“Goddamn, it’s good to be a businessman just like in the West,” he said.
McGarvey felt a touch of sorrow for the man, because even if the deal had been legitimate he would probably have been cheated out of his finder’s fee by his brother-in-law. It wasn’t western business, but it was the new Russian business.
He was passed through passport control at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo-2 International Airport without trouble, and his Finnair flight touched down at Lidosta International’s too-short main runway, the pilot standing on the brakes all the way to the end, around 10:00 P.M.
He’d repacked his gun inside his laptop, so he encountered no problem with Latvian customs either, though passengers arriving from Russia were given a closer scrutiny than those from the West. His passport and visas were in order, and he was admitted without a search of his single carryon bag.
Taking a cab downtown to the main railway station, McGarvey walked over to his apartment three blocks away, making two passes before he went in. With less than a week to May Day he was starting to get a little jumpy. So far his plan had gone according to schedule. In a few days the Russian border guards would let him cross with the Mercedes without a search, and once in Moscow he would be welcomed back by the Mafia as Pierre Allain, a well connected Belgian businessman. No one would connect him to McGarvey, the American assassin. Yet he was beginning to have a very faint premonition of disaster, and he’d been in the business too long not to heed such feelings. Long ago he trained himself to distinguish legitimate sixth-sense concerns from paranoia.
After he unpacked and took a quick shower he stood by the window looking down at the street while he had a cigarette and a bottle of beer. In another few days or so Russia would be plunged into another major turmoil, possibly even a bigger one than the 1917 revolution. This time Tarankov would die, so that he could not take the country back. However it turned out was anyone’s guess. But McGarvey was already beyond the philosophical debate within himself. Now it was simply a matter of tradecraft. Of doing the job and getting away. His thoughts had become super-focused.
But something nagged at him. Some disconnected thought, some distant rationalization in a back compartment of his brain, that instinctively he thought was important.
He stubbed out his cigarette, and went downstairs to the pay phone in the back hallway. Nobody was around, and the building was quiet.
Using his Allain credit card, he telephoned Rencke in Paris. It was answered on the second ring.
“Hiya,” Otto said. It sounded as if he were out of breath and anxious.
“Have you heard from my daughter?”
“Sure did, and everything’s fine,” Rencke responded with the proper code phrase. “You’re going to have to call it off now for sure.”
“Have the CIA and French picked up my trail?”
“They’re using Jacqueline and somebody that Ryan sent over. I can’t find out who it is, but they’re serious,” Rencke said. “But that’s not the real problem, Mac. It’s Bykov, the Russian special investigator who’s looking for you. I tried to dig up some more of his background, but I kept running into a blank wall, because Yuri Bykov does not exist. There is no such man who ever worked for the KGB. But the security firm he supposedly works for in Krasnoyarsk is owned by Tarankov.”
McGarvey’s jaw tightened.
“I wouldn’t bet my gonads on it, Mac, but I’d wager even money that Yuri Bykov is in reality Leonid Chernov. So you gotta call it off, Mac. You just gotta.”
“Do they have my Allain identity?”
“I don’t think so—”
“Then nothing has changed,” McGarvey broke in. “They don’t know who I’m posing as, they don’t know when I’m coming across, nor do they know how I’m going to do it.”
Tarankov’s raid on Smolensk after several days of lying low, had completely convinced McGarvey that the Tarantula would be showing up in Red Square on May Day, and would not wait until the general elections. The brief mention of the raid in the Herald-Tribune and on CNN warned that if the reaction of the people of Smolensk was any indicator, the country would not hold together until the elections. Which meant Tarankov would make his move in Red Square on May Day, declaring himself the leader of the new Soviet Union, just as McGarvey had suspected that he would.
“You’ll have to kill Chernov,” Rencke said.
“If our paths cross I will.”
“They will,” Rencke said, after a brief strained silence.
“I need you to do one more thing for me, Otto,” McGarvey said.
“What is it?” Rencke asked dejectedly.
“Do you think that the SVR knows that someone is roaming around inside their computer system?”
“No.”
“Can you get a direct line to Yemlin’s apartment, through an SVR secured line?”
“I think so,” Rencke said with renewed interest because he was being handed another challenge.
“Call him right now, and warn him off. Tell him who Bykov is, and tell him that I’ll call him one hour from now at the number I called him from Helsinki. He’ll know what you’re talking about.”
“What if he’s not there?”
“He’ll have a rollover number, or he’ll be carrying a secured beeper in case of emergencies. Just get the message to him, okay?”
“Mac, I’m scared big time,” Rencke said. “I’ve got this bad feeling, you know?”
“Just hold together a little longer, Otto.”
“Yeah. We’re family after all. We’ve gotta stick together, or else there’s nothing left.”
Courbevoie
Rencke stared at the display on his computer screen, his shaking hands hovering over the keyboard. In the past week he’d discovered a way by which he could defeat his own backscatter encryption program to the extent that he’d gained the ability to trace a call even though both sides of the line were encrypted.
