The Russian

by Saul Herzog

  He’d decided that he needed to get this warning to the people who had the power to prevent an attack, even if that meant getting himself sucked into something he didn’t want to be part of, and despite the fact that it would probably mean he’d never find out who was behind the threat.

  He saw on the directory that the Diplomatic Security Service was on the third floor and pushed the button. When the elevator doors opened, he was in a small lobby with some sofas and a desk. Sitting at the desk was a serious-looking woman in a silk blouse.

  Most people had left the office, and her job consisted mainly of sitting on her seat, surfing social media and playing solitaire.

  She didn’t seem to appreciate Lance’s interruption to her routine.

  “Hi,” Lance said. “I’m from upstairs. We just had something big come in, and I want to get it in front of the Station Chief immediately.”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said, looking up from her screen. “Who did you say you were?”

  “Anderson,” Lance said, sliding a plastic ID card across the desk.

  The credentials were standard issue and gave him a false name, diplomatic cover, and a CIA clearance without referring to any specific role. They were great for gaining access to the embassy or getting through an airport security check, but using them here was risky. There was a good chance this woman knew everyone with access to the Station Chief by name.

  “I just shipped in,” he said. “Still trying to get used to this cold. You got any tips?”

  She smiled thinly and swiped his card through the security scanner. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” she said.

  They waited awkwardly while the scanner did its thing.

  There was a large window overlooking the central courtyard of the compound, and Lance looked through it.

  “Quite the view,” he said.

  She nodded disinterestedly.

  There seemed to be some sort of delay with the scanner, and Lance began to worry his credentials had already been revoked.

  “I really need to see him,” he said. “It’s urgent.”

  She looked up from her screen, her smile telling him that she really couldn’t care less about the hurry he was in.

  “Just waiting for the security check to pass,” she said. “It seems to be acting up.”

  “Can you just put a call through and let him know I’m here?”

  “As I’m sure you can appreciate, Mr. Rapaport is a very busy man.”

  “He’s going to want to hear what I have to say.”

  “It’s also practically the middle of the night,” the woman said. “Maybe this is something you could come back with in the morning?”

  “This can’t wait.”

  “Well,” the woman said, tapping her fingers impatiently on the security scanner.

  “Look,” Lance said, “I’ve got information about an imminent security threat, and I need to speak to him immediately. This is something credible, and it’s urgent.”

  “If it’s urgent, you can take it to the security officer at the front gate.”

  “I’m not taking this to a guard. I need someone with authority.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to say to you, but I’m not calling Rapaport at home. If it’s so important, you can call him yourself.”

  “Give me his number.”

  “I’m not allowed to hand out private numbers.”

  Lance looked around the office. He was beginning to lose patience.

  He took in a deep breath and tried again.

  “Listen,” he said, “we seem to be getting off on the wrong foot.”

  “Not at all, Mr. Anderson.”

  “Why are you being so obstructive? All I want is to speak to someone in charge of security.”

  She glanced at her screen, and he saw she was beginning to get nervous.

  “What does it say?” he said.

  “Listen,” she said. “I can give you the number of the RSO. He’s in charge of security. Anything you said would go through him anyway.”

  “I need to speak to the CIA,” Lance said.

  “Do you want the number or not?”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “It’s the best I can offer.”

  “Fine,” Lance said. “Give me the number.”

  The woman wrote a name and phone number on a notepad, and Lance leaned over her, pretending to read what she was writing. He looked at her computer screen and saw the reason she was getting so nervous.

  A bright red box on the screen read:

  Known Security Threat. Highly Dangerous. Assistance Called.

  He leaned back before she realized he’d seen the screen. She handed him the note, and he glanced at it.

  “You’ve been very helpful,” he said, putting the paper in his pocket.

  He looked around the lobby for an exit. Security was already on its way and he couldn’t use the elevator.

  He looked at the window again. Three floors down to the courtyard, which was paved in cobblestones. He wasn’t going to survive that fall.

  “Where’s the stairwell?” he said.

  She was visibly worried now.

  “That way,” she said, nodding down the corridor.

  Lance started walking down the corridor as the elevator dinged behind him.

  The elevator door was opening, and at the same time, the door at the end of the corridor leading to the stairwell opened. Four marines stepped out.

  Lance turned to the elevator, where four more marines were just exiting.

  “That’s him,” the receptionist said, pointing at Lance.

  “Halt,” one of the marines shouted.

  They drew their guns. Lance was unarmed. He looked up and down the narrow corridor, where four armed men stood at either end. He considered his options and decided he wasn’t about to kill eight US marines.

  Getting arrested might even turn out to be a faster way of getting in front of Rapaport anyway.

  “Hands in the air.”

  Lance put his hands up. The marines closed in, their guns pointed at him. They clearly had him flagged as a high-level threat.

  “I’m unarmed,” Lance said, trying to de-escalate the situation.

