The Fall of Moscow Station (27 page)

“Oh, I don't think that's what you are doing, Arkady,” Grigoriyev chided. “In fact, I think that there is some other reason you want to keep this all hidden from me. I think you don't want the FSB looking into your operations at all.”

“I have nothing to hide from you.”

“Quite the opposite, I think,” Grigoriyev said. “I am told that your people tried to arrest another person at the scene, a woman. And this woman not only escaped arrest, but she took down one of your Spetsnaz soldiers as she did so, and then left two of your men's cars wrecked in a ditch. Three people were hospitalized.”

Lavrov restrained a curse. The old man had his own spies inside the GRU. Lavrov had suspected that, but hadn't been able to confirm it. It wasn't unexpected. The FSB was the spawn of the KGB, and if there was one thing that organization had excelled at, it was spying on its own citizens.

“So I have a theory,” Grigoriyev goaded him. “I think that your source did not give you the names of every CIA officer in Russia. I think there is still one out there, probably more, and you don't know who she is.”

“If so, it would be your duty to find her,” Lavrov countered.

“Oh, no, that is a duty the GRU has accepted, as I recall,” Grigoriyev chided his rival. “And I would hate for you to have to admit that your operation has a nasty blemish that you and your people could not manage.”

“Competence is best shown by how one manages the unexpected,” Lavrov replied.

“Then I look forward to discussing your competence at our next meeting with the president,” Grigoriyev said.

“Oh, Anatoly,” Lavrov said, “when did I lose your support? Your friendship? We were such comrades once. That night on the embassy roof in Berlin was a great moment for us.”

“And a disaster for the
Rodina
. We began to lose our country that night. You lost my support when you began this madness of selling our technologies to third-world runts who do not have the wisdom to use our knowledge in a useful way. You are giving hammers to children who want nothing more than to swing them at each other.”

“I am only doing what we all promised to do. We agreed to save the
Rodina
. I regret we could not agree on the way it should be done. Poor Strelnikov became so confused he thought that the Americans were our salvation,” Lavrov intoned.

“You are wrong, Arkady,” Grigoriyev told him. “Strelnikov did not believe the Americans were our salvation. He simply thought they were the only ones who could turn you out of your destructive course. I am not sure that I disagree.”

“Your opinion of me has fallen so low?”

“I think my opinion matters nothing to you,” Grigoriyev replied. “And there is the problem. You take counsel from no one. When you will, I think you will find many ready to stand with you again.
Do svidaniya
.”

“Do svidaniya,”
Lavrov said. He set the phone in the cradle far more gently than he would have preferred, but he didn't want to fumble the maneuver and let the FSB director hear a physical sign of his frustration.

The GRU chairman leaned back and stared up at the ceiling. Maddening as Grigoriyev was, it was possible that he was right . . . about the woman. If the woman who had evaded his men during Puchkov's arrest was CIA, then someone had been missed.

Lavrov frowned. No, there was another possibility, wasn't there? Perhaps, in the focus on getting all of the CIA's officers out of the country, another one had come in? And a woman, too, a bold one, capable of facing a Spetsnaz soldier and leaving him a twitching wreck on the pavement.

He had met a woman with such fire recently, hadn't he?
Is that possible?
he wondered.
That she is here?

Lavrov picked up the phone again and dialed a number he was learning by heart these days. Colonel Sokolov answered after the first ring.
“Ya slushayu vas.”

“Anton Semyonovich, this is General Lavrov.”

“Good evening, General. I presume you are calling about today's action?”

“I am. Please congratulate your men on their successful capture of another traitor to the
Rodina
,” Lavrov said, his voice warm.

“I will. Thank you, General.”

“I regret that is not the end of the matter,” Lavrov said. “Your report of a possible foreign operator at the site who interfered is worrisome. We need to find the woman in question. Please contact the security offices at all of our international airports within five hundred kilometers around Moscow. I want the passport photographs of all foreign women traveling from Germany admitted to the country in the last seventy-two hours.”

“We will begin immediately,” Sokolov replied. “But it will be a very large number. Any information that could help us narrow the search might provide an answer more quickly.”

Lavrov paused. “Tell them to focus on women coming from Berlin.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good. And, Anton Semyonovich . . . I think we must accelerate the operation. If the CIA still has officers in Moscow, they will be trying to save their assets. That cannot be allowed, of course. I will assign you additional men, and you will begin moving against the traitors several at a time. I will provide you the names for the first tranche I want neutralized. Understood?”

There was a short delay before Sokolov answered. “
Da
, General.”

“Is there a problem, Colonel?”

“
Nyet
, General. I am just concerned about launching a more ambitious set of raids without the opportunity for new men to train with my team. Unit cohesion can be a delicate thing. We do not want to lose any of the targets due to our own mistakes.”

“There will be no mistakes, I trust,” Lavrov warned. “These men are Spetsnaz, after all . . . and there is no better way to forge a team than a successful operation.”

“Of course, General. I will keep you informed of our progress.”

“Thank you, Colonel.” Lavrov hung up the phone.

Did you follow me here, Miss Stryker?
he wondered.
What a happy surprise that would be.

Kyra's safe house

Moscow, Russia

The door closed behind Kyra's truck and the garage went dark. She had taken a winding route back, running surveillance detection as she went, though she was sure she needn't have bothered. Had the GRU or any of the other security services picked up her tail, they would have swarmed her vehicle as quickly as they could have called in the help.

Kyra had taken three hours to make her way to the safe house and the sun had set more than an hour before. The garage was shrouded in darkness as she killed the headlights. The woman sat back in the seat, not bothering to unbuckle her restraint. Her eyes adjusted to the dark.

