She shook her head and sighed. She’d ordered dinner from the hotel’s restaurant after arriving in her room—it was extravagantly priced, as far out of her budget as were the lodgings themselves, but she was far too tired at this point to go searching Paris for a reasonably priced meal—and now she picked at it, eating mostly by rote and barely tasting the food while her thoughts remained focused on what the hell she was missing in this Piotr Speransky situation.
Because whatever it was, she was pretty sure it would come back to haunt her if she couldn’t puzzle through it.
She finished eating and wheeled the cart containing the dishes and utensils into the corridor without any conscious thought. She closed and locked the door and undressed next to her bed. She needed a shower but that could wait until morning.
After stepping into her pajamas, Tracie pulled down the covers and crawled beneath them. The mattress was more than comfortable, it was like floating atop the fluffiest fair-weather cloud on a summer day, and the operative who’d slept on floors and in fields, in the backs of trucks and strapped into uncomfortable cargo planes, in unbearable heat and flesh-freezing cold, dropped off to sleep almost immediately, despite being certain she would remain awake most of the night as she had last night.
Her last conscious thought before floating away on the fluffy cloud was again, What the hell am I missing?
11
May 15, 1988
6:25 p.m.
Orly Airport
Paris, France
Piotr Speransky caught a cab and hurried straight to Orly after satisfying himself that the redheaded American spy had actually—finally—arrived in Paris. There was no telling how long she would hang around the embassy waiting for him to kill her, and he had a lot of work to do before he could finally realize that dream.
There wasn’t much about freedom-loving nations like the United States and France that he respected, particularly after spending the better part of a decade working covertly inside them. The faith these countries showed in their citizens was, in Piotr’s opinion, misplaced and dangerous. People were, with rare exceptions, dull and slow, witless animals who needed to be led, by force if necessary.
He’d grown up inside what people in the West called the “Iron Curtain,” and knew how misunderstood his government really was. Only through strong centralized control could a society and its people begin to realize their full potential. If that meant a few—or even many—of those people had to be prodded into compliance with the central planners’ wishes at the point of a weapon, well, what was the purpose of government if not to make the difficult choices necessary to benefit all of its people?
But one thing Piotr did appreciate about free societies was how easy they made it for people like him to do his job. Few in the West ever wanted even to question a stranger, much less challenge him, particularly if that stranger came bearing official-looking paperwork that had been drawn up by some of the world’s most accomplished forgers inside the KGB.
Authorities at airports always made a show of examining his Russian diplomatic credentials. Sometimes they even took the extra step of telephoning…someone; Piotr had no idea who the calls went to and didn’t care. He assumed the U.S. State Department maintained some sort of clearinghouse for approved members of foreign diplomatic missions, and the examiners were calling that clearinghouse.
In any event, his inquisitors inevitably returned after absences of varying lengths of time, smiling and apologizing for the delay and wishing Piotr well as they ushered him around any crowds and straight to his flight.
He’d been a little nervous this time, given his uncertain status at the KGB, but still only a little. His superiors had offered one last chance to redeem himself, and the only way he could hope to manage that redemption would be with the full support and cooperation of Soviet intelligence. They couldn’t expect him to complete his assignment without utilizing his forged documents and KGB contacts, so for now at least those documents and contacts would remain viable.
After succeeding in this mission, there was still at least a fifty-fifty chance he would be escorted behind a government building and shot in the head, Piotr had no illusions about that. But for now he was breathing and working, and that was a damn sight better than the alternative, and far better than he’d expected after being thrown into a jail cell a couple of months ago.
Piotr Speransky knew as well as anyone the risks inherent in his KGB career. He had known since the day he began training as a covert operative that all it would take was one major fuckup to bring the wrath of the Soviet hierarchy down on him. That knowledge had motivated him to begin preparing a strategy that would allow him to disappear without a trace, should that major fuckup ever take place.
He had seriously considered implementing his exit strategy the moment the American spared his life after extracting the information she needed to eliminate Slava Marinov. That had been his plan during the long hours he spent rubbing and tearing his skin raw as he worked himself free of the damned duct tape the cyka had used to secure him during his torture sessions.
Then, after finally walking out of the CIA safe house, he’d changed his mind. Vengeance burned like nuclear fusion inside his entire being, and he would stand no chance of extracting that revenge without all the advantages offered him by his KGB status. So he’d decided to return to Lubyanka and spill his guts. He’d seen other operatives disappear without a trace following errors that were far less egregious than his, but he had also seen the occasional instance of an operative being allowed to survive.
To Piotr it was worth the risk. In the worst-case scenario he would suffer a few minutes of gut-wrenching terror and then everything would go black. But the best-case scenario, which was exactly what had occurred, would allow him to pursue the redhead and destroy not just her career, but also her life. He would ruin her and make her suffer, much more than he had suffered.
Only then would he end her.
And then he would decide whether to disappear. He would gauge the sincerity of his superiors’ promise to allow him to resume his career, and would use his best judgment in determining his next move. He would either return to Lubyanka once the redhead was dead or he would vanish, never to be seen again by anyone inside the Soviet Union.
