Kulik went down to the restaurant. We headed for our respective hotels.
* * *
When I opened the door to my hotel room, Viktor Lukovsky was sitting cross-legged on the couch. His hair was out of the ponytail and down on his collar. He was wearing a charcoal gray suit with chalk stripes, and a paisley tie. Ivan—Mr. Silent-but-deadly—was sitting in a chair by the window. There was a large sample case on the floor at his feet. When I entered, Ivan stood up slowly and positioned himself between me and Viktor, but to one side. Viktor gave him the slightest nod. Ivan took his sample case and departed.
On the end table beside the couch, I saw an empty shot glass next to an empty miniature whiskey bottle from my cabinet. What riveted my attention was the leather-bound gun box on Viktor’s lap, the one from his yacht. There was an envelope on the couch. Viktor picked it up and offered it to me. I walked to him, took it, and read the card inside. Written in block letters were Tatyana Kedrova’s name and St. Petersburg address.
“Thank you, Viktor.”
“Thank me when you get back … if you get back. You going to dangerous world. You sure you want to do this?”
“I have to.”
Viktor gave me a long, speculative look before he popped the top on his gun box. My heart stopped. Instead of a pistol, he withdrew another envelope and handed it to me. “Something to keep you safe.”
I looked at the red wax seal. “What’s this?”
“You know Russian tattoos?”
“No,” I lied.
“Not necessary for you to know. They will know. My phone number is in there. You get into shit you can’t handle, give them that envelope. Tell them call me, collect.”
In the Russian underworld, tattoos separate the bad asses from the jackasses. I was getting a safe conduct pass from a mafia don. “Thank you, again.”
He waved off my thanks. “You get your ass killed, my mother’s going to be disappointed in both of us.” With, sadness he added, “But life is full of disappointments.”
Viktor snapped his gun box shut and gave me a look that was chilling. “When you eat and drink on my boat, you leave lots of DNA. I keep some samples. A friend in St. Petersburg get sample of Tatyana Kedrova’s DNA. I had lab here in London compare your DNA to DNA from Tatyana. Guess what. They don’t match.”
Viktor collected his gun box and got up from the couch. He walked to me and stood uncomfortably close to deliver his conclusions. “So, your father lied to you … or you lied to me. Either way, you’re fucked … Ricky.”
CHAPTER 15
I SHOULD HAVE been happy or, at least, grateful. Viktor Lukovsky, my new fairy mobfather, had taken time from his busy schedule of money laundering—or whatever it was the Brits couldn’t nail him for—to bring me the location of a source and a written guarantee of safe passage through the Russian underworld. Instead of gratitude, I felt anger. Seeing Viktor in my hotel room, sitting on my couch, and drinking my whiskey reminded me of my bad old days in Russia. When I was assigned to Moscow Station, we lived with one overriding reality, the suffocating intrusiveness of the FSB. They would enter your home when you were out, bug it, and leave you little reminders that you had no privacy, usually something out of place or broken. Unless you were in the embassy SCIF—secure compartmented information facility—you had to assume that you were always bugged, recorded, and photographed by the FSB.
It was clear from the mismatched DNA and his goodbye warning that Viktor didn’t trust me. Naturally, he would want to know what I was up to. Which brought me to Ivan and his sample case. Had he forgotten to open it and show me his collection of shrunken heads, or was the case a bugging tool kit? A prudent deduction was that Viktor and Ivan had bugged my hotel suite while waiting for me to arrive.
We should have left London that night, because threats to my operation were multiplying. By now, MI6 had my description from Kulik, and the police would be trying to find the crew that burglarized Ironside’s home-office. Ironside would have guessed burglars were looking for his sources. He would have gone to Dumfries to check on Colonel Bogdanovich—alias, Lucas Novak. The colonel would have given him descriptions of Sherri and me, which Ironside would have passed to MI6 and, maybe, the police. If that was not enough bad news, Viktor might be having second thoughts about helping me. If so, he could be planning another meeting for Sherri and me aboard his yacht, more likely, under it. The only reason for staying in London was to get a briefing from Rodney on how to meet our Baltic cruise body doubles in St. Petersburg.
