Shadow Wars, page 17
“But you knew it was Voronov. How did you know?”
“It wasn’t difficult. It’s also not usual for Spetznaz officers to be using one of those aircraft.”
Voronov turned the light lower. “That’s part of the answer, but even a part deserves a reward. I hope that’s more comfortable.”
The only response was a slight relaxation of facial muscles.
“Now, it doesn’t seem reasonable that you would order a man killed just because he flew to Prague in the middle of the night on one of the president’s planes. We are, I’d assumed, working for the same government. What was there about Voronov’s trip to Prague that required his death?”
Raskova’s lips worked as he considered his answer. His hands clawed at his sides. His toes curled and uncurled. “I don’t know all the details. As I said I received orders. I was told Voronov met with an American in Prague. Spetznaz officers don’t do that.”
Chance waited for Voronov to look in his direction as he often did after an especially satisfactory response from Raskova. When he did this time, Chance winked. “It seems we are dangerous people to associate with,” he said with a tight smile.
Voronov nodded without answering, obviously unsure of American humor. He turned back to the man in the cell. “Maybe that American was one of Voronov’s spies,” he said into the microphone. “Spetznaz have spies, too, just like you.”
“I was told he was no spy and that’s why I received … those orders.”
“I want to know whom those orders came from. If you tell me, I’ll release you and go after him instead.”
“You can’t!” Raskova shouted in despair. This time his reaction reflected an inner pain indicating he was either near the breaking point mentally or he was afraid of revealing any more.
“Why not?”
“Because …” His breath was coming in short gasps and his chest heaved as he struggled with himself.
Voronov increased the light in the cell until the tiny room seemed to be flooded with white-hot flame.
“Stop it …” Raskova rolled off the board and landed hard on the floor. He lay there facedown, his shoulders heaving in great sobs as he gasped for air. “Please stop.” His voice was muffled. “Please …”
“Get back on your board and I’ll turn it down,” Voronov snapped. “Quickly now.” He sensed that he was closing in on his target.
They watched as a sobbing, nude General Grigory Raskova, head of the Second Chief Directorate of the KGB, rose to his knees, his eyes tightly shut, and felt for the board which had become his home. Blood ran down his chin where his teeth had ripped through his upper lip. He crawled onto that board, rolled onto his back, and once again came to a naked, pathetic attention. But his breathing was irregular and his body glistened with sweat.
“I have no doubt now that the weapons stockpiles are located in Germany, probably in the old GDR,” Voronov said conversationally. Then he shouted, “Where?”
Raskova took a deep breath and shuddered. “I don’t know the exact location.”
“But it is the GDR!”
Raskova’s voice was a whisper. “Yes … but I wasn’t told exactly where.” He shuddered again, anticipating the strobes.
The cell was darkened until the lighting was almost normal. “See, if I believe you, I treat you well. You do know who Joseph Drobner is, don’t you?” Voronov asked normally. Then, as Raskova took a deep breath, he shouted, “Don’t try to tell me you’ve never heard the name this time.”
“The name was mentioned to me. I don’t know why. Please, I don’t—”
“Good. We’ll get back to that.” Voronov continued to shout so that his voice reverberated through the tiny room. “And the weapons. You’ve agreed they are in East Germany. Are they on the main railroad line?”
“Yes. I think so.”
Voronov turned to Chance and Gannett with a triumphant smile. “Good. We’ll get back to that also. Why can’t I find the man who told you to kill Voronov?”
“He lives outside the country.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere in Europe. France, I think.”
“You’re trying to tell me you take orders from someone you don’t even know?” Voronov’s voice was increasingly shrill. Once again, he surprised himself with such an emotional reaction. “A general in the KGB and you subject yourself to that kind of shit? Tell me why I shouldn’t take your miserable life right now.”
