A Game for Assassins (The Redaction Chronicles Book 1)

by James Quinn

  Higgins was keen to ask about the shooting in Poland, but restraint took over. He didn't want to disrupt the man's flow. He motioned for Galerkin to carry on and the Russian continued.

  “Anyway, I arrived promptly and was greeted by a man who looked like an angry gargoyle. I apologize, but that is the best way I can describe him. I will not lie to you, Svarog frightened me. He was squat, rough in manner. I sensed that I was dealing with a man of great ferocity and presence. He bade me to sit down. His voice, while courteous, was harsh, like an angry wolf. 'Galerkin, you are to be my right hand for the next few weeks. I wish to use your skills. I have been appointed personally by the Director to set up a new operation'. ”

  Higgins leaned in closer. “What about the shooting in Warsaw? Did Svarog say anything about this? What happened that caused him to fire at our man?”

  Galerkin frowned and stood to stretch his legs.

  He was building himself up to deliver bad news. “As I have said, Major Krivitsky is a very violent man. It is stamped on his face. I was under the impression that the plan to capture the CIA man had gotten out of control and when your colleague tried to escape, Major Krivitsky ensured he would be put down. Major Krivitsky is a man who does not like to lose face.”

  “But there is no doubt in your mind that Svarog – I mean Krivitsky – was the one who pulled the trigger?” said Higgins.

  Galerkin sat down again. “It was Krivitsky. He was not ashamed of his act, in fact, quite the opposite. He was quite open about it to junior officers. It added to his ferocious reputation and advanced him up the ladder of promotion also.”

  Higgins smiled. “Okay, so what was this new secret operation?”

  “He proceeded to lay out the details of his new operation. It involved several high-level traitors from the West. These spies, he assured me, were totally loyal to the cause of the Motherland, even though they were not Russian by birth. Several, he had recruited himself, whilst the rest had been 'grandfathered' to him from other case officers. Case officers who had either been blown or been transferred. Svarog said his network of spies had high strategic and intelligence value. He did not clarify, and I was not in a position to ask such details.”

  Higgins looked at his watch. They had been at it for nearly an hour. Tradecraft dictated that the meetings were to be kept short, in case the KGB man's absence was noticed. “Anatoli, I think that's enough for today. You've been very helpful. It's certainly given me plenty to think on—”

  “There is one other thing,” interrupted Galerkin. “I have a gift, a gift for your people. I can bring it with me tomorrow, if you can arrange for me to come out straight away?”

  Higgins leaned back, looking doubtful. “I don't know if that's possible, Anatoli.”

  The Russian clasped his hands together like a penitent. “It would be worth your while.”

  “It would have to be exceptional material. Ideally, we would like you to carry on as you are. That's standard procedure. Better that way in the long run,” said Higgins.

  “I can give you Svarog's network in the West,” blurted out the Russian. “His agents, their roles, how far deep they have infiltrated your systems. The whole thing; photos, contacts, written orders, meeting places. I have it hidden safe!”

  Higgins knew that the chasm between what an agent says and what is truth can sometimes be as wide as an ocean, so he tested his new agent's mettle. “And you can get them for us, from Moscow, and bring them here to Helsinki?”

  Galerkin shook his head, desperate now for the CIA man to hear him. “No, you misunderstand me. I do not have to go to Moscow, I have them here, copies, taken from KGB headquarters and brought with me to Finland. It is my price for resettlement in the West.”

  And in that moment, Higgins knew he'd found the goldmine of intelligence that could give them a way to strike back, not for the CIA, but for the private vengeance both he and Ferrera had decided to embark upon. A fortuitous turn of events and lucky break had given them exactly what they wanted.

  “Tomorrow,” said Higgins, quickly deciding upon a course of action from which he knew there was no going back. “You will bring it to me tomorrow.”

  Chapter Five

  The next day, Galerkin returned to the hotel. The same rules, the same protocols, the same tape recorder inside Higgins' jacket pocket.

