Long Shot

by Sgt. Jack Coughlin

  The general from St. Petersburg promised that he would. The president was tempted to remind him that history was littered with the bones of generals who had grown too ambitious.

  KOEKELBERG, BELGIUM

  Ivan Strakov had dealt the game from a stacked deck, played the hand, made the bets and won. It was sweet. The CIA people were unhappy with him for reneging on the agreement. So what? The first outburst had been to threaten to send him to a supermax or the Guantánamo prison or turn him over to some banana-republic dictator who would do their bidding. That was a bluff. Ivan knew that a prisoner swap eventually would be arranged because some important American should have been arrested by this time. Better than a fortune-teller, he had already written the future. A prisoner exchange was certain.

  They had become petulant, and moaned and taken away his privileges, which bothered him not at all. Everything would work out. About now, NATO would be holding emergency meetings and urgently shifting units toward the North Pole, war-gaming worst-case scenarios and trying to envision what would result from a nuclear exchange at the top of the world. Those non-NATO nations like Finland and Sweden would be shitting their pants. And on the Russian side, Valery Levchenko would be orchestrating everything. Phase Two of Operation Hermitage should be ready to begin.

  There were always unknowns, but nothing was perfect. Strakov was confident that his meticulous scheme would overwhelm any obstacles. He shook out a cigarette and lit it, blowing smoke toward the camera mounted in a corner.

  NARVA, ESTONIA

  Mayor Konstantin Pran was one of thirty-one members of the City Council, but his Worker’s Party had won all but five seats from the upstart Social Democrats. The decisive political victory gave him a huge majority, and the five minor-party members were not even invited to the first meeting of the new government. If they showed up, they would have been barred from the room under the claim that the meeting was a not a public meeting, but a private caucus of the Worker’s Party.

  Russian was the only language spoken that afternoon in the upper corridors of the Town Hall, for the Old Guard had already made its authoritarian presence known. Pran and his henchmen had worked hard to craft their majority and saw no reason to waste time now. The mayor had been handpicked for the position by friends in both Moscow and St. Petersburg, and was the acknowledged leader of his party. His voice was the only one that really counted.

  In public during the campaign, the party’s candidates spoke of corruption within the Social Democrats, promised higher wages for all, an improved standard of living, a severe crackdown on criminals, a fight against greedy capitalists in Tallinn, lower taxes and strong security. In private, after hours, they always remembered when the city tried to secede from Estonia and reunite with Russia a number of years ago. Some 97 percent of voters had approved, but the federal government in Tallinn ignored the election and forced Narva back into line. Mayor Pran and his friends believed the time was ripe to try again; no, not to try, but to do it. Back then, Narva had no army standing by to guard its decision. This time would be much different. The entire police force was made up of tough Russians; active-duty soldiers in mufti. An entire protective armored force was poised in the town next door, separated by just a river. The council’s first and only piece of business that afternoon was to vote to secede.

  With that accomplished, the new council members cheered and congratulated one another and drank toasts of vodka from little glasses. Food carts were wheeled in for a party, and families and friends joined them. Konstantin walked out hours later, filled to bursting with pride, and also a little drunk. He decided to make one final stop before going home. He had never seen an American spy.

  The basement of the Town Hall smelled of decay and mildew. Over the years, it had primarily become the resting place for things that were unwanted elsewhere in the government building. During the Cold War, the space had been expanded to be deeper and wider to create several special rooms that would be bomb shelters when the Western powers attacked. These small rooms had been furnished, had stores of food and water, waste facilities and ventilation, and were expected to last for up to two weeks. The doors were of steel. When Russia pulled out, Estonia could not afford such useless hidey-holes, and all but one had been turned into giant storage closets for boxes and crates. The final room was used to hold special prisoners until the Russians could come and pick them up.

  A young policeman with close-cropped dark hair was on sentry duty, seated in a wooden chair and reading. He put aside the magazine when he heard someone coming down the stairs, and snapped to ramrod-straight attention when the mayor appeared. Mayor Pran paused and inspected the guard. A sharp Spetsnaz commando. “Good man. You remain alert in this dreary place. I shall mention that to your chief. Now, please open the door. I need to speak to our prisoner.”

