Alina’s expression became neutral. “No strings?”
“None.”
She hesitated, then took the money. “I can’t say it won’t help. What do you hope to find at Lenka’s house?”
“A secret.”
“Won’t the police have searched the place and be guarding it?”
“Probably.”
“Then you mustn’t go there.”
Will saw that she was genuinely concerned. “You’re right that I’ve got no idea what’s going on. But I have to go there. It’s my only chance of helping Lenka.”
She kept her eyes on him, seemed deep in thought, and said quietly, “He told me before our first visit to his home that he’d made the place ‘Maria-proof,’ that he bought a gate for the stairs so that she couldn’t hurt herself by climbing them, that the only dangerous place was the basement, though he kept that padlocked.”
“Basement? Where?”
“In the hallway.”
Will studied her. “What’s in there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do! You have no secrets, remember?”
For a moment, Alina looked angry. Her expression changed. “Lenka told me once that if anything were to happen to him, I should go to the basement. One of the electricity sockets is false. Behind it is a hole. He keeps money and valuable documents in there.”
“Thank you.”
Alina shrugged and said in a matter-of-fact way, “I think we’d like it if you came back. Can you eat kotleta pokrestyansky?”
“Sure.”
“Then I’ll cook the dish next time you’re in Minsk.”
Very few women had cooked for Will. For the briefest of moments, he felt totally removed from the real reason he was here. “I’ll trim the pork cutlets, if you like?”
Alina nodded. “That would be a help.” She moved away from him. “I. . I’ll write down Lenka’s address.”
As she walked out of the room, Will placed one of his big scarred hands against Maria’s cheek. She looked at him and smiled. Quietly, he sang her a children’s song, one he remembered from his childhood, and when he finished he stared at her, feeling nothing but guilt. He was sure his decision not to send the message was the right one. It was probable that William would have seen through it and in turn would have killed Lenka and gone after Alina, Maria, and Sarah. But it was possible that the ruse would have worked. He wondered if Mikhail had a young daughter.
It seemed ever true that in order for him to save one person, at least one other had to die.
Sixteen
Tibor walked quickly along the corridors of CIA headquarters in Langley. He was in the part of the building that housed the National Clandestine Service and specifically was moving through the section belonging to the Office of Russian and European Analysis. Most of the doors in the corridor were closed; beyond them were intelligence officers who kept their doors shut to protect their secrets from others within the organization. Tibor smiled as he continued walking, because no number of closed doors could prevent Flintlock having access to the CIA’s secrets.
As he moved along the corridor, he mentally ticked off the operations and investigations that he knew were ongoing within the rooms on either side of him-a four-person team was planning an attempt to sell a Brussels-based Russian FSB officer a vehicle which, unbeknown to him, contained a beacon tracking device; a case officer was pouring over one of his French agent’s files because he was beginning to wonder if the agent’s intelligence was too good to be true; a team leader was berating her staff after a countersurveillance operation in Copenhagen had gone badly wrong and resulted in a CIA operative being held in a Danish police cell for two days; a nervous officer was making preparations to up the ante after years of grooming a GRU major under business cover, and get on a plane to meet the major in Zurich and tell him that in truth he was not an arms dealer and that the major had instead been passing secrets to an officer of Serbia’s Security Information Agency; an operations officer was at loggerheads with a paramilitary officer because one wanted a mission against a Chechen terrorist to continue to be invisible satellite surveillance and the other wanted to bring it to a head with a joint SOG-SEAL assault; and an intelligence officer was sitting at her desk doing nothing, racked with grief and guilt because one of her best Russian agents had taken his own life to end the constant fear that one day he’d be caught and exposed as a traitor.
One of the doors opened, and a field operative whose work focused on the Russian target emerged.
Tibor’s smile broadened as he walked toward the man. “Dobry den, Tim.”
Tim frowned. He did not know who Tibor was, but reciprocated, “Good afternoon.”
“If I were you, I’d come clean about the twenty thousand.”
Tim’s face paled.
Tibor chuckled as he walked past the man. Tim was unaware that CIA senior management knew that he’d stolen twenty thousand dollars that he was supposed to have paid to a Hungarian access agent, and had decided to give him two weeks to come forward and confess. If he did so and returned the money, they would accept his resignation and his pension rights would be protected. If not, they’d cut off his balls.
Tibor turned into a corridor belonging to the Office of Middle East and North Africa Analysis. Three men were standing outside a room, talking in hushed tones. One of them was Ed Baker, the head of the office.
Ed growled at Tibor, “As-salamu ’alaykum, Tibor.”
Tibor beamed. “Wa ‘alaykumu s-salamu wa rahmatu l-lahi wa barakatuh. Still grubbing around in the desert looking for crazies?”
Ed made no effort to hide his hostility. “I hope your star wanes someday soon.”
As Tibor skipped past the senior officer, he replied, “If it does and wanes low enough, I’ll apply for your job.”
“Fuck you.”
The insult heightened Tibor’s good mood. He walked down more corridors until he reached the meeting room. After checking that his tie’s knot hadn’t slipped, he made three rapid knocks on the door and entered. Marcus, Damien, and Lawrence were seated at a table, looking at him. He shut the door, decided not to sit, and instead leaned against a wall and studied his Flintlock colleagues. “I’ve got some news.”
“Of course you have.”
“We wouldn’t be here, otherwise.”
“Though we’re hoping the news is good.”
Tibor considered how to respond. “It’s bad news that could be transformed into excellent news.”
Lawrence asked, “Yevtushenko related?”
Tibor nodded. “We’ve had a call from the golden source.”
Marcus looked affronted, given that he was the prime point of contact with the agent. “Why did the source call you?”
Tibor waved his hand with a flourish. “Because I’m the good-looking one. Maybe the source has the hots for me.”
Damien huffed. “Given the source’s current family situation, I hardly think that’s the case.”
Tibor pretended to look hurt. “Really?”
Marcus shook his head. “When the call came in, you should have found me.”
“Bit difficult given you were on a 747 this morning, flying back from that silly thing you’re doing in Singapore.”
“It’s not silly. If my operation works, I’ll get three governments to turn on each other and will change the landscape of Asia.”
Lawrence was becoming impatient. “Any of us can take a call from the source. What’s the news?”
Tibor looked at them, one by one. “Tomorrow, Mr. Will Cochrane is going to fly to Russia and attempt to break into Yevtushenko’s home.”
After a moment’s silence, Damien asked, “You think he’ll find something there that will tell him who’s got Yevtushenko?”
“I don’t think so. Whoever’s clever enough to manipulate the Polish exfiltration route should also be astute enough to have briefed Yevtushenko not to leave anything behind that could lead men to him.”