The highway was totally deserted when he stopped a few kilometers west of the small city of Safonovo around 11:45 p.m. He entered Tarankov’s coordinates into a handheld GPS satellite navigator, which showed that the train was another five kilometers due west.
A couple of kilometers farther, a narrow dirt road led west away from the M1, and Chernov followed it, turning off his headlights as he came over the crest of a hill. Below, nearly invisible in the dark night, the train was parked on a siding, camouflage netting completely covering it from satellite or air reconnaissance.
Chernov waited patiently for a full five minutes until he was certain that he’d spotted the six commandoes who’d established a perimeter a hundred meters out.
They would know that he was up here because he’d made no effort to mask his approach. Standard operating procedure was for him to remain here until Tarankov was informed, and someone was sent up to escort him down. The delay was only slightly irritating, but Chernov approved of the routine.
He got out of the car, and leaned against the fender when headlights flashed in the trees from the direction he’d come. He pulled out the bulky Glock-17 automatic from his shoulder holster, glanced down toward the train to make sure no one was coming up toward him, then got off the road and sprinted through the trees to the crest of the hill, keeping low so that he was not silhouetted against the starry sky.
A car, its headlights off now, bumped slowly along the dirt track. When it topped the crest, it suddenly stopped and backed down. Chernov could see that it was a dark blue Mercedes. Paporov’s car from Lefortovo. The bastard had followed him.
Paporov turned the car around, then, leaving the engine running, got out, entered the woods and noiselessly hurried back to the top of the rise, passing within a few meters of where Chernov stood behind the hole of a tree.
At the top he dropped to one knee and studied the train through a pair of binoculars. Chernov, careful to make no noise himself, came up behind him.
“What are you doing here, Aleksi?”
Paporov, startled, looked up over his shoulder, his eyes wide, his face white in the starlight. “That’s Tarankov’s train.” “Yes it is, but what are you doing here?”
Paporov’s eyes went to the gun in Chernov’s hand. “You’re working for him, aren’t you?”
A pair of Tarankov’s commandoes wearing night vision goggles appeared out of the darkness to the left.
“Who is this, Colonel Chernov?” one of them asked.
“An unfortunate mistake on my part,” Chernov said, not taking his eyes off Paporov, who’d lowered his binoculars and let them hang by their strap from his neck. “I didn’t see anyone on the highway. How’d you follow me?”
Paporov glanced at the commandoes. “So it’s Chernov, not Bykov. Is General Yuryn in on this operation?”
“How did you follow me?”
Paporov shrugged. “I wondered about you from the start. You know too much for an ex-KGB officer living in Siberia. There’s a beacon transmitter in the trunk of your car.”
“We picked up the signal while you were a couple of kilometers out,” one of the commandoes said.
“So now what?!” Paporov asked. He was resigned. “I don’t suppose it would help if I said I’d be willing to keep my mouth shut and continue helping you find McGarvey?”
“No,” Chernov said. “The pity of it is that I was beginning to like you.”
“What can I say to make a difference?”-‘
“Nothing,” Chernov said. He raised the pistol and shot Paporov in the head.
The captain’s body flopped on its side.
“Take the car and the body back to Moscow tonight, and leave it a few blocks from Lefortovo. Take his watch, academy ring, wallet, money and anything else of value.”
“Yes, sir,” one of the commandoes said.
Chernov bolstered his gun, and drove his car down to the train. Tarankov and Liesel were drinking champagne and watching CNN in their private car.
“We heard a shot,” Tarankov said. “It was Captain Paporov,” Chernov said, helping himself to a glass of champagne. “His body will be returned to Moscow tonight, and made to look like a robbery.”
“Will this cause you any trouble?” Liesel asked.
“No,” Chernov replied indifferently. “You don’t mean to wait until the elections, do you,” he told Tarankov.
“What makes you think that?”
“Because you won’t pass up the opportunity of the May Day celebration in Red Square. If you get that far, the people will be behind you and there’ll be no need for the election. But McGarvey will be there as well.”
