Moscow X, page 34
“What do you want from me?” Vadim said. He took a slurp of vodka and stretched his jaw.
“I want your wife to say yes. Goose has given his best offer. You must convince her. Speak reason.”
Vadim smiled darkly. “She will say yes to you sooner than to me. My guess is that you will need to kill my wife to break her.”
“Anna Andreevna is certainly a hard woman,” Chernov said. “Is that why her father brought her into this mess in the first place?”
Vadim shifted in his seat. Raised the vodka to his lips. “He wanted her to find the money Goose stole.”
Chernov pounded his fist into the desk. Vadim flinched, dropped his glass. Chernov was pointing at him. “No,” he bellowed. “Theft would be the appropriate word if it had belonged to you. Try again.”
“We are, I mean she is, looking for the gold, the money taken from Bank Rossiya.” Vadim was stammering down toward his knees as he righted the stopka on the desk and wiped the liquid away from him.
“How was your wife looking for it?”
Vadim rubbed his temple. “Anna found someone on the outside who knew where the money was hidden. And how it had been hidden.”
“Who?”
“A London-based lawyer. Hortensia Fox. Works for the firm Goose’s UK moneyman, Mikhail Lyadov, hired to set up the shells and the accounts. My wife is working on her.”
“How has she been working her?”
Chernov heard about the bait, the trip to Mexico, the visit to Rus-Farm. The information Hortensia Fox had provided on Goose’s finances. As he spoke, Vadim tenderly brushed fingers over his puffy nose.
Chernov listened intently, hands folded in his lap. “Your wife has this information now?”
“Yes.”
“What was Andrei thinking in the first place?”
Vadim shut his eyes and pulled a long breath in through his nostrils. “Andrei believed that the only way to prove that Goose stole, er, took, the gold and hid it from the President was to find it. Or, specifically, the money the gold was converted into. Then he would bring that proof to the khozyain. Andrei is former SVR, Anna is SVR, they have contacts and influence outside the country. Andrei believed it would be easier for them to prove that the money is outside Russia than to prove it is not inside. That is what he wanted to do.”
“Your wife has this,” Chernov said, “yet she has not done anything with it?”
“Right. She is sitting on it.”
“Why?”
“It was flimsier than she hoped, her father was arrested, she did not think she could even bring it to the President without Goose knowing. She did not think it would do the job.”
“Which was?”
“Goose backs off.”
Vadim was chewing his lip, deep in thought. He was recovering from the heavier work, sitting up to cross his legs and flick lint from his pants as if he were enduring an increasingly burdensome boardroom meeting. The caked blood on his nose and spilled vodka were the only clues suggesting otherwise. Everything since the window business had been rather professional. Vadim’s growing comfort made Chernov uncomfortable.
“You will give me what your wife has,” Chernov said. “The information from the lawyer.”
“I don’t have it.”
Chernov stood, lunged across the table, seized Vadim’s shoulders, and smashed his head into the desk. Vadim rolled to the floor, unconscious. Chernov drummed his fingers on the table. Whistled for a moment. When Vadim did not stir, Chernov wandered into the living room and selected another bottle of vodka. He poured himself a glass and returned to the office to find Vadim curled into himself, moaning. Chernov sat in the chair, steepling his fingers to resume the discussion.
“You don’t have the information,” Chernov said. “Can you get it?”
“I don’t even know where it is,” Vadim choked out. “She has a separate life. She is an intelligence officer. She does not live here, as you must know.”
“My master does not want a fight with you, Vadim Yurivich,” Chernov said. “We are only after Agapovs. We want them blotted from history, making boots in a Siberian tannery or digging for uranium ore in the Urals. Please, get back in your chair. I want to look at you.”
Vadim struggled up, holding his head, his mind doubtless churning, wondering if this betrayal might end with his wife’s liquidation. Which, Chernov suspected, he probably would find appealing.
When Vadim was seated, Chernov calmly continued: “Your wife is running the London lawyer, yes?”
Vadim nodded.
“Then you will convince Anna to lure the lawyer back inside Russia. And you will be my little canary inside the cage, singing when she comes.”