  He was going willingly. The last thing he needed was a bullet from a jumpy marine.

  “Down on your knees,” a marine shouted.

  Lance dropped to his knees and put his hands behind his head. He knew there was no point saying anything to these men. Their system said he was a terrorist, and they weren’t going to listen to a word he had to say.

  He waited, remaining still, and when they got close enough, two men rushed forward and knocked him to the ground, twisting his arms behind his back and getting him cuffed securely.

  33

  Medvedev stood in the doorway of his office, ogling his secretary. She was wearing a short skirt and a light, silk blouse that he’d personally chosen for her. The fabric of the blouse was so thin he could see clear through it, and she squirmed in embarrassment under his gaze.

  He was about to say something lewd when the phone rang.

  She picked it up and answered in a voice as soft as a kitten.

  She pressed the receiver against her chest and looked up at him. “Your call to the NSA Director is ready, sir.”

  “Tell them to place it,” he said.

  It hadn’t been easy getting Sandra Shrader’s personal cell, but this was an emergency. It was the whole reason he’d dragged himself back to the office in the middle of the night.

  Levi Roth’s golden boy was at it again, threatening the entire operation.

  If he didn’t get this situation dealt with in the next couple of minutes, the entire attack would have to be called off.

  “Put her through,” he said, shuffling back into his office.

  He shut the door and sat in his enormous leather chair. As he picked up the receiver, he ran his tongue over his lips.

  “Sandra Shrader,” he said in his stilted English, “I hope I didn’t wa
ke you.”

  “Who is this?” Sandra said, her voice frantic.

  That was understandable. Her daughter had just been kidnapped, and she had no idea what was going to happen to her.

  “This is the man who’s, how should we say, babysitting your daughter.”

  “What have you done with her, you sick bastard?”

  “My goodness, Sandra. Mind your language, please.”

  “Where is she?”

  “You’ll get her back soon enough.”

  “If you harm a single hair on her head, so help me God.”

  “She’ll be right as rain, Sandra. So long as you do exactly what I say.”

  “I’m calling the president right now. The secret service will be all over you.”

  “You make that call, Sandra, and Lizzie ceases to be of any use to me.”

  “You’re going to hell, you sick, rotten, piece of…”.

  “Now, now, Sandra,” Medvedev said. “Let’s not get crude. This is a simple business arrangement. A quid pro quo. No need to make it more complicated than it has to be.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line, and then the sound of a stifled scream, as if she were screaming into a pillow. She let out all her rage, then came back to the phone.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Nothing too complicated. Just a little favor.”

  “What sort of favor?”

  “You’ll hardly notice it. The type of thing you do all the time. I have a situation that, how should I say this, needs to be resolved in a way that conforms to my interests.”

  “You want to influence a situation?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Regarding US national security?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Sandra. I just need a little nudge.”

  “What you’re asking is treason.”

  “It’s nothing of the sort.”

  “I could go to prison for the rest of my life if I don’t report this.”

  “Yes, yes. We’ve been over all that. You call it in. I slit your daughter’s throat. I might even have her brought to Moscow so I can see to it myself. I take a lot of pleasure in such things. I like to draw them out. Make a meal out of them.”

  Sandra began sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Maybe I’ll send you a memento,” he said. “A finger perhaps. Or a toe. Or her head on a platter with an apple stuffed in her mouth.”

  Sandra was crying so hard Medvedev was afraid she’d hurt herself.

  “Breathe, Sandra,” he said. “Deep breaths.”

  He could hear her trying to pull herself together. He waited while she cleared her snot and composed herself.

  He had to get this next part just right. If she got even a whiff of what was going on, everything would be finished. He had to keep her off balance, make her believe his problem was personal, that Levi Roth was his target.

  He had a lot of ground to cover. It would be tricky, but he knew she would want to believe what he was saying. Her brain would do anything to avoid having to choose between her daughter and her country.

  And as long as she could tell herself this was nothing more than the usual jockeying for power, the political tug-of-war of a new CIA director and his Russian counterparts, she would do what he wanted.

  She was a mother, and her daughter’s life was on the line. Mothers were curious creatures. They possessed instincts that should have made them so powerful, but instead, only seemed to make them weaker. They were so easy to threaten, so easy to manipulate.

  Every instinct in Sandra’s body was telling her he meant what he was saying. She knew, deep down, that there was nothing he’d like more than to follow through on his threats.

  She cared only for Lizzie. She’d sell out a thousand Levi Roths for her daughter. Any mother would.

  “The man who called last time,” she stammered.

  “My man, yes. He’s very reliable, Sandra.”

  “He said if I did everything perfectly, that Lizzie would be returned.”

  “So you’re ready to talk?” Medvedev said. “You’re done crying?”

  “Yes,” she said uncertainly.

  “I don’t want to hear any more of this silliness about going to the secret service.”

  “Okay.”

