For Honor, page 19
part #17 of Tom Clancy's Op-Center Series
The big Pole’s exposed left side was briefly facing Volner. It did not have the muscular protection of his abdomen. It had ribs, which the American could see clearly through the skin. Volner did not hit them with his padded knuckles. He opened his fingers and swung his right arm like a scythe. His long ridge-hand struck halfway between the man’s armpit and waist. There was a sharp intake of wind and Ziobro bent to that side. While the man was momentarily distracted, Volner moved in with a left uppercut. He brought it practically from the mat to the man’s chin. In strikes like these, a fighter did not aim for the target but at someplace beyond—in this case, the ceiling of the gym. The gloved fist connected with an audible thump that straightened the momentarily breathless man and caused him to stumble backward on his heels.
Ziobro’s arms were wobbly and his head was shaking. He did not see the knee that flew like a cannonball into the perfect abs. The Pole did, however, see Volner standing over him a few moments after he struck the canvas.
Ziobro smiled up. “Well done,” he said on an exhale, wincing from the pain in his side. “We—we are done.”
Volner was pulling off his gloves but did not offer a hand-up; the man would need at least two big men to get him on his feet and would need to be bandaged before heading to the infirmary. From the wheezing quality of his breathing, Volner was confident that one, possibly two ribs had been broken.
There were a few thumbs-up from the other Europeans, especially those who had obviously been given favorable odds in the betting pool and were in the process of collecting.
Returning to the locker room, Volner saw that he had missed a call from Chase Williams. Flopping on the wooden bench and being painfully reminded of his own wounded hip, he returned the call.
“Sorry I wasn’t available,” Volner said. He glanced at the time. “It’s late there. Something up?”
“Seems likely,” Williams told him. “You’re scheduled to leave at noon.”
“C-130, just me and a bunch of prototype loaners from the Missile Defense Agency.”
“You’re not riding shotgun, are you?”
“No.”
Williams was referencing the fact that when prototype weapons were loaned to NATO, officers often babysat them coming and going. That was conceived as a deterrent to keep them from being photographed up close.
“ETD is still a couple hours off,” Williams said distractedly. “We’ve got a situation developing on the Bering Sea, Russia side. Looks like a mini-convention of dangerous players.”
Volner knew the director wouldn’t say anything more on an open line. “I’ll wait to hear from you. Meantime, I’ll familiarize myself with the region. What about JSOC?”
“I’d like you to have them on standby,” Williams said.
“That dangerous?” Volner said.
“Very possibly,” the director replied.
The remark hung there, full of portent, which could not be addressed. Volner hung up and sat in the room, which was rank with the musk of decades. It reminded him of so many periods of his life: high-school track, boot-camp barracks, gyms, changing facilities adjacent ready rooms. Not really pleasant, yet in a strange way the place was home. It reminded him of something a priest had once told him when he signed up: “Go into a church anywhere in the world and you will be home.”
“So it’s a locker instead,” he said, chuckling as he pulled off the trunks, grabbed a towel from the rack, and headed to the shower.
As he turned on the hot spray, he couldn’t help but wonder what the hell a locker room would be like in a place that was probably below freezing 365 days a year.…
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Comandancia General, Havana, Cuba
July 2, 1:23 A.M.
Roger McCord didn’t know why the phrase came to him as he reentered the police station: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.”
He had always thought it was a wonderful, earnest, team-building expression, and he had used it himself when he had a command. It was about ten years ago he learned that someone had coined it as a typing exercise—nothing more.
Still, the sentiment was no less true for its origins, and it probably came to him because somehow he was going to have to put aside the story he’d concocted, that Adoncia Bermejo had glanced him with her car, and come to her rescue. Not just for her but for that greater good: to learn, and then help stop whatever was going on in the Russian Arctic.
The police station had been built in 1939 after the style of a classic fortress like the one that had stood on this spot, the Bastion de San Telmo. The main room had a high, arched ceiling and was filled with benches. Footsteps echoed in a way that must create a constant, hollow drone during high volume hours. There was only one corridor leading from the main hall and it was located in the back, opposite the desk. Ahead, a door opened to the parking lot. Behind was the ramp by which McCord had entered. Many of the locals still held the Castros in very high regard, but McCord could not help but think of the countless political prisoners who had been dragged down that corridor, and probably just one way.
The room was no longer harboring the few drunks and brawlers McCord had seen earlier. He saw a clutch of men who had just arrived for duty, private citizens who were members of la guardia, a volunteer force that walked the streets making sure that women and now tourists were safe. Coincidentally, McCord had heard about them a few weeks ago when it was suggested that, being unpaid, they might be open to payments for information. Confidential informants remained one of the chief intelligence-gathering sources around the globe.
There was a high wooden desk with beefy Sargento Carlitos Garcia still sitting behind a computer monitor on top of it. There was a white mug with the chain of a tea ball hanging over it. McCord had formulated generally what he was going to say. The trick would be not saying too much; he was not supposed to know what had happened with Enrich, the guard, and Dr. Bermejo.
“Did you forget something, señor?” the sergeant asked with exaggerated sincerity. It was a tone McCord recognized, one which many locals everywhere were forced to assume for needy, entitled tourists.
