The Kingmaker sd-3

by Brian Haig

  I peeked at Mary’s face, and her eyes were fixed on me. Her expression was beseeching, like, Drummond, please, fight your self-righteous instincts… play along with us and we’ll play along with you, too.

  I gave a fleeting thought to laying it all out, to explaining to everybody what lying phonies Mary and Johnson were, but that’s all it was: a fleeting thought. We had a deal, and although they hadn’t fully articulated their expectations, we were three-quarters of the way there and I couldn’t afford to jump back to go.

  I smiled. “Mr. Johnson’s right. With his help, and Mary’s inducement, we found the real mole. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

  From a reductionist’s standpoint, this was true-if they hadn’t turned us into sitting ducks, with deadly killers hunting us down, I wouldn’t have had the “inducement” to do it without them.

  Johnson winked at me, like this was just so much fun, and he was just so damned glad I thought so too. He said, “We’ve initiated a nationwide manhunt for Martin, who was last seen near Garrison, New York. The FBI have notified all airports and seaports, and Martin’s photo has been distributed at all border crossing points. Canada would be his obvious choice, but given that goddamn honker of his, he’ll be easy to recognize.”

  This ignited loudly appreciative guffaws around the room, because every soul there was in overdrive, straining desperately hard to work themselves back into Johnson’s good graces. Most had that sheepish expression little kids get when they poop in their drawers and everybody’s looking at them like, Hey, what’s that awful stench.

  The realization was sinking in that the arrest and public roasting of Bill Morrison had been a king-size goof. Somebody on the Russian side had played them for a fool, and heads were going to have to roll, because this was the CIA after all, and Agency-bashing is maybe the favorite sport of the national press and Congress.

  A fair number of the quicker-witted folks around that table were eyeing one another, obviously trying to strike instant alliances and make someone else be the “Weakest-Link-good-bye” guy.

  The moment was ripe for me to say, “You can at least recoup some face. We know who Martin’s controller was, right?”

  “Yurichenko,” said Johnson, picking up on his line in this passion play.

  “Right. So, what if we were to go get Yurichenko’s fair-haired boy? What if we were to bring Arbatov out for all the world to see?”

  A roomful of people pondered that. At least half the folks here were going to spend the rest of their careers crammed into a janitor’s closet in the basement trying to figure out how many angels you can fit on the head of a pin. They were vulnerable to any suggestion that would make them look less stupid than they really were.

  “Plus,” I quickly added, “you’ve obviously got a bigger problem.”

  “And which one would that be?” asked Mary, reading from her script.

  “If you listened closely to that tape, you heard Martin confess that he told Yurichenko that Alexi Arbatov was a traitor. Martin may have told him that as long as ten years ago, when Morrison first disclosed it to him.”

  Katrina, who’d been struggling to disguise her disgust, suddenly said, “What Major Drummond is telling you is that you have to rescue Alexi. He has given you information for over a decade, and you therefore owe him a great deal.”

  Johnson did not even pause. “Here’s the way I see it. We have a chance to repay Yurichenko. Okay, he turned one of our key people. Well, we turned one of his, too. In a zero-sum game everybody’s equal.”

  This obviously was the deal we’d struck the night before-well, except for the fact that Katrina and I were going to be used as pawns by Mary and her boss to restore their own legitimacy. But hey, in the grand scheme, it’s no big thing, right? If the law has taught me one thing, it’s that there’s no such thing as full justice. Consider yourself lucky if the meter simply tilts in your direction.

  You could swear we were at a neck-snapping convention, the heads were nodding so furiously. Then there were a few tentative smiles. Then actual guffaws. Then the pros took over. They began talking back and forth as they tried to come up with a plan.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Moscow was pitch-dark and freezing when we landed. White snow covered the land and frost hung from the trees. We came in on a U.S. Air Force converted 747 carrying the Secretary of State, who was arriving for a swiftly arranged meeting with his Russian counterpart.

