Assassin

by David Hagberg

  “This is not such an easy place,” his driver said pulling up. “Maybe you could use some help.”

  McGarvey held up a British hundred-pound note. “I collect military uniforms. Identity cards. Leave orders, pay books. That sort of thing.”

  “I know a guy who has that stuff,” the cabby said, reaching for the money. But McGarvey pulled it back.

  “I don’t want any trouble. I want to buy a few things, and then I want you to bring me back downtown to the same place you picked me up.”

  “You need some muscle. Five hundred pounds.”

  “A hundred now and another hundred when we get back to the city.”

  “I don’t want any bullshit,” the driver protested as he reached for something in his jacket.

  McGarvey pulled out his pistol, jammed the barrel into the man’s thick neck, and pulled the hammer back. “Don’t fuck with me, I’m not in the mood,” he said in guttural Russian.

  The driver froze, his eyes on McGarvey’s in the rearview mirror.

  “You can either make an easy two hundred pounds, or you can try to take everything I have.”

  The cabby shrugged and laughed nervously. “Your Russian is pretty good, you know. Where’d you pick it up?”

  “School One,” McGarvey said. It was the KGB’s old spy training school. One of the best in the world.

  “Okay,” the cabby said, blanching. “No trouble.”

  McGarvey uncocked his gun, stuffed it in his pocket and gave the cabby the hundred pounds.

  They drove around to the west side of the vast parking lot where the cabby led McGarvey to a ring of a half-dozen army supply trucks and troop transports. Within a half-hour McGarvey bought a canvas carryall and an army corporal’s uniform, including greatcoat, olive drab hat, gloves and cheap leather boots. He also bought the identity papers and leave orders for Dimitri Shostokovich stationed at Zakamensk in the far southeast along the Chinese border. The burly entrepreneur who sold him the lot for a hundred pounds stamped the current dates on the orders, and flashed McGarvey a gold-toothed grin.

  “The photographs don’t match, but no one will look very closely,” he said. His breath smelled like onions and beer. “You’ve got eleven days until you’re AWOL. But nobody gives a fuck about that either.” He stuffed everything into the carryall.

  Several men came into the circle of trucks and stood around one of the barrels of burning rags.

  “Time to go,” McGarvey’s driver warned.

  McGarvey reached his hand into his coat pocket and partially withdrew his gun. He looked directly into the salesman’s eyes. “I don’t think those gentlemen mean us any harm.”

  “No,” the salesman said after a moment. “But if there is nothing else you wish to buy, perhaps it is time to go. Unless you would like some help with your … project.”

  “What project would that be?” McGarvey asked easily.

  The salesman motioned toward the carryall. “Maybe you yourself are a businessman. I have certain connections.”

  McGarvey seemed to think about it for a moment. “How do I find you?”

  “I’m here every night. Just ask for Vasha.”

  “The … project could be big. Maybe you couldn’t handle it.”

  Vasha licked his lips. “You might be surprised.”

  McGarvey picked up the carryall. “I’ll keep you in mind.”

  “Okay, you do that.”

  On the way back into the city the cabby once again kept looking at McGarvey’s image in the rearview mirror. He sensed that some kind of a deal was going down and he was hungry. He wanted to be a part of it.

  “I know this city. I could take you anywhere you want to go,” he said hopefully. “Nobody can watch their own back one hundred percent. I’ve got good eyes and plenty of guts. And I’ve got some pretty goddamned good connections. I brought you to Vasha with no trouble.”

  “What’s your name?” McGarvey asked.

  “Arkady.”

  “How can I reach you? Day or night?”

  Arkady snatched a business card from a holder on the dash and passed it back. “How do I reach you?”

  “You don’t,” McGarvey said. The cabby’s name was Arkady Astimovich and he worked for Martex, one of the private cab companies in the city. “We’ll see how you do this time, Arkasha. Keep your mouth shut like you promised, and I might have something for you.”

  “What about tonight?”

  “No. And don’t try to follow me. A little bit rich is better than very much dead. Do you understand?”

  They pulled up at the curb a couple of blocks from the Metropol near the Moscow Arts Theater. Traffic was heavy tonight. The driver stared at McGarvey’s reflection for a few moments. “I understand,” he said.

  McGarvey handed him the second hundred pounds, got out of the cab and disappeared into the blowing snow and crowds with his canvas carryall.

  He ducked into the shadows of a shop doorway just around the corner, and waited for five minutes, but the cab never showed up. Astimovich was hungry, but apparently he was also smart.

  Hefting his carryall, McGarvey walked down to the metro station on Gorki Street and bought a token for a few kopecks. Just inside he studied the system map which showed the stop for the Leningrad, Kazan and Yaroslavl Stations was Leningradskaya. He put his token in the gate, and when the light turned green he descended to the busy platforms. It took him several minutes to figure out which train was his, and he got aboard moments before the doors closed. There were less than a dozen people aboard the car, among them four roughly dressed young men, whom McGarvey took to be in their twenties. They eyed him as he took a seat by the door, the carryall between him and the window.

