Final Strike--A Sean Falcone Novel

by William S. Cohen

  An hour went by before Danshov heard a door open and clang shut behind him. He did not move. He heard scuffing sounds that he imagined was a chair being placed close behind him. Then he heard a voice that was old and harsh: “Do not turn your head. I am Colonel Nikita Komov of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. You are a spy. I know that. I am going to ask you questions. You will answer them truthfully.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Danshov said, speaking in English and vainly trying to filter fear from his voice. “I demand…” He could not go on. He felt he was speaking to a wraith, an invisible man.

  Komov’s interrogation procedure—the faceless inquisitor—had often worked so well there was no need for what was officially known as physical persuasion.

  “Yours was an audacious operation,” Komov said. “Let us go over it together.”

  Danshov did not speak.

  Komov resumed: “I am reading from a rather thick FSB file. You arrived in Russia on twenty-nine August this year. On twelve September you had an audience with President Lebed. You presented the President with a book: your Russian translation of Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power by David Rothkopf. Correct?”

  Danshov did not speak, but Komov could see Danshov’s upper body stiffen and his head snap forward.

  “You will answer in Russian when I ask a question. Did you present that book to President Lebed?”

  “Yes,” Danshov answered in Russian. “But I—”

  “You will not speak except to answer my questions.… To continue, President Lebed placed the book on a bookshelf near his desk, giving it a prominent position to acknowledge the intellectual comradeship between our two nations. Correct?”

  Again, Danshov’s body stiffened and he remained silent.

  After two minutes passed, Komov repeated, “Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “The book was actually an undetectable recording device. I am told by my experts that the pages of the book were coated with an inverted version of the lamination surface used to make anti-glare television screens. The laminated pages, arranged in a certain manner, act as a recorder of spoken words and transmit sound instead of light. Interesting and ingenious. Surely you would like to describe it. I believe the process is called transflective technology.”

  Komov paused for four minutes before Danshov blurted a few words in English and then switched to Russian: “But the book. I did not know—”

  “Please, Traitor Danshov, do not lie to me. Do not act as if you are less than brilliant. Your device—what you may not have invented but what you inserted in the President’s office—did work. Private words from President Lebed went to your National Security Agency via the so-called secret NSA Special Collection Service agents under diplomatic cover in your embassy.”

  “I … I did not know … what happened,” Danshov said, now committed to speaking Russian.

  “On the contrary, Traitor Danshov.”

  “I … I am not a traitor,” Danshov said in Russian. He flexed his shoulders and shook his head. “I am an American. I did not betray my country.”

  “An interesting point,” Komov said, pleased to see that he and his prisoner were having a dialogue—the first sign that an interrogation was working. “However, in my view you are a traitor. You used the Russian language. You lectured in Russian in Moscow State University. You used the trust of Russia to betray Russia. You are a traitor.”

  Danshov heard the chair behind him scrape. Then he heard departing footsteps.

  After letting Danshov sit for another hour, Komov returned.

  “And so, Traitor Danshov, have you decided to admit you are a spy?”

  “No,” Danshov said in Russian.

  “You have met three times with another traitor, Sergei Aldonin. Is that not so?”

  “I cannot be held like this. I demand to—”

  “Come now, Traitor Danshov. You know Sergei Aldonin, the FSB technician. And you know that he was assigned to check for unauthorized electronic devices in President Lebed’s office.”

  “I do not know Sergei Aldonin.”

  “Oh, Traitor Danshov, you shamefully lie and lie and lie,” Komov said, his voice mimicking sadness. He paused for a moment before continuing: “Nine days ago you attended a reception at the residence of the American ambassador. You drank two bottles of Samuel Adams beer.”

  Danshov nodded.

  “You were approached by a CIA spy named Eileen Morse who falsely claims to be a diplomat. She gave you a piece of paper with something written on it. Please speak so I know you have not fallen asleep.”

  Danshov did not respond. A hand grabbed his right shoulder and pressed down on a soft spot between the clavicle and the throat. He yelled in pain.

  “So. You are awake. Now, the paper. What was on the paper?”

  “I spoke to Eileen Morse. She did not give me a paper.”

