Black Ghosts

CHAPTER 11

The dark green flatbed truck bearing a large steel container stopped at the gates, coughing out clouds of brown diesel gunk into the crisp morning air. The guard in the black, well-ironed uniform checked the documents closely, making Corporal Litov, the truck driver, somewhat nervous. The sight of military order and correctness was not what he was used to lately. Ever since Russia’s giant step into the new age of democracy, sloppy disobedience was the rule of the day. And even though the sharply dressed guard, the well-painted walls, and the large iron gate with no rust visible seemed out of place and somehow ominous, they also promised a chance of a good meal, like in the good old days. Corporal Litov longed for the old regime, when soldiers belonged and were well taken care of and everybody knew that. It was a time when even he, a nobody driver, was a somebody because people had respect for the uniform of the great Red Army.

“You’re late,” the guard said, looking at the clipboard in his hand.

“What?” Litov asked in disbelief. Not only had they known he was coming, which was unusual enough these days, but they also knew he was late. Even he didn’t know he was late. He’d been sent on his way with little more than a wave and an order to keep quiet. This, however, was neither the time nor the place to tell that story. This was the army, the real army, the way he knew it was meant to be. “I got lost,” he said apologetically. “I’m not from this area and this was my first assignment.”

The sentry finally handed back the papers, checking something on his clipboard. He signaled toward the steel door at the side of the bunker’s mouth, where a second guard, looking through an observation slit in the door, opened the gate.

“Move it,” the sentry said with a stern expression on his face, the kind that gate sentries in every army in the world use to project authority.

Litov, a backup driver with the Ninth Armored Division that had been moved to the outskirts of Moscow for exercises only days before, had received his orders that morning to pick up a container from Sheremetyevo-2 Airport north of Moscow and deliver it to this location. He was more than an hour late in picking it up, as he had taken the wrong exit off the Moscow Ring Road. Due to a lack of signs and the fact that his destination was not marked on his map, things had gotten a little hairy for him. But now he was no longer in a rush. His commander back at division had told him to gather his personal belongings for this trip as he was reassigned to his new destination.

The container had arrived by plane from London that morning, bearing the tags and bordereau of a diplomatic delivery. The bordereau had been signed by an assistant to the military attaché, an FSK man, at the Russian Embassy in London. He believed he was signing for a consignment of office furniture and filing cabinets.

Twenty minutes after Donoven’s thoughts had been interrupted by Yazarinsky’s bullets, the police had arrived at the pub. It had taken them another ten minutes to identify the body. A couple of detectives were sent to the deceased’s flat, only to find it empty: There was not a stick of furniture, not a light bulb anywhere to be found. Where hours earlier there had been a man’s life, there was nothing — not even, as the detectives soon found to their amazement, a single fingerprint. A neighbor had seen the movers arrive that morning but found nothing unusual in what they were doing. It wasn’t the first time people had moved in or out of the building without telling him, he said.

Litov drove his truck through the newly painted gateway and parked inside the large garage space.

“The truck has arrived.” Yazarinsky’s voice crackled over the intercom on Peter’s desk.

“Very good. Tell Colonel Sokolov to examine the containers.” Peter sat back. This would be the ideal job for the plodding, methodical Sokolov, he thought. He was starting to dislike the man, who seemed to question him on every occasion. It was as if he didn’t get the bigger picture; he expected the military takeover Peter had planned for so long to be temporary — until they could get things working again in Russia, Sokolov had said. What a fool, Peter thought. If we get Russia working again, what is the point of handing it back to the miserable people? What have the people ever done for Russia? Stalin, as the czars before him, knew the people needed a leader to fear. They still feared and revered Stalin, and he’d been dead for half a century. Peter wanted them to tremble when they heard his name too. And so they shall, he thought.

A few minutes later, Yazarinsky and Sokolov walked toward Litov’s truck, now parked in the underground garage. Yazarinsky explained the situation.

“We have recently acquired the personal effects of one of our operatives in London. We have reason to believe this man has been in touch with American intelligence, in a way that may be detrimental to our mission. He himself is no longer a problem.” Yazarinsky permitted himself a rasping, excited giggle before continuing. “We have to find out who his contacts were, and what information he passed to them. General Rogov requested that you personally examine these materials and see what secrets they reveal. We brought you everything except the wallpaper.”

“As they say in English,” murmured Sokolov, “everything but the kitchen sink.”

Yazarinsky’s face was impassive, although his voice sounded slightly worried. “We did not bring the kitchen sink. Would that have been helpful?”

