Command Authority

33

Although they had hoped to operate below the radar in Kiev, John Clark and his Campus operators had changed their plan somewhat, and now they were, essentially, hiding in plain sight. Their run-in with the FSB a few nights earlier had shown them that Russian intelligence had the run of this town and any attempts at keeping a low profile around here were doomed to failure. With this in mind, Clark decided he and his team would, instead, just make it look like they were a somewhat blundering group of journalists who were blissfully unaware that they were operating in the middle of spooks and mafia, and clueless to the fact everything they did and said was under surveillance.

Gavin had tried the patience of the experienced operatives on the team more than once by straying into conversation that veered toward operational talk. Each time this occurred, whoever happened to be the closest man to Biery got in his face, gave him a dirty look, and then changed the subject of conversation quickly. Biery would wince in frustration at his lack of refinement as a real spy, he’d nod sheepishly, and he’d pick up the new conversation.

Even though they had to remain in character with their conversations because they knew they were being eavesdropped on, they were able to communicate by writing notes on their iPads and then erasing the file, and they wrote on paper that they immediately destroyed. They also texted one another because Biery had installed robust security software on all their electronic devices to keep out even the best attempts to decrypt them.

The Fairmont Grand Hotel Kiev is a massive building on the banks of the Dnieper River in the historic Podil district in central Kiev. From the windows and balconies, guests are treated to views of the river to the east and of hills and golden church domes to the west.

A massive construction project to build a flyover was in the works next door to the building, and the noise, dust, and traffic associated with the big project took much away from any charm the neighborhood might normally have, and petty criminals roamed Naberezhno-Khreshchatytska both day and night. At night, hotel guests were warned by bellmen to patronize only those taxis dispatched by the hotel’s transportation service, because of rogue cabdrivers’ common tactic of either robbing tourists themselves or driving them to a quiet place where they could be robbed by a confederate.

The Russian known as Gleb the Scar was staying in the Royal Suite on the ninth floor, but his entourage had taken over every other room on the eighth and ninth floors as well. In addition to the security the Scar would have around him at the top of the hotel, the ground floor was crawling with his men. Anyone with an eye for such things who looked around the opulent grounds could easily detect several men who were not hotel staff, but nevertheless seemed to be permanent fixtures in the lobby. Men were encamped at the tables, on the plush sofas, or else just milling about doing nothing.

The majority of these fixtures were Seven Strong Men security personnel, but FSB, Ukrainian intelligence, and interior security men, as well as agents for other intelligence agencies, also hung around. Clark had no doubt that CIA would have liked to keep someone here in the hotel 24/7, had they enough personnel to do so. Even if Bixby wasn’t so concerned about the Scar just yet to task his men with establishing a twenty-four-hour eye, Clark knew there would be enough POIs in the Fairmont that CIA would want to at least have paid informants on the staff here.

Clark decided to keep his main base of operations at the rented flat, but he did take one room at the Fairmont so they could have someone close to Gleb the Scar. To effect this move and remain in cover at the same time, Clark concocted a ruse that began in the flat, where he started an argument with the other men about his OneWorld media assignment here in Kiev. For the benefit of the listening devices he knew recorded his every word, Clark, the senior reporter in the group, railed at the younger, less experienced journalists about everything from the equipment they had brought along for the job to production ideas for the project. He complained he wasn’t getting paid enough and that his per diem did not cover restaurants suitable for his needs, and he expressed outrage he was being forced to share a room with others.

And then, with a flair for the dramatic that had the other men in the room fighting to keep straight faces, Clark announced he would be moving into a hotel for the duration of their work here in Ukraine.

John Clark, a CIA officer since the Vietnam era, had never in his life been described, by anyone, as a diva, but his cover now had him adopting exactly that role.

An hour later, John Clark and Igor Kryvov arrived at the Fairmont; both of them pulled along large rolling suitcases full of items that any traveler might carry. Clark was careful to keep his luggage as innocuous as possible, because he was near certain the opposition would search his belongings here every chance they got. He checked into the hotel using his credentials showing him to be the senior reporter for OneWorld Productions in Vancouver, then he and Igor took their luggage to his third-floor room. They chatted along the way, Clark pestering the Ukrainian stringer with stories of other trips he’d supposedly taken with OneWorld and the better working conditions he’d experienced and the more professional crew of producers, photographers, audio men, and technical experts that he’d traveled with on assignments past.