“I was just thinking … remembering, actually,” McCord said with an intensely reflective expression. That was only partly a false front, however, as he struggled with his Spanish. “The driver … of the car … may have been very dark-skinned. I noticed that … when she passed under a streetlamp.”
The sergeant registered genuine curiosity. “You forgot such an important detail?”
“Sergeant, you saw … I was not all right,” McCord said. “But as I replay it … I remember.”
“It could have been a shadow.”
“It is … possible,” McCord admitted. “But I thought I should mention it.”
“Well, whatever you saw or thought you saw, we have the woman in custody,” the sergeant said.
“Oh? That quickly?”
The jowly man nodded. “The car you described was located nearby.”
“Very impressive,” McCord said, then stood there mutely, waiting.
“Was there something else?” the policeman asked.
“Would it not help for me to identify her? To be sure?”
“We have this under control,” he assured McCord. “She is wanted on other matters.”
“I see,” McCord nodded knowingly. He turned to go, muttering, “I suspect the young man she was yelling at.”
Now the sergeant showed genuine interest. “Just a minute!”
McCord turned back as the officer leaned forward, swiveling away the computer screen. “What young man?”
“It was … let me think, I was not really … engaged. She said he was a … traitor, married to a Russian woman. No,” he corrected himself, making a show of thinking hard, of reliving the moment. “She called him … el espía, I think. That could have been why she was distracted and grazed me. She was angry.”
The sergeant motioned for McCord to stay where he was and picked up a landline hanging behind him. He spoke quickly, urgently, saying something about a possible new development.
“I will want a statement,” Garcia said to McCord, covering the mouthpiece. “But briefly, can you describe this young man?”
Williams had not provided a name or physical details. But they would have been too much in any case. The description had to be sketchy, but just enough.
“I did not get a good look, but I heard her say something about being fit to guard only pigs,” McCord replied. “But I thought she might have been … drinking. Looking for … some insult.”
“An insult with some truth,” Garcia remarked.
He got back on the call and repeated what McCord had told him. Then he said to bring Mauricio out front.
Garcia listened, then said, “His statement may be a lie! The doctor’s phone number? Sanjulian said she gave it to him so he could ask about the old days. How do we know that isn’t the case?” He was silent for a moment. “I do not know who to believe, but bring Mauricio out front. I want this man to see him!”
The sergeant hung up, then turned back to McCord. “I’m sorry for this delay, but you may be able to help us clear this up. This woman, Dr. Bermejo—she fought beside the Castros. I want to be very sure we do not dishonor la patriota.”
The police officer said it as if he were suddenly very proud to know her and less smug to be entertaining her in a prison cell.
McCord stepped back from the desk, listening. It wasn’t long before he heard heavy footsteps echoing in the darkness. They drowned a soft but agitated voice speaking quickly.
“… to see me about?” he was saying. “I came of my own accord, I’m very late for dinner, and I just want to leave!”
The man McCord hadn’t seen, but said he had, was walked into the main room by a pair of guards. Though off-duty he was wearing a blue uniform, the jacket of which was still buttoned; on the streets, military-style dress ensured a degree of respect. The officers were not holding him but they were on either side, just behind him. The young man’s arms swung large, like he was on parade, his step equally big and impatient.
One of the guards directed him toward the desk. He was already moving in that direction, down the aisle between the benches.
“I was expecting a ride home, not further questioning!” he said to Garcia from halfway across the hall. “You already have my signed statement!”
Garcia picked up a pen and tapped it head-down on the desk. It, too, echoed. He waited until he was nearer before responding.
“We have your account,” Garcia agreed affably, “but is it accurate?”
“What are you talking about?” Mauricio demanded, his face souring as he approached. He did not appear to notice McCord.
“We have had a report that you and the doctor were arguing in front of Centro 59 Bar earlier this evening,” Garcia said.
Muaricio shot broom-stiff. “What? What? I was nowhere near that place tonight!”
Garcia motioned him closer. Mauricio stepped toward the desk. The sergeant leaned forward slightly. “I smell drink on your breath. I have a very good nose.” He sat back. “Where did you take your refreshment?”
“El Misterioso Extraño, where I always go.”
Garcia shrugged. “Two doors away on the same side of the street.”
“But I didn’t talk to her—I didn’t even see her!”
Garcia pointed the pen toward McCord. “This gentleman tells a different story.”
Mauricio took a step forward and one of the guards grabbed his arm. “This ‘gentleman’ is a liar! Who is he, anyway? An American?”
“Who he is does not matter, other than that he has no stake in the outcome.” Garcia looked at McCord. “Do you, señor?”
“I came here to scull, not to become…” he sought the correct Spanish word, failed to find it, “… become tied in a domestic fight.”
Garcia nodded. “We can check that.” He looked back at Mauricio, jabbed the pen toward the guard holding him. “Ernesto will drive you home. Marco—you will bring Dr. Bermejo here.”
