We needed to find them. And fast.
5
Dare County, North Carolina
The call came in as Gordon Roos was on his way back from his late-morning walk on the beach. He loved it out in the Outer Banks. The constant breeze coming in off the ocean, the salty taste in the air that did wonders for his sinuses, the Zen-like openness of the landscape-it was far more enjoyable than the confines of the Falls Church, Virginia, penthouse he used to live in before his retirement from the Company. A bit removed from the action, perhaps, but still close enough for him to be able to jump in when something juicy came up.
Something like this.
He checked the caller ID on his 1024-bit RSA key-encrypted cell phone, even though he knew who it was before he looked at it. Hardly anyone had that number, for besides being a retired agent of the CIA, Gordon Roos wasn’t a social animal, not by any stretch. A couple of tried and tested high-class escorts were more than enough to liven up his nights when he needed company. Which was not unusual at all for someone who’d spent most of his life running dangerous undercover assignments for his country. Not that he minded. Gordon Roos had never had much patience for small talk and cocktail parties, something his wife eventually decided she couldn’t live without.
He took the call in his customary fashion, without uttering a word.
His caller knew the drill.
“Our Russian friends just heard from two goons babysitting Sokolov’s wife,” the man said. “One of them was waiting for their guy outside the apartment and saw him take the dive. He drove off in a panic and they called it in.”
Roos kept walking at the same leisurely pace. “Where are they now?”
“They’re babysitting her at some dive. A motel in Queens, near JFK. Russian-owned. The guys at the embassy are waiting to hear back from Moscow on how to handle it now that Sokolov’s in the wind.” He paused, then added, “Maybe it’s time we move in and take her off their hands. It would give us leverage over Sokolov.”
Roos processed the suggestion in all of four seconds. “No. Let’s keep her there and let it play out. Sokolov seems to have some of that old pluck left in him. If she’s there, there’s a good chance it’ll draw him in. Even if he doesn’t find his way to the motel, she’s the bait that’ll flush him out. Better we don’t rock the boat and spook him. We just need to be ready to swoop in when he shows up.”
“All right. I’ll put a team on it.”
“Off the books, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Good. Keep me apprised. Day or night.”
“You got it, buddy.”
Roos hung up.
As he walked on toward his house, which appeared behind a wind-swept sandbank up ahead, his mind drifted back many years, to when it had all begun. To the initial, unexpected approach from the Russian. The excitement at the prospect. The meticulous planning. The green light. The adrenaline of putting the lift in motion.
The thrill of meeting the Russian for the first time.
Then came the little prick’s stab in the back.
The damn Russian. He’d been a major snag in Roos’s stellar rise at the Agency. More than a snag. He’d almost derailed his career altogether. But Roos had overcome the defeat and the humiliation. He’d cleaned things up, he’d redeemed himself by shepherding other tough projects to success-and here they were again, more than thirty years later, playing the game again.
He smiled inwardly at the prospect of what the days ahead would bring. Maybe it would all finally come good, after all those years. He had far more options now that he was out on his own. “Independent contractor.” It was the wave of the future, and a future with much greater promise than he’d ever counted on had suddenly dropped into his lap.
Sokolov could be a mighty prize indeed. The kind of prize that could bankroll a much more satisfying level of retirement. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let that prize get away from him a second time.
6
London, England
At about the same time, four thousand miles east of there, another man received a similar call informing him of similar developments, only this call originated a couple of thousand miles farther east from his own location.
From Moscow.
From the Center, to be exact.
The Center being a sprawling, cross-shaped concrete structure nestled in the middle of a large forest just southwest of the city.
The Center was also the headquarters of the SVR, the successor of the KGB’s notorious First Chief Directorate. Officially tasked with foreign intelligence gathering and counterintelligence. Unofficially tasked with anything else that was deemed necessary to safeguard the Motherland’s interests.
Anything.
And when a particularly tricky anything came up, the odds were it would be assigned to someone from its highly secretive Zaslon unit-the word meant “the shield,” and not in its badge sense-an elite team drawn from the Spetsnaz special forces, whose members excelled in their physical and military prowess as well as their talents at deception.
And when the Zaslon unit was handed a particularly sensitive task, the odds were it would be assigned to Valentin Budanov.
Not many people knew that. For the simple reason that not many people knew Budanov even existed. They didn’t need to. Budanov worked alone. He worked in the shadows, only emerging when he needed a critical piece of information or some operational support from someone-usually a senior embassy staffer or a fellow SVR agent-who would have been ordered to provide him with anything he required. And when he did emerge, it was, of course, never as Budanov. Like other SVR agents, he traveled under a number of false identities. He also spoke many languages flawlessly-seven at last count-and could easily disguise himself so he would pass unnoticed. And on the rare occasions when he did break his deep cover, it was never as Budanov or as whatever ID he was using at the time.
It was as Koschey, a code name that inspired a deep-seated fear in those who heard it. A code name drawn from an old Slavic folktale.
Koschey the deathless.
Just then, Koschey was in London. He’d spent a lot of time in the British capital in the last decade. London was where a lot of the Kremlin’s enemies came to find a safe haven. It was also where a lot of its big hitters and their friends stashed their ill-gotten gains-billions that they parked safely in hedge funds, fabulous properties, and high-profile investments. The thinking was that, besides being a great place to live and to party, London provided a secure and stable hideaway for their fortunes. There, they would be unreachable by those running things back home if and when their old friendships turned sour.
But no one was unreachable. Not in London. Not anywhere. And certainly not with someone like Koschey on tap to reach them.
He’d been in London for six days, preparing to take out a GCHQ analyst who’d been recruited by Moscow eleven years earlier and who the SVR suspected had been rumbled by the British intelligence services. Then the call had come in on his encrypted cell phone.
The general told him he was to drop that assignment and fly to New York.
A file, also encrypted, had been attached to an e-mail and left in the drafts folder of a Gmail address that had been created specifically for that single task.
A file that Koschey retrieved and read immediately after terminating the call.
A file that Koschey found astounding.