The Vigilant Spy

by Jeffrey Layton

  “To meet her boyfriend and some friends. They’re all going hiking today, somewhere near the pass.”

  “Have you met the guy?” Yuri crossed his ankles. He wore sandals, Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt.

  “Once. He came by to pick her up. Nice guy. Courteous. Didn’t say much.” Laura wore a sleeveless blouse, a pair of blue jeans and tennis shoes.

  Yuri took another sip. “She seems a good match for Maddy.”

  “She is. I’m very pleased so far.”

  “Good.”

  Fretting all weekend, Laura decided it was the right time to bring up a delicate subject. “I had a visitor at the office Friday…a detective assigned to the Sarah Compton case.”

  “What did he want?”

  “The detective was a she. Sarah’s family is pressing hard. They want a court hearing to investigate her disappearance. Both of us will be called to testify.”

  Yuri let out a deep sigh. Six months earlier, he’d hired the security company to provide around the clock protection for Laura and Maddy. Sarah Compton was on duty at Laura’s home when the kidnappers invaded. Laura and Madelyn were snatched; Sarah vanished.

  Yuri said, “If the local cops start checking up on me, everything will unravel.”

  “I know. Maybe Tim Reveley can delay the hearing.” Laura referred to her personal attorney.

  “It’s probably worth trying.” Yuri drained the coffee mug and set it on the table. The consequences of his actions regarding Sarah’s disappearance simmered. “I’m convinced those bastards killed her and disposed of her body—she’ll never be found.”

  “It’s not your fault, Yuri. She must have confronted them; she was doing her job.”

  “She never had a chance. They were military.” Yuri grimaced, recalling the Chinese operatives that abducted Laura and Maddy as a ploy to force him into cooperating. Sarah Compton was collateral damage.

  “Stop beating yourself up. They used us to get to you.”

  “I should have never involved you with the Neva. You would be fine and Sarah would be alive. It would have been better if I’d never escaped.”

  “Honey, what you did was miraculous. Russia left the Neva’s survivors to rot but you rescued them. I’m so proud of what you did.”

  “But look what’s happened. I’ve endangered you from my actions. Kwan and his PLAN operators kidnapped you and Maddy. And then an MSS hit team targeted you—twice!” Yuri raised his arms. “And the U.S. Justice Department is still threatening you because of me. I’m ashamed to have caused you so much grief.”

  Laura reached across the table and took hold of Yuri’s hand. “You’re an honorable man, Yuri Ivanovich Kirov. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  * * * *

  Fifteen time zones ahead, Ministry of Public Security technical specialist Yu Ling was in her cubicle at the Qingdao bureau. It was late evening; most of the others left hours earlier―burned out from the compulsory extra work over the weekend. Yu and just one other staffer slogged away.

  The day was long and boring for Yu as she fast-forwarded through dozens of surveillance videos of the City of Qingdao’s bay and coastal shoreline. She attempted to track down the mysterious workboat that was sighted near the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge just before the nuclear bomb detonated. The previous day she discovered that the same vessel had operated in Qingdao’s Middle Harbour waterway an hour before the blast.

  Yu queued up the next video, downloaded from a master file in the bureau’s mainframe computer. A recent decree from Beijing required all commercial and public entities operating in China’s principal cities to provide live video feeds of their security cameras to the MPS. Patterned after the City of London’s video camera surveillance system, the Qingdao system collected hundreds of terabytes of digital images each hour.

  The video Yu currently viewed was recorded at 5:12 A.M. the day the bomb exploded. The camera was located at the entrance channel of a small boat moorage facility located in eastern Qingdao near Maidao Island. The HD video captured the image of a workboat as it navigated through the marina entrance.

  “That’s the boat!” Yu muttered.

  The yacht club that operated the moorage facility had installed the high-end surveillance system after several yachts moored in the harbor were burglarized. The black and white image Yu viewed was exceptionally detailed due to the camera’s FLIR night vision system. The forward-looking infrared optics revealed that the 10.5-meter-long workboat was of modern construction with clean lines. As the boat’s stern passed by the camera, it captured the vessel name. Yu Ling froze the image and magnified the name. Although the Mandarin script was blurry, the name was legible: YI JIE.