Either way, at least the cyka would be gone.
He spent the majority of his flight from Paris to Montreal lost in lurid fantasies about what he would do to the woman who had ruined him. He recognized them for the fantasies they were, but it brought him great joy to imagine her squirming and screaming under a sharp knife, or begging for mercy as he systematically fired 9mm slug after 9mm slug into her body in soft-tissue areas that would cause extreme pain but not end her life for a very long time.
Perhaps he would make some of those fantasies come true before he killed her, and perhaps he would not; it would largely depend upon the circumstances of their final meeting. But as he had already spent many days inside the United States, preparing exhaustively for his upcoming mission, he felt he could afford to waste his down time in such a frivolous manner.
He felt as prepared as he could be for what was to come.
The plane touched down in Montreal in the middle of the night, which was just fine with Piotr. The late hour meant fewer people milling about the airport, which meant fewer potential delays as he escaped Canada for his ultimate goal: the United States. More specifically, Washington, D.C.
His diplomatic cover worked as well as ever, and less than an hour after he landed, Piotr had rented a car and begun driving east out of Dorval. A southern route would have been faster and more direct to the United States, and given the time constraints he was currently operating under, he gave serious thought to taking it. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to ensure the redheaded CIA operative was out of his way for this portion of his mission, and it was important he make full use of every minute.
But ultimately he chose the more circuitous route, for the simple reason he’d used it before—many times, in fa
ct—and he knew he would be successful entering the United States. The southern routing was more questionable, and this mission was far too important to Piotr to leave anything to chance.
Now that the airline portion of his trip was over, his diplomatic paperwork had gone straight into his bag, to be retrieved only in case of emergency. United States officialdom was a little dodgier about recognizing his forged documents, and while he knew his paperwork would eventually get him across the border, he’d cooled his heels for several hours at the crossing in the past, and he had no intention of doing so on this trip.
Today’s border crossing would be of the unofficial variety.
After leaving the suburbs of Montreal behind, Piotr sat back and cruised through the Canadian countryside, moving as fast as he thought he could get away with without arousing the suspicions of law enforcement. In Eastman he turned south onto Route Missisquoi, aiming the Ford Granada now squarely at the U.S. border.
Straight through Mansonville and soon it was time to leave his rental behind. He eased off the road and onto a dirt trail that had been specifically engineered by some long-ago Soviet operative for this exact purpose. He stepped out of the car and shrugged an equipment bag over his shoulder, then locked the doors and zipped the key into a plastic bag, which he then weighted with a rock and placed in the crook of a dead tree just past the Granada’s right front tire.
Then he started hiking. The advantage to using this crossing point was the thickly forested countryside, which ran uninterrupted for miles on both sides of the border. The disadvantage was also the thickly forested countryside, which posed a challenge for anyone in less than peak physical condition and also offered ample opportunity to become lost and disoriented should the operative allow his attention to wander.
Piotr would not allow his attention to wander. Neither was conditioning an issue.
He made minimal use of his flashlight, preferring to navigate by moonlight and lessen his risk of being seen. The tradeoff was slower movement and the loss of valuable time, but he simply could not afford to be apprehended crossing the border. His diplomatic paperwork would become much less reliable if he were caught sneaking into the country through the woods just outside one of the most remote crossing locations along the entire U.S.-Canadian border.
Even given his focus on the job at hand, the hike left Piotr’s restless mind with plenty of time to wander. And when it wandered, it inevitably ended up in the same place: his treatment by the redheaded American agent and how that treatment had altered his life.
He felt his face flush with shame and humiliation, even now, months later and alone in the Canadian forest, as he recalled his time spent inside the CIA’s Moscow safe house. The young woman’s size and gender made the torture he’d had to endure so much more difficult to swallow. The fact that such a tiny American—and a woman at that!—had broken him made his blood boil every single time he relived the nightmare.
Piotr’s worst day—even worse than the actual torture—had come when he was forced to describe his captor to his superiors at Lubyanka. While they never admonished him for allowing the petite woman to best him, such a rebuke hadn’t really been necessary. He knew exactly what his handler and the other officials were thinking, because he’d been thinking the same thing. Every single day.
The pain and anger and humiliation fueled him. It had gotten him this far in his plan for vengeance, and it would carry him through to the end.
12
May 16, 1988
9:25 p.m.
Highwater, Quebec, Canada
Piotr became aware of the bright glow of klieg lighting much sooner than he thought he should, and he smiled grimly to himself. One thing about dwelling incessantly upon his personal failings, it made the time pass quickly. Forty minutes had gone by since he ditched the rental car, and it barely felt like ten.
The Canadian border-crossing station’s exterior lighting served as an effective beacon, and even though he remained far removed from the sight of anyone at the station who might be scanning the forest, he knew he was exactly where he needed to be. He’d made this crossing many times at night and had always been grateful for the unintentional assistance offered up by both the Canadians and the Americans: it simplified the crossing and made getting lost in the massive forest a near impossibility.