  “My video shows you accepting a piece of paper. Tell me what was written on that piece of paper.”

  “I … I don’t remember.”

  “It is getting late. You must be hungry. Thirsty … But I am not able to give you any rewards for your lies.”

  Again Danshov heard the scrape of a chair and the sound of receding footsteps.

  39

  Back in his office, tea and a small salmon pie waited on a tray on his desk. Komov summoned Shumeyko, who had observed the interrogation through a two-way mirror. “What do you think, Lieutenant?” Komov asked, offering a portion of the pie. Shumeyko waved the pie away but accepted a glass of tea.

  “I think, sir, that your instinct is correct. The embassy spies are reacting to the disappearance of Aldonin.”

  “So, Lieutenant, that piece of paper the woman handed to Danshov would be brief instructions for an extraction plan for Danshov. Very brief instructions. I deduce that it would be the address of the latest safe house, and it would be from there that the extraction of Danshov would begin.”

  “Well done, Colonel. Next?”

  “Next, Lieutenant, you may go home. You are off duty. You brought in Danshov. He will recognize you. You cannot effectively carry out the next steps. Good night.”

  Shumeyko looked puzzled but stood, saluted, and left.

  * * *

  Working through layers of surrogates, the CIA had recently leased a safe house—a drab three-room apartment in an apartment building on a one-way street near the Cheremushki Metro Station, which offered anonymity to travelers. Komov’s squad of watchers, who routinely followed diplomats and their kin, suspected that a safe house had been installed in the building. Komov ordered a loose surveillance but no entry, preferring to wait until it was used for the traditional purpose of a safe house: a rendezvous between a case officer and an agent.

  The disappearance of Aldonin was almost certainly known to the CIA station chief. Shumeyko believed that his seizure of Danshov would be known by now and that Danshov’s case officer was Eileen Morse. In the timetable unfurling in his mind, she would arrive by subway after dark, expecting that if Danshov were released, he would do the same. Before dawn, a vehicle would appear to whisk him away to the embassy for the next step in the extraction.

  Komov prepared for the rendezvous by alerting Danshov’s surveillance team. Next, he called his man in the Lubyanka and ordered him to release Danshov. Finally he called a shadowy ex-convict who, though he occasionally worked for Komov, was not officially an FSB employee.

  * * *

  Danshov was slumped in the chair, chin on his chest. For a moment, the man in gray feared his subject had died of fear. His next thought was about what he would be told to do about the body. Komov will know.

  But Danshov was alive. He stirred when the man touched him and slowly raised his head. “Water,” he said in Russian. “Water, please.”

  The man uncuffed him, unlocked the manacles, and helped him stand by putting hands under Danshov’s armpits and lifting, hal
f-carrying him to the elevator. In the processing room he was seated on a bench and given a bottle of water whose cap had been removed. His jacket, wallet, watch, cell phone, glasses, Metro card, and propusk were all returned. He signed a paper that he did not read.

  Without touching him, the man in gray took him past a staff cafeteria and back to the hall that led to the high-walled lobby and front door. The man in gray pressed a button, the door opened, and Danshov stepped into Lubyanka Square, where crowds filled the sidewalks, and streetlights and shop windows challenged the darkness.

  Head down, he passed the Solovetsky Stone, a stark recollection of Stalin’s reign. The stone came from the Solovetsky Islands, site of a prison camp that was part of the Gulag. He gave the stone no thought as he crossed the street and headed for the Lubyanka Metro stop.

  After changing lines several times, he emerged from the Cheremushki Metro and, looking around, began briskly walking toward the apartment building where Eileen Morse waited for him. The living room’s overhead light had turned on automatically, controlled by a system that indicated occupancy by mimicking the other apartments’ typical daily sequences of light and darkness. She forced herself to remain in a dark bedroom and stay away from the window.

  Shortly after nine o’clock, she heard a thumping sound, the sounds of brakes and glass shattering. She rushed to the window. On the sidewalk near the front door, in a streetlight’s bright circle, was the body of a man. She recognized the tweed jacket.

