The Asset

by Saul Herzog

  “At the presidential compound at Novo-Ogaryovo,” the president said.

  “Yes, sir. It’s one of the few places in Russia that’s even more secure than the senate building.”

  “Significantly more secure, I hear.”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  “And what about when he’s traveling between the Kremlin and Novo-Ogaryovo. He must be vulnerable then.”

  Lance listened to them beat around the bush and he couldn’t stand it. This shit with Roth, the plastic surgery, the manipulation, was precisely the kind of thing that caused him to leave the agency in the first place. Now they were letting political considerations cloud their judgement, and were trying to talk Laurel out of a perfectly planned military operation.

  He got in front of the screen.

  “Mr. President,” he said, “it’s like this. We thought about taking Davidov while he traveled between locations. He moved by armored cavalcade. It was heavily guarded, but there were certain spots, such as along Tverskaya, where it was vulnerable to attack.”

  “But that plan’s changed?”

  “The Russians are spooked, sir. Laurel took out Timokhin. Tatyana killed Mansfield. The Russians are feeling the heat, and Davidov’s taken to traveling strictly by helicopter. He flies directly from Novo-Ogaryovo to the Kremlin and back. We can’t shoot him down. There’s too high a likelihood he’d be killed and we want to talk to him if possible. So, either we grab him at Novo-Ogaryovo, or we take him at the Kremlin.”

  “And you prefer the Kremlin?”

  “If you’re worried about the optics, the political fallout, maybe attacking Novo-Ogaryovo is preferable. But operationally, given the security upgrades that have been performed on that compound over the last decade, taking him at the Kremlin is our preferred option.”

  “I see,” the president said.

  “We’ll be in and out in a matter of minutes,” Lance said, “and sir, if I may be frank, regardless of what happens once we break in, I highly doubt the Russians will ever admit that we’d successfully broken into the Kremlin.”

  “You think they’d be afraid of losing face.”

  “Wouldn’t you, sir? That fortress has symbolized their military power for the best part of a millennium.”

  The president looked at some of the generals and advisors who were seated around him.

  “Gentlemen,” he said to them, “what do you think?”

  “This Davidov,” one of the generals said, “has the last remaining sample of the virus?”

  Roth answered. “That we know of, general. The lab that isolated the virus in Yekaterinburg has been destroyed. The lead researcher from the institute has confirmed all the experimental strains were destroyed in that attack. Other than those, we know of only two vials that ever left the institute. One was given to Tatyana Aleksandrova.”

  “Which was given to us,” the president said.

  “Yes, sir,” Roth said, “and the second was given to Major General Anton Yevchenko, who we believe passed it on to Davidov in Moscow.”

  “So if we take Davidov, we take out the virus?”

  “That’s the hope, general,” Roth said.

  The general nodded. Roth looked at the president and he seemed satisfied also. Everyone in the Pentagon turned to face Lance and Laurel.

  Roth cleared his throat. “You’re good to go, guys.”

  “God speed,” the president added.

  75

  Laurel stood next to Lance but neither said a word. They were in the massive State Department Store, one of the largest stores in Moscow, and directly across Red Square from the Lenin Mausoleum. Behind the Mausoleum was the sheer, red wall of the Kremlin’s outer perimeter.

  The walls were equipped with underground sensors to prevent tunneling, motion sensors along the outer face to prevent climbing, and infrared cameras along their length to detect any attempted entrance.

  Laurel had disabled all those sensors, which hadn’t been complicated, and also tricked the security system into thinking they were still active, which had been extremely complicated.

  Lance could see why Roth liked her so much. She was certainly more than just a pretty face.

  It was dark outside and the department store was beginning to shut down for the night.

  “You want a cigarette?” Lance said.

  Laurel shook her head.

  “Take one,” he said. “You’ll blend in better.”

  She took a cigarette from the pack and leaned in to let him light it for her.

  “I’m sorry I never told you,” she said.

  “You don’t have to apologize to me.”

  “You’re mad at Roth.”

  Lance nodded.

  “He had his reasons,” she said.

  “Don’t talk to me about Roth’s reasons,” Lance said. “I could tell you things about that man that would make your blood boil.”

  “Like what?”

  He looked at her, then away again.

  “He was trying to protect you,” she said.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Laurel.”

  “He cares about you,” she said.

  He turned to her. “I don’t see how you’re not more upset about this. He made you get cosmetic surgery, Laurel. Think about that. How sick that is. It’s worse than sick. It’s insane. What did he think? That I’d take one look at you and not remember what he’d done?”

  “What he’d done?”

  “You know I almost killed him once. I was this close.” He held up his hand to show her the inch between his thumb and forefinger.

  “He thinks of you as a son,” Laurel said.

  “Please don’t go there.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “What worked?”

  “You said you wouldn’t have even spoken to him if it wasn’t for me.”

  Lance shook his head. “That’s no excuse.”

