After exploring the western shore of Point Roberts, including the golf course and Lighthouse Park, they now drove along the south shore. Heading east on Edwards Drive, Yuri noticed the masts first.
“What are those?” he asked, pointing with his right hand at the approaching forest of fiberglass and aluminum sailboat masts projecting above the land in the distance.
“It’s the marina,” Laura said. “A big one, and very nice.”
Laura turned onto Marina Drive and proceeded northward along the edge of the small craft harbor. Located near the center of the peninsula’s south shore, and just a couple hundred meters west of Laura’s rental house, the dredged backshore boat basin provided sheltered moorage for hundreds of vessels ranging from runabouts to megayachts. This morning the tide was out, so the boats were riding low in the water; most of their hulls could not be seen from the roadway.
Yuri’s outlook rebounded as Laura drove past the marina. The skiff he’d been using to visit the Neva was marginal at best. With such a magnificent harbor close by, surely he could find a more appropriate vessel to commandeer.
* * *
Later, when he and Laura returned to the beach cabin, the revelation hit.
During Yuri’s first day at the beach house he had pried open a locked storage closet in the pantry that contained the homeowner’s personal property. Besides household items, he discovered a key chain hanging on a hook. Linked to the chain were an electronic keycard, a couple of metal keys, and a round plastic orange ball about two inches in diameter; Yuri originally dismissed the finding but now reconsidered. The ball could be a float, designed to prevent the key chain from sinking if dropped into water. And maybe—just maybe—the owner of the beach house also had a boat in the marina. Tonight he would find out.
* * *
The passenger peered through the viewport. He sat on the left side of the cabin, forward of the wing. The clear skies resulted in exceptional visibility. Two hours earlier, when he’d departed San Francisco International at 11:25 A.M., the Bay Area had been foggy with drizzle.
The northbound Airbus 320 just passed over Anacortes, Washington. It had been in a slow descent for the past twenty minutes.
The passenger glanced down at the map in his lap; the consulate had supplied it. He verified another landmark. It wouldn’t be long now.
He worked for the SVR, a sixteen-year veteran. The consulate’s SVR rezident had ordered him to identify the mystery person who’d called the embassy and find out what he really wanted.
Nicolai Mironovich Orlov craned his head to the side, trying to peer farther ahead through the window. It took a moment for the seascape to register. He checked the map and returned to the window.
Officially listed as the consulate’s technical services director, Major Orlov’s real job was to recruit agents—spies. He targeted the high-tech engineers and scientists of nearby Silicon Valley. His hunting grounds included the bars, clubs, gyms, and other Bay Area establishments that attract computer techs in their off hours.
Recruited by the SVR’s Foreign Intelligence Service just after completing his university studies, Orlov rarely spent time in Russia. His last duty assignment had been in London, before that Paris, and before that Tehran. Single with no strong family ties to the homeland, he found that his itinerate lifestyle suited him.
The Airbus descended to five thousand feet. It sped past the San Juan Islands and cruised over a huge inland sea. The Strait of Georgia, the north arm of the Salish Sea, and massive Vancouver Island filled Orlov’s viewport. Several points left of the aircraft’s heading, a long narrow peninsula jutted several miles into the strait. Beyond the peninsula lay a vast metropolis bracketed by jagged snowcapped peaks.
* * *
Captain Lieutenant Yuri Kirov ignored the drone of the jetliner as it passed to the east. He stood on the deck fronting the living room, gazing at the seascape. Sipping from a steaming mug of tea, he considered what he’d discovered earlier in the morning. The American border station continued to vex him. The presence of federal police so close was an oversight on his part. It was something he had not planned for or anticipated but should have if he had planned his mission thoroughly.
Yuri checked his watch: half past one. The contact would be calling soon. He walked back into the living room and headed up the stairs. He needed to check Laura’s bindings.
He’d sensed something odd about her behavior today. After the tour, Laura had inquired about his family and asked if his injured leg was any better, as if she really cared.
