“Ladies and gentlemen,” a woman’s voice said politely over the public-address system, speaking first in German, then French, Italian, and English. “SwissAir announces that its Flight 3000, with nonstop service to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, is now ready for passenger boarding.”
The Russian stood up and left the bar, carrying with him the unique HYDRA variant destined for President Samuel Adams Castilla.
Chapter Thirty-One
Cologne, Germany
It was midmorning. Sheets of freezing rain spattered against the towering twin spires of Cologne’s massive Gothic cathedral, hiding them from the view of people hurrying along the paved streets far below. Inside the cathedral, a few hardy tourists milled around the enormous nave, staring in awe at its many priceless treasures—among them, beautiful stained-glass windows, finely sculpted stone and marble statues, and an ancient wood-carved crucifix, the Cross of Gero, which dated back more than a thousand years. Here and there, lone worshippers either knelt in private prayer or paused briefly to light small candles on their way back out to take up the ordinary burdens of the workaday world. Otherwise, the vast, shadow-filled space was almost deserted, seemingly frozen in an ethereal, eternal silence.
Gray-faced with fear and wearing a gray raincoat, Bernhard Heichler genuflected before the high altar. He crossed himself, entered one of the nearby pews, and then laboriously went to his knees. He bowed his head as though deep in meditation.
Footsteps echoed across the stone floor, drawing ever closer. Heichler closed his eyes, feeling his heart pounding wildly in fear. Please, God, he thought desperately, let this cup pass me by. Then he bit his lip, suddenly appalled by the grotesque blasphemy of his own thoughts. Of all men in this sacred place, he had no right to echo the agonized plea made by Christ in the Garden. He was a Judas, a betrayer.
And Bernhard Heichler knew that he had much to betray. He was a senior officer in the Bundesamtes für Verfassunsschutz, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The Bf V was Germany’s principal counterintelligence agency, its equivalent of the British MI5. His security clearances gave him unfettered access to some of his government’s most closely held secrets.
Someone slid into the next pew behind him.
Heichler raised his head.
“Do not turn around, Herr Heichler,” a man’s voice said quietly. “You are prompt. I congratulate you.”
“I had no choice,” Heichler replied stiffly.
“That is true,” the other man agreed. “You became our man the moment you took our money. You will remain our man until the day you die.”
Heichler winced. For six long years he had waited in fear for his benefactors to collect the debt he owed them. For six long years he had hoped that horrible day would never come.
But now it had.
“What is it that you want of me?” Heichler muttered.
“A gift,” the other man replied. He sounded amused. “The Shrine of the Magi lies just behind that altar, correct?”
The Bf V official nodded uneasily. The Shrine, a golden box encrusted with precious gems, was said to contain relics of the three Magi, the wise men who had come from the east bearing gifts for the Christ child. Brought from Milan in the twelfth century, the reliquary was the cathedral’s greatest treasure, the very reason it had been built.
“You can rest quietly,” the other man told him. “You need not bring us gold or frankincense or myrrh—only that which is already yours to command. Information, Herr Heichler. We want information.”
A missal thudded onto the pew beside Heichler, startling him.
“Open it.”
Trembling, he obeyed. The prayer book contained a single slip of paper bearing a twelve-digit telephone number.
“You will fax the information we require to that number. And you will do so within the next two hours. Is that clear?”
Heichler nodded. Reluctantly, he took the slip of paper and tucked it away inside his raincoat. “But what is this information you need?”
“The registration and license numbers of all vehicles currently operated by the Berlin Station of the American Central Intelligence Agency.”
Heichler felt the blood drain from his face. “But that is impossible!” he stammered.
“On the contrary,” the man behind him said coldly, “it is perfectly possible—for a high-ranking officer in Section V. For someone like you, in fact, Herr Heichler.” With implacable precision, the man went on. “Section V oversees all foreign intelligence organizations operating on German soil, including those of allied countries like the United States. Liaison officers from these organizations provide your staff with regular updates on the equipment they are using, the names of their field agents, and other aspects of their clandestine work within our borders. Isn’t that so?”
