“We did it,” said the SVR commander. “We pulled it off in the end.”
“But we took a hard knock,” the head of the directorate responded soberly.
“We managed to make the most out of adverse circumstances,” the commander said. “Remember our history, it’s not the first time we’ve sacrificed a rook to save the king. And the queen sometimes, too. We can’t be greedy, Alexander. It’s impossible to win on all fronts all the time. We were facing a catastrophe and we came through. And that’s our true advantage. The ability to survive long-term campaigns despite the losses. That’s the main thing, don’t forget—to always be one step ahead of your opponent. To hang in just one minute longer than he does. To take what you can. To sacrifice what needs to be sacrificed. To know your capabilities and what’s beyond them. And to get back on your feet as soon as possible.”
Alexander, the head of the Tenth Directorate, gazed at his commander in admiration. He wasn’t simply a darling of the party who had been appointed to his position thanks to political loyalty. Although he was indeed blessed with political aptitude of the highest order. It was a prerequisite for all secret service chiefs, unless they wanted to be eaten alive. But his commander was first and foremost a covert fighter, daring, ruthless, cool-headed, who could see several moves ahead, like a seasoned chess player. He recalled how several months ago—as dusk was falling just as it was around them right now, after they had concluded the arrangements concerning Cobra—he had been summoned back to the commander’s bureau to review together, in private, the file of a second high-level agent they had in Israel. Although the Israelis were on the hunt for Cobra, there was something else troubling the commander. Something had led him to request the highly classified file pertaining to Viper. And only then was the real operation set into motion. That evening they sealed, for better or worse, the fates of Viper and of Cobra. The one was spared, without ever knowing at all just how close he had come to his end. The other, like the light from a distant star, continued to shine, but was long since dead.
“Let’s reconstruct what they know about Cobra,” the commander had said to him then. And without the assistance of anyone else, they sat down together and recorded in detail everything that Katrina had told the young Israeli woman who had questioned her at her home in Dimitrovgrad. It wasn’t much. A general physical description, an estimated date of birth, the handler’s cover name, a round of meetings in Geneva. “Something’s troubling me,” the commander had said at the time, “and when I’m troubled, I usually have good reason to be so. It’s easy to push feelings of uneasiness aside. But I’ve already paid a very heavy price to learn that those elusive feelings are actually the ones you have to pursue. They usually count for something. Look here. Katrina told them that Cobra’s birthday fell in late January or early February. Let’s see now,” he said quietly, as if he were talking to himself, “let’s see.” He opened the dossier on Viper, smoothing down the cover with the palm of his hand even though it didn’t show a single crease, and focused on a greenish piece of paper, the document that listed the agent’s personal particulars.
“Here,” the commander said quietly. “Look. Viper’s date of birth. February 3, 1961. And there’s something else you should see.” He began paging through the heart of the dossier, the part that contained the operational reports. “Look—1989. Viper was still a kid in terms of running an agent. Just starting out. We summoned him to a round of meetings in Lausanne, but we cut corners. We used the same logistics team for both rounds of meetings, both the one with Cobra and the one with him, so that we wouldn’t have to fly in a second team. Look, the directive from headquarters: ‘For purposes of efficiency, the two rounds of meetings should be held one after the other, while ensuring they are kept completely separate and conducted under different field conditions.’ Do you get it, Alexander? We brought Cobra to Geneva and then went on to meet with Viper in Lausanne. Take note, we even made sure that they’d pass through different airports. Viper received explicit instructions to arrive in Zurich and continue from there by train. Cobra’s file contains an instruction to fly directly into Geneva. And truthfully, it all seems just fine. Reasonable planning. Legitimate considerations. Professional decisions—different arenas, separate arrival routes, a staggered timetable. All good. But the picture the Israelis see is of a different resolution. They know too little. Only a few general details. And that actually puts us even more at risk. You see: They’re looking for Cobra and they could accidentally get their hands on Viper.”
“Do you really think so?”
“You never know. But they’re on the hunt. They know they have a spy somewhere high up in the government establishment and they won’t rest until they find him. They don’t know they have two. They could accidentally stumble upon our man whom they don’t even know about yet. We had no way of knowing in 1989 how things would turn out some twenty-four years down the line. You can put it down either to substandard operational planning or simply bad luck. I don’t know. But their hunt can’t be allowed to lead them to Viper. He is not expendable. That is not an option as far as I’m concerned.”
Alexander looked at his commander. He could see his thoughts taking form in the shape of a plan of action. How out of the murkiness of the details a decision was forming in his mind. “Are you going to sacrifice Cobra?” he asked, his tone a mixture of admiration and awe.
“Not sacrifice him. We’ll get him out and offer him VIP resettling. But we’ll give them something that points definitively in his direction. And thus keep Viper safe. Even if we extract Cobra and he’s not in their hands, they’ll have evidence that incriminates him. They may also be onto Hexagon, our field operative in Providence. I have no idea how, but they’re keeping close to him. Aharon Levin met in Virginia with William Pemberton, that son of a bitch, and then went straight on from there to Rhode Island. Hexagon lives in Providence. That’s not a coincidence. There are no such things.”
“How do we know where Levin went?”
“SIGINT. We intercepted Levin’s call to Pemberton and then tracked his cell phone. Virginia, Providence, Boston, New York.”
“So if they’re keeping tabs on Hexagon…”
“Exactly. We can use him to provide the clue that leads them to Cobra. Instruct Hexagon to arrange for an image of himself and Cobra to be caught on the security camera footage of some antiquities store and to expose the name and location of the store by means of an item sent from there to his home. If they’re onto Hexagon, they’ll also find their way to the place from where he sent the package, and it won’t be long before they have their hands on the security footage. Aharon Levin thinks fast and has excellent contacts. He’ll get his hands on the security footage and have all the proof he needs. And even if it doesn’t go down that way, the fact that Cobra has fled Israel will serve, of course, as the damning proof. We’ll both incriminate and rescue him. But people in the intelligence game like hard evidence. And certainly when it comes to such sensitive matters. So we’ll make sure they get the evidence. And most important, Viper can remain unscathed.”