“What does that mean?” Ardankin asked.
“He maintains that the station didn’t know anything about the target or the team. CIA headquarters was in direct communication with the agents on the street, effectively compartmentalizing the operation. At this point, I don’t think he’s hiding anything from us. We’ve worked on him all night.”
“Did he shed any light on the mission source?”
“Karl Berg was the only end user identified.”
“Yes. That would make sense. What about the missing female CIA officer? Erin Foley?”
“According to Reese, Foley never returned to the embassy. She must have been situated the closest to Reznikov’s apartment in Södermalm.”
“And the CIA station chief?” Ardankin demanded.
“Reese was sitting with the station chief at the embassy, waiting for word. They received a call from headquarters around 7:30 AM, notifying them that the operation had succeeded.”
“Did he take the call?”
“No. It was the station chief.”
“Did he know the location of the safe house?”
“No. He was not aware of any secure facilities within Sweden. Should we prepare for a return trip to Stockholm? It sounds like we should have grabbed the station chief,” Mihail said.
“We don’t grab station chiefs, or any CIA employees, for that matter. This was a one-time exception. We’ll have to approach this from a different angle,” Ardankin said.
“What should we do with Mr. Reese?”
“Pack him up for shipment. There’s no sense in wasting the resource. What’s done is done. It’s not every day we grab a station officer. I’ll pass the pickup information shortly. Once the pickup is complete, head to Munich and stand by for further orders. We may have located one of the shooters in Stockholm.”
“Understood,” Mihail said, and the connection ended
He looked down the hallway toward Stepka and saw that the operative had been joined by the rest of the team.
“We prep him for transport,” Mihail said.
“That’s a first,” one of the operatives remarked.
“Beats the alternative. I hate that fucking room,” Stepka replied.
“The situation is unique. Events like this cause ripples that tend to come back as tidal waves,” Mihail said.
“As long as I don’t have to pour him down a drain, I don’t care what they do with him,” Stepka added.
Mihail regarded his comment with feigned disinterest. The young operative had no idea what this meant. Grabbing an “illegal” off the street was one thing, nabbing a station officer was another. There would be repercussions.
Chapter 8
Dmitry Ardankin stood up from the small desk in his private communications room and took a few steps to the sealed door leading out of the chamber. He paused for a moment before sitting back down in front of the secure telephone set. He had another call to make that would require the use of this space. The closet-sized room was located at the front of his office, taking up most of the right corner. Resembling a walk-in closet, the standalone chamber had been designed to thwart any possible efforts to electronically eavesdrop on his conversations from the outside, despite the elaborate amount of effort put into the building itself. Laser detection and jamming technology had been mounted to every building in the SVR campus in order to augment the countermeasures integrated directly into the buildings.
The exterior windows had been designed to passively defeat attempts to use laser technology. Each window held two panes of glass separated by a spacer frame. The area between the frames was filled with a gas mixture denser than air, effectively damping sound waves travelling from one pane to the next. An integrated sound generator was applied directly to the outer pane, creating thermal noise over a wide frequency range, which superimposed vibrations equivalent to a forty-decibel level of sound. This created the unusual humming effect heard throughout the campus. Unless Ardankin yelled during a conversation at his desk, a laser-based listening device targeting his office window would register white noise. Finally, a coating on the outer pane prevented the laser from reaching the inner pane, where the glass vibrated with his voice. All of this, and they had still insisted on a soundproof room within a soundproof building.
He rarely used the chamber, but this morning’s call from Mihail Osin had been different. The room also provided him an extra layer of security against internal eavesdropping, which was highly unlikely. Still, the ongoing operation in Sweden required the strictest compartmentalization. Beyond Osin’s team, only the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service knew about the kidnapping. Unfortunately, the risky gamble didn’t shed much light on the situation, beyond confirming that either the SVR or FSB had been compromised. The only other way to explain the security breach involved a more frightening possibility.
The Americans may have developed a new generation of surveillance technology without their knowledge. He hoped it wasn’t the latter. His people could uncover a leak, but a significant shift in electronic espionage technology represented a devastating challenge to Russian’s intelligence community. He didn’t look forward to the next call. The director would report these findings directly to Putin, and nobody could predict how he would react.
Dmitry Ardankin suddenly didn’t relish the privilege of sharing Russia’s darkest secrets anymore. Putin had an ironfisted reputation for keeping these secrets from ever reaching daylight, regardless of rank or position. Putin and his cronies continued to take a bizarre and unhealthy interest in Reznikov. Unhealthy for anyone but Putin. Ardankin decided he would watch his back on this one. He hadn’t made it this far to be poured down a drain on the outskirts of Moscow.
Maxim Greshnev continued to examine a recent report on Monchegorsk when the door opened. He heard Inga go through her solemn routine of making anyone who stood outside of his door feel uncomfortable.
“The director will see you now,” she said.
He looked up when the door closed and frowned, motioning for Arkady Baranov to take a seat. He waited until the Center of Special Operations (CSN) director was seated before placing the report on his desk. He regarded Baranov for a moment, knowing that his usual gruff scare tactics would have little effect on the man. Baranov still looked like an active Spetsnaz operative, athletic and grizzled, his muscular frame evident under his navy blue suit. The only telltale sign that Baranov had reached his fifties was graying hair, which he kept in a smart buzz cut. He’d known Baranov for nearly twenty years, having helped the ambitious Spetsnaz colonel transition from the KGB to the Federal Security Service.
Colonel Baranov’s distinguished career started in Afghanistan as a young “Alpha Group” lieutenant. He led a squad of KGB Spetsnaz during Operation Storm-333, an ambitious raid launched against Afghan President Hafizullah Amin, at Tajbeg Palace in 1979. The operation killed the anti-Soviet leader, along with his entire two-hundred-guard contingent, successfully opening the door for the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Baranov successfully negotiated a transfer to the newly formed “Vympel Group” in 1981 and returned to Afghanistan, where he led sabotage groups against the Mujahideen until the bitter end of the Soviet occupation in 1989.