Trevor Scott
The Man from Murmansk
Also by Trevor Scott
Reykjavik Sanction (Mission #1)
Napoli Intercept (Mission #2)
Wueschheim Imperative (Mission #3)
Fatal Network (#1)
Extreme Faction (#2)
The Dolomite Solution (#3)
Vital Force (#4)
Rise of the Order (#5)
The Cold Edge (#6)
Without Options (#7)
The Stone of Archimedes (#8)
Lethal Force (#9)
Rising Tiger (#10)
Counter Caliphate (#11)
Gates of Dawn (#12)
Counter Terror (#13)
Covert Network (#14)
Boom Town (#1)
Burst of Sound (#2)
Running Game (#3)
Hypershot (#1)
Global Shot (#2)
Cyber Shot (#3)
Isolated (#1)
Burning Down the House (#2)
Witness to Murder (#3)
Cantina Valley
Edge of Delirium
Strong Conviction
Fractured State (A Novella)
The Nature of Man
Discernment
Way of the Sword
Drifting Back
The Dawn of Midnight
The Hobgoblin of the Redwoods
Duluthians: A Collection of Short Stories
Author’s Note:
Karl Adams is the son of former CIA legends Toni Contardo and Jake Adams. The Man from Murmansk is Karl’s first major undercover CIA operation. I hope to write a couple of adventures in this series each year, while continuing my best-selling Jake Adams International Espionage Thriller Series. I hope you enjoy this new series. Thank you for reading my books.
1
Lights from the city were obscured only by the smoke pouring from multiple red and white factory stacks, where the warm exhaust mixed with freezing air and brought with it a metallic odor of industry. Large cranes swiveled in the port below like massive robots picking up items from ships and placing them on rail cars, or containers stacking on the pier like Legos waiting to be put on the back of trucks. Or the other way around — moving from the pier or trains to the ships in a ballet of progress.
Karl Adams took his eyes off of his cell phone for a second to glance up into the cold, dark sky of this frigid city above the Arctic Circle, trying his best to see the drone he controlled with the small screen. There were too many obstacles, he thought.
“Do you see it?” Maya asked in Russian, nuzzling closer to Karl, her dark brown hair within inches of his nose, and the wolf fur fringe on her hood tickling his exposed neck.
He loved the smell of her hair. Whatever she used to wash it, she needed to continue, he thought.
“It is not possible,” Karl said, also in Russian. “Too dark.”
“Let’s go home and drink some more,” she said, her green eyes drifting up to him and her supple purple lips pursed in a pouty gesture that was too damn endearing to ignore.
“I just need a little more practice,” Karl said.
“Come on, Nico,” she implored him, her hand rubbing his arm and making it difficult to control the drone. “I will make it worth your effort.”
Maya called him Nico, short for Nicolas. Karl was in Murmansk as a Spanish citizen attending the State Technical University on a semester abroad program. But Nicolas Lobo was simply a legend developed for Karl by the CIA. Everything he owned here was Spanish, from his clothes to his phone to the drone flying overhead, which was an over-the-counter version carrying a video camera with infrared capability. When Karl saw something interesting, he could hit a record button and the streaming video would capture that sequence, uploading it to his phone and the cloud. But recently he was having a problem with the satellite uplink from his Spanish phone through the SAT phone he carried inside his thick leather jacket. The Agency was working on it. At least that’s what they told him. But Karl knew that satellite communications this far north, especially in the winter, were often affected by the same sun flares that brought beautiful, ethereal lights in the sky — The Arora Borealis.
The two of them stood in an isolated parking lot above the harbor. Ten minutes ago, just below them, a train had slowly moved along the waterfront before turning down a wide pier alongside a large ocean ship.
Karl turned the drone and made it vector out over the water. Then he swung it around in a wide arc toward the stern of the ship, where he memorized the name of the vessel — the Magadan.
“Let me give it a try,” Maya implored.
“Not now,” Karl said. “If it drops now I’ll never find it. Tomorrow we could go to the football field by campus and I will teach you how to fly.”
“Promise?”
“Of course, Maya.”
He checked the battery level and saw that the drone was nearly spent. Then he looked down at the ship and the train with his naked eye and saw the large crane attaching to something on the second train car. What the hell?
Karl moved the drone from behind the ship over the top of the train. He started to record as he slowly brought the black drone back his way. A red battery symbol started to blink on his cell phone screen telling him the juice was getting critically low.
“What does that red light mean?” she asked him.
“Losing power. I hope I have enough battery to get the drone back to me.”
Finally, he could hear the whir of the four rotors swishing through the cold February air.
“Good thing,” Maya said. “I’m cold and getting a little bored. Plus, I need a good drink. You promised we would have some fun tonight.”
True. But the Agency had other ideas, he thought. He was supposed to be here in Murmansk for one reason — to completely immerse himself in the Russian language and culture. It was a brilliant idea, Karl thought. If the CIA had sent him to Moscow to work out of the embassy or one of their front companies, the FSB or the SVR would have pegged him as a CIA officer and they would start a dossier on him. But here in the isolation of Murmansk Oblast, he was simply a Spanish exchange student named Nicolas Lobo learning about international economics. Which is where he had met Maya, in his first class at the university. He was so immersed, in fact, that he had not spoken English in months, sticking to Russian and the occasional outburst of Spanish during stressful times.
The whir of the drone got louder as Karl brought it in for a landing in the parking lot. The drone barely had enough power and had to be brought down quickly to the snowy surface. Karl shoved his control phone into his backpack and then went to pick up the drone, which was too big to fit in the backpack. As he walked back toward Maya, she took a picture of him with her phone.
“I told you I don’t like my photo taken,” Karl said. Now he would have to go into her phone again and delete the image. With his dark hair cropped shorter and perpetually mussed up in disarray, Karl could pass as Spanish or for nearly every other European, including Russian. He could blend in nearly anywhere and would not be remembered for any distinguishing features. He was handsome enough, but downplayed that by not concerning himself with appearance, wearing jeans, T-shirts and nothing with a symbol. Ten people would try to describe him and they would come up with ten different versions.
She showed him the image on her phone. “It didn’t turn out anyway. Too dark. I think you might be a vampire.”