by Alex Dryden
Under the first American identity she was to enter the country as a tourist exploring the byways of the Crimea just as the summer season was beginning. She would be a camper, a walker, a bird-watcher, with an added interest in the ancient Greek sites along the coast and a diploma in archaeology to match. This identity was designed for someone to roam the huge national parks behind Sevastopol but principally to give her ready access to the area around its port. And she would be able, if necessary, to retreat into the mountains behind the city. In the second, British passport—to be used in dire circumstances only, and only once she was inside the country—she was an investor in tourist infrastructure representing a British hotel company that was looking for opportunities on the beaches of the Black Sea coast for developing its hotel trade. Burt gave Anna a full backup of business cards and an office address in London corresponding with a genuine tourist investment company Cougar owned and kept on the shelf for special purposes. Phone lines attached to this known company were arranged. All calls for her from the Crimea—if any checks were made by the Ukrainians—would be diverted from the company’s offices to a special command centre Burt had also arranged in Mayfair. For this identity, she would take a different set of clothes, a different mobile phone and suitable business accessories that she would bury on entering the country.
“What are we going to do when every country introduces biometric passports?” Bob Dupont commented.
It was a question that all spy agencies were wrestling with. The days of a simple change of name and profession, with a clean passport and even full sovereign government support, were coming to a close. Soon, once you had entered a country, whether as an ordinary visitor or an undercover operative, there would be no opportunity for disguise on further visits. DNA would be the means of identification.
“I guess we’ll find a way to change the human itself,” Burt said. “Create an obstacle and we always come up with a way to subvert it, you can be sure of that. Our scientists are working on it now, believe me.”
But it was the thin fallback plans should Anna make contact with Balthasar that bothered everyone the most. Burt had arranged a backup team who would also infiltrate the country, Larry in charge as always. But of necessity this backup team would have to remain in the background and steer clear of coming under observation themselves, should a meeting take place. Identities and further backup had to be provided for the backup team, too.
“There’s only so far you can be in the rear before you become completely useless,” Larry objected. “I don’t like it.”
But Anna insisted that his team should remain at arm’s length. She was certain that she needed to act in an all-but-solo fashion, or there would be no meeting at all. Balthasar was treated by everyone with respect, but by Anna most of all. They all agreed that contact with him would be extremely sensitive, at best.
“He’s used to operating in deepest cover,” she pointed out. “In Chechnya. To survive years there without detection, his antennae are the surest there are.”
The third problem was with Balthasar himself. The idea of making contact with a highly skilled operative whose main intention might be to abduct her was hard enough to prepare for. But the added significance of an opponent who knew what you were thinking—as Mikhail insisted time and again was the case—created completely unique field rules. For two weeks, with the aid of three of Burt’s company psychologists, Anna practised controlling her thoughts and even her perceptions. Her role as a camper, a tourist with the exploration of Crimea’s beautiful parks as her sole aim, had to be perfected in a way that even an operative as seasoned as she was had not anticipated. Once she made contact with Balthasar—if that was to happen—no other thought could even enter her brain that could upset the carefully designed cover they were preparing for her. For long sixteen-hour days, then seventeen-and finally eighteen-hour days, she practised this mind control until, one day, she’d asked Mikhail, “But can he tell if you’re controlling your thoughts? If he can, then all this is a waste of time.”
“I don’t know, Anna,” was all Mikhail was able to tell her.
Burt’s concentration on Sevastopol and the area around the Russian Black Sea fleet base was also a mystery to all of them except Burt himself. Why not Odessa? Both Larry and Anna asked him to no avail. And if the Crimea was the focus, why only the Crimea? What about the northern borders with Russia where she had found the canisters? But Burt was adamant, for reasons he didn’t yet divulge, that Sevastopol was the key, not just to a meeting with Balthasar, but to any Russian move into Ukraine.
“That is the weakest point,” he told them, but he didn’t explain the significance of their other discoveries of Russian infiltration into other parts of the country.
“They’re all secondary to Sevastopol,” Burt stated emphatically. “In my opinion, they’re just diversions anyway,” he added vaguely.
Then, three days before her departure, when they were meeting at a safe house of Cougar’s in the mountains of North Carolina, Burt laid out the operation itself and its background.
There were five of them in a long room in the huge, wood-boarded attic of a clapboard house that overlooked the sea: Burt, Anna, Mikhail, Larry, and Bob Dupont. Logan was explicitly excluded from the meeting. “He’ll join us later,” was all Burt said. “When we’ve discussed what we need to discuss. Logan is involved in only one aspect of the Ukraine operation. What I’m about to say is for our ears alone. And most important, Balthasar is for the ears of only those of us in this room.”
They sat at a polished oak trestle table that was more than thirty feet long. It was covered in maps; three-dimensional terrain models; maritime charts; air, train, ferry, and bus schedules for the Crimea; long-range weather reports in the northern Black Sea area; on the walls there were real-time TV screens that followed events in the Kiev parliament and news channels from Odessa and Sevastopol; and there were full moon and new moon tables and times and dates of the low-range Black Sea tides—though these last were left unexplained by Burt and, it was assumed by the assembled company, they were there just to provide any and every piece of information that could be extracted from the region.
