Blacklist Aftermath

16

As they lumbered into Paladin’s control room, Fisher winced over Grim’s heated gaze and crossed directly back to the armory with Briggs.

While Fisher stowed his weapons, Briggs took a seat and began to break down his rifle, preparing it to be cleaned. This was an important, meticulous, and quasi-religious task for operators such as themselves. Deposits like gunpowder residue and dust could clog the complex mechanisms of a rifle or handgun’s action, trigger, and hammer so that they’d fail to perform their full motions as designed. Failures to load or eject a round could mean the difference between life and death. Consequently, Briggs began his work with well-practiced efficiency. Without looking up, he said, “You really bring out the best in Grim.”

“She’ll get over it.”

“I could see her point.”

“Look, Yenin worked for Tom Reed. He was locked out of Voron.”

“Maybe he had more intel on Voron’s operations.”

“I doubt he knows more than Kestrel.”

“And you thought it was more important to teach Kestrel a lesson.”

“He’s the more valuable asset.”

Briggs made a face. “What criteria are you using to reach that conclusion?”

“Well, Mr. Prosecutor, I’m using the cold, hard facts.”

“If you say so.”

Fisher leaned toward the man. “You know, I was going to tell you what a great shot that was on the bag. Then the kill shot at the end — both of ’em right through the walls.”

“You change your mind?”

Fisher hesitated. “No. Nice work.”

Briggs glanced up from the table, his expression softening, if only a little. “Sam, I know in your eyes I’ve got a long way to go. You think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth because I went to private schools and my father’s a professor at Georgetown—”

“And you went to West Point.”

“Yeah. But I worked for everything I have. And I don’t take anything for granted. I hold myself to a higher standard.”

“Well, you’re here, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Point is, if I question one of your calls, it’s because I’m doing my job. We need to play all the angles every time we go out there.”

“I appreciate that. You keep me honest, but in the end, it’s always my call.”

“I understand.”

“You know I can’t do this forever.”

Briggs feigned a shocked look. “But they told us we were going to live forever.”

“They lied.”

“Bastards.”

“You could run this show one day.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“We’ll see.”

A shuffle came from the hatch.

“Well, what do we got here? Two contaminated knuckleheads playing with guns.”

Fisher glanced to the doorway where Kobin stood, sipping on a mug of something, probably coffee he wished were spiked with vodka.

“They left the cage open again?” Fisher asked.

“I picked the lock. But don’t worry. I don’t plan on running away ’cause the coffee’s so fucking great here. So, I hear we might be going to Sochi?”

“That’s classified.”

“Okay, but if you never tasted khachapuri, then you can’t leave without going to Natasha’s. It’s an outdoor café.”

“What the hell is khach—whatever the heck you said?” asked Briggs.

Kobin’s eyes lit up like a five-year-old watching a magic show. “It’s this monster-sized pastry filled with melted cheese and butter, then they float an egg inside. It’s a heart attack waiting to happen but so damned good.”

Fisher snickered. “More valuable intelligence from the smuggler.”

Briggs shook his head.

Kobin looked wounded. “Hey, you want intel? How ’bout this: You can’t fly into Sochi. Not in this bird. And I know you guys like to go in heavy. So how you getting there? And more importantly, how you getting in there with all your gear? Sounds like you’ll be needing me to arrange a delivery once you’re on the ground. So laugh now, meatheads, but you’ll come crawling back to me. They always do.”

Kobin grinned crookedly and headed off.

“That’s Russia,” said Briggs. “Can’t do an airdrop. CIA assets are too far away…”

“I’ll talk to the prick. We’ll set that up.”

“And I’d like to get one of those pastries,” said Briggs.

Fisher averted his gaze in shame. “Me, too.”

They both looked up as Grim appeared in the hatchway. “Charlie’s got footage of a group ushering Nadia into that hotel. Yenin’s story checks out. That’s actionable intel. Let’s move.”

The fast ferry hydrofoil out of Trabzon, Turkey, made the trip directly north across the Black Sea to Sochi in just over four hours. There was no visa required to enter Russia for a seventy-two-hour stay, although tourists needed to remain aboard ship or book a room at one of the local hotels. The ferry ran three times per week from Trabzon and departed at about one P.M. local time, so the team was in luck. They made it back from Kiev to Incirlik in time to drive up and catch a ride aboard the Hermes. The ferry was a colorful red, white, and blue affair with massive foils lifting her hull from the water, along with a spaceship-like bow suggesting a futuristic prototype from another century.

While Charlie remained back on board Paladin to keep working on Kannonball’s code, Grim joined them on the ferry and planned to coordinate from inside the hotel while Fisher and Briggs reconnoitered the place and planned their assault. Even though she’d done her best to conceal it, Fisher sensed that Grim was excited by the prospect of returning to the field.

