The Shadowmen

by David Hagberg

  Otto was busy at his computer. “He has a dacha outside Moscow, and that’s not changed since the last time I checked a couple of years ago. He owns it, but I’m finding no trace that he lives there or even that he’s still alive, but I’ll find out.”

  “He was a dangerous man in the day, right?” Pete asked. “So maybe someone is keeping an eye on him.”

  “Good point,” Otto said. “Hold on a mo.”

  “When’s the last time you two had something to eat?” Louise asked.

  “On the flight over,” Pete said.

  “How about a pizza?”

  It had been Otto and Louise’s crisis meal for as long as McGarvey could remember, but he’d never liked pizza, not even as a kid growing up in a small western Kansas town. “Sounds good,” he said.

  Louise turned on the oven and got a pizza from the freezer as Pete got out the plates.

  “Didenko is alive, and he has a minder by the name of Nikita Tomanov, assigned from what used to be the Second Chief Directorate,” Otto said. “Looks like he’s been with the general for eight years.”

  “Have you got a current address?” McGarvey asked.

  “Didenko’s old dacha outside of Moscow.”

  Pete put the plates on the counter and came around so that she could see the monitor, on which a map of the countryside northwest of Moscow was displayed. A spot outside of the town of Petushki was highlighted, GPS coordinates next to it.

  “Ed Voight is our new chief of Moscow Station,” Otto said. “I hacked the laptop of one of Putin’s aides for him, so he owes me a little something in return. I can give him a call and ask that he send one of his people out there to take a look.”

  “Why not just hack Didenko’s computer?” Pete asked.

  “I already tried that, but he’s old school. Neither he nor Tomanov have online accounts.”

  “What do you think, Kirk?” Pete asked. “It’s a long shot at best that this guy knows anything or would even be willing to talk to one of Ed’s people.”

  “But he’s a link back to Kurshin,” Otto said. “Certainly the FSB wouldn’t be interested in settling old scores; they have their hands full with a lot bigger issues. Ed can use the excuse that he’s been asked to set the record straight. Kurshin’s operations were fringe even for those days—could be that we’re just talking history here.”

  “To find out what, exactly?” Louise asked.

  “If anybody from his past been out to see him lately,” Pete said. “Could be another lead.”

  Otto looked up. “Another lead?”

  “I’ll do it,” Pete said. “Didenko and his minder would be a lot more receptive to someone like me than one of Ed’s people. I’m writing a book on Mac.”

  “Too coincidental,” Louise said.

  “An unauthorized biography. One that’ll seriously piss him off because of some of the tradecraft I’m writing about.”

  “You’d be under contract with Forge,” Otto said. “I know Bob Gleason, an editor over there who’ll verify it.”

  “Better than going in guns blazing,” Pete said. “I can leave first thing in the morning, and as soon as I find out anything, I’ll get word to Kirk in France and try to join him.”

  McGarvey had wanted to find an excuse not to take her along, because he was convinced that the shooter planned on using her as bait, just like he had at Arlington. He had shot up her car hoping that Mac would come to the rescue, not expecting Pete to return fire. By the time she got to Moscow and then to Didenko and his minder, the situation in France would be finished, though McGarvey didn’t think it would be resolved. This guy wanted to play for some reason.

  “All right,” he said.

  For just a moment, Pete’s face brightened, but then her eyes narrowed. “Do you think I’m going on a fool’s errand?”

  “I don’t know if Didenko will even talk to you.”

  “But it’ll get me out of your hair long enough.”

  “For what?” Otto demanded.

  “The cleanup crew found something mixed in with the shell casings at the top of the hill. His calling card, telling Kirk where he’ll be next.”

  McGarvey took a plastic plaque about the size of a playing card out of his pocket and handed it to Otto. “A one thousand–euro baccarat chip from the Casino de Monte-Carlo.”

  7

  McGarvey stood at the front window of his apartment looking toward Rock Creek Park and the almost nonexistent 3:00 A.M. traffic on the parkway like he had done often just before he was off to the badlands somewhere. A time to reflect, to consider his options and even his reasons for going.

  He’d never considered himself to be a Don Quixote, and yet at times, he knew that was exactly the figure he cut for some people, like the current deputy director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service and a few deputy directors before him.

  One had called Mac an anachronism, a man whom time had passed by. Another said he was a criminal. A president a few years back had charged him with treason.

  “If it wasn’t that people have a tendency of turning up dead, you’d almost be a clown,” a national security adviser to that president had told him.

  “You called me,” Mac had countered.

  “Why?” someone else had asked.

  “It’s who I am,” Mac had told him, and that answer hadn’t set right even in his own ears. Yet it was probably the nearest thing to the truth that was possible to know.

  Of all the women in his life who to his way of thinking had died because of him, he missed Katy the most. Her loss was all the more poignant to him at this moment, because her headstone had been desecrated—an act of no other significance than to let him know that the shooter knew exactly how he would react. The act had not hurt Katy, of course, but it had cut him so deeply that no force in the world could stop him from going after the bastard.