  Happy and Pure was the English translation for Yi Jie.

  Yu Ling stretched out her arms, suddenly weary from the taxing day but pleased. She now had a name and a location to resume the search.

  Yu gathered her personal items from the desk and placed them in her handbag. As she made her way to the door, she embraced the thrill of the hunt. She sensed that she was on to something important. It would consume her thoughts for the rest of the evening, following to her dreams.

  * * * *

  Laura Newman was asleep in the master bedroom; Maddy slept in her own room. Yuri wasn’t ready to retire yet. He was alone in the living room with the lights off. A few minutes earlier, he heard Amanda’s Honda Civic when she returned home. Maddy’s nanny lived in the apartment over the attached three car garage.

  Amanda had no idea that her comings and goings at the Sammamish residence were videoed and manually recorded in an official log book by the FBI.

  The presence of the nearby federal agents provided Yuri with a measure of relief. Should Laura again be targeted by foreign intelligence services to get to him, she would be protected. But how long would that last? The FBI would eventually retrieve their outdoor cameras and shut down the surveillance op. What then?

  Yuri broached that subject with Laura earlier this evening. He suggested that for the next six months they rent a condominium in a building that was just a couple of blocks away from Cognition’s headquarters. Security in the Bellevue luxury high-rise was top notch, which was one of its main selling points. Laura said she would think about it.

  Yuri would push for temporary relocation. It would help mitigate his angst. He recognized that once again he would likely not be around to protect Laura and Maddy.

  In the coming morning, Yuri had another meeting scheduled with the FBI in Seattle. During the course of the debriefing, Special Agent Michaela Taylor would undoubtedly pressure Yuri to make a decision on the Department of Justice’s offer to drop espionage charges against him and—Laura—in return for his full cooperation with the U.S. Intelligence Services for the next three years.

  Yuri was now ready to make that commitment, knowing that he would forever be turning his back on his birth country—and his colleagues and friends in the Russian Navy.

  Chapter 11

  Day 6—Monday

  Yu Ling was pumped. It was mid-afternoon in Qingdao. She had returned to her office half an hour earlier after sitting in on the interview. The manager of the yacht club cooperated without hesitation when Yu and two officers from the People’s Armed Police―the muscle of China’s domestic police force―demanded access to the club’s customer files. The workboat Yi Jie was owned by a Shanghai based company that conducted marine environmental surveys. Yu had just contacted the Shanghai bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, requesting all information on the company and the workboat. The data dump would be emailed by five o’clock.

  During the interview, the manager revealed that the club had a camera on the marina’s entry gate. Every person that inserted an electronic key into the gate lock was photographed. Since it recorded photos instead of videos, the camera was not linked to the MPS’s video surveillance system for Qingdao. The manager accessed the camera’s
cloud storage file and downloaded the entire contents to a flash drive. It contained six months of photos, each one time stamped.

  Yu Ling inserted the drive into a port on her PC and called up a specific date file. The digital image was recorded at 4:47 A.M. The man was in his mid-thirties and had a husky frame. He wore a ball cap and windbreaker. Who are you? Yu wondered. And what were you doing with that boat in the Middle Harbour, and then in the bay where the bomb went off?

  While at the yacht club office, Yu had requested the manager retrieve all photos during the early hours of the date in question. Only one photo was recorded—the same one Yu currently viewed. When questioned by Yu the club manager indicated she did not recognize the individual. The keycard ID data used to gain access to the marina was registered to the survey company only.

  Yu Ling copied the image and loaded the digital photograph into the Ministry of Public Security’s Residence Identity Card database. The MPS issued the cards to Chinese residents over sixteen years old. Besides basic ID data—name, sex, citizenship status, race, birthdate, and address, the card contained a color photograph of the bearer.

