by Trevor Scott
“Is that a good idea?” Reed said. “What if they’re associated with Petrova?”
She considered that and had to admit he had a point. But she still didn’t completely trust the colonel. Not after how he had sent Jake to the Arctic like that without telling him the truth. “Then we’ll know.”
Toni got out of the rental car, glanced back a block, catching the gaze of NIS officer Hagen, and then stepped down the sidewalk. The car was a block ahead.
She would stroll along, as if just out for a casual walk. Nobody to concern them. As she got closer to the car, she angled to the edge of the sidewalk to be out of mirror view, then cut a direct line toward the open passenger window, drawing her gun at the last second and pointing it directly at the little woman’s head.
Both inside the car startled when they saw her.
“What the hell?” said the little woman.
The man instinctively swept his hand into his jacket.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Toni said. She reached inside the car and unlocked the back door, then hurried into the back seat. “Who the hell are you two?”
The man spoke first. “MI6.”
She switched the gun to her left hand and leaned forward, putting her hand into his jacket and collecting his 9mm handgun and passport. She got her phone and said, “Jimmy McLean with MI6.” She flipped her phone shut and reached up for the woman’s purse. Inside she found a little Walther P22, just right for her tiny hands. Then her passport. “Velda Crane. You also claim to be with MI6?”
The woman nodded her disproportionately large head. “Who are you?”
Jimmy McLean took this question. “This, Velda, is Toni Contardo with the Central Intelligence Agency. Why else would I have told her we were with MI6?”
Toni glanced at McLean in the rearview mirror.
“We heard you were in Oslo,” McLean explained, “but had no way of knowing how to contact you. Camp Springs said you were out in the cold. Hadn’t heard from you in a while.”
Her phone rang and she picked up and listened, before flipping it shut with force and shoving it into her jacket pocket. Toni handed their guns and passports back to them. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem,” Velda said. “How long were you with us?”
Toni put her gun in its holster. “All day. What was that little dwarf. . .no offense. . .”
“No problem,” Velda said.
“What was Gary Dixon up to today?” Toni finished.
“That’s what we’ve been trying to discern,” McLean said. He explained what they knew about Dixon’s activities, and how they had followed the man from Scotland to Oslo.
Toni’s story was much less revealing. She wasn’t one to give up information freely, and didn’t trust just anyone. Hell, she didn’t even trust Colonel Reed, who had been an Air Force officer and CIA and new Agency operative.
“That has to be the biggest crock of shit I’ve heard in a long time,” Jimmy McLean said. “Couldn’t you give us a little more information than that? What happened to cooperation?”
Velda chimed in. “This Victor Petrova is a bad ass mad genius. A frickin’ puppet master.”
“Half-pint is right,” McLean said.
“Half-pint?” Toni asked.
“Has nothing to do with her size,” he explained. “She always orders a half pint of beer.”
“Okay. She’s right about?”
“Petrova,” he said. “Our intel says the man orchestrated so many crazy-ass schemes for the KGB, he could have started World War Three if he wanted to during the Cold War. He was that good. Now he’s made millions off his criminal activity. He runs a massive organization throughout Europe.”
“And is headquartered in Stockholm,” Toni said. “I got the same briefing.” What’s he up to now? That was the question of the hour. Yet not one of them could come up with a good answer.
●
Sitting in the passenger seat of his rental Volvo, Victor Petrova smiled as he listened through his ear piece as the three intelligence officers lavished praise and hatred for him and his criminal activity. His driver had reached each location Gary Dixon had gone, knowing where and when the man would be at each location. By doing so he had accomplished two goals. First, the Scotsman had delivered messages to men with mostly clean records—men who themselves would not do a damn thing for him, but who would pass the word to those who would act soon. And second, he had collected all the players in this grand game of his, from the two Brits to this new Agency woman. He had heard of Toni Contardo from his days in the KGB. She was more than a little capable. No match for his intellect. But then few were. So she had teamed up with Colonel Reed in some way. Disturbing, but not completely unexpected. Still, the colonel had served his purpose, sending Jake Adams off to the Arctic to do his work for him. Sure he could have sent his men to accomplish the same task. But there was no reason to involve the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. Sure the SVR was no KGB, but even the blind hamster finds his way up the actor’s ass once in a while. Maybe he was the puppet master. He smiled.
19
Jake stretched his legs out in the sleeper car—the very same car where he had thrown the police officer’s clothes and then dumped them out the window. Anna was asleep on the upper bunk and Kjersti was alone in her compartment next door to them.
They had traveled for hours along the Swedish coast, passed through the seaport cities of Umea and Sundsvall, and at nearly one in the morning were at least an hour away from Gavle, some hundred miles north of Stockholm.
He had had plenty of time to think about this case during the ride. They had been lucky the Swedish police had not invaded the train at one of their stops and hauled them all in. He couldn’t let that happen, though. The box he carried with him, with the Russian words and the international symbol for biohazard stamped prominently on four sides, would put him in jail faster than he could consider. Sure he could have his friends at the Agency get him out, assuming they would be willing to do so. But with what he had discovered before getting on the train, they might not be willing to help Jake in any way. He needed to contact the Agency and Colonel Reed. But first his friend at the Agency.
