Black Ghosts

CHAPTER 24

Edward stood on the street, desperate to get back to the safe house, which now was a death trap. Igor was there, Sparky and Anton would arrive any minute.

Natalie, or whatever her name was, could be anywhere by now. She could be working for anybody. But Edward could only assume the worst — that she was an agent of the Black Ghosts.

He felt sick at heart. He felt responsible. Where was his head? Why hadn’t he noticed? There must have been signs, clues. What was the damage? How many lives might be lost if this operation failed? And all because he had let his emotions get in the way of his reason. But he knew he could only have acted as he did, treachery or no treachery. He had done what he thought was right, and now he would live with the consequences.

At last a taxi pulled to the curb. Edward showed him the paper with the safe house address on it, and they were on their way.

He had the taxi drive straight past the house without stopping. He had to know whether someone had already staked out the place.

They were there, all right. At first he saw two men, one on the corner, one opposite the house. Then when he got out of the cab he noticed the third farther down the street. That meant there were probably more of them on the inside. He couldn’t help Igor, who was either dead or on his way there. Sparky and the driver should be arriving any minute, if they were not in there already. There was no sign of the green Lada. He had to assume they had not arrived yet. He was going to give them ten minutes before trying to get into the apartment.

Walking casually past one of the surveillance men, he entered the adjacent building. He was hoping they wouldn’t interrogate Igor. If they did, they would learn about the escape route that was in place for such a situation as this. The only problem was that, for it to be of any use, there needed to be plenty of warning. The apartment on the floor below had a second door which led into the stairwell of the adjacent building. Edward was now going to use the escape route backward, making his way in through the second stairwell and the storage apartment.

Once inside, he adjusted the Venetian blinds on the window facing the street so he could see without being seen.

He didn’t have long to wait. The pale green Lada rounded the corner, stopping right in front of the building’s main entrance. Edward could see the thin, nervous face of Sparky peering out the front windshield. Beside him in the driver’s seat, Anton pointed to the door of the apartment. Sparky, carrying a small tote bag, stepped out of the car. It seemed that after his life on the street, he was used to traveling light. He walked toward the front of the house while Anton parked the Lada in the only available spot, a little way up the street. Edward watched as one of the goons, quickly joined by another, approached the car. One of them went to the driver’s side and leaned by the open window, his hand thrust deep in his coat pocket. Edward had no doubt Anton was looking down the barrel of a gun. The other goon raised his hand, signaling across the street to a parked van that Edward had not noticed before. Several uniformed officers jumped out of the back of the van before the man had even finished signaling. They unceremoniously dragged Anton out of his car and threw him kicking and yelling into the van across the street. The few pedestrians tried to stay out of whatever was going on, and they made a special effort to look the other way.

Meanwhile, Edward could hear footsteps on the iron staircase. He ran to the front door and opened it, peeking through the crack. Sparky had already passed his door and was on his way up to the other apartment. Edward didn’t dare call out, for fear of alerting whoever was waiting behind the door. He ran silently up the stairs, catching up with Sparky just as he was about to knock on the door. He tapped him on the shoulder.

Sparky turned and saw Edward wide-eyed, his finger to his lips. Sparky opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it as Edward motioned him urgently downstairs. They slipped quickly into the lower apartment. Only then was it safe to exchange a few words of greeting, and even so, Edward was brief and to the point.

“We’ve got to get out of here, fast. I’ll explain later.”

Sparky nodded and the two men left the apartment by the other entrance. They ran down the street. Edward calculated that any minute now, the goons would realize their quarry had escaped and would pursue them. They needed to find a hiding place.

Edward felt naked, hurrying unprotected down the street in broad daylight, with nowhere to go and a gang of armed killers on his tail. If they still were not sure what he looked like, some of them at least had gotten a good look at Sparky.

Every time a car passed them, Edward listened for the slowing of the engine, braced himself for the impact of bullets, and breathed a sigh of relief as the car left them unmolested. He looked in vain for a shop, a bar, any public place that would afford them shelter. But it seemed the neighborhood they were in had been designated for living only, if what the Russians had been doing for the last seventy years could be called that. No fun, no enjoyment, no spending of money — no money to spend, for that matter. And nowhere for them to hide.

They reached the street corner. Edward looked back and saw a pale green car approaching them from the far end of the street. From the looks of it, it was Sokolov’s Lada.

“Hurry,” he told Sparky as they turned the corner. The poor man was obviously still not in the best physical condition. He was badly winded and his face was racked with pain. “I can’t… I can’t…” he was saying.