Sokolov did not bother to reply. He regarded Yazarinsky as a barbarian, an illiterate bum in a uniform, a creature whose only talent was to destroy. Unfortunately, he thought, people like him were necessary in times of great upheaval, when to create a new order you first had to destroy the old. Sokolov sighed and continued walking. Yazarinsky’s presence, however, increased his doubts regarding the purpose of that new order. He realized that General Rogov had no intention of alleviating the Russian people’s suffering. In fact, the man believed their burden should be increased. Sokolov was beginning to wonder if all it would be was a crueler version of the old order. He brushed away the thought, knowing full well he was already committed, and there was nothing to do but push on.

Standing by the truck was a detail of soldiers ready to assist Sokolov in dismantling the container. Giving a courteous thanks to Yazarinsky, who then returned to his post, Sokolov ordered the contents transferred to a storage room deeper inside the bunker, where he began to sift through the belongings of the late Mr. Donoven.

The furniture was easily dealt with. Once Sokolov had determined that they contained no secret hiding places, a sofa, two armchairs, a dining table and chairs, a bed, and a side table were quickly cleared for disposal. A tape deck and cassettes took a little more time. In the background as he worked, Sokolov had to listen to hours of Brahms, a composer he detested, before he could be sure that the tapes contained nothing but music.

The contents of Donoven’s study desk were put into a box and labeled, then the desk was taken apart and out of the way. Sokolov was hoping to find some information here, but the drawer had contained nothing but writing paper and envelopes, pens and pencils, erasers and paper clips. To be on the safe side, Sokolov had the papers tested for invisible ink, but nothing came to light other than the fancy watermark of the stationery company.

Donoven had owned large numbers of books. It was Sokolov’s job to look through each one to see if there were any papers hidden between the pages, or handwritten markings that may have indicated a code. Most of the books were non-fiction tomes on economics, international finance, and military matters. Clearly, Donoven had taken the public side of his work quite seriously. There were also a number of volumes whose high-quality photos and illustrations indicated that Mr. Donoven had a well-developed taste for sadomasochistic pornography. Sokolov looked at the lurid pictures with mingled disgust and fascination. Although to him they were the corrupt and corrupting product of the decadent West, he also found their frank and explicit sexuality disturbing and exciting. Having determined that the secrets they revealed were not political ones, he filed them in the box marked “personal” and continued his perusal of Donoven’s library.

Among the books, he found old letters and postcards, pressed flowers, stubs from concerts and theater visits, all the odds and ends that people accumulate during their lives. To most people other than their owner, they were junk. But to Sokolov, they were clues to riddles he still had to ask, about what their owner was really like, how he thought, who he dealt with.

By early morning, Sokolov still had found nothing that would indicate who Donoven’s covert contacts might be. One thing was becoming very clear, however: If Donoven’s personal effects revealed anything, it was that he was extremely security conscious and must have used a very sophisticated technique for encrypting whatever data he wished to keep secret. It looked as though it would take some time to extract any useful information from this pile of paper.

One more box of books remained. In it Sokolov found, among the paperback thrillers, something which didn’t quite fit with the rest of the puzzle called Donoven: a brown envelope in which were considerable numbers of hundred-dollar bills and twenty-pound notes. This was starting to get interesting.

Next in the pile was a brown, leather-bound volume with no title. Opening it, Sokolov gave a wry smile. He had been wrong about Donoven: Far from being an intelligence sophisticate, the man was an idiot. For the book’s pages were filled with notes, handwritten in English, detailing the essentials of the Black Ghosts’ plan. And on the last page was a column of names, dates, and phone numbers. The last and most recent entries read:

Larry Williams: (nice guy) U.S. intell.: Leave message at 561-2448

Met Edward: (arrogant bastard) — taking over from Larry.

Sokolov sat back in his chair, his legs resting comfortably on the “in” basket on his desk. He held the book up to the light, searching for a mark of some kind, but there was nothing. Then he closed the book and put it on the table by his legs. He had found what he was looking for, the missing link. His next step would have to be well calculated. If this Donoven person was an amateur or an idiot, that didn’t necessarily mean Larry or this fellow Edward were.

Having made up his mind, Sokolov moved quickly. He retyped the column of handwritten entries on several sheets of paper, sorting them by name. These he placed in separate files in his cabinet. The leather-bound volume he consigned to the box marked “personal,” along with Donoven’s letters, novels and hardcore pornography. Then he went to report to General Kruglak.

It was Natalie’s idea to get the men dressed up like a soccer team so they could train in the park without attracting too much attention. Mario Rosili, the former Green Beret who was assigned as the group’s sergeant, was taking the training very seriously, as were the rest of the men. By the end of the first day, there were very few muscles they had and were not aware of. With the exception of Sparky, who seemed to be regaining his awareness through the sweat of his brow, no one was complaining. The men were experienced enough to know that the harder the training, the better their chances of making it through this operation alive. They all knew it was sometimes the ability to jump across one more inch of wall in one less second that could make the difference.