In light of these threats, we had to take precautions for our safety. Sherri divided her “band” into two surveillance teams, one to follow her and one to follow me, when we were on the streets. They couldn’t intervene directly if the police were on our tails, but they could warn us and discreetly help us avoid capture. Or so we thought.
Another obvious precaution was to relocate. Viktor would be looking for me at the Savoy, and one of the police lines of inquiry would begin with foreign hotel guests who checked in around the date of the burglary. Also, if Viktor had bugged my Savoy suite, I didn’t want to plan the St. Petersburg trip with him listening.
After Viktor left my suite, I departed, too. Taking nothing but my hat, overcoat, and scarf, I exited the hotel. On the way out, I gave the concierge a message for Rodney, telling him that I was relocating and where. Assuring myself that I was not tailed, I checked into a down-scale hotel several blocks from the Savoy. The desk clerk gave me a “no luggage?” look as he handed over my key. I made two calls from my room. The first was to Sherri to give her my new address and tell her to relocate with her team. The second was to Jill, inviting her to a meal in my new hotel’s restaurant.
Over dinner, I told Jill, “A problem developed. I solved it by relocating our team.” I didn’t tell her that Viktor might have bugged my rooms at the Savoy. “Don’t go to my suite. I want us to have as few visible connections as possible. Have a bellhop pack my belongings and take them to you in the lobby. Check both of us out and pay my bill. Go to the train station, switch cabs, and come here.”
“What’s going on, Max?”
“You don’t have a need to know.”
Jill was angry. “I helped you pull off the Romeo interview, didn’t I? Why are you keeping me in the dark?”
I was still smoldering over Viktor’s uninvited visit to my hotel and I remembered that Jill followed me when I went to meet Rodney. I blasted her. “I told you when we met that you were an intern. So, you’re out of the loop until I need you to speak Russian, shoot somebody, or kick my ass.”
“You may not have long to wait for the last two.” Glaring daggers at me, she got up and left the restaurant.
Ah, the joys of command.
* * *
Hours later, Jill arrived and checked into the adjoining room I reserved for her. There was a noticeable chill in her demeanor. We unpacked our belongings and went to bed without a goodnight kiss. Jill locked the door connecting our rooms.
While I waited for Rodney to brief me, Jill and I needed to get to know each other well enough to pass as husband and wife. In the event we were subjected to a cursory interrogation by Russian authorities, we had to be able to answer questions like, “What color is your husband’s eyes?” or “What is your wife’s favorite color?” If we couldn’t answer questions like that for, say, an immigration officer, we were headed for a serious interrogation by the FSB.
If we were going to do this right, I had to heal the rift with Jill. So, the next day, over lunch in my room I told her, “Internship is over, but we need an understanding. I have nothing personal against you, but you were a surprise. I don’t like surprises. Bowen could have told me you were going to be his cutout. When people make unannounced changes on an operation like this, I wonder if I know their real game plan.”
“Just what kind of operation is this, Max?”
Either she really didn’t know or she was playing me. “Whatever Bowen told you, this ain’t no research project and he’s
probably not paying you enough. You’re involved in an investigation that could get you locked up in three countries. I kept you in the dark so that if you got caught, you’d have deniability.” That was partially true. I just didn’t trust Jill Rucker, for reasons I couldn’t explain.
“I can’t give you that protection any longer. We’re going to Russia with fake IDs to interview people who might not want to be interviewed and we could encounter people who might try to stop us. We could get killed by the Russian mafia, or locked up, tortured, and shot by the FSB. If that bothers you, now would be a good time to buy a ticket home. If you stay, I’ll assume that you’re committed to the mission and you’re on my team.”
“Who else is going in with us?”
“At this point, it’s better if you don’t know.”
She nodded her agreement.