Raskova’s breathing grew more erratic as the light began to gradually increase. His chest would rise as he sucked in air and he would seem to hold his breath. Then, when he exhaled, there would appear to be no effort to breathe again. His body would spasm methodically until he rolled his shoulders and hips and then his chest would gradually begin to expand with short gasps of air. His head had been rolling from side to side on occasion previously but now it was a continuous motion. His entire body began to shake, the fat rolling like waves. Then his lower lip began to shiver, and finally he spoke. “It was the general … because the general gave the orders directly … he … said there shouldn’t be … be any method …” Raskova was visibly struggling for air. His hands went to his throat. There were other words but they made even less sense than his mumbling about a general.
“It looks like he’s having a heart attack,” Chance murmured anxiously. “Look at that. Look at his eyes.” Raskova’s eyes were open and bulging. The glare no longer affected them. His fingers clawed deep scratches in his throat until the blood which appeared was smeared across his chest. His arms jerked involuntarily. But he seemed to need to continue. “… any method of tracing him … and Halder …” he gasped. Then he began to gag as he attempted to talk.
“Tell me his name. His name!” Voronov shouted, caught up in the emotion of Raskova’s agony.
Raskova’s mouth opened and his jaw moved but there were no words to replace the agonizing sound of his hopeless struggle for air.
“Did Joseph Drobner kidnap Katherine Ellyson?”
Raskova’s tongue lolled out the corner of his mouth.
“Where are the weapons in East Germany? Give me a name,” Voronov shouted impatiently. “Quickly now.”
“Fur-fur-fursten …” Another scream punctuated Raskova’s agony as his entire body jerked and his mouth snapped shut. Blood flowed from his mouth where his tongue had been bitten almost completely through. He rolled off the board in a frenzy, his body jerking uncontrollably on the floor before there was a deathly quiet in the brilliantly lit cell.
“That is a very dead general,” Chance pronounced. “It was almost as if he willed himself to have that heart attack. At first he seemed to want to unload and then he chose to die.”
Voronov nodded. His eyes moved from Chance to Gannett to the body in the cell. “And that very dead KGB general was taking orders from someone in France, someone he called a general. Russia doesn’t have any generals in France. You both heard what he said. It wasn’t something from my imagination,” he said with a tinge of despair. “That piece of shit lying in there was one of the leaders in the effort to overthrow our president, my country if that sounds better. But his orders came from your world—not mine. And it doesn’t appear to be just a plot to overthrow Markov, does it? There was one name—Halder. I’ve never heard it before. But he did know the Drobner name and I bet Drobner’s involved with Halder. And there’s a weapons stockpile, probably in East Germany, most likely along a major rail line back toward my country.” Voronov pursed his lips and added thoughtfully, “This situation has a very Western aroma … doesn’t it?”
Katherine Ellyson awoke with a start. A hand gently shook her shoulder. “Wake up, Miss Ellyson. Border crossing time.”
She turned toward the voice, startled. It was still dark but she could make out the face at the wheel from the dashboard light. She yawned, rubbed the sleep from her eyes with her knuckles because her hands were cuffed, then stretched. She recoiled instantly from the pain in her ankles. The rope that held them together bit into her skin. Then she vaguely remembered this face was a new one. So was the car. A Mercedes symbol on the hood reminded her how comfortable the seats were.
She remembered hours before when they’d left. Halder had said that Frankfurt wasn’t safe, something about more security where there were more of his kind and less Americans. He didn’t know why those Americans he’d seen at the airport were in Frankfurt, and he really had no intention of finding out why. From his own experience, people like that were up to no good. Better to distance himself from them. Halder had developed an aversion to all things American years ago which eventually evolved into distrust of every individual American bordering on paranoia. The original idea of employing Kat Ellyson as a foil to detract whatever suspicion might one day be directed toward her father had been his. It was also his own unspoken way of controlling Wallace Ellyson. When Halder learned the girl was in Vail rather than Prague, he immediately determined it was a personal slap in the face—an effort by Ellyson to make him appear foolish or stupid or whatever was up the American’s sleeve. Grabbing Kat in Vail was as much a personal warning from Halder to Ellyson that lines had been drawn—partners or not—and that no one was going to pull a power play on Carl Halder. And the others would support him. They knew Ellyson would eventually be very important to them, but they often found him personally as offensive as Halder did.
