Roughly one mile away, a Bell 407GXP light helicopter orbited slowly over the city at an altitude of one thousand feet. Private flights were ordinarily restricted to routes along the Moscow River, but this helicopter belonged to Tekhwerk, GmbH — a jointly owned German and Russian import-export company specializing in industrial and light-manufacturing equipment. Since the corporation helped the Kremlin obtain otherwise difficult-to-replicate Western high-technology machinery at reasonable prices, Russia’s law enforcement and regulatory agencies often turned a blind eye to its activities.
The larger of the two men in the Bell helicopter’s luxuriously appointed passenger cabin spoke to the pilot over the intercom. “How much longer can you give us here, Max?”
“About twenty more minutes, Herr Wernicke. I told Moscow Control that you wanted to check out some possible new factory sites from the air.”
The big, beefy man who called himself Klaus Wernicke nodded appreciatively. “Good work. Keep us posted.”
“Will do.”
Wernicke looked across the cabin at his companion. “Everything okay on your end, Davey?”
“We’ve still got a good, solid signal from the Wren,” confirmed David Jones, a much smaller and younger man than his superior. He wore earphones and clutched a small handheld controller. “With the thermals I’m picking up, I should be able to keep her aloft for another five or six minutes.”
The big man nodded. The tiny Wren glider they were monitoring was the significantly more advanced version of a miniaturized reconnaissance drone originally developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Called the Cicada, the Wren’s predecessor was designed for deployment in mass swarms. Sown from manned aircraft or even larger drones, Cicadas were tasked with gathering intelligence on large-scale enemy troop movements using a variety of lightweight, low-bandwidth sensors. In contrast, this Wren had a much narrower and far more focused mission. It was tasked with keeping tabs on just one man, Igor Truznyev.
Although the Russians didn’t realize it, Tekhwerk was ultimately owned, through an intricate web of holding companies, by Kevin Martindale and Scion. Profits from its legitimate operations were used to fund covert action and intelligence gathering inside Russia itself. And the need for frequent travel between Tekhwerk’s dual headquarters in Moscow and Berlin and its other far-flung divisions provided invaluable cover for Scion agents masquerading as corporate executives and employees of the company.
Scion field operatives like Marcus Cartwright, for example.
Calling himself Klaus Wernicke, Cartwright had been running a surveillance operation against Truznyev for months — ever since Scion had captured and interrogated one of the agents the former Russian president used to foment last year’s brushfire war with Poland. Made aware that Truznyev, a ruthless, wildly ambitious, and dangerous man, was still very much a player on the world scene, Martindale had ordered a close watch kept on him.
Unfortunately, it was a mission that had proved much easier to set in motion than to accomplish.
Before he became Russia’s president, Truznyev had spent years in charge of the Federal Security Service, the FSB, one of the successor agencies to the USSR’s feared KGB. When he’d been ousted from the Kremlin, many of the spy service’s veterans had joined him in private life, going to work for the consulting group he’d founded. As a result, his personal security and countersurveillance people were top-notch, generously paid, and well equipped. All of which meant that employing the usual methods — tailing Truznyev through the Moscow streets or bugging his offices or hacking into his computers — would only have tipped him off.
So far Cartwright and his Scion team had only been able to track their target’s major movements at a distance, without gaining any significant intelligence on his operations or current plans. For all the time, money, and effort they’d expended, their investigation hadn’t picked up much more about Truznyev than could have been gleaned from reading the gossip pages of any Moscow tabloid or trade journal.
It had been enormously frustrating.
Until today.
Today, Truznyev had left his personal security detail behind and ventured out alone. He’d never done that before, not even when he paid visits to his various mistresses. Cartwright had immediately seen this as a sign that something big was in the wind. And free to act at last, his surveillance team had pounced, warily tailing the Russian right up to the edge of Izmailovsky Park.
But that was as far as they dared go. Inside the park’s deserted confines, anyone who stayed close enough to tag Truznyev and his contact, let alone listen in on them, might as well paint shpion, spy, across his forehead.
That was when the Wren drone they’d launched from this helicopter had proved its worth. Floating down silently on the wind, circling slowly as it rode thermals rising from the ground, the bird-size glider had been able to intercept most of the conversation between Truznyev and his contact.
Best of all, the Russians would never know they’d been bugged.
Before the Wren ran out of altitude and airspeed, a twitch of its flight controls could send the little drone gliding away across the woods. Eventually, it would skitter down through the trees and crash-land somewhere in among piles of dead leaves. And even if someone else stumbled across it before one of Cartwright’s people got there, the palm-size drone would appear to be nothing more than some child’s cheap toy.
“Truznyev and this other fellow are saying their not-so-fond farewells now,” David Jones announced, still monitoring the signals coming through his headset. He glanced across at Cartwright with bright eyes. “I don’t know who he is yet, but I can tell you one thing for sure, he’s a big enough fish to put the fear of God himself into our friend Igor. At least for a bit.”
Cartwright bared his teeth in a hunter’s triumphant grin. Smile, Comrade Truznyev, he thought coldly. You’re on candid microphone.
SEVEN
The four-engine Russian turboprop touched down hard on Konotop’s landing strip amid greasy puffs of black smoke from its landing gear. The aircraft rolled down the long concrete runway, decelerating fast as its pilot applied reverse thrust and braked. Similar to the American C-130, the An-12 was still the aging workhorse for Russia’s tactical air-transport command.
Propellers spinning slowly, the aircraft taxied off the runway and over to a brand-new hangar erected after last year’s surprise Polish attack had wrecked the base. It slowed to a stop and the rear clamshell door whined open.
Prodded out by a squad of armed Russian soldiers, several men emerged and gathered silently on the tarmac, blinking in the bright sunlight. Most were very young, though one gray-bearded fellow looked to be in his midforties. All of them still wore the sheepskin coats and high boots common in the Caucasus Mountains.
Spetsnaz Major Pavel Berezin strolled out from the hangar and stood with his hands on his hips for a moment, looking them over. His eyes narrowed in disgust. He turned toward his second in command, Captain Andrei Chirkash. “Well? What do you think?”
Chirkash shrugged. “They’ll do.”