* * *
As the days passed, we took most of our meals together, but kept the talk small and nonintrusive. Jill stopped locking the door between our rooms and we moved back and forth freely when it was open. I discovered that Jill was from Chicago and learned Russian from her grandparents, who lived into their nineties.
There were a few times when we strayed from our false bios and she let me see behind her woman-of-mystery façade. On one occasion, we were having a drink in her room after a long day of sightseeing together followed by a heavy dinner. She was relaxed.
I asked, “What was that fatmouth about when we met? You can ‘kick my ass’?”
“You were rude. I had to draw a line. Besides, I do have a black belt in karate.” She stuck out her chin, as if daring me to throw a punch at it.
“What’s a girl like you doing in a belt like that?”
My question must have revived an unpleasant memory. Jill got a fierce, faraway look in her eyes. “In high school, I was a cheerleader for the football team. The players wanted my body, but didn’t want to ask. So, I got the belt.” She released that memory and gave me a faint smile. “Call it a black chastity belt.”
“Did you do any damage?”
Her smile broadened. “Enough to get kicked off the cheerleading squad and referred to counseling for ‘aggressive tendencies.’”
“After high school?”
“The Army. I volunteered for airborne and became a parachute rigger.”
“Was that a good outlet for your aggressive tendencies?”
“Hoo-yah, master sergeant!” She laughed from her gut, a first with me.
“After the Army?”
The smile disappeared. “Sorry, you’re not cleared for that.”
“What about now?”
“Now, I’m on your team.”
That was too cute.
She tilted her head to one side. “What about you?”
“I didn’t play high school football, if that’s what you’re asking.” Both of us smiled. “I went to college and joined the Navy after.” That wasn’t true, but I knew enough about the Navy to fake it, if she had questions. “After the Navy, I worked in private security.” That was partially true at the moment, but mostly a lie.
“And … ?”
“Sorry, you’re not cleared for that.” That ended our verbal self-disclosures.
There were other disclosures that didn’t require words. Before and after our personal revelations, I had seen Jill in the hotel pool. She was a smooth swimmer and lifted herself out of the water with powerful-looking arms and shoulders that had just enough muscle definition to make her attractive. She had a generous chest, flat stomach, and nice legs, with the exception of her calves. They were like muscular bowling pins, hard-looking, with sharp definition. I assumed that was why she always wore pants.
Jill had an attractive face to match her body. It was framed by short, thick, blond hair. Her eyes seemed to peer out at you from some knowing place and gave the impression that she could read your mind. The defining feature was a wide, wicked smile. I could see why those high school football team hormones went into overdrive. Truth be told, my hormones weren’t exactly oblivious in her presence. Jill Rucker was a babe.
The morning after my peek into Jill’s real world, I checked at the hotel desk. There was a note from Rodney. We met at the usual place in Trafalgar Square and went to his safe house. Over breakfast, Rodney gave me the passports that would get Jill and me into Russia, the fake FSB IDs I had requested, and a briefing packet of details—burn after reading.
“Tell me about the couple we swap identities with when we get to St. Petersburg.”
Rodney cleared his throat. That was his “tell” that things were screwed up. When he smiled, I knew things were really screwed up. “We’re having trouble finding a double handsome enough to replace you.”
“You don’t have a couple yet, do you?”
“I’m working on it. It’s complicated. It’s not like walking into an alley with a Russian on your tail and giving your coat to another guy who diverts the tail, while you hide behind the trash bin.”
“I don’t care about the complications. What happens if we get to St. Petersburg and you haven’t finished working on it?”
My attitude irritated him. “In that case, you take the advice of the Marine Corps: ‘adapt, improvise, and overcome.’”
I had no intention of walking away with a non-answer like that. If we disappeared from the tours or the ship without doubles to substitute for us, the Russians would be on our tails within hours. I stared at Rodney until he told me his plan.
“The first stop on your cruise is Tallinn, Estonia. Meet me at the Café Kinsky. It’s a couple of blocks east of the cruise terminal. Come as early as you can and come alone. I’ll have things sorted out by then. If not, you’ll have to abort or find another way in.”