  Just thinking about it made him so angry he wasn’t sure he could go through with the mission. He took the pack from his back and let it fall to the ground.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I swore a long time ago I’d had it with all this shit.”

  “You can’t walk away now.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of the virus.”

  “Fuck the virus.”

  “Lance.”

  He began walking across the square. He was done.

  “Lance,” Laurel called.

  He looked over his shoulder at her, hurrying after him, her pack on one shoulder and his on the other.

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  “I’m not letting you go.”

  “It’s not your choice.”

  “You can’t let your anger at Roth stop you from doing what you know you have to do.”

  “I don’t have to do anything.”

  “You have to stop this virus and you know it. It’s the reason you came after me.”

  Lance stopped and she caught up to him. She handed him his pack.

  “It wasn’t him, you know,” she said.

  “What wasn’t him?”

  “It wasn’t his idea.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I was the one who suggested it. I saw the pictures of Clarice and I saw it immediately. I was the one who suggested it.”

  “You suggested the surgery?”

  “Yes, Lance.”

  He shook his head.

  “You thought you’d just make a few tweaks to your face and I’d do whatever Roth asked?”

  She looked at him but her lips didn’t move. He could see in her eyes she didn’t know what to say. She’d made a mistake. And now it was going to cost the mission.

  “I told them to do it because I thought it would bring you back.”

  “What are you? Some kind of psycho? Who thinks like that?”

  “They told me they needed you back. They said without you, they had no use for me. They were going to get rid of me.”
/>   “And this was your answer?”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “I know it sounds crazy, Lance. Believe me, I know that. But back then, I don’t know, I thought I could help. I wanted to serve my country.”

  “This isn’t how you serve your country, Laurel.”

  “They shot my father in the back,” she said, tears running down her face.

  He shook his head. “This isn’t how you get even.”

  She was about to say something else but shut her mouth. She nodded. “I know that,” she said.

  Lance sucked on the cigarette and threw the butt on the ground. “It’s almost time,” he said.

  She let out a long sigh and adjusted the weight of her pack. They were both dressed completely in black, carrying black backpacks, and wearing earpieces for communication.

  “You clear on the plan?” Lance said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  He turned to her. “You want to know the worst thing about it?”

  She nodded.

  “The worst thing,” he said, “is that you still don’t know what you’ve done.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I told you before, Laurel. Things are never what they appear with Roth.”

  “What things?”

  “Keep us in the dark and feed us shit. Isn’t that what I told you when we first met?”

  “Yes, but what are you talking about?”

  “I wasn’t in love with Clarice, Laurel. You went and recreated her, put her face on yours, and the worst part of it is, I didn’t even love her.”

  “Of course you loved her.”

  “Why? Because Roth told you?”

  “Because you went off the deep end when she died.”

  “I didn’t go off the deep end.”

  “Lance, it’s in the file.”

  “Roth was the one who ordered her killed. Was that in the file?”

  “What?”

  “She was a traitor, Laurel. She’s the reason we were breached in the first place. The reason the Dead Hand even knows we exist. All of this, Mansfield getting ahead of us, our network being breached, the other assets being killed, all of that goes back to her. It all started with her speaking to the Dead Hand.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Sure it does.”

  “Why would Roth let me go ahead with the surgery if she was a traitor?”

  “Because he knew it would work anyway.”

  “Lance,” Laurel said, “why would it work anyway?”

  He looked at her. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to feel the relief of someone else knowing what it was he was holding in. But he couldn’t do it.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said.

  He started walking across the square toward the mausoleum.

  “Why would it work anyway?” she said again, “If he knew you weren’t in love with her?”

  He didn’t stop and she had to run after him again.

  “Lance,” she said, “Lance, wait.”

  76

  Across the square, Lenin’s Mausoleum rose up from the ground like an ancient ziggurat.

  Lance strode toward it and, Laurel, when she realized where he was headed, ran after him.

  The square was dark and mostly empty, and the two guards stationed in front of the mausoleum watched them approach.

  Lance didn’t think, he didn’t hesitate.

  He drew a silenced handgun and shot both guards in the head from fifty feet away. They crumpled into two piles on the ground.

  He hurried up the steps and pulled them into the mausoleum’s recessed entrance. Laurel pulled their large overcoats up over their faces.

  “They’re not sleeping,” Lance said.

  “You’re insane,” Laurel hissed.

  He looked at her, then jumped and grabbed the ledge above him, pulling himself onto the first step of the mausoleum’s stepped structure.

  He reached down to help her. She hesitated before giving him her hand.

  The mausoleum walls were of smooth marble but they were able to climb it one step at a time. When they got to the top, they were forty feet above the square. They crouched and looked at the Kremlin walls in front of them, twenty feet higher still. Directly beneath them, inside the mausoleum, the embalmed body of Vladimir Lenin lay on a stone altar, as it had for generations.

