The fourth name, “Valery,” would trigger an emergency meeting two hours after the transmission at a prearranged site. Kyra hadn’t bothered to memorize any of the sites tied to the other names.
She twisted the knob, tuning the transmitter to the frequency that she’d memorized from the encrypted file on the classified computer on the receiver. Her earpiece barraged her with a cacophony of broadcasts… an American broadcaster discussing the coming End of Days… a political broadcast in Spanish denouncing U.S. interference in Venezuela… a Frenchman singing off-key some folk song… some Chinese broadcast that sounded like a news report from the speaker’s tone of voice, but Kyra really couldn’t tell. She finally pulled the earpiece out to save her ears until the screen reported she had arrived at 26770 kilohertz.
Kyra replaced the earpiece and checked her watch. She had to wait three minutes, and then held off two more for good measure in case Zhitomirsky was late. Then she picked up the microphone and depressed the button on the microphone.
“Valery,” she said. Kyra released the button, waiting to hear for Zhitomirsky’s response. There was none.
Kyra stared at her watch, waiting until one minute had passed, then pressed the button and repeated the name.
“So you are here, devushka.”
It was Lavrov’s voice.
Despair tore through Kyra like the claws on a bear might rip through her skin. She grimaced hard, squeezing the microphone in her hand until her knuckles wanted to crack and she had to hold back a sob.
Lavrov had Zhitomirsky. She didn’t even know when or how the general had arrested the asset. He must’ve had multiple teams, running multiple operations at once. She was one officer, operating in the black. She couldn’t even begin to keep up.
She’d been a fool to come, to think she could make any difference at all.
I failed, Jon, she told her missing partner. I can’t beat him. He’s everywhere.
Are you going to quit? the voice inside her head asked.
Kyra opened her eyes, and anger rushed into her, taking over. She pushed the button on the mic again. “Yes, I’m here.”
“I had so hoped we could talk again,” Lavrov said. “I would have preferred to see you when we did, but I can accept this for now.”
“And why would you want to talk to me?” Kyra asked, not trying to keep the disgust out of her voice. She wondered who else might be hearing their conversation.
“Because I admire you, young lady,” Lavrov said, not bothering to hide the pleasure in his own. “You are a bold one. I have worked in our business for a long time, longer, I think, than you have been alive, and never have I met one such as you. To walk into our embassy and demand to see a turncoat? How could I not reward such initiative? And then you came here, rushing in when all of your comrades were scurrying out because I told them to. A woman who will not be cowed? Oh, that is its own kind of beauty, and so rare. It must be appreciated… but I must ask… why did you come here? When all of those who could help you went home, what reason did you have for running toward the sound of the guns?”
“You killed my partner,” Kyra accused, the words escaping through clenched teeth. She wondered how many people around the world heard the accusation. The transmission was unencrypted and shortwave signals broadcast at night could reflect off the ionosphere, traveling over the horizon for thousands of miles. In her fury, she didn’t really care now.
There was a pause before Lavrov spoke. “The man taken at Vogelsang? Oh, he was a brave one too, that one. To throw himself at two of my best men? He must have cared about you very much to do that. I should like to have known him better, but I have little spare time and he is not a talker.”
Kyra’s breath caught in her throat.
Is?
Lavrov was a Russian. Had he misspoken, chosen the wrong word as he translated his speech from his native language into hers? No, the man’s English was too good… no broken sentences, no dropped words, too many rhetorical flourishes.
Jon was alive. Or was Lavrov playing on her emotions, trying to unsettle her thinking, get her to make a mistake?
The despair in her mind vanished and Kyra felt the adrenaline begin to take over. She gathered her thoughts, then lifted the microphone to her mouth again. “He’s a talker, if he likes you,” Kyra corrected him. “But he doesn’t like many people.”
“A sensible man, then,” Lavrov said. “Perhaps I shall try again with him. In any case, I do wish you to understand that my admiration for you is quite real.”
“I don’t care what you think about me,” Kyra told the man.
“Oh, I do know that,” Lavrov replied. “Courage and disdain for the opinions of others grow together. You could not be what I admire so much if my thoughts and desires matter to you at all.” There was a pause in his speech, and then Lavrov spoke again. “But now you must care what I think, devushka. I have a choice to present and you will make it. I want you to work for me. The other gentleman you met on the embassy roof that day is no longer in a position to feed me useful information, but you could return home and fill that role. Agree, and I will release your partner to you. You will go home, a hero who pulled her partner out of the ashes. Refuse, and I cannot let you go free. I will catch you. The Rodina is my home, my battlefield, and you will lose. So I offer you the only way out that exists. Go home with your friend but in my debt, or not at all, Miss Stryker.”
Kyra stared down at the microphone in her hand in horror. Lavrov had called her by name, her true name, not the one listed on her passport and other identification papers. Maines gave me up, she fumed, anger burning hot in her chest. She should have expected it. The man had given up every other bit of information in his head, why not her name too?
She shook her head. No time for that, she ordered. He wants you confused, angry, off balance, so you’ll say or do something stupid. She had to focus on Lavrov’s choice.
No, not Lavrov’s choice… a Hobson’s choice, she thought.
No, he wants you to think it’s a Hobson’s choice. He still doesn’t know where you are. He has Jon, so he thinks he has leverage over you. He thinks he knows what choice you will make. Kyra thought for a moment that it was Jon’s voice, but realized that it was her own.
He hadn’t really spoken to her since Vogelsang, she knew. It had always been her own thoughts. So what are you going to do? Become another Maines? An Aldrich Ames? A Robert Hannsen?
Kyra searched her own feelings. It took her only a few seconds to settle on the answer she had really known all along.
“Mol
n labé, General,” Kyra told Lavrov.
“Ah, an educated woman,” Lavrov said. “We are at the pass at Thermopylae, you are Leonidas and I am Xerxes, am I? ‘Having come, take?’ But you came here, to me.”
“We say things a little different back home. ‘Come and get me.’ ”
“You do not like to let others set the rules of the game, do you, devushka?” Lavrov replied. “You will reconsider… but my patience is not infinite. You can contact me on this frequency any night at this time.”