Peering at me over his coffee cup rim, Rodney asked casually, “Any exfil plans?” Rodney was asking if I had an exfiltration plan to get Jill and me out of Russia.
“Depends on what you tell me in Tallinn.” I was deliberately vague. I had a plan, but Rodney didn’t have a need to know, and the less he knew about it the more secure I felt. He already knew too much.
* * *
Back at the hotel, I spent the afternoon with Jill finalizing plans for the cruise to St. Petersburg. Our ship was scheduled to sail from Stockholm in two days. We were going to fly to the Swedish port the following afternoon.
As for Sherri, my original plan was to have her and Tony-D fly to St. Petersburg as our security and backup, then, follow us on to Moscow. After Kulik told me about the Omega Group, another plan formed in my mind. I went to Sherri’s hotel and briefed her and Tony-D on their roles for the Russia trip.
“After Jill and I leave for Stockholm tomorrow, I want you to fly to Moscow and make contact with this Omega Group.” I explained the contact procedure as Kulik described it. “Tell them I’m coming to Moscow to verify the details of the Walldrum dossier. I need to talk to these people”—I gave Sherri a list—“and anyone else with firsthand knowledge of Walldrum’s business dealings and sexual misconduct. If Omega is for real, I want them to locate the sources, do a reconnaissance, and tell me the best time and place to conduct a private interview. I don’t want any other Russians present.”
After everyone was briefed, we decided to split the teams and go out for our last night of London R and R. I was going to tighten the bond with my new, make-believe wife, Jill Rucker. One of Sherri’s security guys was watching our backs. Sherri and Tony-D went to a play, with the other two members of our security team watching them for tails.
Before we went out for the evening, I called Claudia. It’s crazy how you can want to be with someone and, at the same time, be mad as hell at them. That’s how I felt about Claudia. She had ruined my career at the CIA, but the work tempo in London had hit a lull and I missed her. Weeks had passed since I arrived in England and I had not called her on purpose. Strangely, I felt the need to call her before I hit the streets with Jill.
“Hello?” Claudia answered.
“It’s me. I miss you.”
/> “You should improve your aim.” She didn’t say, “I miss you, too, lots.” Instead she asked, “Are you on your way home?”
“Not yet.”
“Where are you?”
“Here.”
“Oh. There, again.” That was a jab at my work absences for the Agency. “How are you?” I asked.
“Fine.” She was, too—a former beauty queen, and with brains enough to study law. Which raised the question, why was she with me? That mystery teased my mind as our conversation meandered through banalities.
Finally, I closed with, “See you soon,” thinking, if the Russians don’t catch me.
Her parting words, with a hint of detachment, were, “Take care of yourself.”
* * *
After taking in a show together, Jill Rucker and I had a late dinner at an Indian restaurant. We were walking the few blocks to our hotel on a street with little vehicle or foot traffic. The sidewalk was narrow. A couple approached us, arm-in-arm. As we got closer to them, I sensed movement behind us. I glanced to the side. My peripheral vision picked up another arm-in-arm couple. They were close, too close.
I yelled to warn Jill and pivoted to face the pair behind us. The woman lunged for Jill. The man was bringing his arm down, aiming a blackjack at my head. I ducked, blocked the blow with my left forearm, and kicked hard to my rear, catching the guy from the other couple in the gut.
Jill shouted and another woman screamed. Go, karate!
I had blocked the blow to my head, but the guy with the blackjack was fast. He threw an uppercut with his left hand that snapped my head back. I couldn’t stop his follow-up blow with the blackjack. My head exploded with pain and my knees turned to jelly. From behind, someone dropped a bag over my head and two guys threw me into a van. Before the sliding door slammed shut, I heard a woman yell, “Don’t let that bitch get away!” There was pain in her voice. Jill must have done some damage. I struggled to get away, too, but went down for the count when I took another blow to my head.
The President’s Dossier Page 9