Spy Trade

by Matthew Dunn

  A middle-­aged man in overalls ran out of the house and came to Bob’s side. He placed a hand on Bob’s shoulder, concern and confusion all over his face. “What happened?” he asked in a language that wasn’t English or Arabic.

  But Bob understood and spoke the language very well. The man’s question hade made Bob’s thinking sharpen and his sanity return. And it made him realize that he’d been victim to the biggest trick of all. “Where am I?” he croaked.

  The woman asked, “What happened to you? Were you in an accident? Robbed?” She glanced at Peter, then back at Oakland. “My son will get you help. We have a car. We’ll take you to a hospital.”

  “Where am I?” Bob repeated.

  It was Peter who answered. “Our town is ten miles south of St. Petersburg. You’re in Russia.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The president, Tusk, Kinnear, Bolte, and Will Cochrane were still in the Oval Office.

  Will remained sitting on the chair in the center of the room, his eyes closed and his fingertips pressed against each other. His mind was no longer occupied with thinking; instead, it was poised to pounce on breaking developments. And he was oblivious to the others in the room. Right now, anything they said, did, or conjectured on was irrelevant. All that mattered was what could happen outside the room. Only when news of that event reached the confines of the Oval Office would Will open his eyes and engage his brain.

  The president’s phone rang.

  His chief of staff picked it up, listened, and hung up.

  Will opened his eyes and looked at Tusk.

  Tusk broke out into an uncharacteristic beam. “We’ve got him! Our consulate in St. Petersburg. He was taken there by a ­couple of Russians. Oakland’s on U.S. diplomatic soil now, and we’re flying him home. He’s in bad shape, but he’s being patched up and will be fine.”

  Patrick winked at Will. “And he’ll have some big stories to tell when he gets home.”

  The president momentarily closed his eyes and slowly exhaled. He nodded, and looked at Will. “Sir, I’m in your debt. Whatever your price, you name it.”

  Will got to his feet, approached the most powerful man in the world, withdrew a slip of paper, and placed it in front of the president. “My price.”

  The president frowned. “What’s this?”

  “Parking ticket. Seventy-­five pounds. It’s a lot of money. The bastards got me in south London’s Oswin Street. I’m not sure if you have any influence over the Southwark Council?”

  Exasperated, Patrick grabbed the ticket. “Tell you what—­let’s let the CIA go head to head with your local council and see who comes out on top.” He laughed and held out his hand. “Well done!”

  Will shook his hand, a slight smile on his face.

  Kinnear stood before the MI6 officer. “Unconventional thinking seems to have paid off.” For once, his hostility was absent when he added, “And thank goodness for that. But it was an almighty problem for you to solve.”

  It had been one of Will Cochrane’s most challenging cases.

  Arzam Saud was not a terrorist though he had been made to look like one by Russia. Saud was a Russian asset, recruited by a Russian intelligence officer who was previously a KGB operative until he worked for its successor, the SVR. That officer had assumed the false name of Viktor Gorsky. Gorsky had been operating undercover as a businessman with that name ever since he had killed the real Gorsky in Afghanistan.

  Since then, Gorsky ran a high-­ranking front for funneling SVR money and paying its assets. In order to hide his role, the KGB and its successor SVR set up the banks Trans Forex and Moscow Vision for the sole purpose of being the legitimate funding vehicles of another Russian intelligence front—­the company KapSet. Gorsky was the pivotal public face of these institutions and was essential to use Russian money to entrap potential foreign assets. Saud was one such asset. His age and nationality were deemed ideal for someone who might become a fundamentalist. His intellect was also important. The SVR needed a thinking spy, not a mindless crazy.

  Gorsky got to him in two ways. First, he lured him into partnering on property deals. Second, he got him taking Russian sweetener bribes. Then Gorsky told Saud who he really was. By then, Saud was in too deep to have a way out. Gorsky had his hooks in him and forced him to work for the Russians.

