“A woman of intelligence, beauty, and spirit,” Lavrov said, approving. “I would like to know her name.”
“She didn’t tell me.” It was technically true.
“Perhaps, but I think you know who she is,” Lavrov suggested. He held out a large manila envelope.
Maines opened it and pulled out the contents, three photographs, medium resolution, clearly stills taken from security-camera footage. The first was an image from the roof, Stryker arguing with him yesterday, then driving her knee into his crotch. The time stamp confirmed what Maines’s own memory told him.
The second picture was grainy, poor resolution with odd lighting. Even so, the detail was enough for the American to see that it was Stryker again, no disguise, dressed casual. She was handing something, likely her passport, to an airport customs officer. China, he thought, from the Mandarin lettering on a wall sign, Beijing, he supposed.
“This picture was taken in Beijing two years ago. Our facial recognition software says that there is a very high probability that it is the same woman despite the differences,” Lavrov said, confirming the guess. “Our Chinese friends sent it to us after the incident in the Taiwan Strait with the U.S. Navy, asking for help identifying the woman. Some days after this was taken, she helped a Chinese intelligence officer escape surveillance, likely as part of an operation to bring the man to the United States. She assaulted one Chinese officer during the escape, and another on the street some days earlier. That one spent a significant amount of time in a hospital after she beat him with a steel bar.”
Maines stared at the woman’s picture. You landed on your feet after Caracas better than I did, he realized, and he felt a hatred for the woman welling up inside him. She’d moved on to lead a key operation while he had sat rotting at headquarters, even after he had saved her. Should’ve been me.
“The man she helped escape had shared information on a research program that the People’s Liberation Army had been running for seventeen years with my assistance,” Lavrov continued. “A few days later, your country’s navy destroyed a unique stealth plane that was the focus of that project. The radar telemetry collected during the battle shows that your navy had established a system to detect the plane.”
Maines stared at the picture again. “Sorry,” he lied. “Still don’t recognize her.”
Lavrov tapped the third photograph. It showed Stryker at another customs desk, this one in some Latin American country, judging by the Spanish signage. The picture was higher quality. Stryker was blond again, no glasses, athletic build, not a short, overweight brunette with bad eyesight like yesterday—
— then he recognized the place. Caracas.
“Our Venezuelan friends shared this with us last year. The woman infiltrated a munitions factory near Puerto Cabello and was instrumental in stealing the nuclear device that the Iranians were building there with the help of their hosts. She assaulted the Venezuelan national intelligence director inside the base and later in an airport hangar. She crushed his nose and shattered his cheekbones with a rifle butt, and she detached one of his retinas. He identified her some days later from the airport security footage after his eyes could begin to focus again. Apparently, she had been in his country before and was wounded in a counterintelligence operation he had led. She seemed to take it quite personally.”
Maines gaped at the photograph and cursed silently in amazement. Kyra broke into that military base last year? He’d been wrong. It hadn’t been an analyst who Cooke had tapped for that operation. He’d just assumed that Kyra had joined the Red Cell later. You went back to Caracas. He might have been impressed had his anger not been crushing every other feeling in his head.
Still, Lavrov had insulted him and Maines was in no mood to give the man free information, or even show that he was unhappy. “Yeah, I bet. Still can’t help you,” he repeated.
“She is a concern. You see, the Chinese and the Iranians were both clients of an ongoing project that I oversee. This woman appeared and both efforts were disrupted within a few days. I do not believe that is a coincidence.” Lavrov pointed to yesterday’s photograph. “And now she is here.”
Maines shrugged and dropped the picture on the desk.
Lavrov studied Maines, ran his eyes over the American’s face, looking for some signal of deceit. There was no reason to bluff and Maines let the Russian watch him. “You are lying to me, Mr. Maines,” Lavrov finally announced. “One woman has disrupted two critical GRU operations that we were running in concert with important allies, and now she is here in Berlin while you and I are here while I am advancing a third. I think that your Agency knows about my operations, and I believe you know her name. You wish to say that is not the case?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying,” Maines protested. “Look, if the Agency is on to you, they figured it out some other way because I never heard a whisper about your big operation, whatever it is.”
Lavrov nodded slowly, took the pictures back, and replaced them in the folder. “It will be a shame to disappoint such a woman.”
Maines frowned. “What do you mean?”
“She’s wearing a red jacket. I believe that was the signal she was to give you if your country accepted the proposal made to her,” Lavrov said, as though a child should have understood his meaning.
Maines understood it perfectly well, and his eyes widened. Lavrov saw it. “Of course, we heard everything. Surely you knew that?” the Russian asked, his question entirely rhetorical. Whether Maines had thought of the possibility or not was moot now. “I would like to hear the story about how you saved her from a safe house in Caracas, but at this moment I have an operation that is waiting for your information to proceed. So please don’t lie to me again about whether you know her name.”
“You want to know what I know? The president of the United States just agreed to pay me fifty million dollars not to tell you jack, including her name,” Maines said, pointing toward the street at Kyra. “So if you want me to talk, that’s the bid to beat.”
Lavrov frowned. “Such obstinance. But I will counter the offer. I will give you my bid… eight hundred rubles.”
“Eight hundred rubles?” He did the math in his head. Twelve dollars?
Lavrov raised a hand and motioned with two fingers. Three younger men, all muscular, entered the room, one carrying a small bag. Two of them took Maines by the arms and forced him to the table, ignoring his curses and protests. The American struggled, but he was in no shape to hold his own against either of the men, much less both together. They forced his arms out, putting his hands palm down on the brown oak.
Lavrov pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and sat down, looking Maines in the eyes. “Yes, eight hundred rubles… the price in Moscow for a good Russian-made hammer.” Lavrov nodded to the man carrying the bag. The younger Russian opened the satchel and pulled out a small club mallet.
“No! You can’t—” Maines started. Without hesitation, the Russian swung the small metal sledge and slammed it down on Maines’s outstretched hand.
Maines screamed as the hammer shattered his metacarpal bones into fragments. On reflex, he tried to rip his crippled hand away from the two men holding him down, but they had expected him to fight and kept him pinned. The hammer slammed down again, this time just behind where the first blow had landed, and the crunch of grinding carpals in his wrist was heard for a brief second before Maines’s howl of agony drowned it out.
“She will not be disappointed when you don’t come out to meet her… more angry, I think,” Lavrov told him. “So she will go back to her embassy and report to her superiors that you refused the deal, which I suspect will not be extended a second time. They will believe that you never intended to accept any deal, and perhaps will think that you were only buying time to let us act on your information. You were clever to try to build a bridge home after I burned your ships back. But now I am burning your bridge too.” He nodded to the Russian holding the tool and the man swung it down without hesitation.