by Allan Topol
“That occurred to me, too. The Americans might very well do that.”
“But they won’t succeed if you bring me a Russian engineer who can design a solution. One that will keep our nukes from the Americans. That lets us get at them to use against India. If you bring me that engineer, you’ll get your sleeper in the United States. Do you understand?”
Two could play at this game, Orlov decided. “The engineer you want is a big thing. If I bring the engineer, you’ll have to give me something besides the sleeper.”
“Yeah, what?” the Colonel said warily.
“A U.S. made rocket-propelled grenade launcher with grenades. You must have lots of them in your weapons warehouses.”
The Colonel smoothed the ends of his mustache. “Okay. You’ll get it. After the engineer is here.”
“Good. Then we have a deal.”
The Colonel picked up the remote and pushed the button. The door lock snapped open, signaling that the meeting was over.
Orlov returned to Moscow and reported on his meeting with Khan to Kuznov.
At the end, the Russian president gave a deep sigh. “Your Pakistani friend is a thief.”
“For sure. But he’s risen to the top because he’s succeeded at the way they do business.”
“I’ll call the Director of Military Engineering. We’ll find somebody to go with you to Islamabad and to design the system the Colonel wants. You think he’ll return alive from Pakistan?”
Orlov shrugged. “Depends how paranoid the Colonel is about leaks. At our last meeting, you told me ‘Dead men don’t talk.’”
Kuznov picked up the phone and made the call.
“When he was finished, he turned to Orlov. “I want you to succeed so I’ll give you one other nugget of information.”
“What’s that?”
“How are you planning to learn President Dalton’s schedule for flying to Camp David?”
Orlov shrugged. “I figured I’d work on that when I got to Washington.”
“You expect the White House to publish it in the Washington Post?”
Orlov reddened. “No. But I’m confident I’ll find a way.”
“I’ll make your life easier.”
“Go ahead.” Orlov was listening carefully.
“When I was a young KGB operative in England thirty-five years ago, I formed a relationship with an idealistic young American student at Oxford. Twenty years old. A child. She was studying history. She thought I was a student in England as well. Valerie Clurman was her name.”
“You slept with her?”
“Of course, but that’s immaterial. What counts is she had been influenced by the war in Vietnam and the American youth movement in the seventies. She hated her government. I told her I had ties to the Russian government and that I would be returning to Moscow to take an important position. She offered to help me bring the corrupt U.S. government to its knees. You have to think about what I’m telling you in the context of a turbulent era in American life.”
“I understand that. I’m a student of history as well. What did you tell her?”
“To finish Oxford. Then get a job in the U.S. Secret Service that guards the president. One day I would call her and ask for her help. But in the meantime, we would see each other from time to time in Europe when she took vacations.”
“So your romance continued?”
“We saw each other two years later in Florence. And three years after that in Venice.”
“Was she in love with you?”
Kuznov looked irritated. “Why are you so interested in personal details?”
Orlov decided to back off. He’d pressed a hot button. Perhaps Kuznov had been in love with Valerie. Or maybe she was just a great fuck.
Orlov shrugged. “Sometimes these details are important.”
“Well, not here. I never saw her again after that second meeting in Venice. Meantime, I followed her career through American sources. She has risen to a high administrative position in the Secret Service.
I checked their website yesterday. She is still employed there.”
“What should I tell her to persuade her that I’m your representative?”
“Begin by saying, ‘My name is Ivan.’”
“One other thing. Did you record your conversations recruiting her?”
“I wish I had. That was a mistake on my part.”
Orlov thought: you were so hot for her that you forgot to do your job. Instead, he said, “Doesn’t matter. I can work around it.”
As Orlov started toward the door, Kuznov said, “Guard what I just told you with your life. I’ve never told anyone else about it. Even my bosses in the KGB.”
Kuznov was definitely in love with Valerie, Orlov decided. He was anxious to meet this woman.
Four hours later, Orlov boarded a Russian Air Force plane with Captain Nicholas Malinkov, in his fifties, a six foot six beanpole resembling a basketball player, who was dressed in civilian clothes and carried two large bags. They were stuffed with blueprints.
On the plane ride, Orlov went over the assignment again with Nicholas. Patting his briefcase, the engineer said, “I know exactly what’s required. An underground bunker carved deep into the rocks with redundancies for access. I already designed a system like that for construction in Volgograd when the Americans were paying us to gather and safeguard nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Republics.
I promise you the Pakis will like this.”
“Where’d you learn to call them the Pakis?”
“I spent a year at a London Engineering school in England. There they don’t just call them the Pakis. They call them the ‘fucking Pakis.’ The British hate them.”
Orlov was alarmed. “But you won’t show contempt for them, or use terms like Pakis will you?”
“Of course not. I don’t want to get us both killed. Besides, I was told my orders come from President Kuznov. And I should do a good job.”
“Well, you better keep it under control.”
“Don’t worry. I will.”
Orlov wasn’t sure.
From the moment they entered the Colonel’s office, Orlov’s concern dissipated. Nicholas was deferential, almost obsequious to the Colonel, who seemed impressed with the qualifications of the Russian engineer and the work he had done in Volgograd. The Colonel turned Nicholas over to Pakistan’s Director of Military Engineering.