Another caution flag went up.
* * *
Despite the crowds, she eyed the visitor when he walked out of the arrival terminal for U.S. flights at Vancouver International. His handsome facial features and trim black hair matched the pdf color ID photograph she held. His build also matched the physical report e-mailed from Moscow: 188 centimeters and 83 kilograms.
“Dr. Seliskov . . . over here, please,” she called out in English, using his cover name. She extended an arm, signaling.
Nicolai Orlov made eye contact and walked toward the young woman. He’d already passed through the Canada Border Services and Immigration holding area with just a glance at his expertly fabricated Canadian passport that displayed his alias: Nicolai Seliskov, MD.
“Ms. Krestyanova, I presume,” he announced as he approached the striking blonde.
“Yes, and please, just call me Elena.”
“Sure, Elena, and it’s Nick for me.” He smiled and she returned her best.
“Okay, Nick. Did you check your baggage?”
“No. Just this.” He raised an overnight bag suspended from his right hand.
“Good. Let’s go to my car.”
Five minutes later, they approached a late-model jet-black Mercedes-Benz sedan. Both climbed into the vehicle, she behind the wheel and he in the front passenger seat. With her skirt hiked up to mid-thigh level, her long perfect legs presented a stirring sight.
“Our Trade Mission must be doing very well up here,” Orlov offered in Russian as he settled into the luxurious leather seat.
“We do a lot of entertaining. This helps.”
He smirked. “Back at the consulate all I get to drive are pool cars—Chevys and Fords.”
After crossing the North Arm of the Fraser River and turning north on Granville Street, Elena said, “The caller John Kirkwood, what can you tell me about him?” She’d only received a cursory briefing on the new case.
“He’s one of ours. Voice analysis of his calls with the embassy indicates a ninety-two percent probable match with the test recording in the file.”
Orlov reached into his coat pocket and removed a four-by-six color print of a young male in civilian dress. He held up the photograph. “His real name is Kirov—Yuri Ivanovich. He’s a captain lieutenant.”
She stole a quick look. “A military officer?”
“Navy—submarines. He’s done well for being so young; only twenty-nine.”
“What else do you have?”
Orlov cited Kirov’s stellar education, secondary and academy levels, and his fluency in English. He continued with the rundown. “After earning his commission, Kirov received a year of postgraduate training in electronics and communications at a technical institute in Moscow. Then spent sixteen weeks training with a naval dive unit based out of Sevastopol on the Black Sea.”
“He’s a diver?”
“Apparently he’s some kind of underwater Intel expert. He’s assigned to a sub from Petro.”
“GRU?”
“He’s a naval officer assigned to the GRU’s Pacific Fleet Intelligence Directorate.”
Traffic was building, almost stop and go. Elena braked and turned toward Orlov. “What’s his personal background? Married, family?”
“He’s single. No siblings. Mother’s deceased; his father is retired Army—a light colonel. Lives in Moscow.”
Orlov continued to rubberneck, amazed at the approaching vista. Ultra-modern glass and stee
l spires jutted into the crystalline sky, back-dropped by the emerald waters of the False Creek inlet.
Vancouver was an exquisite city. Elena ignored the cityscape. As an eight-month resident, she had become immune to the metropolis’s charms. Instead, she focused on processing Orlov’s verbal report. A few minutes away from their destination, she asked the question that had been gnawing at her. “Major, if he’s with submarines, what in the world is he doing here?”
“He’s supposed to be aboard a sub right now.”
“There’s something wrong here,” Elena offered.
“I agree.”
CHAPTER 13
Captain Borodin’s orders called for at least one officer to stand watch in the central command post every hour of the day, even with the boat glued to the bottom. This watch was no exception; the Neva’s lowest ranking officer staffed the CCP alone. During past watches, at least two sailors would staff the control center with an officer. This afternoon, however, the rest of the crew rested in their bunks—captain’s orders. Exhausted from cleaning the clogged seawater intakes, the men had earned a respite.
