Black Flagged Vektor (4) Page 13

  Her only consolation was that they were also doing this to everyone else in her office. Most of her colleagues didn’t openly discuss it, but a few had opened up to her, figuring that the leak had come from the SVR. This seemed to be the prevailing theory among the agents in her office, but she still sensed the barely palpable tension associated with doubt, which fueled alienation. This was the worst part for her. Aside from a few close friends in her division, everyone at headquarters now avoided her. She was tainted until they figured this out.

  She glanced at the sedan one more time, wondering what they would do if she walked down the stairs and offered up Kaparov. Would they be lenient? Her boyfriend didn’t think so. He had cornered her in the stairwell after she cleared security in the morning and started her journey to the fourth floor. Their rendezvous lasted less than a minute, but he had made it clear that selling out Kaparov wouldn’t ease her burden. She’d be tortured mercilessly until they had everything, then she’d be dissolved alive in a tub of acid. She’d suffer immeasurably, and no trace of her body would ever be found. Prerovsky had just as much at stake, so she wasn’t sure if his words were meant to put her situation in perspective or threaten her. Based on his sudden appearance and tone, she tended to believe it was the latter. So much for their relationship.

  She decided on another refill, smiling at her roommate, who looked up from the television and almost asked her what was bothering her. She could read it on her face, but something had mercifully dragged her back into the drama unfolding on the screen. Outside of Dacha Princess hour, Katya was a compassionate friend and good roommate. Lucya had purposely timed her return to the kitchen to avoid commercials. Her friend would have asked her what was wrong, and she was in no emotional shape to refuse a sympathetic shoulder. She preferred to pass out and wake up to a new day. A day that didn’t include black sedans and serious-looking men following her onto the Metro.

  She gripped the wine bottle and prepared to drain its contents into her glass, when the door to her apartment suddenly opened to reveal a dark-haired man wearing black pants and a gray windbreaker.

  ***

  Reinhard Klinkman felt the locking mechanism’s tumbler move and tested the doorknob, which turned freely. Easy enough. He removed a pistol-sized compressed air gun from his backpack and thumbed the safety switch. The gun was loaded with six self-actuating darts. Upon contact, each dart would discharge enough neurotoxin to instantly disable a three-hundred-pound human being, primarily targeting the skeletal muscle system. The toxin affected its target immediately, preventing fine motor skill almost instantly, graduating to full paralysis seconds later.

  In this case, he didn’t want to hit the wrong target. Intelligence indicated that Lucya had a roommate who looked remarkably similar. Both had long blond hair, blue eyes and similar builds. The picture provided by their contact wouldn’t help in this situation. He’d have to take his time with this one. He couldn’t afford to carry Lucya down five flights of stairs given their tight timeline. Then again, if Lucya didn’t immediately come to terms with the situation he presented, he’d have to refamiliarize himself with the fireman’s carry. He really hoped she would be reasonable. He tightened the backpack straps and took a deep breath before opening the door.

  The scene registered before he physically responded. The woman on the couch glanced in his direction with her mouth open, but made no immediate attempt to get up. The other one reacted without hesitation. She knocked a bottle of wine out of the way to reach for the small knife rack next to the sink. He raised the pistol and fired a single dart at the woman on the couch, freezing the dumb look on her face. By the time he aimed at Lucya, the agent had retrieved a thick handled, five-inch blade from the rack, holding it in front of her in a desperate attempt to establish dominance. He hoped his Russian didn’t leave anything lost in translation.

  “Lucya, the darts in this gun work instantly. You wouldn’t get past the kitchen counter. I need to get you out of here right now, so please drop the knife and follow me. My instructions are simple. One way or the other, you leave with me.”

  “I won’t tell you anything,” Lucya said, threatening him with the knife.

  “I’m not asking any questions. You’re in grave danger, and I have been sent to bring you to a safe place.”

  “Who sent you?” she demanded.

