“Better times than this,” Jon agreed. “What can we do for you?”
“To keep it short and blunt, we’ve got a case that makes no sense. And it’ll probably be the most tightly compartmented case you’ll ever get read into at the Agency.”
Barron set a copy of Der Spiegel on the table with a printed translation of one article attached. “Three days ago, the German Federal Criminal Investigation Office pulled a body out of the Großer Müggelsee Lake southeast of Berlin. Forensic investigators identified him as retired lieutenant general Stepan Illarionovich Strelnikov, director of the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research, their version of DOD’s Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Moscow Times ran his obituary today. The Russian government says he drowned while going for a swim.”
Jon pulled the article across the table, turned it around, and scanned the translated page. “It’s not every day that a retired Russian flag officer drowns, is it?”
“Not one who’s the Russian equivalent of a Navy SEAL.” Barron handed the analysts a folder. The first page was Strelnikov’s biography, with a stapled photograph of a man dressed in a Russian general’s uniform, portly, with pronounced jowls, dark eyes, and the dour expression that seemed to be a Russian birthright.
Biographical and Leadership Report NC1232
Leadership Division/Office of Assessment
STRELNIKOV, Stepan Illarionovich
Professional Biography
• DoB: 19 Nov 1960
• PoB: Volgograd, Volgograd Oblast, Russia
• 1982: Graduate, Moscow State Technical University imeni Bauman
• 1984: Graduate, KGB Higher Communications School, Kharkov
• 1984: Company Commander, 72nd Independent Radio-Electronic Combat Regiment, Bagram, Afghanistan
• 1985: Deputy Chief of Staff, 413th Special Radio-Electronic Combat Battalion, Group of Soviet Forces Germany, Karl Marx Stadt
• 1986: Executive Officer, 4th Special Warfare Brigade (SPETSNAZ), Kabul, Afghanistan
• 1989–1990: Professional status unknown; stationed at Soviet Embassy, Berlin, Germany
• 1990 (Dec)–1991 (Feb): Defense Attache’s office, Baghdad
• 1991–1994: Professional status unknown (Serbia?)
• 1995: Graduate: Military Academy of the General Staff (was: Voroshilov Military Academy)
• 1996: Commander, 11th Radio-Electronic Combat Regiment (Grozhny)
• 1996–1998: Professional status unknown
• 1998–2000: Liaison officer attached to Serbian Army
• 2000–2002: Commander, 7th Independent Undersea Warfare and Special Reconnaissance Regiment, St. Petersburg (SPETSNAZ)
• 2002–2003: Liaison officer (Defense Attache’s office), Baghdad
• 2004–2005: Commanding officer, Voronezh Higher Communications Academy
• 2006–2007: Commanding Officer, Second Directorate (USA & Canada) Main Military Administration (GRU)
• 2008–2012: Senior Military Attache, Caracas, Venezuela; retires from active military service with the GRU, Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation
• 2013: Listed as Vice President for Communications Security, “Zelyonsoft” [zelyeniy is Russian for “gold”], St. Petersburg. Strelnikov is introduced at UN conference on global Internet governance as Zelensoft Vice President for Strategic Investment; Strelnikov tells UK/SIS officer at conference he is “retired military.”
• 2014–2016: Strelnikov leaves Zelensoft, is named Special Advisor to President Putin for Information Security
• 4 January 2017: Strelnikov named Director, Foundation for Advanced Research.
“He was a new asset, barely a year on the books, and a volunteer,” Barron told them. “We had high hopes for him, until someone gave him up.”
“A mole?” Jon asked.
“A defector,” Barron corrected him. “Kyra, I’m sorry about this one.” The next page showed a photograph of a middle-aged man, midforties, thin, with black hair lightening at the temples. He had bright eyes, green, with a Roman nose and a day’s stubble. The man wore a suit and stood before an American flag. Burke recognized it as the kind of photo that senior leaders were privileged to take when they reached sufficient rank. Not every Agency officer got to take one during his career.
“Alden Maines,” Kyra said before Barron could name him.
“You know him?” Jon asked.
“He was deputy chief of station in Caracas when I was there,” she said, her voice flat. “He got me out of the country after I was shot.” She took the file out of Jon’s hands, dropped it on the table, and leaned over it, hands in her hair.
“After our station down there was torn to shreds, he couldn’t work South America anymore,” Barron added. “He put together the operation to get Kyra out on the fly, and I thought that was worth a reward. I also wanted to see what he could really do, so I brought him back to headquarters and made him deputy chief of Russia House. But I’m told he didn’t like the desk. Then the current chief of Russia House retired and Maines applied for the job, but I was having second thoughts about him by then. Maines had been showing contempt for leadership since he got back from Venezuela… started abusing the people under him too. I interviewed him and he displayed a nasty mix of narcissism and sadism. So I chose the other candidate. I was going to move Maines to some other assignment, where we could sideline him and he couldn’t put ops or people at risk.”
