Bone-weary after a sleepless night, Alex Banich sat hunched over on his cell’s only piece of furniture — an iron-frame cot inadequately cushioned by a single, folded wool blanket. He closed his eyes against the painful glare coming from the single, unshielded light bulb above his head. The light had been left on all night.
All night… Banich straightened up slightly. Since the guards had stripped him of his watch before they’d thrown him inside this cell, he couldn’t be sure of the exact time. But the exact time didn’t especially matter. What mattered was that it had to be close to dawn outside. That meant he and the others had been in militia custody for at least ten hours. So where were the FIS interrogators? He, Hennessy, and Teppler were all operating with false identification papers, but Erin and those French bastards certainly weren’t. Any case involving foreigners was clearly the province of the FIS — not the Moscow militia. Then why this delay in handing them over to the counterintelligence agency? Bureaucratic infighting? Some kind of clerical glitch or other administrative foul-up? Or something else, something more significant?
And what about the three DGSE agents who had survived that bloody encounter in the park? Had they already been released? He’d heard cell doors clanging open and muffled voices down the corridor some time ago. He nodded grimly to himself. For all practical purposes, France and Russia were already allies. Kaminov’s security chiefs might have some pointed questions about what the French had been up to, but they weren’t likely to jeopardize their leader’s hard-won ties with Paris just to have them answered. Not when they had four other captives to quiz.
Banich found himself running through different scenarios and options using his knowledge of the Russian agencies and personalities in play. Realistically he knew the effort was probably a meaningless mental exercise — akin to asking a blindfolded man to find one particular person in a crowded football stadium. Still, it helped him fend off his fears for Erin, his men, and himself for a little while longer.
Not that he had many illusions about his likely fate. Murder convictions under martial law carried one sentence — death. If the FIS broke his Ushenko cover story and identified him as a CIA agent, the sentence would be the same. Only the method of carrying it out would change — a secret death after prolonged interrogation and torture instead of swift public execution. The French were bound to insist on at least that much as compensation for their two dead spies.
Faced with the evidence against him, he doubted Langley would want to make much of a fuss over his “disappearance.” Senior Agency field operatives were not supposed to kill rival intelligence agents — especially in broad daylight in an ostensibly neutral capital. They certainly weren’t supposed to get caught.
And what about Erin and the others? Despite the close, confined, muggy air in his cell, Banich felt suddenly cold. He knew how Kaminov and those who toadied to him thought. Four “disappearances” were as easy to explain as one. Maybe even easier, since there would be no one left alive to dispute whatever story the marshal’s military junta concocted.
Boots rang on the bare concrete floor of the corridor beyond his cell, coming closer. They stopped right outside the cell door. A key grated in the lock, and he barely had time to stand up before the door slammed open. Four militiamen waited outside, a flabby, middle-aged sergeant and three leaner, fitter privates. All had their pistols drawn. Through the rising tide of his despair, Banich found a moment’s pale amusement in that. Clearly these Russians at least regarded him as a very dangerous fellow indeed.
“You! Come out of there.” The sergeant jerked his head back down the corridor. “You’re wanted upstairs for a little chat.”
Banich sighed. This was it, then. The Russian counterintelligence agency had finally shaken off its curious bureaucratic lethargy and come to inspect its prizes. He thought about squaring his shoulders, but then decided that a stoop-shouldered, dejected look would be more in character for a bewildered, hard working Ukrainian merchant caught up in events through no fault of his own. Although he doubted his cover identity would hold up for very long under determined investigation, he planned to play it out for as long as possible. Every hour that passed gave Len Kutner that much more time to find out what had happened to the four of them. If nothing else, he might be able to buy enough time for the rest of his field team to get clear.
He stepped warily out into the corridor. The militiamen closed in around him, with the sergeant and one private in back, and two more ahead.
“Move!” Banich felt a pistol barrel grind painfully into his back, just above his left kidney, prodding him onward. He stumbled into motion, trying to mask a sudden flash of anger beneath a properly submissive, frightened expression. Nikolai Ushenko was a man of money, not a man of action.
They marched him down the narrow basement corridor at a brisk pace, past rows of other locked cell doors. The clipboards hanging beside each bore only a number — never any names. Russia’s new military rulers hadn’t abandoned their old and ugly penchant for dehumanizing those who crossed them, he thought scornfully.
Banich’s guards led him up two flights of stairs and out into an empty hallway toward the rear of the militia headquarters. The marble floor, faded photographs and paintings of senior officials, and crowded notice boards told him they were somewhere in the more public areas of the building. This early in the morning there were very few militia officers or civilian clerical workers in evidence. Occupied offices were indicated only by a light under the door, and occasionally by the soft rattle of keys on a word processor or the low, whooshing hum of a photocopier in operation. The Petrovka Street headquarters, like the rest of Moscow, was just starting to come to life.
Despite his fatigue, Banich noticed that all of his senses were fully alert and finely tuned. Sights, sounds, and smells were all magnified as the animal side of his brain sensed danger ahead and began reacting — preparing to fight or flee. The world, even this small, sterile portion of it, seemed clearer and sharper than ever before.
The sergeant stopped outside a solid-looking, wood-paneled door and pushed it open. “Inside.”
Still in character, Banich turned toward the NCO with a pleading whine on his face and in his voice. “Please, Sergeant, I swear that I am an honest man, not a criminal…”
The sergeant snorted, “Of course.” He shoved Banich through the doorway. “Inside, pig!”
They pulled the door shut behind him.
The room was not what he’d expected. Instead of a drab interrogation chamber, he was alone in a handsomely appointed conference room — complete with dark wood paneling, carpet, a long, polished table, and upholstered armchairs. He sniffed the air, caught the scent of fresh, hot tea, and turned.
Tall glasses in metal holders stood on a sideboard next to a samovar. A nearby tray held slices of lemon, spoons, and a dish of fruit jelly. Banich arched an eyebrow in surprise. What the hell was all of this? A ploy to soften him up before the gloves came off? Was the tea drugged? he wondered.
He stood uncertainly for a few moments, then shrugged and moved toward the sideboard. He had to react as Nikolai Ushenko, not as a professionally suspicious American intelligence officer. The Ukrainian commodities trader he’d created would never pass up the chance for a free cup of tea. Even if it was drugged, at least pouring his own would give him some control over the dosage.