He gave the border crossing station a wide berth and then continued south. Thirty minutes of vigorous hiking brought the glow from the American station into view in the distance. As had been the case on the Canadian side, Piotr was too far away and the forest too heavily wooded for him to see any of the buildings or vehicles, but he’d seen all of it before. In typical fashion the Americans had decided to make their facility much larger and more imposing than the Canadians—and much larger than necessary, probably—so the middle-of-the-night lighting would have been impossible to miss even had he been another two hundred yards deeper into the woods.
He left the American station behind and after thirty minutes, risked moving laterally through the woods to the road. The night’s inky blackness would allow him to see the headlights of any oncoming vehicles in plenty of time to melt into the forest before the drivers could see him, and he would make much better time walking/jogging along the pavement of the lonely country road than he would struggling around trees and over fallen branches in the woods.
Fifteen minutes later, Piotr spotted the marker he was looking for: a large boulder jutting out from the edge of the forest, so close to the road it represented a real danger to any driver not paying close enough attention to his surroundings. He passed the boulder and then angled back into the woods and moments later came upon a tiny clearing located far enough from the road that it was likely to go undetected for years in this remote area.
He had hacked the clearing out of the dense forest himself during his previous trip into the states to prepare for this mission, and knew exactly what he would find when he started digging.
Piotr shrugged off his pack and dropped it on the ground in the middle of the empty clearing. He was confident no passing cars would be able to see the glow from his flashlight, but used the lantern only long enough to locate the spot on the edge of the clearing in which he’d buried his secret stash. Then he flicked it off and started digging, using a small foldable shovel he’d hidden away from the clearing and covered with leaves and twigs at the same time he buried his other supplies.
It took some time, and some digging, to find the metal box. Piotr had buried it deeper than he probably needed to, but he’d known at the time that when he needed it, he would really need it. He worked as quietly as possible while also maintaining a rapid pace, and by the time he heard/felt the spade clank against the top of the metal box his arms were burning from the exertion and sweat had begun running in tiny rivulets down his face and neck. It soaked his shirt and made him shiver in the coolness of the night.
He lifted the box out of the hole and fumbled in his pants pocket for the key that would open the heavy padlock sealing it. He inserted the key and flicked on his flashlight and lifted the lid, then smiled in appreciation. Everything was here, exactly as he’d left it:
A pair of Makarov 9mm semi-automatic pistols and several full magazines.
A gun cleaning kit.
A pair of razor-sharp combat knives.
Several thousand dollars in untraceable U.S. currency.
The metal box was filled with everything he would need to carry out his planned vengeance on the redheaded CIA agent. A car he could steal easily enough, but he stood no chance of completing his mission without weaponry and cash. His only concern had been that someone might stumble upon his hidden cache of supplies and remove them—even in a place as desolate as this, it was always a possibility—but it hadn’t happened and now he would be unstoppable.
Piotr sat back on his haunches and breathed deeply of the forest air. He considered the risks inherent in lighting up a cigarette and decided to do it. He was far enough from the road that no one would ever see t
he tiny flare of light, and there was ample reason to celebrate. His plan had so far worked to perfection. The redheaded CIA bitch was well out of the way in Europe and should remain so long enough for him to complete his next step.
Soon she would be suffering every bit as much as she deserved.
He took a drag on the Belomorkanal cigarette and held in the smoke before releasing it in a slow, easy stream as he considered all it had taken for him to get this far. Piotr’s KGB superiors had no clue as to the identity of the petite redheaded spy who’d become such a thorn in their side, and that made sense. The CIA treated the identity of its operatives with the utmost secrecy, particularly the identities of those operatives working covertly in and around the Soviet Union, for obvious reasons.
But that did not mean operatives’ identities were never compromised. Any time more than one person was involved in keeping a secret it became possible to extract that secret.
Mistakes were made.
Documents were intercepted.
People acted stupidly and opened themselves up to blackmail.
And sometimes, learning a secret became a simple matter of locating the proper individual and taking advantage of the single trait most deeply ingrained in human DNA: greed.
For the right price, virtually anyone was corruptible. The problem was that the cost of taking advantage of that greed in most cases was far too high for the average person to pay.
But Piotr Speransky was not the average person. He had been operating as an elite Soviet covert operative for close to two decades, which meant that over the course of his career he’d had dozens of opportunities to earn cash on the side. Hundreds of opportunities. And all of that cash that was unknown to the KGB, unknown to Piotr’s few friends, unknown to his family or fellow operatives.
Unknown to anyone but Piotr.
He had performed lucrative freelance assassinations of high-profile targets, had transported drugs between Soviet satellite states, had made use of KGB files on its citizens to blackmail bureaucrats and politicians. Through his illicit activities, Piotr Speransky had earned sums of money that would make some rich Americans blush, and he had saved virtually all of it, socking it away in various locations around the world that were safe but readily accessible to him.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 152