“What do you suggest, Colonel?” Liesel demanded. “That we hide like rabbits because of some foreigner that you’re unable to catch?”
“Send a double. The effect will be the same. And if McGarvey should succeed, it won’t matter, because he won’t escape, and afterward you’ll miraculously rise from death like a new messiah.”
Liesel was livid, but a smile spread across Tarankov’s face. “That’s quite good, Leonid. But are you telling me that you cannot guarantee my safety from McGarvey?”
“He was the one who killed General Baranov, and Arkady.”
“Your half-brother. Yes, I know this,” Tarankov said, his gaze not wavering. “It’s why you were selected to stop him. It was thought that you would have the proper motivation. Instead, you seem to be admitting that he’s better than you. Your thinking has been colored by … what, Leonid? Fear? Has your judgment slipped so badly that you allowed a FSK captain to follow you?”
“I didn’t come here to play semantic games with you, Comrade,” Chernov answered coldly. “I am respectful of Mr. McGarvey. In fact I am very respectful of his determination and abilities, as you should be. I came here to confirm that you plan on being in Red Square on May Day, and to warn you that if McGarvey somehow manages to slip past me, you should send a double to make your speech. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.” ” Liesel’s face had turned red. She jumped up, snatched a pistol from the table beside her and pointed it at Chernov with shaking hands.
Chernov didn’t bother looking at her. “With all due respect, Comrade Tarantula, keep your wife away from me, and out of sight until afterwards. Just now Russians have no love for foreigners. Any foreigners.”
Tarankov nodded but said nothing.
Chernov turned, and left the train, Liesel’s enraged screeching clearly audible all the way over to where he parked his car.
THIRTY-TWO
Moscow
For ten days Chernov went about his work alone at Lefortovo, briefing General Yuryn at irregular intervals. But he was operating under a handicap now. Everyone believed that if McGarvey struck here in Moscow, it would be on election day when Tarankov was expected to make his triumphal entry into the city. If the assassination attempt came sooner, it would take place outside of Moscow. In some other city.
Kabatov and the fools he surrounded himself with hadn’t put it together yet, that Tarankov had no intention of waiting for the general elections. His was to be a socialist victory. And May First was the day for the international socialist movement.
But McGarvey had figured it out. Chernov didn’t know how he knew this, but he was just as certain that McGarvey would be in Red Square on May Day, as he was that Tarankov would not send a double.
With little more than a week to go, Chernov was beginning to admit to himself that McGarvey wasn’t going to make a mistake. On May First he was going to be within shooting range when Tarankov took to the reviewing platform atop Lenin’s tomb to speak to his people.
Even after all this time Gresko conceded that McGarvey’s photograph had been distributed to less than twenty percent of Russia’s border crossings, and there was even some doubt how widely the information had been spread in Moscow. At this rate it would take several more weeks to get the job done. But the FSK task force did not seem to be overly concerned, because the general elections were still more
than seven weeks away.
The CIA and SDECE seemed to be having the same sort of luck as well. They’d lost McGarvey’s trail somewhere in Paris, which was actually a moot point, because in Chernov’s estimation they’d never had his trail in the first place. No one knew if he was still in Paris, or even in France. No one knew how he’d gotten to Moscow, or how he’d gotten back out of Russia, if in fact he’d even been here. The whole story could have been Yemlin’s invention to somehow misdirect their investigation.
Nor had stationing a man at the Magesterium to eavesdrop on Yemlin’s homosexual love nest produced any results other than the story Yemlin was telling his queer that he was calling McGarvey off. That story for certain was a fiction, because Yemlin’s every move was being watched, now even inside the SVR. He’d never contacted McGarvey or made any effort to do so.
Paporov’s body had been found about the same time Chernov had reported him missing. The autopsy took five days after which the Militia came to the conclusion that he’d been shot to death during a robbery. They refused to speculate why the Mercedes the captain had been driving had not been stolen as well.