He’d given her a choice—no handcuffs if she’d cooperate. Of course, I will. Unfortunately, there was no one around as they came out of the apartment onto the street. Kat ran anyway. But Halder was too fast for her. When he grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, Kat’s knee shot up toward his crotch. Halder turned, catching the blow on his thigh. He stuffed his glove in her mouth, dragged her around the building, and pushed her roughly facedown in the back seat of his car. Handcuffs were snapped on behind her back. Her ankles were tightly tied with a heavy cord.
The drive out of Frankfurt with Halder had been silent and uncomfortable with her hands secured behind her back. He had nothing to say, responding to her questions concerning his plans with as few words as possible, more often a shrug. They drove on a divided highway—she remembered large signs bearing the number three—at very high speeds, and now it came back to her that they must have been headed east. They’d passed through Wurzburg and then, on the other side of that city, they turned off the main highway into a small village. In less than ten minutes, they were in the country because there were no street lamps and almost no house lights at all.
She remembered when this current one had taken over as her latest captor. They’d turned down a dirt road, then stopped before an old farmhouse. There was a barn nearby and, as she struggled to place her bound feet on the ground, she was struck by the refreshing aroma of hay and animals. Halder released her hands and feet after explaining how useless it would be to try anything here. Then a large, plain-looking woman escorted her inside. There, she was given food and hot tea, allowed to use the toilet though the woman remained just outside the door on Halder’s orders. In less than thirty minutes from the time they’d arrived, she was seated in the front seat of a large Mercedes. The driver, a man who also spoke English well, had no more desire to answer her questions than Halder, but he had secured her hands in front this time. He drove fast also, well over the hundred-kilometer mark she saw on the speedometer.
Kat realized there must have been something in the tea because she was soon struggling against sleep, woke up to the passing lights of Numberg, then dozed off. She woke up again when they stopped for fuel in Regensburg. That was when she asked to use the ladies’ room. Perhaps, she reasoned, just perhaps there will be a way. The driver had refused, explaining that he couldn’t watch her there but there was a place in Deggendorf that had been planned as a stop.
When they arrived there, it was another country house. Once again a woman had offered food, trying to coax Kat to take something even after she refused. The woman also waited outside the bathroom door. It was so well planned. There were no windows in the bathroom. The people were all alike, well mannered, polite if not friendly, and anxious to make sure she was comfortable. Each one seemed concerned with her welfare, almost as if they needed to ensure her health, but they had no interest in answering questions. This time she’d turned down even the tea in an effort to shake off the effects of whatever they’d given her near Wurzburg. The words “border crossing” brought her back to the present.
“Where are we?”
“Close to the Czech border.”
“Czechoslovakia?” she asked in wonder.
“That is correct. What is so surprising about that?” It was the first time she’d heard more than a simple answer from the man.
“That’s where I live … I mean where I live now. Why are you taking me back here?”
“I don’t know. These are my orders.” He was back to normal.
“Where are we going in Czechoslovakia?”
“I can’t say.” He pulled the big Mercedes over to the side of the road and turned on the overhead light. Turning the rearview mirror toward himself, he buttoned his collar and pulled his tie tight at the neck. Then he combed his hair before turning the mirror toward her. “I’d like you to comb your hair and put on lipstick, if you would please. This crossing isn’t used much at night this time of year and the guard on duty is expecting us shortly. However, there is always the possibility that one of the senior officers might be paying a surprise visit to a lonely outpost. I want us to look presentable just in case. The less reason to be curious about us, the better.”
“Perhaps I don’t want to be nice,” she retorted coldly. “How can I do what you want with my hands like this?”
