Justin returned to the CIA center after a long conversation with Zamir. The man liked to talk and wanted to talk, giving him a deep insight into the structure, the workings, and the plans of the Islamic Devotion Movement. His speech was saturated with religious undertones, but Justin found it unnecessary to interrupt the flow of Zamir’s confession.
He began by telling Justin how he first became involved with the IDM. It came shortly after his brother’s death. Zamir claimed his brother was innocent and had never had any connections to extremist or separatist groups. Spetsnaz had made a mistake but they were not going to admit it. So Zamir joined the ranks of the IDM to avenge his brother, bringing his financial knowhow to the organization. He talked about how he set up offshore bank accounts on behalf of the IDM and transferred money all over the world to finance the IDM’s operations. Eventually, he got to the point where he gave up names, locations, current and future plans of the IDM — the intelligence Justin was looking for.
Zamir repeated the same story, albeit the abridged version, in the presence of the CIA agents and Carrie. They ran some of the names and locations through a series of databases and contacted the CIA station in Moscow to confirm some of the data. At first glance, Zamir was telling the truth. They were not sure if he was telling the whole truth, but it was sufficient for the time being, sufficient for Zamir to avoid waterboarding or other techniques of “enhanced interrogation” in the near future, and sufficient for the agents to present new intelligence to their FSB counterparts the next day in Moscow.
Chapter Fifteen
Their briefing with Alexander Derzhavin was scheduled to take place at ten o’clock in one of the FSB conference rooms. Justin, Carrie, and Becca had arrived straight from the Vnukovo Airport after their short flight earlier that morning from Vilnius. Maxim Levin, an FSB Special Agent, had met them downstairs and had escorted them to the conference room. They sat around a large, rustic wood table and waited for Deputy Director Derzhavin to join them for their meeting.
Justin ran his eyes around the room. It seemed to have been recently renovated, with new dark red hardwood flooring. A large projector was mounted to the ceiling and a roll-up projector screen was fastened over a whiteboard across from the table. Two large flat-screen TVs were set on top of a side table near one of the corners, and Justin assumed they served for a video conference connection.
Then his eyes fell on Maxim, who had insisted they call him Max. He was in his late twenties or early thirties. His face was clean-shaven and he had pale white skin with an explosion of freckles that made him look younger. He had cut his reddish-blonde hair short in a high and tight style, which defined his face and his strong jawline.
“They just finished remodeling this room along with most of the offices on this floor,” Max said, pointing to the table and the floor. “This one was handmade in St. Petersburg.” He tapped lightly on the table.
Justin ran his hand along the edge of the table, observing the detailed handiwork and wondering about its cost. It looked and felt expensive. FSB offices were generally equipped with just basic, practical furniture without much thought given to luxury. But this was a meeting place with foreign representatives and it had to reflect the image of Russia’s power and pride. Like in our offices, Justin thought, when conference rooms have all the expensive tables and electronics.
“It’s amazing,” Justin said. “And it matches so well with the rest.”
Max nodded. “That’s what they’re trying to do, keep most of the original flavor of the building, in both exterior and interior renovations.”
His English had a very slight trace of an accent that sounded like it could be from anywhere in Eastern Europe.
Max said, “You know this building is over a hundred years old. It was completed in 1900 and it hosted apartments and offices, mostly of the insurance company that owned it. The prison and other structures in the back were built later, after the government nationalized the building.”
“When did the FSB take over?” asked Carrie.
She had set her yellow notepad and her pen in front of her.
“The KGB moved here back in the eighties, I don’t remember the exact year. We came after the KGB’s dissolution.”
Justin nodded.
A tense silence reigned for a few moments, broken only by Becca’s tapping on her tablet’s keyboard. Then the door opened and a small man entered the conference room. He was dressed in a nice-fitting gray suit, white shirt, and a gray and white tie. Most of his gray hair had fallen out, leaving him with two uneven patches at the sides of his head. He had small black eyes that reflected a strong feeling of impatience mixed with anger.
Justin recognized him as Derzhavin, Deputy Director of the FSB’s Special Purpose Center. The name of his directorate was Service to Protect the Constitutional System and Combat Terrorism. In the old KGB times, there had been two directorates charged with this task. The first one was the infamous Fifth Directorate, which hunted dissidents and political enemies of the state. The second one was Directorate K, which dealt with fighting actual terrorists, their activities, and their threats. Derzhavin had worked for the latter for almost ten years, before moving up the ranks of the FSB.
“An urgent matter came up and tied my hands,” Derzhavin said in a cold, unapologetic voice as he hurriedly moved toward them. His English was flawless and there was no trace of an accent.
They all stood up and shook hands while Justin introduced Derzhavin to his team.
“How was your flight?” Derzhavin asked when they had all sat down. He had taken the seat right across from Justin.
“Excellent.” Justin straightened the front of his black jacket and his black tie.
“No turbulence?”
“No.”
“That’s rare. I always find turbulence when I travel to the United States.”
Justin was not sure if Derzhavin was referring to actual flight conditions or using a metaphor, so he just nodded and smiled.
Derzhavin took a couple of manila folders out of his briefcase, then tapped his outside jacket pockets. He grinned as he found what he was looking for and slipped out a pair of metal-framed reading glasses with double brow bar. He used only his left hand to put them on, while flipping through the first folder.
“So, Mr. Hall, we’re here to exchange intelligence on Chechen terrorists’ activities in our countries’, well, let’s say jurisdictions, since we have representatives from both Canada and the US.” He gestured toward Becca. “Why don’t you let me know what you have?”
“Sure, thank you.” Justin opened one of his folders and passed a document to Derzhavin and a copy to Max. “This is an intelligence report on terrorists’ recent activities in the United States. As you can see from the first and the second pages, a few arrests have been made and some people are being questioned as we speak.”
Derzhavin glanced at the document. He took a moment to underline a couple of things on the first page, then moved on to the second page.
“The report is accurate as of yesterday morning,” Justin continued. “We’ll receive another update later on today, which we will share with you, of course. The CIA and the CIS are fully committed to cooperating in exchanging all intelligence on our common enemy.” Justin underlined “all” more than was necessary.
Derzhavin seemed to have missed the added emphasis. He scratched his round jaw, then said, “Save me some time and give me the specifics of these reports, and tell me something I don’t know. We are already familiar with these arrests in Los Angeles and with general plans to attack our airports. Has there been any progress in your interrogations of these suspects?”