  Yu commenced the search. China obtained the best facial recognition software it could acquire or hijack. The latest version running in the MPS’s master mainframe in Beijing was emailed three months earlier by a twenty-eight-year-old H1B visa holder from Tianjin. He worked for a Seattle startup that won a $20 million contract with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to help speed up airport passenger screening.

  The search took just a minute. She stared at the digital copy of the ID card. That’s him!

  Yu scanned the info that accompanied the photograph and instantly went on alert. The individual was red-flagged. He’s a Uyghur!

  Yu Ling downloaded the data file and printed it out. After collecting the hardcopy, she headed for her boss’s office.

  * * * *

  As instructed, Yuri drove his Highlander to the bottom level of the parking garage in a high-rise tower in downtown Seattle. The office building housed the law firm that represented Cognition Consultants and Laura Newman. He was ten minutes early. The morning commute had mitigated by the time he drove west across Lake Washington, allowing unencumbered access to Seattle’s financial district.

  Eight minutes after Yuri pulled into an empty stall, a late model black Chevrolet Suburban arrived. Yuri was ushered into the backseat. Although every window in the SUV was tinted black, concealing the occupants from outside viewers, the driver instructed Yuri to keep his head down. After a brief drive, the Chevy delivered Yuri to the secure subterranean parking garage of the FBI’s Seattle field office.

  Yuri currently drank from a coffee mug in a conference room. It was the same room he visited the previous week—just after the Qingdao bomb detonated.

  Yuri’s mug was half full when Special Agent Michaela Taylor arrived at 10:32 A.M. “Good morning,” she said with a warm smile. She wore a knee length pleated skirt with a white blouse and a pair of three-inch heels. Her hair was in a ponytail today.

  “Good morning,” Yuri replied. He sported a pair of designer jeans and a navy-blue windbreaker with a Northwest Subsea Dynamics logo over the right breast—his typical business apparel.

  Michaela took a chair opposite Yuri. “Sorry for the cloak and dagger stuff to get you here but we don’t want to take any chances on you being spotted.”

  “No problem.”

  Michaela opened a multi-page document from one of the folders she carried. As she started to scan the file, a telephone at her side on the conference table rang. She picked up the handset. “Taylor,” she announced. “Yes, he’s here and we’re ready…okay, I’ll connect now.”

  Agent Taylor returned the phone to its cradle and glanced Yuri’s way. “They’re set in D.C. so I’m going to join on the conference. It’ll be like what we did before.”

  “Okay.”

  Michaela activated the secure videoconference hardware. The wall-mounted home theater sized screen at the far end of the room blinked on. FBI supervisory special agent Ava Diesen stared back. She wore a ruffled silk blouse with a flared skirt. Sitting next to her was a male in his early fifties. He was garbed in a custom cut dark suit with a white shirt and red tie—standard G-man attire.

  “Good day,” Ava announced.

  Michaela and Yuri responded in kind.

  Ava gestured to her right side. “Mr. Kirov, this is John Markley. He’s the Bureau’s Assistant Director for Counterintelligence.”

  “Good to finally meet you,” Markley said.

  Yuri returned the greeting.

  Ava said, “I asked John to sit in on our discussion today. He oversees all FBI matters related to foreign intelligence operations and espionage.”

  Yuri instantly assessed that his fate was in Markley’s hands.

  SSA Diesen said, “We understand that you have reached a decision on the offer that the Bureau has made for your services.”

  Yuri stiffened, knowing he had reached the point of no return. He cleared his voice. “Yes, I accept what has been proposed.”

  “Excellent,” Ava announced.

  Markley nodded his approval.

  Michaela smiled at Yuri.

  Yuri slumped. Dear God, please help me.

  Chapter 12

  The Novosibirsk arrived in Vladivostok late morning, tying up to its berth in Uliss Bay. Tucked away in sheltered waters just inside the Bosfor Vostochnyy Bridge, the submarine base was one of Russia’s larger naval facilities.