  The tall cop did as he was told, and Pran knocked quietly on the steel panel three times before opening the door. The prisoner was a woman and he did not wish to find her in a compromising situation. Then he went inside.

  Jan Hollings was on her feet, waiting, tense but not weeping. She was tall and had piercing blue eyes that made Pran think for a moment that she was Swedish or Norwegian and not American at all. A lightweight blanket was around her shoulders.

  “Mrs. Hollings, I am Konstantin Pran, the mayor of Narva,” he said in good English.

  “I know who you are. Why have I been taken prisoner?”

  “Because you are a spy of the CIA, my dear.” He seemed amused, and looked at the little table with the wilting flowers and leftover food. “You have been treated well?”

  “A spy? Mayor Pran, I am just a housewife who also runs a clothing company in Tallinn.”

  “Yes, of course. You were here to spy on our election and report back to your masters.” He giggled girlishly. “This is the conversation of a thriller movie, is it not?”

  “I want to go home.”

  “And you shall. You shall be reunited with your important U.S. Army colonel husband very soon.”

  Hollings felt a surge of hope. The man was tipsy. “Well, that will be very good, but I am no spy. You have made a mistake.”

  Konstantin Pran smiled, his cheeks pulling aside to show capped white teeth. Such dentistry required money, Calico thought. She sat on the cot and crossed her legs, noticing when his small eyes checked her. He continued to stand, hands clasped before him.

  “I watched you speak at the square this afternoon. Congratulations on your election.”

  “I thank you for that, madame. It is quite an honor for me. My city is at the most important juncture in its history.”

  Jan was looking directly at him, unafraid. She had just established that it was still the same day. She smiled shyly. “Narva has been around for many, many years, sir. Why is this time more important than all that has gone before?”

  Again came the giggle and he waved one hand to dismiss this. “Ah, you are playing the spy with me again. It is no matter, for you will know everything by this time tomorrow. By then, Narva will once again be part of Russia.”

  “You know that the Estonian federal government will never permit that,” she said, her eyes narrowing.

  The mayor shifted his weight and his ego was boosted by the alcohol he had consumed. “There will be another rally in St. Peter’s Square tomorrow morning and I will formally issue a declaration of secession. At precisely nine o’clock on Tuesday, I shall walk across the bridge and invite Russian troops to come over from Ivanogrod to defend us. Colonel General Levchenko himself, the powerful district commandant, will personally lead the force into town.”

  Calico was stunned. “NATO will consider that an act of war.”

  The mayor spoke faster. “NATO is in disarray because of the new threats in the Arctic, so our move will meet little resistance. Russian troops will be in defensive positions before you Yankees and your NATO helpers can react in any significant manner. Afterward, things will only bog down in endless negotiations. The final piece will take place
when you, Mrs. Hollings, are exchanged for a very important person.”

  “Who?”

  The mayor laughed aloud. “Probably, I have said too much already, but as I mentioned earlier, it will make no difference. By the time you can get back tomorrow night, this will all be over. A fait accompli, with no options but war or negotiation, and NATO will not fight for Narva.”

  “You’re wrong, Mr. Mayor. Sadly, so very wrong. You know that if the Russians take Narva, they won’t stop until they have all of Estonia, and then they will move to make the rest of the Baltic dominoes fall. We will definitely fight to prevent that from happening. Without question. You are putting the world on the brink of a new war, and your city, Narva, will be ground zero. Your city will be utterly destroyed. Thousands will die.”

  He shook his head, bid her a pleasant night, gave a slight bow and left. The door locked behind him, leaving Calico sitting there trying to absorb the enormity of what would happen. She wanted to shout the news, but no one would hear her.

  The mayor stepped into the night and felt the moist air cool his cheeks. He got into a small car driven by an old friend, a retired policeman and who had become chief of the mayor’s security team, all ethnic Russians. Not that Pran thought he needed protection, because on this day, everyone loved him.

