The Vigilant Spy

by Jeffrey Layton

  Thank the gods, thought Meng Park.

  Chapter 20

  Day 12—Sunday

  The robot woke up. Thirty days—720 hours—had elapsed since Yuri Kirov deployed the crawlerbot on the harbor bottom of the PRC’s Sanya-Yulin Naval Base.

  After completing its spy mission inside the Hainan Island subterranean cavern that housed ballistic missile submarines, the autonomous amphibian had returned to its launch coordinates. It promptly buried itself a foot deep in the harbor’s silty bottom soil. The robot had waited patiently for the recovery signal or until the thirty-day default time expired.

  About the size of a laptop computer and shaped similar to the shell of a leatherback sea turtle, the crawlerbot extracted itself from its temporary grave by activating dual sets of articulated legs. After digging its way out, the crawlerbot expelled seawater from its internal ballast chamber with a squirt of compressed air.

  It took a couple of minutes for buoyancy to carry the robot to the surface. As it floated in the protected waters of the Chinese naval base in the early morning darkness, it deployed a wire antenna and commenced transmission. Within five minutes, its encrypted and compressed data package was uploaded to one of the low orbit Russian military satellites that provided continuous coverage of the South China Sea. A U.S. based commercial telecom satellite also uploaded the data.

  With its mission completed, the crawlerbot returned to the seafloor and reburied itself, burrowing nearly three feet into the sediment.

  Chapter 21

  Day 14—Tuesday

  “I think I like this place,” Yuri said as he placed his empty coffee mug in the kitchen sink.

  “It’s nice, and a lot quieter than I expected.” Laura checked email on her iPhone.

  “Quality construction…the soundproofing seems to work well.”

  “It does.”

  Yuri and family spent their second night in the apartment. Because of Yuri’s resolve, Laura leased the 24th floor unit in the downtown Bellevue condominium tower for six months. The owner, a Microsoft executive, was on a temporary assignment in Europe.

  Yuri and Laura were about to leave for work. Maddy was buckled to her highchair. Her nanny, Amanda Graham, waited by the Keurig as it brewed her coffee.

  Laura slipped the phone into her purse. She kissed Maddy on the forehead. “You have a wonderful day sweetie!”

  Madelyn Grace giggled her response.

  Laura addressed Amanda. “We’ll be home at the usual time tonight.”

  “Okay, great.” Amanda slept in the apartment’s guest bedroom.

  The new plan called for dual living arrangements. Yuri, Laura and Maddy would spend their weekends at the Sammamish residence. But from Sunday evening to Friday afternoon, they would reside in the luxury apartment located just a couple of blocks away from Cognition Consultants.

  Fully furnished, the 3,200 square foot flat had a view of Lake Washington’s Meydenbauer Bay and the Seattle skyline beyond. Security in the building was state of the art, which won Yuri’s approval. The building’s security center was staffed twenty-four seven, which included video monitoring of the lobby, every exit, stairway and elevator, and the entire parking garage. Staff knew every resident by eyesight; unaccompanied visitors or service personnel required pre-approval by the unit’s occupants.

  * * * *

  Laura and Yuri strolled side by side on the sidewalk. The walkways and streets buzzed with fervent energy as commuters converged on downtown Bellevue’s financial core. Cognition’s tower was five minutes away.

  “You know you don’t have to do this every day,” Laura said.

  “You don’t like my company?” Yuri replied, his voice purposely sheepish.

  “I love that you do this for me but it’s a pain for you. I can walk the couple of blocks alone in safety.” She stopped and raised her hands. “Look, honey, people and cars everywhere. No one’s going to do anything to me here.”

  They’d had this discussion before. “Don’t worry about me. It’s my honor to escort you.”

  “Okay.”

  After dropping off Laura by the elevator that would carry her to her office, Yuri returned to the condominium’s garage. He opened the front door to his Toyota Highlander. Before climbing in, he removed the compact .45 caliber semiauto pistol and its clip-on holster from the small of his back. He slipped the weapon into the coat pocket of his jacket.

