Collusion

Fourteen

Two Years Earlier

A simple plan. Enter the Boko Haram camp before dawn where Elsa Eriksson was being held captive for ransom while the terrorists were sleeping. Counting Brett Garrett, fourteen SEALs. Intel put the number of jihadists at twenty. The Americans were better trained, better armed. Grab and go. Minimum engagement. Garrett felt confident.

The eight huts formed a C from a bird’s view. No electricity. In the C’s center a fire pit. Primitive. A half-dozen motorbikes leaning next to the mud-walled, thatched-roof dwellings. Patched together with so many spare parts their original manufacturers were unidentifiable. Two vehicles. Most menacing: a Toyota Tacoma pickup with a Soviet-made Z KPVT heavy machine gun mounted on its bed—parked near the fire. A World War II–vintage deuce-and-a-half cargo truck steps outside the camp.

From the darkness, Garrett took stock. No dogs, chickens, or ducks to sound an alarm. Team’s sniper, Big Mac, and spotter, Curly, found high ground. A rock-covered hill on the camp’s western edge. The others spread out strategically. Eyes on every entrance. Capable of killing anyone who emerged. They were ready.

Garrett, Senator, Sweet Tooth, and Bear moved forward. Silent. Two sentries outside the hostage hut—designated Alpha-1. Both unaware. Their Kalashnikov assault rifles leaning against the hut’s walls. Teenagers chewing khat, a local leaf stimulant.

Garrett and Bear were the most skilled with knives. Garrett insisted his men carry two fixed blades. No folding ones. Right-side blade with a forward grip on the vest. Left side with a reverse grip. Immediate to unsheathe.

Garrett, Bear, Sweet Tooth, and Senator paired up when they reached the back of Alpha-1; each pair moved simultaneously in the opposite direction around it. A startled look on each target’s face. Open mouths but no time to yell. Death. Sweet Tooth and Senator grabbed the bodies while Garrett and Bear slipped around the heavy blanket covering the hut’s entrance.

Garrett’s knife had been replaced by his SIG Sauer P226. Gunfire noise comes from gases popping from behind a bullet, similar to a car backfiring or opening a bottle of bubbly. Garrett’s pistol was fitted with a suppressor that gave those gases a quieter place to go.

The guard inside was half-asleep, his back propped against the interior wall. His assault rifle on his lap. A lone candle burning next to him illuminated the interior. Garrett fired. A muffled thud. Another thud. Two rounds directly into the guard’s chest. Known as a double tap. Another to the head if the target was wearing body armor. This dead jihadist wasn’t.

Bear held the blanket open so the Senator and Sweet Tooth could drag the two dead sentries inside. They dropped them next to their freshly executed buddy.

The hooded figure curled up on the floor was trembling. Garrett had a passport photo for positive ID. He dropped to his knees. Checked her hands. They were white. “Elsa Eriksson,” he whispered. “Don’t scream. Don’t speak. Navy SEALs. Nod if you understand.”

The hood moved.

“I’m removing your hood. Don’t freak on me.”

He slipped it from her head and compared it to the photo. A match.

Garrett’s ballistic helmet, outfitted with a flashlight, infrared strobe (used when signaling helicopters), and four tubes that allowed better peripheral vision than the standard two-lens night-vision goggles, seemed to confuse her. He lifted his helmet. Smiled.

“Relax. Nod if you can walk. Don’t speak.”

Senator cut the bindings holding her wrists. Garrett and Senator helped her stand. She was wobbly. Dehydration. Weak. Most likely unsure whether this was real or her dream.

“Thank you, Jesus,” she muttered.

Garrett couldn’t resist. “Not Jesus, ma’am. Navy SEALs.”

In the candlelight she saw the three dead terrorists sprawled on the dirt floor and gasped.

Garrett covered her mouth, afraid she might squeal. “Ma’am, you must be quiet. Do you understand? They’re still out there.”

She had not fully understood that the other Boko Haram kidnappers were alive. Still outside the hut. Senator slipped behind her. Bear and Sweet Tooth on each side. Garrett took the lead. He peered outside. Through his headset: “Ready to move the package. We clear?”

“It’s a go,” Curly said. Everyone was in place.

“The C-4,” Garrett asked.

“In place.” A precaution. C-4 placed on the Boko Haram vehicles.

All they needed to do was to exit the hut, disappear into the darkness, rendezvous with the helicopters. Mission accomplished.

“Let’s move!” Garrett said, drawing back the blanket covering. Eriksson touched his shoulder.

“Abidemi,” she muttered in a hoarse whisper. “Do you have her?”

Garrett released the blanket, sealing them back inside the hut.

“Who?”

“My friend. They kidnapped us. I heard her screaming a few hours ago. She’s in a different hut.”

“American? Swedish? NGO?” he asked, although he suspected he knew the answer.

“Nigerian.”

“Ma’am, we have to go.”

“No,” Eriksson said. “She’s a Christian. She’s only fourteen!”

“Ma’am, we must go. No time.”

“No!” she repeated, this time more insistent. “They’ll kill her.”

“Ma’am, calm down. I’ll ask.”

All conversations between Garrett and his SEAL team were being monitored in Langley and at the Pentagon. Tactically designed military helmet cameras broadcast visuals. CIA director Harris was overseeing the rescue operation and already had overheard Eriksson’s demand.

“We have an issue,” Garrett said.

While those in Washington could hear all chatter between the SEALs, only Garrett could hear Director Harris. The other SEALs couldn’t hear Harris, either.

“Yes, sir,” Garrett replied. “I understand.”

Eriksson was staring at him with hope-filled eyes.

“Ma’am, my orders are to get you and my men out of this camp immediately.” He lowered his night-vision goggles.

“I won’t leave without her,” she said.

“Ma’am,” Garrett replied, “come with us and once you’re safe we’ll determine which hut your friend is in.”

Eriksson hesitated. “I don’t believe you.”

From outside the camp’s perimeter, Curly interrupted. “Chief, you got company.”

“Talk to me.”

“On your left.”

Peering out, Garrett spotted him. “You got eyes on target, Big Mac?”

“Affirmative,” the sniper replied. “He’s taking a piss.”

Against the side of his hut. A slim thirty-something terrorist now twisting his head side to side. Stretching his neck.

The fire in the camp’s center glowed red, creating minimal lighting but enough for the urinating terrorist to notice the sentries were not at their posts outside Alpha-1—if he looked.

“Orders?” Big Mac asked.

“Only if necessary.”

Big Mac’s sniper’s rifle had a suppressor but the sound of the bullet’s wake, like a miniature sonic boom, would be loud enough for others to hear.

Sweat beaded through Garrett’s camouflage makeup. How long could one man pee?

“He’s done,” Big Mac reported.

Garrett checked. The terrorist was walking toward a different hut from the one that he’d exited. He’d not noticed the missing sentries.

“Where the hell’s he going?” Garrett asked.

Big Mac tracked him across the camp, watched him lift a hut flap and go inside.

“You’re clear,” Curly reported.

“Ma’am,” Garrett said, “you’re putting yourself, my men, and me at great risk. People will die, including your friend if we don’t leave right now. Do you understand?”

“We can’t leave her. She’s just a child.”

A scream. The cries of a child.

“Abidemi!” Eriksson gasped. “He’s hurting her!”

Fifteen

Current Day

The day after Yakov Prokofyevich Pavel returned to Moscow, he awoke a traitor. He’d always loved Mother Russia, having been taught from childbirth about collective patriotism, loyalty, sacrifice, and honor. How could Pavel live with himself now?

His decision to contact the Americans had not been impulsive. As a deputy foreign minister, Pavel never made life-changing decisions on a whim. The deaths of his daughter and son-in-law had been the tipping point, but his unhappiness already had been deeply rooted. The seeds had germinated with each power-grabbing move by President Kalugin. He’d discredited, arrested, imprisoned, or killed his opponents. He’d gleefully deconstructed a classless Marxist society, spinning it into a corrupt autocracy. A short, middle-aged narcissist, Kalugin lived in a world of moral weightlessness.

Pavel had rationalized his choice by convincing himself that he was not betraying Mother Russia. Its corrupt president had betrayed him and all Russians. Kalugin was the actual traitor.

Pavel needed to stick to his daily routine and wait for a signal from his newly chosen friends. He dressed and ate a light breakfast while sitting across the table from his mute grandson. He noticed the time and glanced outside expecting to see Dmitri Fedorovich Dusko, his driver, and his ministry-provided car.

Dusko hadn’t yet arrived.

Pavel kissed Peter on the top of his head and stood at the window. Five, ten, fifteen minutes. Pavel telephoned the Foreign Ministry.

“I apologize, Deputy Minister,” the head of motor cars said. “Your driver fell ill last night. He’s been taken to the hospital. Whoever failed to send a substitute driver this morning will be punished.”

“What hospital?” Pavel replied angrily.

“City Clinical Hospital number sixty-four on Vavilova.”

Pavel called its chief medical officer and was immediately put through. His diplomatic rank mattered.

“Dmitri Fedorovich Dusko and his wife entered our facility suffering from debilitating diarrhea and vomiting,” the medical officer reported. “Neither could walk without support and both were hallucinating.”

“Are they better now?”

“Unfortunately, Deputy Minister, they are not. Both are unconscious and on life support. May I ask a few inquiries that might help us better understand what caused their illness? Did you see either of them last night?”

“Of course I saw my driver. You should already know this. Dusko picked me up at the airport near ten o’clock and drove me home. He appeared to be in excellent health when he unloaded my bags and left. How can this possibly be helpful?”

“Were you ill this morning?”

“Would I be speaking to you on the telephone if I were?”

“Yes, Deputy Minister. Only a few more questions. Do you know if Dmitri Dusko and his wife are heavy drinkers or did he happen to mention what he might be having, say, for dinner or a treat, later that night, shellfish, possibly?”

“I’m not in the habit of discussing my driver’s drinking habits with him or his choice of cuisine or at what time he and his wife eat,” Pavel snapped.

“Certainly, Deputy Minister. I asked only because their sudden illness is most likely related to gastrointestinal disturbances that typically result in excessive vomiting and diarrhea. I suspect your driver and his wife might be having an allergic reaction to some bacterial agent, perhaps ingested while eating contaminated shellfish.”

Pavel hesitated, his mind remembering the ride home. “When were they admitted to your hospital?” he asked.

“Shortly before one a.m.,” the doctor said, “about two hours after you observed Dusko in good health unloading your car.”

“Unless you have further questions,” Pavel said, “I have been as helpful as I can and have business to attend to.”

“Thank you, Deputy Minister, for your time.”

Pavel put down the phone receiver. He pictured General Gromyko.

“I brought you candies as a welcoming home gift… your grandson.”

The general playfully wagging a pointed finger.

“Only six candies… superior quality. I take no responsibility if you yourself become tempted, but they are for the child.”

Pavel had dropped the box of chocolates into the limousine’s front seat for his driver.

A car from the ministry arrived. Pavel hurried outside from his five-room apartment on Leontyevski in the center of Moscow’s historic houses. Pavel had inherited his apartment from his well-connected father, a high-ranking member of the Communist Party. It occupied the entire floor of what had been a late-nineteenth-century aristocrat’s mansion. That was before the October Revolution ended the czarist reign and gave birth to the Soviet Union. His flat was only a five-minute walk from the Arbat Tverskaya metro stop, but Pavel had not used Moscow’s famed underground since childhood. He’d depended completely on his government driver.

In his video flash drive, Pavel had left instructions. Paint a red X on the shell of an already graffiti-covered sidewalk public telephone on New Arbat Avenue. Pavel’s morning commute to Smolenskaya Sennaya Square passed by the phone.

“Have you heard?” his substitute driver asked Pavel as they rode. Without waiting for an answer, he said, “The Americans arrested a spy. They claim he worked for us. NSA.”

Pavel’s eyes narrowed. He clenched his jaw.

“Is it your job to inform me of such news?” he rudely replied.

Russian counterintelligence officers would be on the hunt. How had the Americans caught him? Had their mole drawn suspicion on himself? Spent large sums of money? Been caught photographing documents? Or was it the most likely explanation. A Russian traitor had exposed an American one? It had been less than forty-eight hours since he’d given President Fitzgerald the password. Even someone as dull as Gromyko would eventually wonder about the timing of the spy’s arrest and Pavel’s trip to Washington.

Pavel’s car was approaching the public telephone. Nothing. No red painted X on the shell covering it.

Gromyko already had tried poisoning him and Peter. He felt certain of it. The light of hope was dimming within him.

Sixteen

Valerie Mayberry slipped off her wedding ring. She had shadowed Asyan Rivera from her pricy Baltimore inner harbor condo to a picturesque western Pennsylvania town. Home to Smithmyer College.

Tailing Rivera had been simple. An FBI technician had planted a tracking device on her BMW. Mayberry had arrived at the school’s parking lot a few moments after Rivera. Finding her on campus also had been easy. She was sipping a salted caramel mocha while sending a text at a table in the student center’s food court, and did not look anything like a typical Smithmyer student.

Mayberry calculated the cost of Rivera’s outfit. A Miu Miu cropped black denim jacket. Worn over a Dolce & Gabbana denim bralette. Skintight Prada black chopped tailored trousers. At least three grand on those three pieces. Valentino Garavani Rockstud combat boots, Italian made: $1,700? Panthère de Cartier sunglasses with gray gradient lenses: at least $900. Another $200 to have her initials engraved on the corner of one lens. Total cost of her rock girl chic outfit, easily $6,000.

In contrast, Mayberry’s costume consisted of a Walmart fluted-sleeve floral-print blouse, Old Navy denim jeans with knee holes, and black Nike Flex running shoes. Around $200.

It was Rivera’s handbag that most caught Mayberry’s attention. A Louis Vuitton Sac Plat Fusion Fire Led Elvim 19 black leather satchel. Did any of the college boys ogling her realize it alone retailed for $54,000?

Rivera stood, having finished her drink and text. She disappeared into a nearby women’s restroom. Mayberry entered the food court and out of habit carried the crumpled cup and soiled napkins that Rivera had left behind to a receptacle before sitting in a chair where she could watch the women’s room.

She almost missed seeing Rivera exit. Gone was the designer outfit, replaced by an oversize black sweatshirt worn over black denim jeans. High-top sneakers. Her hair tucked under a black stocking cap. Mayberry assumed Rivera had packed her earlier outfit in the Under Armour gym bag slung over shoulder.

Mayberry followed her outside. Watched her deposit the gym bag into the BMW’s trunk. Kept her distance as Rivera climbed a slight hill making her way to the school’s auditorium where a crowd had gathered. Mayberry lost track of her in the swarm.

“Concert tonight?” Mayberry asked a nearby student.

“You’re kidding, right?”

The jostling began. By the time Mayberry got inside, every seat was filled. She found room along a back wall.

Seconds later, protestors entered. Eight of them paraded down the center aisle to the front of the auditorium. Their leader was dressed in a brightly colored orange-and-black dashiki. The rest wore all black and masks. Three rubberized former presidents: Reagan, Carter, Clinton. A Zorro. A pink pussy-cat protest hat with scarf pulled up. Guy Fawkes—the flamboyantly anarchic terrorist in the comic book series V for Vendetta. Mayberry easily spotted Rivera hiding behind a glittery Mardi Gras jester’s face.

The dashiki-clad leader, who wasn’t wearing a disguise, raised a bullhorn and began to chant: “Hey, ho, racist professors need to go! Hey, ho, sexist professors need to go!”

Although the voices of her fellow protestors were somewhat muted, they repeated her call. Others in the auditorium joined in.

“Hey, ho, racist professors need to go! Hey, ho, sexist professors need to go!”

