The Good Spy

by Jeffrey Layton

  * * *

  Ken Newman’s eyes rolled open and stared into the dimness. The sun would not rise for another hour.

  Ken sat slumped in the driver’s seat of his parked Corvette. The crown of his skull pulsated and his mouth tasted like a two-week-old cat box. He opened the door and climbed out, leaning heavily against the car to steady himself. A few seconds later, he unzipped the fly to his jeans and relieved the pressure in his bladder.

  During the long seconds of urination, Ken managed to recall fragments of the previous evening. Back at the Pod Room, he’d chatted with a thirty-something legal secretary from Vancouver. But it never went anywhere. Just before midnight, and after he bought a round of drinks, Allison and her three friends exited the bar.

  Ken continued to order a succession of Crown Royals. His binge only ceased when the bar closed. Already tagged with one DUI at the Point, Ken retained enough sense not to be a repeat offender. He slept in his car, parked in the back lot away from the road, without moving it.

  Ken stomped his feet on the gravel and pulled his arms close to his chest. He was cold and stiff from sleeping in the car. His head throbbed. Ken knew from experience that the hangover would get much worse before it ended. He cursed himself and climbed back into the car. It was time to find a cup of coffee.

  * * *

  “Do you think we can rent what they need at that place?” asked Laura.

  Nick sipped from his coffee mug. “Yeah, that’s what Elena said.”

  They were in a café on the outskirts of downtown Vancouver. Their booth was in the back, away from the crowds.

  Laura checked her wristwatch: 6:57 A.M. “I wonder if they might open early?”

  “I doubt it—it’s Sunday. We’re lucky it’s open at all.”

  Laura finished the last slice of her toast. She’d already polished off the omelet and hash browns, her body craving nutrition. Nick pushed aside his half-empty plate of scrambled eggs and Canadian bacon. Preferring caffeine to calories, he sipped the last of his second cup of coffee.

  “What’s going to happen when Dan wakes up?” Laura asked. “You know the first thing he’s going to want to know is where his boat is.”

  “Don’t worry about that. We’ll be done with it soon. It’ll be there, waiting for him.”

  “I hope so.”

  Laura drained her mug and meeting Nick’s eyes said, “He’ll get the right care, won’t he?”

  “Absolutely, Canada has first-rate coverage.”

  “But he’s American; won’t that be an issue?”

  “No, there’s no ID on him. They’ll treat him as a John Doe—a Canadian John Doe. He’ll get the same care as any other citizen.”

  “Good, that makes me feel better.”

  A waitress refilled their coffee mugs.

  Laura took a couple of sips and still at unease she said, “He must have a fractured skull—the blood coming out of his ear and that wound to his head.”

  “You’re probably right. It looked pretty bad to me.”

  Laura slumped in the bench seat. “I hope he makes it.”

  “He’s in good hands, Laura. We’ve done all what we could for him—like I promised you.”

  “I know—thank you.”

  Laura sat up straight, stretched her arms, and asked, “What’s Elena doing this morning?”

  “She’s at the mission. She’ll return to Point Roberts later today.”

  “Is she working on the escape plan for the crew?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Laura exhaled. “I’ll be so relieved when this is over.”

  Nick flashed a friendly smile. “We all will be.” He leaned forward. “Yuri—he’s an amazing fellow, risking his life to save his submates.” He beamed again. “And you, helping Yuri and his crew, you are the truly amazing one.”

  Laura broke eye contact, gazing down at the tabletop. What am I doing?

  She’d just shared a meal with a foreign intelligence officer after having given away a whopping chunk of her money to help a group of strangers—spies—all because a man who had held her hostage had asked. He would soon go away with his crew and she’d probably never see him again.

  Orlov read Laura’s dejection. “Do not be so hard on yourself. You and Yuri did a noble deed. If both of you had not persisted, the Neva would still be on the bottom and the crew close to, if not, dead.”

