Authors: Stephen England
Harry glanced forward, toward the convoy several cars ahead of them. “Your point?”
“Putin wants him dead. That’s the reason for the heavy security, the reason he moved to the US in the first place.”
The irony of it all. That a man who had made his billions selling weapons to terrorists would find refuge in the land of the free. He watched Vasiliev’s eyes, careful for any signs of further deception. “What did he do?”
“No idea. In Russia, when you hear that Vladimir wants a man dead—you do not ask why, only how.”
Harry shook his head. “The more things change…I suppose you want my help killing him?”
A smile. “I had assumed that was part of
your
plan. You would get what you want—and I would get a promotion from Moscow. Maybe even retirement.”
It was clever—and typical of the Russian. It was why Han had advised against contacting him. Always had an angle, a pawn to sacrifice in order to advance his own agenda.
“All I want is information,” Harry said finally. “Who paid him to assassinate David Lay. Once I have that information, he’s yours.”
The smile never left Vasiliev’s face. “See? There was no reason for us to disagree.”
“No reason for you to deceive me, either,” Harry retorted, lowering the Colt. There was a
click
as he put the safety back on, letting the gun rest in his lap.
“True.” Vasiliev inclined his head. “I always find myself forgetting how different you are from your countrymen. Their emotionalism is difficult to work with—but you, you are different. Almost Russian.”
Coming from Alexei, that was the ultimate compliment. Almost as if he was leading up to something.
Ahead, their target was slowing, the convoy heading for the freeway exit and Vasiliev slid into the right-hand lane, moving into position two cars behind them.
“There
is
one other thing.” The Russian paused, as if choosing his words very carefully. “Pyotr is part of the contract.”
2:31 P.M. Central Time
The mosque
Dearborn, Michigan
“I’m fairly certain that Haskel didn’t intend for you to interpret his orders this way.”
And she hadn’t wanted to do it this way. Marika unbuckled her seatbelt, looking across the street from where they had parked toward the mosque. Her hand on the door, she looked back across at him. “If you’d rather sit in the car, Russell, have at it. In the mean time, I’ll see if Abu Kareem can spare a few moments for a woman.”
She hadn’t taken five steps across the street before she heard the car door open and close behind her. A tight smile.
Russell had never been known to balk at bending a few rules in order to achieve his ends. The difference between the two of them was that he had always been able to “negotiate” his way out of the resulting trouble.
She hadn’t.
Her orders had been clear, but even the clearest orders left room for creative interpretation. The FISA request was denied. She was not to continue “harassing” Abu Kareem al-Fileestini. They hadn’t said anything about not interviewing him…
There was something wrong about this, she realized halfway across the street, her boots crunching against the thin layer of ice. There was a vacant feeling to the building, just looking at it. Couldn’t quite place it. She glanced up at the overcast, snow-laden sky, then back at the mosque.
No interior lights.
There was a shoulder-high iron fence around the exterior of the building—iron bars covering the windows. That wasn’t uncommon, this was Dearborn, after all, and even religious institutions had to protect themselves against vandals—copper thieves in particular.
The front gate was secured with a chain and heavy padlock, and she hefted both in her gloved hand, staring through the gate at the imposing building. “Look at this, Russell.”
The padlock was encased in ice. Thick ice.
The negotiator shook his head, looking up and down the street. “There’s no one inside.”
1:05 P.M. Pacific Time
Los Angeles, California
The address he had been given was for an abandoned industrial park about fifteen minutes off the 405. Of course that was going by the directions Korsakov had printed off the Internet. Given the legendary LA traffic, it was more like thirty.
The main gate no longer existed, rusty sections of chainlink pushed down all along the perimeter. The buildings were faded and weather-worn, windows shattered by vagrants—weeds growing in the cracks of the asphalt. The picture of desolation. A billboard atop the office building near the gate supplied the ultimate irony.
GreenTek Energies: The Jobs of the Future.”
Korsakov swore under his breath, casting a wary eye to his surroundings as he drove deeper into the industrial park. He should have brought a gun.
His phone buzzed and he slowed the Suburban to a crawl, digging it out of his jacket. GET OUT OF THE CAR
.
Okay. That meant line of sight. Meant Viktor was watching him. The assassin paused with his hand on the door, gazing out from behind the SUV’s tinted windows. Scanning for threats.
Nothing. But a hundred places to hide. And Viktor was treating him like the enemy.
No use delaying the inevitable. Korsakov pushed the door open and stepped forth, keeping his hands in the open. Keeping them raised.
Silence. A solitary gull hopped across the broken pavement, the only movement as far as the eye could see. Had he been played?
And then he felt it. Eyes on his back, his neck hairs prickling with danger.
Hands still raised, the assassin turned. Ever so slowly. Viktor was standing there, not five meters away—a Glock clutched in his outstretched hands. Aimed straight at his head.
His hands were shaking, tears running down his cheeks—his breath coming in ragged sobs.
“Please…just talk to me, Vitya,” Korsakov whispered, using the diminutive of the boy’s name as he cautiously extended a hand toward him. “What is it?”
The pistol wavered, fear and indecision playing across the young face, salty tears clinging to the scraggly black hair of his beard.
“You’re safe, Vitya,” the assassin continued, his tones gentle. “You’re safe. You have my word, no one is going to do you harm. The people who abused you…they are dead.”
The Glock came back up, a light flaring in the boy’s eyes. He swore hoarsely, choking out the oath. “Not—another—word.”