Three campus security guards watched from the auditorium’s aisles. Arms folded across their chests.

“We ain’t lettin’ no racist speak here tonight,” the woman announced. “We ain’t listenin’ to any of his white-privilege bullshit!”

A student in a Smithmyer sweatshirt three rows from center stage yelled back: “He’s not a racist. Let him speak.”

“You ain’t black,” the woman declared. “You got no say in who be racist. You ain’t a woman, either, you got no say in who be a misogynist.”

Mayberry raised her cell phone, joining dozens of others videoing the protest. “Excuse me,” she whispered to a coed scrunched against the auditorium wall beside her. “This is my first day here. What’s going on?”

“The off-campus fight,” she replied.

“What fight?”

The student quickly explained. Each year, Smithmyer held a Day of Nonattendance/Day of Reuniting event. Minority students left the campus to discuss diversity issues. They returned the next day to reunite with nonminority students. This year, its organizers turned tables. Everyone who wasn’t a minority was told to stay off campus. Dr. Francis Williams, an English professor, had written an editorial challenging the switch.

The student pulled a folded campus newspaper article from the back pocket of her jeans. “Here’s what he wrote. I’m saving it. Nothing like this ever happens at Smithmyer.”

Mayberry scanned the clipping. “There’s a difference between a group deciding to voluntarily vacate the campus,” Dr. Williams had written, “and that same group telling others they have to go away. Leaving campus to raise consciousness about minority issues is a much-valued tradition at Smithmyer that all of us should respect. But demanding all whites leave the campus is a show of force, an act of oppression against nonminority faculty and students, and this is wrong.”

She handed back the clipping. Mayberry had read about protests on college campuses about free speech but had never attended one.

“He’s not a Nazi!” a supporter yelled. “He’s got a First Amendment right to speak.”

“Not when it’s hate speech,” the woman with the bullhorn replied. “That be verbal violence. Ain’t protected by the First Amendment.”

The protestor in the pussycat hat yelled, “You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded movie theater.”

“She’s right!” someone in the audience responded. “If what you say marginalizes people, you have no right to say it.”

“What Dr. Williams wrote wasn’t hate speech,” one of his student supporters argued.

“Was too hate speech,” the bullhorn leader answered. “Defending white supremacy always be hate speech. If you a Nazi, we gonna punch your face.”

Cheers. Boos. Applause. Taunts. An argument now being waged in slogans.

“Hey, ho, he needs to go!”

“No, no, he’s got to speak!”

An older, bearded white man appeared onstage, prompting the bullhorn protestor to yell: “Shut him up! Shut him up!”

Mayberry noticed the three security guards quietly leaving.

“Smithmyer students, please, please listen to me,” Dr. Francis Williams said, raising his hands for silence. “Let’s have a civil discussion here. A teachable moment.”

For someone with such a genteel appearance, he had a surprisingly strong voice, no doubt honed by years of teaching. Even so, the auditorium’s control booth personnel had to maximize the volume of Williams’s handheld microphone for him to be heard above the crowd.

“Tonight is not about who should or shouldn’t leave campus,” Dr. Williams said. “It’s about free and open discussion. We can’t have free and open discussion of important ideas if we say that ideas are only valid if made by a person of the appropriate race or sexual identity. And we definitely can’t have a discussion if we start calling opinions we disagree with ‘verbal violence.’ Confusing speech with violence guarantees someone will get hurt—because people will feel it appropriate to respond to something that offends them with actual violence!”

“Racist! Racist! Racist!” came through the bullhorn.

“Listen to me!” he continued. “I have stood up against racism my entire life. I was active in the civil rights movement. I have always proudly called myself a liberal. But I no longer recognize what passes for liberal these days. It used to be about being color-blind—about treating people as individuals with God-given rights. About freedom, about tolerance. Listening to others.”

Beads of sweat glistened on Williams’s forehead. “Now being a liberal is all about identity politics. It’s about focusing on our differences instead of what makes us the same. Being color-blind is considered racist now! It’s all been flipped upside down, and it’s tearing us apart. Just look at us!” He paused to catch his breath. Then continued. “Today’s argument is that if you’re an LGBTQ black woman, your view of American society is automatically more valid than that of a straight white male. That is wrong. Logic and reason matter. Not victimization.”

He raised his free hand hoping to quiet the crowd. Seeing it, the protest’s leader screamed: “A Nazi salute. He’s making a Nazi salute.”

Williams immediately dropped his arm, making him seem guilty.

The bullhorn protestor seized the moment. Placing her open left palm on the stage, which was about four feet higher than the auditorium floor, she catapulted herself onto the platform with surprising dexterity. She ran toward Williams. In that instant, the room became eerily quiet.

The woman stopped an inch from him and screamed vulgarities into his face. Someone in the auditorium threw a punch. Within seconds, mayhem.

Mayberry joined others fleeing from the auditorium. Once outside, she hurried downhill to the visitors’ lot where Rivera’s BMW was parked. She waited several rows away from the car. Rivera appeared moments later, having ditched her Mardi Gras mask. The woman with her was the protest leader, minus her bullhorn. She was talking on a cell phone.

A Cadillac Escalade entered the lot and drove directly to the two women. Rivera opened its front passenger door for the protest leader to enter. Mayberry raised her cell but only captured a fuzzy photo of the Escalade. It had Washington, D.C., plates.

Rivera got into her BMW and drove in the opposite direction to the Escalade. Before Mayberry pursued her, she glanced at the Smithmyer College auditorium. The police had arrived, along with an ambulance. Two EMTs were helping a limping Dr. Williams outside to be examined. He was holding a handkerchief to his nose to stop the bleeding.

Seventeen

“Can this be hacked?” Brett Garrett asked, holding a satellite phone bearing the IEC label.

“It’s the finest fully encrypted phone ever made,” Thomas Jefferson Kim bragged.

“I’ll grant you that, but can it be hacked? It’s my ass hanging out in Moscow.”

“The GMR-2 encryption algorithm is the most commonly used in SAT phones. The Chinese recently launched an attack using a reverse encryption procedure to decode the encryption key from the output key stream by hitting a 3.3 GHz satellite stream thousands of times with an inversion attack, which eventually produced a 64-bit encryption key enabling them to read and hear message traffic.”

“In English, please, Dr. Mensa.”

“The system that I specifically developed for the phone you are holding uses multiple encryption layers before it reaches our satellite where your voice will be further scrambled before being forwarded to a twin phone, the only one that has the necessary key code to unscramble your encrypted voice, although there will be a short delay when we speak. This specific phone’s transmissions will bleed into the stream of other messages being sent to our satellite in random bursts, which means a hacker would have to identify the right burst. Like finding a needle in a—”

“I got it,” Garrett said. “This phone can’t be hacked.”

“No, of course it can be hacked.”

“You just told me—”

“Garrett, every secret code that’s ever been written can be broken. The only question is how quickly.”

“How long did it take the Chinese to hack into the most-used SAT-phone system—the one you mentioned? What’s it called?”

“GMR-2.”

“How long?”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t ask.”

“I’m asking.”

“Two seconds. But this phone will take them longer and I’ll be notified and begin throwing up barriers to stop them.”

“Two seconds?” Garrett repeated, shaking his head. He tucked the phone into his backpack. “That’s really disappointing.”

“Sorry I can’t drive you to the airport,” Kim said. “You know, it’s my niece’s birthday.”

“I’m not sorry at all.”

“Remember, once you use this phone, the Russians or their mole will begin trying to hack it.”

“Kim, I’m not calling you unless it is an extreme emergency.”

The shortest flight from Dulles International to Moscow took under ten hours but it was on an Aeroflot flight and IEU employees only traveled on American-based airlines and their European partners. With a stopover in Brussels, that meant fourteen hours had passed before Garrett landed at Moscow’s Domodedova Airport. Gilbert Hardin, a fellow IEC security employee, was holding a clipboard with IEC written on it under the misspelled name Garrit.

“Marcus Austin says he needs to see you,” Hardin said, as soon as they were inside the Ford Expedition. “What’s makes you so special?”

Garrett shrugged. He was tired and not interested in conversation.

“Austin never talked to any of us when we got here,” Hardin continued. “Twenty-seven months I’ve been here, and he’s never said a word to me.”

Garrett sat back in the SUV’s front passenger seat and closed his eyes.

“I’m thinking Kiev,” Hardin said. “You were there. Everyone’s heard.”

“I got no idea,” Garrett said, his eyes still shut. “IEC told me to come to Moscow, just like it did you.”

“But you’re not like me or the other boys, are you? You got an in with Kim, the owner. You’re special.”

Garrett opened his eyes. Hardin was a big man. About 280 pounds hanging on a six-two frame. A thick black beard and short ponytail held with a rubber band. Tip of a tattoo visible on his neck. Garrett checked the passenger-side mirror for a Russian tail. It was easy to spot. He assumed Hardin knew they were being shadowed but didn’t care. A simple airport pickup along A-105 heading north into Moscow.

“You were a big hero in Kiev. Me and the boys will grant you that, Garrett. It’s not what’s got us concerned. You feel me? Or do I have to spell it out?”

Garrett stared straight ahead. Traffic was light.

“Just to be crystal clear,” Hardin said, “me and the boys have been talking about Cameroon, and we want you to know there ain’t one of us who’s going to take a bullet because you go soft—”

Garrett jammed his left elbow up, smashing it into Hardin’s jaw. Turning in the passenger’s seat, he took control of the steering wheel with his right hand to keep the Ford from swerving into the adjacent lane. Caught completely off guard, Hardin discovered his next sensation to be Garrett’s left hand gripping his windpipe.

Hardin released his hold on the wheel and grabbed Garrett’s fingers, trying to pry them free from his neck. Garrett tightened his hold, locking them. Hardin gasped, unable to breathe.

“You and the boys,” Garrett said through gritted teeth, “don’t need to concern yourself with me. You got that?”

Panicked, Hardin nodded.

Garrett released both of his hands, shifted back in his seat. Hardin grabbed the steering wheel. “You sucker-punched me!”

Garrett checked the rearview mirror for the Russians, who were still following, and leaned his head back, closing his eyes.

“This isn’t over between us,” Hardin said, spitting blood from his cracked lip that was swelling.

“Just tell me the time and place,” Garrett said.

“Oh, I will. You and I will deal with this. I guarantee you that.”

Hardin reached back between the seats for a box of tissues that was kept for passengers but couldn’t grab it.

Garrett undid his seat belt, grabbed a handful, and tossed them onto Hardin’s lap.

Neither spoke during the hour that it took them to reach the U.S. embassy compound in the Presnensky District. A redbrick wall, further protected by concrete crash barriers to prevent cars from penetrating the perimeter, encircled the American compound. The gates were steel. It was Garrett’s first glimpse, and the main building did not impress him. It was a rectangular box that faced westward over Konyushkovskaya Street, a major thoroughfare. The monolithic structure had two exterior surfaces. One half of the façade was composed of light brownstone, the other multiple layers of glass and steel. The windows permitted natural light inside while reflecting different colors based on weather conditions.

As the Ford entered the complex, Hardin said, “I’m required to tell you. Blue badges for Americans. Yellow for foreign nationals and there’s a bunch working here. Cooks. Cleaning crews. A hard line between the lower and upper floors. The top ones secured. At least they claim they are. I think the bastards got them bugged, too.”

Garrett was already aware. On his flight to Moscow, he’d read a file Kim had prepared about the U.S. embassy’s past. It was a big file. Between 1953 and 1976, the Soviets had irradiated the original embassy with microwaves. In 1964, covert Russian listening devices had been discovered planted inside the U.S. Seal attached to a podium. When a fire broke out on the old embassy’s eighth floor during 1977, the KGB had sent agents dressed as firefighters inside to pilfer documents. Two years later, both sides had agreed to allow the other to construct new, larger embassies, which is when the current one was built. During construction, Soviet workers were caught riddling it with listening devices. A sophisticated interconnecting system, much like a spiderweb, with bugs concealed in the steel and concrete columns, precast floor slabs, and interior walls. Besides bugs, resonating devices that allowed the Russians to monitor precisely both electronic and verbal communications. Even fake bugs to throw off detectors. So many embedded in the structure that Congress discussed demolishing the entire building and starting over. U.S. intelligence agencies insisted they could make it secure, so work had continued. After the demise of the Soviet Union, the director of Russian foreign intelligence (the SVR) gave his counterparts at Langley blueprints that reportedly showed where every bug had been planted. It was hailed as a gesture of goodwill, but a study by U.S. inspectors later determined all of the devices that he’d revealed already had been located.

“Here’s where you get out,” Hardin said.

Grabbing his gear, Garrett considered goading him, saying thanks for the ride. But decided against it. Hardin was just the first. He knew there were others itching to get a piece of him. Some with yellow badges, others with green.

Eighteen

Through a FISA-authorized wiretap, Agent Valerie Mayberry overheard Aysan Rivera arranging to meet a friend, Basak Kaya. Drinks. The Fogo de Chao Brazilian Steak House. Shopping afterward at the Galleria at Tysons II in Northern Virginia. Mayberry knew the mall. The Galleria was recognized worldwide for selling luxury brands at cheaper prices than could be found in London, Paris, or Dubai. A Washington, D.C., newspaper claimed the ultrarich would fly into nearby Dulles Airport in their private jets, take limos to the mall, and return home after staying only long enough to shop. Gucci, Ferragamo, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Saint Laurent, Cartier. Even billionaires liked bargains.

Rivera’s friend had dozens of unpaid parking tickets. The Fairfax County police were happy to help. Basak Kaya was intercepted on Virginia Route 7 after leaving her parents’ Great Falls mansion. A guaranteed three-hour delay. Three hours without her cell phone.

Mayberry arrived at the steakhouse bar ten minutes after Basak Kaya was supposed to be there. As before, Rivera was easy to spot. A jet-black Versace fringe cowboy silk blouse with Swarovski crystals. High-waisted, skinny-fit Versace leather-insert jeans. Christian Louboutin black velvet Italian-made pumps decorated with a rainbow of crystals.

Mayberry had chosen equally expensive wear. A black silk georgette slip dress by Gucci with an Ivory Lace stripe and trim under a black Gucci wool coat. Like Rivera’s, Mayberry’s suede shoes were Louboutin—ankle boots that might have appeared clunky with such a clinging dress, except the combination looked quirky-cool on her slim figure. It was Mayberry’s choice of a clutch purse that she knew would guarantee Rivera’s attention. Mayberry entered the restaurant shouldering a Hermès Grey Ostrich Leather Silver Hardware Birkin 35 bag that retailed at $63,000.

As Mayberry made her way to the bar, she felt a sense of joy for the first time in a long while. A false persona. An escape from the shroud of Noah’s death. Easier to be someone else than herself.

In the old days, creating a legend had been rather simple. Not now. The Internet had changed everything. The bureau had been forced to adapt. Instead of erasing the past, Mayberry had chosen to conceal her lie under layers and layers of truth. A risky move. She was using her maiden name. She’d made no attempt to keep her privileged upbringing secret. The silver spoon. The elitist private schools. No need to hide her short marriage to her do-gooder, dead-journalist husband. The only lie was her employment. FBI. Her name on government records was her married name. She was fortunate. Having worked undercover previously there already was a thin veil. Minor tweaking. An instant Internet background check would reveal Mayberry was a high-end real estate agent, finding luxurious homes for 1 percent of the world’s 1 percent. A job that required no advertising because of the natural desire for privacy among her elite clientele.

Mayberry sat two bar stools away from her target and considered how best to approach Rivera, who was texting on her phone, no doubt trying to reach her missing lunch guest. A man approached Rivera—close enough for Mayberry to overhear. Rivera was blunt: “Get lost!”

