“He should be getting a fine education, wouldn’t one think?” The oligarch didn’t wait for an answer — he had clearly mastered the art of the one-sided conversation. He threw up his hands in a dramatic flourish. “He might be if he actually bothered to study, instead of partying away his nights in some bar, an American whore sitting on his lap.”
Korsakov gazed idly out the window at the sunbathing form of Andropov’s mistress. One had to wonder where the son had developed those proclivities.
“Competence,” the oligarch sighed. “It is such a rare trait these days, my old comrade. It is all the more reason that I have been glad of your aid. Someone I can trust.”
With those words, his voice shed every last vestige of pleasantry. His eyes bored into Korsakov’s face. “What is the status of the contract, Sergei?”
“Does the FSB keep these type of files on every Russian citizen?” Carol asked, looking up from her laptop. The waiter had cleared the plates away, and left them alone after Vasiliev had pressed a fifty-dollar bill into his hand.
The Russian chuckled. “Only those we deem likely to cause trouble. In a word…yes.”
Harry looked over at the screen, watching as the file transfer approached 100 %. He could feel Carol’s irritation with Alexei — there was nothing remotely humorous about Russia’s treatment of its citizens, of its journalists.
Reforms? They had been little more than window dressing. The shackles of slavery freshly adorned with the garland of freedom. Men like Vasiliev had moved from the old world into the new and scarce noticed the difference. “We appreciate your help, Alexei,” he replied, his voice neutral as he pulled the thumb drive out of the laptop and handed it back to the Russian. “This should give us all the information we need. As far as I’m concerned, this meeting never took place. You were never involved.”
Vasiliev tucked the drive in his shirt pocket, a strange look on his face as he regarded Harry. “Would that life were so simple, tovarisch.”
“What do you mean?” Harry asked. His hand moved beneath the table, coming to rest on his thigh, only inches away from the Colt.
“You still need me.” The Russian reached for his glass, tossing back another shot of vodka. He looked over at Carol, a smile on his face. “Our friend Nichols is a strict teetotaler, and yet he has never once lectured me on my drinking. I admire his reserve.”
Harry transfixed him with a cold stare. “Perhaps I simply believe the world would be a better place were you to die of cirrhosis.”
“Well said,” Vasiliev laughed, nearly choking on his drink. “Well said, but I fear that my demise is in no way imminent. I have been thinking…how was Korsakov able to find you in West Virginia?”
The million-dollar question. The one Harry had asked himself a thousand times. No good answers, and from the look on Alexei’s face, he knew as much.
Vasiliev went on without waiting for a response. “I won’t patronize you by asking if you swept her for a tracker, Harry,” the Russian said, inclining his head in Carol’s direction. “I know you would have. And you probably found at least one. Am I right?”
“Two.”
A raise of the eyebrows. “Redundancy. We Russians are thorough. What I’m more interested in is what you were unable to find.”
Vasiliev reached into his shirt pocket, laying a small plastic capsule about the size and color of a grain of rice on the tablecloth. “Ever seen one of these before?”
“It’s a GPS tracker,” Carol replied. “The US did pioneer the technology, after all.”
The Russian’s only immediate reply was a nod. He stared across the table at them for a long moment, as if deliberating on his next words. “You may have been the pioneers, but you have been eclipsed. By China, now the world’s leading developer of the technology. It is only due to the industrial espionage of my partners in the SVR that Moscow has access to this little gem. A self-contained unit, with over three months of battery life.”
“Exactly why do you think this would have escaped my scanner?” Harry asked, his eyes locked on Vasiliev’s face. Looking for the faintest trace of duplicity. Of guile.
Nothing.
“Because that’s what it is designed to do,” came the quiet reply. “I am an old dog, Harry, and the technical details escape me, but this tracker is programmed to detect the activation of a scanner and go into passive mode for the duration of the scan.”
Harry’s skepticism must have showed on his face, for Vasiliev added, “It’s complicated. Or so the children in our tech department blithely assure me.”
Another time Harry might have smiled at the disdainful comment, but not now. If what the Russian said was true…then all their attempts to evade Korsakov had been fruitless. And it explained everything.
“If this tracker as sophisticated as you claim, then how can it ever be detected?”
“Hospital-grade medical equipment,” Vasiliev replied. “An X-ray can detect it — they’re often installed in a tooth of the person being tracked.”
Harry glanced over at Carol, seeing his own fear reflected in her eyes. The noise of the restaurant had faded into the background, the silence falling over them like a heavy cloud. Oppression.
He reached out and took her hand in his, an empty reassurance. “The last few months…had any dental work done?”
A nod, as though she could scarcely trust her voice. “November 21st, I believe, if I remember correctly. One of the molars — needed a crown.”
Vasiliev spread his hands in a gesture of What did I tell you? “May I make a suggestion?”
Harry shot him a dark look. “You may.”
The Russian tilted his flask forward, watching the clear liquor spill into the small glass. When he spoke again, it was as if the thought had just occurred to him. “The clinic at the consulate…we have the necessary equipment.”
“No.”
It wasn’t hard to see why al-Fileestini had thought it was a safe place to train with the Kalashnikov. The area surrounding the cabin was one of the most desolate places Jamal had ever seen, the pine forest covered in a fresh blanket of snow.
The college student rubbed his hands together vigorously, glancing back toward the warmth of the vehicles. With the Pakistanis along, they’d needed to bring two, with he and Omar being the “designated drivers”.
Fortunately, the cold air dissipated their smell. It had been somewhat disillusioning to realize that the mujahideen he had so admired as a child knew nothing of the basics of personal hygiene. Driving up the peninsula with the windows rolled up had been a challenge.
But the mujahideen knew their weapons, he had to admit. He bent down on one knee in the snow, examining the open can of ammunition that the owner of the cabin had brought out to them. The markings on the can read “US Army M-2 .50 cal” but it was filled with little black boxes labeled Tulammo. Jamal slid one of the boxes open, extracting a long, gray, missile-shaped round. Seven-point-six-two-millimeter.
May Allah guide its flight, he breathed, rolling the cartridge between his fingers.
He heard his name being called and looked up to see Tarik’s lieutenant, a man named Walid, waving him over.
“It is time,” Walid announced without preamble, handing him the rifle. The cold gunmetal felt like fire against the bare flesh of his hands as he lifted the heavy assault rifle to his shoulder, struggling to focus on the mujahid’s instructions.