  The only differences being that this meeting wasn't sanctioned by the Agency. The CIA station didn't know that Higgins was meeting Galerkin for a second time and it was strictly off the books; two spies hiding from their own sides for a brief period of time.

  Galerkin had brought with him an attaché case, filled with raw intelligence material, purloined from the very heart of one of Russian Intelligence's most notorious case officers. Higgins looked at the case, his eyes constantly drawn back to it and the secrets that lay within. “Mr. Galerkin, have you told anyone else about this in the Agency?”

  Galerkin looked offended. “I have not. They told me that you are a very important man and that you wished to talk to me in confidence about certain matters. The people from your Embassy said that I should discuss important matters with you and that you alone, had the power to bring me out.”

  Higgins nodded; that was good. As far as the Agency knew, it was only about the shooting in Poland. This mine of intelligence had, so far, slipped underneath their radar. “Then you must say nothing, Galerkin. This is a matter of national security. It is a closed door to everyone, but me. This comes from the very highest level of our government. Do you understand?”

  Galerkin nodded his weasel-like head. “I do; I most certainly do.”

  It was a good bluff that had frightened the man to his core and Higgins had no doubt he would play ball. Unfortunately for Galerkin, the fact that he'd passed the information about the Warsaw shooting and the clues relating to Svarog's network of agents in the West, made him a liability.

  There could – if Higgins and Ferrera's future plans to exact revenge stood any chance of success – be only one possible outcome for Anatoli Galerkin, KGB officer. He would have to be removed from the game and silenced.

  Higgins had spent the previous night thinking it through, justifying his future actions to himself. Ideally, he would have liked to give the man an 'out' – a way of letting him live, while still handing over the intelligence. In truth, there was no other way of getting the information without alerting the mainstream CIA.

  Higgins stood and held out his hand for the attaché case. Galerkin looked at him, doubtful for a moment and then handed over the case.

  The CIA man flipped open the latch and rummaged briefly through the files; photos of the agents, contact procedure details, biographies. If it checked out, and judging by the look of it Higgins had no reason to doubt that it wasn't genuine, it would burst open a huge intelligence network. He closed up the attaché case and placed it carefully on the chair next to him. He turned to Galerkin, his face sporting a grim expression.

  “I think our work here is done. I will let the local station handle the details, but from my point of view, I will be recommending we get you out of the country tonight, plus the usual retirement package in the USA. For now, I need you to stay in this room where you're safe,” said Higgins and he held out his hand for the Russian to shake. It was a sign of trust for future comrades.

  The Russian had barely gotten out a “Thank you,” when Higgins stepped forward and punched the other man in the stomach, sending him to his knees in pain. Higgins knew he had to move fast, especially if he wanted to keep it quiet. He'd learned that during the war; the silent killing, the sentry removal. He clamped a hand over the man's mouth and dragged him into the small bathroom, throwing him into the large metal bath. Galerkin hit the back of his head on the taps and blood started to seep down the curvature of the bath.

  Soon the Russian would regain his senses, the pain would start to ease and he would begin to scream or fight back. Higgins threw his own body weight on top of Galerkin and pushed a pure white towel down onto his mo
uth, making him gag. The Russian was starting to fight back and Higgins knew he had to end this quickly. He looked around the small bathroom, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon. The only thing in range was a heavy ceramic soap dish. He grabbed it, brought it up past his shoulder and brought it down on the top of the Russian's head; once, twice, three times – each time putting more power into the shots.

  There was a cracking sound, like a delicate eggshell had been broken, followed by a crunch as the soap dish began to grind down the Russian's skull with each new blow. Galerkin's head was caved in on one side, like a football which has been deflated, and still Higgins pounded away with the soap dish, trying to make it quick for himself, as well as for Galerkin.