For a moment, Mayberry considered an approach. Moving closer to her. Saying something clever about how it might be easier for them to avoid the men in the bar if they sat together. They both were wearing Louboutins—another possible icebreaking line. Or she could bring up the Smithmyer protest, mention that she had been there. But none of those approaches felt entirely right.

Rivera walked into the ladies’ room.

Mayberry heard a booming voice and men laughing. Her eyes followed the ruckus. A man, most likely in his fifties, moving from table to table, shaking hands, chatting with customers. A twenty-something younger man trailing him and handing out what appeared to be political campaign brochures. It took a moment for Mayberry to recognize him. One of Virginia’s most conservative Republican congressmen. She spotted Rivera exiting the restroom, returning to the bar. This was Mayberry’s chance.

“Good afternoon, young lady,” Representative Keith Bennett said, flashing a row of perfectly capped teeth at Mayberry. “A beautiful rose among the thorns in this fine establishment.”

“How dare you objectify me!” Mayberry exclaimed, slipping from her bar stool and confronting him.

“Ma’am, I was just paying you a compliment.”

“You were patronizing me,” she complained loudly, purposely drawing attention. “You’re exactly what’s wrong with Republicans and our government.”

“What specifically have I done in Congress that has made you so upset?” he asked calmly, foolishly opening the door. He seemed confident that he could win her over. “Reasonable people can disagree.”

“Not when it comes to issues that really matter. You’re xenophobic, wanting to build a wall, close our borders.”

“I’m the son of immigrants, but we can’t let people come here illegally. There’s a process.” He was speaking louder, assuming that those listening around him would agree with his explanation. A man at a nearby table clapped.

“That’s code for keeping everyone but white Europeans out,” she snapped back. “You bigot.”

“I’m certainly not,” he answered, clearly surprised by her anger.

“That’s what all racists say.”

“I’m not a racist because I want to stop pregnant Chinese women from flying into California so their babies can automatically become U.S. citizens and go on welfare. It’s called ‘birth tourism.’”

“Where’d you hear about that? Fox fake News?”

“I’m just trying to have a logical debate,” he said, smirking.

“The idea that there is an objective truth is what men say to women to shut them up,” Mayberry shouted.

“Ma’am, I grew up poor in southwest Virginia, and from the looks of it, a lot poorer than you’ve ever been. My parents owned a small tobacco farm. I planted it, pulled suckers, topped plants, and harvested it. I started working at age twelve. No one ever gave me anything that I didn’t work hard to earn.”

“Stop calling me ma’am and stop objectifying me by my appearance. Your sappy story has nothing to do with white privilege and if you had half a brain you’d realize how stupid you sound. You got an invisible package of unearned assets and privileges the moment you dropped out of your mother’s womb because you are white and you have a penis. If you can’t own up to that, you’re aiding the oppression of women and minorities. If you really cared about equality you would step aside and let a woman or someone of color take your job.”

He began to step away, but he feared it might be perceived as defeat. A man at the bar was recording them with his phone from a stool in the corner behind Mayberry.

“No one ever gave me anything,” he said, trying to keep his voice even-tempered. “I paid my way through college, joined the military to serve our country, fought in the Gulf War, worked two jobs and attended night school to earn my law degree and decided to enter politics because I wanted to serve others—how dare you tell me I’m privileged simply because I have white skin. You’re the bigot, judging me by my skin color.”

“Oh my God,” Mayberry shrieked. “Your ignorance is exactly why we need a revolution! We need to tear down the elite. We need to end capitalism and Wall Street exploitation of the poor! Free college, free medicine, birth-to-grave benefits and protections. That’s what government should be.”

Bennett’s aide stepped from behind them. “The congressman has spent more than enough time listening to your rude comments,” he said in a low voice. His move was meant as a buffer. Instead, he’d played right into her plan.

“Don’t threaten me,” she screeched as she pulled a canister of pepper spray from her bag.

Bennett stepped backward so suddenly he bumped into a table. Unsteady, he reached for its edge, missed it, and fell onto the floor. A look of horror appeared on his aide’s face when Mayberry aimed the canister at him.

She didn’t shoot. Instead she dashed from the bar, shielding her face.

Her outburst worked. Aysan Rivera caught up with her in the parking lot.

“That was frickin’ awesome,” Rivera gushed. “You almost pepper-sprayed a congressman.”

“I’m just lucky there were no cops around. They would have shot me.”

Rivera glanced nervously at the restaurant’s entrance. “You need to get going. Hey, I was supposed to meet a friend, but she never showed. You want to go to Georgetown and grab a drink?”

Fifty minutes later they were sitting inside the Rye Bar at the swanky Rosewood Hotel.

“Where’d you get the courage to do that?” Rivera asked.

“It’s in my blood. I’m related to the Astors.”

“Sorry, I’m not from here. I’m Turkish.”

“America went through a period called the ‘gilded age’ when robber barons ran America—you know, the Rockefellers, Mellons, Carnegies, J. P. Morgans, Vanderbilts.”

The blank look on Rivera’s face showed she didn’t recognize the names so she added, “They were the Bill Gates, Warren Buffetts, and Mark Zuckerbergs of today. Superrich and powerful. Mrs. William B. Astor drew up a list of four hundred New Yorkers—it was everyone who she said mattered in society.”

“Talk about elitism,” Rivera said.

“I know, right? And they were all white, of course. Get this, she chose four hundred because that’s how many could fit in her Manhattan ballroom. The list was based on the husbands’ wealth because women didn’t work when the family had money. They were all rich, white Manhattan snobs.”

Rivera covered her mouth. She’d taken a sip of her cocktail and started to laugh, nearly spitting it.

“What’s so funny?” Mayberry asked.

“We’re drinking Manhattans!”

“What’s really funny is Mrs. Astor used her list, wealth, and connections to quietly undermine the men on it. She pushed the suffragette movement to get women the right to vote. I think she would have been proud of me today fighting the system.”

“And you’re related to her?”

“A distant relative, but my family was on that four hundred list and I can tell you, my relatives are all rich and a bunch of white oppressors. They’re blind to the signs of late-stage capitalism. I sometimes think I was born in the wrong generation. I would have loved the nineteen sixties.” She laughed. “America is so far gone—you can’t trust the police because they’re part of the problem—revolution is the only solution.”

Mayberry decided to make a risky move. “Have you ever heard of Antifa? Its motto is ‘we go where the right-wingers go.’ In Berkeley, they threw Molotov cocktails and smashed windows when an alt-right speaker appeared on campus. In New York, they forced a local community to cancel a local rose parade because Republicans were participating. When I saw that pompous Republican creep soliciting votes today, I decided I had to get into his face. I had to go where the right-wingers go.”

For a moment, Mayberry wondered if she had tipped her hand. Rivera was clearly distracted. She stood from their table—and waved her hand.

“It’s my friend,” Rivera explained. “I finally reached her by text—but let’s not talk politics. I’ve known her since we were kids and she won’t understand.”

Twelve hours later, Mayberry crawled into bed and gazed at the spinning ceiling above her. It had been a long time since she’d had so much to drink and been such a flirt.

She was still hungover in the morning when she met Director Harris in the backseat of his Cadillac near her condo.

“There’s a video going viral showing a deranged woman running out of a restaurant after threatening a Virginia congressman,” he said. “You’re damn lucky it doesn’t show your face.”

Mayberry handed him a wad of receipts. “You’ll have to cover these. The bureau’s bean-counters would go into shock.”

Harris put on half-glasses. “What the hell!” he exclaimed.

“It’s only thirty thousand dollars,” she said. “You don’t get out much with this wealthy, younger set, do you? A single Cristal worth drinking is eighteen grand.”

“And what do I get for your wild evening at taxpayers’ expense?”

Her cell rang. She checked the caller ID and raised her right index finger to her lips to hush Harris, whose face turned flush with anger.

“That was Aysan,” Mayberry said, putting down her phone. “Pay the bill. I’m in.”

Nineteen

CIA station chief Marcus Austin didn’t fit the mold of a State Department cultural attaché—his diplomatic cover. Early forties. Broad shoulders, thick neck. Someone who hit the free weights each morning and most likely at night, too. Wearing a too-snug short-sleeve dress shirt that accented his muscles on muscles. Shaved head. Loose necktie. Intimidating stare. There was a time in U.S. intelligence when station chiefs modeled themselves after George Smiley, the urbane intellectual who thought ten moves ahead. That was before the CIA became the tip of the spear in combating terrorism, when outmatching wits became less important than being capable of dropping alone into the mountains of Afghanistan to deliver bags of cash to a local warlord as an incentive to kill his Taliban kinsman. A man of Austin’s physique was most likely ex-military—and ex-military at the State Department generally meant CIA.

“Brother, here’s the skinny,” Austin said from behind his desk inside the embassy. “One of my guys will go black tonight and spray-paint a signal on a telephone booth.”

“Moscow still has phone booths?” Garrett replied.

“Pavel is old-school,” Austin said, “which explains why he’s using the same commo we used forty years ago. My guy paints a signal. Pavel sees it tomorrow morning while he’s being driven to work. He knows we’re ready to play. Tomorrow night, one of my guys takes his wife to the Bolshoi.” He paused. “You like the ballet?”

“Sure, I go all the time,” Garrett replied dryly.

Austin laughed too loudly. “Pavel will leave ballet tickets for my guy under the name Fred Thomas. On the back of the tickets are a series of numbers. One is a pickup time, but the actual time is four hours earlier than what’s written. The other numbers are the coordinates, but they’re reversed. Old-school, brother. We’re talking Cold War. No electronics, no computers. No wireless bursts. Coded numbers on the back of a ballet ticket.”

“If it works, why change, right?”

“More than that, brother. Russians fear change, especially the older types. How much do you know about this country?”

Austin didn’t wait for Garrett to answer. “Brother,” he said, “I’ve studied the Russians all my life and they may look like us, but they’re not. A Russian who expects the absolute worst is an optimist. They were brought up being told to keep their heads down. Question authority and you were sent to Siberia or worse. Now that Kalugin is in charge, it’s worse. A beating or a bullet.”

“Or poison.”

“You understand, brother. Let me tell you the truth about why the Soviet empire failed. There was no free enterprise. Everyone got paid by the state. Fifty rubles a month. Didn’t matter if you were a brain surgeon or a ditch digger. That was socialism, brother. All one giant classless collective. Everyone equal. But it was total bullshit. There was no incentive. Taxi drivers got paid whether they picked up passengers or not. Why bother? Here’s the crème de la crème. The biggest glass factory in the entire empire was just outside Moscow. You got no profit-or-loss statement because that’s capitalism—so how do you know if the plant is doing good?”

Garrett hated being asked questions like this, trying to guess what the speaker expected as an answer. He stayed silent and looked at Austin.

“I’ll tell you. You measured production. How many meters of glass is the plant turning out. Sounds right, huh? Until the geniuses running the plant realized they could turn out more meters if they dialed down the machines, making the glass thinner and thinner. Productivity increased, the Kremlin was happy, but the glass was so razor thin it broke as soon as it came off the assembly line. Completely worthless. But, hey, that didn’t bother the plant manager because he ordered the broken pieces melted down and put back on the production line, causing productivity to increase even more. Everyone was as happy as a pig in mud and the plant never had a single truck make a delivery. That’s communism, brother.”

Austin chuckled.

“Here’s the deal though, Garrett,” he continued. “The system was stupid, but not its people. Only a fool underestimates bastards like Kalugin and Gromyko. Stone-cold killers just like Papa Stalin. Got another quick story for you, brother. A history lesson. Stalin’s advisors tell him a certain percentage of Russians will turn against him. Traitors. For illustration purposes, let’s say five percent. Stalin tells all the Communist Party chiefs in every village to identify those five percent and execute them. So what did they do?”

Austin hesitated, but Garrett again didn’t bite.

“The secret police chief in each village,” Austin continued, “tried to better each other to impress Stalin. ‘Oh, Comrade Stalin, we found ten percent of our village so we killed them.’ ‘Papa Stalin, we found fifteen percent.’ Do you think Stalin cared? He let them kill as many as they wanted. My point, brother, is that killing means nothing to people like Kalugin and Gromyko.”

“Back to Yakov Pavel,” Garrett said. “Your guy leaves the signal tonight. Pavel leaves Bolshoi tickets for your guy tomorrow night with the pickup location and time.”

“That’s right, brother, and you get him the very next. Then it’s up to you to smuggle him out of Russia alive. Him and the kid. If everything goes right, you won’t be here in Moscow long enough to take a satisfying crap.”

Austin stood, opened a safe near his desk, and removed a red envelope, which he tossed to Garrett.

“Your extraction plan, brother. The name Gordievsky ring a bell?”

“Colonel Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, former KGB now living in England.”

“MI-6 was working him when someone ratted him out. Told Moscow. But the KGB needed evidence, so it ordered him home. Interrogated him for five hours. Drugged him. The works. But Gordievsky didn’t crack. They released him but kept watching, hoping he’d panic and screw up. Instead, he goes out for a morning jog. Loses his KGB tail, hops on a train to the Finnish border, where he meets a British embassy car. Crawls into a hiding spot between the backseat and trunk and the Brits get him across the border into Finland. Langley wants you to do the same. Only you aren’t going via train or Finland.”

“Where and how?”

“A Zil 5301 Bychok—a small commercial truck built during the Soviet era before Zil stopped making vehicles because they were pieces of junk.”

“That’s hardly reassuring.”

Austin chuckled. He was enjoying himself. “Got you one from 1996—and I’ve made modifications. Thick metal plates inside the doors and engine compartment. Should stop most rounds if they start shooting.”

“The windows?”

“Sorry, brother, couldn’t get bullet-resistant glass on short notice. You wouldn’t want it too easy, right?”

“How fast does this Zil go?”

“With the added armor, possibly sixty.”

“Where do I delivery Pavel and the kid?”

“Ukraine border.”

“What? Ukraine? Ambassador Thorpe was just assassinated there.”

“Last place they’ll think you’ll drive.” Austin eyed the envelope he’d tossed Garrett. “Fake passports, visas, documents about the vehicle you’ll be taking, rubles, and maps of Russian roadways.”

“You get this in the dip pouch?” Garrett asked suspiciously.

“No, brother, Harris didn’t want to risk it since someone’s reading our communications with Langley. Hand delivered to me.”

“Whose hands?”

For the first time since they’d begun talking, Austin frowned and let out a sigh. “Ambassador Edward Todd Duncan. He and his wife brought the packet back after Thorpe’s D.C. funeral. They’d stayed behind in Washington for a few days of R-and-R so Harris used Duncan as his courier.”

Garrett noticed that the seal on the red envelope was broken.

Austin came from behind his desk and leaned his butt against it, so he was now standing directly in front of Garrett. “The answer is Ambassador Duncan opened it before delivering it to me.”

“Why?”

“He wasn’t supposed to, brother. Director Harris screwed up trusting him, but nobody is going to say anything.”

Garrett didn’t like it. Not a bit. Now another possible breach—if Ambassador Duncan blabbed something about its contents.

“So why’d Duncan open a top secret, hand-delivered packet that Director Harris gave him? He must’ve told the ambassador not to open it.”

“Because Harris and I believe Duncan’s wife is cheating on him with a Russian. Full name is Ivan Yovovich Sokolov. I’m assuming Duncan opened it to make certain Harris and I weren’t going behind his back, talking about his wife.”

“Huh? You want to repeat that for me?”

“Life’s full of twists, brother. Duncan gets himself appointed because he’s a billionaire donor. Ran an international conglomerate before deciding he wanted to become an ambassador.”

