“Then why did he go after your family?”
“He offered me two hundred thousand dollars to marry his niece, get her a visa, and take her to the U.S. I refused in no uncertain terms.”
“And for that he’s killing your family? You’re sure it’s him?”
“He showed me video. I watched his henchmen break my sister’s bones.”
Padilla gasped.
Kit turned them away from another couple and led them toward an empty patch of dance floor.
“Okay, I’ll call Ray Cormier and—”
“No,” he said with quiet authority. “You get the FBI or law enforcement into this and Staci is dead.”
“But we have to notify—”
“I’m notifying you. That’s it. I’ll fly to California tomorrow. I know that the FBI could eventually find her. But she’d be dead by then.”
“I can’t authorize you to—”
“I’m not asking you to authorize anything. I just wanted to tell you what I was going to do. You can have me detained or arrested before I leave the premises tonight. I’m giving you that option, but I’m not asking for anybody’s permission to save my sister.”
Padilla digested this. She forced a laugh, then waved to another couple across the floor. “What is it exactly you’re going to do?”
“I’m going to marry Popov’s niece early tomorrow morning. She’ll be on the flight with me to L.A.”
“But you said she doesn’t have a visa.”
“I’ll be at the embassy at nine in the morning with her passport, and I need to be in and out damn quick if I’m going to make the flight.”
“I can’t…” began Padilla, then she stopped once her eyes met Bennings’s. They exchanged the look of two people who shared deep, important secrets. Bennings held her gaze until she finally looked away and cast her eyes downward.
“Remember how we used to joke about all of the ‘I can’t,’ ‘we can’t,’ ‘no can do’ colonels in D.C.? The worthless ticket punchers afraid to do anything or it might screw up their chance to become a general? I hope you haven’t become like them.” There was no accusation in his voice, but his words held a kind of gentle resolve.
Padilla looked up and smiled even bigger. “I have more enemies than any colonel ever had. There are tens of thousands of political types in Washington with the long knives out who would just love an excuse to stick me in the back. If I give them an excuse, it will happen, and then the black world of special operations will lose its biggest supporter inside the Beltway. The question is, what does Popov really want you to do? No one pays two hundred thousand dollars to a soldier to marry a girl.”
“Exactly.” Kit’s eyes flashed. This was the conclusion he’d been waiting for Padilla to arrive at. He stood ready, willing, and able to go rogue, but maybe, just maybe, he could keep Padilla in his corner, at least for the time being. “I mean, why the marriage at all? Popov could get her into the States. He doesn’t need help with that.”
“I think the marriage is extra insurance. More leverage against you. If your sister dies in captivity, they lose your cooperation. But if they have evidence of you committing a federal offense—taking the money—a crime that would get you court-martialed and thrown in prison, then they have an ax over your head.”
“And maybe they want her traveling with me. They might have a tracking device in her things.”
“I’m sure they’d want to keep an eye on you,” said Padilla.
“I’ve been thinking about all of my conversations with him, but I can’t figure out why he targeted me.”
“Does Popov know about you and Sinclair?”
“That was my first concern, but I can’t see how. He thinks I’m an attaché spy, and not a very good one. I don’t know why he picked me, but regardless, I’m screwed. My career, if not my life, is over, based on what I intend to do.”
“Take on Popov and his entire organization.”
Bennings nodded.
“I’ll personally order the head of the consular section to issue a visa. I’ll tell her a… a…”
“A least untruthful lie?”
“Least untruthful lie” was a term originally used by the director of national intelligence to describe a lie he told while under oath to the U.S. Senate regarding NSA surveillance of American citizens. “Yes, exactly,” said Padilla. “A least untruthful lie. You’re learning diplomatic speak.”
Bennings relaxed a little. Padilla was providing him a bit of support. It wasn’t much, but enough to get the ball rolling, and for that he felt profoundly grateful.
“I’m sorry that Sinclair and I didn’t get the third mole, Madam Secretary. But we have a good idea who it is. I appreciate you putting your trust in me for that kind of sensitive mission.”
“You did good work here.” Padilla stopped smiling and pursed her lips together. “This wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t sent you to Moscow.”
Bennings didn’t respond. There was no turning back the clock; there was only going balls to the wall.
“I’ll be going AWOL, most likely,” said Bennings. “So maybe there is one call you could make for me. A secure call to Larry Bing.”
“Your old commander at the Activity.”
“When everybody is calling for me to be skinned alive, could you let him know that everything is not as it seems?”
She nodded. “I’m so sorry about your family.”
“Secretary Padilla, just so we’re clear. I’ll do just about anything to save my sister. I’m not going to be too concerned with what’s legal. She’s all the family I have left. So either have me arrested or wish me luck, because I have a call to make.”
CHAPTER 12
Dennis Kedrov took in the clear Wyoming sky and enjoyed the crisp breeze on his face; the day was shaping up to be a beauty. He wished he could get in eighteen holes of golf somewhere. He flicked his Turkish cigarette, stepped under the camouflage netting, and leaned over the open tailgate of a covered pickup truck to inspect the bomb.
The explosive device was a type of shaped charge called a linear shaped charge. Dennis had used them before to take down buildings. This one was large, about the size of a railroad tie, but a couple of feet shorter. The unit had an inverted-V profile running along one side. The V profile focused the force of the explosion in one direction, forming an axlike blast that would cut anything in its path to a certain depth. Dennis had decided to go with a big bomb to make sure they hit the target.
“Okay,” said Dennis, satisfied. “Get it in the hole.”
Workers carefully slid the device onto the tines of a small Bobcat front loader, which then slowly carried it near a fourteen-feet-deep, six-feet-in-diameter hole carved out of rock-hard earth, where dowser Irene Shanks had once placed pink plastic flags.
The camouflage netting over the hole had to come down to allow the rest of the operation to proceed. Dennis wasn’t too concerned, since the spy satellites wouldn’t be overhead for another couple of hours. Still, there was no time to waste. A tracked mini crane maneuvered a small boom above the bomb. Workers connected thick canvas lifting straps cradling the device to the boom. The crane then lifted the unit into the air and pivoted it over the cavity.
Within seconds, the linear shaped charge was lowered into the hole, with the V profile pointing downward, so when the bomb exploded, the force of the cutting blast would be directed deeper into the ground.
Dennis looked on pleased. The whole process had so far gone without a hitch, and he expected that when the deceptions were complete, he would be spending plenty of time on the golf courses of his choice.