  He had no illusions about what Russia had become, but since his arrival in Moscow this morning the only cop he’d seen was the one directing traffic near the hotel. In the past the Militia seemed to be everywhere, including the metro stations. But Moscow, and presumably the entire country, had sunk into an anarchy of the street. The only faction with any real power was the Mafia and the armies of private bodyguards. Street crime was not completely out of hand yet because businessmen and shopkeepers paid protection money called krysha, which literally meant roof. Without it you were either a nobody or you were dead. And the Militia might come if they were called.

  At the next stop a couple old women got aboard, spotted the four young men, and immediately stepped off. A couple of the other passengers also got out, and the remainder kept their eyes downcast.

  Three stops later all the other passengers got off the car, leaving only McGarvey and the four men, who got up and languidly took up positions at the front and rear doors. They didn’t speak nor did they make any effort to approach McGarvey, but they watched him.

  The public address system announced the next stop was Leningrad Station, and as the train slowed down McGarvey got up and went to the back door. One of the young men grinned, showing his bad teeth. He started to say something when McGarvey smashed the heel of his heavy boot into the man’s right kneecap, the leg snapping with an audible pop.

  He went down with a piercing scream. The second man shoved him aside with one hand while fumbling in his ragged coat pocket with his other.

  Before he could pull out a weapon, McGarvey smashed him in the face with a roundhouse right, his head bouncing off the door frame. McGarvey pulled him forward, off balance, and as he doubled over, drove a knee in the man’s face.

  McGarvey pulled out his gun, and brought it up as he swiveled around in one smooth motion to face the other two men charging up the car toward him. “Nyet,” he warned.

  The two men pulled up short, angry and confused and a little bit fearful. In a matter of seconds the man they’d targeted to rob had taken out two of their friends, and now held a gun on them as if he knew what he was doing.

  The train came to a halt, the doors slid open, and McGarvey stepped off, pocketing his gun before anyone on the crowded platform could see what was going on. He headed directly for
the escalators to the street level.

  There was a commotion on the platform behind him, but he didn’t think the other two men would be coming after him. They’d be getting their two injured friends out of there before someone else moved in and took advantage of them.

  Yaroslavl and Leningrad Stations were directly behind the metro entrance, separated from each other by a large brown brick building where advanced reservation train tickets were sold to Russians. Only tickets that were to be used within twenty-four hours were sold from the train stations in a complicated system that separated foreigners from Russians, and Russian civilians from veterans and active duty soldiers. Even most Russians didn’t understand the system, and sometimes the lines were endless.

  McGarvey ducked around the corner and crossed the street where in the darkness behind the advanced ticket building, he changed into the army uniform, stuffing his civilian clothes into the carryall. The uniform stank of sweat and mildew and dirt, and the greatcoat with corporal’s chevrons was stiff with grease and mud. The boots were cheap, worn down at the heels and extremely uncomfortable. He pocketed his gun, and the identity and leave papers, and pulling his filthy fur hat down over his eyes, made his way back to the Yaroslavl station. Tickets for veterans were sold from two windows upstairs, and although the station was extremely busy this evening, he got lucky and only had to wait in line for an hour and a half. No one paid him the slightest attention. He could have been invisible.

  He paid for a round trip fourth class, or hard class, ticket to Nizhny Novgorod, which on the timetables was still listed as Gorki, from a surly old woman, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. She barely looked up at him, but she didn’t start working on the tickets until McGarvey had passed his money thorough the narrow opening.

  Downstairs in the cavernous arrivals and departures hall, McGarvey bought a couple bottles of cheap vodka, a few package of Polish cigarettes, and a package of greasy kielbasa sausages, a loaf of dark bread, some pickles, a couple of onions, a large tomato and one bottle of mineral water. All of these he stuffed into his carryall, then headed down to wait for his train. He cracked the seal on a bottle of vodka, took a deep drink, and sat on his carryall in the middle of the huge crowd waiting for the train.

  It took him a few minutes, listening and watching, before he began to pick up an undercurrent of excitement. Something rare for Russians. All these people were going to Nizhny Novgorod for the same reason. To see Tarankov. The Tarantula. Their savior. And they were excited about it.

  SIXTEEN

  CIA Headquarters

  Elizabeth McGarvey looked up from her computer screen, the Cyrillic letters of the Russian language blurring in her vision. It wasn’t 5:00 P.M. yet which meant she had another half-hour of this crap before she could get out of here. She got up and walked past the rows of the translator’s stations to the women’s room, where she dampened a paper towel, daubed her face, and looked into the mirror at her bloodshot eyes, and pale complexion. She was only twenty-three, and already she was taking on what her co-workers called the archival pallor. The only light that ever shined on them fifty hours a week came from fluorescent tubes in the ceilings, and monitors they sat in front of. She was in love with the idea of working for the Central Intelligence Agency, but bored out of her skull with translating foreign broadcasts—mostly Russian these days—for the analyst geeks up on the fourth floor. But she was still too new to ask for a transfer to the Directorate of Operations, and she was already getting the impression that being her father’s daughter put her at a distinct disadvantage so long as Howard Ryan was DDO. She brushed her long blonde hair, touched up her lipstick and went back to her console.