McGarvey was in the Latvian capital city of Riga, or at least within the city code 2.
He glanced at the open package of Twinkies, his last, lying on the table beside him, and tears suddenly came to his eyes. Mac was the only friend he’d ever had. Ever. The only human being who’d ever treated him fairly, who’d ever understood him, and who’d ever accepted him. Even his parents had rejected him when he was fifteen in Indianapolis. His father in a drunken rage had kicked him out of the house. His mother had pressed some money into his hand outside in the darkness, and kissed him. “You’re too smart for your own good,” she’d said. They were the last words she’d ever spoken to him.
The only other people who tolerated him were the geeks on the Internet. Most of them were idiots, but sometimes they provided a diversion. If they didn’t always agree with his views, at least he was respected on most of the Web sites.
He flicked the Twinkies into the overflowing wastepaper basket, and with a dozen keystrokes was inside the Latvian telephone exchange system. He fed in McGarvey’s telephone number, which pulled up a locator code. Within ten seconds he had an address, with a designator that the unit was a pay phone, and his heart sank. McGarvey had probably called from an anonymous booth on the street somewhere. Nevertheless, he entered the maintenance database within the Riga telephone exchange which displayed a street-by-street city map. McGarvey’s number came up as a street address. A building on Gogala Street a few blocks from the train station, which the telephone company listed as a multi-unit private dwelling. An apartment building. Mac had rented an apartment in Riga.
Rencke entered the information on a tamper-proof section of a hard disk, then backed out of the program, and quickly got into the SVR’s system on the Ring Road in Yasenevo on the outskirts of Moscow.
Scrolling through the personnel files, he came up with Viktor Yemlin’s locator file and instituted a call to the secure line to his apartment. The telephone was answered on the first ring.
“Da.”
“Is this Viktor Pavlovich?” Rencke asked in Russian.
“Yes. Who
is calling, please?” Yemlin replied. He sounded harried.
“An old friend wishes to speak with you fifty-five minutes from now at the same number he used when he telephoned from Helsinki.”
“Is this a joke? How’d you get this number? Who is this?”
“Julius loves you,” Rencke blurted. “Please call at once.” It was the ad that Yemlin had placed in Le Figaro with the SVR’s data number.
“Yeb vas,” Yemlin said, shocked. “Who is this?”
“A friend who wants to warn you that the head of the special police commission, Yuri Bykov, is in reality Leonid Chernov, Tarankov’s chief of staff. Can you take this call in fifty-four minutes?”
The line was dead silent for several seconds. “Nyet,” Yemlin said in a strangled voice. “That phone has been bugged. They’re listening with tracing equipment. He must not call that number. Do you understand me? He must not call.”
The connection was broken.
Rencke stared at the screen briefly, wondering if he should reinstitute the call.
He brought back the pay phone number in McGarvey’s Riga apartment, and had his computer speed dial it. After one ring a recorded announcement in Russian said the number was a simplex instrument, and the connection was broken. The phone could be used only for outgoing calls. It could not receive incoming calls.
Rencke got into the Riga telephone exchange back directory in an effort to find out if there were other telephones in the building. But there were none. Even if there had been a telephone he could have reached, he couldn’t imagine what he would have said to whoever answered.
He backed out of that program, and pulled up the worldwide travel agent reservation system, and searched for flights between Paris and Riga with empty seats on any airline leaving as soon as possible.
The information came up on his screen, but he could only stare at it in frustration. What was he supposed to do? Jump on an airplane, fly to Riga and take a cab out to Mac’s apartment? Then what?
He looked up at the clock. Mac would be making his call in fifty minutes, and there was nothing Rencke could do about it.
He fished the Twinkles out of the wastepaper basket and dejectedly started to eat as he moved over to a computer hooked into the Internet.
Mac wanted to be backstopped, so here he would have to remain.
Paris
“Nothing,” Jacqueline said, hanging up the phone.
Elizabeth sat with a glass of white wine in front of the laptop computer, staring at the messages scrolling up the screen. It was late and she was very tired.
They’d been trying without luck for the past thirty-six hours to find out about the anonymous remailer address that Twinkie had used on the net.
“Samat doesn’t exist,” Jacqueline continued. “There is no such remailing service anywhere, which means it’s a ghost service.”
Elizabeth looked up.
“If it’s Otto Rencke, then he created the address to hide his real location. But the fact is, that anonymous remailer address exists only in cyberspace. And only he knows how to access it from behind.” Jacqueline threw up her hands. “The man’s a genius. We’ll never get close to him unless he wants us there.”
“Screw the bastard,” Elizabeth said. She turned back to the computer, and entered Twinkie’s anonymous remailer address.
Subject: Re: CIA CLANDESTINE SERVICES 4/27/99 01.38
Twinkie, it’s you who doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Your cats probably pissed all over your pc and shorted your brain. Get real!!!!!!! (lizmacitemone)
Several unrelated messages scrolled up her screen, until Twinkie’s anonymous remailer address appeared.