They settled down into seats on the port side, and when Briggs excused himself for a moment, Fisher seized the opportunity to have a private word with Grim.

“We should talk about what happened in Vilcha.”

“What’s there to discuss?”

“I know you would’ve made a different call.”

She opened her mouth to say something, bit it back, then finally spoke. “Sam, you need to take yourself out of the moment and think long-term.”

“What do you mean?”

“You terminated Yenin. You let Kestrel walk with no way to track him…”

“Kestrel’s not worth much anymore. And, yeah, maybe killing Yenin was a mistake, but I’m with Kestrel on this one: anyone who worked for Reed—”

“I worked for Reed.”

“No, you worked for the POTUS.”

“Sam, what I’m saying is, I would’ve appreciated a little consultation before you began shooting assets.”

“Yenin wasn’t an asset. He’d already been locked out, written off. Like Kestrel said, they would’ve anticipated his capture, his talking, so that anything he shared would’ve already been shifted, changed, covered up… he was yesterday’s news. We got what we needed out of him.”

“I’ll say it again. I’d like to be consulted first.”

“Duly noted.”

Briggs returned and pointed out the window. “Nice view.”

Fisher rolled his eyes. Grim ignored him.

“And we’re all just one big happy family,” Briggs said through a deep sigh.

After a minute or two to cool down, they were all taking in the coastline, with the silver walls of high-rise hotels framed by a brilliant green forest and the cocoa-colored mountains crowned with snow on the horizon. Fisher even spied dozens of palm trees sprouting from the city’s broad, cobblestone quay. Sochi’s climate was humid and subtropical, making it an odd choice for the winter games; however, once you headed up into the higher elevations, you understood why athletes from around the world would travel there. Now, during the winter months, the daytime temps hovered around fifty degrees Fahrenheit, still cold enough for jackets but hardly the biting temps they’d faced at the plane crash site.

For her part, Grim was carefully dressed for the weather in her black Aeroflot flight attendant’s uniform and matching coat. She shouldered an expensive leather carry-on bag. She’d chosen not to wear the “cute little beret,” as Charlie had put it, looking daggers at him after the remark.

Fisher and Briggs were unarmed and dressed business casual. They’d all had to pass through customs in Turkey, a long and unfortunate process, but their documentation was, of course, flawless. For the next few minutes, they brushed up on their Russian in order to help Grim, who admitted she was still a bit rusty. By the time they reached the port and were being guided in near the rows of yachts and other pleasure craft, Grim was joking with them like a native speaker.

They split up at the rental car office. She drove off in a small green Chevy sedan, heading south for about twenty kilometers to the hotel. Fisher and Briggs picked up a black Mercedes SUV and left for a meeting that, God help them, Kobin had arranged. Briggs was at the wheel while Fisher called up the GPS location with his smartphone.

She was a heavyset babushka, probably pushing seventy, and they met her about three kilometers outside the airport, beneath the rusting hulk of an old bridge that had been condemned by the local government. Her real name was Vera, but Kobin just called her “Bab” and instructed Fisher to do likewise. She climbed out of her brown minivan whose driver’s side front tire was merely a donut spare. She waddled around to the rear doors, pushing back the yellow scarf covering her head to unloose a shock of gray hair as dense and matted as steel wool. She’d probably stopped wearing makeup decades ago, and her face was a relief map reflecting a long and exacting life.

“Do you have it?” she asked in English.

“The money?” Fisher asked.

“No, peanut butter.”

Fisher hustled back to the SUV and produced two jars of extra crunchy that Kobin said they needed to seal the deal. He’d told Bab about Charlie’s peanut butter addiction, and apparently she had one of her own.

“This is gold,” she said, pressing one jar to her cheek. “Now, let me see money.”

“We speak Russian,” Fisher reminded her.

She chuckled under her breath. “No, you don’t.”

Briggs and Fisher exchanged a look, then Fisher handed over the money.

After tucking the jars under her arm and licking her thumb, she flicked through the rubles with thick, wizened fingers. “In nineteen sixties I work for CIA,” she said with great pride. “Everyone knows Bab. You need something, come to Bab. Now, market is bullshit. People like Kobin ruin everything.”

“So you don’t like him, either,” Fisher said with a grin.

She returned to the van, where she stowed her peanut butter, then turned back and threw up her hands in disgust.

Suddenly, the minivan’s back door swung open and two young men in their twenties hopped out.

Briggs and Fisher responded by ducking to either side of the van, but Bab was hollering, “Oh, my grandsons, don’t worry! They carry boxes for me.”

“Be nice for a little heads-up,” Briggs told her.