  Over the past three or four days the analysts had demanded information about the ultra-nationalist General Yevgenni Tarankov. Though nothing official had filtered down to them in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening. Tarankov had probably hit the Riga nuclear power station in Dzerzhinskiy—she’d seen a brief mention about him in Novy Mir—and it was also possible that he’d been involved with the incident in Red Square the next morning in which Yeltsin had died. But his death didn’t make any sense to her. If Tarankov was behind the explosion in Red Square Yeltsin would have been the direct target. There was no other reason for such an attack. If that was the case, and Yeltsin had died in the blast, and not of a heart attack as the Russian media was reporting, it meant the Kremlin was lying for some reason.

  Elizabeth brought up the transcripts for the past seventy-two hours of on air broadcasts of the official Russian news agency, transferred the entire block of material into the RAM section of a recognition program she’d been working on for the past couple of weeks, and asked the computer to search for three pieces of information. Yeltsin’s movements, Tarankov’s appearances, and the routine informational news releases issued by the offices of the President, Minister of Defense and the mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg over that period. They were the most powerful men in Russia. And they had the most to lose if Tarankov won in the June elections.

  Her boss, Bratislav Toivich, came over as the program began to run. He was a Lithuanian who’d immigrated to this country in the late fifties as a young man, but he’d still not lost his accent, or his rigid hatred for the Russians. He was a thick-waisted man who smoked constantly, and always had a hangdog look as if he’d just received some terrible news. No one had ever seen him smile. But he was brilliant, he was fair, and he was kind. Everyone loved him.

  “Are you writing love letters now?” Toivich asked pulling up a chair beside her.

  “The company doesn’t give me the time for a love life.”

  “Aren’t there any good men in Washington these days?”

  “None that I’ve met.”

  Toivich studied the blocks of text rapidly shifting across the screen. “What are we looking for here? This is your new program?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said. She turned to him. “Yeltsin’s heart attack doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “Dzerzhinskiy could have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. He’s had health problems for years.”

  “Agreed. But no one is making a big deal out of the car bombing in Red Square. That in itself is kinda weird. You’d think they’d be all over it, Mr. B. The Communists should be screaming bloody murder. They’ve been predicting this sort of thing all along. It’s the moderate reformers’ fault.”

  “Maybe it is,” Toivich suggested.

  Elizabeth was shocked. “I can’t believe you said that.”

  “As far as I’m concerned the dirty bastards can wallow in their own filth, they deserve it. But what’s happening in Russia now was expected. In any change, especially such a big change, anarchy always follows. How they come out of it will be a measure of their strength.”

  “You think Tarankov has a chance?”

  “Let’s put it this way, my little devochka. He hasn’t one chance in a million of failure. The military is behind him, and so is the FSK.”

  Elizabeth looked at her computer screen. “It’ll be worse than before.”

  Toivich shrugged. “In that case we’ll deal with the situation just like we’ve dealt with every other crisis. We’ll play catch up.”

  “Was it all a wasted effort?” she asked sincerely. There were so many things that she did not understand yet. She wished her father were here at her side to talk to. But he’d go ballistic when he found out his only daughter was working for the Company. She wanted to get into operations training at the Farm first, before she broke the news to him. She wanted him to be proud of her, something her mother never could be.

  Toivich’s face darkened. “Don’t ever say that again,” he said harshly. “A lot of good people gave their lives to fight the bastards. And if you don’t understand that, you of all people, then you don’t belong here.”

  Elizabeth was instantly contrite, though in a hidden compartment at the back of her head, she wanted to lash
back. If we’d done such a hot job defending the faith, then why were there more troops under arms worldwide than at anytime since the Second World War? Why was everything going to hell in Russia? Why had the world become such a dangerous place? Who was kidding whom?

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean it the way it came out.”

  “Your daddy would take you over his knee if he heard you talking nonsense like that,” Toivich said. “Have you talked to anybody about this program?”

  “Nobody other than you.”

  “Well, shut it down for tonight. They want to talk to you upstairs right now.

  Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed, her stomach fluttered. “Who wants to see me, and about what?”

  “Mr. Ryan’s secretary called, but she didn’t say why,” Toivich said.

  Elizabeth’s temper flared, but Toivich held her off before she could blurt out anything.

  “Ryan’s problem is with your father, not you. And that’s a subject you’re supposed to know nothing about, so keep your temper in check,” Toivich said. “If he tries to pull anything with you he will be stepped on, I promise you. Nonetheless he’s still Deputy Director of Operations. And if you ever want to get over there you’d better learn something your father never learned. Politics.”

  “Bullshit,” Elizabeth said sharply.

  “I’m from the old school, Elizabeth, which means I’m not very politically correct. Where I come from young ladies don’t use words like that. Maybe next time I’ll wash your mouth out with soap.” He looked indulgently at her. “Would you like me to come up there with you?”

  “No thanks, Mr. B. You might be from the old school, but I’m from the new. My dad taught me to fight my own battles.”

  “I’ll be here when you’re finished if you want to talk.”

  “Thanks,” Elizabeth said. She shut down her program, and took the elevator up to the sixth floor where she was directed by a civilian guard through the glass doors at the end of the corridor.