“And how are we going to do that?”
“You take a quick trip, Kyle. Go south, into Finland’s little neighbor of Estonia, and conduct a surveillance of a certain place through your sniper eyes. Be as thorough as possible. Then you return and I will explain to you and a committee of experts what you saw. It will only take a few days and there should be no hostile opposition.”
“Well, Ivan, that won’t work.”
“Why not? It is a simple in-and-out.”
“I can’t return to Helsinki, even if I wanted to. I’m being expelled.”
“No matter. You Americans were going to ship me somewhere else anyway, right? Where?”
“A safe house, I would guess.” Swanson avoided a direct answer. “I don’t know any of the details.”
“Right now, they are thinking of putting me somewhere in Maryland or Virginia, a place that is handy to your intel agencies. They can forget that. I will need to be around Belgium or France.”
“You don’t get to pick and choose, Ivan. It may just be a dark hole on the hard side of Detroit.”
Strakov continued, as if Kyle had said nothing. “When you return from this mission in Estonia, I predict with great certainty that your people and a lot of others are going to want me close to NATO headquarters in Brussels. Nobody knows where Estonia is right now, Kyle, but in about six months, it will be on everyone’s map. There is a whisper of war in the air.”
“That’s not another poem, is it?”
“No,” replied Colonel Strakov. “It’s a promise. Take a powerful scope or binos up to the highest point you can reach in the big castle in the eastern border city of Narva in Estonia, and have a good hard look across the river into Russia. Then come back.”
“A castle in Estonia?” Kyle cocked an eyebrow.
“Yes. It was built in the thirteenth century. Now go up in the castle.” Then Ivan clammed up again.
Everyone agreed. This had all the ingredients of a terrific video game: A council of elders would decide whether to send a brave warrior on a quest to a spooky old castle in a faraway medieval land to find a magic sword held by a fearsome enemy and save the world. All that was needed was a princess and a dragon.
The elders, in real life, were the hierarchy of the U.S. Embassy staff in Helsinki, and an hour after Swanson spoke with Strakov they were gathered in a conference room. At the head of the oval table was Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Mary Line, who had compiled an illustrious career as an academic and an athlete, and had even flown in space before becoming a political appointee. Her husband was chairman of a giant computer company and they were generous donors to the political party of the incumbent president. The previous year, she had ridden her bicycle some eight hundred miles around Finland.
“I don’t like this one little bit,” Mary Line said forcefully. “Sending a secret agent on a mission only on the word of a Russian spy will certainly antagonize Moscow!”
On her right was Jack Loran, the quiet career State Department Foreign Service officer who was deputy chief of mission, which made him the power behind the throne in times of crisis. He was the manager and the ambassador was the figurehead. “It is unusual,” he agreed.
Bob Carver, chief of the Diplomatic Security Service, was at the other end and feeling an ulcer bubbling in his belly. “Our first priority is to relocate Colonel Strakov before the Finns uncover what is going on. We have air transport available tonight, but need to decide where to send him. I vote for Washington.”
“He wants Brussels.” The ambassador reminded everyone.
“Screw what he wants, ma’am,” Carver shot back when she gave him a stare. “Sorry.”
Jack Loran looked over to CIA Station Chief Sandra Bentley, who said, “The people back in Langley have already made that decision, Madam Ambassador. The plane will leave for Paris tonight. Further arrangements will be made from there.”
Kyle Swanson liked the response. Sandi Bentley had been around the CIA for years and had earned her stripes in the field; she had run the stations in both Spain and New Zealand before coming to Helsinki. She guarded secrets carefully. She was courteous, but the ambassador did not need to know where Ivan was headed after he left Finland. Nor did she need to know where Kyle was going. He had nothing to add on that subject.
“And Agent Swanson will be leaving as soon as possible, too?” Ambassador Line was unhappy about all of these outsiders coming in and disturbing her orderly domain.
“Yes. He leaves tomorrow, too.” Bentley hardly looked up from her papers. The ambassador thought Swanson would fly straight back to Washington. The CIA station chief did not correct that erroneous conclusion.
“What do you recommend on the Russian’s request for Swanson to visit Narva, Sandi?” asked Loran.
“We’ll take care of that, too,” she replied. “You and the ambassador will have to officially log what has happened here, minute-by-minute, in case there is some future congressional investigation, Jack. Therefore, the State Department’s diplomatic involvement ends here, with the handover of the defector, and the CIA is putting a top-secret lid on all of it. Is that OK by you folks?”
“But…” the ambassador started to speak. She wanted to know more, but she looked over to her deputy chief of mission. Jack Loran gave a negative headshake and closed his folder. “That’s good.”
Swanson liked the decision. The CIA lied to the ambassador without actually doing so, and officially cut the State Department out of the loop.
The temperature rocketed down and the beautiful weather of Tuesday collapsed into a leftover winter day on Wednesday. The frozen air out of the north, a dump of overnight snow and the following gloomy gray sky beyond the hotel window matched Swanson’s mood even before he was intercepted in the lobby by Inspector Aura and Sergeant Kiuru from the Finland Security Intelligence Service. She was tapping his American passport on a forearm, burning restless energy, waiting for him.
“You were supposed to leave this morning, Mister Swanson. Surely you remember that?” She snapped the question.
“I am leaving, Inspector, even as we speak. If you step aside I will check out and be on my way.” He squared off to face her, tired of the pushiness.
“You did not make an airplane reservation.”
“That’s because I am not flying anywhere. If you would be so kind as to let me have my passport now, I will do the paperwork at the front desk and depart your lovely country. The ferry over to Estonia leaves in about an hour and I don’t have any more time to waste with you, as much as you enjoy jerking around a legitimate businessman.”
The eyes narrowed. “Why are you going to Estonia?”
“Because you are throwing me out of Finland.”
“No.” She held the passport like a lifeline and glared. “What is the reason?”
Swanson offered his palm for it. “I had a sudden urge to visit the old family farm and some distant relatives, and maybe do some business that I had considered doing in Finland. Estonia is a forward-leaning country. That’s where Skype was invented, you know, and Excalibur Enterprises is heavy into technology.”
She puffed out her lips in exasperation. “Do you even speak Estonian, Mister Swanson?”
“Of course. It is a beautiful tongue.”
“You are such a terrible liar.”
“And you are boring me. Arrest me or give me my passport and get out of my way. Good-bye, Inspector Aura.”
DSS Special Agent Lem James was waiting behind the wheel of his personal car, the motor running to keep the heater going. Kyle climbed into the front while a bellman packed his luggage into the trunk. “Did you have another pleasant meeting in there with my pal Rikka?”