Then Burt looked around the long room. It was illuminated by windows at either end, with strip lights tracked along the length of the ceiling. A coffee machine bubbled in a corner, there was a wine rack and cooler, and one of the staff below had laid out plates of sandwiches and biscuits, and fruit bowls overflowing with every kind of fruit that would never be touched, and at the far end of the table near where Burt sat there was a modest humidor with a full selection of his favourite cigars. Burt placed his chubby hands on the table, the palms down, and commanded the attention of all of them.
“On the twenty-second of January, three months ago,” he began, using no notes, “Anna retrieved a set of naval department blueprints secreted from the Russian Defence Ministry that show Moscow’s plans for a modest enlargement of the port facilities at Novorossiysk, on the Russian side of the Kerch Straits from Crimea. Some days earlier, a severed head was delivered to a U.S. embassy staff member in Kiev. The head belonged to a man who was a recent, and unidentified, Russian informant of the CIA station in Kiev. This informant reported what the CIA calls—using the informant’s words—a ‘terror ship’ that had recently left the port of Novorossiysk. It left the Black Sea, changed its name twice, and returned with what was apparently a secret cargo. It now lies fifty miles off the port of Sevastopol.” He reached for a cigar, but used it merely as some kind of prop, stabbing the air with it, waving it as if he were drawing a picture in the air. Then he continued. “A week after the ship appears on our mental screens, Anna captured a reinforced steel canister on the Russian-Ukrainian northern border. It was one of several batches being smuggled into Ukraine by Russian special forces troops. From our sources in Russia, we believed it to contain toxic substances.” Burt paused. “And then, to cap things off perfectly, we received, from usually reliable sources in Moscow, stories of a Moscow-backed
plan to implicate an Islamic Tatar group, by the name of Qubaq, in the Crimea. The idea—apparently—was to create a set of circumstances that would destabilise the Crimean region and then blame this group.” He looked around the room. What he then said surprised his audience. “What—if any of this—do we believe?” Burt stated with the majesty of a judge in the summing-up of a long case.
But without waiting for an answer—as everyone around the table was accustomed to after one of Burt’s rhetorical flourishes—he continued again. “The general background to all this is that Russia has been agitating in Ukraine since the country’s independence. This has been the case mainly since 2000, when Putin came to power. In more recent years, agitation has developed into what might be called a concerted subversion of Ukraine’s political, military, and intelligence structures. That began in earnest in 2004 when Moscow tried to fix the elections there and was only defeated by the Orange Revolution. Today, Moscow’s candidate is in power, the revolution has failed, and Ukraine’s future is undecided; whether it is to be part of Western democratic culture or fall back under the influence—perhaps more than that—of Russia.” He waved the cigar then pointed it like a weapon. “So far this has been largely a propaganda war instigated by Russia against Ukraine. But is it just propaganda? In this case—as in most others—we should always listen to what the world’s leaders actually say. In the twentieth century that would, perhaps, have avoided several catastrophes. And what did Putin say about Ukraine? In April 2008, he said to President Bush, ‘Ukraine is not even a state.’ He described how large parts of it were a ‘gift’ from Russia. My belief is that we should listen to what our leaders say, particularly those who don’t have to appeal to a fully democratic electorate. What I believe is that Putin wishes to take back this so-called gift of Russia’s. The question is, how will he do so?”
Burt leaned back in his chair, finally placed the cigar into his mouth, and, with his head tilted slightly back, lit a long match that ignited the end of the cigar until he eventually sat blowing clouds of blue-grey smoke towards the ceiling. Then he looked down again at the table.
“So let me begin by assessing what we can be expected to believe of the recent events I’ve just described,” he said. “And, of course, what we should not believe. First of all, the plans for the enlargement of Novorossiysk’s port are negligible in terms of the facilities that the Russian Black Sea fleet needs to operate. In other words, despite Moscow’s assertions at international conferences and private meetings that it is planning to relocate its fleet to the Russian port and away from Ukrainian territory, no such intention exists. It plans to remain in Sevastopol, come what may. I call this Russia’s strategic aim one. From the plans themselves, I think we can believe this aim.
“Second, the canisters, which arrive on Ukrainian soil backed by rumours and some evidence of Russia distributing its passports to Ukrainian citizens in the north of the country, and by stories of weapons caches there.” He looked up at the watchful faces of the group at the table to indicate something momentous. “For weeks now our labs have been conducting tests on the canister you brought back from Ukraine, Anna,” he announced. “Now, at last, we have the results. It’s taken so long because they couldn’t quite believe it. What the canister contains is a mixture of Georgian mineral water, iodine, camphor, and a small amount of sulphuric acid. The mineral water was the hardest ingredient to identify.” He paused again to let this sink in. “In other words, there is no poison, no secret weapon, no threat to Ukraine—at least from these canisters,” he added darkly.
This revelation seemed to throw all of the party into confusion except, mysteriously, Burt.
“Then why did the Russians spend so much time and subterfuge smuggling them into the country in the first place?” Bob Dupont asked reasonably.
“Exactly,” Burt said. “Why?”
