A brick wall rose up on her left, the boundary of the embassy compound. She passed a security camera suspended over the sidewalk. Please tell me you saw this, she thought.
The gate would be closed. Embassy security would open it only when approved vehicles approached. Beyond the gate was the small security building.
The wall flew by on Kyra’s left, the bricks melting into a single red blur, and she moved her legs faster than she ever had before. Almost there.
The brick wall fell away and she saw the gated entrance, then the embassy beyond, the American flag flying unfurled in the courtyard, brilliant colors in the high-powered spotlights. She heard the screeching tires of the van chasing behind her.
A man leaned out of the security building door… embassy security. He reached for her, to pull her inside, where she would be safe. They’d seen her running on the camera and opened the door. Barron had told them that she would be coming—
Kyra felt the hit between her shoulder blades, sending her sprawling forward. She got her hands up before hitting the ground, stopping the concrete from stripping the skin from her face, but she went down in a rolling heap. She struggled to pull herself to her feet, then lunged toward the American guard at the door—
The Spetsnaz officer coming out of the van put his shoulder square into her diaphragm, a football tackle that caught Kyra under her center of gravity. She had no leverage against the man, and he was at least half again her weight. He slammed her onto the grass strip in front of the brick wall that extended out from the other side of the security annex.
“American!” she yelled just before the man’s body put her into the ground, driving the wind from her, and she could yell no more.
Hands grabbed both of her arms, lifting them up behind her back until she felt her shoulders begin to scream in pain. Russian shouts that she didn’t understand came from all sides and a camera flash began to blind her every few seconds. A knife came out and cut the shoulder strap from the satchel, and it was pulled from her body.
Kyra closed her eyes and didn’t bother to fight as her wrists were zip-tied together behind her back.
Her attackers kept her prone on the ground for almost a minute, long enough for the cold to seep up from the cement through her clothes. She heard the guard yelling in poor Russian at the men pinning her to the ground, but they held her head down. She couldn’t turn to see it. Finally, they lifted her by her armpits and dragged her stumbling to the van. The U.S. guard was a Marine, she thought, given the quality of the English profanities he was dishing out to the Russians. If the Russians understood any English at all, they would know that much.
Other hands reached out of the darkness in the vehicle and took her, pulling her inside onto a seat. The last Russian turned away from the American guard, who continued to harangue him in vile terms, and crawled inside with his teammates. The side door slammed shut and the van moved away. Kyra stared out the window as she was shackled at the feet to the floor. Through the side window, she saw the United States flag waving in the light of the flood lamps and receding as the van picked up speed. Then a black hood came down over her head and the entire world disappeared.
The Russian liaison was waiting at the customs exit for Cooke and Barron. He knew the woman on sight, doubtless from the photograph of her that the FSB kept in a dossier somewhere. “Director Cooke, men-ya za-voot Vitaly Leontyevich Churkin. Zdras-tvooy-tyeh. Dobro pozhalovat’ v Rossiyu,” the man said. My name is Vitaliy Churkin. Greetings and welcome to Russia.
Cooke spoke no Russian, and so let the former chief of station Moscow handle the pleasantries. “It is our honor to meet you,” Barron said in the other man’s native language. “We are most grateful to Director Grigoriyev for his willingness to meet us on short notice.”
“In light of recent events, he felt that a discussion with a counterpart of Miss Cooke’s stature would be most illuminating,” Churkin replied.
“I assure you, it will be,” Barron advised. “However, we need to visit our embassy here before meeting with the director. Last-minute instructions from the president, that sort of thing.”
“Of course,” Churkin agreed. “I believe your embassy has sent you a driver who is waiting for you. Of course, we will be happy to give you an escort to the embassy, and from there to Lubyanka.”
“Many thanks,” Barron told him.
“Everything okay?” Cooke asked, her voice quiet.
“Just the usual pleasantries,” Barron replied, switching back to English. “Welcome, we’re going to follow you everywhere, don’t be stupid and try any operational acts, that sort of thing.”
Cooke smiled. “Of course not.”
The van drove for a half hour by Kyra’s estimation, one violent turn after another, and she assumed that the driver wasn’t obligated to obey traffic laws. The hands holding her arms never let her go and the men inside never said a word.
The van finally stopped, Kyra heard the door open, and she felt movement around her. Someone unlocked the shackles binding her legs to the van and the hands on her arms pulled hard, dragging her out. She stumbled getting out, unable to judge the distance to the ground and falling to one knee. The unseen hands pulled her up and led her roughly along.
She felt the warm air of a building on her face and the sound of men’s shoes changed from a rough scrape on concrete to the softer sounds of rubber rustling across carpet to an echo inside the closed walls of an elevator. The doors closed and the car took several seconds to think about whether to move or not before finally ascending. The ride was smooth, the passengers silent, and Kyra couldn’t tell how many floors they’d passed before the car stopped.
Kyra was led out and guided down another hallway, then finally into a room where her captors seated her in a chair. The zip ties binding her wrists were cut, freeing her arms at last. She wasn’t foolish enough to try removing the black hood cutting off her sight. She sat still, hands in her lap, listening to the conversation around her and trying to pick out any words she recognized. That proved to be a feckless exercise.
Another five minutes passed before the hood finally came off of Kyra’s head. The world appeared, blinding and bright, and Kyra squinted until her eyes could adjust. The room around her was nondescript, painted concrete walls, no other furniture than the chair on which she was sitting, nothing to give her any clue as to where she was.
The contents of Kyra’s satchel were laid out on a table in front of her. Some functionary was using a Nikon camera to document the captured gear… a Moscow tour map, an envelope, a passport, a ziplock bag with a disguise kit sealed inside, a pair of English paperback novels, some power bars, and several stacks of euros, the paper bands removed.
Kyra’s escorts took their places by the gray metal door. A photographer aimed the camera in her direction and began taking pictures.
A Russian colonel stood behind the table separating them. “Good evening,” Sokolov said. “Your name, please?” The command being in English, Kyra had no doubts that it was intended for her. She said nothing. The Russian officer looked at her for several seconds, studying her, then leaned forward, putting his face only inches from hers. “Your name?”
“I am a diplomat,” Kyra said, lying. “I’m not required to answer your question. There are rules governing the interrogation of diplomats and you know them. You will advise my embassy of my whereabouts immediately.”