- 51 -
RusFarm
IN ONE OF RUSFARM’S SEVERAF LIVING ROOMS, ANNA WAS SUNK DEEP into the velvet couch and a bottle of Armenian brandy, Queen on the record player, so drunk she couldn’t be certain of the song. The week since the fire she’d been camping out and drinking at RusFarm. There was nowhere else to go. Nothing else to do. And she was waiting for Sia.
Her brandy-soaked mind swam to Luka. His arm. What had they done to him first? She buried a scream in a velvet pillow. She would not remember him this way, torn to pieces by Russia, by her enemies. By her. Anna banished the thoughts, instead channeling the last bits of her flagging energy to build one sweet image of Luka’s gleeful smile, fresh off a victory in the lamplight of Jean Martel. The world began fragmenting as she tried to reconstruct him in her old apartment. The music had stopped, the turntable spun with the scratch of the needle across the dead wax. She too was spinning, faster and faster, and she worried her mind might never be able to paint his face again. She gave up, and the world spun and spun until it was gone.
HER EYES OPENED TO VADIM PETTING ONE OF THE ALSATIANS, HER head taut like an overfilled balloon. The Alsatian cocked its head her direction. What was the dog’s name? Vadim withdrew his hand and began picking at a plate of eggs. The sight and smell of the food made her sick. She closed her eyes, rolled her face into the cushions. She had not seen him since dinner in Piter. Why had he come to the farm now? And why did he have a bruise on his head?
“Anyone else invited to this party?” he said. An uncertain chuckle, scrape of the fork on the plate. She gagged a little, pressed deeper into the cushions.
“I can’t watch you eat,” she said.
A sigh, clink of a plate, shuffle of paper. When she opened her eyes, a draped newspaper censored the eggs. The dog had settled near the hearth.
“I have been thinking,” Vadim said, “about pursuing a partnership with San Cristobal. A broader arrangement, beyond the one-off purchase of the stallion Smokey Joe.”
She tried to sit up. Her brain moved as if mired in glue—thoughts struggling mightily but traveling nowhere. “A partnership,” she said. “Why?”
“For his bloodlines,” Vadim said. “So we get first crack, before the Americans or Brits or anyone else. Gives us an advantage. I was thinking we might invite Max and Sia back for a few days. Discuss it. He can also collect the mare they left behind. The one you’ve been caring for.”
He was smiling pleasantly. Something was off, and yet she could not name it. The Americans were preparing to respond to—or, at minimum, considering—her plea for Sia to return to Russia. Was it a coincidence that Vadim was now doing that work for her? She recalled the nagging sensation, in the aftermath of her father’s arrest, that her husband had played some role in Goose’s treachery. Whose bidding was this?
“What happened to you?” she asked.
He put a gentle hand to his forehead and smiled as if he’d forgotten all about the welt. “Bumped it on a door. Anna, I know you’re hungover, but focus for a minute. What do you think about inviting them back?”
Vadim had put her in check. She’d not anticipated this. And in her addled state, she realized she could no longer see the game unfolding ahead of her. She was not certain she could plan her next move.
“I am not sure Sia would want to return,” Anna demurred. “The unfortunate car accident, the blackmail. Nasty feelings and all.”
“Do you want to see her?” Vadim asked.
“I suppose,” Anna said carefully. “There are things she might be helpful on. She has interesting access at Lyric, the tech company.”
“Do you think she told Max?” Vadim asked. “About the accident?”
“I don’t know,” Anna said. “I threatened that we would give the law firm proof that she compromised client documents if she told a soul. But she’s back in London. And he is her boyfriend, after all.”
Vadim shrugged. “Well, you must have scared the shit out of her, because I think she kept her word. Max took my call this morning about the partnership. Seemed keen to talk. Downright chummy.”
“What’s your point?” she asked.
“I would like Max to come here for a business discussion. Bare minimum, he might be tempted to get his horse back . . . What’s the damn thing’s name?”