  “I can’t disclose that. Someone may be listening. I need you to trust me, Lucya. You played and you lost. Your life here is over if you want to stay alive. There’s no other way. If you don’t walk out with me in the next three seconds, we do this the hard way,” Klinkman said.

  “Is she all right?” Lucya said, looking at her roommate.

  “She’s fine. She’ll wake up within the hour with a nasty headache. Time to go.”

  Lucya placed the knife back on the rack and walked forward. “Do I need my purse?”

  “No. Lucya Pavrikova no longer exists,” Klinkman said, pulling her through the doorway.

  ***

  Agent Boris Shelepin focused the high-magnification scope and stared through the low-intensity light optics into their target apartment. The Pavrikova woman had just stared down at the surveillance car located on the main street across from her apartment building’s entrance. The sight of the omnipresent car had triggered a long sip from the glass of white wine she had been pouring most of the evening. He wished they had been given a proper surveillance post in one of the surrounding apartments. Pavrikova’s roommate was equally as easy on his eyes, and he wouldn’t have minded getting a better view into their apartment. From the street, their view was limited. They’d parked the van as far down the side street as possible to increase the depth of their view, but he still couldn’t see past the front door, which was located halfway across the cramped common area that served as their kitchen and family room.

  He didn’t bother to ask his SVR section head for permission to “requisition” one of the apartments facing Pavrikova’s. His boss had made it clear that his surveillance detail’s purpose was intimidation. They were to maintain an obvious presence in Lucya Pavrikova’s life outside of the FSB’s Lubyanka headquarters. Physical surveillance had been the term used by his superiors. Foreign Intelligence Service assets had the rest of Pavrikova covered from an electronic standpoint. Apartment phone. Cell phone. Email. Eavesdropping devices. Remote cameras. All of this would be monitored from a distance. His team would do the grunt work, which suited him fine. He just wished he could get a better view of Pavrikova’s ass, or her roommate’s. Either one would work for him.

  He could see the top of her blond ponytail in front of the refrigerator, which meant she would reappear at the window with a refilled wine glass in a minute or two. He lowered the scope and turned to his comrade, who had nodded off in the driver’s seat. He nudged the agent.

  “Hang in there a little longer. She’s going to drink herself to sleep at this rate,” Shelepin said.

  “We’re headed back when the apartment goes dark?” the driver asked.

  “Yeah. We’ll leave the two cars to keep an eye on the exits,” Shelepin said.

  In addition to the car parked on the street in front of the apartment, they had another jammed into the tight service alley behind the building. The alley led to a rear service entrance that allowed easy access to the large trash collection bins located in the dingy area off the main stairwell. The doors had been padlocked from the inside since they started Pavrikova’s surveillance, which was standard procedure in many of the apartment buildings. The landlord or building owner would meet the trash removal crew in person and unlock the door, at the same time passing a weekly payment to the crew…most of which would eventually find its way into the hands of the local mafiya. Still, local fire ordinances required two working ground-floor exits, so several of the occupants would have the key to the padlock. They couldn’t risk Lucya being one of them.

  He stretched his arms in his seat, twisting his body to look into the pitch-black recesses of the van. The shadowy figu
re sitting directly behind the driver cracked his knuckles.

  “You’re going to give yourself arthritis doing that,” Shelepin said.

  “That’s an old wives’ tale,” the agent said.

  A cell phone lit up the inside of the drink holder on the van’s center console tray, bathing all of them in a soft blue light and exposing the agent in the van’s second row of seats, who squinted. Shelepin grabbed the phone and answered.

  “Agent Shelepin.”

  “Why the fuck aren’t you answering your radio? The apartment was just breached! Nobody is answering the radios!”

  Shelepin didn’t bother to raise the surveillance scope to view the apartment. Training and instinct took over, telling him not to waste the time. He hissed at the driver and grabbed his handheld radio.