“Don’t most donors choose Paris or London?” Garrett asked. “Who wants to come to Moscow?”

“Duncan’s grandmother’s family had some Russian ties. His wife, Heidi, she’s half his age and still very attractive. Was a Vegas showgirl when they met. Do I need to fill in the blanks about this marriage?”

“And you think she’s cheating with a Russian.”

“Not any Russian, brother. Ivan Sokolov. Son of a Russian oligarch with close ties to Kalugin. I see Kalugin’s fingers all over this.”

“You got proof?”

“Of Kalugin sending Sokolov to get in her pants?” Austin asked.

“No, of this alleged affair.”

“One of my people spotted him chatting her up at reception a few months back. Good-looking guy, superrich. Next we know, she’s trying to lose her protective detail. Insisting she go out shopping unaccompanied by security to Russian stores. You tell me, what billionaire’s wife goes shopping in Moscow? We let her go but tailed her. Met Sokolov at a hotel. We got photos and some juicy recordings.”

“What did her husband say—assuming you told him?”

“I did. He got huffy, denied it, complained to the president, and blamed me. Said his wife doesn’t know anything. No foul, no harm. I was told to back off.”

“What are the chances Duncan told her about me?” Garrett asked. “Worse, that she tipped off Ivan Sokolov?”

Austin let out a sigh. “Wish I knew, brother. Wish I knew.” He walked back around his desk to his safe and removed a second package. This one was still sealed.

“A friend of yours,” Austin said, handing it to him.

It contained Garrett’s SIG Sauer P226 pistol with extra ammo.

“Glad to have it.”

“I gotta believe Duncan didn’t tell his wife,” Austin continued. “I gotta believe he was just checking to see if we were communicating about her.”

“Yeah, but I’m sure he read it. Curiosity and all.”

Austin nodded. “I agree, but reading and telling someone are two different things. Look, brother, we got a good plan. You pick up Pavel and the kid two days from now. You spend maybe ten, twelve hours driving to Ukraine. Then you’re done. Besides, if it goes bad and you get snatched, Harris will get you out.”

Garrett wished he believed that. “I don’t have diplomatic immunity like you do—brother,” he said.

“Go grab a shower,” Austin said. “Duncan’s throwing a birthday party for his daughter tonight. I want you there.”

“For a kids’ birthday inside the embassy?”

“I invited two or three other IEC security guards to make it look legit. The Russians need to see you working as a guard and two guests will be of special interest to you. Ivan Sokolov and General Gromyko. Besides, it’s a birthday party. Cake, ice cream.”

“Do I have to sing?”

Twenty

“You bring your pepper spray?” Aysan Rivera asked.

Valerie Mayberry plucked a red spray canister from the right pocket of her J.Crew military-inspired wax-cotton jacket to show Rivera.

“Never leave home without it,” Mayberry said, smiling. “Where we heading?”

They had parked their cars earlier at the Tysons Galleria and were now riding in a rented Ford Fusion hybrid traveling south on the Capitol Beltway, a sixty-four-mile major thoroughfare encircling Washington, D.C.

“Guinea Station,” Rivera said, momentarily taking her eyes off the always-jammed expressway to smile at her passenger. “They’re honoring a Confederate general there today.”

Mayberry typed the words “Guinea Station” into her smartphone. She wanted to double-check what she remembered from books she’d read about Virginia history and the Civil War.

“We alone or is someone else meeting us there?” Mayberry asked.

“A half dozen of us, including Makayla.”

“Makayla?”

“Do you remember how you mentioned Antifa when we were having drinks? She’s an Antifa organizer. She calls us when there’s a rally or protest or what we’re going to today. A ceremony honoring a racist slaveholder.”

“Where’s she from?”

“Some friendly advice. Don’t ask too many questions,” Rivera said. “I vouched for you, but you’ll have to prove yourself today. All of us had to. Ask too many questions and everyone will think you’re a cop.”

“Me, a cop? How many cops you know who wear Christian Louboutins? What sort of proof?”

“Makayla will tell you.”

Mayberry focused on her phone. Guinea Station was the location of the Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson Shrine, a national military park. The railway house there had been a critical supply hub for the Confederacy. Nearly all of General Robert E. Lee’s troops had passed through it for supplies during the war. In April 1863, Union general Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker had launched a campaign to capture the Confederacy’s capital city—Richmond. To do that, Hooker needed to first seize the rail station, cutting off rebel supply lines. The Battle of Chancellorsville became one of the bloodiest in the Civil War. Historians would later call it “General Lee’s perfect battle.” Hugely outnumbered, General Lee divided his troops in half, a highly risky move, and used them to outflank the larger Union forces being led by a more timid General Hooker. Some 24,000 soldiers on both sides died during that battle. The South’s biggest loss was Stonewall Jackson, arguably Lee’s best general. He was mistakenly shot by his own men at night and transported with thousands of other wounded soldiers to a plantation near Guinea Station. He survived his wound, but died eight days later from pneumonia.

Mayberry pulled up pictures of Stonewall Jackson’s Shrine.

A plain, one-story rectangular house painted white where Jackson had succumbed.

She started to explain what she had read, but Rivera dismissed her after the first few sentences.

“I don’t care about historical stuff,” Rivera said. “Germans don’t put up shrines honoring Nazis. The U.S. shouldn’t be honoring racists.”

“Who’s honoring Jackson today?” Mayberry asked.

“Like I said, Makayla will tell you. And remember, not so many questions. Just go with it.”

Mayberry didn’t respond and Rivera intentionally changed subjects. “Have you ever heard of Ovelia Transtoto? Her latest line is dazzling.”

The two women talked couture until they reached the Interstate 95 exit to the Jackson Shrine. About four miles from the park’s entrance, Rivera turned onto the road’s shoulder, where a windowless black van and two other rented cars were waiting.

“Let’s go,” Rivera said, leading the way.

Mayberry counted eight crowded inside the van around a woman whom Mayberry immediately recognized. She had led the Smithmyer College protest. She’d been the one yelling through a bullhorn.

“This is Makayla,” Rivera said proudly after closing the van’s door behind them.

“I’m Valerie,” Mayberry said, extending her hand.

Makayla looked at it but didn’t shake it. “You’re here because Aysan vouched for you and showed me the Internet video of you confronting that Republican bigot, but you get no respect from me until I see you doing business.”

“Fair enough,” Mayberry said.

Makayla turned her face away and began issuing instructions to the Antifa members, who were affixing shin guards and shoulder pads over their street clothes. Finally, Makayla spoke to Mayberry.

“We’ll learn today what you’re made of,” she said.

“Short of murder,” Mayberry replied, “I’m in.”

“Oh, we’d never kill anyone,” Rivera interjected. “We’re here to fight the Nazis and fascists and protect peaceful protestors.”

Mayberry noticed that Makayla didn’t comment. Instead the Antifa leader handed a photo to Mayberry. A thirty-something man with red hair, white shirt, light blue tie. “This is your target. I want you to pepper-spray him when we get there,” Makayla said. She studied Mayberry’s face for some betraying glance, a hesitation.

“Who is he?” Mayberry asked.

“Does that matter to you?” Makayla asked.

Rivera said, “He’s the principal at a local high school.”

“Stonewall Jackson High School,” a man near Makayla volunteered.

“All she needs to know is he’s a racist,” Makayla said.

“We tried to reason with him,” the man said, undeterred, “and the local school board. Emails, letters demanding the school’s name be changed. They shouldn’t be honoring a slave owner and American traitor by naming a school after him. But they refused.”

“They were warned,” Rivera added.

The man continued: “The principal’s response was predictable. The same old crap about how Stonewall Jackson is part of Virginia’s history.”

“Rednecks,” another Antifa member in the van interjected.

“This wreath-laying ceremony is an annual tradition at the high school,” the first man who’d spoken explained. “They claim it’s history but it’s all about reminding people of color to stay in their place. Honoring Jackson is meant to intimidate. It’s an act of aggression and violence.”

“How do black students at the school feel?” Mayberry asked.

“They’ve been oppressed so long, they don’t even know it,” he replied.

“We’ll wake them up today,” Makayla added, retaking control of the conversation. “As for you, Valerie Mayberry, all you need to do is get close enough to smell this principal’s stink and gas him. Aim for his eyes. Now, you just said, anything short of murder. You got a problem with actually using that Mace you brought or is it just for appearances?”

“Nobody calls it Mace anymore,” Mayberry said, correcting her. She noticed Makayla’s eyes narrow.

“Answer my question?” Makayla said.

“Right in his face,” Mayberry replied.

Rivera and the others grinned.

“The rest of us will create a diversion for you,” Makayla said. “After you gas him, look for this black van. If you miss it, we’re not waiting.”

“Yeah, you’ll have to call an Uber,” the man next to her said, laughing.

“Local television will be there,” Makayla said. “And a newspaper reporter too. I tipped them off. So you need to hide your faces, otherwise the cops will come after us.”

The man offered Mayberry a hockey goalie’s mask. But Makayla pushed his hand aside.

“She can’t get close to him wearing that,” Makayla said. She thrust out her hand. She was holding a blue scarf. “Pull this up around your mouth moments before you spray him.” Next she offered Mayberry a Washington Redskins cap. “They will assume you are one of them if you wear this. Remember, when the black van comes, we go. And I’ll be watching you. All of us will. You don’t come with us if you don’t spray him good.”

Rivera slid open the parked van’s side door. Everyone but its driver exited. Back inside the Ford rental, Rivera slipped a black stocking cap onto her head and drove the car onto the roadway.

“Makayla doesn’t like me,” Mayberry said.

“She treats everyone like that. She doesn’t like to get close to people.”

“Where’s she from? I picked up a bit of a foreign accent.”

“No questions, remember?”

About a mile from the shrine, Rivera said, “Makayla has one of our people already there. He’s live-streaming so we’ll know exactly when to hit ’em.”

Rivera handed her phone to Mayberry. The principal was speaking in front of the shrine’s white building where Jackson had died. Next to him was a wreath made of gray and white carnations designed to resemble Stonewall Jackson’s bearded face.

“There’s been much in the news lately about Confederate monuments,” the principal could be heard saying over the phone’s live stream. “Let me be clear. As Americans, we all condemn neo-Nazis, the KKK, and racism and bigotry in all of its forms. It is wrong. Period. There is no debate. The question that you students need to ask yourselves is this: ‘Is acknowledging and honoring our southern history and our heritage offensive? Or is it part of our history and do we need to learn and understand it?’”

The principal was using the wreath-laying ceremony as a teachable moment. “In the eyes of the political far left, anyone who opposes the removal of a statue commemorating Confederate soldiers automatically is classified as a bigot, anti-Semitic, and any other harsh emotional condemnation that they can throw on you. However, Condoleezza Rice, the first African American woman to serve as secretary of state, held a somewhat different view than this. When asked about removing Confederate statues, she said, ‘When you start wiping out your history, sanitizing your history to make you feel better, it’s a bad thing.’”

Continuing: “You students need to think seriously about what would happen if we begin sanitizing Virginia’s past and discrediting every one of our forefathers by judging them by today’s standards and attitudes rather than those that existed during their own time periods. If we remove statues to Confederate soldiers, should we also tear down monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in our nation’s capital because both owned slaves? Where do you draw a sensible line? Is it reasonable to keep such monuments and explain their context with informational placards, or must they be destroyed?”

“Let’s have a show of hands,” he said. “How many of you have visited Mount Rushmore?”

About two dozen hands shot into the air.

“What should we do about Teddy Roosevelt? He referred to the white race, and I will quote him here, as the ‘forward race,’ whose responsibility it was to raise the status of minorities through training the ‘backward race[s] in industrial efficiency, political capacity and domestic morality.’ He declared that whites were responsible for preserving the ‘high civilization wrought out by (our nation’s) forefathers.’ Does that mean we’ll need to sandblast his face from Mount Rushmore for words that he was speaking that he believed would be helpful to minorities? Which brings us to Abraham Lincoln. Surely, he deserves to stay on Mount Rushmore. After all, Lincoln issued a declaration emancipating all slaves. But did you know that as a lawyer, Lincoln represented a slaveholder in court who was seeking to remand his slave, Jane Bryant, and her four children back to slavery?”

He paused and then said, “My point is that racism is and has been an ugly stain on our history, but should it be the single and only ethical standard we use in judging our forebears? Before you answer, ask yourself, do you want to be judged by the standards of today? Or by the standards that will be acceptable, whatever they might be, in two hundred years by people looking backward at you? As students, you should form your own opinions. As for me, when I read about a historical figure such as Stonewall Jackson, I see him as a whole person—a dynamic figure during his age, a product of the South who played a significant role at a pivotal time in our nation’s history. We cannot and should not obliterate his name and banish him from our history books. This is why we have come together today to educate ourselves about the Civil War, the bloody Battle of Chancellorsville, his crucial role in it, and the pivotal role Jackson played in Virginia history. Like him or not, he is a historical figure of importance.”

Mayberry handed back Rivera’s cell phone. Rivera said, “Remember, you need to stay in this car when the caravan gets there. Scrunch down, and let us draw attention away from you.”

Within moments, the three rental cars entered the shrine’s parking lot. Everyone but Mayberry bolted from them. They hollered and waved handmade signs—END BIGOTRY. FIGHT RACISM.

The masked protestors formed a wedge, driving themselves into the center of the crowd from its right edge. As instructed, Mayberry hung back before slipping from the car and walking calmly around the crowd’s left edge. More than two hundred were attending the ceremony. Nearly all were white, except for several dozen black, Latino, and Asian students. Among the adults were teachers and a handful of gray-haired grandmothers. Daughters of the Confederacy. A few elderly men, one with a walker. Many of the students were wearing sports clothing imprinted with the Stonewall Jackson High School mascot—a horse on its hind legs with a Stars and Bars flag behind it. The horse was Little Sorrel. Stonewall Jackson’s favorite mount. So beloved in Dixie that when the animal died, a taxidermist mounted it. Now on permanent display at the Virginia Military Institute Museum in Lexington, the oldest state-funded military school in the nation.

The school principal had been in the midst of explaining how Jackson had received his nickname “Stonewall” at the First Battle of Bull Run when the protestors appeared.

“Everyone stay calm!” he exclaimed into the microphone he was holding.

“Racists! Racists!” protesters chanted. The Antifa members began shoving students, teachers—anyone in their path. Tempers flared. An elderly Daughters of the Confederacy onlooker refused to move, was pushed and fell backward onto the grass, crying out in pain. A protester lowered his shoulder and thrust himself into a male teacher who happened to be the school’s football coach. Several of his players ran to his side. One threw a punch and the melee began.

Mayberry continued unnoticed along the crowd’s outer perimeter, reaching the white clapboard house, now ten feet away from the principal, who was looking in the opposite direction from her, desperately trying to get his students to return to three yellow school buses parked in the lot.

“Don’t fight!” he hollered.

Mayberry spotted the television cameraman filming the disruption happening in the center of the crowd. A woman with a Nikon—a local reporter, no doubt—also was snapping shots. No one was watching Mayberry. That’s when Mayberry noticed Makayla. Standing away from the others, watching her. Their eyes locked. Mayberry raised the scarf that Makayla had given her, lowered her cap’s lid, and drew the pepper-spray canister from her jacket pocket.

Her first thought was to intentionally miss the principal. She could claim bad aim. But would Makayla believe her? Out of the corner of his eye, the principal noticed her, saw her arm raised, turned, and faced her. She pressed the spray’s trigger. He tried to protect his face but the oleoresin capsaicin pepper extraction, tinted with red dye, splashed onto his cheeks and mouth. The dye made it appear as if he were bleeding. He screamed from the burning sensation now stinging his skin and began spitting.

