He pulled a burner cellphone from the pile in his desk drawer and dialed Olga’s cellphone. There was no answer. Repeated tries yielded the same result.
Deciding he could wait no longer, Karpov grabbed his coat and left the embassy. What if the girl had become disillusioned and gone to the FBI? Or had she simply forgotten her cellphone at home? Perhaps she had fallen seriously ill or been in an accident. He could not avoid the hope that it had been the latter, and she was dead. From the beginning I knew that such a pampered little girl from Moscow should not be involved in serious matters. The bitterness of his recollection spurred him to move faster. Whatever was going on, it had to be controlled before a disaster occurred.
The only thing he could do was go directly to her apartment, and that would take precious time as he had to be certain he was not followed.
It would be risky to enter the apartment. If the worst came to pass, he could walk into a trap. He decided to wait on the street and found a comfortable spot by the window in a café across opposite the entrance to Olga’s building. After what seemed an eternity he saw her approaching unsteadily along the sidewalk. He hurried out of the café to intercept her, scanning carefully in all directions for signs of danger.
“What are you up to?” He grabbed her roughly by the elbow, his alarm lending unnecessary force to his grasp. “Why didn’t you go to the office today?”
She jerked her arm away. Her face infused with rage and her voice shaking, she said, “I’ll never go to the office again. Not to yours and not to theirs, never! Never. I’m going back to Moscow. I’ve had enough, and I’m sick of these abominations. I can’t take it anymore. I’m finished.”
“Hold on.” His voice was hard, and he grabbed her arm again. “You can’t do that.”
“Don’t touch me! Take your hands off me or I’ll call the police. I never want to see you again, you damned pig, you murderer! It’s your entire fault, everything.”
Startled by her heat, he stepped back from her. The girl was insane. He adopted a conciliatory tone. “Olga, wait. I see that you’re terribly upset, and it really is my fault. You weren’t prepared for this. If you really want to go home, I’ll arrange it immediately. It will take several hours, but just wait in the apartment, and I’ll send someone from the embassy to pick you up. I promise to have you on a plane to Moscow tomorrow.”
Olga was not mollified, but what else could she do? She was alone in a foreign land with no friends, no one to help her. At least there would be some comfort in returning home.
She glared at Karpov, the incarnation of her own self-loathing, and merely nodded agreement.
Karpov waited until the door closed behind her and he was satisfied she was going to her apartment. Things had taken a dangerous turn for the worst and required immediate action.
There was no way he could permit Olga to enter the embassy. His mission in Washington and the actions he had taken, especially the Metro bombing, were known to no one else outside the Lubyanka. If he cut her free at an airport teeming with American security personnel, she could do anything.
The Chechens were his only hope.
Chapter 45
Krystal Murphy must have been more tired than she realized because she passed the night in dreamless sleep despite the horrors of the day before. She awoke with a start and it took a moment to remember where she was. This prompted thoughts of Ray Velazquez, which warmed her a bit until her bare feet hit the frigid floor and brought her with an almost audible thump back to wintry Arlington.
After a long, hot shower she discovered nothing but stale cereal in the pantry and pickles and beer in the refrigerator which she had cleaned out before going to Florida. She decided to grab a pastry and coffee at Starbucks on the way to the office and bundled up for the drive.
She cursed as she swept snow from her old Corolla. Fifteen minutes later she was at her desk where she found numerous notes asking her to contact various media outlets. She immediately dumped them into her wastebasket. She saw no sense in calling people to tell them there was nothing she could say.
She hadn’t kept up with the news, having collapsed into bed the night before, so she switched on the television and a bulletin flashing on the screen caught her attention: METRO BOMBERS IDENTIFIED. She turned up the sound in time to hear the talking head say the explosion was definitely a terrorist act. A claim of responsibility had been received from a heretofore unknown organization with the ominous name “Islamist-American Liberation Front.”
She recalled Ferguson’s comments of the day before and dialed his number at the FBI.
“We’re watching the news over here, too,” he said. “In each case, a woman speaking American-accented English called the media outlet to claim responsibility. She promised a more detailed written statement soon.”
“What do we say to the press?”
“Nothing, if possible; as little as we can, if we must. We’ve heard the claim of responsibility, but there is no evidence it’s real. Like I said yesterday, there are nutcases everywhere, and that’s the official line for now.”
Outside her window, snow had begun to fall again.
Chapter 46
Curiosity dragged the old man unwillingly, and not without complaint from joints that were becoming stiff with age, to the edge of his property, but there was little to be seen. If this were a training facility for terrorists they were being damned quiet about it. The old farm house was visible from the tree line, and hours of patient watching revealed only a few occupants. Peering at them through his LRB 7 X 40 New Con laser range finder binoculars, he recognized the Russian-speaking man from Costco. There was another man, too, but he saw no sign of the woman.
Just for the sake of prudence, the old man set more perimeter alarms in the tree line above the farm house. Prudence was an important facet of his personality. Prudence kept people alive. For some it could be an excuse for doing nothing, for foregoing risk. Not so for the old man, but he had learned not to rush into things.
His ideas about the North Caucasus and the practitioners of Wahabi Islam there were not exactly politically correct, but it was entirely possible that this was a family group seeking only to escape the violence of their homeland and live in peace. If they were armed, it was likely an expression of well-founded caution and ingrained tradition. When this thought crossed his mind, the old man reminded himself with a curse that he did not believe in rainbows and unicorns.
The first heavy snow arrived in late November. Hunting season was signaled by the annual appearance of camouflaged coveralls on the Valley men as they appeared in local shops or drove their pick-ups loaded with crated bear-hunting dogs that howled along the mountain roads. Bow season came and went quietly, followed by black powder season and finally by an all-out assault on the forest wildlife. The deer population was culled and many black bears did not make it back to their dens for the winter’s hibernation. The people of the Valley were not bloodthirsty thrill killers. They depended on game to put meat on the table as much now as they had a hundred years ago.
The old man did not hunt. He had no desire to kill and he posted his own acres against hunting. The occasional black bear that lumbered past the cabin heading down the mountain to forage were objects of admiration rather than targets.