The CIA had made a wise choice with this house. The neighborhood was surprisingly rustic and eerily quiet for a suburb less than fifteen kilometers from the center of Stockholm. Close enough to the city for quick access, yet isolated enough to ensure natural privacy. Judging by the amount of time it took the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service to uncover the location, the CIA had gone to great lengths to bury this place in the open. Hidden in plain sight.
His team of four operatives had been deposited on the street behind the safe house a few minutes before dusk, their van joining a rented Volvo sedan parked at a church less than two minutes away. The two-man team in the Volvo had conducted the initial reconnaissance of the neighborhood, quickly determining that street parking was either prohibited or discouraged in the residential areas of Viggbyholm. They hadn’t seen a single car parked on any of the nearby streets. Parking one of their vans on the street for any length of time or lingering nearby would invite disaster. Sitting in a church parking lot after dark probably wasn’t the best idea either, but it was the only non-residential parking zone with quick access to the safe house.
Mihail shifted his knees and removed a hand-sized black electronic device from the open nylon backpack next to him. The device had two stubby antennas and a muted orange LCD screen. He examined the screen, which cast a barely detectable glow on his face. The multi-channel, wireless radio frequency (RF) detector showed a few faint wireless signals in the 2400–2480 MHz range, which was typical for commercial home wireless routers. He was more interested in anything using the 800-1000 MHz frequency range, specifically the sub-ranges most commonly used by wireless motion sensors. Anything lower than 800 MHz would similarly pique his attention.
The RF detector had passively collected data since their arrival twenty minutes earlier, twice detecting a short frequency burst at 910 MHz, which was one of the most common frequencies associated with the local GSM-900 cellular network. The short transmissions resembled what he’d expect to see when a cell phone registers to a local cell tower. At this point, he felt satisfied that neither the yard nor the house was protected by motion detectors. He stood up and signaled for the team to move forward, placing the detector in the pack before slipping it over his shoulders. He disengaged the safety on his PP2000 submachine gun and stepped into the backyard.
Three of the four Spetsnaz operatives converged on the back door from different points in the yard, while the fourth slid along the right side of the house, looking for the power line connection. Mihail listened intently near one of the illuminated windows, but heard nothing beyond the distant hum of a car motor. He decided that they would try to pick the lock and deadbolt, instead of forcing the door open. He desperately wanted to avoid making noise in this neighborhood. If the house was unoccupied, he wanted time to inspect it for anything useful. While one of his operatives worked the locks with a small tool kit, he listened underneath a different window. The house was still. By the time he returned less than one minute later, the two locks had been opened.
He lowered his PN21K night vision monocular into place over his right eye and spoke softly into the microphone attached to his headgear. Two seconds later, the house went dark. On cue with the sudden darkness, the lead member of his team shouldered the door with enough force to dislodge any chain lock barring their entrance. The door opened unhindered, and his team slipped inside. Mihail followed the second man through the door, scanning the darkness with his goggles. Once the two doorways leading out of the kitchen had been secured, he whispered orders for the team to go silent and listen. Roughly two minutes later, he raised his night vision goggles and ordered the fourth operative to return electrical power to the house.
When the lights reenergized, they could plainly see what the rough green images cast by their night vision had indicated. The house had been cleared of everything, “sanitized” all the way down to the toilet paper rolls. He recalled the fourth member of his team to the house, and they spent the next five minutes checking closets, opening drawers and prying at wallpaper in a futile attempt to find anything. Each operative returned to the kitchen cradling his submachine gun and quickly shaking his head. Nothing. He opened his backpack and scanned the radio frequency detector. He found a strong reading at 1621 MHz, which had started a few minutes ago. This was an L-band frequency used for satellite communications. Someone knew they were here, and would very likely receive a video feed of their foray through the house.
He signaled for the team to evacuate the structure and contacted the van once they were outside. On their way to the front of the house, he ordered the power to be permanently cut. Once the power line had been cut, he checked the RF detector again and saw that the device hidden in the house continued to transmit, indicating an independent power source. He thought he had committed an error restoring power while they were inside, but it wouldn’t have mattered. His big mistake tonight had been assuming that they might find anything useful in the CIA safe house. Now the CIA knew for certain that they hadn’t lost interest in Anatoly Reznikov.
As they waited for the van in the shadows, Mihail pulled out his encrypted cell phone and placed a call to SVR headquarters. It was time to exercise the least desirable option on the table. As he had anticipated, their night had just begun.
Chapter 3
Karl Berg reviewed the last few slides from the PowerPoint presentation he would present to Thomas Manning. He had been awake much of the night putting together the first draft of his urgent appeal for the CIA to take action against Vektor Laboratory’s bioweapons department. With Reznikov’s inside information, they could send General Sanderson’s Russian Group to destroy the facility and eliminate key personnel involved in the program. Reznikov felt confident that a small, properly equipped, elite force could successfully execute the mission, given the right tactical intelligence, which he could provide.
Audra Bauer had joined him for part of the morning, helping him to modify most of the slides he had hastily cobbled together. She had already spoken at length with Manning about the threat posed by Vektor Labs. Israeli intelligence assets had repeatedly warned them about the Iranians’ continued efforts to secure research positions within Vektor, despite Israel’s best efforts to dissuade Iranian scientists from studying abroad. Iranian scientists died from sudden natural causes at a startlingly higher rate than their counterparts in other nations. A scientific career in the fields of biology, chemistry, or physics currently ranked as one of the most hazardous occupations in Iran.
The Israelis expressed little doubt that the Iranians intended to steal bioweapons samples from the lab or collaborate with Russian scientists associated with the program. Recent grumblings from Wiljam Minkowitz, their Mossad liaison, left Manning and Bauer with the distinct impression that Israel was no longer satisfied with the CIA’s backseat approach to curbing Iran’s unquenchable thirst for weapons of mass destruction. Manning had already dodged three meeting requests from the Mossad liaison since the president had appeared on national television to explain the domestic terrorist attack on the nation’s water supply. They all knew what Minkowitz would say: It’s time for the U.S. to step up to the plate and take care of the problem.
Berg’s job today wouldn’t be to convince Manning of the necessity of targeting Vektor. Manning was already primed to take their efforts to the next level. Berg’s presentation was designed to convince Manning that they could win the director’s approval, which would ultimately impact their chances of winning over the president. Without the president’s approval, Berg would have to make some difficult choices. Drop the topic entirely, or take the operation “off the books.”