“He got lucky. I’ll get him next time.”
“I would like to stand here and learn more of that assault, but we are in a hurry right now. We will see you later today, I’m sure. Please say hello to all of my friends over at the embassy.” They stepped aboard the elevator, which had not yet closed its doors. She waved. He waved back.
The trolley was now in the room, and Swanson signed the chit and the bellman left. James asked what the hell was going on.
Swanson poured two cups of the hot liquid and took his own over to the bed, where he sat down. “That bitch just dropped by to throw me out of their damned country.”
James picked up his cup, and the dainty china looked tiny is his hand. He remained standing, his eyes and brain busy absorbing the events of the past few minutes. “Watch your mouth, and don’t call Rikka a bitch, Swanson. She’s a friend. And she is also the best counterterrorism investigator in Supo, and Kiuru is a rising star. If those two came by, the expulsion order came from the top.”
Kyle fluffed a pillow, lay back and sipped the dark coffee as he thought. “Yeah. She’s no dumb flatfoot. I got that. She ripped through my cover like a paper shredder. Fuck Finland.”
Lem James picked his cell phone from a pocket. “You get ready to go while I alert our powers-that-be over at the embassy that our Finny friends are acting weird. You know that in one town over here, they have an annual Carry-Your-Wife Contest?”
Swanson went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. Before closing the door, he called out, “And I think their light-roast coffee sucks!”
“Of all the embassies in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine.” Bob Carver, the State Department’s regional security officer at the American legation, massaged his temples with his fingertips. His poor Humphrey Bogart impression from Casablanca came from being saddled with a Russian defector who was creating storm waves in the normally placid Helsinki diplomatic pond. The guy hadn’t said anything yet and people were already asking questions.
Swanson was beside Carver, looking through a one-way glass into an interview room where a man was sitting alone, at ease, and looking back at what was only a reflection. He was about six-feet-tall, slim, clean-shaven and with neatly styled, soft, coal-black hair. The blue eyes were amplified a bit by modern no-rim glasses that perched on a knife of a nose, accentuating the high cheekbones. The mouth was narrow, but not in bitterness. He carried an air of both confidence and competence. He was in a gray crewneck sweater over jeans, with nice shoes, not boots.
“Tell me again about how he came in,” Swanson instructed. “Step by step.”
“We had opened the doors of the consular section, which is separate from the embassy itself, as usual on Monday morning. There is a local law security post outside, but they do not interact with visitors unless there is some problem. In this case, there wasn’t. This guy looks just like a lot of others, and he blended in without a problem.”
“How far did he get?” Kyle knew the drill, since he had worked at several embassies while he was in the Corps.
“As I was saying, he went through the outer door and got to the public area, which has a few chairs. He didn’t sit down, but went straight into the hard line. At that point, we have regulation private security behind bulletproof glass, with a Marine in a booth, like a teller at a bank drive-through.”
Kyle understood without being told that that was where things began to get strange. Had the visitor been seeking a simple visa or some other routine piece of business, he would have been buzzed through the barrier, walked through a metal detector and allowed into the secure area to wait in line with others. Not this one.
“So this dude asks the guard, ‘Can I speak to you privately?’ and the Marine shoos away the civilian security man. When they are alone, he announces, ‘I wish to speak to someone in your intelligence section. I wish to defect,’ and he slides over his ID card.” Carter folded his arms and rocked on his heels, glowering at the man in the other room.
“The Marine takes one look at the credentials and almost has a heart attack. The cards said that he is a colonel in the GRU.”
Kyle agreed that would be enough to give pause to anyone having duty at the barrier. GRU was the acronym for the Glavnoye Razedyvatel’noye Upravleniye, which was Russian military intelligence. It was only good training that kept the Marine corporal from betraying his surprise or soiling his pants. Instead, the guard politely asked our unusual visitor to have a chair while he made a quick call up the stovepipe and asked a CIA type in the consular office to come down. That guy almost had a bowel problem himself when he met Ivan Strakov.
“They took him through the hard line and the rover Marine handcuffed and searched him and put him in that very room we are looking at right now. The higher-ups were notified. Strakov remained cool all the way, obviously familiar with the routine. He identified exactly who he was, who he worked for, who his boss was and a taste of what he has in his head.”
“Which is?” Kyle asked.
“The organizational chart and layout of a Russian army artillery regiment that moved into the Crimea last week. His recitation was amazing, right down to food- and fuel-consumption estimates for the next three months.”
“Interesting information, then, and not just bullshit?” Kyle wanted a professional judgment.
“It is more than interesting, Swanson. It is an intelligence diamond because Moscow denies the regiment is there at all. We got busy with the physical proof and recognition factors, and he even volunteered some DNA. The conclusion was that he is the real deal.”
Carver huffed and glanced over at Kyle. “When we told him we were satisfied with his identity, that’s when he bombed us with the demand that he would talk only with you; the only American he really trusted. Can you make a physical identification to back up the numbers?”
Swanson had recognized the Russian on sight. He was some years older than the last time they had been together drinking longneck beers in a cowboy bar, but Ivan was no longer a kid in any way. More than a soldier, too, he looked like a successful hedge fund manager on a day off, and there was obvious arrogance running in his veins. He was fully aware of his importance, and would not sell his goods cheaply.
“And he wants to defect.”
“Yes. That’s what he said.”
Swanson paused. “What’s the plan from here?”
“He goes out tonight to Washington as part of the diplomatic pouch, aboard the same Gulfstream that brought you in.” Carver spread his hands on his wide hips. “I’ll be glad to be rid of him.”
“That works for me, since I’m being expelled tomorrow morning anyway. I’ll get what I can in the meantime, then we both wash our hands of him. Also, the sooner the better for our Helsinki pals, eh?”
“Swanson, I am no genius, but I’ve been in this game a very long time, and I think this guy is going to be big. He has nothing to do with Finland, nothing at all, other than turning up on our doorstep like a baby in a basket. He had to start somewhere, and he chose us, and maybe you will find out why. Do not trust him. Don’t trust any defector.”
“Of course not.”
“All of that personal data, you know? The DNA and the fingerprints and the background that proves he is absolutely who he says he is? There is one thing that still puzzles me.” Carver shoved his hands into his back pockets, a movement that made his belly bulge against his belt. The basset-hound eyes turned fully to Kyle.
“And that is?”
“That same sort of foolproof material was also used a few weeks ago, and delivered results that were just as positive. It proved that, without a doubt, Colonel Ivan Strakov sitting over there in the next room is dead.”