“I guess Alden didn’t like that decision,” Kyra observed. “He was never like that in Caracas. I always thought he was one of the good ones.”
“It doesn’t look that way,” Barron agreed. “The FBI was tailing a Russian diplomat who was on their list of suspected intel officers. They followed him out to the Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve in Loudoun County, twenty miles west of Dulles Airport, and figured that he was using it as a dead-drop site. They put the area under surveillance. A week later, he loaded the drop. The special agents on the scene were smart enough to let him go, then crack open the package and take pictures. Then they holed up and watched to see who came for it. Maines showed up. Pictures are in the folder.”
Kyra turned Maines’s photograph over and found several more underneath, one of a stack of bills, another showing an out-of-focus letter with a transcription clipped onto the back.
Dear friend: welcome!
Acknowledging your letter, we express our sincere joy on the occasion of your contact with us last week. Your information was very helpful and we firmly guarantee you for a necessary financial help. You will find in a package 50.000 dollars. Now it is up to you to give a secure explanation of it.
As to communication plan, we want to share one soonest with you. We have designed a secure and reliable one we will share with you at GLENDA as we have arranged for you in our previous contact. We await your reply and we shall be ready to retrieve your package from BROOKE since 20:00 to 21:00 hours on the 12th of September after we would read you signal (a vertical mark of white adhesive tape of 6–8 cm length) on the gazebo closest to Battlefield Parkway at the Route 15. We shall fill our package in and make up our signal (a horizontal mark of white adhesive tape). After you will clear the drop don’t forget to remove our tape that will mean for us — exchange is over.
Please, let us know during the September meeting at GLENDA of your opinion on the proposed place (DD “Amy”). For our part we are very interested to get from you any information about possible actions which may threaten us.
Thank you. Good luck to you.
Sincerely,
Your friends
“That stack of hundreds in the package works out to be something like fifty thousand dollars… probably bona fides money,” Barron said. “Maines had to give the Russians something juicy to prove that he was a serious turncoat. Most Russian assets get a pittance, if they get anything at all. The last ones they paid that kind of money to were Robert Hannsen and Aldrich Ames.”
“I assume that giving up Strelnikov would’ve been worth fifty thousand?” Jon asked.
“Ten times that much, easy,” Barron replied. “Maines gave him up cheap. Anyway, FBI Director Menard put a surveillance detail on him and got a warrant for cell-phone and Internet taps. Five days ago, Maines made like he was going to work. Surveillance lost him, he never showed up at headquarters, and he never came home.”
“A deputy chief of Russia House defecting to the Russians could shut us down in Moscow,” Kyra observed.
“He knows about all of our tech ops and key assets,” Barron agreed. “If he’s talking to the Kremlin, there’s probably not an intel officer in the city from any of the English-speaking countries who’s safe, much less our assets. I’ve suspended all human operations there as of this time yesterday and the chief of station is preparing to exfiltrate our key assets, but it’ll take a few weeks to get the resources in place.”
Jon turned the file on the table, looked at Maines’s biography, then turned it back. “Sounds like a straightforward greed-and-revenge defector,” he said, the boredom in his voice clear.
“It was until three days ago,” Barron agreed. “First, Strelnikov turns up dead just a few days after Maines fingers him. That’s not how the Russians operate. They’re methodical. They build airtight cases so they can rip our operations open in a public trial. They watched Oleg Penkovsky for months before they grabbed him and he was giving up nuclear secrets.”
Barron leaned across the table and offered the analysts another photograph. Kyra took the picture… Maines standing in a customs line at an airport. “Second, two days ago, the Russian ambassador walked into Main State and gave that up. We’ve identified the airport where that was taken as Berlin Schönefeld. The ambassador told SecState that Maines was defecting.”
Kyra’s eyes grew wide “He’s here?” she asked, incredulous.
“Looks that way,” Barron said. “What we can’t figure is why the Russians burned him. Maines could’ve been an incredibly valuable asset to the Russians. There was no good reason to burn him that we can see, and now he won’t be worth anything to them in a few months. I would say they were dumb, but I have the feeling someone is getting played and I don’t want it to be us.”
“It’s not us,” Jon said, his voice flat. “It’s Maines.”
“I want to believe that more than you know,” Barron said. “What’re you thinking?”
“Maines wasn’t planning on defecting. Look at the letter… this sentence here,” Jon ordered, pointing to the second paragraph.