The twenty-three-year-old sat in the captain’s leather-lined chair near the center of the compartment. He scanned the control panel displays, readouts, and gauges that still functioned inside the sub’s nerve center.
The junior lieutenant turned abruptly to his right; a new blinking red light caught his eye. He leaned forward, focusing on the escape trunk display. The readout indicated that the aft escape chamber was open to the sea and flooding. He reached to pick up a microphone and call the captain—normal watch protocol. But his hand froze in mid-air. Borodin had retired to his cabin at the beginning of the watch; he’d been awake for fifty hours straight. The lieutenant’s supervisor had warned him not to bother the captain unless there was a real emergency. “Nyet fignjá!”—no bullshit—he’d ordered.
He tapped the light with his right forefinger. Its intensity remained unchanged. He checked other displays, looking for anything that might offer an explanation. Nothing.
The officer leaned back in the chair, convinced that the wiring in the escape trunk panel had a fault; scores of other displays had malfunctioned because of the accident. He took a full minute to look over the other monitors and readouts. When he finished, he peered back at the suspect panel. The ruby eye winked back. Govnó!
* * *
Seawater blasted into the chamber with the force of a fire hydrant. Already it had reached seaman-cook Aleksi Zhilkin’s knees. He backed off the manual flood valve, trimming the flow. It inched upward toward his thighs.
Aleksi inhaled and exhaled at an accelerated rate, the result of near blinding fear and the rising pressure inside the steel cylinder. The rapid breathing helped equalize the pressure in his ears; otherwise, he would blow out his eardrums.
He wore two layers of everything under his standard issue blue jumpsuit: pants, shirts, underwear, and socks. The Hydro Suit covered his clothing, isolating him from the four-degrees-Celsius water. The combination dive suit, breathing apparatus, and lifeboat had a maximum operating depth of 180 meters—600 feet. The Neva was 220 meters deep, just over 720 feet.
The water level had just reached his waist. His breath fogged the plastic viewport of the emergency escape suit, but he could see well enough. The submerged battle lantern on the opposite side of the chamber broadcast a silky jade.
Aleksi floated when the water reached his abdomen, buoyed by the air-inflated suit.
Thirty seconds later, as he bobbed inside the cocoon, his upper spine slammed into an unseen metal fitting. The sting of the collision annoyed him, but the prospect of puncturing the suit’s rubber lining supercharged his already racing heart.
He grasped the rungs of the ladder with his hands as the rising water engulfed his torso. When the water surged past his head he shouted, “Thank you, God.”
No leaks.
* * *
The junior officer ignored the indicator light as he kept watch, but his thoughts leapfrogged.
No one would be using the escape trunk—we’re too deep . . . there must be a short in the wiring . . . maybe I should call the chief and ask him . . . no, he’ll just chew on my ass.
Forget it; it’s probably nothing.
* * *
Eerily quiet now; the roar of the incoming water had ceased when the chamber reached ambient pressure. Completely submerged, Aleksi remained anchored to the ladder with his hands and feet. The battle lantern continued to illuminate the escape trunk. The steel tube was about four feet in diameter and seven feet high.
Aleksi panted, almost hyperventilating. A tendril of vomit surged upward but did not quite erupt. He swallowed hard; the residual sourness burned his throat.
What should he do?
It all came back in a flurry: Charge the suit one more time; trigger the manual hatch release. Wait for the air trapped under the hatch to purge. Hang on to the ladder until clear of the . . .
Aleksi had learned how to work the escape chamber from a friend. The nineteen-year-old from Kazan assisted the two Russian intelligence officers who used the aft escape trunk for their seabed excursions. Modified for lockout work, the chamber could be operated by the divers independent of the controls located inside the pressure casing.
Aleksi rotated his head back and peered upward. He could see the circular opening of the outer hatch. The gray steel had just rotated upward, leaving a ring of blackness. Once through the opening, he would water-rocket to the surface.