1:28 P.M.
I-15
California
“She doesn’t have to see it,” Vasiliev commented, taking his eyes off the road long enough to glance over at Harry. “None of you do. What is that great American expression…‘out of sight, out of mind’?”
Harry looked up from his map, his eyes flashing with anger. “I gave her my word that Pyotr would not be harmed.”
The idea was clearly the source of some amusement for the Russian. “Your
word
? I know you better than that,
tovarisch
—you know how to handle a situation like this. You tell her what she needs to hear, then do what
you
need to do.”
It was true. Harry closed his eyes, the memories flooding over him. Another day, another time—it’s exactly what he would have done.
For the greater good
. Or just out of sheer pragmatism, he hardly knew the difference anymore.
“We’re not having this conversation, Alexei,” he returned coldly, focusing his attention back to the maps. They had what Carol optimistically called “limited” access to the CalTrans camera system. While the situation wasn’t ideal, it was enough to let them drop about ten cars back of Andropov’s convoy.
Breathing room. But if they stayed on I-15 for much longer, they were going to cross into Nevada—and lose their coverage.
“You love her, don’t you?” The question came out of nowhere, taking Harry off-balance. Of all things he might have expected the Russian to say…
“What makes you ask that?”
“I’ve never been to Langley—is that something they teach you there? To answer every question with another question?” A long pause. “I’ve seen the way you look at her.”
Harry took a deep breath, his mind racing. Never give someone anything that could be used against you. Never expose a weakness. “Of course I’ve looked. She’s a beautiful woman. That’s all.”
The lie felt hollow even as it left his lips, and it drew a laugh from Vasiliev. “Is it? You should never be ashamed of your heart,
tovarisch
. Never.”
It was Harry’s turn to laugh. “That’s good, coming from you. You’ve been married what—three times, Alexei? Were you ashamed of your heart or did you just weary of their bodies?”
The Russian kept driving, but the look on his face was that of a man that had been physically struck. At length he cleared his throat. “You know me well, Harry. Perhaps even a little too well. And it is as you say. They were young, they were desperate, and I represented everything they lacked. If I hadn’t been there—where might they have ended up? In a brothel? Beaten and raped on the Internet for the viewing pleasure of teenage boys here? It doesn’t change the fact that
I
used them. I am not without my regrets.”
The former KGB field officer dug into the pocket of his shirt and
retrieved a small wallet-sized photograph. “My wife, Anya.”
Harry took the photo from him and turned it over casually, knowing what he would find. Vasiliev’s first two wives had both been blondes, breathtakingly beautiful—and young enough to be his daughters, indeed barely out of their teens.
The face staring back at him from the photograph was not what he had expected to see. A plain, unremarkable face lined and worn with age, the face of a woman in her mid-sixties. She was standing with her back against the rail of a ship, the sea breeze playing with her graying hair.
It was the eyes. The way they gazed into the camera. Confident. Full of love.
She was beautiful.
“It’s not what you were expecting…is it,
tovarisch
?” Vasiliev asked quietly. He went on without waiting for a response, an unusual earnestness filling his voice. “Love—true love—only comes to a man once in his life, and often he does not recognize the form it takes when it comes. I never knew what love was until I met her.”
Harry stared out the window of the car at the traffic, processing the Russian’s words. Afraid that he was right.
“You grow old,” the Russian continued, hesitating. “You grow old and realize one day that you are alone. All that you have done for your country, all that you have sacrificed—and you are left with nothing. A fistful of sand, your life slipping through your fingers.”
He felt a chill pass over his body as the older man kept speaking. A premonition of evil.
“You’ve been trained to distrust your heart,
tovarisch
, and there was reason for it, but do not let this stand in your way now. If you truly love this woman…never let her go.”
4:09 P.M. Central Time
The mosque
Dearborn, Michigan
“And what are you going to do if you trigger an alarm?” There was a quiet amusement in the negotiator’s voice as he stood above her, in the slush of the alley.
“Run like the devil,” Marika retorted, slipping on a pair of gloves and removing a set of lockpicks from an inner pocket of her coat. The back door of the mosque was protected by a heavy iron grate, secured with another padlock.
Any other partner she’d ever had would have been back at the vehicle by now, reporting her actions to D.C. That Russell wasn’t said more about his concern than his common sense.
Failing in their initial visit to the mosque, they had driven out to Abu Kareem’s house, a small bungalow in a housing development out in the suburbs. A suitably modest residence for a man of God.
There was no car in the garage, unmarked snow covering his driveway. He hadn’t been home since the previous night.
He was gone. It coincided uncannily with the timing of Nasir’s call.
Given Haskel’s reaction to the FISA warrant earlier in the day, a search warrant for the mosque was out of the question. Which was why she found herself kneeling in the slushy snow, a lockpick in her hands.
The alley reeked of the stench of garbage and human waste.
Even the below-freezing temps couldn’t cover the smell. She knelt close to the grate, her hand holding the padlock firmly as she listened, ever alert for that
click
.
There
. The lock sprung open in her hands, and she pulled it away, swinging back the grate.
She found her hands trembling as she went to work on the door itself, her ear pressed close to the lock. It wasn’t about the cold.
“It’s open,” she announced moments later, testing the knob with a gloved hand.
“You’re sure about this?” the negotiator asked, pulling a tactical flashlight from his pocket. Even after West Virginia, he had balked at the idea of carrying a gun.