“Roger that.” Rick then looked at BRAVO/4 and told him to take the lead.
When they stopped an hour later, WHISKEY/2 was told to take up watch at the cabin; then the rest of them started cutting small saplings and limbs to build a shelter to give them some protection from the weather.
Chapter Seven
Checkpoint Charlie
Mike sat beneath the hastily constructed shelter eating a military-grade meal and watching the light snow that was falling. He was thinking of the asset in Saint Petersburg. He reflected on the message sent to headquarters from the station advising the coded phrase she would use to establish her bona fides. He remembered pulling her bio file to learn more about the person they would be entrusting their lives to. When he’d opened the dossier, Mike saw the picture of an attractive young woman and then read the file:
Nina Pukhova Lubikov aka Tatianna Larina, is the granddaughter of Harold Adrian Russell “Kim” Philby, a British spy and defector who married Rufina Ivanovna Pukhova, a Russo-Polish woman whom he met at a party in Moscow. Nina was a student at Moscow State University when she passed a note to the US Embassy press attaché who was there as a guest speaker for her journalism class. The note was later shared with the ambassador who concluded that the FSB was probably using Lubikov in an endeavor to entrap the attaché and possibly draw him into a compromising position. The note was given to the COS, who forwarded it to the Russian branch chief at headquarters. After careful consideration, a decision was made to approach the young Lubikov, but much later after she had graduated from college.
Kim Philby, Mike recalled thinking at the time of the file review. He knew all about Kim Philby from attending a lecture a few years earlier as part of a training seminar entitled “Studies in Intelligence: The Cambridge Five.” Philby was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a double agent before defecting to the Soviet Union. The Brits discovered that Philby was a member of the spy ring known as the Cambridge Five.
As he continued to reflect on the asset’s background, Mike wondered just how much she knew about her grandfather. Philby was recruited in London by a man whose code name was Otto. They met in Regents Park, and Otto convinced Philby to work as a spy for the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the forerunner to the KGB and now the FSB.
He also remembered, during the lecture, that Philby was a man who couldn’t keep a wife and couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. He was married three times during the years he spied for the Soviet Union. His second wife died on her death bed while he was having an affair with Eleanor Brewer, the wife of a New York Times correspondent. Eleanor divorced her husband and married Philby a few years before he defected to the USSR in 1963—the same year that President Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald. Eleanor eventually divorced Philby after learning of his affair with the wife of Donald Maclean, another British defector.
After finishing his meal, Mike removed a ka-bar knife from the sheaf strapped to his lower leg, dug a hole, and buried the leftover meal condiments and packaging. While doing so, he started thinking of the asset again. He felt a chill. Mike looked around and saw that the others were wrapped in thermal blankets. As he took one out of his rucksack, he recalled more of the lecture and everything he had read in the asset’s file. What an interesting tale of events. Kim Philby was recruited by the NKVD and after years of spying for the Soviet Union, he defects, and later marries a Russo-Polish woman who many believed was a plant by the KGB to keep track of Philby’s activities. They have a daughter, Svetlana, who later marries the son of a KGB operative, and they too have a daughter: Nina. Nina graduates from college and becomes a spy. It was an uncanny set of circumstances that brought her into the fold of the CIA.
Mike heard a noise and looked up. He saw a deer standing not far away watching them. As he got up, the deer scampered away. Rick was talking to one of his men, BRAVO/4, who had left earlier to stand watch at the cabin. Two hours had passed without Mike realizing it.
“What’s going on?” he asked, after moving over to the SEALs.
“They’re still there. I saw one man in uniform come out to get some firewood, but that was it. Nada, nothing more during the time I was there.”
“That could be a sign that they aren’t planning on leaving anytime soon. I’m gonna radio headquarters and tell CONTROL to have her arrival delayed until Tuesday morning.”
“OK,” stated Rick, “but it’s gonna be a long afternoon and night, and perhaps even longer out here if they don’t leave.”
Mike walked away to find an area with clear visibility toward the sky. It was noon their time and five Sunday morning back in Langley. He switched frequencies on his radio and keyed the transmit button.
“CONTROL, this is CHARLIE Six. Come back.”
He waited for the response. A few seconds later he heard it.
“Six this is CONTROL. Go ahead. Over.”
“CONTROL, pass the following immediately to HAMMERHEAD. Action requested: delay asset arrival at Checkpoint Charlie for twenty-four hours and advise. Confirm transmission, CONTROL. Over.”
“Good copy, Six. HAMMERHEAD is to delay asset arrival at Checkpoint Charlie for twenty-four hours and advise.”
“Affirmative, CONTROL. Thanks. Six over and out.”
***
It seemed that Claire had been called almost every night during the past week. Operations were being run all around the world, some dangerous, some very dangerous, and some taking place in the conduct of ordinary spy business. Often, if an incident required her attention, the issue could be taken care of without her having to go into the office, but that wasn’t going to be the case on this night. The duty officer responded to her question.
“Yes, ma’am, that’s all he said. I think he wanted to keep his transmission time as short as possible.”
