. They’ll hurt you. They’ll violate you. But only you can ever truly let them fuck you, Tatiusha.”

  It was true advice.

  And in all her years in the GRU, Tatyana had thought she was living by it. She’d thought she was in control. Even when she let them sleep with her, she thought she was holding them back, protecting herself, preserving the part of her soul that mattered.

  But she was wrong.

  She was wrong, and she’d been fucked.

  As she walked across the lobby of the hotel, she felt as if she was tempting fate. The place was GRU central. Any active agents in the city were likely staying there. They could be in that bar right now, sipping expensive cocktails as she’d done. If there was any place in the world she was likely to be recognized outside Moscow, this was it.

  She went to the reception and tol
d the concierge she’d lost her room key.

  “What room?”

  “707.”

  “You have your ID?”

  She showed him the ID she’d checked in under and he created a new key for her. That meant the clock was ticking. Someone, somewhere in the GRU, was being notified at that very moment that there’d been activity on her hotel account.

  She didn’t care. If she was going to go out, she would go out in style. She wanted to send Igor a message, a message that he was in trouble, a message that she was coming for him.

  She walked past the Chanel boutique where she’d bought the dress. She looked through the window as she passed. The girl who’d served her saw her and waved. Tatyana waved back.

  Those days were over.

  As much as she hated to admit it, that hurt too. She’d liked those expensive things. They’d symbolized something to her. They were her armor, her sign to herself that she’d defeated something, some monster under her bed that no one but her knew existed.

  And then she thought of Spector.

  The Asset, the Americans called him.

  It was because of him that she was there. Because of him that she’d betrayed her country, lost everything she’d ever valued, and almost lost her life.

  And it was because of him that she’d finally stood up for herself. Because of him that she’d finally said enough to the men who’d been fucking her for as far back as she could remember. Because of him that she’d dared to challenge the men, and the system, that had taken her mother from her, and her father, and her grandmother, and almost her own soul.

  She’d always thought it ironic that she was a GRU agent, fighting for the most powerful men in Russia, and the only man who ever stood up for her was an American.

  She sat down at the bar and ordered a martini. Across from her, right there, barely thirty feet away, was Harry Mansfield, Director of the NSA, the traitor who’d caused Lance Spector’s death.

  The bar was busy and she made sure he didn’t see her, not yet, but she watched him.

  He was drinking a beer, relaxed. He looked at his watch every few minutes. It was clear he was waiting for someone.

  This was Roth’s mole. The leak. He was the reason Lance and the other assets were dead. He was the reason Igor found out she’d leaked the vial. It all came back to him.