“I’m sure you’ll manage since we’re going to sit here until you do. And I hope you won’t create a problem.” He opened his suit coat to reveal a holster and gun. “I assure you I have orders not to hurt you. I’m going to lay my coat across your lap so the handcuffs can’t be seen. But if there is someone else, perhaps an innocent stranger who doesn’t understand, who comes to our car, and if you say anything that might upset that person, I will be forced to kill that stranger. I have used this same weapon on a number of people,” he said unemotionally, “and I do it because that is my business. I’m not allowed to kill you but other people don’t bother me at all. I hope you won’t cause the needless death of an innocent person.”
She looked at him in the dim light. He was staring back at her, waiting for a response, and the expression on his face told her that he had no concern about what he’d just said. He would surely kill someone as easily as he was speaking to her. “No, I won’t let you kill an innocent person.” She ran a comb clumsily through her hair with both hands. “Will this be satisfactory for your border guard?” she asked.
He turned off the light and pulled back onto the road without a word. They had been climbing into the mountains for the past hour and the plowed snowbanks beside the road had grown higher. Now, a light snow began to fall and the curves in the road grew sharper. It seemed they were heading into the middle of nowhere until they rounded a corner and the bright lights of the border station appeared ahead.
“I hope I can trust you,” the driver said softly.
“I’m sure you would shoot an innocent person,” she responded just as quietly. “I won’t say anything.” It was absurd. They—she and this stranger, a man who’d just explained why he’d kill someone—were apparently having an intimate conversation, and that was when she realized she was no longer scared. Kat was uncertain why she felt no concern about her own safety but there seemed to be an unspoken feeling conveyed to her that these people’s jobs were to protect her life rather than endanger her.
There was no problem at the border. The woman that came to the window of the car seemed to be expecting them. She opened the driver’s passport, removed the cash that lay inside the cover, shoved it inside her heavy uniform coat, then slipped a sheet of paper in its place. She never asked to see Kat’s passport before they were waved through.
When they were a few miles beyond the border and the driver was sure there were no other vehicles nearby, he pulled the car to the side of the road and switched on the overhead light. Noting her look of concern, he said, “We just need to make a quick change.” He reached under the seat and pulled out a manila envelope. Opening it, he extracted a license plate and showed it to her. “Czech registration. No need to attract attention with German plates.” He removed the ignition key and slipped it in his pocket. “This will only take a moment but I still don’t want to leave such a temptation for you.” It really was not much more than a minute before he was back in the car, brushing the snow from his hair, and the Mercedes was headed down the road.
When they’d gone another couple of miles, she asked, “Is there any place in Europe where you people can’t come and go as you please?”
There was no answer and she thought he was ignoring her until he said, “I didn’t mean to be impolite. I had to think for a moment and I believe at this stage the answer is no. I don’t fully understand how we have arrived at this point and I don’t know who is responsible for achieving it. But it is rather remarkable, now that you ask, that we’ve gotten so far so quickly.”
“Who is we?” she asked pointedly, hoping to take him by surprise.
The light from the dashboard reflected on his face and she could see that he was smiling to himself. “I’m sure you’ve been told before, but it really is safer for all of us if we don’t know.” He glanced quickly in her direction and she saw the smile was for her benefit. “It’s safer for you also if you don’t know who we are.”
What he couldn’t know—what the others of his kind all over Europe were also unaware of—was that a pathetic man in an old StB torture cell in Prague had been forced to reveal information that offered the first hint of the mysterious leadership.
8
Fractures
Norman Smith knew his wife would be angry with him—no, she said, not angry, cross, because she loved him—for sitting outside on the deck in the cold wind. But he was prepared this time. He wore a warm sweater and his windbreaker was in his lap. If she nagged, he’d put it on. But right now, he was enjoying the shivering just a little bit because it was his own way of punishing himself. The cold wind followed on the heels of the front that had passed earlier in the week and it was raw and biting, and it could even be secretly invigorating if his wife scolded.
