Both of the young people turned serious in a heartbeat. “We must tread carefully on this, Simon,” Brokk said. “Proof is hard to come by, and the Russians are volatile about the subject.”
Anneli slapped her hand on the table, leaned across and hissed in a softer tone, like a cute, poisonous viper. “Well, fuck the Russians. People like us — the opponents of the leftover commies — have begun to vanish in the past few months from towns all along the border. One day they are amongst us, and the next day they are gone without a trace. Nothing is ever heard from them again and the police say they probably just left town.”
“Shhh,” Brokk cautioned her. “Maybe we can discuss that later, after I get to know Simon better. After all, he may be a spy sent to entrap us.”
“I have no secrets, Brokk. I’m a writer for tourists. If you want to know how much it costs to go up in the Eiffel Tower, then I’m your guy. The name of a good restaurant with low prices in London? Got you covered. Anything else is out of my league.” He finished his beer and signaled for another. “I never discuss religion or politics while drinking, and frankly, I do not like the idea of being used by you two revolutionaries.”
Both stared at him. Anneli finally called for another beer herself, and declared, “Then you are a useless human being.”
“Yeah. That pretty much sums me up,” Swanson said.
8
The rain gods had been merciful and the little camp that Swanson had made in the forest remained dry throughout the night. Alone, shielded by the forest, he bagged out and slept well with the soothing rush of the wide Narva River at his side. On awakening in the gray dawn of Thursday morning, he stretched out and thought about building a fire and making coffee, but suppressed that urge. Fire and smoke drew attention. Instead, he washed at the edge of the river and the frigid water finished the wake-up. Some juice and an energy bar were his breakfast, then he climbed back into the sleeping bag and snoozed for a while longer. Both his pulse and heartbeat were low, and his mind was clear.
He had not carried much for the trip, but took his time to carefully roll, tie and stow everything, and to bury trash and unneeded items. When it was time for the trip out, he brushed over his tracks and started the big BMW. He had to keep the tourism writer charade going for just a little while longer. Tonight he would be sleeping in a hotel suite in Tallinn with hot showers, and eating steak on a plate. He did not dwell on the political and social aspirations of the energetic young couple he had met the previous day, for he did not have a dog in that particular fight. They were little-league protestors scrapping with a cub, while Swanson was dealing with the whole Russian bear. However, he would pass their names along to the CIA and perhaps the pair might be cultivated as on-the-ground information assets. Reliable human intelligence sources, HUMINT, were precious in the spy game. Still, it was hard not to like the emotional youngsters, and he wished them success.
Once parked at the castle, he used some time to walk around the sprawling grounds to familiarize and get oriented. The more than seven acres that were steeped in bloody history were an interlocking masterwork of defense. The grounds, studded with individual bastions, swept up from the west side of the river to the dominant crown of the Hermann Castle, which was the official name. Just across on the east side of the river was the imposing Ivangorod fortress, and the grounds of both had been modernized and improved over the centuries as arrows gave way to firearms. Together with the area’s other waterways, dense forests and soupy swamps, it had been a military choke point in the old days and still was. Kyle stopped to make a note of that as he checked his map.
A ticket to the castle cost only a few Euros, and he actually played tourist, although he looked at things through military eyes. The Northern Yard had been rebuilt to showcase life as it had been in the seventeeth century, the colorful Linnaeus ’Garden was struggling into bloom, and he found the ten-foot bronze statue of Lenin hidden away in a corner and caked with dirt, as if embarrassed. The inner museum was mildly interesting, as were the tight tunnels and the soaring ceiling in the refectory. Kyle made it obvious that he was taking notes, playing reporter. He sketched in his pad. He had lunch. He blended.
Finally, about one o’clock, he made his way into the Pikk Hermann Tower, a massive square edifice that soared up more than 160 feet, and the stairs tested anyone not used to exercise. There were a few tourists around the topmost gallery, but they came and went, and the single security guard strolled through once. When the guard was gone, the journey through ancient history was over for Kyle. Time to work. He brought out his Bushnell 7x50 binoculars, compact and powerful, with a built-in digital compass, and leaned on the waist-high safety railing to steady his view.
The Ivangorod castle, of course, dominated the close view. It was lower and flatter, with crenellated walls, a dreary piece of architecture that had not kept pace with the renovation of its counterpart in Estonia. From his high position, Kyle could see over and around it for a long way.
A long, solid bridge alongside the pair of castles connected the highway between the two nations. Swanson examined it. Cars and trucks were in line to get into Russia, but it was a long wait today due to the construction on the Russian side. Gangs of workers were shoring up, strengthening and expanding the roadway from behind the entry points on out of sight to the east. He made notes and drew it, using a fresh page.
The town of Ivangorod itself was not very large, with a population of only about eleven thousand people, and weathered old rooftops poked through thick belts of trees near the downtown area. To the south of the castle, he spotted more heavy construction in the distance that indicated the possibility that an airport was being laid out. He consulted his guidebook. The airport nearest to Ivangorod was about seventy-five miles away. Pretty logical that they might want a closer one, although he was seeing something a lot bigger than a single landing strip for small planes. His pencil raced over the paper, and he noted the compass bearing and turned the page, shifting his attention to a third point of interest.
What looked like an industrial area was busy. A lot of trucks were moving to the area, and he did not see any major buildings that would indicate some major foundry or manufacturing facility. There were no smokestacks, a normal part of Russian construction, where air quality was not high on the priority list. Instead, there were round tanks in which liquids could be stored, and a lacework of shiny new pipes to shift it around. He pinpointed the location and noted, Chemicals?
Then he realized that he had dismissed the Russian castle itself because it was such an obvious location and, drawing his binos in tighter, he spotted fresh rail lines snaking into the rear area. Not rusty steel, but shining in the midday sun. Behind the back stone wall he spotted a series of low and long buildings at precise positions, equidistant. Then, with the sun so high and at a slight angle, he saw the barbed concertina wire around one of the buildings. A few uniformed soldiers with weapons walked the perimeter. The people inside the courtyard of the castle were also soldiers, and not tourists. He had simply overlooked them as being too obvious. Swanson quickly drew it all, made his notes, but didn’t commit his conclusion to paper. He needed to think about it before doing so. Swanson folded up the tablet, put away the binos and just stood still, taking it all in, pivoting his head left to right and back again.
A new airport, rail lines, a possible fuel farm, some military barracks, a prison and road construction that would support heavier weights. It could be a surge of economic investment, but he didn’t think so. The kids last night told him that the inhabitants of the neighboring town had recently applied to Moscow to be allowed to join Estonia, which was not the act of people enjoying a surge of economic prosperity. That highway improvement, he thought, could just as well be used to handle tanks and armored vehicles. Forgotten little Ivangorod was being polished up with all the makings of a first-class FOB, a forward operating base, a military jump-off point. The only place for Russia to jump to from there was into Estonia. That was why Ivan had sent him here. Nothing else made sense.