  She called for an ambulance on her cell phone as she ran down the three flights of stairs. Bursting out of the front door, she saw tire tracks that ran from the gutter, over the curb, and across the sidewalk. Bits of glass sparkled near Danshov’s body, which lay facedown. She could see traces of tire tracks on the crushed back of his head, on his jacket, and on his jeans. His feet were bare, his moccasins visible in the darkness beyond the circle of light. He never wore socks, she thought, clicking away on her cell phone.

  Seeing a flashing light in the distance, she ran toward the subway entrance and hit her app for the station chief. “Domino dead,” she said. “Hit-and-run. Appears staged.”

  40

  A top-priority flash message went directly from the Moscow station chief to Sam Stone, director of the Central Intelligence Agency. After getting a sketchy follow-up report from Moscow, Stone called Aaron Zwerdling, the director of National Intelligence, who was speaking at an American Civil Liberties Union forum in Denver. The apparent murder of an American agent raised the alert level of the CIA to its highest tier. From his aircraft carrying him back to Washington, Zwerdling passed word of the killing to the leaders of all intelligence agencies. Stone reported the death directly to President Oxley in the Oval Office.

  “His family,” Oxley said. “I’d like to talk to them.”

  “I’ve arranged for the State Department to notify his parents, Mr. President. He was there as an international scholar. As far as they’ll know, he was a professor in Moscow who got hit by a car.”

  “That’s it?” Oxley asked. “I can’t call his folks?”

  “The embassy is arranging for the body and his personal effects to be flown home, sir. He was in Special Forces in the Gulf War. The Army will make sure he’s buried at Arlington.”

  “No public acknowledgment of the circumstances of his death?” Oxley asked.

  “He was deeply involved in a very successful operation, sir. Exposure of his name and employment would inevitably compromise sources and methods. And, sir, there’s the matter of his death. The intelligence community is in shock. There is no doubt he was murdered. This, sir, is not done by civilized countries.”

  “Should I take this up with Lebed?”

  “Frank Carlton may have views on this. My advice is to not bring this to a high level,” Stone replied.

  After his short session with the President, Stone walked down the hall to talk to Frank Carlton. He flopped in a chair and said, “We may have a problem, Frank. I’ve already sent word to Drexler. The guy who got killed didn’t work for us. He worked for GSS.”

  “Jesus!” Carlton exclaimed. “Was he the guy who ran the sweep tech? I thought—”

  “Yes,” Stone said. “We knew him as an American professor named Danshov teaching at Moscow State University. As you know, because of the rules, the NSA’s Special Collection Service operates out of the embassy and we’re tasked with babysitting guys like Danshov. He planted the book and handled the sweeper. He was an NSA contractor. Like Snowden. The Agency was on the sidelines on this one.”

  “So no new star on that Memorial Wall at headquarters,” Carlton said softly.

  “That’s right,” Stone said. “The Wall is reserved for anonymous remembrance of CIA employees killed in the line of duty.”

  “What exactly did happen?” Carlton asked.

  “When NSA told us that the eavesdropping had suddenly stopped, we figured that the FSB tech had been blown away. At this point, NSA walked and we had Danshov on our hands. We have loose, Twitter-type sources on the campus. We found out the FSB flipped his apartment and grabbed him. We think our old friend Komov interrogated him and let him go.”

  “Komov? He’s a tough old bastard,” Carlton said. “We know from the bug that he talks directly to Lebed.”

  “Right,” Stone said. “Well, for some reason he was released. Half-hysterical, he called a number he got from his minder.”

  “Another Drexler employee?”

  “No, no. One of our officers, in the embassy under diplomatic cover. She headed for the safe house for a prearranged meet. She heard the hit, found the body on the sidewalk,” Stone said, looking at his watch. “We’re getting her out right now.”

  “All we can do is sit here and hope that Drexler safely aborts.”

  “Says he can’t. Too late. He’s got a substitute.”

  “Substitute?” Carlton bellowed. “Goddamn it, Sam. This isn’t football.”

  “Well, we sweat it out,” Stone said. “Station is keeping an eye on Falcone.”

  “What about the Russians?”