Once they were alone, the Colonel reached for the phone. Orlov heard him give instructions to have the rocket-propelled grenade launcher with grenades delivered to Orlov’s plane.
When he put down the phone, the Colonel said, “You’ll be pleased with the weapon, still in the original crate. The Americans delivered it to us last month.”
“And the information on the sleeper?”
The Colonel didn’t respond. Orlov stared at his poker face, then at the clock on the wall with a black sweep second hand. If he doesn’t give it to me in the next minute, Orlov thought, I’ll climb over the desk, grab the letter opener and stab out his eyes one by one until he tells me. If he still doesn’t, I’ll kill him.
The Colonel cracked a tiny smile. He knows he’s playing a dangerous game.
Ten seconds before Orlov’s deadline, the Colonel reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a small piece of paper and handed it to Orlov.
Orlov read: “Asif Pasha.” Underneath was an address in Manassas, Virginia. Orlov knew that was a far out suburb of Washington.
“Has he had military training?” Orlov asked.
“Two years in the Pakistan Army. A special course on the use of arms and planting bombs.”
“How did you recruit him?”
“An American drone attack missed its target, but killed both of his parents and two of his siblings, who lived across the street. They weren’t involved in any terrorist activities. He wants revenge. He’s prepared to sacrifice his own life to gain that revenge.”
“Who’s his contact?”
“I am.”
“How will I be able to p
ersuade him to do what I want?”
The Colonel reached into his pocket again. This time, he removed a small piece of metal and held it out in his hand across the desk. Orlov took it from the Colonel.
Orlov saw that it was half of a small silver medallion in the shape of Pakistan. “Asif has the other half?” Orlov asked.
“Precisely. He’ll obey whoever shows up with this.”
While Orlov stared at the medallion, the Colonel continued. “You may be worried that I’m tricking you. That you’ll show up in the United States and you won’t find this sleeper.”
“That thought has occurred to me.”
“Then rest easy, my brother. I want you to succeed with an attack on American soil. So don’t fail me.”
New York and Pennsylvania
Orlov flew from Moscow to New York via London Heathrow. His Russian ID and passport identified him as Anton Dubkin. He was pretending to be a Russian tourist.
In the passport control line at JFK, he felt a twinge of anxiety as the man ahead of him was being put through a rigorous examination by a jowly, tough-looking, no-nonsense, immigration agent with a black sandpaper beard. Orlov hoped it was because the man was olive-skinned. Middle Eastern looking.
Orlov considered switching lines but rejected that for fear his move would be picked up by a concealed camera and raise suspicion. So he decided to tough it out.
Good choice, he realized ten minutes later. The agent yawned, glanced at Orlov’s documents and asked, “Purpose of visit?”
Orlov replied, “Tourist.” The agent stamped the documents, handed them back, and signaled to the next in line.
At the airport, Orlov rented a gray Odyssey minivan with GPS and New York plates, promising to return it to JFK in a week.
He didn’t breathe easy until he was on the New Jersey Turnpike heading south at seven in the evening and confident from lane changes that no one was following. The dicey part would come tomorrow in Pittsburgh.
In Moscow, Orlov personally packed the rocket-propelled grenade launcher and the grenades in a wooden crate marked on the sides to read: “medical equipment.” He shipped it from Moscow to Toronto by way of Paris because he knew the French did little or no checking of shipments that were in transit. And since the final destination was Pittsburgh, he was hoping the Canadian airport authorities could care less. For the last leg, from Toronto to Pittsburgh, he decided on an overland freight carrier, figuring that an eighteen wheeler had the greatest chance of avoiding scrutiny at the U.S. border point.
All of that was working as planned. When he checked shipping records on his computer before boarding the plane at Heathrow, he learned that his package had been picked up by Highway Lines at their freight center in Toronto airport on schedule. It had been
delivered yesterday to the Highway Lines terminal in Pittsburgh. Orlov thought his choice of Pittsburgh was wise: close to Camp David but outside the Washington area with its heightened security and terrorist checks.
Exhausted, he pulled off the New Jersey Turnpike at a Holiday Inn to sleep. Before leaving the minivan he hooked up an alarm that would alert him in the room if anyone tried to break into the vehicle.
No one did. He was confident that he had avoided detection when entering the United States. No mean feat for a former KGB agent who might be in the CIA database.
At four in the afternoon the next day, Orlov reached the Pittsburgh terminal of Highway Lines on Smallman Street in an industrial part of the city which development had missed. Orlov parked near a small metal finishing shop across from what had once been a booming steel mill, but now was deserted and abandoned. A victim of and testimony to America’s manufacturing demise.
He walked two blocks to the Highway Lines terminal. Slowing, but not stopping, he glanced through the double glass door. He saw a pick-up counter with one man behind it. He was short and squat, mid-twenties, red spiked hair, an earring, and a pock-marked face. The sign on the door said, “Hours 8 AM to 5 PM.” Orlov didn’t see anyone else in the terminal.