Chernov refused another assistant, though secretly he wished Paporov were still around. It had been a stupid mistake on his part allowing the captain to follow him to the train. He’d underestimated the man, something he would have to be careful not to do with McGarvey.
Tarankov’s raid on Smolensk got very little official attention inside Russia, and only a brief mention in the western media. It seemed as if the entire world was holding its breath until the June elections.
As the clock in Chernov’s office slipped past midnight, he flipped his desk calendar over to the 23rd of April, eight days until May First, then got his jacket and went out. He’d been thinking about his mistress Raya Dubanova all afternoon, and he decided to spend a few hours with her tonight, because his nerves were on edge. The grinding stupidity and inefficiency of the FSK and Militia threatened to drive him crazy.
Outside, he hesitated for a moment in the darkness. The prison compound was utterly still. If the assassin were anyone other than McGarvey, he would leave now, get out of Russia, perhaps to Switzerland. There was still plenty of work for men such as him. The problem was that he would not be able to ask the Militia for much help covering Red Square until the last minute. Otherwise Kabatov would order a trap to be laid not only for McGarvey but for Tarankov too.
But he was going to have to stay, to play this little drama out to its end. For revenge, if nothing else.
At the Russian Border
By ten o’clock McGarvey left Riga behind, the morning overcast and cool, eastbound traffic fairly light. The Mercedes was running well, but he kept his speed within the posted limit of ninety kilometers per hour, which was less than sixty miles per hour. Their main highway that ran directly from Riga to Moscow followed the railroad. It was one hundred and fifty miles to the border at Zilupe, and another 395 miles to the Russian capital, most of the distance over indifferent roads. But traffic would be light most of the way.
The second Mercedes had arrived late yesterday afternoon, and it took Zalite the rest of the day and into the evening to prepare the Russian transit and import documents.
McGarvey had picked up the car before eight this morning, and handed the Latvian a bank draft for the remainder of the import taxes and handling fees.
The car had been washed, polished and gassed, the two spare gas cans filled, and sat his the middle of the warehouse floor surrounded by a half-dozen admiring men. Zalite was practically licking his chops.
He took McGarvey aside. “It’s nine hundred kilometers to Moscow, so naturally I had my mechanic check your car for defects. I’ll tell you something, that Mercedes is in perfect condition. Nothing wrong. Nothing!”
“Did your man take the engine apart?” McGarvey asked.
Zalite’s eyes narrowed. “Nyet.”
“It’s a good thing, because he would have gotten a very nasty surprise. He might not have lived through it.” Zalite glanced over at the car. “But you will drive it all that way without a problem?”
McGarvey nodded. “My little secret. And since there’ll already be a thousand kilometers on the car before I turn it over, no one will be able to blame me when something goes wrong.”
“It’s a beautiful machine,” Zalite said. “Such a shame.”
“Maybe when this is all over, I’ll get you a good one.”
“Maybe I’ve changed my mind about Mercedes,” Zalite said sadly. “When does the next one come?”
“Depends on how this trip goes. A couple weeks.”
Twenty transport trucks, empty, were lined up on the Latvian side of the border waiting to have their papers checked. Only a few trucks, all of them heavily loaded, were waiting to get into Latvia with their Russian-made products. By evening the numbers would be reversed with more loaded trucks arriving and fewer empty trucks leaving.
McGarvey had to wait nearly forty-five minutes before it was his turn. The Latvian customs official glanced briefly at his papers, stamped the exit section of his passport and waved him through. On the Russian side of the border, however, the policeman motioned him over to the parking area in front of the customs shed, where a pair of officials waited.
McGarvey handed out his passport to one of the stern faced officers, who studied the photograph carefully, comparing it to McGarvey’s face.
“What is the purpose of your visit to Russia?” the official asked in Russian.
“Business,” McGarvey replied. He handed over the papers for the car. “I’m importing this car for sale in Moscow. And if I get a good price, I’ll be bringing in more of them.”
