Jack in the Box

by John Weisman

  Sam did exactly as he was told. He married an Agency reports officer six months before he was scheduled to leave Bonn. Her name was Janet Prescott, and Don Kadick, who was Sam’s best man, referred to the pair in his wedding toast as Sam and Janet Evening. They put off the honeymoon until Sam’s tour ended, then took three weeks to bicycle through France before returning to the States.

  It was, however, a marriage of convenience. Passionate indeed, but closer in its frenetic rhythm to the short-lived romances of cruise ships or ski resorts. The relationship didn’t last past Sam’s second overseas tour. The break was amicable. There were no children, and his ex-wife soon remarried. The groom was a Romanoff who currently was assistant deputy director for collection.

  After the divorce, Sam had had half a dozen long-term liaisons, always with American women, most of whom did in fact have Top Secret clearances. His most recent had been a two-year affair with the Moscow embassy’s chief admin officer.

  So Ginny had been right, Sam had to admit to himself as he stood in the shower. A wall of glass had indeed descended between them. Of course it had. O’Neill’s revelation had rocked him—and had changed the way he thought about her.

  He was tremendously attracted to her. He wanted a long-term relationship and all the trappings that went with one: intimacy, sharing, and trust, to name just three. But Vacario’s motives were now suspect. Sam couldn’t put out of his head the possibility that she was playing a long-term political game, and she was using him as a fulcrum to achieve her goals. And then there was the fact that she’d been working for CIA covertly in Bonn at the same time Edward Howard had been trolling for American assets in the German capital, and had not told him about it. There are no coincidences.

  The implications of that truism were hugely unsettling. Unsettling because Sam believed with every molecule of his body that moles did indeed exist burrowed deep inside the American intelligence community. Unsettling because Sam was convinced he’d always been correct in his contention that Rick Ames, Harold Nicholson, and even Bobby Hanssen were disposables, set up to draw attention away from Moscow’s most valuable human assets. Which meant secrets were still being stolen, and the Russians had high-ranking agents still in place. And where better to find secrets than to work for Senate Select, where many of CIA’s jewels were displayed on a regular basis.

  But if that scenario was true, what were Vacario’s motivations? Sam understood that all recruitments, whether ours or theirs, could be defined under four broad categories of vulnerability, those being money, ego, sex, and ideology. Once you spotted a target you thought might be suitable, you assessed their vulnerabilities. Did they need money? Could you cajole them through flattery, or with sex? Could you prey on their ideology?

  In France, Sam had recruited a left-wing member of the French parliament by using a Palestinian access agent to tweak the target’s blatant anti-Semitism. The Palestinian convinced the lawmaker he would help defeat Israel by handing over reports detailing DST surveillance of Mossad operations tracking Fatah operatives in France so that the Palestinian groups could take countermeasures that would increase their security. In fact, CIA was passing the reports to Mossad so that the Israelis knew what the French were up to. In return, Israeli intelligence passed CIA information about French-supplied components for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, as well as updates on Moscow Center’s activities in France.

  Sam knew Howard had used false flag operations in the past. Could Vacario have been recruited through one? He had to admit that the possibility existed. She might have been approached by a German official and asked to exchange information—something innocent. Then the ratcheting up would start. It wasn’t so far-fetched. Once Vacario had passed even a single sensitive document, she would be compromised—especially if there were photographs. Hell, if he were in Edward Lee Howard’s shoes, Ginny Vacario would be a prime target.

  Why the hell hadn’t she told him? What was she hiding? Sam tilted his face under the showerhead and let the water cascade over him. Nothing was simple. Nothing.

  SAM CALLED Michael O’Neill at seven-fifteen. “Drop by for breakfast, will you?”

  “I’m already on my way.”

  Sam turned the television set on and adjusted the volume. Sixty seconds later there was a “shave and a haircut—two bits” tapping at Sam’s door. He saw O’Neill adjusting his tie through the peephole and unlatched the security lock.

  “C’mon in.” Sam pointed at the tray holding a pot of coffee, two cups, a platter of coarse black bread, and a ramekin of butter. “Serve yourself.”