“Come on, you’ve got to,” Edward yelled, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him along. The Lada would reach the corner at any moment.

Ahead of them, the sidewalk opened into a stone staircase leading down into some dark Russian netherworld. Edward didn’t hesitate. Still dragging Sparky by the arm, he went down the steps and into the Moscow subway. He ran to the turnstile and held up two fingers to the man in the glass booth. The man shook his head. Not for the first time that day, Edward found himself reaching into his pocket for his billfold and thrusting greenbacks at someone. As before, it worked. The man issued them two tickets and opened the turnstile. They went through to a large ornate hallway, with railway platforms on either side, separated by colonnades.

Simultaneously, two trains headed in opposite directions entered the station. Edward tried to remember which train went downtown. There were no maps or signposts anywhere. “Kremlin? Kremlin?” he asked a man in a raincoat who had just disembarked.

“Da, da,” said the man, nodding toward the train he had emerged from. Edward and Sparky got inside just as the doors were closing. They threw themselves into the upholstered seats and tried to catch their breath.

“Welcome to Moscow,” said Edward.

He explained briefly what had happened, why they had made their precipitous exit from the safe house. Sparky accepted his explanation with barely a nod and sat in silence, looking rather lost. Edward realized he was probably in shock.

As the train carried them along, Edward took stock of the situation. He had one of the world’s best authorities on telecommunications sitting next to him, he had a platoon of miscellaneous tough guys flying into an airfield somewhere not too far off, and he had a couple of hundred Ukrainian soldiers who thought they were going to be in a movie coming into town tomorrow. Other than that, not too much was going right.

The safe house was gone, its other occupants probably dead by now. Edward had no doubt that the goons who had picked off Anton and probably Igor were working for the Black Ghosts, which meant that if they interrogated Anton, the Black Ghosts would know that their comrade Colonel Sokolov had turned on them. From now on, his life was not worth much.

As for Natalie, Edward didn’t even want to think about her. But beyond the cloud of pain and confusion that engulfed him whenever her image strayed into his mind, he could clearly see one result of Natalie’s betrayal was that the Ghosts now had a fully operational Barby communications array, meaning they could block out all media communications at any time and substitute their own messages. What use they might make of that over the next twenty-four hours boggled the mind.

The train rolled into a station. Edward had no idea where they were, but he knew he had to act fast, so he grabbed Sparky by the arm and pulled him off the train.

They went upstairs to the street. After walking up the street a little way, Edward realized he was very close to the Hotel Metropole. He found a pay phone and called Sokolov at his apartment.

It was a woman’s voice that answered. Edward could only speak to her in English and hope she understood. It turned out she not only understood English but could speak it as well. She told him Colonel Sokolov was not at home.

Edward told her that Sokolov’s life might be in danger. He gave her the coordinates of the airfield and told her it was extremely urgent that Sokolov meet him there as soon as possible. Her voice betraying no emotion other than a cool serenity, the woman said she would pass the message on.

So far so good. Now all Edward had to do was get himself there. And he wasn’t about to ask directions from strangers on the street. He had to slow down and figure things out. There was no way for him to call Larry. The way the phone system worked in Russia, from what he had seen, he would be lucky enough if he could get a local call through again. He needed a place where he could sit down and think. He also needed a phone and something to eat. And he had to get Sparky off the street.

They would never think he’d return to the Hotel Metropole. He still had a room there, and all he had to do was ask for it at the reception. It would give him a phone and everything else that he needed.

It was as easy as that. Twenty minutes later he was sitting in the hotel room. It was as he had left it, except that Natalie had removed all her belongings. Edward also noted that his passport was missing from the drawer where he had left it.

Sparky lay down on the bed and seemed to fall asleep, although Edward wasn’t sure if he really was asleep or back in one of his mental hideouts. It didn’t make much difference. Edward ordered some sandwiches from room service and a large jug of coffee. He needed the dark brew, since tea was practically coming out of his ears at that point.

He then asked for an outside line and dialed the number he remembered seeing Igor and Alexi call. A thick Russian voice answered.

“Sergei?” said Edward.

The voice said something incomprehensible. There followed a few moments of shouting in Russian and English, then silence.

“Hello? Hello?” Edward said. Nobody answered, but he could hear distant voices shouting in Russian. Then a new voice came on the line.

“Hello?”

“Is that Sergei?”

“This is he. Who are you?”

Edward explained the situation as best he could, while the voice at the other end of the phone made noises to show its owner was listening. Then came another pause while Russian voices deliberated in the background.