  Laura raised her head. “You and Elena would have helped them.”

  “We don’t have your skills. Plus, Moscow has been moving slowly. The crew might have perished.” He skirted the Kremlin’s decision to sacrifice the crew.

  “Laura, you have much to be proud of.”

  * * *

  After driving around the commercial core of Point Roberts, trying to buy a cup of coffee, Ken gave up. Nothing had opened yet so he opted for Tsawwassen.

  He was turning north onto Tyee Drive when a new thought occurred. He made a U-turn. Three minutes later, he drove past the beach house. As expected, he observed no cars in the driveway or lights on inside the house.

  Ken parked his Corvette a couple of blocks to the east. He walked down the public walkway to the water’s edge and made his way to the house, using the exposed beach as his cover.

  Standing on the deck, he jimmied the frame of the locked sliding glass door and yanked open the slider. The sun was just peeking above the Cascades when Ken slipped inside Laura’s rental.

  Ken searched the house, concentrating on the upstairs. When he opened the closet door in the master bedroom, he found a collection of Laura’s garments hanging on the rack: a couple of dresses, her favorite skirt—it showed off her shapely legs—and several blouses.

  He opened the chest of drawers and discovered more of her clothing: rows of panties and bras neatly folded and stacked—again, just like at home.

  She must be coming back!

  Maybe he would wait right here.

  Too tired to bother with coffee, Ken commandeered the bed.

  As he sank into the mattress, welcoming sleep, a new suspicion materialized.

  He screwed her in this very bed!

  Just before succumbing to fatigue—and the residual alcohol in his blood, he knew what he had to do.

  I’ll get even when they come back.

  CHAPTER 68

  “Captain, sonar. Contact change.”

  Captain Borodin grabbed a microphone from an overhead panel. “Sonar, report.”

  “Captain, target eight has deployed some type of underwater instrumentation. High-frequency modulations, narrow band spread.”

  “What is it?”

  “Not sure, but it may be surveying equipment. The signal strength is weak. It bears one seven two degrees relative; range is ten point five kilometers.”

  “Let me know when you’ve identified the signal.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Borodin returned the microphone to its receptacle and leaned back in his chair. Eight men in the CCP sat at consoles and control stations. It was late morning.

  The Neva navigated five kilometers southwest of Point Roberts, forty meters below the surface. It orbited in a two-kilometer radius at four knots.

  The flooded torpedo room continued to vex Borodin and his crew. The Neva made wild swings in depth. During one maneuver, the sail came within ten meters of the surface. However, by running in a tight circle at minimal speed and adjusting the blow planes, the diving officer compensated for the sub’s bizarre handling.

  Optimistic for the first time in days, Borodin planned to jog offshore of Point Roberts until dark. He would then surface and make repairs.

  Crew morale soared. No longer mired on the bottom was the bell-ringer event. But full bellies came in a close second. The food transferred from the Hercules the previous night was a blessing.

  “Captain, sonar. I have an update on target eight.”

  “Report.”

  “Target eight is streaming side scan sonar. It appears to be conducting a survey.”

  “S
urvey of what?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Keep monitoring. Update in ten minutes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  Ken might not have heard the vehicle if he hadn’t been in the bathroom. It was 11:20 A.M. The headache that had been hounding him for hours had reached migraine status. He opened the medicine cabinet in the ground-floor bathroom but found nothing helpful. What he really needed was a drink—hair of the dog as the saying goes.

  When the automobile turned off the road and drove onto the driveway, the engine noise put Ken on alert. The engine switched off and a set of doors opened.

  * * *

  “It won’t take me long to pack,” Laura Newman said. “Help yourself to what’s in the kitchen if you’re hungry.”

  Nick Orlov stood next to Laura. They were in the foyer of the rental house.

  Laura sprinted up the stairway to the master bedroom.

  Nick walked into the living room.