The cameraman noticed, spun around, and began filming the temporarily blinded principal. Makayla had disappeared from Mayberry’s sight. She turned her head and retreated. Hoping to avoid being filmed.

The black van raced into the parking lot. Its horn blaring, causing students to scamper out of its way. Mayberry reached the lot just as the van came to a stop.

She was less than ten yards from it. That is when it happened.

A deafening explosion. The wooden walls of the Jackson Shrine blew in all directions. Splintered wooden planks hewed before the Civil War became deadly projectiles. One struck Mayberry in the back of her head, knocking her onto the blacktop. Confused, she reached backward, feeling the rear of her skull. Blood. She could hear others moaning, screaming for help. She tried to stand but fell.

Glancing forward, she saw Rivera and her fellow demonstrators about to shut the van’s sliding door and flee. They were leaving her behind.

Mayberry felt a hand grab her jacket and jerk her onto her feet.

“I’m not leaving anyone behind this time,” Makayla declared, dragging her into the van.

Twenty-One

Brett Garrett searched his backpack. Where was it? Panic. Each pocket unzipped. Bag shaken. Held upside down. Contents tumbling out, scattering onto the floor of his IEC quarters. Dropping to his knees, Garrett combed through each item. The packet wasn’t there. The Russians. Airport. They must have taken it when they searched his bag. One had distracted him asking a series of robotic questions. Typical harassment, he’d assumed. He’d surprised them answering in Russian. Still, he had missed their theft.

Suboxone. How easy it must have been to palm. Garrett’s doctor had warned him against going cold turkey. His body needed it. It was chemically dependent on it. Otherwise, withdrawal would kick in. The first seventy-two hours would be the worst. Garrett had read about how dangerous it was to just stop. Nausea. Vomiting. Insomnia. Indigestion. Anxiety. Irritability. Cravings. Fever. Chills. Sweating. Most frightening, difficulty concentrating. Lack of focus at a time when he would need it the most. After seventy-two hours would come feelings of despair, depression, and intense cravings for the drug.

He returned his possessions to his backpack and immediately realized that he was sweating. Was withdrawal beginning or was it psychological?

He showered, dressed in a navy-blue polo shirt, gray slacks, and gray blazer—the formal dress for an IEC security guard—and took a deep breath. He’d never known of an IEC employee being invited to a kid’s birthday party. Their job was to remain out of sight, only seen when diplomats and their families needed protection and only then when they traveled outside the compound.

Only recently had the State Department hired private guards in Russia. Before President Kalugin and General Gromyko there had been no need. The harassment had begun with embassy employees being detained at airports. Next, stopped by police when driving. The wife of a senior diplomat had been assaulted in front of her two young children while on a stroll in Gorky Park. Hooligans, the Moscow police had declared. But CIA chief of station Austin knew better. Two American teenagers beaten when they emerged from a Moscow ice cream shop. Both hospitalized, one with a broken leg, the other a fractured nose. Austin had wanted to strike back. Director Harris had said no.

Instead, State had hired Thomas Jefferson Kim’s IEC company to provide private security. At first, the Russians refused to let them be armed, arguing the embassy should hire Russian bodyguards. There were plenty. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, kidnapping and killing had become cheaper than negotiating a business deal or settling a squabble in court. Nearly 2 percent of Russia’s working population were licensed as security guards. That was 1.5 million Russians. It only took the equivalent of $200 to buy a license. Pay another $200 and you could carry a concealed weapon.

Garrett tried to steady his nerves as he stepped out of his room.

“You,” a voice hollered.

Gilbert Hardin had come ready to fight. Revenge for the sucker punch during the airport ride. He’d brought two buddies.

“Stand down,” Garrett said. “I got somewhere to be.”

“Oh, I forgot. You’re special. Off to a little kiddies’ birthday party,” Hardin taunted. “The business between us won’t take long.”

“Later, I said.”

Hardin and his buddies blocked the hallway.

“Say please,” Hardin said.

“Really?” Garrett said. “Are we in third grade or had you already dropped out by then?”

“Smart mouth, Garrett. But this is more than just that sucker punch you landed. Cameroon. Some of us knew your men there. We don’t trust you.”

Garrett let out a loud sigh. “You had that punch coming. Even more. But I’ll play your game. Now please let me pass,” he said.

Hardin clenched his fists. Eager to throw a punch. “Say ‘please with sugar on top.’”

Garrett shook his head in disgust. He didn’t have time for this.

“After the party,” he said. “You, me, and your pals. We can settle this. But for now, get out of my way.”

“No. Say ‘pretty please.’ I want to hear it,” Hardin repeated.

Garrett fought his urge to engage. It wasn’t the right time. “Pretty please may I pass.”

Hardin grinned at his pals. “Okay, boys, let’s let Mr. Tough Guy go to his kiddie party.”

Neither the U.S. Marines stationed at the door nor the State Department security detail asked for an ID when Garrett entered the embassy. An older woman wearing an equally old blue wool business suit greeted him from behind a table positioned in the center hallway where she was directing traffic. Adults to her left, children to her right.

“Mr. Garrett,” she said, “my name is Miss Gloria Whitworth, personal assistant to the ambassador’s wife, Mrs. Heidi Duncan.” Her formality and stature reminded him of his fifth-grade teacher. That teacher had not liked him. Nor had he liked her.

“No name tags tonight,” she said, “but you can wear one of these.” She glanced down to the table at a display of cheap-jeweled tiaras, pink-and-blue paper cones with elastic neckbands, and bright red top hats with HAPPY BIRTHDAY inscribed on their brims.

“I’m not much for hats,” Garrett said.

“The ambassador and his wife are wearing them.”

So was Miss Whitworth—a cardboard gold crown.

Garrett glanced to his left into the open doorway of the children’s party. A disco ball. Painted-face clown with giant orange feet. A magician in a cape. A gaggle of squealing tweens in sequin-embellished, multilayered tulle party skirts and boys uncomfortable in suits and ties, awkwardly waiting at a self-serve ice cream machine.

Garrett shifted his glance to the adult room. Cocktails. Chamber music. Lots of evening wear. Adults in party hats chitchatting.

“The kid’s party looks more fun,” he said dryly, “and I don’t like kids.”

“Which hat would you prefer?” she asked.

“I’ll pass.”

Ambassador Duncan and Heidi Duncan were situated near the entrance. Garrett moved to skip by them but a hand grabbed his upper arm, guiding him back into the receiving line.

“I’m your date tonight,” the woman holding him said.

Midforties. Black hair worn short. Black glasses. A pleasing face, but not someone who would draw stares when entering a room. Dressed professionally. Physically fit. He’d never seen her before but assumed she worked for Austin and was, therefore, CIA.

“Mr. Ambassador and Ms. Duncan,” she announced, “let me introduce our newest arrival, Mr. Brett Garrett with IEC.”

“Ah, the man from Kiev,” the ambassador said, extending his hand. Forced smile. “Nasty place, Ukraine. I didn’t really know Ambassador Thorpe—he was career, unlike me. But I heard great things about him after he was murdered. Went to his funeral, of course. Just returned.”

Ambassador Duncan was in his early seventies. Silver, slicked-back hair. Thin. Tall. A gold wedding band on his left, silver Harvard signet ring on his right. Tailored Italian suit. Standing beside him, his wife. Heidi looked like a woman fighting middle age. Cosmetic surgery. Birdlike diet. Carefully coiffed brunette. Glistening white teeth. Soft, dainty hand. Multiple-carat diamond wedding ring.

“I remember you from television,” she said. “The congressional hearings. What was the name of that country where that senator’s son died?”

Garrett suspected she already knew. What he didn’t know was if she also had been told about the reason he had come to Moscow.

“Thanks for inviting me to your party,” he replied.

“Don’t thank me, thank my husband. I don’t really believe we need a security guard here, especially you.”

Garrett had met her type before. He’d always found it curious that women born of privilege felt little need to prove themselves, but those who had climbed the social ladder nearly always were blatant snobs, eager to belittle those whom they saw as beneath them.

“Let’s get a drink,” the woman still clutching his arm said, guiding him toward a corner bar.

“How’s Marcus Austin as a boss,” he asked her.

“I don’t work for Austin. I’m on Mrs. Duncan’s personal staff. You met my boss in the hallway.”

“The ice queen wearing the gold crown?”

“Miss Whitworth tends to be a bit stuffy,” the woman said, smiling. “But she’s old-fashioned in her ways. What are you drinking?”

“Miss Whitworth,” he said, puckering his lips and raising his voice, mocking her, “would not approve. I’m on duty.”

“No, you’re on display.”

She ordered him a Klinskoye Svetloe. “It’s Russian, similar to Yuengling,” she explained. “You’re a curiosity because of your reputation. On display, so smile.”

He didn’t but he did follow her eyes as they both surveyed the ballroom. About a hundred guests. He spotted a familiar face and grimaced. A network news reporter who’d covered the Cameroon congressional hearings apparently now working in Moscow.

“I thought it was you,” the correspondent said as he approached.

Without warning, the woman next to Garrett stumbled forward, splashing her pinot noir against the reporter’s chest.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she said loudly. “New heels.”

She dabbed her napkin on his now-stained shirt. “A men’s room is just down the hall. Remember to blot; don’t rub or you’ll never get it out.”

Garrett saw a flash of anger as the reporter hurried away.

“You sure you don’t work for Austin?” he asked.

She gave him a sly grin. “Let me get a real drink now. The truth is I don’t care much for red wine.” She ordered a scotch neat and led him to an open space next to a large photograph of President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.

“This was taken at their first meeting in 1985,” she explained. “The Geneva Summit. Sadly, most of his countrymen today consider Gorbachev a traitor.”

She nudged him. “You’re about to be replaced as the object of everyone’s curiosity.” She nodded toward a tall, athletic man in his late twenties who’d entered. He was wearing bright red cowboy boots. “That’s Ivan Yovovich Sokolov.”

Garrett watched as Heidi Duncan smiled flirtatiously when shaking his hand. No reaction from her ambassador husband. Masks in a pageant.

“He wears those god-awful boots because he bought a Texas franchise—something with a red mascot,” she said.

“What sort of team?”

“Do I look like I read the sports page?”

Another nudge to his side. “Ah, now the real star of the party has arrived.”

Garrett recognized him from photos. Edged by two bodyguards, General Andre Gromyko strutted into the room, parading directly to the ambassador and his wife, forcing the others in line to stand aside.

In cinema, villains wear their villainy. Black cowboy hat. Scarred face. Permanent sneer. An outer ugliness that reflects an inner ruthlessness. Not so in real life. General Andre Gromyko was a pudgy Russian in his late fifties. Salt-and-pepper full beard. Thinning hair. Round pie face. Completely ordinary. The banality of evil.

“No general’s uniform tonight,” she said. “Probably didn’t want to be confused for one of the clowns at the kids’ party with all the medals and ribbons he’s awarded himself.” She chuckled at her own joke and when Gromyko looked their way, she raised her drink in salute, a gesture that he ignored.

Instead, Gromyko was studying Garrett. The look of a predator assessing a foe. Neither man blinked. Mano a mano. A hateful stare. Gromyko slowly looked away. What exactly the general knew about Garrett was unclear. What was clear is that both understood what sort of men they were and that if they met, how each would react. Natural-born enemies.

Garrett felt nauseous and it wasn’t from his Russian beer.

The woman noticed. “You starting withdrawal? Austin said the Russians confiscated your Suboxone at the airport.”

“I thought you didn’t work for Austin. And does anyone keep anything secret around here?”

She chuckled. “I can help.”

“You can get my meds back?”

“No, they’re long gone. How about lorcaserin?”

“Never heard of it.”

“A weight-loss drug but some claim it works better than Suboxone. You’ll need something to stay focused.”

“You the residential Dr. FeelGood?”

“There’s a prescription bottle of lorcaserin in Heidi Duncan’s office desk upstairs.”

Garrett looked across the room. Heidi Duncan was still chatting with her husband and Solokov. She noticed Garrett’s glance and glared at him.

“Why would she need an obesity drug? And I’m sure she isn’t going to just hand over her pills.”

“Preventive maintenance. Sticking your finger down your throat gets tiresome after a while. How good are you at sneaking into an office?”

“I’m more a kick-down-the-front-door type.”

She took a sip of her scotch. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. First, we have to get you by Miss Whitworth in the hallway to access the staircase. Next, there are cameras upstairs in the hallway but not in her private office where the pills are kept. Top right drawer of her desk. It’s the bottle marked Belviq.”

“Can’t you ask her or get them for me? You work for her.”

“No, she keeps the drawer locked because she doesn’t want anyone to know she takes them, especially me. And I’m not the person who needs them. You are. Your problem. You do the B-and-E.”

She checked her watch. “The power is about to go off thanks to Austin. When it does, the emergency lighting will come on, but it takes about four minutes for the hallway cameras outside her office upstairs to reboot. It’s an antiquated system. That gives you four minutes to climb two flights of stairs, get into her office, take enough pills to last while you’re in Russia, and come back to the birthday party.”

“I’m not David Blaine.”

“You don’t need to be.” She took his hand and he felt the outline of a key in her palm. “Master key,” she said. “You’ll have to return it.”

“How do we get by Miss Whitworth?”

“I will help with that.”

Garrett realized he was trusting a complete stranger.

“You haven’t told me your name,” he said.

“You haven’t asked?”

“I should know the name of a fellow burglar.”

“Giorgia Capello but everyone calls me Ginger and, no, I’m not and never have been a redhead. It’s just a nickname.”

As they started toward the hallway, Capello stopped at the bar and asked for a Perrier. She delivered it to Miss Whitworth, who was still at the table with party hats. The stairway was directly behind her.

“I’m here to relieve you,” Capello said cheerfully.

Whitworth looked suspiciously at Garrett.

Capello said, “I’ve managed to convince Mr. Garrett to change his mind. He’d like a hat.”

Garrett chose a red top hat that was much too large for his head. He felt ridiculous.

Capello said, “Miss Whitworth, you did all of the planning for this party and you’re so good at these events, it’s time for you to join it and let me watch the table. Most everyone we invited already has arrived.”

A disapproving look swept across the older woman’s face. “I was asked to welcome guests. Not be one.”

“Now, Gloria, really, you should—”

The lights went out. Loud shrieks from the children’s room. The emergency lights popped on. A girl burst into the hallway and darted into the adult room. “Mommy! Daddy!” she squealed.

“Oh my,” Miss Whitworth said. “Ginger, maybe you should take over for a few minutes while I sort this out.” She looked at Garrett. “Are you coming or leaving?”

“I’m still reviewing my hat options.”

Miss Whitworth hurried inside the ballroom.

“Remember cameras in the hallway and outer office,” Capello said. “Four minutes.”

He darted behind the table and up the stairs.

Capello checked the adult room to see if anyone had seen him. It didn’t appear so. Everyone was focused on Ambassador Duncan, who had dropped to his knees to be eye level with his upset daughter, who seemed panicked.

“The music’s stopped,” she declared through tears.

“Probably because the lights went out,” Duncan said.

“No, Liam broke it,” she replied. “He started punching buttons on the computer. He thinks he’s so smart.”

Reaching out to straighten her daughter’s jeweled birthday tiara, Heidi Duncan said, “Don’t you worry, princess.”

“Would you like me to summon Mr. Duwar?” Miss Whitworth asked, having suddenly appeared behind the birthday girl.

“Yes,” Heidi Duncan replied. Speaking to her daughter, she added, “Now you go back into the other room with Miss Whitworth and she’ll get the music working.”

