Odette asked the elderly clerk if she could have more shampoo. Smiling pleasantly, the clerk rose and went to one of the carts. While the woman’s back was turned, Odette took one of the master keys from the wall. The clerk returned with three small bottles of shampoo. The woman asked if she needed anything else. Odette said that she did not. Thanking her, Odette returned to the lobby and walked to the bank of telephone booths that lined an alcove in the back.
As she was walking, her phone beeped. She tucked herself into one of the booths, shut the door, then answered it.
Orlov said his team had broken into the hotel compuer and they had five possibilities. Odette wrote down the names and room numbers.
“We might be able to narrow it down a little more,” Orlov told her. “If someone wanted to get out of the country quickly, he would assume a nationality the Azerbaijani would not want around.”
“Iranian,” Odette said.
“No,” Orlov countered. “Iranians might be detained. Russian is more likely. And there are two Russians at the hotel.”
Odette said she might be able to narrow it down even further by checking the room telephone records.
“Good thinking,” Orlov said. “Hold on while we’re checking. Also, Odette, there’s one thing more.”
Odette felt her lower belly tighten. There was something about the general’s voice.
“I spoke with Mr. Battat a few minutes ago,” Orlov said.
Odette felt as if she’d run into a thick, low-lying tree branch. Her momentum died and her head began to throb. She did not think she had done wrong, leaving a sick man at home. But she had disobeyed an order and could think of nothing to say in her defense.
“The American is on his way to the hotel,” General Orlov continued evenly. “I told him to look for you in the lobby. You’re to wait until he arrives before you try to take down your man. Do you understand, Odette?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
“Good,” Orlov said.
The woman held on as Orlov’s staff checked the records. Her palms were damp. That was less from nervousness than from having been caught. She was an honest woman by nature, and Orlov’s trust was important to her. She hoped he understood why she had lied. It was not just to protect Battat. It was to allow herself to concentrate on the mission instead of on a sick man.
According to the hotel’s records, two of the five men staying there had not made any calls from the room. One of them, Ivan Ganiev, was Russian. Orlov told her they were also checking the computer’s housekeeping records. According to the last report, filed the day before, Ganiev’s room, number 310, had not been cleaned in the three days he had been there.
Meanwhile, Orlov went to his computer and asked for a background check on the name. It came up quickly.
“Ganiev is a telecommunications consultant who lives in Moscow. We’re checking the address now to make sure it’s valid. He doesn’t appear to work for any one company,” Orlov said.
“So there’s no personnel file we can check for his education or background,” she said.
“Exactly,” Orlov said. “He’s registered with the Central Technology Licensing Bureau, but all it takes to get a license is a bribe. Ganiev does not have family in Moscow, does not appear to belong to any organizations, and receives his mail at a post office box.”
That made sense, Odette thought. No mail collecting in the postbox, no newspapers piling up on the stoop. None of the neighbors would be certain whether he was there or not.
“Hold on, we have his address,” Orlov added. He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “It’s him. It has to be.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Ganiev’s residence is a block from the Kievskaya metro stop,” Orlov told her.
“Which means—?”
“That’s where we’ve lost the Harpooner on at least two other occasions,” Orlov said.
Battat walked into the lobby just then. He looked like Viktor did after ten rounds of boxing in the military amateurs. Wobbly. Battat saw Odette and walked toward her.
“So it looks as though he’s our man,” Odette said. “Do we proceed as planned?”
This was the most difficult part of intelligence work. Making a determination about life and death based on an educated guess. If General Orlov were wrong, then an innocent man would die. Not the first and certainly not the last. National security was never error-free. But if he were correct, hundreds of lives might be spared. Then there was the option of attempting to capture the Harpooner and turn him over to Azerbaijani authorities. Even if it could be done, there were two problems with that. First, the Azerbaijanis would find out who Odette really was. Worse, they might not want to try to extradite the Harpooner. It was an Iranian rig he had attacked. And Russian buildings. And American embassies. The Azerbaijanis might want to make some kind of arrangement with him. Release him in exchange for his cooperation, for help in covert actions of their own. That was something Moscow could not risk.
“You’re going to wait for the American to arrive?” Orlov asked.
“He’s here now,” Odette said. “Do you want to speak with him?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Orlov said. “The Harpooner will probably be traveling with high-tech equipment to go with his cover story. I want you to take some of it and any money he’s carrying. Pull out drawers and empty the luggage. Make it look like a robbery. And work out an escape route before you go in.”
“All right,” she said.
There was nothing patronizing about Orlov’s tone. He was giving instructions and also reviewing a checklist out loud. He was making sure that both he and Odette understood what must be done before she closed in.
Orlov was quiet again. Odette imagined him reviewing the data on his computer. He would be looking for additional confirmation that this was their quarry. Or a reason to suspect it was not.
“I’m arranging for airline tickets out of the country in case you need them when you’re finished,” Orlov said. He waited another moment and then decided as Odette knew he must. “Go and get him.”
Odette acknowledged the order and hung up.
FORTY-SEVEN
Hood shut the door of the Cabinet Room behind him. There was a coffee machine on a small table in the far comer. The first thing Paul did upon entering was brew a pot using bottled water. He felt guilty doing that in the midst of a crisis, but he needed the caffeine kick. Desperately. Though his mind was speeding, his eyes and body from the shoulders down were crashing. Even the smell of the coffee helped as it began to brew. As he stood watching the steam, he thought back to the meeting he had just left. The shortest way of defusing the crisis on this end was to break Fenwick and whatever cabal he had put together. He hoped he could go back there with information, something to rattle Fenwick or Gable.
“I need time to think,” he muttered to himself. Time to figure out how best to attack them if he had nothing more than he did now.
Hood turned from the coffeemaker. He sat on the edge of the large conference table and pulled over one of the telephones. He called Bob Herbert to see if his intelligence chief had any news or sources he could hit up for information about the Harpooner and possible contact with the NSA.
He did not.
“Unless no news is news,” Herbert added.
Herbert had already woken several acquaintances who either worked for or were familiar with the activities of the NSA. Calling them in the middle of the night had the advantage of catching them off guard. If they knew anything, they would probably blurt it out. Herbert asked if any of them had heard about U.S. intelligence overtures to Iran.