  Katrina and I were dressed as U.S. Air Force enlisted troops and were described on the flight manifest as crewmen, Katrina as a steward, me as a radio-telephone operator. The Secretary of State was scheduled to be there only a few hours, which was tight, but coming and going under his diplomatic cover was the only way to get done what we needed to accomplish. Mary was along also, listed under an alias as a publicity aide to the Secretary, which was a thin cover, but she wasn’t leaving the plane, as the Russians knew her on sight.

  It had to be us three. Alexi knew Katrina and me, and Mary had been his contact all those years. We were the only ones who knew how to contact him, who he’d talk to-the only three he’d conceivably entrust with his fate.

  The instant the Secretary’s official welcoming ceremony was over and the cavalcades of black, official-looking cars had departed, we got to work. Another stream of cars began trickling in, and men and women camouflaged in workers’ coveralls began streaming up the steps and clustering in the lounge next to the Secretary’s sleeping suite. Within ten minutes, twenty CIA folks were packed in that compartment, and Mary began her briefing.

  You’ll never guess who was in charge of the ground team. My old buddy Jackler, the grand inquisitor himself, and he had Mary’s former embassy crew working for him, since they were intimately familiar with Moscow and Russia’s security procedures, which was essential for our purposes.

  Jackler had apparently been warned to be nice to me, and he was-to a point. You could see it really hurt him, but he was trying. He was like that pit bull you keep chained in the basement. Politeness had been bred out of his gene pool. When we were done with the operations briefing he barked at everybody to get moving, and bodies began slamming into one another as they raced for the exit.

  As soon as the last of the common field hands were gone, Jackler and Mary sidled over to Katrina and me. He growled, “You two need to have your friggin’ heads examined. We don’t do shit this way. You’re flyin’ by the seats of your pants.”

  Katrina said, “And is there another alternative?”

  “Yeah. Send Arbatov a goddamned sympathy card. That’s how the code works in these things.”

  “It isn’t an option,” Katrina said, eyeing him suspiciously.

  “Lady, it’s your ass. If this thing goes south, we can’t help you. This is their country. You got any idea what Russian prisons are like?”

  “I don’t care.”

  Maybe she didn’t, but I did-I cared a lot. I mean, I was all for getting Alexi out of there, but it sure would suck if our plan was foiled and all three of us ended up in Yurichenko’s hands.

  I gave Jackler my most badassed stare. “You better make sure it doesn’t go south. See, I left copies of some very embarrassing tapes with some friends back in the States. If I don’t come back, they’ve been told where to send those tapes, and trust me, that would be a disaster for you and all your buddies at Langley.”

  Jackler’s eyes darted over at Mary. She simply shrugged, like, Yeah, I know it sucks, but that’s the way it is.

  Then Mary looked at me. She put a hand on my arm and dragged me away, into a corner. With her hand still on my arm, she leaned so close that I could feel her hair against my face and her breasts pressed against my arm. “Sean, please, be very, very careful. Our people have the meeting site staked out. If they give you the signal to abort, you and Katrina get out immediately. You understand that, right?”

  “I understand that.” Although I somehow suspected that that wasn’t what this was really about.

  �
��Listen… I, well, uh… I know you’re disappointed in me.”

  She paused for me to answer. I was supposed to say something like, “Uh, yeah, I’m not too happy about the way all this went down, but crap happens; I’m over it now, and my heart still goes pitter-patter when I’m around you.” I didn’t say anything. I used Eddie’s favorite stunt. I left the full onus of carrying this conversation on her shoulders.

  “Anyway,” she finally said, “I’m still serious about divorcing Bill. I contacted a lawyer yesterday. He’s filing the papers.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said.

  She gave me that toe-tingling smile. “Open and shut, the lawyer said. He really loved those pictures of Bill slipping in and out of hotels with different women. There’ll have to be a year-long separation, but I’ll have freedom to see who I want.”

  Those breasts pressed a little closer. Those blue eyes turned a little more imploring. “I don’t want to lose you at this point, Sean. I, uh, I… well, I hope we can… maybe… well, maybe recapture what we once had.”

