“Jared’s hands feel like icicles,” Foley said, raising a few eyebrows and eliciting a few grins. “Add sexual harassment to my list of complaints.”
“She’s right. My hands have to be at least five degrees below body core temperature, and I don’t have diabetes…as far as I know,” said Jared Hoffman — Gosha for this mission.
“We need to do some research into hand temperatures. If you can’t find a satisfactory amount of information in the next hour using the internet, I’ll call Berg and put him to work on this. I’m sure the CIA has a body of information on the subject of beating biometric scanners. If any doubt remains about the viability of using a detached hand, we’ll have to kidnap one of the scientists,” Farrington said.
“We don’t have the people for that,” Grisha said.
“I know. I’ll talk to Viktor about adding the service, if necessary. Anything else?” he asked, looking around at the team. When no one responded, he went on. “Very well. We still have a lot of work to do before we step off tomorrow, so don’t waste any time. Check and recheck the gear. If we need to replace something, I need to hear it sooner than later. Erin, can you stick around a second?” he said, nodding at Grisha, who left with the rest of the team.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Are you sure you’re all right with the mission timeline? You’ll be cutting it close with your flight,” Farrington said.
“I’ll be fine. If I miss the flight, I know where to find a ride home,” Foley said.
“Trust me. You want to be on that flight.”
She regarded him for a moment, and he suspected that she might try and argue her case for staying. He didn’t need her at Vektor Labs, but the team could always use another capable operative during the exfiltration. She wasn’t trained for the kind of combat he anticipated, but she had proven to be a decisive asset in Stockholm. He simply couldn’t discount her based on the conditions he expected during their escape. He had other reasons for ensuring her safe departure.
“You have skills our program desperately needs, and from what I understand, you’re slated to spend the rest of your career behind a desk in Langley. When you get back to the States, consider taking a long vacation to Argentina,” he suggested.
“What makes you think I don’t want a cushy desk job in the CIA’s Scandinavian section?”
“Just a hunch,” he said.
“I’ll make the flight.”
Chapter 36
Farrington watched Viktor closely for a reaction to his request. The stolid Russian took a long drag on his cigarette and let the smoke pour through his nose, never changing his expression.
“You do realize it will be Sunday evening? We’ll have to do this in their homes,” Viktor said.
“I don’t see any other way. It’s a timing issue for my team. They can’t be in two places at once,” Farrington said.
“Bullshit,” Viktor said, rising from behind his desk in a cloud of smoke. “You need me to do the dirtiest part of your job.” Farrington started to protest, but Viktor continued. “I wondered when you would come crawling to me for this. Your people may be super-soldiers, but they’re not cut out for street murder and dismemberment.”
“I call it targeted killing of enemy personnel. Assassination. You call it street murder. I guess it depends on where you’re sitting,” Farrington countered.
“It’s murder no matter how you look at it, and I don’t get the sense that your team is up for dragging people out of their homes in front of their loved ones to kill them. Two million dollars. Final price. You take it or leave it,” Viktor said.
Farrington was relieved to hear him make an offer within the range he was immediately authorized to pay. He didn’t feel like wasting time debating the distinction between the Solntesvskaya’s concept of murder and his own. He agreed with the basic reality of Viktor’s simplistic view that “murder is murder,” but differed vastly in his interpretation and justification of killing in the course of executing his duties.
Viktor’s people killed to secure the dominance of their organized crime network, employing individuals that embraced murder and violence. Farrington’s people killed to safeguard lives, utilizing men and women that had to be convinced and conditioned to kill without question. He was grateful to spare his team the exposure to what would be an extremely unpleasant and morally confusing job, but he wasn’t the least bit swayed by Viktor’s dime-store comparison.
“There won’t be any room for error on this,” Farrington said.
“Lucky for you, we’ve been watching them closely. Do we have a deal?”
“No casualties outside of the scientists,” Farrington said.
“I can’t promise that, but I can assure you that it is in my best interest to limit the killing to the scientists. See, I knew this wasn’t your cup of tea. If this were my operation, I would make it a point to kill everyone present to send a message. How many scientists would be eager to sign up for the same job after learning what happened?”
“I think limiting the damage to the scientists will send the right message. Shall I have the money transferred to the same bank?”
“No negotiation? I should have started at three million. We’ll use a different bank this time,” Viktor said.
Thirty minutes later, Farrington confirmed the transfer of two million dollars from one of Sanderson’s accounts in the Cayman Islands to a bank account number traceable to Switzerland. He suspected that Viktor had made this deal without permission from his superiors. The initial payment to guarantee Solntsevskaya cooperation had been made to a bank in Moscow, where the money had presumably been transferred to one of the world’s more discreet banking havens. If Viktor was siphoning money into his own account, it meant that he was violating orders by helping them kill the scientists. This eased Farrington’s concerns about trigger-happy Russian mobsters. Viktor couldn’t afford the extra scrutiny guaranteed to come with an execution-style family massacre linked to the evening’s festivities at Vektor.
Chapter 37
Pamela Travis balanced four plates of hot food using a combination of her hands and arms. She had been working at Benny’s for over a decade, never missing a Saturday morning. Saturday mornings, even in the dead of winter, kept the tables packed well past noon, which in turn put good tip money in her pocket. The summers were insane, when vacationers turned up to enjoy the Lake Memphremagog waterfront and boaters drifted down the lake a few miles from Canada to dock in Newport for the afternoon.
Arriving at any time past eight in the morning on a Saturday or Sunday morning guaranteed a minimum one-hour wait for a table. Any later than that and a party of four might be stuck outside for two hours, free to wander Main Street and window shop, but under constant threat of losing their table. Benny’s waiting policy was strict. Each party received one announcement followed by a half-minute wait before they moved onto the next name on the waiting list.
Frankly, she wasn’t sure why anyone would wait so long for Benny’s food or put up with his wait-list shenanigans. The food was standard American breakfast fare, with little variation or panache. She made better corned beef hash at home, in half the time, and her pancakes were gourmet compared to Benny’s. She supposed the long lines were more a function of the competitive market than tastiness.