  Saud was used to penetrate ISIS and was a key source of intelligence to Russia. But he got caught by pro-­Yazidis, who handed him over to the Americans, believing him to be a bona fide ISIS soldier. Russia constructed a plot to pose as ISIS wannabes, capture a CIA officer, use him as leverage, and get their prized asset Saud released.

  The translator Ramzi was the one who had tipped the Russians off about the CIA officer’s meeting with Shiite elders. He, too, was on Gorsky’s payroll.

  The six alleged ISIS Chechen Muslims were in fact cadre Russian SVR operatives acting the part. They wanted the West to be terrified for the fate of the CIA officer. Pretending to be ISIS wannabes would do that.

  But Will had gotten to the truth and given the president words that would not only call the Russians’ bluff but also tell them that America and Russia shared the same enemy and purpose. When the president had spoken to the leader of the six-­man unit, he’d used subtle language to tell the man that he knew Saud worked for Russia and was vital to the war against ISIS. But he also hinted that trading Saud for Oakland could backfire against the interests of both Russia and America. The better solution would be for Russia to walk away from Oakland and for Saud to escape U.S. custody at some point in the near future. Russia would reactivate Saud, and he’d be sent back to ISIS, where he’d be hailed as a returning hero by the jihadists and continue to spy on them on behalf of Russia.

  Russia’s tactics had been brutal. With Ramzi’s permission, they’d even had to torture the translator in order to fool Oakland and others that he was a victim. Now, Ramzi remained on the payroll of SVR and its legitimate face in the person of Gorsky. The translator had played the part well.

  The president shook his head. “Russia tried to put one over on us. Thanks to you, they failed though it still feels like I’ve done a deal with the devil.”

  Will was about to leave but hesitated, pondering the president’s observation. “Russia wants ISIS obliterated as much as we do. That’s why it did everything it could to get Saud released. It wasn’t a deal with the devil, sir. Rather, it was a deal with a state whose interests have momentarily overlapped with our own. What makes you uncomfortable is Russia’s methods. Perhaps”—­he smiled—­“it would be in order to remind Russia that we don’t need to play such games.” He wrote on a scrap of paper. To the president, he said, “On the day before we allow Arzam Saud to escape back to his Russian masters, give him this and tell him to give it to Viktor Gorsky.”

  Will turned and walked out of the room. He knew what would happen next. Still, one had to try to make the world and the ­people within in it aspire to the greater good.

  The president read Will’s words.

  Dead Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev said, There is a tragic clash between truth and the world; pure undistorted truth burns up the world. Berdyaev would be turning in his grave if he could see how wrong his observation now is. We, and you, are burning up the world with distorted truth. This, and the fact you are looking at the man holding this paper, is a reminder to you that it needn’t be thus.

  The president folded the paper into neat squares. “Russia’s not the only one that has those kinds of methods.” He smiled and tore the paper into pieces.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With thanks to David Highfill and Luigi Bonomi and their brilliant teams at William Morrow and LBA, respectively; Judith; and my eleven-­ and twelve-­year-­old children who ask me profound questions about the “grown-­up” world that I strive to cryptically answer in my books.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from

  THE SPY HOU
SE,

  the next installment in

  Matthew Dunn’s thrilling

  Spycatcher series

  Coming in hardcover October 2015

  AN EXCERPT FROM THE SPY HOUSE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Place des Vosges, Paris

  Israel’s ambassador to France was due to retire in three months, but that wasn’t going to happen because in six minutes, he’d be dead.

  He had no inkling of his imminent demise, as he was a healthy fifty-­nine-­year-­old who’d recently undergone a full medical checkup and had told by his doctor that he wasn’t going to die anytime soon. In fairness, his doctor could not be expected to anticipate that his patient’s heart might be targeted by a sniper.

  The ambassador was not alone as he walked through Paris’s oldest square. Tourists were ambling nearby, taking photos of the striking and identical seventeenth-­century redbrick houses that surrounded the square. Children were playing tag, running through the vaulted arcades. Lovers were strolling arm in arm, admiring the manicured lawns that partly covered the interior of the square and the rows of trees that had turned an autumnal russet.