“Just a minute,” she said, thinking about how to respond. She could have the duty officer send the requested information to Moscow, or she could go in and have a verbal discussion with Brandson. She decided on the latter.
“OK, I need to talk to the principal out there. Do the needful and set up a secure voice call. I’ll be in within the hour to talk to him.”
She put the phone down and rolled over to face Scotty, who had listened to her conversation—an old habit of his.
“That was the duty officer. I’ve got to go in to take care of some business.”
“That much I could tell. Anything else you want to tell me?”
She thought about telling him that it was Mike who was out on a mission and in a tough spot, but she decided against it. “No, dear,” she said. “You know how things go with Moscow Station, and I don’t need to be repeating them to you. This shouldn’t take too long. I should be home by seven. We can go out for brunch, or you can fix breakfast when I get back—whatever you decide will be fine with me.”
***
When she arrived at headquarters and was in her office, Claire called the duty supervisor to let the person know she was ready for the Moscow call. The COS lived in an apartment on the embassy compound. It took him less than fifteen minutes to get to the office when notified by the duty communicator that he needed to come in for a call from Washington.
“Hello, Claire,” he answered. “What’s going on?”
“The team has run into a problem. We noted earlier that two vehicles belonging to the 6th Army were parked outside the cabin. Evidently, they haven’t left. Shocklee has called in and requested that Nina delay her arrival for twenty-four hours and is requesting confirmation that she’s been advised.”
“When did he make the call?”
“It must have been around one your time, not long ago. I got the call from the duty officer and came straight in to call you.”
“So we don’t know where they are, other than to speculate that it’s some place between Narva and the rendezvous point.”
“I believe they are at Bravo. I received a message from the COS in Tallinn earlier in the day. He reported that
the team crossed the border around four this morning their time. There’s no reason to believe that they didn’t make it to the cabin as planned; they just had company when they got there. Is there anything suspicious going on at your place? Is the diversion team keeping the FSB’s gumshoes busy?”
“Yeah, they’re on the street as we speak. Randy’s in Helsinki and in phone contact with Allison. The team will have new phones purchased in Helsinki to use for ops communication purposes. Allison has passed one to Nina already and will soon give her another one to pass to Shocklee. We thought it best for Randy to make ops control calls to Allison from Helsinki instead of here in Moscow. The FSB’s telephonic surveillance is just as good as the NSA’s, if not better, but we feel the team’s calls are less likely to be detected if made on cellular phones coming in and going out over an international circuit—”
“We’re wasting time,” she interjected. “Do the needful and have Randy make the call. When you get confirmation that Nina has been advised of the delay, send an immediate message to the Ops Center and inform the duty officer to relay the message immediately to Mike.”
“Understand, but it’s going to take time to make all this happen.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m trying to speed up the process by taking myself out of the equation.”
***
Silence was everywhere as Mike awoke Monday morning, grumpy and cold, as were the others. As he stood, he heard a noise and looked at Rick. He placed a cupped-hand near his ear and motioned in the direction of the lane. They listened intently and then heard the noise as it grew just a little louder. It was the sound of engines and the noise continued to get louder as minutes passed. They were well away from the lane, but the sound of the engines could be heard from a greater distance because of the lack of competing noises around them. The sound finally faded out, and silence prevailed once again.
“I think we’d better check it out,” Mike stated. He hoped that it wasn’t more soldiers coming in to the cabin.
“Roger that,” Rick replied. “Do you think the 6th could possibly be using the cabin as some sort of outpost?”
“Not according to the station, but we’ll be up shit creek without a paddle if they are.”
They picked up their gear and headed out, checking to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind. The sun had been up for almost an hour by the time they sat down in seclusion surveilling the cabin. The vehicles were gone, and with no apparent movement in or around the cabin, Mike finally gave the order.
“Send them in,” he whispered to Rick.
“Copy that.”
Rick looked at his men and initiated a series of hand signals. The lead SEAL moved forward as two others moved in different directions away from them. Mike watched with a degree of anxiety. The silencers on their weapons would muffle the noise of gunshots if that became necessary, but that was the least of his worries. Missing soldiers not responding to radio calls and not reporting back to their duty station would cause an alarm and possibly result in more Russian soldiers being dispatched to the area. It was a potential problem that Mike hoped wouldn’t come to pass and the reason for his anxiety. Soldiers combing the area for missing colleagues would make it damn near impossible for them to continue the operation or to extract themselves should they have to abort the mission.
The lead SEAL kept himself concealed from view until he made a mad dash from the tree line to a wood pile close to the cabin. Kneeling, with rifle at the ready, he signaled for his colleagues to move in. They ran in from different directions, stopping on opposite sides of the cabin. Several seconds passed without any action. One SEAL was on the side of the cabin that had a window. He positioned himself for a quick look inside and then signaled that it was clear. The lead SEAL rushed forward, zigzagging his way to the porch. The other two joined him and one immediately opened the door. They rushed in, weapons at the ready. A few seconds later, the lead came out and gave the “all clear” sign.
