“So where is Kyle?”
“Gone. Totally in the wind as far as you are concerned.”
“Humph. After I gave up the Armata, he bails on me? And the troop movements? What an ungrateful asshole.” His face screwed up and he bent forward for a moment, then straightened. “Sorry,” he said. “Stomach problem last night. Now, about Kyle. He does not get to decide whether to do the interview. I do.”
“He had a good reason to stop. I told to him about your playacting back when you were pretending to be a sniper to infiltrate his course and make your bones as an intelligence officer. He was not very happy about that.”
Strakov did not react. He actually had expected Colonel Markey to intervene at some point. It was logical. “I still want Swanson.”
“Here’s the deal,” Markey continued. “I am going to give you until noon today to think things over. If you choose not to cooperate, then your entire lucrative CIA deal falls off the table. You lose your celebrity status, your money and your freedom. From this moment, you are to be treated as a common criminal who might very well spend the rest of your life in a maximum-security prison.”
Ivan Strakov did not blink. “That’s a pretty harsh deal, Tom.”
“It is the only bargain in town, Ivan. You are cold out of options. I will be back at noon.”
“Could you please send me a couple of Tylenol in the meantime? I have a headache coming on.”
When Markey left, two muscular men in blue suits took his place. He had never seen them before. “Stand up,” the bigger one snapped. When Strakov did as he was told, the second agent clamped on the handcuffs.
The unexpected visit from Freddie Ravensdale had played hob with her sleep, and Arial Printas had not found slumber until she resorted to a little white pill washed down with a taste of champagne. The dark curtains in the bedroom shielded her from the morning light, and she slept until almost eleven o’clock. She lay still when her eyes finally opened and she remembered that it was a special day.
Since Arial had been at university, her passions had been art and architecture and, as an adult, she had traveled the world to visit the lasting treasures made by artists with oil, canvas, stone and iron. Her husband happily paid the bills. Now, being a wealthy and attractive widow allowed her advantages unavailable to ordinary tourists. Arial liked that. Today was her long-anticipated art nouveau walking tour of nearby Sint-Gillis, then, after returning to the city, a private visit to the Amerikastraat studio and home of architect Victor Horta, the master of stained glass.
With a burst of enthusiasm, she threw off the soft white duvet, was out of the big bed and into the tiled bathroom, which she considered rather plain and utilitarian. She shed the pajamas, did a quick body check in the mirrors, approved of herself, then luxuriated beneath a steamy hot shower. Skirt or pants? Walking would be tiring, so she opted for designer jeans, a Parisian top and a light jacket. Comfortable white tennis shoes for the hard streets and sidewalks.
Breakfast was just tea, fresh fruit slices and a scone while she skimmed through two newspapers and studied a map of the coming walk. Finally, she pulled out her tablet and linked to the hotel Wi-Fi for a couple of laps around the Internet. It was important to hit a number of IP addresses, whether or not they were needed, for she was wary of possible surveillance and the extra IPs were good cover.
She logged onto Facebook and her mail and responded to a few posts. Buried deep in the electronic addresses was a dead drop that she shared with another Russian operative. One could draft a message but not transmit it, and the other could log on to the same account to read and erase it. Since it was never actually filed, it would not show up to electronic snoopers.
This morning’s information was somewhat silly, she knew, but she had been instructed to pass along whatever Ravensdale told her. Since she had not taken notes, and knew nothing of artillery, she recollected what she could, did a basic letter-and-number transposition code and wrote:
FIRE BASE 8351 KALININGRAD DANGER RAID EX POLAND TO KILL OFFICER.
The recipient would take care of whatever was necessary. She didn’t know who it was, nor the location, nor did she care. She looked at the time and was shocked to see that her tour was scheduled to start in fifteen minutes. Arial scribbled her name on the restaurant bill and hurried out to catch a taxi.
Kyle Swanson jotted a midday status report in his sniper notebook: temperature 72 degrees F, sporadic breeze from north reading less than one mile an hour. The flags in the Russian camp hung like rags, and Kyle and the SAS guys had zeroed their weapons on the central pole. All guns were ready.
They took turns watching the camp through the strong telescopes in thirty-minute rotations to lessen eyestrain. Anneli lay on her side, resting her head on the soft earpiece of the listening probe and filtering out most of what was being said. It was routine soldier talk, with no sense of urgency. At the checkpoint, cars and trucks came, stopped, papers were checked and the vehicles were sent along their way.
“Baldwin. You read?” Swanson broke the silence. He had been thinking about the next steps.
Stanley Baldwin clicked his microphone twice in acknowledgment. He was only thirty feet away, but whisper-level noise, not normal conversation, was the rule in enemy territory.
“One of you guys take off in about an hour and set up on that guard shack we passed. That vehicle that went out at oh-eight-hundred was probably his relief, because two men went down and two came back. A new shift will start this afternoon if they are pulling eight-hour posts. We most likely will execute at about eighteen thirty during the reception line. When you hear that, take the guard down and clear the position. We will rendezvous there as soon as possible. Be ready to lay down suppressive fire for us.”
Baldwin and Perry exchanged looks, and Perry pointed at himself. The sergeant nodded. “Affirmative,” he told Swanson.
“I’m getting hungry,” said Anneli.
Swanson reached into a pocket and handed her a package of peanut butter crackers.
“That’s it?”
“That’s all.” He did not mention that the snack would help gum up her intestinal tract to prevent bathroom breaks. She had already had to go twice, sneaking back to a thick grove for privacy and scared to death that she would be jumped by a Russian soldier while dropping her suit.
She bit the cracker, following it with a sip of water. Her directional surveillance ears had allowed her to become familiar with some voices and start identifying specific people. One enlisted man down there really hated his lieutenant, and sounded off frequently to his buddies about the officer’s shortcomings. A guard at the checkpoint was a friendly guy who joked with the motorists. She hated them both equally.
FIRE BASE 8351 DANGER RAID EX POLAND TO KILL OFFICER.
The message from Arial Printas dumped into the system of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, and was pulled up by a clerk in a large room of men and women located in individual cubicles and monitoring computer terminals. The room was busy all day long and the clerks were the first to receive messages that poured in from agents around the world. There was a lot of traffic. This one came from Brussels.
The man called it up and read it a few times to decide where to send it next. It contained no supporting details. Was that a coding or translation problem? He had no idea of the location of any Fire Base 8351, but that was military, so he would forward it to the GRU. The mention of “Poland” meant he should also get it over to the Foreign Ministry. The phrase that an attack was coming did not earn it a higher priority, for the very idea that Poland was about to attack Russia was ludicrous, and the bureaucrat decided that the agent who gathered the information was exaggerating.