In the hallway heading toward the children’s party, Miss Whitworth noticed Garrett was nowhere to be seen. “Mr. Garrett?” she asked.

Capello replied, “Little boys’ room.”

Upstairs, Garrett inserted the master key into Heidi Duncan’s office suite. He tried the top drawer. Locked. Grabbing a letter opener, he jammed its tip between the drawer and desktop, and pressed on the side of the bolt, prying it down.

Tick-tock, tick-tock. He needed to hurry.

Inside were a dozen prescription bottles. He was taking too much time. There were a dozen brown pill bottles. Lorcaserin. He couldn’t find it. Then remembered. Capello had called it a different name. Seconds passed. He cursed his growing inability to concentrate. Belville? Belust? No—Belviq? He rechecked each bottle. Thankfully, only one began with a B.

He stole five pills. Returned the bottles. Forced the drawer shut and hurried to the doorway. Peeking into the hallway, he saw a blinking red light directly under the camera lens. He had run out of time. Pulling the paper top hat as far as possible over his head, he lowered his chin and dashed for the stairway.

Capello was waiting anxiously in the hallway. He reached her at the same time a man dressed in a tan shalwar kameez—long shirt and baggy trousers favored by men in the Indian subcontinent—was approaching her from the building’s entrance. He was slender with long curly hair knotted in a bun and a beard. He and Garrett reached Capello at the same time from opposite sides.

“Krishma,” Capello said warmly, greeting him. “Miss Whitworth and the children are waiting for you. A computer issue.” She nodded toward the kids’ room.

The man gave Garrett a curious stare. “We haven’t met,” he said, extending his hand. “Krishma Duwar.”

Garrett shook his hand but didn’t offer his name. “Nice to meet you.”

Capello interrupted: “Miss Whitworth hates to wait. You best go inside.”

Duwar looked a few more moments at Garrett. Then at the stairs that he had seen him descending. “Perhaps we will meet again later,” he said.

When Duwar was gone, Garrett said, “He saw me coming down the stairs. Who is he? Will he tell?”

“He’s the embassy IT expert. Global Intelligence Technologies,” she replied. “I don’t know if he’ll mention it.”

“It might not matter. The camera’s red light was blinking. I took more than four minutes. I tried to hide my face with this stupid hat.” He tossed it on the hallway table.

“I wouldn’t worry about the cameras,” she said. “You actually had eight to ten minutes. I wanted to keep you on your toes.”

Miss Whitworth emerged from the children’s party accompanied by Duwar.

“Crisis averted,” she said. “As always, Mr. Duwar worked his magic. I’m certain both the ambassador and Mrs. Duncan will want to personally thank you for saving their daughter’s birthday party. You should join them in the ballroom.”

“You’re very kind,” Duwar replied, picking up a birthday hat and putting it on his head.

“Will you be joining the party, too?” Duwar asked Garrett.

“No, I’ve had enough excitement for the night.”

“Miss Whitworth told me that you’re the infamous Brett Garrett who now works for my company’s competitor, IEC.”

“Guilty as charged on both counts,” Garrett replied. Speaking to Capello, he added, “Would you mind walking me outside. I’m still trying to find my way around here.”

Outside, he said, “That IT man—Duwar—does he help the ambassador with his computer?”

“Yes, all of the time. And also Heidi. She’s the worst with her computer.”

He stopped. “Good night, Ms. Capello. I trust you’ll tell Austin about our little operation tonight—even though you claim to be on the ambassador’s wife’s staff.”

“The IEC housing quarters are to your left,” she replied. “It should take you about four minutes to get there.” She laughed before reentering the building.

Twenty-Two

“I have to tell the FBI,” Valerie Mayberry declared.

She was huddled with CIA director Harris in his government-issued Cadillac. This time on a service road behind a Walmart at the Fair Lakes Shopping Center off Interstate 66. His driver was standing watch outside.

“You work for me,” Harris declared. “I’ll decide when and if the FBI needs to know about yesterday’s shrine bombing.”

“I’m temporarily detailed to you but I’m still an FBI employee and I witnessed a crime. People were murdered. Others wounded. I have to file a report.”

“No, you don’t. You reported everything to me, that’s sufficient.”

“But I know who was responsible. Makayla did it. The bureau needs to know about her Antifa cell. She’s a murderer.”

“Did you see her detonate that bomb?” he asked. “You don’t have any evidence. On the other hand, you shot pepper spray into a high school principal’s eyes during a fatal domestic terrorist attack.”

“I had to. I was undercover.”

He grunted. “Don’t be naïve. The media will exploit the hell out of this—especially after reporters identify you as the crazed woman in a viral video threatening a Virginia congressman with pepper spray. Your career will be finished. Worse, you will go to jail.”

“You could explain it to Sally North and Director Davison.”

“Explain what? I never instructed you to threaten a United States congressman with pepper spray or assault a high school principal during a terrorist attack. You acted on your own. Let me remind you that there’s also an NDA. Any disclosure about our operation or admission that you were undercover would violate that.”

“You can’t use that against me. NDAs are invalid if something illegal happens and one party knows about it.”

Harris chuckled. “Oh my dear, do you really think you’re smarter? In civil cases that might be true. But not in a covert operation classified top secret. The entire reason why we have top secret operations is to keep the public from knowing what you did. If you tell anyone what happened at that shrine, I will personally see to it that you’ll go to prison for life. You’re dispensable.”

She couldn’t tell if he was bluffing. His tone and angry voice suggested he wasn’t. She also suspected Harris could be vengeful. If anyone were to be blamed for not stopping the shrine bombing, he would make certain it was her, not him.

Changing tactics, Harris tempered his voice. “Valerie, when you came to work for me, you entered the world of realpolitik. The bureau doesn’t need your help solving that bombing. You need to stay focused on the bigger prize, and that’s Pavel. The clock is ticking. Yes, it’s horrific that two innocent people were murdered yesterday during the shrine bombing. But Antifa would have exploded that bomb whether you had been there or not. We needed you there because—based on the boldness of that bombing—Makayla is our best lead and most likely candidate to be the one helping General Gromyko.”

The CIA director rested his arm on the top of the back car seat above her shoulders. He leaned in so close she could smell the stench of his morning coffee. “Remember the attack in Kiev? The first terrorist out the door? The one that you theorized might have been a woman?”

“Makayla?”

“It’s another reason why you need to keep your mouth shut about the shrine and keep embedding yourself inside her Antifa cell. It’s more important to stop her from killing again with poison than to identify her now and possibly have her go underground. Now tell me again exactly what Makayla said when she grabbed your jacket and pulled you into that van.”

“I think she said, ‘I’m not leaving anyone behind this time.’”

“Think isn’t good enough, Mayberry. Did she or did she not say ‘this time’? Because that clearly suggests she was one of the terrorists at Kiev who left Gabriel de Depardieu behind. Think, damn it!”

“I’d just been struck with a board on the back of the skull.”

“What you don’t know is we’re comparing your Smithmyer College video to the security taped footage of the masked terrorists in Kiev.”

“If it’s Makayla,” she said, “you’re eventually going to have to tell the bureau because the CIA can’t arrest her. You’ll have to tell my bosses about the shrine bombing and disclose that I was there. When that happens, they’re going to be furious that I didn’t tell them now.”

She glanced out the tinted window. She was trapped in a catch-22.

“What if Pavel is lying?” she asked. “What if he’s fabricating this entire Kamera poisoning scenario about Gromyko murdering Americans to make himself so indispensable that you’ll do anything to get him and his grandson out alive?”

“Not believing him puts us at greater risk than believing.”

She grunted, unconvinced.

He said, “The Russians are pushing the edges—look at the poison murders in London. President Kalugin is out to undermine and destroy us. You’ve grown up being told that all people, regardless of their nationality, are basically good and decent and want peace. But that’s the stuff of fairy tales. Kalugin wants you and me and every American who he can kill dead. That’s realpolitik. You can’t make friends with a crocodile. Now, when is your next meeting with Rivera? Has she told you how to contact Makayla?”

“I’m meeting Rivera this afternoon for drinks and shopping. And, no, I have no idea how to contact Makayla.”

“Squeeze her. Find out how to contact Makayla.”

He handed her a business card. “When you have something, call this number and ask for Mr. Smith. He’ll get information to me. We’re done meeting face-to-face.”

“You’re distancing yourself from me, aren’t you? Setting me up. Just like you did Brett Garrett in Cameroon.”

The veins in his neck bulged, his eyes narrowed, and she saw hate in them. Harris reached over her lap and opened the passenger door for her to exit.

“Go!” he snapped.

Later that day, Mayberry left her Reston condo to meet Rivera as planned. Rivera had suggested Nostos, one of the finest and pricier Greek restaurants in the Tysons Corner area. Mayberry had just parked outside the eatery when her phone dinged. Text message. New meeting spot. Yelp reviews gave Petit le Diner a half star. Odd, given Rivera’s five-diamond preferences.

Mayberry arrived at the French restaurant and immediately checked its nearly empty bar. No Rivera. She scanned the largely vacant dining room. She wasn’t there. At least, Mayberry didn’t immediately spot her. It took a second and then a third look. Rivera was nearly unrecognizable at a table for two in a dark far corner. She was wearing no bling. Skinny jeans with holes. A gray lace-paneled, roll-tab sleeve blouse. Nice, but department store goods. Cheap sneakers. An oversize floppy hat. Hiding behind no-brand sunglasses that were so huge they covered half her face.

“What’s up with the new look?” Mayberry asked jokingly, pulling out a chair with a worn seat cushion at Rivera’s table.

“Those two—the ones who got—you know—who died yesterday,” Rivera whispered, nervously glancing around the room at a half-dozen patrons. “I’m leaving for Turkey tonight.”

Reaching across the table, Mayberry placed her hands on top of Rivera’s. “This is ridiculous. You weren’t responsible and neither am I.”

“You’re wrong, Valerie. We can be charged as accessories to murder—even as domestic terrorists.”

“Who told you that?”

“My father. He could tell I was upset. He began asking—I told him everything and he called our family attorney. They told me not to meet you, but I needed to warn you. We’re friends and you have money. You need to disappear, too. Tonight.”

“Where would I go?”

“Come to Turkey with me.”

“No. You don’t have to run. We can go to the FBI and explain,” Mayberry said. “We could turn ourselves in.”

Rivera jerked back her hands from under Mayberry’s. “I’m Muslim. My mother is from Turkey. How can you—of all people—say I should go to the corrupt FBI?”

“Okay, okay,” Mayberry replied, hoping to calm her. “It was a stupid idea.”

Rivera began to cry. “You got to believe me. I didn’t know they were going to kill old people, children.”

Mayberry noticed a waiter approaching. She waved him off.

“So, you didn’t know about the bomb?” Mayberry asked.

Rivera looked frightened. “Why are you asking me that?”

“I just wondered if I was the only one who didn’t—”

Rivera interrupted. “Are you saying you are innocent and I am not?”

“No, of course not.”

“Demonstrating at a college, yes. Pepper-spraying racists, yes. Calling for a revolution, ending capitalism, yes. But murdering people at some stupid Civil War memorial, no, no, no. I swear I didn’t know.”

Without warning, Rivera reached out and grabbed Mayberry’s hands, still resting on the table between. She squeezed tightly. “You have to run. It’s not just the FBI. It’s Makayla.”

Rivera’s eyes flitted across the restaurant. “That man sitting over there.” She nodded toward a table close to the restaurant’s front door. A hulking figure was watching them.

“He works for my father. A bodyguard. It’s not safe. Makayla has powerful friends everywhere, including Washington.”

“Who? What friends?”

“The bomb. On the news, they said it was C-4 explosive—like what you see in movies. No ordinary person can walk into a store and buy it.”

“Someone in the military is helping her?”

“Why are you asking me these questions?” Rivera said, clearly frightened. And then she flip-flopped and volunteered more information. She was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in her moods. “There’s something I never told you. Something about me. When I was in Paris at school I took a French lover, Gabriel, and he’s the one who introduced me to Antifa. She was there, too.”

“Makayla in Paris?”

“The three of us became friends. But he’s dead now.”

“How?”

Rivera paused, took a long drink of water that she’d been brought earlier. “He was killed, and it was her fault.”

Rivera began to cry. “He told me things—things he wasn’t supposed to tell me. He sent me away from Paris months before he died. He didn’t want me implicated. I begged him to come here with me, but he was a true believer, just like her. He truly loved me, but she came here after he died. I was afraid to tell her no. She’s… she’s… killed people before.”

“How and when?” Mayberry asked quietly.

“A shooting. One of her plans. Don’t you see? If the FBI discovered I knew she had already been involved in a terrorist act, they would not believe anything I said about yesterday’s bombing. I’m in too deep and now, so are you.”

Rivera looked around the restaurant again to ensure no one could hear them. None of the customers appeared to be watching them. Four women by a window chatting. Two men in suits talking loudly out of earshot. The bodyguard.

“It’s okay,” Mayberry said reassuringly. “No one can hear us. You said your lover introduced you to Makayla?”

“Yes, he told me that she knew many important people, including people in the States. I went to a protest at a college. Smithmyer. This was before I met you. This person—a white man—picked her up in the parking lot after that demonstration. He was her D.C. contact, I think.”

“What’s his name? Do you know where he works?”

Again, Rivera’s mood swung between paranoia and a need to confess. “You are asking too many questions. Stop asking.”

For several moments, they sat in silence and then Rivera said, “I believe he works at the U.S. Capitol.” Quickly followed by “You’re interrogating me!”

Rivera began breathing rapidly. “My father’s lawyer warned me. He said others at the shrine—they would turn against me, testify against everyone else. Is that why you’re asking me all these questions? I thought we were friends. I came to warn you!”

“I’m not going to betray you,” Mayberry replied, trying to steady her. “I’m asking about Makayla because I can’t flee the country. The best way for me to protect both of us is to learn everything I can about Makayla. I will never, ever mention you, I swear, Aysan. But your father’s lawyer is right. If I get arrested, I’ll give them her name. She’s the one who did this to us. She’s the one who should be punished. But I don’t know if Makayla is even her real name. I need to know how to contact her. Please, if you know her phone number, tell me. Tell me and if something happens to either of us, I will tell the FBI about her, but never you. I swear it.”

Rivera didn’t speak. More water. More fidgeting. More scanning the room with her eyes.

“Aysan, we’re friends,” Mayberry said. “You can trust me.”

“Can I? If I tell you her number, you might warn her that I’m leaving Antifa. Running away.”

“I wouldn’t do that. You’re my friend.”

Without warning, Rivera pushed out her chair and stood to go.

“My father’s attorney said no one is my friend. He says everyone will turn against everyone.”

“Makayla’s number, please,” Mayberry pleaded. Real emotion crept into her voice. “I need it to protect myself and you.”

Rivera hesitated. She looked down at Mayberry, looked into her eyes. “I do trust you,” she said. “You didn’t know about the bomb.” She pulled an ink pen from her purse. Grabbed Mayberry’s palm and scribbled three numbers on it, but stopped suddenly and jerked back her hand.

“No, no, no! I can’t do this!” She jammed the pen back into her purse and spun around.

“Wait, wait,” Mayberry said, rising from her seat.

But Rivera was already darting toward her bodyguard and the restaurant’s exit.

Mayberry sat back down at the table. She read the digits: 2-0-2. The original long-distance area code for Washington, D.C. She needed to think. Consider her options. If she called “Mr. Smith” and reported everything to Director Harris, the CIA would intercept Rivera after she fled the United States. They’d wait for her to get overseas. Otherwise, the FBI would need to get involved. Harris wouldn’t want that. He wouldn’t want Rivera talking about her good Antifa pal Valerie Mayberry and recounting how she was at the shrine bombing.