Natalie’s job in the safe house was done and she was going back to Larry in Utah. Edward was helping her pack when the phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Edward, we have us a problem.” Larry sounded down. In fact, he sounded depressed.

“What’s up?”

“Donoven was killed.”

“When did this happen?”

“Right after he got back from New York. We have nothing now, there’s no way we can get the final timetable. I think I may have to chance it with Bud Hays.”

“Wasn’t he the one who almost got you killed?”

“We can’t be sure. It’s possible it was someone else who had access to the file, someone working in his office. Look, Edward, what other choice do we have? We have to stop this thing — you know it and I know it. With Donoven dead, we know squat about what the hell is going on. The whole thing can blow up in our faces tomorrow, for all we know. And we won’t know about it until we hear it on the eleven o’clock news.”

“Wait, let me think this over before you do anything stupid. I didn’t put my ass in the sling for you so you’ll go out and get yourself killed all over again. When was Donoven hit, exactly?” Edward was looking for clues. He wanted to find another way to deal with this problem. There had to be other sources for the information they needed. You don’t take over a country the size of Russia without anyone knowing.

“About two weeks ago. It must have been the twenty-sixth or the twenty-seventh of February. What difference does it make when he died? The bastard is dead and that’s that.”

Edward thought back to his meeting with Donoven. Was there any clue, any other source that might be unearthed from anything Donoven had said? Edward racked his brains but could think of nothing. “How did you find out he was dead?”

“He was supposed to call me two days ago, I told you, and he didn’t. Finally I called his office looking for him. They said he’d been found sitting in a pub, shot twice, very professional job. He sat there for some time, dead, in a bustling pub before anyone realized he wasn’t going to finish his drink. Every time I get close to someone they nail him. I’m telling you, either I’m jinxed or they have eyes in the back of their heads.”

“Come on, Larry, you know that’s not true. Donoven wasn’t a pro, you said so yourself. He was a desk jockey at MI5—big deal.” Edward knew he had to calm his friend down, get him back onside. “Think, man, think. There must be something you overlooked.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Did you have a mailbox for him? Something he could leave you a message in? Something, anything.”

“I gave him a call number. It’s a relay setup. He never used it, though.”

“Did you check it?”

“No, what’s the point? The man didn’t use it when he was alive, why should he use it after he’s dead? We’re not dealing with Lazarus here, you know.”

“What’s the number? I’ll check it.”

“Hold on, I’ll get it for you.”

Minutes later Larry gave Edward the phone number and the code by which to retrieve the messages. Before hanging up, Edward made Larry promise he would not do anything until Edward got back to him. For the moment, as far as Edward was concerned, everything was to go on as planned.

“What was that all about?” Natalie asked, an expression of concern on her face as she combed her hair away from her forehead with her fingers.

“Donoven was killed, and we have no timetable, we have nothing.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I have no idea, but one thing is for sure: I’m not backing off now, not when I know what’s at stake, no way.”

“Okay, but how will you know when to do what you want to do if you don’t know when that is?”

“You could put that to music,” Edward said with a hint of a smile. “There is no way they are going to do it just like that. They are going to try and link it to something else, like a magician who waves one hand in the air to draw your attention from what he’s really up to. If we could only figure out what that other thing is.” He sat in silence for a minute. “I also have this number Larry gave me.” He picked up the phone and dialed. “Let’s see if dead people can talk.”

The phone rang several times, then came a recording. “You have one message. Please enter your access code after the tone. Thank you for using AT&T.”

Edward punched in the number and waited. After a second beep, a voice with a Russian accent came on. “This is a message from Mr. Donoven. Meet me at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier, outside the Kremlin. March 18 at 3 p.m., Moscow time. I have the information you need. Also you must have a copy of the Phoenix Gazette.” Then came a second voice: “End of new messages. To erase all messages, please press…” Edward hung up.

“Well?” Natalie leaned closer to him. “What was it?”

“I just got a message from the grave. Wait a minute.” He dialed Larry’s number and told him what he had heard, talking to Natalie at the same time. She had become paler than he had ever seen her, and for someone of her complexion, that was very pale.

“It’s a trap,” Larry insisted. “It’s a goddamn trap. Can’t you see that?”

Edward was thinking quickly. “But there’s a chance it’s not. Something in that voice tells me it’s not a trap. Think about it, Larry; what’s the point of a trap? Donoven’s dead, and getting whoever was running him would only be an act of revenge, nothing more. We’re dealing with professionals — these people are out to take over an empire. Do you really think they would stop to play games?”

“Can you say for sure they wouldn’t?”

“No, but there’s only one way to find out — and it isn’t sitting in Utah and wringing your hands.”

“I don’t care what you say, Edward. I know it’s a trap. I can feel it.”

“It’s an offer, Larry — one we are in no position to refuse.”