  * * *

  Ken hid in the closet under the stairway. He squatted behind a vacuum cleaner and a cardboard box of cleaning supplies.

  With the door shut, he couldn’t see much but he could hear muffled talk—a familiar female voice. And he’d armed himself with a butcher knife snatched from the kitchen counter.

  She’s with that bastard!

  He wanted to burst through the closet door.

  Not yet!

  Ken cringed when Laura stepped on the carpeted stairway treads over his head. He heard the man walk into the living room, his sneakers squeaking on the hardwood floor.

  Just enough light diffracted from under the closet door to allow Ken to step over the box. With the knife cocked in his right hand, he used his left to crack open the door.

  The target stood about twenty-five feet away with his back to Ken.

  Wound coil tight, Ken prepared to strike.

  * * *

  Orlov peered through the living room window. On the distant horizon, he noticed a powerboat tracking westward. He hoped the waters would remain smooth for tonight’s mission.

  Nick settled into a sofa, removed his phone from a coat pocket, and pressed a speed dial number—Elena’s cell.

  “Allo, Yelenu,” he said.

  * * *

  Ken was ready to pounce when the male took a couple steps and sat on a sofa. That’s when Ken realized something was wrong.

  He’s not limping.

  Still peeking around the edge of the closet door, the eight-inch blade in hand, Ken studied the man’s profile.

  It’s not him.

  Ken retreated, closing the closet door.

  * * *

  After finishing the call, Nick wandered into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and removed a can of Coca-Cola.

  The can was half-empty when Laura walked down the stairway, carrying her suitcase.

  “Would you like a Coke?” he asked. “There’s another in the refrigerator.”

  “Sure, that sounds good.”

  Laura joined Nick at the kitchen table. She asked about Elena.

  “She’s coming down late in the afternoon.”

  “What else did she have to say?”

  “She’s still working on the passports. That’s the hang-up.”

  “Do you really need passports—I mean if you get them on the charter flight in Vancouver and it’s your own people flying the plane, who would know?”

  “That’s not the problem. We can probably pull that off without IDs. But when the plane lands in Finland, that’s where the passport check will come in—no way around that.”

  “Hmm, I see your point.” Laura ran a hand through her hair. “Why can’t you fly them directly to Russia?”

  “If we filed a flight plan like that there’d be a record of it. If the story about the Neva leaked, someone might make the connection and then trace it back to here.”

  “I see, by flying to Helsinki and then crossing the border by bus and driving to Saint Petersburg there’s some insulation against a direct link.”

  “Yes.”

  Laura said, “Keeping this whole situation secret might be hard. I could see something leaking all right.”

  “We can’t let that happen. Everything we do from now on must be absolute low profile. We can’t leave one loose end. If Ottawa or Washington has even a tiny inkling that we left a submarine up here, they’ll never stop looking for it.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  “Moscow just wants this debacle to go away, regardless of what the Ministry of Defense and the Navy might think. And believe me, if ordered, the SVR will sacrifice the Neva’s entire crew in a heartbeat to keep the Americans from finding out.” He met Laura’s eyes. “So, from here on out, we can’t afford one mistake.”

  “I get it, Nick.”

  * * *

  Ken could barely contain himself, stunned at his wife’s bizarre conduct. He stood by the front door. He opened it a smidgen to verify that Laura and the male had left in the Suburban.

  Ken had just run through a gauntlet of emotions: rage, jealousy, curiosity, and finally revulsion. He tried to make sense of what he’d heard.

  When the stranger began speaking in Russian, Ken listened to the one-sided telephone conversation but he learned nothing. It wasn’t until Laura trotted down the stairs and sat at the kitchen table with the mystery man that Ken put it together.

  Passports, Helsinki, Moscow—a submarine!

  There was only one explanation.

  My wife is a spy!

  CHAPTER 69

  Ken watched the Hercules from the edge of the boat basin. He sat inside the Corvette, parked half a dozen stalls away from the Suburban. The workboat occupied the same berth from the day before.