“We’ve got almost a full twenty-four hours before she arrives,” Mike said to Rick as they sat at a table discussing their situation. “Let’s post a man a half mile or so out to keep watch just in case she didn’t get the message or those guys decide to come back.”
“Will do. Do you think we really have twenty-four hours to kill before she shows ups?”
“I suppose we’ll soon find out. She either shows here this morning, or she’s been alerted to delay her arrival until tomorrow morning. I’m still waiting on a call from CONTROL advising that she’s been notified. Daylight watch only out there; we’ll move the watch inside after the sun goes down. In the event of an alert, keep the radio traffic to a minimum.”
Rick got up from the table and huddled his men to establish a watch schedule.
As time passed, the men rotated security watch, and nothing happened: no returning soldiers, no word from CONTROL, and no asset to meet them. Mike knew that it would take time to get Nina informed, but still he remained concerned. Hours passed, and he continued to worry about the security of the operation.
Had she been notified to delay her travel, or was she a “no show” for some other reason?
It was much later in the evening when Mike finally got the call from CONTROL advising that the asset had been notified. With his anxiety in check, Mike crawled into the warmth of a bunk and slept soundly for the next several hours.
Chapter Eight
On the Move
It was a cloudy afternoon when Nina Lubikov walked the gardens of the Admiralty in Saint Petersburg. The tourist season was over, and most visitors had left, returning to wherever it was they had come from, leaving the city in the hands of its caretakers. She went for a walk and stopped at a small café for coffee and to get a paper. Later, Nina left the café and crossed the street where she paused to watch some small children playing in the gardens. It wasn’t that cold, but she was dressed warmly in an overcoat and wearing a fur hat. She moved on and eventually stopped beside a bench near the street. She sat down. She was alone; there was no one else around, but someone was watching her from a distance.
A few snowflakes had begun to fall as she sat on the bench occasionally looking around, but not focusing on anything or anyone in the distance for more than just a few seconds. Nina smiled while remembering one of the first assignments given to her by the CIA. It was a few years earlier, after she’d received a promotion from the newspaper and moved to Saint Petersburg to become a reporter covering activities in the Western Military District, a move the CIA lauded. She took an apartment in a building on the corner of Admiralalteyskiy Prospekt and Gorokhovaya Utlitsa, which was across the street from where she was sitting. The location of the apartment provided an unobstructed view of the Admiralty building, once the headquarters of Russia’s naval fleet. It now served as a war college. Saint Isaac’s Cathedral was located just two blocks away in one direction and Palace Square two blocks away in the other direction.
The gardens in front of the Admiralty are particularly beautiful in the summer and a place she visited often, even in the winter. It was there that she began to illicit information on Russian naval activities from mariners and submariners attending the war college. Nina didn’t need a lot of coaching from her handler, she knew how to attract the attention of persons of the opposite sex. She could get a man’s attention by simply walking by. They would make an advance, and she would later seduce the unsuspecting men with her flirtatious behavior and good looks while having a drink with one, or maybe even two of them at a time, in one of the many cafés located in the area. The resulting information was well received by her new handler—a change necessitated as the result of her move to Saint Petersburg. She smiled, remembering the expression on his face when he asked her what name she wanted him to use for their meetings. When she said Otto, he smiled at her and said OK. They both knew it was the name used by the NKVD operative who had recruited her grandfather.
Now she was working with a new handler, and that’s who she was expecting to meet. All
ison had initiated an emergency call the evening before. It was a short conversation made in Russian, as were all ops calls since the day of Nina’s recruitment.
“Delay your travel. Meet me tomorrow same time, same place. Red shoes, white gloves. Good-bye.”
Good, Nina thought, it’ll give me a chance to pass the information they requested.
It was getting colder, and Nina shivered a bit as she sat waiting for Allison. She saw a woman approaching. It was her, wearing the red shoes and white gloves, but she was wearing a different disguise. She stood, getting up from the bench and accidentally dropping a copy of the Gazeta newspaper just as Allison was about to pass by. Allison bent down, picked up the newspaper, and handed Nina her copy of the same paper. Allison moved on without saying a word, but Nina thanked her as she walked away.
Spasibo, she said.
Allison looked back at Nina and nodded her head, ostensibly to give an acknowledgment for the “thank you” remark, but it was a tactic used by the CIA operative to see if anyone had been following her during the exchange. Nina turned in the opposite direction and walked a good distance down the sidewalk to Palace Square before crossing the street and heading back in the direction of her apartment. When she got home, she immediately opened the newspaper and found a half sheet of water soluble paper neatly placed in the middle of the newspaper. She had just passed the CIA information on recent Russian submarine activity, a task given to her on very short notice, so she didn’t expect to find any new requirements since she had already been given a lengthy assignment, now scheduled to commence the following day.
She read the note.
“A slight problem encountered at Charlie necessitating a twenty-four-hour delay. The van is ready. Make sure your story with Alexander is solid. Good luck.”
“Derr’mo, shit,” she mumbled. “I know how to take care of Alexander, but what was the cause for the delay?” She had fretted about the delay since receiving the call from Allison the day before.
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