Kyra hit the steering wheel with her fist, then again. She pounded on it, as hard as she could. Then she began to yell in anger, cursing the Russians for their brutality and their skill at it, slamming her hands into the wheel as she did. Her hands began to protest, aching more and more with each strike against the truck. Finally she stopped when the pain was too much. Her chest began to heave. Kyra leaned forward, placed her forehead against the steering wheel. She refused to cry, much as she wanted to.

She'd lost track of the time, how long she was in the truck. Kyra finally emerged and walked into the mudroom, letting her keys fall on the floor. The keypad demanded her full attention before letting her into the house, but Kyra's thoughts disorganized themselves again once she heard the computerized lock open. She entered, the metal door closing itself behind.

The bathroom on the second level was enormous, with a glass-enclosed shower and a tub large enough to disappear in. Kyra thought about cleaning up for the first time since Berlin. She took stock of herself in the mirror. Her right arm ached. She pulled her sleeve up and realized that a massive bruise, black with a green and yellow border, had spread across the muscle. There was ibuprofen in the cabinet and she didn't bother to count how many of the red oval pills she took. The sink water tasted of metal.

Barron had been right. She was never going to get near any of the Agency's assets. The Russian knew exactly who they were, had too much manpower, and knew the terrain far better than she ever could. Kyra had no advantage, no angle to play that would let her seize the high ground even for a few minutes.

I don't think I can do this, Jon
, she told her friend, wherever he was.

Maybe not
, he agreed.
The Russians aren't amateurs. Fighting them is a team sport on a good day, and this isn't a good day. You don't have any help.

I got away
, she replied.
Again.

Dumb luck
, he chided her.
That soldier draws his gun a little faster and you're dead. You miss with that Taser and you're dead. One of that guy's teammates has a little better aim with a pistol at a hundred yards and you're dead. You didn't plan for any contingencies. You didn't even scout the area before you went in. You shouldn't be sitting here.

I had to try to reach Puchkov. She was my best chance to find an asset who could help me find you
, Kyra protested to the voice in her head.
But I didn't. I couldn't. How am I supposed to figure out where you are, or if you're even still alive, if I can't get to any of our assets inside the GRU before the Russians?

You're not thinking
, Jon's voice replied.

What do you mean?
she asked.

Why do you always run straight in?
he asked.

Kyra's mind focused in a single moment. Run straight in? It was true. She'd done it every time, in Caracas when she'd gotten shot . . . in Beijing, when she'd been asked to save the Agency's most valuable asset . . . at the CAVIM chemical plant near Morón when the president had wanted to know what the Iranians had smuggled into Venezuela. She'd gone in each time, always finding a way to go through the enemy's security, and always being discovered before she could get back out. Training, Jon, and more dumb luck than she deserved had gotten her home, but she'd had to fight her way out every time. Now she'd finally come up against an enemy that was too skilled to fight. Kyra could go straight at the Russians, but she would never be able to get in.

I'm no coward
, she reminded Jon.

Bravery and intelligence are not the same thing
, he countered.
And neither one matters without a plan.

So how do I do this?
she asked.
How do I find out what happened to you? How do I stop Lavrov?

She could almost see her partner smile, that arrogant look he couldn't suppress when he'd figured out the answer before everyone else.
That soldier you took down with the Taser. Did you notice anything about him?

Kyra sat back and stared at the ceiling, hands behind her head.
Military haircut, hard as steel . . . he carried a Makarov sidearm.

And who uses Makarov pistols?
Jon's voice asked her.

The pistol was the same as the ones the men at Vogelsang had carried. Spetsnaz, Kyra realized.
The GRU control the Spetsnaz. Those were Lavrov's men at the market.

Don't you think it's interesting that the GRU is arresting traitors on Russian soil? Isn't that the FSB's job?
he seemed to say.

Kyra cocked her head. That was interesting. Grigoriyev, the FSB director, hated Lavrov, the GRU chairman.
Why would he let Lavrov run the operations to capture all of the CIA's assets?
she wondered.

What makes you think Grigoriyev even knows what Lavrov is doing? Or that he's cooperating?
Jon asked.
What did I teach you about analyzing the enemy?

Never assume the enemy is monolithic
, she replied, answering her absent partner's question.
Never assume that he knows everything that his own people are doing.

Kyra stared into the mirror, not seeing anything as she tried to focus her mind. She needed to think, but the stress of the past days had cost her all of the energy she had. The fog of sleep deprivation and jet lag was closing in on her. She needed to think. Rest was the only good answer for that, but for now she would have to rely on the false energy of caffeine and adrenaline. She didn't know how long she would sleep if she closed her eyes and she didn't want to give free time away to Lavrov.

Kyra stumbled over to the kitchen and fired up the coffeemaker on the counter. The Russian brands in the cabinet were black and bitter, and Kyra drained three cups to the dregs once the machine started to produce. She poured a fourth mug, set it down on the kitchen table, and looked at her list. There was only one name left on it.

Her hands were shaking hard, her eyes fighting her attempts to focus on the page, and her mind jumping from idea to idea every few seconds. When the caffeine finally passed through her system, Kyra knew that she had reached her limits. The dark living room was close and the couch looked soft, but she refused to surrender so completely. She stumbled up the stairs to the second level, wandered into the first bedroom on the right, fell on the bed, and let the oblivion take her without a fight.

Botkin Hospital

5 Second Botkinsky

Moscow, Russia

Lavrov had never seen one of his Spetsnaz look so battered outside of a training accident. The man's comrades had brought him to the hospital themselves rather than trusting him to an ambulance crew, and the Botkin was one of the better hospitals in Moscow. It was the facility to which most foreigners in the country came for treatment and was well equipped by Russian standards.