Slowly, the Bf V official nodded.
“Then you can obtain the data we need, and you will follow our instructions.”
“The risk is too great!” Heichler whined. He was ashamed to hear the note of panic in his voice and desperately fought to regain some measure of control over himself. “Accessing the information you require so quickly will inevitably mean leaving traces that might incriminate me. And if the Americans ever find out what I have done—”
“You must choose which you fear more,” the other man said harshly. “The Americans or us. A sensible man would weigh the odds carefully.”
Heichler squirmed under the awful knowledge that he had no real choice. He must obey these orders, or pay the terrible price for his earlier crimes and betrayals. His shoulders slumped in surrender, and he nodded drearily. “Very well. I will do what I can.”
“You have chosen wisely,” the other man commended him sardonically. “Remember, you have just two hours. And failure will not be tolerated.”
Near Orvieto, Italy
Professor Wulf Renke ran a magnifier slowly over the printout of the results of his most recent DNA sequencer run. Carefully, he studied the intricate patterns the printout showed, hunting for the unique patches of the genetic sequence—rare single-nucleotide polymorphisms—that were needed to continue sculpting this next HYDRA variant. But then his watch beeped insistently, reminding him that it would soon be time to inspect the next batch of E. coli cultures. He had only a few more minutes to complete an analysis that should take at least another hour.
The German weapons scientist frowned, irked by this latest evidence of excessive haste. Constant demands from Moscow for faster production were forcing him to run the lab, his staff, and their equipment at a dizzying, breakneck pace. Each HYDRA variant was a miniature work of art, one ideally requiring ample time to design and craft with loving precision. Instead, Malkovic and Viktor Dudarev expected him to churn out new lethal strands on an assembly-line basis, as though this facility was only an old-fashioned armaments factory mass-producing high-explosive artillery shells.
Renke thought it would have been wiser to wait longer before unleashing his creation on the world. With only a few more months of preparation, none of this rushing about would have been necessary. He could have had all the necessary HYDRA variants stockpiled and ready for use on command. Unfortunately, his employers were impetuous and angry men. Worse, from his viewpoint, the men in Moscow were still wedded to an outdated belief in the power of massed armor, infantry, and bombers. As a result, their timetable for ZHUKOV revolved entirely around considerations of the weather, Russia’s ability to deploy military forces by rail and road, and how long it might take those Russian troops to capture their objectives once the shooting started.
He sniffed in contempt. Neither Malkovic nor the Russian president had any real appreciation of the subtler and more lasting power conveyed by their control over a weapon like HYDRA. His creations could have been used to terrify prospective opponents, frightening them into toeing the Russian line without the need for any wasteful, large-scale violence. But instead, his employers saw HYDRA as just one more means of killing.
Typical Slavs, Renke thought derisively. They understood the application of power only in its most brutal and obvious guise.
Renke shrugged. Error compounding error. And folly feeding on folly. It was an old story in his career—whether in East Germany, the Soviet Union, or in Iraq. One could never trust laymen to think and act with clarity. Their greed and basic ignorance always interfered with rational decision-making. Fortunately, he was immune to such weaknesses.
“Professore?” one of his assistants called, holding out a phone. “Signor Brandt is on the secure line.”
Impatiently, Renke yanked off his face shield, surgical mask, and gloves. He tossed them into a bin and then took the phone. “Yes?” the white-haired scientist snapped. “What is it, Erich?”
“An update on our two most troubling security problems,” Brandt said tersely. “The ones we face in Berlin and here in Moscow.”
Renke nodded to himself. In this case, the other man was right to interrupt him. “Go ahead.”
He listened intently while Brandt filled him in on recent events. The news from Berlin reassured him. Once Lange and his hit team had the information they needed, their success seemed certain. The news from Moscow was far less pleasing. “There’s still no sign of these Americans?” he asked in disbelief.