Her second option would be to tip off the FBI. Director Harris would be furious, and it would get her into trouble, but it would be better for Rivera. The FBI would treat Rivera better than the agency overseas. Mayberry felt genuinely sorry for Rivera. A gullible student, easily recruited by the oldest method ever. A lover.

A third option. Play dumb. Let whatever fate awaited Rivera play out. Tell no one. Not Director Harris and not the FBI. Sit tight. Forget their meeting here ever happened. She’d promised not to hurt Rivera.

Mayberry reviewed her options. A waiter came. She ordered and continued to ponder as she ate. After she’d paid the bill and walked outside, Mayberry dialed a number on her cell.

“Mr. Smith,” she said. “I have information for Director Harris.”

Twenty-Three

Deputy Foreign Minister Yakov Prokofyevich Pavel saw the CIA’s signal at 7:33 a.m. Moscow time. A black circle spray-painted the previous night on the public phone shell. The Americans’ signal that they were ready to pick him and Peter up later that day.

Pavel betrayed no emotion—not even a smile—as he rode along New Arbat Avenue in his chauffeured government car toward the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Getting instructions to the Americans via Bolshoi tickets had proven simple and easy—all thanks, ironically, to General Gromyko. The general had stripped Pavel of nearly all diplomatic duties. To further humiliate him, he’d put Pavel in charge of arranging tours for visiting dignitaries—a menial task normally assigned to a junior diplomat. Whenever the Bolshoi was scheduled to perform, a ballet employee would deliver a packet of tickets for Pavel to disperse. Last night’s production had corresponded with the arrival of an American oil company delegation in Moscow to cut a deal for offshore drilling rights in the Chaivo Field, located in the Sea of Okhotsk. It had been effortless for Pavel to write coded instructions on the backside of a pair of Bolshoi tickets and leave them at the will-call window for the fictional “Fred Thomas.”

The fact that Pavel had accomplished this under Gromyko’s nose greatly pleased him. Now he was ready for the next stage in his well-planned escape. As soon as his grandson had arrived in Moscow, Pavel had enrolled him in Moscow State School #57, which had been the city’s most elite school during the Soviet period. After the collapse, most wealthy Russians had begun sending their children to the private Humanitarian Classical Gymnasium in the exclusive Moscow suburb of Zhukovka. Pavel’s choice had pleased the school’s headmaster, who had been completely unaware of the actual reason for it. The school was near the intersection of Komsomolskiy Prospekt and the Third Ring Road, major roads, along with numerous museums and other sites, including the Donskoy Monastery and Gorky Park.

Pavel had called the headmaster nearly every afternoon and requested that Peter be dismissed early. The pretense was that Pavel wanted to familiarize the teenager with Moscow’s many cultural treasures that he’d missed growing up in rural areas. By doing so, he was establishing a pattern, so his request today would not appear out of place.

Pavel knew General Gromyko was watching his every move, especially after the Americans had stupidly arrested an NSA employee so quickly after Pavel’s return from Ambassador Thorpe’s funeral.

When Pavel arrived in his office, he telephoned the school’s headmaster, knowing one of Gromyko’s goons would be listening in. Pavel said he needed Peter dismissed at three o’clock.

“Where will you be taking your grandson today?” the headmaster asked.

“The Museum of Art Deco.”

“An excellent choice,” the headmaster replied. “And close to our school.”

Pavel had lied. After picking up his grandson, he would tell his driver to take them to another close site—the Public Museum of the Moscow Metro. It was a relatively unknown gallery with displays that chronicled the construction of what arguably was the most beautiful city transit system in the world. Launched during Stalin’s reign, Moscow’s first underground stations were works of public art, with magnificent marble columns, ceiling murals painted by Russia’s finest masters, and gold-plated light fixtures. They were meant to impress the Soviet masses—visible proof that communism had a glorious future. The fact that only top party members could afford cars and everyone else had to depend on mass transit was largely ignored.

Pavel had selected the metro museum because it was housed above the Sportivnaya metro station, so-named because it served the nearby Luzhniki Olympic Complex. Although he had not been trained in evasion techniques, Pavel was clever enough to know his chances of disappearing in a crowd would be better inside a bustling metro station crammed with Muscovites boarding and exiting a constant stream of subway cars.

After notifying the headmaster, Pavel took a moment to simply sit and breathe. It was much too late for him to change his mind, nor did he wish to, yet he felt a genuine sadness as he glanced around his office, finally settling his eyes on the worn briefcase on his desk. To avoid suspicion, Pavel had not packed anything unusual in it with the exception of a single envelope. It contained two photographs. His daughter, her husband, and Peter as a child, and a much older one of Pavel’s deceased parents. As true believers, they would have been horrified about what he was about to do. Everything else that he owned that connected him to his past, his decades of service to Mother Russia, and his family roots would be left behind for Gromyko to pick over like the vulture that he was. All Pavel would possess would be his memories.

8:30 a.m., Moscow, U.S. Embassy

Marcus Austin summoned Brett Garrett.

“It’s a go,” Austin announced the moment Garrett arrived. “You’ll meet Pavel and his grandson between three ten and three thirty this afternoon. That’s a twenty-minute window to get him and Peter into the van.”

“That’s a long window,” Garrett replied. “Where’s the pickup?”

“The address that Pavel wrote on the Bolshoi tickets is for a Billa market near the Sportivnaya metro. It was the first foreign-owned grocery chain permitted after the Soviet Union collapsed.”

Austin unfolded a map of Moscow on his office desk and stabbed his index finger onto the store’s location. “I had Ginger—your escort at last night’s birthday party—drive by there early this morning to check things out.”

“So, she does work for you. Was she followed?” Garrett asked.

“Ginger is deep cover. Smart and tough. She knows how to avoid tails. I’d trust her with my life.”

“That’s your life. Not mine.”

“Stop being a bitch, brother,” Austin cajoled. “I know Director Harris bent you over when he testified before Senator Cormac Stone about Cameroon. He screwed up, but you know me, brother. We’ve worked together and I’m telling you straight up my girl is solid. No one has a clue she’s part of my team. That’s how deep-cover she is. Helping you today can possibly blow years and years of her insinuating herself into State. You should respect that.”

Garrett didn’t reply so Austin continued: “Now, there’s not going to be any street parking outside that store, but you’ll be driving a delivery truck. You can park on the street or jump its wheels on the curb.”

“Twenty minutes is a long time to block traffic,” Garrett noted.

“Not in Moscow. Drivers are used to having streets blocked and your Russian is passable enough if a cop shows up. Besides, like I just said, Billa is foreign owned. Even if someone identifies you as an American, which they probably will, there’s a fabricated work permit in the document packet I gave you yesterday.”

“Any idea how Pavel and the kid are planning on getting to the store without Gromyko and his FSB thugs tailing them?”

“None,” Austin said.

Garrett cursed. “You’re trusting this guy to not be followed? If he is, Gromyko will arrest me.”

“He and his grandson will be shot if caught,” Austin replied. “That’s a pretty good incentive to be careful. Now let’s move on. After you pick them up, you will exit the city here.” He shifted his finger to Moscow’s Third Ring. “Pavel’s clever. You’ll already be on the southwestern outer end of Moscow, with lots of possible escape routes.”

“And exactly where am I delivering them in Ukraine?”

“Novhorod-Siverskyi,” Austin replied. He spread out another map, laying it over the first. It was of southwest Russia. “A village in the northeast corner of Ukraine, far away from the fighting in the southeast. About seventeen thousand residents. Director Harris chose it personally because it’s less than thirty miles from the Russian border and most of the people who live there hate the Russians and Ukrainians. You should fit right in.” He chuckled at his own joke.

“Is there anyone they do love?”

“Not really, including Americans, but they’re dirt poor and are descended from a long line of mercenaries.”

“I trust the agency was the highest bidder.”

“Faith, brother, you got to have it. A little background for you. Novhorod-Siverskyi has a long history of turmoil, dating back to when princes used to fight over it back in 1044. The Mongols ransacked it in the 1200s. Next up, the Lithuanians, the Poles, the Germans, and finally Russia.”

“The agency provide you with all that historical data?”

“I read it on Wikipedia, brother.” Austin chuckled. “Despite who’s in charge, the people are Cossacks, which means they’re loyal only to their own blood and money.”

Austin continued, “The city is off the beaten path, although a few tourists come to visit its churches, a monastery, or a couple statues of princes and princesses who’ve been maggot food for centuries.”

“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?”

“It’s roughly three hundred and sixty-six miles from Moscow. At seventy miles an hour on a nice blacktop that’s only a five-hour drive. The truck’s top speed is probably sixty and the roads are full of potholes so you won’t be able to drive even that fast. I’m guessing ten to twelve hours.”

“Wikipedia?”

Austin grinned. “Mapquest.”

“Border-crossing station?”

Austin produced several satellite photographs of the Russian–Ukraine border near Novhorod-Siverskyi. He spread them out over the maps. “If you stay on this main road, there’s a crossing station when you exit Russia. Basically, a tollbooth with two officers. They’ll go home around midnight. But to be safe, you turn off the main road about five miles before you reach them.” He pointed to a close-up image of the terrain. “There’s a dirt road that cuts across a field. Follow it and you’ll end up in Ukraine. Rejoin the main road and you’ve just avoided the checkpoint. The only person you may meet would be an angry farmer.”

“A Cossack. Riding a horse armed with a sword.”

“Garrett, you and I both know Harris isn’t going to allow anything bad to happen to Pavel once you cross into Ukraine. You might be expendable, but not a deputy foreign minister. Wouldn’t be surprised if Director Harris is going to be there personally to greet Pavel and interrogate him on the flight home. He’s intent on finding out how Gromyko is reading our mail here.”

Garrett shuffled through the aerial shots. “How old?”

“Taken within the past five days. They’re accurate. Plus, if you run into a problem, use your SAT phone connection to Thomas Jefferson Kim at IEC. He can guide you using it as a GPS locator. He’s been briefed. In fact, this border crossing was devised by Harris before you touched down in Moscow. The only missing piece is how Pavel intends to get himself and grandson to the Billa store.”

“Was all this in the packet Ambassador Duncan delivered? The one he read through.”

Austin nodded. “Faith, brother. You got to trust someone.” He reached under the photos and southwestern map of Russia to retrieve the city map.

“This is where the Zil is waiting for you.” He checked his watch. “Go grab your gear and meet me in thirty outside.”

“What’s the truck carrying, in case I’m asked?”

“Boxes of Nestlé-Russia breakfast cereals,” Austin said. “Russians love cornflakes. Fresh clothing for you, Pavel, and Peter, their fake travel documents and fake passports. There’s a carve out between the cab and the boxes in the cargo area where the old man and his grandson can hide, if necessary. You enter it through an opening behind the passenger seat.”

Garrett nodded.

Austin handed him a set of truck keys.

Ten Minutes Later, U.S. Embassy, IEC Living Quarters

Brett Garrett tucked his IEC documentation papers, U.S. passport, and Russian work visa and concealed weapon permit into a gym bag. Next was the SAT phone and SIG Sauer pistol with extra ammo. He splashed water on his face and gulped down one of the pills he’d stolen the night before from Heidi Duncan’s private weight-loss stash. He held up his right hand to see if any tremors had set in. Not so far.

The pills hadn’t given him as much relief as Suboxone, but it had stopped most of the sweating and curbed his urge to vomit. Garrett stepped from his room—and came face-to-face again with Gilbert Hardin and two of his IEC buddies waiting in the hallway.

“You didn’t show last night after the birthday party,” Hardin said. “Time to play.”

“Sorry, pal, I’m in a rush.”

“You’ve already used that lame excuse,” one of Hardin’s pals sneered.

“Listen, Garrett, I checked the duty roster and you aren’t on it,” Hardin said. “You’re ducking me.”

Garrett lowered the gym bag on the tile floor. “In the interest of saving time, let’s say I let you sucker-punch me and we’ll call it square.”

Hardin glanced at his buddies, shrugged, and said, “Fair enough.” Hardin was a big man, with softball-size fists and thick biceps. Garrett braced himself.

Hardin lowered his right shoulder and let fly a thunder-packed blow against the left side of Garrett’s head, causing his mouth to flood with blood and nearly knocking him unconscious.

Garrett staggered back, spit, and felt one of his teeth to determine if it was cracked. “That was a hell of a wallop. I’ll give that to you, Hardin. Now we’re even.” He leaned forward to retrieve his gym bag. Hardin stepped forward and caught Garrett in his abdomen by surprise, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to fall on his knees, clutching his gut.

“No, Garrett, now we’re even,” Hardin declared triumphantly. He turned his head to smile at his buddies.

He never saw it coming. By the time he realized Garrett was springing upward onto his feet, it was too late. He might have spotted Garrett’s left, but he certainly didn’t have time to react to his right. Garrett was too quick. His left busted Hardin’s nose, his right landed under Hardin’s jaw knocking his head backward with tremendous force. A loud cracking noise.

Most men would have been knocked out, but then the same could have been said about the blow that Hardin had first landed on Garrett. Instead Hardin came at Garrett with both of his huge fists, ready for blood. Garrett feigned surprise and ducked, causing Hardin to follow his fist. Garrett delivered two hard punches to Hardin’s middle but the big man still did not fall. Because of his size and strength, Hardin was used to defeating his opponents with a few mighty blows and was not a well-practiced pugilist. Although smaller, Garrett sidestepped and quick-punched Hardin, hitting his face three times without taking any shots in return. His fourth hit caused Hardin’s eyes to tilt upward, a fifth and Hardin was done. He collapsed onto the hallway floor.

“Get out of my way,” Garrett said to the other two.

“It was a fair fight,” one said. Both stepped clear.

Five Minutes Later, Outside the U.S. Embassy

“What kept you—” Marcus Austin started to ask but stopped when he saw the swelling around Garrett’s eye, his bloody swollen lips, and nasty red bruises on his cheeks. He’d beaten Hardin but not without first taking several licks.

“You look like hell,” Austin said. “We don’t have much time. Get in the third car and keep down.”

Austin usually required his people to take a minimum of ten hours to go black in Moscow. Even longer during daylight. Moscow was a city of snitches. Its older residents had been groomed during the Soviet days. Back then, every Russian had been required to meet weekly with block captains to be questioned about their friends, neighbors, or strangers. Everyone was suspect. Everyone was a rat. The best got rewarded. It was a custom that had been passed on to the younger generation.

Garrett was riding with a State Department protective detail that was escorting Ambassador Duncan and Heidi to Vnukovo International Airport, south of Moscow, for a flight to Geneva. An international financial summit. Everyone knew the FSB would be trailing the embassy’s four-vehicle convoy. Garrett’s escape would be on the return ride. He would leap from the passenger side of the third SUV as it turned at a tight V intersection. The fourth SUV guarding the rear of the convoy would slow, giving Garrett a maximum of ten seconds before the FSB following them could make the turn. Ten seconds. Just enough time for him to disappear down the stairs of a nearby metro station and hope the Muscovites on the street minded their own business and didn’t wave down the FSB cars.

Inside the tinted-glass third vehicle, Garrett slipped on a pair of worn deliveryman coveralls. Through his swollen eyes, he checked his gym bag a second time. Everything was there, including his SIG Sauer.

Three Minutes before 2:00 p.m., Russian Foreign Ministry

Deputy Foreign Minister Pavel tucked a thick file of papers into his briefcase to give the appearance that he was taking work home. He checked his reflection in the mirror hanging near his door, straightened his burgundy tie, and surveyed the room’s interior for a final time. The past.