  Moscow, always skeptical, insisted. There might be a few Social Democrat thugs who wanted to protest. Most of the dissidents had been disappeared over the past months, but a handful of activists were still around. In a way, he regretted helping make some of his countrymen leave aboard the Black Trains, never to return, but the dream of reunification was more important than a few lives.

  The mayor and the guard shared a few laughs as the car drove away from the middle of the city and threaded through traffic to reach Pran’s suburban home, a modest detached building with a garage. He had raised his family there and knew every stone. Pran danced merrily up the steps and through the front door, calling for his wife. The guard parked the car at the curb, adjusted the seat and made himself comfortable. His twelve-hour shift lasted until dawn.

  Neither the guard nor the mayor had noticed a black motorcycle that had followed them, staying about a block or so behind, ducking out of sight briefly now and then, only to appear again in some blind spot. When the car stopped and the mayor went inside, the small dirt bike roared past the house and evaporated into the failing light.

  30

  HELSINKI, FINLAND

  LEM JAMES WAS WRAPPING up a long day. The special agent of the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service had been up to his elbows in work for the past forty-eight hours as tensions increased throughout Finland. The Russians were on the move on one side and NATO was awakening on the other, and Finland was in the middle. Diplomats in the laid-back city had been as busy as honeybees in the bright spring weather, and that meant that Lem and his fellow agents were working around the clock to protect them. Late-night meetings were becoming the norm, but maybe tonight he could get home to his wife and son in time for dinner.

  He had locked his safe and his desk and was putting on his jacket when the cell phone began a little bebop tune that meant a call was coming in. He was tempted to let it go until he saw the picture and name of Inspector Rikka Aura of the Finland Security Intelligence Service.

  “I told you never to call me here,” he answered in a teasing voice. “My other mistresses will get suspicious.”

  “I have no time to be a mistress for anybody,” Aura said. She sounded tired. “Sorry to call you so late.”

  “I always have time for you, Rikka. You know that.”

  The woman paused, as if gathering courage. “This is way off the record, Lem. You remember that friend of yours with whom I had a disagreement a while back?”

  “Yeah. You threw him out of the country.”

  “Meet me at Molly Malone’s as soon as you can.”

  Ten minutes later, they each had a foam-topped beer before them at a table in the rear of the pub, their heads almost touching so they could talk above the racket of a local band trying to play Irish music. Lem had rarely seen his friend so concerned, but understood that her neutral country was caught in a tightening vice because of its ardent neutrality. Failing to stand up to a bully never works—not on a playground and not in a global showdown.

  “My source for the information about when and how Kyle Swanson was coming to Finland was General Sir Frederick Ravensdale of Great Britain. He called me personally from Brussels. I assumed at the time that he was acting in his role as NATO deputy commander.”

  Lem pulled back, took a slug of beer, and said, “No shit? The guy who just got named to head the special northern task force? Why would he do that?”

  “I thought it was an unofficial favor. You know how that works, Lem. Now I’m no longer certain. The general did not want Swanson to linger in Finland a moment longer than necessary. Having me expel him forced your friend to act immediately and not make other arrangements. It forced him along a certain path. Does that make sense?”

  “No, but I’m not very smart. I will pass this along to my people. Thanks, Rikka. I know this was a difficult decision for you.”

  “It was, Lem. It could get me fired or imprisoned if it gets out, but Helsinki is in the crosshairs of whatever is about to happen and I think this might have something to do with it. You go home now and say hello to the family for me. Tomorrow may be hell.” She got up, touched his shoulder lightly and left the bar while he ordered another beer to help him digest the news.

  NARVA, ESTONIA

  The guard parked in front of the home of Mayor Konstantin Pran had a problem common to most men his age. As the time passed, and darkness fell like a shade across the neighborhood, boredom set in and his attention drifted to the edge of sleep. He jerked himself awake and checked the time. Too many more hours. He decided to get out, stretch his legs, bend his back a few times and go to the trees and pee. Tomorrow, he would pack a plastic jug in the trunk so he could do his business in the car, just as he had on stakeouts when he was a young cop.