Mikhail looked up from his usual position of staring at the table, as if in some form of deep meditation, and said in a level voice: “So they wanted us to think it was important. They hadn’t anticipated that Anna or anyone else would actually capture any of the canisters. What they were expecting—requiring, in fact—was that our satellites and any other observation would pick up their movements, the military vehicles, even the special forces personnel involved. They wanted us to see the smuggling operation without knowing that what they were smuggling was harmless.”
All around the table pondered this for a moment before Burt spoke.
“When all this began,” he said, “it was against a background of Russia ramping up its hostilities towards Ukraine in the northern sector of the country. Handing out Russian passports, the so-called weapons caches, and planned strike action and revolution. Then came the canisters in a highly organised, obviously subversive smuggling operation across the border. All these things were taking place in the northeastern sector of the country along the borders with Russia. But if the canisters can be shown to be a charade—a lie, effectively—then may we assume that all these actions in the northeast of the country are so much chaff the Russians are throwing up in order to divert our attention?”
Nobody replied.
“I think we can assume that,” Burt said. “Which is what makes Sevastopol and the Crimea all the more relevant. The Crimea is where any action the Russians are planning will take place. That’s where the tipping point is.”
“What about the terror ship?” Dupont said. “That’s off the Crimean coast. They’d know we could see it from satellites, too.”
Burt looked up and studied him for a long time. “The so-called terror ship,” he said, emphasising his distrust of identifying the Pride of Corsica as such, “that’s an interesting question, isn’t it? Yes. Where did we learn to call it a terror ship? From the man with the severed head. Who was this source? The CIA didn’t know. Yet the CIA has always believed what he told them. The CIA now talk of this ‘terror ship’ as if they’d discovered it themselves. It is now a fully fledged terror ship, simply because it’s called a terror ship. Not for any other reason. No other reason exists.”
“We need to know what’s onboard,” Larry interjected. “We can’t assume anything until we know.”
“I agree,” Burt said. “And I’m arranging a little trip to view it. Logan, as it happens, will be in charge.”
He looked at Anna.
“Tell us about the CIA’s source, Anna,” he said. “The severed head.”
“He’s an occasional the KGB sometimes uses,” she replied. “An ex-convict, drug addict, and sometime assassin.”
“Whom the KGB used to plant this terror ship information,” Burt completed for her. “And then they got rid of him. A criminal. An occasional. One job only—but one vital job. After that he’s surplus to requirements. They kill him and they make his death look like a Chechen killing. Yes?”
“Maybe, Burt,” Anna answered.
“The ship may be a double bluff,” Mikhail said. “They may actually intend for us to find out the identity of the source. That he was KGB. When we know who the dead man is, we see the CIA’s source is likely to be a fraud. And then we don’t take the ship seriously. But perhaps the ship is a real threat.”
“That is true,” Burt said. “The ship could be a double bluff. It might indeed contain dangerous substances, weapons…God knows what. And we need to know, as Larry says, what’s onboard before we write it off.”
At this point, a telephone by Burt’s elbow rang. He picked it up.
“Send him up,” he said. “Logan has arrived,” he announced to the room.
Through the windows in front of where she was sitting, Anna could see Logan talking into a phone in the driveway. It was the first time she’d seen him in two years. But there he was, exactly the same: the cream suit; the long, lanky gait; and, though she could see him only briefly, the shoulder-length hair. The hair was the only difference. It was a lot longer than it had been the last time she’d seen him.
Earlier in the day, Burt had taken her aside to tell her that
Logan was coming here—and that he’d been doing some “special work,” as he called it, also in Ukraine.
“You want us to work together?” she’d asked him. “I can’t do that, Burt.”
“He’s been in Ukraine for three months already.”
“I don’t trust him,” she said. “I don’t want him anywhere near what I’m doing.”
“That’s okay,” Burt had said. “You’ll be working in parallel, both of you in Ukraine. Different assignments. You’ll only meet by your arrangement, or not at all.”
“You know he’s not to be trusted, Burt. Why do you give him so much rope? He’s a danger. Larry knows, you know, Bob…we all know. Why do you trust him?”
But Burt hadn’t given her an explanation.
As she watched him now, Anna recalled the last time she had seen Logan. It had been at the ranch in New Mexico where they’d last met, two years before. She had discovered that Logan, the disgraced ex-CIA officer and now Burt’s man, was the snake who had almost gotten her kidnapped by the Russians. Logan had been working as a freelancer before Burt had hired him, selling secrets to the highest bidder. He’d sold her location in France to the British, the Americans, and the Russians. And then she’d discovered what he’d done. She’d vowed to kill Logan then. But he’d disappeared and, it later turned out, had gone to Russia and killed the man who’d murdered her husband, Finn. It was his attempt to atone for what he’d done.
That was an incredible feat—even she had to admit it—to kill a KGB-trained crime boss in Moscow and get back alive. But if he’d thought it was an atonement, he’d been wrong. At the ranch after his return, he’d told her he loved her, and she’d told him to get out of her sight. Two years ago—it was their last conversation, and back then she’d watched his taillights disappearing across the mesa. She’d hoped never to see him again.