“That has to be the biggest crock of shit I’ve heard in a long time,” Jimmy McLean said. “Couldn’t you give us a little more information than that? What happened to cooperation?”
Velda chimed in. “This Victor Petrova is a bad ass mad genius. A frickin’ puppet master.”
“Half-pint is right,” McLean said.
“Half-pint?” Toni asked.
“Has nothing to do with her size,” he explained. “She always orders a half pint of beer.”
“Okay. She’s right about?”
“Petrova,” he said. “Our intel says the man orchestrated so many crazy-ass schemes for the KGB, he could have started World War Three if he wanted to during the Cold War. He was that good. Now he’s made millions off his criminal activity. He runs a massive organization throughout Europe.”
“And is headquartered in Stockholm,” Toni said. “I got the same briefing.” What’s he up to now? That was the question of the hour. Yet not one of them could come up with a good answer.
Sitting in the passenger seat of his rental Volvo, Victor Petrova smiled as he listened through his ear piece as the three intelligence officers lavished praise and hatred for him and his criminal activity. His driver had reached each location Gary Dixon had gone, knowing where and when the man would be at each location. By doing so he had accomplished two goals. First, the Scotsman had delivered messages to men with mostly clean records — men who themselves would not do a damn thing for him, but who would pass the word to those who would act soon. And second, he had collected all the players in this grand game of his, from the two Brits to this new Agency woman. He had heard of Toni Contardo from his days in the KGB. She was more than a little capable. No match for his intellect. But then few were. So she had teamed up with Colonel Reed in some way. Disturbing, but not completely unexpected. Still, the colonel had served his purpose, sending Jake Adams off to the Arctic to do his work for him. Sure he could have sent his men to accomplish the same task. But there was no reason to involve the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. Sure the SVR was no KGB, but even the blind hamster finds his way up the actor’s ass once in a while. Maybe he was the puppet master. He smiled.
19
Jake stretched his legs out in the sleeper car — the very same car where he had thrown the police officer’s clothes and then dumped them out the window. Anna was asleep on the upper bunk and Kjersti was alone in her compartment next door to them.
They had traveled for hours along the Swedish coast, passed through the seaport cities of Umea and Sundsvall, and at nearly one in the morning were at least an hour away from Gavle, some hundred miles north of Stockholm.
He had had plenty of time to think about this case during the ride. They had been lucky the Swedish police had not invaded the train at one of their stops and hauled them all in. He couldn’t let that happen, though. The box he carried with him, with the Russian words and the international symbol for biohazard stamped prominently on four sides, would put him in jail faster than he could consider. Sure he could have his friends at the Agency get him out, assuming they would be willing to do so. But with what he had discovered before getting on the train, they might not be willing to help Jake in any way. He needed to contact the Agency and Colonel Reed. But first his friend at the Agency.
He reached into his backpack and found the SAT phone.
When he turned on the phone, he saw that he had missed thirteen calls. Ten from scrambled Agency numbers that would lead to pizza places in New Jersey and Chinese restaurants in Portland, Oregon. The other three were from the untraceable number from Colonel Reed. A number that when punched in by anyone else finding the phone, or stealing it, would be picked up by a Swiss sheep herder — which Jake was sure would piss that guy off to no end.
Jake called Jenkins at the Agency, who picked up on the second ring.
“Where the hell are you?” Jenkins asked hurriedly.
“Come on, Kurt,” Jake said, his voice barely a whisper. “This is a GPS-enabled SAT phone, which I’m sure you broke the code for during our first call. Even with the phone turned off, you can track me.”
“Why do I even try?” He stopped and said, “Okay. You’re traveling at a steady one hundred thirty kilometers per hour at sea level. So that would put you on the night train heading toward Stockholm.”
“I could be driving,” Jake muttered.
“I don’t think so, Jake. I know your driving. It’s not that steady. Plus our people have tracked your stops in each city. Also, we got a report about some cop getting his ass whipped. When they sent out the description, it sounded like you.”
“You take care of it?”
“Yeah. First we altered the description, and then we wiped it from their system. Made it go away.”
“Thanks. That’s why I didn’t dump the SAT phone. Thought you could be of some use.”
“Glad to help. But aren’t you taking a risk traveling on a train with that deadly virus?”
Crap. He had a feeling Jenkins would bring that up. It’s why he really didn’t call in his actions. He was hoping to finish the train travel before he had to explain his actions.
“I know what I’m doing,” Jake assured him.
Anna rolled onto her back and started to snore. She had taken a sleeping pill, so he knew she would sleep through the night.
“What’s that noise?” Jenkins asked.
“Nothing.” He struggled with his thoughts of what he should tell his old friend. Could he explain that he had been duped? They all had been suckered.
“What’s wrong, Jake?”
“Nothing. Do you have your people in place in Oslo?”
Now Jenkins took his time to answer. “We have assets in place there, with more to come. It’s taken us a while to get a team of scientists together with the expertise needed to inactivate the flu virus. You understand.”
Yeah, he understood. He understood that his friend’s efforts would be nothing more than a drill — an exercise — for possible future breaches of security. Maybe the American government would be able to work out better protocols because of this. Right. That was a fantasy.
“No problem. Make sure they get there within twenty-four hours.”
“One question, Jake.”
“Shoot.”
“Why the crazy route? Why not just a direct approach to Oslo?”
“Well, that was smart on my part wasn’t it,” Jake said, sarcastically. “Your people aren’t ready for me anyway. I’d be sitting in Oslo holding my dick waiting for your scientists to arrive. Besides, some bad-ass folks seem to want this…virus even more than us. And I have a feeling they’re willing to do damn near anything to get their hands on it. Anything else you can tell me?”
“We’ve tracked down Colonel Reed.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s in Oslo. It took us some time, but we back-tracked some calls he made to your SAT phone.”
Great. Did Jenkins know more than he was telling him? “I was just going to call the colonel.”
“No need,” Jenkins said. “He’s with…our people there in Oslo.”
“So you’re on the same page. Did he explain anything about his contacts?”
Jenkins explained everything they knew, including the involvement of the Russian, Victor Petrova.
“I’m familiar with Petrova,” Jake said. “He was one of the most manipulative bastards in KGB disinformation. And that’s saying a lot.”
“We tried turning him in the height of the Cold War,” Jenkins admitted. “He strung us along like Gepetto. Then pulled the rug out from under us and a couple of our agents were killed.”