  On the thirteenth blow he stopped, exhausted. Higgins looked around at the carnage. The bath and wall tiles were coated with blood and it dripped over the lip of the bath and onto the floor. He dropped the soap dish onto the lifeless body and stared at his hand. It looked like it had been dipped in red paint. He climbed carefully out of the bath, trying not to disturb the body and not looking at the man's face, the eyes. The eyes were just too much to take in. The lifeless eyes looked back at him and said 'betrayer' and 'murderer'.” He quickly set about washing any blood off his hands and face.

  He pulled the shower curtain across and closed the door to the bathroom. His body shook all over and it was several minutes more before he donned his hat, scarf, coat and gloves. He picked up the attaché case, pulled the scarf higher around his face to hide his identity and let himself out of the hotel room. He quickly moved down the stairs to the service entrance and let himself out the back. He passed no one.

  Poor Galerkin, thought Higgins as he made his way out into the back alley of the hotel, hitting the streets. He had learned the hard way that sometimes it was necessary to eliminate pawns from the game in order to achieve exceptional results and that the end, did indeed, justify the means.

  Chapter Six

  Higgins arrived back in Washington two days later. He didn't even go home to his wife. Instead, the first thing he did was cable the Helsinki Station to say that in his opinion, Galerkin was an agent of penetration, designed by the Russians to try to infiltrate himself into the CIA's defector program and spread disinformation. The man had fluffed several of the questions and made a crude attempt to extort money from a senior officer from Langley. Higgins' recommendation was that Galerkin be dropped as soon as possible and no further contact should be made with him by CIA Helsinki.

  The next thing he did was to go down to the Registry and look up the few details they had on a Russian intelligence officer by the name of Vladimir Krivitsky. There was precious little. A few postings when he had operated under diplomatic cover; Switzerland, Paris, Berlin, plus one grainy photograph that showed the man in profile. Higgins stared at the photo, imprinting the man's face in his memory.

  Aside from a meeting with the Director of Plans, for the rest of the day he sat in his office, making notes in his personal ledger. The ledger he would take home with him to work on and to streamline the scribbling inside into a workable strategy. By late that afternoon, he was tired and suffering from being on the road for the past week.

  “This just came in. It's from Helsinki in reply to your cable,” said his secretary. He was on his way out the door, but waved his hand for her to pass it to him. Then he was going home to his wife, his home and his bed. The cable read:

  RE: CABLE/CIA-HELSINKI

  ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR CONCERNS OVER GALERKIN. CIA STATION HAS ORDERS NOT TO APPROACH. UNDERSTOOD. IT SEEMS WE CAN'T TRUST ANYONE THESE DAYS.

  FOR REFERENCE: A LOCAL NEWS REPORT STATES THAT RUSSIAN EMBASSY OFFICIAL ANATOLI GALERKIN HAS DISAPPEARED. RUSSIAN EMBASSY HAS ALERTED LOCAL POLICE FORCES.

  SEEMS YOU WERE RIGHT. OBVIOUSLY RUNNING SCARED. SERVES HIM RIGHT.

  * * *

  Higgins had driven through the night to reach Vermont. Following his enforced retirement, Chuck Ferrera had been staying at the family-owned lodge in the mountains not far from Mount Mansfield.

  The cabin was anything but modest, a five room hunting lodge in six acres of grounds, which had been bought by the Ferrera family for long weekend vacations. For now, though, it had a very different purpose. It was partly to rehabilitate Chuck, partly to settle his mind, but also to see if his desire for revenge was quenched in the calm stillness of the mountains.

  That night following his return from Helsinki, Higgins had found Chuck Ferrera sitting in his reading chair by the fire, halfway through a book. There was no evidence of alcohol anywhere in the room.

  Higgins took off his winter jacket, sat in the chair opposite his friend and whispered quietly, “I think we've found him.”

  Ferrera had put his book down calmly and said, “Good, then let's begin.”