  And the other problem that weighed heavily was Pete. He was falling in love with her, he was afraid for her safety, and he knew that he couldn’t keep her out of harm’s way down at the Farm, where his granddaughter had been sent again. He felt a tremendous guilt that he had no idea how to handle the situation other than charge forward as best he could.

  They’d left Otto and Louise late and drove over to Pete’s apartment, where she packed for her trip to see Didenko. Their flights left from Dulles in the afternoon—his to Paris around four and hers to Moscow an hour later. She didn’t want to spend the night alone, so she’d come with McGarvey to his apartment, where he packed the extra things he’d need for the casino.

  He’d given her the bed, and he’d taken the couch.

  “Brooding won’t do any good,” she said. She was at the bedroom door, dressed in a short nightshirt, her hair tousled.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I’ve been listening to you thinking for the past hour. What he did was get your attention; it had nothing to do with Kathleen. He wanted to put you off balance.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Come to bed, Kirk. I just need someone to hold me for a little while, nothing more, I promise.”

  Some years ago, he’d lost one of his kidneys in a firefight, and just last year, he’d lost his remaining kidney, and Pete—who, as it turned out, was a good match—had donated one of hers without question. And he’d been there for her a couple of times, hauling her out of harm’s way without regard for his own safety. They’d become a team, something he’d worried about, something he’d fought against admitting to himself. But looking at her now, he understood how wrong he’d been to hold her at arm’s length.

  Otto called around nine when they were having breakfast. He had arranged their flights, and he had booked Mac into the Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo and Pete into Moscow’s Sheraton near the airport.

  “Marty wants to see both of you right away. He got the cleanup crew’s action report, and he wants to know what you guys are up to this time.”

  It was about what McGarvey had expected. “Did he mention the baccarat plaque?�
��

  “I haven’t seen the report, but if those guys found it, Marty knows about it.”

  “Stall him till we get out of here.”

  “He’s talked to Buchanan.” Ted Buchanan was the FBI’s liaison with the CIA, and he and Bambridge were generally cut out of the same cloth.

  McGarvey had figured that would happen too. The bureau had sent two agents out to Arlington because of the shooting, and McGarvey had told them that the incident had been a random attack. They hadn’t believed it, but McGarvey had once been the DCI, and that still carried a lot of weight, so they had let it go.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Are you coming in?”

  “No,” McGarvey said.

  “Watch yourself in Monaco. He might have been playing with you at Arlington, but sooner or later, he’ll get tired of the game.”

  “Me too,” McGarvey said.

  He explained the problem to Pete and then called Bambridge, whose secretary put him through immediately. He switched to speaker mode.

  “Tell me that you two are on your way in,” DDO said. He was a good deputy director, but he and McGarvey had never gotten along. Bambridge was a by-the-book man, exactly the opposite of Mac.

  “Pete’s with me, and we’re going to lie low for a few days.”

  “Not until we talk.”

  “Later.”

  “The shooter was armed with an automatic weapon. Shell casings were all over the place. And you and Ms. Boylan returned fire. The bureau wants to know what the hell happened. There were innocent bystanders who could have been hurt, and if you mean to tell me the same thing you told the agents—that it was a random act—we both know that you’re lying. Someone out of your past has come gunning for you. I want to know who it is and why.”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  “The bureau wants to talk to you, but I convinced Ted that we’d have to vet your story first. It’s most likely going to involve national security issues.”

  “At this point, I don’t think so. But when I run it down, which I will, I’ll stop by and let you know what happened.”

  “Goddamn it, mister, I want you in my office now!”

  “Don’t push it, Marty.”

  “Is Ms. Boylan with you? She doesn’t answer at her apartment.”

  “I’m here,” Pete said.

  “I don’t hear any road noise, so it means you’re either at McGarvey’s apartment or you’re shacked up with him at some motel.”

  Pete grinned. “With all due respect, Mr. Bambridge, go fuck yourself. I’m going to be gone for a few days or maybe a little longer, but when I get back, the first person I’ll speak to will be Melissa Danberg.” Danberg was head of the CIA’s Human Resources office.

  “That’s your prerogative, but I want you here.”

  “I believe you accused me of being shacked up,” Pete said. “That’s sexual harassment, Marty, and I’m going to make a very large deal out of it.” She hit the End button. “Sometimes I almost feel sorry for the bastard.”

  “He’s just trying to do his job. Maybe it would be best if you went in and talked to him.”

  “The shooter was aiming at me too, so I’m in this just as deeply as you are, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let myself be stuck here until it’s too late.”

  “Even if Didenko knows anything, the chances that he’ll help you are slim.”

  “It’ll put the shooter on notice,” Pete said. “Maybe we should pack up and get out of here before Marty sends someone to look for us.”

  * * *

  McGarvey phoned Louise and told her the situation. She agreed to keep the rental Ford in their garage and drive them out to Dulles in time for their flights.

  On the way over, Pete took a standard surveillance-detection route, first heading out toward CIA headquarters and then turning off at various points to see if they were being followed before taking up the route again.

  “Would have been better if we had ditched the car somewhere else and checked into a motel near the airport,” she said. “I was looking forward to shacking up with you.”