  I stared at her.

  She pressed a forefinger against my lips, the way they do in those mushy movies. “Don’t say anything,” she murmured. Of course it was already evident I wasn’t about to anyway. “I know you’re confused right now. I don’t blame you. There’ll be plenty of time to sort things out later. Just come back safely, okay?”

  “I plan to,” I said, which was as neutral a signal as I could offer under the circumstances.

  She stepped away and I looked over at Katrina, who was gazing back at me curiously, wondering what in the hell was going on here. I shrugged, then walked over and joined her. We departed with Jackler and climbed into a windowless van parked right at the base of the steps.

  You could tell by Jackler’s sour expression what he thought of this whole thing. Actually, his thoughts probably weren’t any different from mine. Katrina was a civilian. If I was glaringly short of field crafts, she was ten gallons past empty. We were going into a complex, high-risk operation with a couple of complete hacks who could clumsily trigger a huge international incident with the one country the United States didn’t want to piss off right at that pivot point in history.

  But there really wasn’t any other way this could work. It might not work anyway, but it was the only shot. We were pitting Alexi’s affection for Viktor against his affection for Katrina, and it was still a flip of the coin. However, there’s no disputing the influence of human plumbing in these situations.

  Jackler put tiny microphones under Katrina’s and my shirt collars and then ran a few quick tests to be sure the electronics worked. They did. One of Jackler’s agents was driving. Another was riding shotgun in the passenger seat-literally riding shotgun, because he had a lethal-looking sawed-off model resting on his lap. I looked at my watch; 4:30 A.M. local time, right on the dot.

  The drive took thirty-five minutes. A radio operator in the back with the rest of us kept receiving reports from various teams that were already maneuvering into position. The operation was still an hour off, but nobody was taking any chances of getting caught in traffic, or having an accident en route. Since it was my ass on the line, I highly approved of that. I’ve never been one who likes to hang out with type A anal-retentive assholes, but in situations like this you gain a whole new appreciation for them. Katrina sat calmly, while I drummed my fingers and peppered Jackler with incessant questions about precautions and failsafes in the event anything went wrong. He humored me. I was obviously keyed up and overanxious.

  Katrina and I climbed out of the van a block down from the subway station. We looked around and there was hardly a soul there, unless you want to include a bunch of beggars and miserable-looking veterans, the normal shrubbery of Moscow streets. We rushed to the subway entrance and down the stairs till we found the sculpted she-bitch from hell, and we scraped our three stripes at the base of her foot.

  Then we rushed back upstairs and to the ninth floor of the hotel that overlooked the kiosk. Neither of us said a word. We were both too immersed in our own thoughts to make small talk, which was the only kind of talk possible in moments like this.

  At 5:45, he came out of the subway entrance and then walked nonchalantly toward the kiosk. He bought a magazine from the vendor, then stood for a moment, flipping through it and studying the pages. Katrina stopped breathing. If Alexi didn’t head for the bakery, this was the last time she’d ever see him alive. I put a hand over her shoulder and held her.

  Finally, Alexi casually walked away from the kiosk and headed straight down the sidewalk and hooked a left into the coffee shop. Katrina and I left the window and raced down to the lobby.

  Just as we were going through the entrance, a short, chubby woman dressed like a street person shoved her way past us to get to the warmth inside the lobby. At the instant we passed her, she swiftly whispered, “Abort.”

  I was stunned. We were so close-there was no time to think about it, though. On the sidewalk I grabbed Katrina’s arm and whispered, “That lady just said to abort.”

  Her brown eyes glanced at my face for a brief instant. Then she ripped her arm out of my grip and raced down the sidewalk to the bakery. I hadn’t expected it and was caught flat-footed for a critical moment. I finally came to my senses and ran after her, but she dove into the bakery before I could stop her. That was always the problem with Katrina: She was too stubborn and willful by half.

  She was seated at the table, kissing Alexi, when I entered. This time Alexi had ordered three of everything, I guess in the event we both showed up.

