5
The metal door set in a metal frame was the color of milk and had an electric lock. It opened only when a five-digit code was punched into a numeric pad on the outside. There was no knob inside the square fifteen-by-fifteen room. Kyle pushed through after a DSS agent tapped his security number, and the door opened with a dull thunk.
The Russian was on his feet, facing the door, as if some vibe had alerted him. The room was soundproof and the mirrored window was unbreakable. Audio and visual recorders were monitoring every sound and movement. Recessed fluorescent lights were behind metal grates in the white ceiling, while the floor was concrete, layered with a thick epoxy that would not chip. The walls were as thick as those of a castle.
“Hello, Gunny.” The voice was controlled and revealed no discomfort, despite what had to be a mental storm raging inside the defector’s brain.
“Hello, Ivan. Or should it be ‘Hello, Colonel Strakov’?” Then, in a calculated bit of tradecraft to break the ice, Swanson extended his hand and the GRU officer shook it. The grip was warm and dry, and the gaze was steady, giving no sign of nervousness. “It has been awhile, hasn’t it?”
The Russian officer’s face surrendered a bit of a smile that was more amusement than sincerity, for he knew how the game was played. He had interrogated many men and women, at times using what the Americans quaintly called enhanced techniques. Feigned friendship was also an effective ploy. Nevertheless, he was truly glad to see Swanson again. Not only did it mean the Americans had caved in to his first demand, but he really did hold a reluctant personal admiration for the sniper. “I am very pleased to see you again, Gunny.”
“Word has it that you are dead, Ivan.” Swanson moved to a chair and sat down. “A plane crashed in Lake Baikal, way the hell up in Siberia. Two people were aboard, you being one of them. That seems a little peculiar to me.”
Ivan replied with a line from a Robert Service poem about strange things being done in the land of the midnight sun.
“We have been here less than a minute, and already you’re spouting poetry. Screw that. Explain the crash.”
The Russian crossed his legs. “Yes, I had been scheduled to fly to Irkutsk for an inspection aboard a small military aircraft that most unfortunately crashed in Lake Baikal. At the last moment, I could not make the flight and therefore sent the plane on without me, telling the pilot I would catch up with him later. My name remained on the flight manifest, my schedule stated I was to be aboard, and there was a substantial amount of additional evidence to prove that I was going to that barren place. The trip had been a month in the planning. As you know, Baikal is the deepest freshwater lake in the world, more like an ocean, and when the plane went down, the wreckage sank without a trace. It was most unfortunate.”
“In other words, you set it up.”
“I required a bit of misdirection, Kyle. You appreciate that in evasion and escape. Without my GRU colleagues hunting me, it would be less difficult to travel in the opposite direction, say, for instance, to the American embassy in Helsinki.”
“You murdered the pilot.”
“That is merely a technical term. I needed it to serve the greater good. So what? What is your point, Sniper?”
Swanson looked steadily at the Russian. There was no need to get into the morality of killing, or arguing the finer points of death, on orders versus deliberate and personal. The colonel was in custody, across the table from him in a locked room and the only real question was: Why? Not the moment yet to ask that outright, Kyle decided, and changed the topic.
“Last time we were together, Ivan, you were just a punk sergeant in the naval infantry. Now you are a colonel. Tell me about that magic carpet of promotions.”
“That is thanks to you, Kyle. When you flunked me out of the program, you ended my career as a sniper and advised me to find some other way to serve my country. Within a few months, I had put down my rifle and volunteered for military intelligence. I did not have a college, but knew that I was pretty smart, Kyle, always good with numbers and computers and techie stuff. After a lot of testing, they discovered not only that I had an off-the-charts IQ, but that I also was an eidetiker, which means that my memory is almost photographic. They were so happy that they started me as a captain.”
Swanson was quiet for a moment, trying to reconcile the scatterbrained young Russian he had known with the certified genius he was interviewing. “Still, your age does not fit your rank, Ivan. That makes us think that there is something else going on with this so-called defection.” Strakov was a sergeant in his late twenties when they were on the range, but the official record had him graduating a few years later from the Moscow Military Institute of the Federal Security Service, coming out as a lieutenant colonel. Then the blank, dark years of his work within the GRU and back to school at the Academy of the General Staff, graduating as a full colonel. A general’s star was surely on the horizon. It reminded Kyle Swanson somewhat of his own recorded history, which painted a picture with a lot of parts missing.
The colonel shook his head. “There are official records and then there are nonofficial records; just as there are riflemen, so must there be fighters in higher ranks.” Ivan dodged the question with a stanza from “The Scythians”:
“So you became a spy. One more damned poem and I walk out.”
“No. I ran the spies.” Strakov shifted his position again. “Look, Kyle, all of this is unnecessary. The CIA is going to wring me dry, and I will spill my guts willingly. I hate what is happening to Russia, and it’s up to people like me to stop the slide in any way possible — including defecting to you guys.”
“You are still arrogant, Ivan. What makes you think you have anything that we don’t already know?”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. There are two names with which everyone in the modern intelligence world is familiar — Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and your renegade NSA computer whiz Edward Snowden.” Strakov rose and took a few slow steps to face the big mirror, knowing that more Americans were watching from behind the glass. “That is the level on which I have come to play. I have spent several years planning this personal exodus, Kyle. You and your people should consider me a Snowden from the other side.” He smiled genially into the mirror and said, “I’m going to rock their world.”
Swanson got up and stretched, then took his time finding a place to lean against the thick wall. He was really happy that all of this was being recorded on video and audio. “Why me?”
The Moscow spymaster turned to face him, falling smoothly into a professorial mode. “The first step was to make my escape. That has been accomplished. Next I have to prove that I have information that is worthwhile.”
“You already gave up some material about some artillery regiment in the Ukraine, right? More of that kind of thing?”
The Russian began to slowly pace, with his hands in his pockets, his blue eyes sparkling with excitement. “Not at all. That was nothing. Your satellites would have caught most of that anyway, eventually. No, I wanted Kyle Swanson because I need to send you out on a mission. That’s what I really trust; your ability to get the job done.”
Kyle barked a laugh. “You want to send me on a mission? No way.”
Strakov was unruffled and continued. “Oh, you will go. The people in the next room will make that a priority. Right now you are all convinced that I am real and alive, although listed as being dead. Now you will determine if my information has value.”