“I’m leaving to take my grandson to a museum,” he declared as he passed his longtime secretary.

“Excuse me, Deputy Minister, but there’s a meeting at three today that you are scheduled to attend. Should I warn them you might be a few minutes late?” she asked.

He glared down at her. “You have fulfilled your duties by informing me of the meeting. If I wished for you to tell them, I would have asked.”

She was used to his ill temper and sharp tone and quickly lowered her eyes. “Yes, Deputy Minister.”

For a moment, he considered apologizing. They had worked together nearly three decades. She had followed him up the chain of command and, after he fled, he knew Gromyko would interrogate her and, most likely, punish her for not realizing that Pavel planned to defect.

He realized that he knew little about her personal life. She was widowed and had grandchildren but lived alone. He’d never bothered to inquire where. She, on the other hand, knew a great deal about him. After his wife had died, she’d taken on the task of keeping tabs on his housekeeper, ordering his clothing, and handling all the dozens of forms when his daughter’s ashes and those of her husband had been returned to Moscow. She’d also dealt with the paperwork required to enroll Peter in Moscow State School #57.

Yet even she could not be trusted. If he suddenly changed character and offered her a warm parting word, she might report him. He kept walking and rode the elevator downstairs to where his driver was waiting.

They arrived at 3:05 p.m. outside Peter’s school, where the headmaster was patiently waiting at its front entrance. Pavel offered no apology for being tardy, extended no appreciation for the headmaster’s personal attention to Peter. There was no need. Pavel knew that the headmaster was treating him with the upmost respect because someday that same headmaster intended to seek a favor—at least the headmaster thought that he would be able to do that. A joke on him now that Pavel was going to defect. Tit-for-tat was how the old Soviet system worked. Everyone knelt to the nomenklatura to keep the Rube Goldberg country limping along. It was still the way Russia operated.

“Drop us at the Public Museum of the Moscow Metro,” Pavel instructed his driver.

“Not the Museum of Art Deco?” he replied.

He’d not mentioned the art deco museum. Clearly, that information had been relayed to the driver either by one of Gromyko’s goons listening to Pavel’s earlier call or the headmaster.

“When does a driver control a deputy minister’s schedule?” Pavel asked indignantly. “You will wait outside the Public Museum of the Moscow Metro until we are finished.”

Pavel rode with Peter in silence. He remembered a time when his grandson had spoken. Peter had stopped unexpectedly at age five. No one could explain why. Pavel suddenly felt an urge. He reached over and tousled Peter’s dark brown hair that the teen wore too unkempt for Pavel’s tastes. Peter smiled at him and then shifted his head to avoid Pavel’s hand. He looked outside. He’d always been a curious boy.

Students at School #57 were not required to wear uniforms but Pavel had demanded that his grandson dress appropriate to his grandfather’s status. Nothing with U.S. or British sports logos. No baseball caps. No denim jeans, despite their popularity, or fancy athletic shoes. This afternoon Peter was wearing a red wool sweater over a dark blue button-collared shirt and black leather shoes. Pavel noticed sideburn hairs beginning to appear on the thirteen-year-old’s baby-soft skin. Although Peter didn’t speak, he paid attention. Answered with nods and facial expressions. He was lanky, an awkward teen when he moved.

Pavel removed the envelope with the two family photos from his briefcase and handed them to Peter to see. His grandson’s sparkling blue eyes lit up. Pavel took them back and slipped them in his suit coat pocket. He was taking them from his briefcase because it would have appeared odd for Pavel to tote his briefcase into the museum.

“Come, Peter,” Pavel said, taking the teen’s hand when they arrived outside the three-story museum. As they exited the car, Pavel saw three men in dark suits step from a vehicle behind them. There was no parking on the busy street and the fact that both his driver and their driver remained parked there was a clear signal that they were either Gromyko’s men or FSB officers.

Pavel checked the time and realized he was running late. Ten after three. No time to waste. He guided Peter inside the building, but rather than going upstairs to the museum, he led his grandson down a flight of stairs to the entrance of the underground train station.

Opened in 1957, the stop was not nearly as ornate as Stalin’s original creations. Still, it was ornate. Dark gray and black floor tiles. Brown marble-covered walls. Gold-plated sconces illuminating a wide corridor packed with travelers.

Pavel heard the sound of a train entering and quickened their pace, still holding his grandson’s hand while glancing over his shoulder at the three men who were now pushing their way through the throngs of riders that separated them from Pavel. Down a flight of stairs to the platform, still a good forty feet or so ahead of them.

Pavel went immediately to the first car of the train, ignoring those on the platform packing its cars. He tapped on the train engineer’s window but was ignored until he flashed his ministry credentials. Behind him, the three pursuers were being stalled trying to descend the stairs. Too many riders blocked their way but they were closing in.

“What’s your name?” Pavel demanded when the engineer slid open the car’s window.

“Yuri Kuznetsov,” the startled driver replied.

“I am Deputy Foreign Minister Yakov Prokofyevich Pavel and I need you to follow my exact instructions. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Deputy Minister.”

Pavel looked over his shoulder again. His three pursuers were still midway down the stairs, still being blocked.

Pavel barked out his orders.

“Deputy Minister, may I ask—”

“Not if you wish to continue being employed, Yuri Kuznetsov.”

Still holding Peter’s hand, Pavel lifted his red Foreign Ministry passport, waving it for all riders to see.

“Make room!” he shouted. Those on the platform parted. Two women, who’d already boarded the first car, obediently exited so Pavel and Peter could enter.

Pavel watched from inside the car as the three FSB officers shoved their way through the mob and forced themselves onto the third car—the one closest to the subway steps—just as the train’s doors were closing.

The engineer drove the train forward but suddenly stopped after traveling less than five feet and opened the doors. But only to the first car. He had done exactly as Pavel had instructed him.

Pavel pulled Peter outside onto the platform. The engineer immediately closed the first car’s doors and drove the train forward, trapping the three men following Pavel in the third car.

“We must hurry!” Pavel exclaimed, tugging his grandson through the curious crowd waiting for the next train. They headed upstairs and outside. The Billa market was less than a block away.

Brett Garrett stepped from the Zil delivery truck outside the store’s entrance when he spotted Pavel and Peter approaching.

He moved quickly, opening the passenger door. Peter first. Pavel next. In under thirty seconds, Garrett was popping the Zil into first gear.

The Billa market was located on a rectangular block. Its entrance faced Khamovnicheskiy, an east-westbound street. At the western end of the block was Usacheva, which ran north-south. The eastern end connected to Dovatora. The street at the top of the rectangle—that ran parallel to Khamovnicheskiy—was Savelyeva, completing the rectangle.

As Garrett headed east, two GAZ-2330 Tigr armored military vehicles suddenly appeared, nose-to-nose, blocking the Dovatora intersection. Ten tons of armored vehicles now blocked their escape route. Garrett could see General Andre Gromyko stepping from them. Ten armed men, five on either side of him. Weapons pointed at the Zil delivery truck.

“It’s a trap!” Pavel exclaimed. “Gromyko knew!”

Garrett didn’t have time to agree or calculate who had betrayed their escape plan. He threw the truck into reverse and began speeding backward west against one-way traffic toward Usacheva. Cars behind him honked, drivers swerved, but before they could reach the north-south intersection, two more Tigr military vehicles appeared, closing off their route.

Panicked, Pavel reached for the door handle, ready to flee on foot, but Garrett grabbed his shoulder.

“If you want the kid to survive, stay put,” he ordered. “Crawl onto the floor. It’s armored. Both of you.” The old man and his grandson slid together from their seats into the narrow footwell that had been reinforced with heavy steel plates.

Garrett pressed down on the Zil’s accelerator, catapulting east once again, heading directly at the two Tigrs and General Gromyko.

The sight of the speeding Zil caused Gromyko to run for cover. Shouting, “The engine! The tires! The American driver stays alive!”

His men fired their Vityaz-SN submachine guns; 9x19 mm slugs peppered the front of the approaching truck. Several pierced the radiator. Steam shot from the holes, but the truck kept speeding forward. Other slugs punctured the Zil’s tires but didn’t flatten them. The truck’s regular tires had been replaced by Marcus Austin with Hutchinson Composite RunFlat tires, as bulletproof as possible. Despite Gromyko’s warnings to aim low, the Zil’s windshield became a spiderweb of cracks and bullet holes. Working in Garrett’s favor was the ammunition. The shooters were firing hollow points designed to mushroom on impact for maximum damage to human flesh. Good for killing people, but not effective at piercing armor.

It looked as if the Zil was on a kamikaze path, about to crash headfirst into the two military vehicles blockading its route. But when it reached the entrance to the metro station, Garrett swerved hard to his left, jumping the vehicle onto the sidewalk, causing watching people to dive out of its path. There wasn’t a street here but there was a pedestrian walkway. It ran along the western edge of the Sportivnaya metro station. Just wide enough for the Zil.

But Garrett wasn’t free yet. Midway up the pedestrian walkway that connected Khamovnicheskiy to Savelyeva, its northern border, were six concrete steps.

In those split seconds, Garrett tried to calculate if what remained of the Zil’s front tires would hit the bottom step and mount it, lifting the truck up to the subsequent steps. Or would the front-heavy Zil’s nose slam into the upper steps first before its front tires made contact, stopping the vehicle cold. He had no choice.

Garrett braced for a collision as he pushed the Zil’s engine to its limits. The first sound he heard was the truck’s front bumper scraping the bottom of the first step, sending sparks flying on each side. But before its front bumper collided with the second step, the front wheels hit and bounced up, lifting the vehicle, enabling it to awkwardly climb the staircase.

Garrett’s risky move caught Gromyko completely off guard. He’d not stationed any vehicles or men on Savelyeva. Garrett turned left when he reached it, driving toward Usacheva, the north-south avenue to his west. As he entered that intersection, the two Tigr vehicles that had been blocking Khamovnicheskiy backed up from their nose-to-nose position. Both drove north on Usacheva in pursuit.

Garrett’s encrypted SAT phone rang. From the footwell, Pavel opened the gym bag and handed Garrett his phone.

“Heard your driving is worse than mine,” Thomas Jefferson Kim chirped. He was watching Garrett from one of his satellites.

“Funny, but I’m a bit busy right now.”

“Drive toward the Novodevichy Convent,” Kim said. “I got Marcus Austin on another line to help us get you free. I’ll pass his instructions to you.”

“Where the hell is Novo—this convent?” Garrett asked, checking the truck’s rear side mirrors. The two Tigrs were closing in. Even more worrisome, one of Gromyko’s men in the lead Tigr was standing in the gun portal, readying a 7.62 PKP “Pecheneg” machine gun. Unlike the weapons fired by Gromyko’s ground troops, that machine gun’s rounds were capable of penetrating the Zil’s cargo area and cab when fired from behind.

Kim said, “Get ready to take the first left turn, running west.”

General Gromyko’s Mercedes was more agile and quicker than the Tigrs, but he was starting from the farthest distance. Playing catch-up. Still, from Kim’s office in Tysons Corner, he could see the general joining his troops in pursuit.

“Oh,” Kim said, “I forgot to mention that that left will take you on a one-way street, going against oncoming traffic.”

Garrett didn’t have time to reply. He swerved left at the same moment the machine gunner behind him unleashed a barrage of rounds. Because Garrett was turning in front of a southbound truck, that vehicle took the brunt of the rounds. Bullets blew into the vehicle’s cab, instantly killing its driver and causing the truck to smash into a storefront.

Garrett tossed the SAT phone to Peter. “I need both hands.” The teen immediately slipped up onto the seat next to him, buckled his seat belt, and held the phone near enough so Garrett could hear over its speaker.

Garrett downshifted and began swerving left and then right to avoid the one-way traffic coming at him. The GAZ Tigr turned left, too. Its gunner was about to unleash another round of bullets when one of the oncoming cars swerved onto the sidewalk to avoid the Zil and then jerked back onto the street, its driver unaware that the Tigr was about to hit him. The more powerful military vehicle smashed into his car, knocking it onto its side, sending a cascade of golden sparks in all directions. That collision caused two more cars that had dodged the Zil to hit the car in front of the Tigr. The second Tigr rear-ended the first, completely jamming the street, making it impassable. The first Tigr’s driver pushed down hard on the accelerator, hoping to climb over the stopped vehicles. Instead the Tigr got stuck on the roof of the first car. A furious Gromyko, who was following them, ordered his driver to reverse and find a parallel street.

Through the Zil’s cracked windshield, Garrett spotted turban-shaped spires in front of him as he turned off the one-way street onto a north-south thoroughfare. Four gold-plated domes.

“I see the convent!” he hollered at the SAT phone.

The seventeenth-century monastery had been built as a fortress to defend the city at the elbow of the Moscow River.

“It’s got castle walls around it!” Garrett yelled. “How am I supposed to get inside them?”

“You’re not,” Kim said. “Austin says there’s a cemetery south of it. I can see it on my screen. Head south.”

“A what? Did you say graveyard?”

“Novodevichy Cemetery. Get to its front gate.”

Garrett swerved, sideswiping a slow-moving car. The screech of metal on metal echoed throughout the cab. The jolt caused the SAT phone to fly from Peter’s hand. It smacked against the inside of the windshield. Peter scrambled to grab it but missed. It fell under Garrett’s feet. Pavel reached over, grabbed it, and then crawled up onto the truck seat, buckling himself in next to his grandson.

Garrett was now speeding down Luznetskiy Proyezd along the edge of the convent. From his right-side mirror, Garrett spotted General Gromyko’s Mercedes coming behind him on the busy boulevard. Garrett had to do something to slow him.

He swerved the Zil again, this time sideswiping a Lada sedan, which spun out of control. A perfect 360. It was hit from behind by another vehicle. The Lada toppled over onto its side. Drivers slammed on their brakes to avoid a pileup. It would be enough to delay but not to stop Gromyko.

The cemetery’s entrance appeared just as the Zil began to sputter and slow down, thanks to its now-empty radiator. Garrett turned the limping Zil into its entrance and stopped.

“Now what!” he demanded over the SAT.

That’s when he spotted Ginger Capello exiting a BMW X5 luxury sedan with its engine running.

“Gromyko’s coming!” she screamed.

Garrett, Peter, and Pavel leapt from Zil’s cab and hurried into the waiting BMW. There was no time to thank Capello or ask how she planned to avoid being arrested.

Garrett sped back onto the southbound lane.

Through the sedan’s back mirror, he watched Capello toss a packet into the truck’s cab before she darted into the cemetery, lowering a black veil from her hat.

Gromyko reached the abandoned Zil just when the truck’s cab exploded.

Garrett turned onto the entrance of the Third Ring. Peter was still holding the SAT phone.

“Gromyko didn’t see your vehicle,” Kim announced. “He’s stopped at the cemetery.”

“What about Capello?” Garrett asked.

“Who?”

Before Garrett could explain, Kim said in a panicked voice, “They’re hacking our call. Toss the SAT phone now before they can identify you.”

Garrett lowered the BMW’s window.

“Get rid of it!” Kim exclaimed.

“Gordievsky,” Garrett said, as he tossed the SAT out onto the highway.

Unharmed but fuming, General Gromyko exited his Mercedes and studied the burning Zil wreckage. His eyes scanned the cemetery. A veiled woman was walking toward an older car some two hundred yards away near a side exit.

He ducked back inside his car. “Follow that woman,” he ordered.

“General, I can’t,” his driver said. He pointed toward the front of the Mercedes.

Gromyko stepped out and walked forward to examine his much-prized car. A shaft of metal from the exploding Zil had penetrated the car’s front with such explosive force that it had punched through the engine’s protective barrier. His car was useless.