  Ken didn’t dare venture onto the floating pier—not in broad daylight. Instead, he spied from shore. Laura and the same male he’d almost gutted earlier attended to equipment scattered on the workboat’s stern deck.

  What are they doing?

  And where’s the gimp?

  * * *

  After collecting her clothing from the beach house, Laura and Nick drove back to the marina. They removed the hefty electric arc welder and two pumps from the Suburban’s cargo bay, transferring the gear to dock carts. Laura and Nick wheeled the rental equipment to the Hercules where Nick employed the hydraulic crane to transfer the apparatus aboard.

  There was a glitch at the Point Roberts border crossing with the rented welder and pumps. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer hassled Laura and Nick about the foreign imports. Laura resolved the dispute by paying the full import duty on the retail value of the equipment.

  For the next half hour, the pair assembled and tested the gear. There was one item left.

  “I can’t get this thing started,” Nick said. He was on his knees next to the rented welder on the workboat’s main deck.

  Laura squatted beside Nick. She studied the control panel.

  Nick said, “I keep pressing the Start switch but nothing happens.”

  Laura stood and reached forward, pulling open an access panel. She peered into the guts of the machine. “One of the battery cables came off,” she said.

  “No wonder it wouldn’t start.”

  Laura again dropped to her knees and searched through a toolbox that she’d removed from the engine room earlier. She found the right size socket and snapped it onto the wrench.

  She reached inside the welder and reattached the cable, tightening the terminal clamp with the socket.

  “Try it now.”

  Nick pressed the Start button with his right thumb. The gas engine exploded to life.

  “Wow, what would I do without you?” he said with a broad grin.

  Laura returned the smile.

  Surveying the equipment they had assembled and tested, Laura announced, “Everything works.”

  “Time for a coffee break.”

  “Sounds good.”

  * * *

  Elena sat alone at the
conference table in the Trade Mission’s code room. She held a telephone handset. The directors of the SVR and FSB were on the other end of the encrypted satellite telephone circuit, each at their residence. Neither man was happy about the Neva’s miraculous resurrection.

  “I know, sir,” Elena said. “There wasn’t anything we could do about it. By the time we were ready to deal with him, Kirov had already implemented his rescue plan. Major Orlov and I were not in a position to stop him.”

  “You and Orlov were ordered to terminate Kirov if he did not cooperate. Explain yourself,” ordered SVR chief Smirnov.

  Elena glanced down at her notes on the tabletop. “Sir, Kirov’s American friend engineered the operation. She used a remote-controlled underwater device to enter one of the Neva’s torpedo tubes. It had a television camera that Kirov was able to use to figure out a repair.”

  “You knew nothing of that?”

  “That’s correct. Apparently, they’d been working on this plan from the beginning. Major Orlov and I only found out about it when we followed them out of the marina last night.”

  FSB General Golitsin responded next. “That’s when you saw the Neva on the surface?”

  “Yes, sir. When we arrived on scene, the submarine had already surfaced.”

  Elena lied. If she revealed the truth, both she and Nick would be banished from the service, or worse. They could have halted the operation with a bullet to Kirov’s temple and another to his female partner.

  “Where is this woman now?” asked Smirnov.

  “In Point Roberts with Major Orlov. I spoke with him half an hour ago.”

  “What about the Operation Eagle team—what are they doing?” asked Golitsin.

  “As ordered, I set them up in Bellingham yesterday, unaware that the Neva was about to be rescued. They were supposed to search for the hulk today. I have not yet heard back from them.”

  “And the Neva has moved out of the area?” her boss said.

  “I don’t know where it went—only that Major Orlov and I are supposed to rendezvous with them tonight to work out the transfer details, and then they’re supposed to scuttle the sub.”

  “Where?” asked the FSB general.

  “North of Vancouver, at an abandoned underwater ordnance disposal site.”