Still protesting as if the interview had not taken place, Mauricio was escorted to the parking lot while the other officer went to retrieve Adoncia Bermejo. He returned a few minutes later with a woman who was dressed in jeans and a gray fleece vest. Her gray-white hair was caught back in a black band; it reminded McCord of quartz. The hanging lights overhead threw a succession of long shadows down the aisle and she looked as unbowed as the era that spawned her. Unlike Mauricio—who was gone by the time she arrived—her eyes took in everyone. They lingered on McCord, someone who clearly didn’t belong. Her eyes moved back to the desk as she neared. The guard had maintained a respectful distance and now Garcia shooed him away.
“Doctor,” the sergeant said solicitously, rising and coming from behind the desk, “it appears the guard may have been in error—at least, there is reason to question the guard’s account.”
If Adoncia seemed surprised, she was smart enough not to show it.
Garcia held a hand toward McCord. “This man, Señor McCord, witnessed the exchange on the street, told us that Señor Modesto may have had other reasons for overstating the matter.”
“What of Enrich Sanjulian?” she asked, plucking a cigar from her vest and holding it unlit in all five fingers.
“We will investigate this situation further, but there is no need for you to remain. Though,” he glanced at McCord, then back at Adoncia, “I do ask that you drive with greater care.”
“I can’t drive at all with my car back at the base,” she said. “I also can’t light my cigar. You took my matches, as if I would burn my fellow Cubans along with this wretched place.”
The sergeant fetched them, handed the crisp book to her. “We will give you a ride, Doctor.”
“I don’t want one,” she shot back. She looked at McCord. “Do you have a car?”
“I have the name of a very reliable cabdriver,” McCord replied.
“Most of those who interact with the public here are reliable,” she said, a pointed barb at the police. It was also a statement reflecting the pride she felt in the working men and women of her home. McCord should have worded that with greater sensitivity.
The two walked out together, McCord thanking the sergeant who stood watching them go.
The physicist had been drinking, he could tell; it was on her breath, in her walk. Perhaps she wasn’t fully cognizant of what he knew: that they’d been borne from the station on the wings of a big lie. The intelligence director felt a familiar desire to run and he tamped it down, hard. McCord did not know how long he had to get information from Dr. Bermejo but he did know this much:
It had to be very, very soon.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Outpost N64, Anadyr, Russia
July 2, 6:30 P.M.
There was no wind, no sea smell, no sound, no sunlight. And after those initial, seemingly hopeful exchanges, there was no further conversation with Yuri.
Part of that was due to the fact that once he had made his report, Yuri rested. It had been a long, tiring flight and Yuri had not yet gone to the hotel. Bolshakov slept as well, each man in one of the four cots that was still in the facility. The blankets were folded exactly where they had been left on an overhead shelf. All were dry and intact.
The older man awoke first, his sleep untroubled—as it had always been—by his proximity to a pair of nuclear warheads. He lay on his back in the near-complete darkness, which was lit only by a handful of lights on the one active panel. He felt as if time had folded on itself and it was once again 1963. The smells, the ominous silence, the absence of human activity bringing it all vividly to life. The only difference was the fan, which refused to work. He had removed the blades and the grate to allow more air in, but the place was still stuffier than it had once been. Climbing the ladder to get to it had brought back one strong sense-memory: the way his hands smelled of perspiration and iron when he was done.
There was, however, one major difference between “then” and “now.” He was not here for Mother Russia. The weapons were “safe and secure” for Iran.
When he first heard that, Bolshakov told himself it was not his concern. He was here for his son, would have come whatever the reason. But the more he reflected on it, the less willing he was to let it pass. Yuri had spent decades blaming his father’s profession for the murder of Vavara. Now, the CRU agent was apparently in the same business with an even more dangerous client.
How can he reconcile his judgments with his actions? Bolshakov wondered.
The older man got up. The air was warm down here, as it always was, stirred gently by the fan. He walked to the panel, to the grip containing the food and water, and selected a snack bar of some kind.…
That’s what comes from traveling light, he thought as he peeled off the wrapper. Malnutrition.
He looked back at his sleeping son. He tried not to think of the hypocrisy of the man. Then he looked at the warheads. He’d passed through them, obliviously, to get here. Had he been in this business for so long, from boy to octogenarian, that nothing murderous affected him anymore?
As he chewed, he turned to the panel. There was no destruct switch. The Kremlin had been concerned about a single poorly paid soldier being bribed to shut the missiles down.
“Get away from there.”
Bolshakov looked back. Yuri was standing beside the cot, a 9 × 18mm Makarov held hip-high. It was pointed at the older man. Bolshakov turned fully and faced him.
“I can do no damage,” the man calmly assured him. “But if you want to shoot me, please go ahead.” He smiled faintly. “It would be fitting. That was the same handgun I had here.”
“I want to shoot,” Yuri said, stepping forward. “I want to very badly. I want to scream. I want to do something to get rid of this hate.”
“Do both. They’re easy.”
“No. None of that would help. It would only add patricide to this corrupt scenario you created. So just move away and stay away.”
Bolshakov did as he was told. There was a time, down here, when he and the other seamen practiced knife fighting in the event of an invasion by American troops. Now, that fist held a snack bar. The scenario wasn’t just corrupt, it was surreal, comical.