  FBI agent Michaela Taylor arranged for the federally issued permit that allowed Yuri to carry a concealed weapon virtually anywhere inside the United States. It was a trivial concession on the part of the FBI, knowing the risks ahead for Yuri and his family. Laura and Madelyn had been kidnapped together. And later, two attempts on Laura’s life were made, both thwarted by the FBI.

  Yuri drove out of the garage and headed east. He would arrive at his Redmond office in fifteen minutes.

  Three cars behind, the man who had been surveilling Yuri Kirov this morning kept a close eye on the Highlander.

  * * * *

  It was late morning at Northwest Subsea Dynamics. Yuri and NSD’s chief engineer met in Yuri’s office. Spread across the desk was a poster sized schematic drawing of a new submersible—Bill Winters’ brainchild. With the working title of ‘Sea Lance’, the autonomous underwater vehicle represented a radical departure from previous craft constructed by NSD. Sea Lance was a weapon, designed to intercept and kill other AUVs.

  “Okay, Bill, I like the concept and the budget seems reasonable to me. I’ll talk to Laura about it to make sure she’s on board.”

  “Great, I really think it’s a path the company should pursue. The Navy spends a bundle each year on subsea weapons systems. Sea Lance could fit right in with their plans.”

  “I agree.”

  “Thanks boss.”

  After Winters returned to his office, Yuri spent another minute looking over the conceptual drawing, admiring Bill’s innovative design. He was about to fold up the drawing when the intercom on his desk phone buzzed. He picked up the handset. “Yes,” he said addressing NSD’s receptionist.

  “John, you have a visitor.” She recited the name and his company but neither clicked for Yuri. “You met in Vancouver earlier this year. He was visiting nearby and wondered if you might have time for lunch.”

  “I’ll be right out,” Yuri said, suspicious.

  When Yuri entered the lobby, Nick Orlov rose from the chair and with his right arm extended, he approached Yuri. “John,” he said, “sorry to barge in on you unannounced.”

  Startled, Yuri hesitated for an instant before grasping the extended hand. “Nice to see you again.”

  Yuri steered the SVR officer into the conference room and closed the door.

  The two men embraced, Russian style.

  “How are you, my friend?” Orlov asked in Russian.

  “Please, English only here.”

  “Of course.”

  Yuri and Nick took seats by the conference table. Still reeling from the surprise encounter, Yuri said, “I thought you were expelled when the Houston consulate was shut down.”

  “I was. Booted back to Moscow with all of the staff.”

  “How’d you get back?”

  “I flew into Vancouver for meetings at the trade mission.” He referred to the Russian Trade Mission in downtown Vancouver. The Russian Federation’s Ministry of Industry and Trade established the office to promote trade between western Canada and eastern Russia.

  “And you decided to make a quick side trip down here.”

  Nick winked. “I did.”

  “How’d you manage the border?”

  “Same passport I used last time, like yours.”

  Orlov mentioned the Canadian passports both he and Yuri had used. Manufactured by a special unit in the SVR’s Illegals Directorate, the passport booklets were authentic. Two hundred blanks were pur
chased from an agent recruited at a Canadian government office in Ottawa. Canada Customs and Immigration remained in the dark regarding the theft.

  “You’re down here without diplomatic immunity. That’s risky for you.”

  “Won’t be here long.”

  Antsy, Yuri couldn’t delay any longer. “Nick, what are you doing here?”

  “SVR Director Smirnov sent me to check up on you.”

  Govnó!

  * * * *

  Dinner was over. Yuri and Laura were in the living room of the Bellevue high rise rental, sitting in a pair of sofas by the windows. Laura held Madelyn in her lap.

  “Looks like our summer’s going away,” Yuri said peering out the windows. A new Pacific front had rolled in during the afternoon bringing unwelcome rain. The thick overcast and receding sun created a gloomy pall that engulfed the entire Puget Sound region.

  Laura said, “Soggy and chilly days are on the way. But I don’t mind, I’m used to it.”