The taller kid was wearing a faded AC/DC T-shirt and jeans, while the shorter, heavier one wore a hockey jersey, a replica of those worn by the Russian men’s national team. After some obligatory handshakes that revealed their shyness, the two men opened several anvil cases to display more than a dozen handguns — Berettas, SIGs, Glocks, and a few others that even Fisher did not recognize. Longer cases held six rifles, one of them a Dragunov sniper rifle. They unzipped some oversized nylon bags to reveal several tactical vests along with holsters and heavy leather gun belts.

Briggs reached forward, but Bab slapped away his arm. “First, we make promise.”

“What?” asked Fisher.

“First we make promise that you don’t die using my guns. Second, money is for rental. Not keep. Ammo is yours. No return if you don’t use it all, but guns and pistols come back to me. Understand?”

“We’ll make all the arrangements,” Fisher said.

“Do you have any frangible rounds?” Briggs asked. “Such as the Reduced Ricochet, Limited Penetration round?”

Bab frowned and looked at Fisher. “Where you find him?”

“He’s okay,” said Fisher. “Whatever you have will be fine.”

“Yes, I have good bullets for you. And oh, yes, here, Kobin was very specific.” She crossed to the front of the van, opened the passenger’s side door, then produced two pairs of trifocals, older multivision models without sonar to be sure, but classified trifocals nonetheless. Along with them, she had a pair of OPSATs — again, dated ones, but lo and behold, OPSATs.

“Where the hell did you get those?”

“Old Third Echelon dead drop in Grozny.”

“How do you know about Third Echelon?”

She waved him off, as though the question bored her. “Do you want fancy watch and binocular or not?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Briggs, collecting the gear.

“So, we have deal?” she asked, proffering her hand to Fisher.

“Okay.”

Fisher took her hand. She squeezed his tightly and jerked him down toward her face. “Come on, just one kiss.” She puckered up and pulled him closer.

Fisher tugged back, and she smacked him across the face before he could pull free. He turned away, his cheek smarting, as she and her grandsons broke into a fit of laughter. “Just kidding!” she said. “Pick pistols and rifles you want. Do you need explosives? I have some.”

Maybe she had more than that, Fisher thought. “If you have access to a dead drop, then maybe you’ve got more of our old gear? Sticky cams? EMP grenades?”

“No, sorry, already sold.”

“Sold?” Briggs asked, his jaw going slack.

“It’s no worry. Most clients use spy gear to catch cheating wives.”

The two grandsons nodded over that.

“All right, let’s see what you’ve got,” said Fisher, his eyes riveted on a .40-caliber SIG P226 tac ops edition not unlike his SEAL pistol. He placed the gun in one of his own bags, then picked up a Glock 19 for his secondary. Briggs chose a Beretta 92FS and a Smith & Wesson M&P Shield as his backup. The world-famous Dragunov was, of course, also coming along for the ride. Selections made, Fisher and Briggs collected magazines and ammunition.

Briggs took one look at the ammo and whispered to Fisher, “Are you serious?”

“Just take it,” Fisher ordered.

Their ammo had come unboxed, stored in plastic bags, and was the cheap reloaded crap most discerning marksmen would avoid.

The entire exchange took no more than another three minutes, and when they were finished, Fisher returned to Bab and said, “I’ll give you a kiss on the cheek if you really want one.”

She blushed. He’d called her bluff. She shouted for her grandsons to get back in the van. They did.

Drawing in a deep breath, she closed her eyes and presented her cheek. He gave her the customary three kisses on alternate cheeks, then said, “Bolshoe spasibo.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, opening her eyes. “You seem like good man. Do good things with my guns, not bad ones.”

“Okay.”

“And thank you for peanut butter. At my age, not many things make me excited. American peanut butter is one.”

“Glad we could help.”

Back in the SUV, Briggs brought their OPSATs online, and Grim, who had already booked her room in the hotel, received a rather surprising call from Fisher, who told her to boot up her computer, that he and Briggs were checking in.

“Where did you get those OPSATs?” she asked, her voice coming through their subdermals.

“At the Russian Flea Market,” answered Briggs.

“And let’s just say closing down 3E was a better idea than we thought,” said Fisher. “It seems some of our dead drops have been compromised.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Tell that to the babushka we just met.”

“Wow.”

“So, we’re armed and ready to move in once the sun goes down. Got anything else?”

Grim spoke quickly: “I walked the entire hotel. I haven’t pinpointed their room or rooms yet. Video showed what appeared to be five people in all with Nadia, but that’s not to say they don’t have more posted here.”

“Hey, Sam, it’s Charlie. I’ve got eyes on their security cameras. Thing is, they’ve only got cameras in the lobby, main entrance, and parking lot. Just two more on the exterior of the building. Nothing in the hallways, rooms, or elevators — so we’re blind there.”

“We need to mark one of the guards and tail him back to their rooms.”

“I’m ready when you are, Sam,” said Grim.

“On our way.”