From: an [email protected]
Subject: Re: CIA CLANDESTINE SERVICES
4/27/99 01.43
I suppose you know what you’re talking about from long experience, lizmac.
(twinkieitemseventeen)
“Don’t lose him,” Jacqueline cautioned.
“He has this number now, and if it’s Rencke, and if he traces it he’ll know that this computer is located in my father’s apartment.”
“He’ll think it’s a trap.”
Subject: Re: CIA CLANDESTINE SERVICES
4/27/99 01.44
I grew up with my dad’s stories. Twinkie handle have any significance, or is it just bullshit!!!
(lizmacitemtwo)
From: an [email protected]
Subject: Re: CIA CLANDESTINE SERVICES
4/27/9901.45
Do you have anything significant to add to this discussion or are you just trying to irritate us?
(twinkieitemeighteen)
Subject: Re: CIA CLANDESTINE SERVICES
4/27/99 01.46
I’m interested in the business. Care to chat? (lizmacitemthree)
From: an [email protected]
Subject: Re: CIA CLANDESTINE SERVICES
4/27/99 01.47
Standby and I’ll download some of the highpoints.
The telephone rang, as the computer screen came alive with messages dating from last week scrolling at ten times normal speed.
“It might be him,” Jacqueline said, looking at the telephone. “You answer it.”
The telephone rang a second time before Elizabeth picked it up.
“Hello?”
The line was silent for a few moments, then there was a subtle shift in the sound quality of the hollowness.
“Lizmac?” a man asked. His voice sounded high pitched, and strained.
“Yes. Is this Twinkie?”
“Tell me something.”
“This is an open line—”
“It’s being monitored, but I’ve taken care of it.”
Elizabeth held the phone so that Jacqueline could hear as well.
“My name is Elizabeth McGarvey. Are you Otto?”
“Do you still have the diamond necklace your father gave you in Greece?”
It was something only her father knew about.
“Actually he gave it to me when I was in school in Switzerland. But I lost it in Greece, when he found it he gave it back to me.” It had happened during the operation her father had been involved with a few years ago.
“What are you doing here, Liz?” Rencke asked.
“Trying to find my father. I know that you and he are working together, and I know that Viktor Yemlin has hired him to kill Tarankov. But the Russians know about it, and they’ve asked the CIA and the SDECE to help out. Ryan’s agreed. So my father’s walking into a trap. Where is he, Otto?” It all came out in a rush.
“How do you know all this—”
“I’m working for the CIA now!” Elizabeth cut in. “Where is my father? I have to talk to him.”
The line was silent.
“Otto, goddammit, don’t hang up on me! Ryan’s an asshole, and I don’t have any intention of turning my father over to him or to the French. But I have to try to warn him.” Elizabeth was sick with fear. If she lost Rencke now she’d never get him back. “Jacqueline Belleau has agreed to help me.”
The connection had not been broken, but the line remained silent.
“We’ve got less than seven weeks to stop him. You have to help us, Otto. You’re our only hope.”
“You don’t have seven weeks,” Otto said, his voice very strained, even higher pitched than before. “I think Mac’s taking him out on May First. Four days from now.”
A vise closed on Elizabeth’s heart, but she immediately saw the logic in it. Tarankov wasn’t going to wait for the general elections in June. He’d be in Red Square on May Day and her father would be there waiting for him.
“There’s something else you don’t know. The Russian police commission supposedly headed by Yuri Bykov. Well, that’s not his real name. He’s really Leonid Chernov, who is Tarankov’s chief of staff.”
“Dear God,” Elizabeth said. “Is my father already in Moscow?”
“No, he’s in Riga. But in a few minutes he’s going to make the biggest mista
ke in his life when he tries to call Yemlin. Yemlin’s line is bugged. When Mac calls, the Russians will know where he’s calling from and Chernov will come after him.”
“The Latvians will never allow it.”
“Chernov might convince them somehow.”
“But that’ll take time,” Elizabeth cried. “You can warn him first.”
“There’s no way to get through by phone and I’ve got to stay here in case he tries to call me.”
“Jacqueline and I will fly up there.”
“The French are watching you.”
“Not now. They think we’re at a dead end. They’ve written us off, Otto. Give me his address, we’ll get there in time, I promise you.”
“Put Mademoiselle Belleau on the line.”
“I’m here,” Jacqueline said.
“If I give you Mac’s address will you turn it over to your people?”
“Only if I think that there is no other way in which to save Kirk’s life.”
“If you betray him, I’ll kill you.”
“Don’t worry, Monsieur Rencke, I love him just as much as you do.”
“Liz, are you there?” Rencke said, hesitating.
“Yes. Where is he?”
“He has an apartment in Riga,” Rencke said. He gave her the address. “I don’t know which unit he’s in, but he called me from a pay phone in the building.”
Elizabeth’s heart sank. Her father could just as well have called from a building across the city from wherever he was holed up. But she didn’t say anything. For the moment it was their only lead.
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