  “Let’s go. Front door,” he said before speaking into the handheld. “Surveillance units report. This is Shelepin! Report your status now!”

  The van lurched forward, racing toward the main street. He received no reply from either unit. Seconds from turning the corner, he put the cell phone back to his ear.

  “What happened in the apartment?”

  “One man kicked the door in and shot the roommate. Your target left willingly. What is the status of the other agents?”

  “I don’t know,” Shelepin replied just before the van turned sharply right onto Raskovoy Boulevard, pinning him against the passenger door.

  ***

  Nikolai Mazurov reached the corner in time to hear the van’s tires screech, validating one of their most critical assumptions about the SVR operation. Their electronics tech had studied the neighborhood’s electronic signature for hours and had found several suspicious bandwidths that could signify the presence of listening devices or wireless camera feeds. He couldn’t be sure, since every household in this lower income neighborhood utilized some form of pirated electronics. Because these devices were mostly illegal on the international market, the manufacturers weren’t concerned with conforming their products to recognized international bandwidth spectrums. Bandwidth ranges varied wildly with these unregulated devices, creating an electronic signature that looked like a “fucking mosaic,” according to their tech. Even this mosaic had a pattern that could be interpreted given enough time, but time wasn’t one of the luxuries on their menu today. They had arrived shortly before six o’clock, several minutes before their target exited the nearest Metro station. They simply assumed that the apartment had been rigged with video feeds, which meant their countdown started when Klinkman kicked down Pavrikova’s door.

  Nikolai risked a quick peek and saw the silver van barreling toward the intersection. He wouldn’t have time for any well-aimed semiautomatic shots. He thumbed the fire rate selector switch to automatic and raised the rifle, jamming the suppressor against the building’s corner and tilting the weapon forty-five degrees to use a small custom red dot sight affixed to the side.

  “Engaging hostile van. Request pickup on Raskovoy in front of target building.”

  Not waiting for a response, Nikolai fired a sustained but controlled burst of fire at the front windshield, peppering the glass directly in front of the driver with several rounds. His next burst collapsed a large section of windshield on the passenger side. The van lurched to the left and accelerated through the intersection, barely missing the corner that concealed him. The unguided vehicle raced past him and slammed into a streetlight on the opposite side of Raskovoy Boulevard, casting a dark shadow over the area.

  Nikolai quickly shifted to the protected side of the building’s corner and fired the rifle’s remaining rounds into the back of the van. While swiftly changing rifle magazines, he noticed several lights appear in the windows above. Their timeline had just been hyper-accelerated. Without hesitation, he leveled the Groza and systematically punctured the van’s rear compartment with the thirty rounds supplied by the fresh magazine. He reloaded the rifle, keeping it leveled toward the van, and used his peripheral vision to navigate the street. Any movement within the wrecked vehicle would conjure another maelstrom of steel from Nikolai’s weapon. His earphone crackled.

  “Coming out of the apartment with our package.”

  He detected movement to his left and quickly glanced over his shoulder to confirm that Klinkman and Pavrikova had walked through the front door.

  “The street is clear. Where the fuck is the van?” Nikolai said.

  “Turning onto Raskovoy,” his earpiece responded.

  A pair of headlights appeared on Raskovoy, moving rapidly toward them. Nikolai tensed, and Klinkman eased back into the building’s alcove. The lights flashed twice, allaying their concern and drawing them back into the open.

  “Let’s go,” he said, still focused on the last remaining immediate threat.

  He started walking backward along the sidewalk, while Klinkman and Lucya jogged toward the speeding van. By the time Nikolai climbed inside the van a few seconds later, Klinkman had replaced the electronics tech as their driver. The van sped down Raskovoy and turned onto a side street. If their plan was still intact, Klinkman would find the next major road heading north.

  He extended his hand to Lucya Pavrikova. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lucya.”

  The tears streaming down her face were illuminated by the soft green glow of a small laptop computer mounted to a table behind the second row of seats. She shook his hand tentatively, but said nothing.