  “Bal’ shoye spaciba, Sam.” O’Neill poured himself a coffee, added milk, stirred, and sipped.

  “Nichevo, Michael.” Sam pointed toward the television. “I see you’ve been studying the Russian phrasebook. You ready?”

  “Locked and loaded.”

  “Good. Then have a look at this.”

  O’Neill followed Sam to the set. Atop it, Sam had placed a map of central Moscow. He unfolded the map and put his finger atop the site of the Marriott. “This is us.” He traced the cleaning route he wanted O’Neill to take. “Make sense?”

  The lawyer’s head bobbed up and down. “Just as we discussed.”

  Sam pulled the wallet from his jacket, extracted his trans-portnaya karta, and handed it to O’Neill. “You’ll need this for the metro.”

  O’Neill pulled an identical ticket out of his shirt pocket. “Keep it. I already bought my own.” He ran his finger along the route Sam had shown him. “Okay: I walk the first two legs—sixteen minutes each. Then I take Green to Belorusskaya, grab Circle Line to Taganskaya, then Line Six to Kitay-Gorod. I walk the last three legs. Ten minutes, sixteen minutes, twenty minutes.”

  “Right. The whole route should take you about one and three quarter hours.”

  “And if there’s surveillance, I’ll—”

  “If there is any sign of surveillance whatsoever, Michael, you break off. You abort—full stop. We don’t want a flap. Remember what the senator said.”

  “Amen to that.” O’Neill nodded, his face grim. “But if it’s clear for a go, I’ll be prepared.”

  “You have gloves?”

  O’Neill patted himself down. “Oh, for chrissakes, Cyrus …”

  “Not to worry.” Sam went to his shaving kit, unfastened the secret compartment, extracted a set of latex gloves, and handed them to O’Neill. “Here you go, Edward.”

  “Thanks.” O’Neill stuffed the gloves into his the breast pocket of his jacket so the fingers poked out like a handkerchief. “Will that do?”

  “Get serious.”

  “I am serious.” O’Neill stuffed the gloves into his pocket. “Sam, what if the letterbox is empty?”

  “Then it’s empty,” Sam said.

  “And if there’s mail?”

  “If there’s mail, do nothing. Come back, let me know, and I’ll find a way to get at it. I don’t want you running around Moscow with anything that could get you in trouble. You need to be discreet.”

  “I take great offense at that remark.” O’Neill slurped his coffee noisily. “I am the sine qua non of discretion.”

  “Just be careful,” Sam said. “With Howard dead, we have to assume that we are being tracked. Every move.”

  O’Neill’s expression grew serious. “Understood.” He pulled the pocket watch out of his vest. “I’ll split in fifteen minutes—height of rush hour.” He looked at Sam. “What’s on your schedule today?”

  Sam had plans but he wasn’t about to divulge them. “I’m meeting Ginny for coffee at ten. She has an appointment at the Foreign Ministry at one, and wants to go over some questions.”

  “How’s the relationship coming?”

  “There is no relationship.”

  In response, O’Neill’s index fingertip tugged at the skin just below his right eye. “C’mon, Cyrus …”

  Sam wasn’t about to say anything more. “You’re not cleared high enough to know.”

  AT TEN-TEN Sam wa
s standing in the lobby waiting impatiently for Ginny to show up when his cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket. “Waterman.”

  “Sam, it’s me.”

  “Michael?”

  “I’m, ah, in a police station,” O’Neill said. “I was wondering whether you could come on down and help me straighten things out. There has been a humongous misunderstanding.”

  “Where are you?”

  There was a pause. “It’s a police station on the edge of the Ukrainian quarter. The chap who speaks English says you walk east on Ulitsa Maroseyka from the Kitay-Gorod metro stop, past the Belarus embassy. The station is opposite—” There was a pause. Then O’Neill, sounding hugely stressed, said, “It’s across from Petrovsomething alley. Sam—they put a machine gun to my head. A machine gun! Get me the hell out of this mess.