  Alexi broke away and gave me a delighted smile. “Ah, Sean, how very good to see you.”

  Unfortunately, there wasn’t time for pleasantries. In a very quiet tone, I said, “Alexi, appear normal, but listen closely. You’ve been followed. Viktor knows about you. He’s known for years.”

  I chuckled like I’d just told some big joke, then picked up my coffee cup to take a sip, and Alexi did the same thing, although in his case to disguise what had to be his shock.

  Katrina was whispering, “It’s true, Alexi. We’re here to get you out.”

  He put his coffee cup on the table, to his credit appearing perfectly unaffected. “You are making mistake, Katrina. Viktor cannot know about me. This is not possible.”

  “There’s no mistake,” she assured him. Under the table I pressed a tiny earphone into his hand. The earphone was connected by a wire to the tape recorder I also slipped him under the table. There was a moment of confusion until he figured out what the earphone was. Then he carefully reached up and placed it in his left ear, where nobody in the bakery could see it.

  While he listened to a carefully condensed version of Martin’s confession, I gave Katrina a hard stare. I whispered, “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  She smiled, like I was flirting with her. “Don’t be going soft on me now.”

  “These people are pros. We’re in big trouble.”

  She smiled harder. “We’re not leaving without him.”

  I turned my head and did a few big phony sneezes, using the chance to spy around. Fifteen or so people were seated at tables and about twenty more were standing in line. It was impossible to tell who the followers were. There were probably fifteen young or middle-aged men-any of whom, or all of whom-could’ve been SVR agents. Or any of the women in the shop, for that matter.

  Or maybe none of them were SVR people. Maybe Jackler just wanted to call it off. He hadn’t seemed the least bit enthusiastic anyway, and by calling it off he could say, “Hey, we did everything you demanded, only the operation was compromised, so tough shit.”

  Katrina suddenly said, “My bladder’s killing me. I have to go to the bathroom.”

  She reached under the table and gave my hand a hard squeeze, and then left me with Alexi. I didn’t say anything till he reached up and pulled the earphone out.

  “This makes no sense,” he whispered.

  “Tell me about it,” I complained.

  “Where
did Katrina go?” he asked.

  “The bathroom. Wait ten more seconds, then go join her. She’s going to tell you about our escape plan.”

  He looked indecisive, like he wasn’t sure what to do next. Finally, he got up and went to the bathroom, leaving me alone at the table. I sipped from my coffee and pondered this whole thing. I’d had some lousy cases before, but nothing comparable to this. I’d nearly been killed three times, found out my dream woman was a manipulative, coldhearted witch, and I was clearly facing an ugly confrontation when I got back and tried to explain to my superiors how I killed six men, and tortured a suspect, and blackmailed the Central Intelligence Agency-and all for a client I could barely stand to look at.

  Katrina was taking a long time. I was drumming my fingers on the table. I watched several men and several big, fat babushkas leave the bathroom area and waddle out. I let my eyes stray over to seven or eight younger men I figured were the best bets for SVR agents. I tried to detect if they were watching me. Two or three returned my stare, and I wrote them off. I mean, professional watchers never return your gaze, right? They act like they don’t even know you’re there. That narrowed my suspects down to about five guys, three of whom were seated at the same table, and I wondered if undercover agents traveled in packs.

  I sipped my coffee and kept watching them. My staring made one of them nervous. He began playing with a napkin, and his eyes were darting around in distraction. I also noticed a bulge under his left arm. He either had a very ugly tumor or was packing heat, as they say.

  Another minute passed before the door to the men’s room opened. Alexi’s head popped out and he looked around, then walked out. But before he could get to the table, I got up and walked toward him. I took his arm and tugged him toward the doorway. We almost made it, too. In fact, I’d just gotten the door opened when the three guys at the table leaped out of their seats and rushed toward us, yelling and hollering and reaching for their guns. I swung open the door and fled out onto the street, now only worried about saving my own ass. In situations like this, it really is every man for himself.