  Walking forty yards behind the ambassador were three men who had pistols secreted under their suit jackets.

  The ambassador took a walk through the square every lunchtime, and on each occasion his bodyguards wished they could be closer to their charge. But the ambassador was stubborn and insisted they keep their distance so that he could have space to unclutter his mind from the hundreds of tasks and problems sent his way during the course of the morning.

  Today, he was deep in thought on one issue: indications that American and European support for Israel was on the wane.

  He reached the fountain in the center of the square and stopped. He’d been here so many times that his eyes barely registered his surroundings nor his ears the sound of running water. His bodyguard detail also stopped, silently wishing the ambassador wouldn’t do things like this and make him an easy target. Their hands were close to their weapons, ready to pull them out and shoot anyone who ran toward the senior diplomat while carrying a knife, bomb, or gun.

  The ambassador moved on.

  His protectors kept pace with him.

  They were good bodyguards—­ex–Special Forces who’d been given subsequent training in surveillance, close protection, evasive driving, and rapid takedown of hostile attackers. But the Place des Vosges was a nightmare environment for such men. Too big, too many buildings, windows, ­people, entrances and exits, and open spaces. They couldn’t be blamed for not spotting the sniper behind one of the top-­floor windows of a house that was seventy yards away. That window was one of hundreds that looked onto the square. And the sniper had chosen it because at this time of day the sun reflected off it and made it impossible to see anyone behind the glass.

  There was no noise when the bullet left his silenced rifle, penetrated the window, traveled across the square, and entered the ambassador’s heart. But when the diplomat collapsed to the ground, the square became chaotic and loud. Some ­people were running toward the dead man shouting. Others screamed, remained still, held hands to their mouths and pointed at the body. The bodyguards raced to the ambassador, yelling at everyone to get out of their way, their withdrawn handguns now inducing fear and panic in those in the square.

  Many believed the armed men must have shot the man. Some fled the scene; others threw themselves to the ground; mothers grabbed their children and held them close, their expressions filled with horror. The bodyguards ignored them all.

  When they reached the body, they rolled it onto its back. They cursed in Hebrew as they saw the bullet entry point in the ambassador’s chest. One of them checked for a pulse though it was obvious the diplomat was dead. The others scoured their surroundings for signs of a man holding a high-­velocity rifle.

  They saw no one like that.

  The sniper had vanished.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Palestinian boy Safa was thirteen years old though he had the head of an older teenager because he’d grown up too fast in Gaza. That had happened because of Israeli artillery shells, everyone he knew being in abject poverty, the constant stench of decay in Gaza’s northern city of Jabalia, and having to worry all of his life about where the next morsel of food and drop of liquid might come from. But underneath his smooth, golden skin, black hair, and blue eyes, he was still a child—­one who was encouraged by his parents to read nineteenth-­century adventure stories, had a penchant for making model Jewish soldiers and Arab freedom fighters out of bits of broken wood from shacks and scraps of cloth taken from the dead, and drawing paintings that most often contained an imaginary mighty blue river coursing through the center of Gaza, ­people drinking from it and bathing and smiling at each other because it was a God-­given source of life and hope. Though he was wiser than his years, he was, other Jabalia residents lamented, a dreamer. They worried about him.

  Especially those who resided in the large refugee camp, where he survived alongside his dying mom and dad, a place that was cramped with the hopeless, forgotten by all but Western do-­gooders and Israeli undercover soldiers. Here there were tents that were torn and laced with bacteria, decrepit huts that afforded no protection from wind and rats, once fine-­looking buildings that were now bombed-­out shells, and oil barrels that were torn in half and littered along dusty tracks, some containing burning rags, others brewing insipid broth that was being stirred by women and watched over with eager anticipation by lines of starving ­people.

  Approximately one hundred thousand refugees lived in the camp. Rarely did any of them smile. But not all were like that. There was humor to be found in the camp, and Safa witnessed it as he ran along an alley toward his home.