“None,” Brandt said. “None of Alexei Ivanov’s vaunted militia checkpoints have turned up so much as a hint of their whereabouts. He believes Smith and Devin may have gone to ground at a safe house outside the city—or that they have already escaped from Russia.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think Ivanov is too optimistic,” Brandt replied. “Ms. Devin may only be an amateur spy, but Colonel Smith is most certainly a hardened professional. He will not abandon a mission so easily.”
Renke contemplated that. The former Stasi officer’s evaluation of his opponent seemed accurate. “So? What is your next move, then?” he asked coolly.
Brandt hesitated. “I am not sure.”
The scientist raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Come now, Erich,” he snapped. “Smith and Devin are not fools. Surely you know what they will find in Vedenskaya’s notes?”
“Herr Professor,” the other man said through gritted teeth, “you forget that I am not a scientist. My skills lie in other directions.”
“The names,” Renke said in exasperation. “The Americans will learn the names of those we used as the first test subjects for HYDRA. Whatever else Colonel Smith is, he is also a scientist, a medical researcher. Faced with a strange disease, he’ll try to determine the vector. Now, all you have to do is bait the proper trap, and then wait for them to walk right into it.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Berlin
Deep in the interior of a multistory public parking garage a few kilometers from the Grunewald district, Gerhard Lange heard a static-laden voice squawk over his radio. Between the interference and the man’s obvious excitement, it was impossible to make out what he was trying to report. Frowning, Lange straightened up slowly and pushed the tiny receiver deeper into his ear. “What was that, Mueller?” he demanded. “Say again.”
This time, Mueller, the heavyset man who had met his team at the airport the day before, spoke more slowly and clearly. “I have your targets,” he said. “Repeat: I have your targets confirmed.”
Lange breathed out. The waiting game was over. He leaned in through the open driver’s side window of their black BMW and retrieved a copy of the faxed list they had received two hours ago. “Read them back to me.”
While Mueller fed him the license plates and makes of vehicles he had spotted during his reconnaissance, the ex–Stasi officer checked them against the list of CIA-registered cars and trucks in Berlin. They matched perfectly. He folded the fax and slid it inside his jacket. Then he unfolded a detailed map of the local streets. “Excellent work. Now, where exactly are these Americans deployed?”
Lange listened closely, using a red pen to circle the positions given to him by the heavyset man. He studied them briefly, noting relative distances and alternate approach and escape routes. A plan began taking shape in his mind. Quick and dirty, he thought coldly. And the quicker, the better.
He turned to his companions. “Pripremiti. Nama imati jedan cilj!” he growled in Serbian. “Get ready. We have a target!”
At his command, the three hard-faced men, all veterans of Serbian State Security and of the brutal ethnic cleansing campaigns in Bosnia and Kosovo, put out their cigarettes and scrambled to their feet. Lange opened the BMW’s trunk and swiftly handed out equipment and ammunition. When he was through, the ex–Stasi officer and the members of his handpicked hunter-killer team began donning their gear and checking their weapons.
Although it was only midafternoon, it was growing dark fast. Solid masses of leaden clouds covered the sky. Whipped up by a strong wind from the east, occasional flurries of fresh snow danced across the Grunewald’s nearly deserted streets and sidewalks. The rising wind howled through the nearby woods and sent more snow sliding off the steep slate roofs of houses nestled among the trees.
To keep warm, Randi Russell walked at a brisk pace, heading south along Clayallee. This wide avenue, which ran here along the urban forest preserve’s eastern border, was named for the American general, Lucius Clay, who had ordered the Berlin Airlift to save the city from starvation during the opening rounds of the Cold War. Wearing a fashionable ski jacket, black turtleneck sweater, and jeans, she was returning to the CIA surveillance van after making a cautious prowl through the quiet neighborhood around Ulrich Kessler’s villa.