  Prior to surfacing and sailing under the bridge that spanned the Eastern Bosfor Strait, the Novosibirsk released the minisub that it had transported half way across the Pacific Ocean and back. The one-hundred-foot-long P-815 with its four-man crew would stay submerged. It would loiter offshore of the strait until late evening before cruising under the bridge submerged. About a mile north of Uliss Bay, the P-815 would surface and power to a floating dry dock located near the entrance to Diomid Bay. Moored to the shoreside of the dry dock was a covered boat shed. The aluminum roof would hide the minisub from American and Chinese spy satellites.

  Captain Leonid Petrovich served as the Novosibirsk’s commanding officer. After docking his ship, the forty-four-year-old submariner was escorted by a lieutenant to the Pacific Fleet Headquarters Building in downtown Vladivostok. He was just granted entrance into Admiral Oleg Belofsky’s office.

  The admiral looked up from his desk, peering over the top frame of the reading glasses parked on his nose. “Welcome back, Captain,” Belofsky said. Pushing sixty, Belofsky was bald and heavyset. His leathery, wrinkled facial skin telegraphed heavy smoking. Three gold stars were displayed on the epaulettes of his uniform jacket.

  “Thank you, Admiral.”

  Belofsky gestured for Petrovich to take a seat.

  Captain Petrovich parked his five foot ten frame into the chair. The summer uniform he wore revealed his solid, muscular build. His graying auburn hair was close cut—almost a buzz. Petrovich’s wife, Alena, and their children—daughters Katerina, fourteen; Kira, eleven; and son Anton, eight—were just a forty-minute drive away. Their sprawling home—a renovated farmhouse, overlooked Amur Bay. At sea for weeks, Petrovich yearned to reunite with his family. But first, he had unpleasant business to take care of.

  Admiral Belofsky reached for the teapot on his desk. An orderly delivered the fresh pot just before Petrovich was escorted into the office by a secretary. He poured two mugs, passing one to the sub commander.

  After taking a taste, Admiral Belofsky said, “I’ve read the after action reports you radioed in. Sounds like you and your crew had quite the adventure.”

  Petrovich fidgeted in his chair, unsure where the admiral was heading. “It was like nothing I’ve done before, Admiral.” He took a quick swallow from his mug. “The Spetsnaz operators that were aboard, they lied to me about their mission parameters.”

/>   “Tell me about it.”

  Petrovich let everything out, his anger bubbling to the surface during a couple of accounts. He expressed his bitterness about being left out of the big picture. Admiral Belofsky took it all in. Even he was in the dark regarding several of the Novosibirsk’s mission parameters. They had been issued straight from Moscow, bypassing Pacific Fleet Command.

  Belofsky swiveled in his chair, digesting the mission details while staring out of his office windows. His penthouse office overlooked Vladivostok’s Golden Horn Bay, a natural inlet that extended about four miles inland from the open waters of Amur Bay. Just east of Fleet Headquarters was the Golden Horn Bridge. The majestic cable-stayed structure spanned the waterway, providing a shortcut to the southern half of the city. Warships lined the quays fronting the headquarters building. Commercial craft were moored alongside the wharves and piers on adjacent shorelines.

  Admiral Belofsky turned back to his subordinate. “Tell me, Captain, what do you think really happened to Captain-Lieutenant Kirov?”

  * * * *

  Yuri spoon fed Madelyn at the kitchen table. She was in her highchair. It was 5:57 P.M. Maddy’s nanny left an hour earlier. Amanda Graham and her Microsoft beau had tickets to a Mariners ballgame in downtown Seattle.

  “Come on sweetie, these are good for you.”

  After the first bite, Maddy ejected the veggies. The puree dribbled down her chin. Yuri placed the recharged plastic spoon next to her mouth. Maddy turned away, her lips sealed.

  Yuri was at a loss on how to proceed when the door from the garage opened and Laura sauntered in. “I’m glad you’re home,” Yuri said. “I’m having no luck feeding Maddy.”

  Laura chuckled. “She’s picky lately. Have you tried fruit?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Laura stooped beside the highchair. “Hi sweet pea!” Maddy exploded into her trademark dimpled smile. Laura used a napkin from the table to clean her daughter’s face. “Would you like some apple sauce?”