“Where are you now?”

“Hotel Metropole.”

“Can you get to the Operetta Theater on Pushkin Street? We’ll pick you up there in one hour.”

“How will I know you?”

“You will not. I will know you.”

Again at the mercy of others, Edward could feel the anger building. He had to keep his cool, he kept telling himself. There was a well-stocked bar in the room and the temptation was greater now than it had ever been in the past. But he had a team that depended on him, people who were willing to risk their lives on his say-so. He was not going to let them down. Not only that, but he was going to complete the job he had come here to do. He could feel a surge of energy take over. Suddenly he had an optimism he had not felt for many years.

The sandwiches finally arrived and he woke Sparky. They were really not worth the wait, and neither was the coffee. It seemed in this country of tea drinkers you couldn’t get your hands on a good cup of coffee anywhere.

They hurried through the streets again. Sparky was talking nervously. The time he had spent on the streets may have hardened him in some ways, but it also seemed to have made him suspicious to the point of paranoia. Either that, or the delayed shock of the afternoon’s surprises was having its effect. “Why are they sending us to the Operetta Theater?” he said. “Why didn’t they just pick us up at the hotel?”

“It’s a standard surveillance technique,” said Edward, his voice calm and patient. “To make sure we’re not being followed.” He hoped this was true. So far, the treatment he had received at the hands of the Russian Mafia had been exemplary, but now that he had blown one of their safe houses and probably got two of their people killed, their loyalty might be stretched a bit thin, to say the least. It was possible they could believe he was trying to set them up. He knew that if he were in their shoes, with the little they knew about him, he would certainly come to that conclusion himself.

They waited outside the theater. A few tourists wandered by, but it was too early for the evening performance.

A man pulled up on a moped. Still sitting astride the vehicle and revving the motor noisily, he called to Edward and Sparky. Edward went over to speak to him. Above the noise of the engine, the man asked if he was looking for Sergei. Edward nodded. The man gave him directions. They were to proceed along Pushkin Street, turning right at the first intersection. Then they must turn left on Petrovka and keep going until they came to a small park. They were to go into the park and wait for further instructions. Revving the engine again, the man drove away.

There was nothing for it but to follow his instructions, although Edward was getting somewhat impatient with all this cloak-and-dagger stuff. He kept these thoughts to himself. Sparky, however, gave full expression to what was going on in his mind. “I don’t like this, Edward. What if it’s a trap?”

“It’s not a trap. If they wanted to, they could have killed us ten times already.”

It was beginning to get dark by the time they reached the corner of Petrovka Street. Sparky stopped walking. “I’m not going,” he said.

“For God’s sake, Sparky, what’s the matter with you?”

“It’s a trap, I can feel it.”

“Look, these guys want to help us, they’re on our side.”

“How do you know that?”

Struggling to control his temper, Edward said, “Listen, Sparky, they want democracy for Russia as much as we do. It’s the only way they can hope to stay in business and make some money.”

He took Sparky by the arm and pulled him along. Still grumbling, Sparky let himself be led.

They crossed a wide boulevard, on the corner of which was a thickly wooded park. Ignoring Sparky’s muttered protests, Edward headed into the park. There was no sign of anyone.

It all happened so fast. Edward sensed a movement behind him and quickly turned around. Some fifteen paces away, under cover of the trees, a man in combat fatigues was grabbing Sparky’s hands and pinning them behind him. Sparky screamed as his wrists were handcuffed. A second man pulled a large cloth bag over Sparky’s head and shoulders. The bag had a cord around it, which the man pulled tight.

Edward ran toward the shadowy figures, but he had not moved very far when someone grabbed him from behind, immobilizing him. He felt the handcuffs encircling his wrists. Then the cloth bag descended over his head and Edward could see no more. He felt the cord squeeze him, and then he was being hustled to the boulevard. Behind Sparky’s muffled screams, he could hear the smooth purring of a powerful automobile engine. Doors were opened, and the two were thrown into the back seat of the car.

Sparky was still screaming. Then he could hear someone say, “Be quiet or I will shoot your head off.” Edward could only assume the man had brought a gun to bear on Sparky because the screaming stopped.

“I told you it was a goddamn trap,” Sparky said in a low voice, almost a whisper.

“Don’t worry,” said Edward, trying not to worry himself. “This is routine.” He was hoping he was right, but there were too many things that could go wrong. Sergei was only a hunch. He could be working with Natalie, or whatever her name was, for all he knew.