  * * *

  Over the coming weeks, Higgins would make a visit to the mountain lodge once a fortnight, landing at Burlington Municipal Airport and then taking a winding car journey through the mountains, ostensibly to visit a grieving friend, but in reality, to bring any intelligence he had managed to glean from CIA files and to plan out the next phase of their covert operation. They would sit drinking coffee and talking, late into the night. Their talk was operational. Do we target the man or the system? What about our escape plan? Is it deniable enough?

  On a practical level, no operation can exist without the necessary funds and monies to make it happen, so Ferrera had, through intermediaries, liquidated all his assets; properties, shares, savings bond, pensions and his termination package from the Agency, which all went into the fund. He had the funds deposited into a Swiss bank account, as well as several smaller, satellite banks located throughout Europe. By the end of several weeks, he had a two-million-dollar bounty which would enable him to run his operation and resettle him somewhere outside of US jurisdiction when the job was over.

  The final thing to do was to destroy any ID naming him as Charles Ferrera. He gathered together his passport, driving license and birth certificate and set fire to them outside the lodge on a clear and starry night. He watched as the embers finally burned away. They were inconsequential anyway, he had several sets of new ID's, which had been provided by one of Higgins' contacts that the CIA used.

  It was a way of putting down his old life and taking up a new one.

  And so on that night, Charles 'Chuck' Ferrera, former CIA officer, and soon-to-be traitor, dropped off the intelligence radar and officially ceased to exist.

  * * *

  “It means that Dan's unsolved murder has to be buried and the investigation cancelled. Especially if we have any hope of covering our tracks,” said Higgins, at one of their regular meetings. They were sitting on the porch, enjoying the view of the mountains and the cool evening air.

  “As long as we have that scum's head and his network destroyed, it will be worth it,” said Ferrera bitterly.

  “I've read through the Helsinki Station's reports into Galerkin. The Warsaw shooting, Krivitsky, his agents in the West. Only we have access to that list. If there's anything that could lead back to us, I'll see if a little judicious trimming of file details might be enough to throw them off the scent,” said Higgins.

  Ferrera looked concerned. It might be easier said than done, he thought. Altering a few biographical details would be enough to confuse most case officers, but he knew the Chief of Counter-Intelligence was a driven, some would say, zealot of a man who refused to take no for an answer. “What about Angleton?” he said.

  “It's not a problem; I'll take care of Jim. I outrank him by a country mile, besides, he's gotten more than enough intelligence product to keep his little team happy for the next few years,” said Higgins.

  The plan had been simple. Identify Krivitsky's network of agents and start eliminating them, one by one. Let Krivitsky watch as his agents were picked off one at a time and then when he has no more network left, and the effectiveness of KGB operations in the West was almost decimated, they would wait for Svarog to
come out into the open and then they would strike – chopping off the head of the hydra. Svarog was to be the ultimate target.

  They had an impressive target list; a NATO liaison officer, propulsion engineer, bankers, diplomats, businessmen, political appointees. All Soviet agents and all easy targets. Of course, this couldn't be an official CIA-backed operation; no, not even the Assistant to the Director of Plans could swing that, and besides Ferrera had made an enemy of the current DCI. But what it could be, was a private enterprise between two old friends and comrades, determined to get revenge for the death of a loved one. They'd spent the night discussing various options, some good and some terrible.

  Finally, they settled on a false flag operation as the one with the most realistic chance of succeeding. A false flag was a time-honored tradition in the intelligence world. You represented yourself as one thing, when in fact you were another. So a French Intelligence officer might pass himself off as an Italian spy, in the hope of recruiting an Italian citizen to pass him information. As long as the agent believed they were working for one side, usually out of patriotism, the concept would work well.

  For Ferrara, he would be representing himself as a still-active CIA case officer. They'd put in the necessary 'plumbing', to use an old Agency phrase. Hired safe-houses, prepared false travel documents and where they needed on the ground intelligence about their targets, they set about hiring private detectives from the various target countries to provide them with addresses, car registration numbers, up-to-date surveillance photos or to track movements on a day-to-day basis. It was expensive, but money well spent in the long run.