“Okay,” Harrison said. “We go together.”
“I’ll make the travel arrangements,” Khalila offered. “Meet me at Reagan National in an hour.”
Khalila departed and Harrison returned to his workstation beside Kendall.
“Let me guess,” she said. “Khalila wants to accompany you to Sochi, even though she’s not authorized for that area.”
Harrison nodded.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “Khalila breaks the rules and gets away with it every damn time. If I pulled half the crap she did, the DDO would have my ass.”
“Maybe he expects more of you,” Harrison offered.
“Yeah, right. If I don’t keep my nose clean, I’ll end up back on the street where I started.”
Kendall turned back to her computer display. “It’s your life,” she said. “Good luck with it.”
44
SOCHI, RUSSIA
Darkness was falling as the Dassault Falcon 8X descended toward Sochi International Airport, nearing the end of a twelve-hour flight. Harrison was seated beside Khalila, and unlike their trip to Damascus a week ago, carrying only Harrison, Khalila, and Durrani, all seats were filled. The fourteen intelligence agencies staffing the NCTC had followed Del Rio’s direction, assigning all available Russian-speaking personnel to the effort to track down Anatoly Bogdanov in Sochi, with additional personnel on their way.
Harrison spent much of the trip picking Khalila’s brain about CIA matters: protocol, procedures, and relationships, during which Khalila explained the difference between agents and officers. Although the FBI and other agencies employed agents, CIA employees were officers, and agents were the foreign folks they recruited to supply information. She went on to explain the distinction between reports officers and desk officers, and the different types.
Their case manager, Asad Durrani, for example, was a reports officer whose official title was collection management officer. Durrani had met them at the airport in Virginia, providing their Sochi point-of-contact details.
The Falcon 8X landed and pulled to a halt near a private hangar, where they were met by three separate cars. Harrison and the other passengers descended the staircase to the tarmac and broke into three groups. Although the fourteen agencies staffing the NCTC worked together, they had separate chains of command and infrastructure.
A man leaning against a black sedan matched the description Durrani had provided, and Harrison and Khalila approached him. He introduced himself as Maxim Anosov, lead CIA paramilitary officer in Sochi. After Harrison and Khalila tossed their luggage into the trunk and climbed into the back of the sedan, they began the short drive to the CIA safe house in the city.
Along the way, Anosov explained the plan to locate Bogdanov. The city had been divided into sectors assigned to the fourteen agencies, which was then subdivided based on the number of personnel available. Although Jessica Del Rio had wanted someone on every corner, she apparently didn’t have an appreciation for Sochi’s size: a city of more than three hundred thousand people, sprawled across thirteen hundred square miles. Even with a thousand agents and case officers descending on the city, each would be assigned an area of greater than a square mile.
“We’ve also got officers canvassing the hotels, restaurants, and grocery stores. The guy’s gotta eat and sleep.”
“I’ve got another idea,” Harrison said. “Rather than park us on a corner and hope Bogdanov wanders by, I’d like to try and track him down.”
Anosov’s eyes met Harrison’s in the rearview mirror. “What’s your plan?”
“I figure Bogdanov picked Sochi for a reason. He’s got a big chunk of cash in his account, and he’s not going to spend it buying coffee every morning. He’ll be looking for a nice place. I’d like to start with the high-end real estate agents and see if anyone new has expressed interest within the last week.”
“I like it,” Anosov said. “I’ll have the city zone assignments redrawn, freeing you and Khalila to run amok.” He grinned, then spoke in Russian. “How’s your Russian?”
Harrison replied in kind, “My mom says it’s pretty good.”
“I have to agree,” Anosov replied, returning to English. “No accent at all. Plus, you look Russian enough. If you need to blend in for some reason, you can pull it off.” His eyes shifted to Khalila. “No hope for you posing as Russian, but there are plenty of Muslim women in Sochi.”
“I’m not Muslim,” Khalila replied with an edge to her voice.
Anosov’s eyes moved back to Harrison. “Is she always this touchy?” he asked in Russian.
“Usually,” Harrison replied.
They entered the outskirts of Sochi, approaching the coast. Site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, Sochi had been the beneficiary of fifty billion dollars of infrastructure investment. The crumbling Soviet-era apartment blocks so ubiquitous in other Russian cities were few and far between, replaced with luxurious seaside hotels connected to an ever-expanding ski resort in the mountains by a new superhighway, over which cab drivers zoomed at over one hundred kilometers per hour. Along the shoreline, several cruise ships were anchored in the emerald-blue water, while sleek white yachts rocked gently at their moorings.
Anosov pulled into the underground garage of the CIA safe house, a four-story building in the older part of Sochi that had been renovated into a condominium. Anosov led them into one of the suites, a four-bedroom flat that seemed to serve as the safe house headquarters; the expansive living room was missing the typical furnishings, filled instead with a dozen men and women working at computer workstations.
Harrison spoke Russian but couldn’t read Cyrillic, so Anosov had one of the officers help him research real estate agents, making a list of those specializing in properties selling for more than one hundred million rubles. There were a half-dozen agencies, all clustered within a five-block radius in the Tsentralny City District, a triangular region in the center of the city bordering the Black Sea. All six realtors were by appointment only, so Harrison made the calls. Several had no appointments available today until Harrison mentioned how much he was willing to spend: three hundred million rubles.
The six appointments were arranged, and a driver dropped Harrison and Khalila off near the southernmost realtor on the list. Harrison wore a blue sport coat and khaki slacks, both to project the image of a wealthy client and to hide his pistol in its shoulder harness. Khalila wore a business suit again, a pistol likewise beneath her jacket, plus the two spring-loaded knives she had carried in Damascus, one attached to each forearm.
The first two appointments were a bust, but their luck changed on the third. The realtor recognized the photo Harrison showed him, although the man went by a different name — Danil Andreyev. Harrison wrote down the alias and asked for the man’s phone number, hoping to determine Bogdanov’s approximate location during a cell phone call, but the realtor had even better news.
“When I show him properties, I pick him up outside the lobby of the Rodina Grand Hotel.”
Khalila pulled up a map on her cell phone; the hotel was only three blocks away.
Harrison called Anosov as they left the realtor’s office, relaying the news, and it wasn’t long before he and Khalila entered the lobby of the Rodina Grand Hotel.
They were greeted at the counter by a well-manicured woman in her fifties, who asked how she could help.
“We’re meeting a friend tonight, Danil Andreyev. Please let him know we’re here.”
The woman looked him up on the computer, and as she reached for the phone, Harrison pressed her hand down on the receiver. “Better yet, if you could let us know what room he’s in, we can visit for a while before heading out to dinner.”