  CHAPTER 19

  1:0:45 A.M. They’d locked O’Neill in a cage. He was sitting manacled to the arm of a steel chair that was bolted to the floor in the center of a four-foot-deep, four-foot-wide, eight-foot-high, steel-framed cube made of chain link and roofed over with razor wire. He looked as pitiful as a pound dog.

  When he saw Sam he strained against the cuffs. “Sam—I’m getting claustrophobic. Get me out. Get me out.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Sam gave O’Neill a hopeful smile and a thumbs-up. Then he flashed his official passport at the desk sergeant and asked to speak to whoever was in charge of the man in the cage. The officer picked up a phone and made a call while Sam stood there. Five minutes later, he was escorted through a steel door, ushered down an L-shaped, puke green corridor, marched around the corner past a lavatory, parked on a sturdy wood bench with graffiti carved on its arms and seat outside a pockmarked metal door with a pane of frosted glass so old it had turned yellow, and instructed to wait until summoned.

  After forty-five minutes the door opened and he was beckoned into a messy office by an overweight, bushy-haired man who carried a Tokarev pistol jammed in the waistband of a pair of brown tweed trousers shiny on the seat. A set of American-style handcuffs hung loose over the rear of his belt. Without a word the Russian closed the heavy door behind them and walked to the desk, standing with his back to the American, concentrating on some documents. Finally, he flipped the papers over so they couldn’t be read, then turned. “You wanted to see me?” he said in English.

  Sam spoke in Russian. “Good morning, Detective. My name is Samuel Waterman. I’m a member of a United States congressional staff delegation visiting Moscow on behalf of a committee of the United States Senate, and I understand you have arrested one of our members over a misunderstanding of some sort.”

  “Ah. So we have here a misunderstanding,” the policeman said in Moscow-accented Russian. He walked around the desk and pulled a pack of Marlboros out of the suit jacket he’d tossed over the chair back. He took one then flipped the pack atop the desk, tamped the filter end of the cigarette on the crystal of a thick chronograph, lit it with what looked to Sam to be a vintage Zippo lighter, inhaled deeply, and then turned to focus on his visitor. “You have extremely good Russian, Comrade Congressional Staff Delegation Member Waterman.”

  Sam said, ‘Thank you, Detective.”

  “It is not common for an American visitor to speak with a Moscow accent.”

  “I used to live here.”

  “Did you, now.” The Russian nudged a pile of documents with his buttock, then sat on the edge of the desk. “My name is Danilov.” He looked evenly at Sam. “Chief Inspector Danilov.”

  Danilov extended his hand. Sam took it and shook it, noting that it was cold. So that was why he’d been kept waiting. Danilov had been called in. Police? Perhaps. But more likely FSB. Sam looked past the desk and saw a second doorway, partially concealed by a coatrack.

  The Russian looked evenly at Sam. “May I see your credentials, please?”

  Sam took out his pocket secretary and extracted the black official passport and laminated U.S. Senate photo ID, and handed them over.

  ‘Thank you.” Danilov examined the passport. He looked first at Sam’s Russian visa, holding it up to the light. He ran his thumb over the ID card and squinted at the photo page of the passport. “Recently issued. Congratulations on your new job, Congressional Staff Delegation Member Waterman.” He paused, then said, “Excuse me, please,” and left the room.

  Three minutes later he was back, holding a photocopy of the passport and ID. He handed the originals to Sam, who stowed them.

  Danilov waited for Sam to say something else. When he didn’t, the Russian said, “ ‘Arrest’ is a very strong word, Congressional Staff Delegation Member Waterman.” He took a deep drag on the cigarette and expelled smoke simultaneously from both his nostrils and his mouth. “As of this moment, we have simply detained your colleague.” He brandished the cigarette at Sam. “Good. American. Would you like one?”

  “No, thank you …” Sam watched as the hint of a smirk crossed the Russian’s thick-browed face. “Comrade Danilov.”

  The Russian grinned. “Ah, the good old days. No, today I am simply Citizen Danilov.” He paused. “That sounds like something out of Les Mis, doesn’t it?”

  Sam said, “You’re no policeman, Citizen Danilov.”