He reached into his backpack and found the SAT phone.
When he turned on the phone, he saw that he had missed thirteen calls. Ten from scrambled Agency numbers that would lead to pizza places in New Jersey and Chinese restaurants in Portland, Oregon. The other three were from the untraceable number from Colonel Reed. A number that when punched in by anyone else finding the phone, or stealing it, would be picked up by a Swiss sheep herder—which Jake was sure would piss that guy off to no end.
Jake called Jenkins at the Agency, who picked up on the second ring.
“Where the hell are you?” Jenkins asked hurriedly.
“Come on, Kurt,” Jake said, his voice barely a whisper. “This is a GPS-enabled SAT phone, which I’m sure you broke the code for during our first call. Even with the phone turned off, you can track me.”
“Why do I even try?” He stopped and said, “Okay. You’re traveling at a steady one hundred thirty kilometers per hour at sea level. So that would put you on the night train heading toward Stockholm.”
“I could be driving,” Jake muttered.
“I don’t think so, Jake. I know your driving. It’s not that steady. Plus our people have tracked your stops in each city. Also, we got a report about some cop getting his ass whipped. When they sent out the description, it sounded like you.”
“You take care of it?”
“Yeah. First we altered the description, and then we wiped it from their system. Made it go away.”
“Thanks. That’s why I didn’t dump the SAT phone. Thought you could be of some use.”
“Glad to help. But aren’t you taking a risk traveling on a train with that deadly virus?”
Crap. He had a feeling Jenkins would bring that up. It’s why he really didn’t call in his actions. He was hoping to finish the train travel before he had
to explain his actions.
“I know what I’m doing,” Jake assured him.
Anna rolled onto her back and started to snore. She had taken a sleeping pill, so he knew she would sleep through the night.
“What’s that noise?” Jenkins asked.
“Nothing.” He struggled with his thoughts of what he should tell his old friend. Could he explain that he had been duped? They all had been suckered.
“What’s wrong, Jake?”
“Nothing. Do you have your people in place in Oslo?”
Now Jenkins took his time to answer. “We have assets in place there, with more to come. It’s taken us a while to get a team of scientists together with the expertise needed to inactivate the flu virus. You understand.”
Yeah, he understood. He understood that his friend’s efforts would be nothing more than a drill—an exercise—for possible future breaches of security. Maybe the American government would be able to work out better protocols because of this. Right. That was a fantasy.
“No problem. Make sure they get there within twenty-four hours.”
“One question, Jake.”
“Shoot.”
“Why the crazy route? Why not just a direct approach to Oslo?”
“Well, that was smart on my part wasn’t it,” Jake said, sarcastically. “Your people aren’t ready for me anyway. I’d be sitting in Oslo holding my dick waiting for your scientists to arrive. Besides, some bad-ass folks seem to want this. . .virus even more than us. And I have a feeling they’re willing to do damn near anything to get their hands on it. Anything else you can tell me?”
“We’ve tracked down Colonel Reed.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s in Oslo. It took us some time, but we back-tracked some calls he made to your SAT phone.”
Great. Did Jenkins know more than he was telling him? “I was just going to call the colonel.”
“No need,” Jenkins said. “He’s with. . .our people there in Oslo.”
“So you’re on the same page. Did he explain anything about his contacts?”
Jenkins explained everything they knew, including the involvement of the Russian, Victor Petrova.
“I’m familiar with Petrova,” Jake said. “He was one of the most manipulative bastards in KGB disinformation. And that’s saying a lot.”
“We tried turning him in the height of the Cold War,” Jenkins admitted. “He strung us along like Gepetto. Then pulled the rug out from under us and a couple of our agents were killed.”
Jake remembered that. It happened right around the time he had switched from being an Air Force officer to joining the old CIA. “What’s he up to now?”
“Mostly running one of the most successful criminal organizations in Europe. Headquartered near you in Stockholm.”
“Right. I could run down there and have a little talk with the little man.”
“No use. He’s not there. We’ve been checking into he and his men since we heard Colonel Reed had been in contact with him, but they’ve all disappeared. Poof. Gone.”
In Oslo, Jake guessed. Waiting for him to deliver his package.
“Sounds like we’re running right into him. You want me to keep going to Oslo?”
“It’s as good a place as any to stop this.”
“Not really,” Jake said. “Might be better to go to some remote military site or isolated airfield. Less exposure there.”
Hesitation on the other end. Heavy sigh. “You might be right. But for now we’re going where the players are. I’ll let you know if that changes.”
Jake hung up and thought for a moment. He didn’t have to play by their rules anymore. Maybe he should just scoot off somewhere. Change the plan to suit him.
In the bunk above, Anna’s snoring had calmed. Must have rolled to her side. He looked at the SAT phone in the near darkness and wondered if he should call Colonel Reed. No. He was too pissed off at the man. He’d probably go off on him and wake Anna.