  Yuri did mind but left it alone. Besides, the Pacific Northwest’s climate was tropical compared to Moscow’s bleak and frozen late fall and winter seasons.

  Laura glanced down at Maddy. It was near her daughter’s bedtime; she was almost asleep, her eyes barely open. “Time for bed, sweetie,” Laura said.

  Laura carried Maddy to her bedroom.

  Yuri stared at the window wall but the view no longer registered. Instead, his thoughts raced. The unexpected visit from Nick Orlov in the morning was heavy on his mind. What should I do?

  He had not yet told Laura about Nick and debated throughout the day as to whether he should. When Laura returned, he made up his mind.

  Laura reclaimed her position on the sofa.

  “You get her down okay?” he asked.

  “Yes, she’s worn out.” Amanda and Madelyn had spent the afternoon at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. Amanda already left; she frequently spent her evenings with her Microsoft boyfriend in his Redmond apartment.

  Yuri cleared his voice. “I need to tell you something…Nick Orlov visited me at the office this morning.”

  Laura’s right hand skyrocketed to her mouth. “No!”

  “We ended up having lunch together.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He was sent to check on me.”

  Yuri spent the next few minutes providing highlights of the encounter.

  Laura settled back into the couch, relieved but still perplexed. “How did he react when you told him about the bomb in Pearl Harbor?”

  “I didn’t tell him.”

  “Why not? He should know what kind of people he’s working for.”

  “Nick doesn’t need that kind of problem.”

  Yuri made no mention of the Pearl Harbor mission or the bomb when they met. That was a closely held secret privy to just a handful of elites in the Kremlin and the two special operators that planted the nuke. Yuri had sensed it was best for Nick if he were not included in that loop.

  Laura said, “He doesn’t know what you did?”

  “No.”

  “So, Russia doesn’t know about the FBI?”

  “Nick didn’t seem to know or didn’t want to know. I just told him that all I want is to be left alone. I stressed that I completed my assignment and that I was promised I could retire.”

  “What about asylum?”

  “I told him that you had attorneys working with the State Department to allow me to stay in the States. I mentioned that I might have to request political asylum to make that happen.”

  “How’d he take that?”

  “He said he understood.”

  “That’s all he said?”

  “I could tell he didn’t want to hear about any of the details. Asylum is not going to be received well back in Moscow.”

  “What’s he going to do?”

  “I’m sure he’s in Vancouver by now. He’ll send in a report from the trade mission and probably fly back to Moscow.” Yuri slumped into the couch. “He took a huge risk coming down here after being expelled; if he were picked up or ID’d at the border crossing, he’d end up in prison.”

  “I hope he’ll be okay.” Yuri and Laura were indebted to Nicolai Orlov. He had saved both of their lives nearly two years earlier.

  Yuri said, “I tried to isolate him from what went down at Pearl Harbor but if it gets out, he’ll be tainted because of me.”

  “Because of both of us.”

  “Right.”

  Yuri could not reveal that he had sabotaged Moscow’s effort to ignite a war between the United States and China by dumping the Pearl Harbor nuke in the ocean. And if the SVR knew he was now working for the Americans, he’d be a marked man.

  “Are you going to tell the FBI about the meeting with Nick?”

  “I don’t know. That might put Nick in additional jeopardy.” Yuri stretched out his arms. “I might just keep it to myself…and you.”

  “That’s risky. You should tell them.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Yuri didn’t reveal everything to Laura about his meeting with Nick.

  Late the previous evening Yuri had checked the FTP site. The 30 days were up. Yuri was astonished to find the encrypted data file in his personal Northwest Subsea Dynamics folder, which was accessible only by him.

  Yuri had programmed the Yulin crawlerbot to execute two data transmissions. First to a Russian military satellite, as planned. Second to a private global satellite communications network used by NSD for data collection from the company’s fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles. It was Yuri’s insurance policy.

  After typing in the passcode, Yuri had spent an hour reviewing the videos. He was flabbergasted at the content. The autonomous amphibian carried out its mission flawlessly.