  “Oh, I am,” Danilov said. “But I handle … sensitive matters.”

  Sam cut to the chase. “On what charges is my friend being held?”

  “He was tampering with an icon in the Church of the Trinity in Serebryaniki,” Danilov said matter-of-factly. “One of the priests thought he was a Chechen terrorist planting a bomb and called the police. A special operations team responded. They detained your colleague.”

  “He says they put a machine gun to his head.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. That is generally the practice when a special operations team is summoned.”

  “But my colleague—”

  “A priest thought your colleague was planting a bomb. We have only recently experienced a terrorist incident in which more than a hundred people died. Chechen bombers could be anywhere. Our churches are obvious targets for these Islamist scum. Frankly, Congressional Staff Delegation Member Waterman, your colleague is lucky he wasn’t shot dead. We are very touchy about bombs these days.” Danilov paused. “In any case, the OMON team brought him here, where it was discovered he was an American working for the government and carrying an official passport. The second-in-command of this station called me in, as I have experience in diplomatic matters.”

  “Where do things stand?”

  “At the moment,” Danilov said, “no formal charges have been made. As yet, no paperwork has been filed.”

  Sam nodded. “That is good news.”

  “Yes, but there are complications.”

  Sam cocked an eyebrow. “Complications?”

  “Your colleague says he picked up the icon because he found it fascinating.” Danilov switched to English. “ ‘Unique and exceptional’ were the precise words he used. But …”

  Sam wasn’t surprised at the Russian’s fluency. “But?”

  “He was wearing latex gloves, Congressional Staff Delegation Member Waterman. This is not something tourists generally do.”

  “Maybe he has allergies,” Sam said. “Perhaps he is extremely sensitive to dust.”

  “Allergies.” Danilov cocked his head. “Then he should stay out of old churches.”

  “If life were only that simple, Citizen Danilov.”

  “If only it were, Congressional Staff Delegation Member Waterman.”

  “But nothing was damaged,” Sam said. “And nothing was taken, correct?” That was important. If the mailbox had been empty, then O’Neill had nothing incriminating on him—except the gloves. Which meant there was little the Russians could do, except try to scare the hell out of the poor guy, something they were obviously doing.

  “Correct.” Danilov interrupted Sam’s train of thought. “Nothing was disturbed or taken.”

  “Then I am hoping this episode can be solved without making unnece
ssary waves.” Indeed, Sam had the means to smooth things over right in his pocket, too: a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills. “A sizable contribution to the church might go a long way in making the incident disappear, don’t you think? And perhaps a contribution to the OMON widows and orphans fund as well.”

  “It might be possible,” the Russian said. “If we could reach a suitable agreement. Of course—” The phone on the desk bringg-bringged. Danilov stopped in midsentence and picked it up. “Danilov.” He listened in silence, then replaced the receiver without saying good-bye. “It would seem, Congressional Staff Delegation Member Waterman,” he said grimly, “that your enlightened suggestion has just become moot.” He looked at Sam. “Your friend outside has just done a very stupid thing.”

  “What happened? Is he all right?”

  “Physically? Yes. Mentally, I’m not so sure.”

  “What the hell did he do?”

  Danilov slipped into Russian “Your friend had a cell phone in his pocket. For some reason—and believe me I intend to find out why—it wasn’t taken away from him after he called you. Somehow, he has just managed to place a call to the American embassy. He was yelling about being tortured before they got the phone away from him.”

  “Oh, Christ.” How could O’Neill have done something so stupid?

  “Your embassy is responding. So matters are no longer in my hands,” the Russian said. “I am truly sorry.” He looked at Sam’s face, his expression somber. “You are known to us, of course. You served your country as best you could, just as I serve mine. But your colleague out there—” Danilov hooked his thumb toward the front of the building. “Worse than an amateur.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “This cell-phone business is stupid. And from what I understand he entered the church, walked up to the icon, and took it without even a cursory check to see if anyone else was in the sanctuary. Between the latex gloves and the manner in which he acted, the priest thought he was a Chechen planting a bomb. What was he thinking?”