Instead, he got up and went to the door. The train rocked gently back and forth as he turned to look at Anna sleeping in the upper berth. Then he slipped out the door and locked it behind him. He considered going for a drink, but the bar would be closed by now. Maybe he needed a drink. Needed to understand what was going on. Perhaps he should tell Anna what he had discovered. No. She shouldn’t know at this time. His discovery could make this case even more dangerous, for greed had always brought out the worst in people.
Jake found himself wandering down the aisle, shifting with the rock and roll of the train. As he came back down toward his berth, he noticed the door next to his cracked slightly and then Kjersti appeared before him, wearing only a long shirt that barely covered her bottom. She nodded her head for him to come inside, which he did.
What the hell was he doing? He was with Anna, but now he found himself in a sleeper car in Sweden with a beautiful intelligence officer from Norway. He couldn’t say he wasn’t turned on by her—she was as hot as they came—and he had already caught a quick glimpse of her breasts as she woke in the chopper on Spitsbergen. In fact, she and Anna were so similar in physique they could have easily passed for twins. But something had pulled he and Anna apart over the past few months. The drinking had been part of it, he was sure, but there was more. Her work had become a problem, making her take sleeping pills just to be able to get enough rest to function the next day. So was her taking of pills any different from his drinking?
He glanced between the drawn curtains at the countryside. But they were so close to the ocean, all he saw was the lights of a large ship in the distance.
“What’s keeping you awake?” Kjersti asked.
Jake turned to see her sitting on the lower bunk, her bare legs crossed, shoving her shirt even higher on her thighs. She wasn’t leaving much to the imagination. And Jake had always had a vivid imagination. It must have been more chilly than he thought in the sleeper car, because her nipples were as hard as that metal box in the other compartment.
“I don’t know,” Jake said. “How ‘bout you?”
“Everything. Nothing.” She smiled at him and turned her eyes away coyly.
Jake moved and leaned against the bathroom door. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m just waiting for the Swedish police to haul us off.”
“Not gonna happen.” Jake explained how his unnamed friends had made sure that nobody was looking for them.
“Wow. You do have friends in high places. Anna said you were well connected.” Her eyes went from his eyes to his groin area and then back again. “What’s going on in Oslo?”
He wasn’t sure how much to open up to her. “Well, our scientists are on the way. Hopefully they’ll get there before us and we can get rid of this damn box. Part of me wished we had just left it up in the Arctic. But I know that someone would have gone for it and found it. If the money is right, or the ideology, then almost anything is possible.”
She uncrossed her legs and Jake could see she was a natural blonde. Moving to the edge of the bed, she stretched her legs out toward him. “Can we stop this?” she asked breathlessly.
“Stop what?”
“This pretense. This playing around the issue. This cat and mouse game. I need a man, and you are all man. Just fuck me and do it fast. I am so hot for you.”
“What about Anna?”
“God. If she was here, I’d do the both of you. I’m not trying to steal you from her. I just want your cock. Just tonight.” She pulled the shirt over her head, exposing a perfectly naked body.
Jesus, was he being tested now or what? She was going to finish with or without him, as she played with her breasts with one hand and put the other between her legs.
Unsure what to do, Jake heard movement out in the hallway. Since the policeman incident, Jake had armed himself with one of the 9mm handguns. He thought about pulling it now, but instead went to the door and peered through the peep hole. Nothing.
“What’s up?” Kjersti said. She had gotten out of the bed and now s
tood behind Jake, her bare breasts pressing against his back. “I was hoping something was.” She reached around to the front of his pants and he turned away from her.
“Something is going on,” Jake whispered. “I’m sure of it. Someone is checking compartments down on the end, working their way this way. Get dressed.”
Disappointed, Kjersti did as he said while he watched through the door peep. Nobody was in view yet. But someone had a pass key and was checking each compartment. He was stuck. He couldn’t go next door to Anna to warn her or they would see him.
Quietly, he unlocked the door.
“You have a small mirror in your purse?” Jake asked her.
Without answering, she produced a small round mirror, which Jake used to check the hallway. Two men. Down the end of the sleeper compartment. One man quietly entered a room, while the other kept watch on the hallway, switching his gaze from one end to the other, a pistol in his hand. Jake closed the door quietly and told Kjersti what was happening.
“Are they police?” she asked him in a whisper.
“No. They aren’t announcing themselves. They’re looking for us, though. Have to be.” Jake thought about the box in his compartment, stuffed in his backpack. And Anna in her pill-induced state would not hear them enter.
They had just a few minutes to come up with a plan. The men were getting closer. Based on their progress and their pattern, they would check Jake’s room first. He pulled his gun and handed it to Kjersti. Then they listened and waited.
Just as the first man opened Jake’s door, he opened Kjersti’s door and rushed the men, pushing one man into the other and the three of them crashing into Jake’s compartment. In the chaos, the man dropped his gun and flailed at Jake.
Kjersti followed the scuffling men, Jake’s gun pointed at all three of them.
Jake smashed his fist into the gunman’s face, knocking him out, his body going limp. By now the man with the pass key had recovered to his knees and pushed his hand at Jake, catching him on his right side and bringing a sharp pain.