  And today, while lunching with Nick Orlov in a Redmond restaurant, Yuri had decided to plant the seed. The opportunity was far sooner than he had dreamed possible.

  Knowing Nick would have to report their meeting to Moscow, Yuri asked him to convey a cryptic message to the director of the SVR. The communiqué would not be received well by Borya Smirnov.

  The barter was part of Yuri’s strategy to make a permanent break with the homeland, allowing him and his adopted American family to finally live in peace—he hoped.

  Chapter 22

  Day 15—Wednesday

  The USS Tucson cruised northwestward at a stealthy twelve knots. It was 600 feet beneath the South China Sea, 147 nautical miles east of Sanya. SSN 770 was on a reconnaissance mission. One of China’s state-run oil companies was drilling a new natural gas well in a deepwater field located northeast of Hainan Island.

  Tucson was charged with taking closeup photos of the floating semisubmersible drill rig, both above and below the waterline. Its mission also called for acoustic monitoring of the rig’s underwater drilling activity. The vessel was the first of its class, designed and built entirely in China. The CIA and the U.S. Navy jointly needed to verify that the drill rig was being used solely for petroleum exploration purposes.

  Commander Scott Arnold was in Tucson’s control room. Six foot two with broad shoulders and a barrel chest, his physique conveyed athlete. Towheaded, his receding hairline was barely noticeable but a harbinger of future annoyances to come.

  Arnold was one of the younger sub skippers in the Pacific Fleet at thirty-six. It was his first command, having served as executive officer aboard another attack sub for two years. His wife of ten years and their two sons resided in a hillside home that overlooked Honolulu and the Pacific beyond.

  Tucson was an Improved-Los Angeles class attack submarine. With its four torpedo tubes and twelve vertical launch missile tubes, it packed a mighty offensive punch.

  Arnold turned to address the ship’s executive officer who hovered over a nearby plotting table. “XO, what’s our ETA?” he asked. />
  Lieutenant Commander Hal Russell looked up. “We should be on station in about an hour.” Unlike the captain, Russell was average height with a gangling build. His nut-brown hair was thick with no signs of balding. Two years junior to Arnold, he served as Tucson’s second in command. A bachelor, Russell rented an apartment near Pearl Harbor.

  “What about the sun?” asked Arnold.

  “It’s setting now so we should have plenty of dark for night ops.”

  “Excellent. Nice job bringing her in.”

  “Thanks skipper.”

  Russell was tasked with making the approach. Arnold had just reclaimed the conn.

  Standing near the twin periscopes, Commander Arnold paged through various digital documents on the tablet he held. As Tucson’s CO, he received continuous status reports from key department heads. He had just completed reviewing a report from Engineering when an overhead intercom speaker broadcast.

  “Conn, sonar. Unknown contact bearing two one seven. Range four hundred and forty yards. Depth nine five five feet and ascending. Closing on our position at fourteen knots.” The tech sounded the alarm from his console in the sonar room, located forward of the control room.

  Arnold grabbed an intercom microphone from an overhead rack. “Sonar, Captain. What is it?”

  “Captain, I don’t know. It’s not propeller driven. Very quiet, mainly picking up flow disturbances. I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

  “Biologic?”

  “There’s nothing like it in the computer. Plus its speed is up there for a biologic.”

  “Designate contact as Master Four Nine and standby.”

  “Master Four Nine, aye.”

  The sonar contact was considered potentially hostile and earned a “Master” designation.

  Captain Arnold looked forward at the officer of the deck. The lieutenant stood just behind the helmsman and the planes operator. “Mr. Johnson, come right to course zero eight five. Make turns for twenty-five knots. Do not cavitate. Make your depth nine hundred feet.”

  The OOD repeated the orders and Tucson began racing away from the mystery contact. To minimize sound generation from cavitation, power to the ship’s screw was increased carefully to prevent the spinning propeller blades from leaving a noisy knuckle of churning water behind.