  8

  Martine Barineau’s place in Nice was actually a villa in the hills above the small town of Villefranche-sur-Mer just a few kilometers up the Basse Corniche toward Monte-Carlo, and the afternoon was lovely when she arrived by cab with Kurshin. He paid, and she led him inside, where they left their bags in the hall and then went around the back to a long pool area overlooking the town and the Mediterranean.

  A very large cat came through open french doors, rubbed up against Martine’s leg, and walked back inside.

  “This is very nice,” Kurshin said. He was impressed.

  She smiled. “A very bad marriage but a marvelous divorce. Would you like something to eat, or would you prefer that I drive you down to the casino?”

  “I think that the casino can wait until tomorrow.”

  “Give me a minute to get Marie organized, and I’ll fetch us a drink. More champagne?”

  “I think a pink gin, easy on the ice.”

  “Leave it to the Brits to invent something so disgusting,” she said, and she went inside.

  Kurshin walked to the balustrade and watched as a very large motor yacht—he guessed at least one hundred meters at the waterline—heading east turned toward shore. Probably going to Monte-Carlo. The day was dazzling, puffy white clouds, a pleasant breeze. After a bleak winter in England, this was fabulous.

  He’d never actually lived the good life, but he’d been trained by his handlers how to blend in with the high rollers, a lot of whom were so into themselves that they wouldn’t notice if a puddler from a steel mill sat across the table as long as the man was dressed properly.

  “Drink Dom or Krug or Cristal with your caviar when the occasion arises, but don’t be shy about having a beer and fish and chips,” one of his instructors had taught. “Marks you as a man of self-confidence who does whatever he wants to do. Sometimes you can blend in by sticking out.”

  He and Martine had aged New York strip steaks for dinner along with a fine red wine on the flight across the Atlantic, and at one point as they were getting to know each other, she’d asked what his favorite things were in America.

  “A quarter pounder with cheese and a large fries,” he’d told her.

  She’d given him a blank look.

  “The best meal at McDonald’s.”

  She’d laughed. “You’re a common man.”

  “Whenever the need arises.”

  The big yacht gradually disappeared behind the Golfe de Saint-Hospice, beyond which was Monte-Carlo as Martine came out with their drinks, his gin and bitters and her white wine.

  “Lobster salad in a half hour, and afterward, I thought we might have a swim and get around our jet lag by the pool,” she said.

  “Lunch sounds fine,” Kurshin said, raising his glass to her. “But I have a better cure.”

  “Which is?”

  “Making love, of course.”

  “Of course,” she said, smiling over the rim of her wine glass.

  After lunch, they retired to her master suite, the french doors open to the warm breeze from the Med. It was late afternoon, but their body clocks felt that it was the middle of the night, and they were jet lagged.

  In the shower, they washed each other’s backs and, still damp, went to bed where they made long, slow love. She was at least fifteen years older than he was, but her body was wonderfully tight, her skin unblemished, her breasts small, her waist narrow, and her legs long and graceful, those of a dancer.

  At one point, she rolled on top of him, her eyes open and bright. “When we started, I thought I might fall asleep,” she said.

  “But?”

  “My God, if all Brits are as good in bed as you are, I might consider moving to London.”

  “It’s the pink gin.”

  She laughed. “I was thinking of coming to Monte-Carlo with you, unless you’re meeting someone.”

  “
I was hoping you’d want to.”

  “Wild horses couldn’t hold me back,” she said.

  Something about the expression sounded odd in Kurshin’s ears. Their lingua franca was English, of course—hers with a French accent, his northern England. But he got the impression that if she were French, she’d lived elsewhere, probably as a child.

  “Shall I make reservations for us?” she asked.

  “I’ve booked a casino suite at the Hôtel de Paris.”

  “What’s the game? I’ll need to know how to dress.”

  “Chemin de fer,” he said.

  “Of course.”

  * * *

  They’d had champagne, and around two in the morning, Kurshin got out of bed, took the remaining half bottle and his encrypted phone, and padded naked out to the pool. A half moon was rising in a crystal-clear sky, reflecting off the calm sea.

  The woman would make good cover. He’d been alone at Arlington, so McGarvey might not expect anything would be different here. It was flimsy, perhaps, but he wanted to keep the old man a little off balance at every opportunity and for as long as possible.

  Every sleeper agent had their controller, always someone in country, as his was. But early on, one of his instructors had cautioned that agents would need to develop their own styles.

  “If you run with the herd, you will be more easily identified than if you operate as a unique individual. Your choice, in the end—either be an antelope or the night hunter.”

  Even before he’d left Russia, he’d developed a friendship with Vadim Lestov, a closet homosexual in the FSB’s Data Resources Center, what had been the archives section of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate. They’d been lovers for three months before Kurshin had begun his assignment in England. In the past several years, they’d had three trysts—two in Helsinki and one in Istanbul. Lestov was a top-level computer analyst for the service and could put his hands on just about any intelligence source he wanted to.

  Kurshin took a drink of the nearly flat champagne and then phoned Lestov, who answered on the fourth ring. It was four o’clock in the morning in Moscow.