So far, nothing much was happening. Her lookout outside the villa reported only normal traffic through the area. The BKA official himself was still inside his home. As the day wore on without further contact from Wulf Renke, though, Kessler was growing increasingly edgy. The listening devices she had planted earlier were picking up sounds of constant pacing, sporadic cursing, and the frequent clink of bottles and glassware from around his well-stocked liquor cabinet.
Randi thought again about this strange silence from Renke. Had the renegade weapons scientist decided to cut his losses and leave Kessler to his fate? The more time that went by without any sign of movement in or out of the house, the more likely that began to seem. Above all else, Renke was a survivor. He had never demonstrated real loyalty to any other person, country, or ideology. The scientist would save Kessler only if he saw some advantage to himself in doing so. And by now, Renke must suspect that his longtime protector inside the BKA was under close surveillance. If so, Randi wondered, was it worth snatching Kessler herself? Could she squeeze any useful information out of the guy before Langley got nervous and ordered her to hand him over to his own people?
She grinned, imagining the likely reaction of the risk-averse CIA bureaucrats if one of their field officers kidnapped a German federal criminal police official. No, Randi decided wryly, grabbing Kessler was not going to fly. Instead, her best bet might be to back off for now. Later she could look for a discreet way to let his superiors know about his criminal conduct. Of course, she would also have to manage that without revealing that she had hacked into one of their high-security computer networks.
In the meantime, her audio-operations technicians were busy trying to trace that first emergency number Kessler had dialed. So far, they had linked it to a cell phone registered in Switzerland. Where the trail would lead from there was still anyone’s guess.
A big yellow BVG transit bus roared past with only a handful of passengers on board. Randi looked up, getting her bearings. On her right, to the west, lay the quiet, snow-cloaked forest. On her left, across the road, there were houses and a row of small shops. There were more vehicles moving on this stretch of the avenue—a few private cars and a couple of delivery trucks out making their rounds despite the slowly worsening weather. A block ahead, she could see the surveillance team’s Ford panel van parked between an older Audi and a brand-new Opel station wagon.
She tapped a button on wh
at looked like a silver iPod hooked to her belt. Designed for undercover operations, this iPod actually contained a sophisticated tactical radio set with several secure channels. “Base, this is Lead. I’m coming in.”
“Understood, Lead,” one of the techs working in the van replied. Suddenly his voice sharpened. “Wait one, Randi. We’re picking up an incoming call to Kessler’s house. Someone’s telling him to be ready to leave, that an extraction unit is on its way!”
Yes! Randi enthusiastically pounded her clenched right fist into the open palm of her left hand. It was about time. “Okay, Base. Get ready to saddle up. When these guys swoop in and scoop Kessler up, we’ll tag along behind to see where they take him.”
“Got it,” the CIA tech said. Over the radio link, she could hear him awkwardly clambering from the back of the windowless van into the driver’s seat.
Still walking toward the Ford, Randi switched frequencies to speak directly to the young Berlin Station field officer posted down the street from Kessler’s villa. “Watcher, this is Lead. Did you copy that?”
Silence.
She frowned. “Carla, this is Randi. Come in.”
There was no answer. Only the faint hiss of static over dead airwaves. Randi swung round in alarm, feeling a cold chill run down her spine. Something was going wrong. Very wrong. She unzipped her jacket just far enough so that she could draw the 9mm Beretta pistol in her shoulder holster without snagging it on her clothes—in case she needed the weapon out in a hurry.
At that moment, she saw a black BMW sedan racing down Clayallee at high speed, with its powerful engine revving as it wove in and out around slower-moving cars and trucks. Instinctively, her hand dove inside her jacket, reaching for her pistol. But the speeding car drove on past her surveillance van. She breathed out in relief.
Then, suddenly, the BMW braked hard. The black sedan slewed around through a tire-squealing, rubber-burning, 180-degree turn, and rocked to a full stop just a few meters away from the parked Ford.
The Moscow Vector Page 27