  “They’re acting like it was a traffic accident,” Stone replied. “Station chief says cell phone photos, taken at the scene by the victim’s case officer, indicate he was hit twice. First time, the car—or truck—jumps the sidewalk, hits him, the body’s thrown up and shatters the windshield. He falls to the ground and the son of a bitch drives over him. The Moscow Times had it on the web as a hit-and-run, with his name, identifying him as a visiting American professor at the Moscow State University. A couple of radicals there are tweeting that it was an FSB hit. Planning a protest.”

  “Risky idea. Nothing backdoor from the FSB?” Carlton asked.

  “Station chief got a quick call. No name. Says ‘the American’ had been picked up by an FSB officer ‘acting without authority’ and ‘unfortunately’ was in an accident. Sounds like Komov.”

  “You’re not planning a reprisal, I hope.”

  “Nope. It could turn into something like one of those Mafia gang wars,” Stone said, standing up. “We’ve got too much to risk. But if I ever get a chance to nip Komov … See you later. Back to the shop.”

  41

  Falcone kicked off his shoes and leaned back, closing his eyes in hope of sleep. At Dulles, just before boarding, he had received a cryptic Blackphone 4 call from Drexler to Chamberlain: all on schedule: all five airborne or awaiting on-time flights. He should be free of worry. He should be drifting off.… But the chagrin of guilt hung over his memory of Ambassador Fedotov standing silently in the entrance hall. Had to be done. Trying to clear that away, he turned his thoughts to the op. So Drex says all’s well. Sure. But we’re not in Moscow yet.

  Falcone had lost track of the number of times he had gone through the plan, envisioning the details of the walk-through rehearsal at the stable. Now he did it again.

  At 10:35 p.m., Domino—whoever the hell that is—disables the corridor surveillance cameras and the electronic door-lock system on the seventh floor and
cuts off electricity to Hamilton’s suite. Beckley, Reilly, and Pickens, wearing the gray coveralls and blue caps of hotel maintenance men (supplied by a Domino asset), push a laundry cart through the door to Hamilton’s darkened suite. The three laundry-cart men don night-vision glasses and locate Hamilton by his yelling about the blackout. Falcone sees this via images transmitted to his laptop from a night-vision body camera worn by Reilly; Falcone, via his Blackphone 4, passes information to Domino, who is in the basement.

  While Pickens holds and gags Hamilton, Reilly, a former SEAL medic, injects a barbiturate anesthetic called methohexital into Hamilton’s left arm. Reilly, from photographs of Hamilton and intelligence provided by Drexler, has assumed that Hamilton is healthy enough for the drug; Reilly, estimating Hamilton’s weight, has determined the size of the dose. “Blood cells take maybe thirty seconds to make a complete circuit of the body,” Reilly said at the final walk-through. “He’d be under stress with a fast heartbeat. I figure he fades in five seconds.”

  The three men roll the hamper onto the nearby elevator, which still operates because it has an independent electrical system. The elevator stops at the floor below to pick up Falcone. By using an emergency key also provided by Domino, the elevator becomes an express to the below-ground level. A door and stairway lead to an alley. There, Domino awaits in a van disguised as an orange-and-red DHL delivery van. Gregor drives it to Vnukovo International Airport’s terminal that serves private jets and cargo aircraft. They all will abandon the van and enter an aircraft that appears to be a DHL cargo plane. (“This takes a little cooperation in Germany,” Drex had said.) A German contract asset—his prime employer is a German non-government special security outfit like GSS—redirects a DHL plane from Frankfurt to Vnukovo. After the party is aboard, the fake DHL plane is cleared for takeoff.

  The plane flies to a military base in Riga, the capital of Latvia, which borders on western Russia. (“A little cooperation from a NATO guy I know,” Drex had assured them.) Everyone, including a drowsy Hamilton, leaves the DHL aircraft. (“The pilot will be found trussed up and indignant in a Frankfurt warehouse,” Drex said.) The rendition party transfers to an untraceable Gulfstream G-550, which can fly 6,750 nautical miles and can land on and take off from short-field airports. (When Falcone noted that untraceable G-550s were a CIA staple, Drex assured him that GNN gets its G-550s through an honest Lebanon broker, not from the CIA.)