  “You do what you’re told, and everyone gets to walk away from this happy.”

  “All right,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  He nodded to himself. She was ready to surrender, defeated, the spark of rebellion gone.

  He still had to be careful. There were limits to what she would do for him. She wouldn’t out and out betray her country. Not yet. That would take time.

  But Levi Roth? He could get her to betray him.

  “Listen carefully,” he said. “We don’t want any misunderstandings.”

  “I’m listening,” she said.

  “The first thing, the most important thing, is that you need to sound absolutely normal. If anyone suspects even the slightest thing is wrong with you, if they think you’ve been compromised in any way, it’s game over.”

  “All right.”

  “Little throats will get slit.”

  “I said all right,” Sandra cried, the tears coming back.

  “You can do that?”

  “I can try.”

  “Oh, you’ll have to do better than try, my dear. Lizzie’s depending on you.”

  Sandra went through another round of sobbing, and Medvedev waited impatiently for her to pull herself together.

  “All right,” she said. “I’m ready. I’ll do what you want.”

  “Good,” Medvedev said. “This is quite urgent. I need you to act quickly.”

  “Okay.”

  “There’s an incident taking place right now at the embassy in Moscow.”

  “The American embassy?”

  “Yes. A CIA agent has just been arrested. He used fake credentials, and he was flagged.”

  “Okay.”

  “He’s being taken to a secure interrogation room in the embassy as we speak.”

  “All right.”

  “This agent is very important to Levi Roth. Roth’s been looking for him. He’s going to want to speak to him.”

  “Okay,” Sandra said.

  “I need you to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “If he’s CIA, he’s under Roth’s jurisdiction.”

  “Not if you say he’s a potential terrorist.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  Sandra thought for a moment, then said, “Is this agent’s name Lance Spector?”

  “Oh, look at you,” Medvedev said. “You’ve been doing your homework. Already researching the opposition.”

  “Levi Roth’s not my opposition.”

  “You tell yourself that.”

  “Listen to me,” she said. “There’s nothing I can do here. Spector is Roth’s man. They go back years. The president knows he’s no terrorist.”

  “Does he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Without a doubt?”

  “Nothing is without a doubt.”

  “Exactly. Say you know it sounds far-fetched, but you have real data that’s raising flags on every circuit board between Fort Meade and US Cyber Command.”

  “They’ll be able to verify that’s not true.”

  “This will all be behind us by then. Just hint that you’ve got intelligence suggesting this, Sandra. Don’t give details. It’s a diversion. You can say later it was a false alarm. I just need you to buy me some time. I must have Spector alone in that interrogation room.”

  “And Roth can’t speak to him at all? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Say no one can speak to him. Not the ambassador, not the senior diplomatic staff, not the marine lieutenant colonel.”

  “What are you playing at?” Sandra said.

  “That’s between me and Levi Roth,” Medvedev said. “We go back a very long time, and believe me when I say I have good
reasons to want to get this asset away from him.”

  “You were behind the attack on the Special Operations Group, weren’t you? The deaths of those other assets.”

  “I have my fingers in a lot of pies, Sandra.”

  “And what pie are you getting me into here?”

  “Listen, Sandra. We’re not here for history lessons. You don’t care about these petty rivalries. You don’t care about Levi Roth’s career prospects. He’s a big boy. He’ll look after himself. You need to concentrate on getting your daughter back.”

  “Anything that harms Roth harms American interests.”

  “You can’t honestly believe that,” Medvedev spat.

  “He’s the CIA Director.”

  “CIA Directors come and go. What do you care who sits in his seat?”

  Sandra sighed.

  He almost had her, just another little push.

  “It will never go to plan,” she said. “This will blow up in your face. And then it will blow up in my face.”

  Medvedev did have more leverage. He had secrets Clarice Snow had given him that Roth didn’t even know existed. He would have liked to keep them in his back pocket, there was no knowing when he would need them, but if he had to give them to Sandra now to seal this deal, it was a price worth paying.

  “Listen, I’ve got documents that are going to seal the deal for you. Things that will blow the lid wide open on Levi Roth. Just do as you’re told,” he said. “Whatever happens can’t be as bad as what I’ll do to your daughter.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s ludicrous. If Roth wants to speak to his own asset, I won’t be able to stop it. The president won’t believe for a second Spector’s a terrorist.”

  “He doesn’t have to believe it, Sandra. He just has to hear that you’ve heard enough chatter in the airwaves to raise the threat level. Say your people need a couple of hours alone with Spector. Even just one hour. All you want is to keep him isolated, no visitors, no phone calls. It makes sense.”

  “And Roth’s going to just sit by quietly and let that happen?”

  “What can he do about it?”

  Sandra sighed. “Even if Roth believes I have something real on Lance, he’s not going to let the NSA interrogate the single most valuable asset in CIA history. There are too many skeletons in the closet.”