“Penelope. And I’ve no intention of giving her back.” Anna’s tone was shrill, ringing in her ears as if the words were not hers. The mention of Penelope had conjured the box in the stable . . . and then the bloody package in her apartment. She wanted to cry, but that would give him pleasure, and nothing would disgust her more. She forced it all down. Down, down, down.
He waved a dismissive hand through the air. “Fine. No horse. Just business. Maybe we ask Sia to come along, too, since we—you—have some control over her?”
Anna shut her eyes, mind grappling for purchase. Had Sia and Lulu arranged for Max to reach out to Vadim, creating a reason for their travel? Maybe this was their clever way of arranging a visit. “How about this weekend?” Anna asked.
- 52 -
St. Ives
THEY GATHERED AGAIN AT THE ST. IVES COTTAGE. BUT IF THEIR first planning sessions had been marked by some measure of excitement, this assembly tilted funereal. The night was cloudy, the air wet and cold, and Procter’s ministrations were insufficient to coax the patio Christmas lights into twinkling properly. All wore black; quite by accident, of course, but it did not help the mood. They sat around an iron table colonized by rust, huddled into their coats against the occasional slaps of marine wind. The Chief seemed unfazed by the climate; she wore an unzipped black leather jacket. Sia blew hot breath into her cold hands, then stuffed her shaky left into her coat pocket.
Their first order of business was Vadim’s call to Max two days prior, an invite for the couple to return to RusFarm. His tone, Max explained, had been strange. Obsequious, even, apologetic about the mix-up with Penelope the last time, keeping the horse and all. He suggested they return to collect the mare and talk business. It had been odd, Max said, for Vadim to travel through a conversation without coming across as an asshole. “And odder still, offering to return my horse.”
“Maybe Anna put him up to it and he listened?” Sia offered. “It’s certainly a clean way to get us back after she flew the emergency signal.” Max arched a brow. “He’s not really the listening type.”
“Maybe she beat the shit out of him,” Procter offered. “Girl’s got her reasons, lord knows.”
A gust of wind cut through the patio. The Chief said let’s go inside to talk about the comms. And it was at this point that a troublesome thought bubbled up inside Max: Whether they might tell Procter about Anna’s operation against Sia during their last visit. Namely the tossing of a cadaver onto the windshield of a moving car for the purposes of shock, blackmail, and control. But Sia believed Anna was the real deal, he mostly believed Sia, and the part of him that still had a few questions figured they had polygraphed the Russian in Switzerland anyhow, so she was probably square.
All through the preparations for another round in the Rodina, his father’s words had run endlessly through his mind: We are alike in that way, Maximiliano. You think if you say no, you’ll be cast out. A faceless Mexican horseman. A civilian.
And now they—he—had withheld information from Procter, from CIA. He’d taken a fateful step forward. Retreating would require confession, and confession would require punishment. It would be banishment, he suspected, they would sever his connection to the service.
He would be a civilian.
But a new thought now struggled with that old familiar fear: For once, civilian life seemed strangely appealing. A siren song. Maybe he would spend more time at the club in Monterrey and bring a nice girl out to see the ranch and they would ride and take in the races and eventually he would prove his old man wrong—hand San Cristobal over to a son who would work the land and learn the bloodlines, as he had. Would retreat from CIA help him honor his father and grandfather? Or would it fail them? He did not know. But of this he was certain: backing out would mean failing Sia.
That thought of retreat, of confessing, nagged, and nagging feelings were most unwelcome in the days before another trip to RusFarm.
IN THE MOVIES SPY TECH ALWAYS WORKS. BUT THE CLANCOMM-LOADED laptop Procter had schlepped from Langley did not. For a few minutes, the Chief tried to access the partition and run the checks. Mother-fucking nerds, she said on the failure of the third try, Sia reading the sequence aloud for confirmation, Procter pounding keys in rising anger. An urgent cable went to Langley and the reply came quickly: Give us a few hours. “Hours?” Procter shrieked in disbelief. “The fuck? World’s top intel shop, my ass. Jeepers.”
