The light outside had only minutes left before dying and the house seemed to be closing in, getting smaller as the rooms she could see from the table grew darker. She had kept the lights to a minimum, lest the house attract attention, but now she found herself reconsidering the tactic. Kyra had been alone on missions before, never minded it, but none had ever felt like this. Jon had always been at the other end of a phone if she’d needed him. Not tonight.
That’s not true, is it? she thought.
Kyra pushed herself away from the table, leaving the dirty bowl and fork to dry, and wandered to the staircase. She walked through the empty hall and found what she was looking for behind the last door on the left, also reinforced. The encrypted phone was stored in a cabinet with a digital lock along with other tools of her trade.
It was a satellite phone, like the one she’d used in Venezuela when that mission had gone sour, but a newer model. She assembled the antenna and worked out which window to point it where it could find a U.S. satellite hung in geostationary orbit. She worked out the interface and began to dial.
The call connected, encrypted, and the phone on the other end rang four times. She knew that no one was going to pick it up. Finally, the Agency voicemail system took over.
“This is Jon. Leave a message and I might get back to you, but probably not. I hate phones and the odds are good that you’re not important enough to make me want to use one. So either come see me in person or I’m going to assume whatever you want isn’t worth my time. If you were able to track down my number, you can find my vault too.”
She’d pestered him into recording a message and that was the one he’d settled on, his own bit of revenge on her coercion.
The answering service sounded the usual tone, and Kyra had to suppress a laugh, lest it be recorded for posterity. She wondered if the Agency or the National Archives kept the voicemails of officers killed in the line of duty.
She called his phone again and listened to the man’s voice a second time, smiling as she heard the familiar exasperation in his voice. Kyra disconnected without saying anything, then called a third time, committing his voice to memory as best she could. Jon’s dismissive insult to humanity ended once again, the tone sounded, and Kyra cut the call and powered down the unit.
The depression invaded her spirit again as soon as the LED display went black, leaving her sitting in the near darkness. Kyra knew how to fight that, a lesson she’d learned over the last few years.
She opened herself up to anger, letting the hatred for the Russians inside steel her spine. Lavrov was the reason Jon wasn’t here, and only he knew whether her mentor was alive or dead and whether an EMP was bound for Syria. Therefore, Kyra needed to connect with someone inside Lavrov’s operation.
The flash paper was inside the desk under the computer. Kyra retrieved the notepad, made her way back to the kitchen, and took her seat at the table again. It was two minutes’ work to re-create the list of asset names, contact methods, and locations that she’d memorized in Berlin.
She stared down at the asset list. There were three names.
Adolf Viktorovich Topilin
Major Elizaveta Igoryevna Puchkov
Colonel Semyon Petrovich Zhitomirsky
Who do I contact first?
Adolf Viktorovich Topilin, Foundation electrical engineer. Maybe one of the EMP designers? If so, he could confirm its existence… maybe even provide the specs. She was impressed that Barron and his people had been able to recruit a weapons engineer. After the Agency had lost Adolf Tolkachev a few decades before, the Russians had put the screws to every other engineer with access to sensitive designs. The FSB and GRU still knew how to instill fear in the masses when they needed to. Lavrov’s engineers inside the Foundation likely wanted to avoid the very appearance of talking to foreigners, lest the security services imagine they were taking a recruitment pitch.
It was full dark outside now, the only light on in the house being the small lamp suspended above the kitchen table. The house creaked somewhere, but Kyra refused to let paranoia creep into her thoughts. If the Russians were going to come in, they would not be subtle about it. She cleared her mind, then stared at the list again, trying to order her thoughts.
Major Elizaveta Igoryevna Puchkov, GRU liaison to the Foundation, logistics specialist. Logistics for what? Kyra wondered. Acquiring resources for the Foundation? Or helping the Foundation move its cargo around? Both? Barron had not told her. She considered calling him on the secure sat phone upstairs to ask, but decided against it. If Lavrov had moved an EMP to Berlin for a demonstration, Puchkov would be the best one in a position to know… and if Lavrov had flown Jon or Maines back from Berlin, she’d be the best chance to find that out too.
Even if she did know, what could Kyra do about it? What good was information if she couldn’t act on it? She cursed herself for going down that path and set that pessimism aside. Worry about that when the time comes.
Colonel Semyon Petrovich Zhitomirsky, GRU budget director. Always follow the money, Kyra thought. The money trail could tell an analyst more about what an organization was doing than anything else. Zhitomirsky might not have specifics about any one project, but knowing where the rubles were flowing could at least point Kyra in the right direction. The moneymen always knew where the bodies were buried, even if they didn’t know which exact bodies they were. Save him for last, she thought. The other two seemed more likely to have specific information she could put to immediate use. She would have to search the computer upstairs, see if the encrypted hard drive contained any information that would help her decide.
Which one to start? Kyra wondered.
Adolf Viktorovich Topilin had stolen his wife’s car for this trip. She would be furious when he returned, but her red Ford Mondeo was faster than his own humble Lada Priora. How he would explain to her that they were leaving the country, not to return, he didn’t know. She didn’t know about his treason and Topilin wasn’t sure that Nina would even come with him once he told her. In fact, he believed that she would call the FSB once he told her. He’d considered not telling her at all, just leaving her to the FSB when they came to the house. But he did still love her, even if her affections were far more tenuous than his. He had to give her the chance to come with him, if only to settle his own conscience.
One problem at a time, he told himself. His need for more time outweighed the suffering she would lay on him, and he spurred the car along the forest road much faster than was safe. The trees had combined into a single brown wall that he hardly saw out of the corner of his eye. If a boar or deer crossed into the road, his brakes would not stop the car in time to save the car or the animal. He sped on anyway, but it seemed self-defeating. The faster he went, the more time was stretching out, like Einstein had predicted. The closer he came to the dacha, the farther away it seemed to be and the trip never ended.
He pressed on. Topilin needed to burn the contents of the box and he couldn’t do it safely at home. The dacha was the only place for it.