He kept walking. The street, with pot holes the size of craters, was deserted. Many of the buildings were boarded up, the paint identifying their former occupants faded and peeling.
Orlov saw a small lunchroom: The M and H. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He went inside.
The only other customers were two middle-aged men in the back drinking beer and playing a pinball machine. The beige tile floor was covered with decades of scuff marks.
Orlov sat at the wooden counter. A man in his fifties, solidly built, thinning hair in front, wearing an apron that said, “Moe,” stopped cleaning a coffee urn and walked over.
Orlov glanced at the menu on a chalk board leaning against the wall. “Liverwurst sandwich,” he said. “Chips and a Budweiser.”
A few minutes later, Moe brought over the order.
“Where’s the accent from?” Moe asked.
Orlov didn’t want to answer questions. But he didn’t want to be rude. That would have raised alarms. Besides, he had made up his mind to kill anyone who got in his way.
“Russia,” Orlov answered tersely.
“My father was born in Russia,” Moe answered. “In the west near Poland. He came here in 1912.”
He’s a Jew. Orlov thought, with contempt. Jews aren’t Russians. Jews never were Russians.
To end the conversation, Orlov carried the food and beer to a table along a wall away from the pinball machine. Moe went back to cleaning his coffee urn.
At fifteen minutes to five, Orlov left the lunchroom and went back to his Odyssey. He pulled the minivan alongside the truck terminal and walked into the front door.
The kid with the spiked red hair said, “Can I help you?”
Without saying a word, Orlov pulled the shipping documents out of his pocket and plunked them down on the counter.
“I’ll get your stuff,” the redhead said.
Maybe I was worrying needlessly, Orlov thought. Perhaps this won’t be difficult.
He cautioned himself not to drop his guard. The box could have been opened by United States Customs, which let it proceed to its destination to trap him. The redhead could have been told to call the FBI when anyone came to pick up the package. Orlov had a pistol in one pocket of his black leather jacket. A knife in the other.
The redhead wheeled out a dolly holding a wooden crate. Orlov recognized the markings.
“You’ll have to sign,” the clerk said, placing documents on the counter.
“Show me where,” Orlov replied, trying to conceal his accent.
“And I’ll have to see some ID.”
Orlov pulled out his Russian passport.
The redhead was frowning. He pointed to the crate. “What’s in there?”
“Medical supplies. That’s what it says on the box. That’s what the documents say.”
The kid looked worried. “Suppose I was to ask you to open it.”
“You can’t do that. You’re not a government agent.”
“But I could make a call and have them here in ten minutes.”
Orlov decided to make one more try at doing this the easy way.
“I’m sorry I don’t understand. Why are you interested in medical supplies?”
“I’m not trying to be a hard-ass, but the police came round here a few months ago. They said we have to be diligent about possible terrorist attacks.”
“Do I look like a Muslim terrorist?”
The redhead stared at Orlov. “No, but you’re a foreigner. You could be working with them. Remember before 9/11—all those signs that were missed. Listen, Mister, it’ll only slow you down by a few minutes, but I’m calling the police. He reached for the phone.
Orlov had enough. There must be other trucking company employees in the back. He had to dispose of the kid and get his package without making any noise. Orlov leapt over the counter and wrapped his hands around the redhead’s throat.
I can’t let him scream.
With his hands still around the kid�
��s throat, he flung the redhead to the floor and landed on top. He was squeezing tighter and tighter. The kid’s face was turning pale. He tried to struggle, but Orlov was too strong. In seconds, the redhead was dead.
Orlov grabbed the documents on the counter and stuffed them into his pocket. He wheeled the dolly outside toward the minivan.
A young African American employee in a dark green Highway Lines uniform approached.
Orlov was reach to go for his gun.
The employee said, “You need help with that?”
Turning him down might make him suspicious, Orlov decided.
“Sure,” he said.
Together they loaded it in the minivan.
Orlov drove away, hoping the employee didn’t pay attention to his license plate. No reason he should.
While constantly glancing in the rearview mirror, looking for flashing lights that never came, Orlov used the GPS to get out of Pittsburgh at the nearest Interstate entrance heading east.
Orlov needed a place to store the weapon and a base for his
operation. It had to be far enough from Camp David to avoid raising suspicion yet close enough that he could keep control of Asif, the Pakistani sleeper.
He spent another uneventful night at a Day’s Inn off the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
The next morning, he drove to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and began his search. It struck his sense of irony that while planning the assassination of one American president he would be holed up in a location of such historical significance to another American president who had also been assassinated.
He parked the minivan in a three-story garage on the edge of downtown Gettysburg to keep it out of sight, set the alarm, and walked to the center of town.
Orlov located the main business street and stopped walking when he saw a sign that said, “Sara Burns Real Estate.”
He checked photographs in the window of the office. On the far left was what he was looking for: farmhouse for rent.
Orlov entered the office and saw a hay-colored bleach blonde with a weather beaten face and a hard as nails look, sitting behind a desk with a sign in front that said, “Sara Burns.” She was alone in the office and stood up. She was wearing a short khaki skirt and cracking gum.