One of the armed Militia officers drifted over, and looked longingly at the Mercedes. It was something that he could not afford to buy with a lifetime of earnings. A certain amount of resentment showed on his face because like the customs officials, he knew that the only people in Moscow who could afford it were either corrupt politicians, the new businessmen, or the Mafia.
The customs official opened the car door. “Release the hood, then step out of the car and open the rear compartment.”
McGarvey did as he was told. A third customs official came out with a long-handled mirror, which he used to inspect the undercarriage of the Mercedes, while the other two officials searched every square inch of the car, as well as McGarvey’s single overnight bag and laptop computer.
As they worked, McGarvey took a picnic basket from the passenger side, and sat on the open cargo lid. The officials kept eyeing him as he opened a bottle of good Polish vodka, took a deep drink, then started on the bread, cheese, sausage and pickles.
On the way out of Riga this morning, he’d stopped at the Radisson and had them make up the gourmet picnic lunch, which also included a good Iranian caviar and blinis, some imported foie gras, smoked oysters, Norwegian salmon, and Swedish pickled herring. ‘
The customs officers opened the gas cans stored in the cargo area and shined a flashlight inside, then bounced the spare tire several times to learn if anything might be hidden inside. Working around McGarvey, they also removed the primary spare tire from its bracket on the cargo lid, and did the same thing with it.
McGarvey finished his lunch an hour later, about the same time the customs officials were done. The one with the paperwork stamped the documents and handed them back to McGarvey.
“Take care that you violate no Russian laws,” he cautioned harshly.
McGarvey nodded. “I’ve eaten all that I want. May I leave the rest of this here, with you and your men?” He held out the picnic basket.
The customs official hesitated for only a moment, then took the basket. The others watched the exchange.
McGarvey glanced at the paperwork, then started to raise the cargo lid, when he turned back. “You’ve made a mistake,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” the customs officer demanded sharply.
“The import duty is supposed to be five hundred
marks more than what I paid in Riga,” McGarvey shrugged. “I noticed the mistake after I’d left. I thought you people might catch it.” McGarvey shrugged. “But if you say it’s okay—”
The officer handed the picnic basket to one of his men, took the import duty form from McGarvey and studied the document for a few moments. When he looked up he was wary. “It looks as if you’re correct.”
“I thought so,” McGarvey said. He pulled out five hundred marks, and handed it to the official. “As I said, if my business goes well in Moscow, I’ll be bringing in more of these cars. Maybe as many as a dozen or more a month, so I want to make absolutely sure that everything is as it should be. Do you understand?”
“Yes, thank you,” the officer said, hardly able to believe his luck. “I’ll look for you next time.”
“In a week or two,” McGarvey said.
Paris
Elizabeth sat hugging her knees to her chest in the window seat of her father’s apartment, staring dejectedly down at the street, all but deserted at this hour of the morning. Her father was gone. It was as if the earth had swallowed him whole. For all any of them knew he could be buried in some unmarked grave somewhere. Her mother said it had been his greatest fear.
“Here it is again,” Jacqueline said from across the room where she sat in front of the laptop computer. “That makes three references tonight.”
“What is it?” Elizabeth asked, looking up. She was dead tired, her back ached and her eyes burned from staring at computer screens for the past couple of weeks.
Jacqueline, an expression of barely controlled excitement on her face, brushed her hair back. “He’s coming on the net now.” She sounded breathless. “What was that special food you told me that Rencke was fond of?”
“Twinkies,” Elizabeth said. She got up and padded over to Jacqueline.
“Well, take a look at this, ma cherie.”
From: [email protected] Subject: CIA CLANDESTINE SERVICES 4/24/9902.17
You guys don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Why don’t you get real or something. If the company was so bad and had a police state stranglehold etc why the hell does every swinging dick asshole want to come to the states? How many of you little darlings are shitting in your pantaloons to immigrate to Iraq, or Haiti, or some other paradise? Get real!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (twinkieitem4)
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