  “Hey, Safa,” called out Jasem, a thirty-­nine-­year-­old seller of anything, a career he’d taken up after realizing his previous vocation of creating tunnels into Israel was unsustainable because of his claustrophobia, “what you running for? Nobody here has anything to run to.”

  Safa grinned. “I’m keeping fit.”

  “Me too.” Jasem started doing squats, his expression mimicking the exertions of an Olympic weight lifter. “I’m on a high-­protein diet. It feeds the muscles.”

  Safa ran on, his skinny limbs hurting from malnutrition, his hand clutching a white piece of paper.

  “Go, Safa. Go, Safa,” chanted two young Arab girls, clapping in time with each word. They were smiling though some of their teeth were missing.

  One of them asked, “Are you playing, Pretend the Israeli Soldier’s Chasing Me?”

  “I have a piece of paper,” Safa replied, racing onward.

  Safa reached his home—­a room in a crumbling building that had decades ago been the residence of a benign judge and his wealthy family. ­People like his parents. All of the building’s other rooms were three-­sided, thanks to Israeli shells that had destroyed their outer walls; only this room was intact. But it was a small room and smelled bad. These days, his father spent most of his life on the rotting mattress in the corner of the room. His mother tried her best to wash their sheets as regularly as she could, but water was scant, and her strength was failing. Safa’s bed was piled-­up blankets in another corner of the room. They were crawling with bugs and exuded a scent of overripe cheese. And in the center of the room was a clay pot that cooked everything they ate. Mealtimes, when they could be had, were taken sitting on the floor. To do so hurt his mother’s increasingly skin-­and-­bones physique, but she insisted on the ritual for the sake of Safa. He had to be taught good manners, she had told him many times, and learn that a meal eaten properly is a meal well deserved. His father, however, could now only be spoon-­fed by his mom while he was lying on his back. It broke her heart to see him like this.

  “Mama,” Safa said, breathing deeply to catch his breath, “I have a piece of paper!”

  “Good.” His mother tried to
smile though she was exhausted. “The Israelis are starving Gaza to death, yet you have a piece of paper. Today is a good day.”

  She was by her husband, mopping his brow with a rag. His eyes were closed, and he moaned quietly.

  “It could be a good day.” Safa thrust the paper at arm’s length in front of him. “A man from the United Nations says he can help me. The UN, he told me, can get me to France, where I can be given food, an education, and maybe even asylum.”

  Safa’s mom got awkwardly to her feet, wincing as she did so. She took the paper and read it. The words were in French, but that didn’t matter because everyone in her family spoke and read French like natives of the tongue. “A consent form?”

  “Yes, Mama. It needs your signature.”

  “Where did you meet this man?”

  “At school. He’d brought books and stationery to my teacher. He asked her which of her pupils showed most academic promise.” Safa’s face beamed. “She told him, me.”

  “And how would he get you out of here, to France?”

  “My teacher asked him the same question. She then told me to wait on the other side of the classroom while she spoke to the man. They were speaking for a long time. Me and the rest of my friends couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then my teacher called me over. She put her arms on me and said that this was a great opportunity to have a new life.”

  Had this conversation been held two years ago, his mother might have had the strength to shed a tear and been utterly conflicted as to what to do. But the death of Safa’s younger sister from an undiagnosed disease and of her and her husband’s rapid decline in health made her emotions numb and her decision inevitable. She knew Safa’s father would pass away at any time. His eyes were jaundiced, his skin color ashen—­almost certainly he had lung disease; and if that didn’t kill him, then the fact that his body could no longer absorb nutrients would. She, too, was not long for this world. The once-­beautiful woman had caught a glimpse of her image in a broken glass window the other day. She was horrified to see how she now looked. So thin, her face etched and drawn, nothing at all like the pretty girl who’d daily brushed her long shiny hair in front of a vanity mirror. She’d tried to do everything she could for Safa. But even if she were fully fit, she’d be running out of options. There was nothing left in Gaza. It was a country that was being strangled to death.