Next up: concealment. Procter retrieved a saddlebag from her rental and clanked it on the living room coffee table. The gift saddle itself, she said, was presently on its way to London from Langley. The OTS Furnishings and Equipment branch had tooled the RusFarm logo into the bag’s russet leather: two stallions rearing in opposite directions, three crowns above their heads. An homage to the Russian double eagle. OTS had sourced the leather from a Monterrey tannery. Procter demonstrated how to open the compartment hidden in one of the bags. A tug on one of the buckles would trigger a hidden pulley that yanked free a pin. Then fingers pressed three hidden metal snaps. A faint pop, then pull back a leather panel to reveal a compartment fitted for the replacement Asus mini laptop.
Sia practiced for a while, concerned that Anna’s hands would be too small to compress the snaps, until Procter did it three times with her little mitts. But nothing could be left to chance, so Sia banged out another cable to Langley, this time requesting a precise measurement of Anna’s hand based on the countersurveillance video from Switzerland. Then they would compare Anna’s to Procter’s.
Waiting for answers, Procter grabbed a manila folder. Let’s head back on the porch, she said. Get some fresh air.
“EXFIL,” PROCTER SAID. SHE PINNED A PIECE OF PAPER TO THE PATIO table with a loose rock from the base of the stone wall, a satellite image of the RusFarm grounds. “We’ve been working this for a few weeks. You two and Anna now have BEAR CRAWL escape routes seven, eight, and nine. A scrub-down was in order, given the freaky surveillance during your last visit.”
Procter pointed to a blue sticker affixed to the far northern end of the farm property. “This is the best we can do without risking World War III. The place is massive, so positioning support assets nearby is tricky. But right here”—she smacked her fist onto the map—“here we can have something in place during your stay. Just in case.”
“What’s out there?” Sia asked, pointing at where Procter had delivered her fist. “I’ve ridden nearby with Anna. I didn’t see any buildings or roads. Just forest.”
“Electrical transmission line,” Procter said, tracing her finger along the map. “Runs parallel to the northern edge of the property. That’s where the support assets will be. The SCORPIONs. They’ve got a truck that pretty much belongs to Rosseti Lenenergo. The region’s power distribution company.”
“What do you mean, ‘pretty much belongs’ to the power company?” Max asked.
“I mean they have a truck,” Procter said. “And if anyone bothers them, that truck will pass the sniff test. The SCORPIONs are Finns. From Karelia. Their Karelian homeland or whatever is split between Russia and Finland, about ten hours by car due north of RusFarm. They can move in and out of Russia and hate the fucking Russians. A beautiful thing.” The Chief returned to the map. “They will have a truck parked on this service road. They don’t know your names, they haven’t seen your pictures, but they know that if anyone shows up at their truck and says they need a ticket north, they’re to hustle them out. They can also kill the power if necessary.”
They studied the maps, debating routes by car, foot, and horse. Snow could be a problem. They would pack boots and heavy parkas.
They decided on a code—the use of the word melancholy in any signal to Langley.
“If we get into trouble,” Sia said, “we won’t make it to that transmission line.” Wind poured through the patio, scattering locks of black hair across her face and head, which she wiped aside.
“I know,” Procter said, glances bouncing from one of them to the other. The map’s brim fluttered in the wind. “So don’t get into trouble.”
STILL WAITING ON LANGLEY FOR THE KEYBOARD SEQUENCE, THEY opened a bottle of Riesling and ate cartons of chicken tikka masala. Between generous sips of wine, Sia decided to ask the question clawing at her since Switzerland. “Chief, what do you think happens to PERSEPHONE when this is done?”
Procter pushed the food aside, stuffed hands in her jacket, and watched the palm fronds twist and sway in the wind. An empty tikka masala carton tilted in the breeze. “It’ll be grim,” she said. “Russians shouldn’t have any hard evidence on her, unlike Vadim. But they most definitely will not care about that. They’ll have a lot to discuss with her, and it won’t be super pleasant. She gets it, of course, somewhere in that sick head of hers she’s clear on the consequences. Still, you might emphasize that again when you see her. Exfil would make damn good sense when the time comes.”