  “How are we looking?” he said to the technician kneeling in front of the computer.

  The technician typed for a few seconds before looking up.

  “SVR units were pulled from the nearest surveillance job to respond. They’re fifteen minutes out. Police units have been dispatched. They should arrive within five minutes. It’ll take them time to sort out the mess. We’ll be in a different vehicle by the time they issue an alert,” Luke Fortier replied.

  “Keep a close eye on that. If we need to change vehicles sooner, we’ll improvise,” Nikolai said.

  He turned back to Pavrikova, who stared out of her window. “Did my associate fully explain your situation?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “What happens to my family?”

  “They’ll be questioned. Watched for a while, but nothing beyond that. This isn’t your father’s Soviet Union.”

  “Will I see them again?”

  “That’s not up to me. You’ll have to work that out with your new friends,” he said.

  “And who exactly are my new friends?”

  “I’m not authorized to share that information. We’re just the delivery team. I will caution you to accept their proposal,” Nikolai said.

  “What if I don’t accept?”

  “Then your broken body will turn up somewhere outside of Moscow a few days from now,” Nikolai said.

  “I should have known better than to trust Yuri. He’s so far up that Cold War dinosaur’s ass, he probably never stopped to consider the possibility that Kaparov was working for the CIA. Saving Mother Russia, my ass. Kaparov is a CIA mole,” she spat at him.

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t repeat that again. Ever,” he said and placed the business end of the OTs-14’s suppressor against her forehead. “Unless your specific intent is to nullify any arrangements that have been made on your behalf. And for the record, Yuri Prerovsky and his Cold War dinosaur boss saved your ass from a miserable death. They insisted that you be given a second chance.”

  “How generous of them. I disappear and nothing changes for them,” she uttered, sniffling and wiping her face.

  “Exposing Kaparov would have put you in the hands of some very pissed off Directorate S operatives. Did you think they would grant you some kind of immunity deal?” he asked, staring into her face.

  She averted her eyes, which told him everything he needed to know. He was surprised that she could have been so naïve, even for a technical agent.

  “You did. Well, you’re the luckiest woman in Moscow
right now. Up until five minutes ago, you were on course to be brutally tortured and gang raped to death in some undisclosed, dank warehouse. I’d say your options have significantly improved thanks to your friends.”

  She started sobbing uncontrollably, which suited Nikolai fine. She needed to get as much of this emotional outburst out of the way before they handed her off to the CIA. She’d need to be as levelheaded as possible during the transfer. The full bottle of wine she had consumed over the past hour compounded this problem. He’d make sure they understood this, though he hoped she might sober up slightly by the time they made the delivery. She had a chance to come out of this unscathed, and he was happy to steer her away from her certain fate at the hands of the Foreign Intelligence Service.

  Even more so, he was pleased to learn that his ten-year undercover stint hadn’t been compromised for a trivial reason. Sanderson didn’t know which FSB agents would benefit from Lucya’s abduction, but Nikolai had always made it a priority to learn the names and ranks of the senior agents at the Federation Security Service. The mere mention of Kaparov and his direct subordinate tied the entire scenario together for him. If the FSB’s deputy director of the Bioweapons/Chemical Threat Assessment Division was assisting the CIA, the removal of Lucya Pavrikova had everything to do with enabling a future operation to deal with the bioweapons mess that had been unleashed on the world.

  His only regret was that he would not be able to directly participate in the operation. He had been officially recalled from Russian soil, to return to Argentina. Since Luke couldn’t determine with one hundred percent certainty that no external cameras had been used by the SVR near Pavrikova’s apartment building, they had to assume that both he and Klinkman would eventually be identified. Sanderson strongly suspected that images taken by street security cameras in Stockholm had led to the recent disappearance of one of their operatives. Until their identities could be significantly changed, they would be confined to the Americas.