  “The sensors are disabled?” Lance said.

  Laurel nodded.

  He took a rope and grappling hook from his backpack and began swinging the hook.

  Laurel followed his lead and did the same.

  “You sure you’re up for this?” he said to her.

  She gritted her teeth and nodded.

  “Your shoulders were hurt during the interrogation.”

  “I’m not going back now, Lance.”

  “You’re acting on emotion,” he said.

  She made to say something but instead, swung her hook three times and let go, sending it in a high arc over the parapets of the Senatskaya Tower above them.

  “See you on the other side,” she said, and leapt.

  She arced through the air, flying over a thin stretch of trees and shrubs, and landed solidly against the Kremlin’s outer wall, stopping herself with her feet.

  Immediately, she began climbing the rope toward the top of the tower.

  Lance swung his rope over the parapet next to hers and followed her.

  She was waiting for him on the tower’s turret. She reached down to help him over the wall. He looked at her. There was a mischievous grin on her face.

  “Too proud to accept help from a girl?”

  He grabbed her arm and let her pull him up.

  “You all right?” she said.

  “I’m fine, Laurel.”

  “You want some help with the next jump?”

  “I think I’ll manage.”

  “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “All right, Laurel.”

  “I mean, I’m only looking out for you because I care.”

  “I get it, Laurel.”

  “You don’t like it either.”

  “I said I was sorry.”

  “No you didn’t.”

  They pulled up their ropes and rounded the turret. From its height, they could see out across the Ivanovskaya Square toward the Dormition Cathedral and the Patriarch’s Palace.

  Soldiers from the elite Presidential Regiment were on patrol but it was clear from their bearing that the alarm hadn’t been triggered.

  “All clear,” Laurel said.

  Lance nodded and flung his rope across the gap separating the tower from the senate building. The hook caught onto the eave of the dome and he tested it before making the leap. He swung across the gap, sixty feet above the courtyard, and as soon as he reached the wall, the hook lost purchase and slipped a few feet to a lower ledge. He dropped about three feet and had to catch onto the railing of a balcony and pull himself onto it. At that very moment, the hook lost purchase again and fell past him to the stone ground, where it clanged loudly.

  He looked up at Laurel who was still on the tower’s turret. She gave him a thin smile then flung her hook higher onto the dome, where there was a more substantial ledge for it to grab onto.

  She swung across the gap and climbed safely to the domed roof. Then she brought her rope over Lance’s balcony and let him use it to join her.

  “You all right, buddy?”

  He shook his head.

  “You really got to make sure those hooks find their spot.”

  “Thank God for you,” he said, then pulled up the rope and wrapped it around his arm.

  “It doesn’t look like they heard your racket,” she said, looking down at his hook on the ground below.

  “Thankfully,” he said.

  The senate building was shaped like an elongated triangle, about 300 feet in length along the longer sides leading to the dome. Beneath the dome was the grand Catherine Hall, over eighty feet in diameter. In the
center of the building was a triangular courtyard, crossed by two raised walkways. Beneath the walkways were triumphal arches which broke the courtyard into sections.

  Lance and Laurel were on the roof of the dome, directly above the Catherine Hall.

  Using Laurel’s rope, they attached the hook firmly to the roof and rappelled down the inner wall to the central courtyard.

  They descended the three floors and left the rope hanging where it was. If everything went according to plan, they would be climbing back up it in a few minutes.

  There were no soldiers in the courtyard, but they could see them in the corridor inside, standing at attention in their ornate uniforms. They were officially an elite unit, but were more ceremonial than anything, armed with World War II era SKS semi-automatic carbines, complete with foldable bayonets. The guns looked nice, and had an illustrious history in Soviet service before their replacement by the AK-47, but it certainly made Lance breathe easier knowing that was what they were up against.

  “You know how to find the office, right?” Lance said.

  “Do I look like an idiot?”

  As well as disabling the sensors, Laurel had been responsible for memorizing the internal schematics of the building, and she led the way across the courtyard and through one of the huge triumphal arches.

  The glass doors from the courtyard to the building were unlocked, and led to a grand hallway, complete with wood paneling and polished marble floors. One side of the corridor was lined with windows looking out on the courtyard, while the other was lined with stone statues, interspersed with flags bearing the presidential seal.

  There were two guards at the end of the hallway and Lance shot them both with a silenced pistol. He ran up to them and dragged the bodies behind a statue. Then he looked around the corner and saw two more guards on the top of a grand, curved staircase.

  They had their backs to him and he was about to take them out when Laurel tapped his arm.

  “We’re going this way,” she said, leading him past the staircase and further along the corridor.

  She counted four sets of doors and they stopped outside the fifth.

  “This is it,” she whispered.

  “What’s behind these doors?”

  “An anteroom, and then Davidov’s office.”

  “Are there guards in there?”

  “Gee, Lance, they didn’t have little pictures of soldiers on the schematics.”