And she did not know who had taken her. She really did not know much at all.
Jan returned to the cot and sat on it stiffly, as if her spine was iron, and pulled a threadbare white blanket around her shoulders. There had to be a camera and audio device recording her every move, although she could not see them. Pinholes. Then she closed her eyes because her thoughts turned to the unthinkable. If the Russians had her, then their security services this very minute were combing through her history, her client lists and eventually would find the people who comprised her intelligence network throughout Estonia. A few tears fell as she prayed silently for them to run for their lives.
The CIA brain trust did not panic upon receiving the news that the station chief in Estonia had vanished. Calico was not even the only crisis they would face today. Crisis was their game.
“So this new puppet mayor of Narva has announced to the world that they captured her.” Marty Atkins was summing it all up during a meeting of section chiefs. “We have received nothing through official channels. Then, over in Brussels, this jerk Strakov suddenly decides that he does not want to defect after all. Am I the only one here that smells a Russian rat?”
A general muttering of agreement rumbled around the room. Nobody in the meeting believed in coincidence.
“I agree,” said National Security Adviser Dean Thomas, who had come over from the White House. “What have you done so far?”
Atkins took off his reading glasses and studied his old friend. “Nothing much. We have to let it play out for a while. State Department is enlisting our embassy people in Tallinn to get the Estonian government to help. She is apparently being held in the Town Hall, probably a special cell. The Estonians will stomp all over the mayor to let him know that kidnapping Jan Hollings was a pretty dumb move that will backfire.”
“Are the Russians really involved?” asked Royals.
“Not a peep from them yet, Dean. You can bet they are somewhere in the woodwork, and the mayor says he will turn Calico over to them at some point.”
“Okay. President Thompson wants her back safe, sound and soon. The State Department will make that very clear to both Tallinn and Moscow. Are you doing anything specific that I can tell him?”
Marty Atkins leaned back and spun an ink pen around in his fingers. “On the clandestine side, yes. I sent one of our operatives, Kyle Swanson, into Estonia.”
“Swanson. The sniper?”
“Yep.”
Royals thought about that for a moment. “He is a very dangerous man, Marty. Maybe you should have Swanson back off until we get a clearer picture.”
“I’m afraid it is too late for that,” said Atkins. “He has dropped off the grid. No idea what the boy is up to. He likes to work alone.”
“Boy?” snorted Dean Thomas. “Swanson’s a damned frothing Rottweiler with a gun.”
“But he is our Rottweiler, Dean, and I did not let him off the leash just to do a half-assed job of locating our missing agent. We wait and see.”
President Valdimir Pushkin and his western military district commander, Colonel General Valery Levchenko, walked side by side on a secluded gravel path in the Neskuchny Gardens. Security police fanned out in a distant circle around them, shooing away tourists and Muscovites alike. April was being kind to the gardens, which had braved another Russian winter and were springing to life earlier than usual, and both men were in good spirits. The heart of Moscow was turning green.
“It is as if someone handed me a diamond of great value,” the president declared with a chuckle and a grim smile. “I confess that I had many doubts about these grandiose plans of Colonel Strakov. He seems to have accomplished the impossible.”
Levchenko kept his hands behind his back and matched the president’s stride. He had flown over from St. Petersburg again, beginning to feel like a commuter, as soon as he heard about the CIA woman. The colors of the park were remarkable, and new leaves nosed out of healthy limbs. Flowers that had been frozen seeds for months were erupting into shades and varieties that had not yet made it up to St. Petersburg. “He seems to have been damned near clairvoyant.”
Pushkin looked up as a noisy pair of ducks lumbered overhead, aiming for the nearby Moscow River. “None of us counted on having the CIA’s Estonian chief of station in custody. Strakov just wanted us to snatch some prominent American like a businessman or a tourist or a reporter, and accuse them of spying. This is so much better.”
“She fell into our laps, sir. But with her in our grasp, we also secure our hold on this weak-chinned General Ravensdale, who is forcing NATO to weaken its forces throughout the region. In addition, we dissolve the troublesome Calico intelligence network. Then we put Narva in our pocket as the springboard into Estonia. We also get Colonel Strakov back with a prisoner swap. It is a great coup. All I need right now is your final permission to wrap up Operation Hermitage when the moment comes. Phase One accomplished its mission of screwing up the NATO defenses, and our men and equipment are all back in place. Phase Two is ready to launch, and I will be in Narva tomorrow morning to personally command the movement. No weaklings will be allowed to back out at the last minute.”
The ducks came to a splashy landing out on the river, joining a paddling of several dozen others floating about and discussing the warm weather.
President Pushkin watched them while he considered the entire situation. “You have my authority. I will put that in writing. Keep me informed, Valery. Bring this all together and I will see that you replace Sergeyev as chief of the general staff.”
The general from St. Petersburg promised that he would. The president was tempted to remind him that history was littered with the bones of generals who had grown too ambitious.
Ivan Strakov had dealt the game from a stacked deck, played the hand, made the bets and won. It was sweet. The CIA people were unhappy with him for reneging on the agreement. So what? The first outburst had been to threaten to send him to a supermax or the Guantánamo prison or turn him over to some banana-republic dictator who would do their bidding. That was a bluff. Ivan knew that a prisoner swap eventually would be arranged because some important American should have been arrested by this time. Better than a fortune-teller, he had already written the future. A prisoner exchange was certain.
They had become petulant, and moaned and taken away his privileges, which bothered him not at all. Everything would work out. About now, NATO would be holding emergency meetings and urgently shifting units toward the North Pole, war-gaming worst-case scenarios and trying to envision what would result from a nuclear exchange at the top of the world. Those non-NATO nations like Finland and Sweden would be shitting their pants. And on the Russian side, Valery Levchenko would be orchestrating everything. Phase Two of Operation Hermitage should be ready to begin.
There were always unknowns, but nothing was perfect. Strakov was confident that his meticulous scheme would overwhelm any obstacles. He shook out a cigarette and lit it, blowing smoke toward the camera mounted in a corner.
Mayor Konstantin Pran was one of thirty-one members of the City Council, but his Worker’s Party had won all but five seats from the upstart Social Democrats. The decisive political victory gave him a huge majority, and the five minor-party members were not even invited to the first meeting of the new government. If they showed up, they would have been barred from the room under the claim that the meeting was a not a public meeting, but a private caucus of the Worker’s Party.
Russian was the only language spoken that afternoon in the upper corridors of the Town Hall, for the Old Guard had already made its authoritarian presence known. Pran and his henchmen had worked hard to craft their majority and saw no reason to waste time now. The mayor had been handpicked for the position by friends in both Moscow and St. Petersburg, and was the acknowledged leader of his party. His voice was the only one that really counted.