Fear of what might lie outside consumed him: How would he see? Was it even daylight on the surface? He didn’t know where he was; they said America but where in America? Would he be imprisoned? Would they return him to Russia? Was he a traitor?
He could shut the hatch and drain the chamber. No one would know.
For nearly two minutes, Aleksi clung to the ladder debating. Finally, a soothing calmness engulfed him, like a warm bath. He had to continue; it was the only way.
* * *
The junior lieutenant’s eyes remained fastened on the escape trunk console. Another red light blinked on. The aft outer hatch was open to the sea. He started to make the call but again remembered his orders not to disturb Captain Borodin.
Was it an emergency? Maybe someone was using the trunk for something else. But what?
* * *
Aleksi rechecked his equipment and charged the escape suit with another blast of compressed air from a hose connected to a valve in the escape trunk. He’d been exposed to the full pressure of the depth for almost five minutes.
Aleksi summoned the courage to release his grip on the ladder and enter the void.
He’d just managed to pass into the outer hatchway when a fresh wave of nausea hit. He stopped, weaving his left ankle through the next to the last ladder rung as an anchor. The buoyancy of the air trapped inside the escape suit was ready to blast him out of the hatch. He took another deep breath, trying to clear his head.
Aleksi’s skin smoldered. Several seconds later, his vision narrowed as if peering through a keyhole. And then he blacked out.
A few seconds passed before he convulsed. The seizure lasted about thirty seconds, triggered by oxygen toxicity brought about by breathing air compressed over twenty times normal.
A quarter of a minute went by before another full body quake hit—this one a 9.0.
With his ankle trapped, Aleksi’s torso and arms flailed inside the hatchway. His teeth clamped down, ripping his tongue. His eyes rolled back into their sockets. His forehead slammed into the steel handle of a nearby valve fitting.
A stream of bubbles burst from the escape suit. Within a minute, the suit flooded and Aleksi inhaled a lungful of seawater.
* * *
“What?” asked Captain Borodin, answering his cabin intercom.
“Sir, the control panel indicates that the outer hatch on escape trunk two is open to the sea.”
The CCP watch officer braced himself for the captain’s wrath.
“H
ow the hell can that be?”
“I don’t know, Captain.”
“Send someone to check.”
“Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER 14
“You’re sure this cell is clean?” asked Nick Orlov.
“Yes,” Elena Krestyanova said. She sat at her desk with Orlov on the opposite side. “It’s prepaid—never been used.”
“Good, then let’s call him.”
“Okay.”
It was mid-afternoon. The SVR officers were inside Elena’s office in the Russian Trade Mission. Located in downtown Vancouver, the mission’s primary goal was to promote trade between western Canada and Russia.
Orlov engaged the speakerphone option of the cell and punched in the number.
Four rings. “Hello.”
“Mister Kirkwood?” asked Orlov, speaking English.
“Who is this?”
“I’m your contact . . . from San Francisco.”
“Where are you?”
“Vancouver, but I’m ready to meet with you at your convenience.”
“You come to me.”
“Okay, but where?”
“I’m in Point Roberts. I’ll meet you at a restaurant called the Georgia Straits . . . in the bar, an hour from now.”
Nick looked at Elena with a puzzled expression and mouthed Point Roberts?
She whispered, “It’s close by.”
Nick continued, “The Georgia Straits . . . how will I find this place?”
“It’s near the marina. Just ask around. Someone will tell you.”
“Okay but what about our injured friend. How’s he doing?”
“Be here in an hour and then you’ll know.”
The line went dead.
Orlov turned to face Elena. “He’s being careful—saying nothing more than needed.”
“I agree.”
Orlov stood. “What is this Point Roberts place?”
“I’ve never been there but heard about it. It’s south of Vancouver, about thirty minutes away.” She paused. “Point Roberts is part of the U.S. but it’s isolated from the mainland. You have to drive through Canada to get to it.”
The Good Spy Page 5