  The night air was cool and welcoming. He could smoke out in the open, but not in the car. Silly rule. The neighborhood had settled down like a snoozing dog. The guard had done a pee break an hour before without incident. A jug would be better than getting a complaint from some neighbor who might see him urinating on the flowers. This time, the shadows were longer and the shade was deeper. As he unzipped his pants, a double garrote of fine piano wire was slipped over his head and bit into his neck.

  Kyle Swanson had waited patiently, knowing that it was likely the guard would repeat his earlier behavior to empty his bladder. He snapped the wire loops into place, crossed his hands to tighten it and pulled hard with a knee in the man’s back to force a bend. The garrotte cut through the flesh as fast as a spinning butcher’s saw, and went hard and deep completely around the neck. Kyle kept pulling through pharynx, larynx, trachea, esophagus, pharyngeal muscles and a field of blood veins. In a few seconds, the thin wire was sawing on the top of the spine. The guard had automatically reached up to pull on the wire, but Swanson was using the French Foreign Legion method. By using a very long wire, he was able to wrap it twice around the neck, so even as the victim clawed at one loop of the collar, the other was made tighter. Once snared, there was no way out. The man went down and Kyle straddled him until it was over. The corpse had been almost decapitated.

  Swanson unwound the wire, having to pull a bit to free it from the muscles and flesh, and stuffed the metal weapon in the backpack. He grabbed the dead guard by his shoulders and hauled him deeper into the trees. Peeling off a black raincoat that was smeared with blood, he spread it over the corpse.

  Then he pulled down the knitted balaclava mask, drew his .45-caliber Colt, slung on the backpack and headed toward the front door. An ankle holster held the 9mm Beretta Px4 Storm Compact. There was a light on the small porch. He unscrewed it and rapped lightly, four times.

  * * *

  THE MAYOR WAS AT the dining table. Hi
s wife, Ivi, had come home right after the swearing-in ceremony and devoted herself to building a spectacular meal of roast chicken, fresh vegetables, potatoes and a salad mixture of her own design. A thick, sweet kissel with ice cream waited as dessert. She was very pleased both with the meal and with her husband, and the tapping at the door annoyed her.

  “You stay and enjoy the food, Konstantin. I will get it. Maybe the guard has to use the bathroom.” Ivi put aside her folded napkin.

  The mayor watched her go with a private smile. They had been married more than thirty years and he still loved her spirit and admired her grace. He called, “Whoever it is, send them away, Ivi. The workday is over. This is our time.”

  She pulled the dead-bolt free and undid the thin brass chain. Just as she realized the light was not working, Kyle Swanson kicked in the door and sent her spinning across the hall, bouncing off of the wall. By the time she hit the floor, he had closed the door, was wrapping strips of duct tape around her hands and over her mouth like a cowboy roping a calf.

  Three and a half seconds after the door had opened, Swanson was down the hall, across the living room and descending on Konstantin Pram like an indoor hurricane. The mayor had managed to drop his silverware and begin rising from the chair when Kyle hit him with a body-tackle, feeling the weakness of the old man. In a few more seconds, the mayor was also hog-tied.

  Swanson stood and took a few deep breaths, then put them both in facing chairs in the living room. He had holstered his Colt, but now took it out and pointed the barrel directly at the top of Ivi’s head. In conversations with Anneli and Brokk about their election opponents, Kyle had been told that the mayor spoke English. In fact, the mayor bragged about his ability to bring in foreign investment because he could negotiate face-to-face. “You speak English?”

  Both of them nodded in the affirmative, and he put the gun away, went out and locked the door.

  Swanson shrugged out of the backpack and opened a side pocket to withdraw a block of gray plastic, which he placed on a table. He rolled the mass with his palms in easy strokes until the malleable material was a long, thick string. Moving to the wife, he roped it around her neck, gently pulling her hair free, and then connected the awkward necklace at the front of her throat.