Of course, Clark was certain he was being watched by cameras, mafia men, and enemy intelligence agencies, so this was all part of his cover.

After helping him with his diva-sized luggage, Igor Kryvov left the hotel and returned to the flat, and soon enough, John Clark moved down to the lobby, where he set himself up at a plush sofa by ordering coffee service, hooking a phone headset to his ear, and putting his iPad in his lap.

While Clark established his satellite op at the hotel, the rest of the team prepared their end of the operation. They split into two-man teams, with Igor and Sam taking one of their rented Toyota Highlanders and Dom and Ding taking the other, while Gavin remained back in the flat, working from there.

There was concern about leaving Gavin alone in an apartment the FSB had already raided once, so Igor arranged for two of his former colleagues in the federal police to stand outside the flat, telling them they were protecting a Canadian audio technician and his equipment.

At ten a.m. the two Highlanders arrived outside the Fairmont and parked in lots facing different directions within sight of the entrance to the massive hotel.

And then the men did that which they were very accustomed to doing in this line of work. They sat in their vehicles and waited.

It was no time at all before John Clark began attracting attention in the lobby of the Fairmont. Hard-faced men stared at him and even sat shoulder to shoulder with him on the sofa, but Clark did not blink, he just talked into his phone’s headset and worked on his tablet computer.

This was more of the “demonstration shadowing” FSB tactics that had been used against Clark and his men the other night.

But Clark was prepared for it now, and he wasn’t going anywhere. He ignored the men, regardless of their persistent attempts to get under his skin. Even when two of them sat on either side of him on the couch and carried on a conversation, the acrid smell of their bad breath filling his nostrils and their elbows jabbing him in the side as they gesticulated, Clark only continued reading his tablet as if he were alone.

When he talked on the phone, he acted as if he were in communication with someone overseas with his company, but in actuality he was on a secure conference call with his four men just outside the hotel.

In the vehicles outside, the men just listened to Clark drone on in their headsets about his dissatisfaction with his assignment here in Kiev and his refusal to start submitting his reports back to Vancouver until a new camera was sent in along with a new photographer to operate it.

By noon the FSB men had wandered off; perhaps they found the aged reporter as boorish as he found them. They remained in the lobby, mostly harassing other guests and giving the stink-eye to everyone who passed, but Clark could at least sip his coffee without having to keep his elbows pressed tight against his body.

Although Clark was forced to spend the vast majority of his efforts here in the lobby maintaining his cover, he was, in fact, here for a reason. With expert nonchalance, he was able to keep his head on a swivel and monitor the comings and goings to the elevators on the other side of the room, keeping a watchful eye out anytime someone went to the ninth floor.

Just after twelve-thirty, two men whom Clark immediately ID’d as potential Spetsnaz types entered the big hotel lobby and walked over to the elevators. Here they spoke for a moment with two thick ruffians wearing ill-fitting suits. Clark had pegged the two for Seven Strong Men goons, probably down here controlling who got on and off the elevator. After a few moments of conversation, the hard-cut military-looking men stepped into one of the elevators and the doors shut.

Clark adjusted his reading glasses on his nose. They were built with special lenses that gave him distant magnification when he looked through the very top of the glass. Using these, he was able to read the elevator numbers from across the room, and saw that the car traveled up to the ninth floor.

Yep, Clark said to himself, these guys are here to talk to the boss.

Twenty minutes later, the two men appeared in the same elevator car and then walked to the front doors of the hotel.

Clark waited until the instant they pushed through the revolving doors, and then he spoke into his phone as if responding to the other party he’d been talking to all along. “I’m glad you said that, Bob.”

This was Clark’s code to the cars outside to let them know whoever was leaving the hotel was someone of interest. It was now the job of the two car teams to ID the subjects and their vehicle.

Ding was behind the wheel of a black Toyota Highlander a hundred yards up the street, across from the road construction area. Dom sat next to him. They saw the two men exit the hotel and climb into a waiting Land Rover, and the vehicle took off to the north, toward their position.

Dom spoke into his headset, over the voice of Clark, who chatted away in an imaginary conversation: “Vehicle coming this way. We’ll take it from here.”

Chavez pulled into traffic a few cars behind the SUV when it passed, and then followed it up Naberezhno-Khreshchatytska Street, along the left bank of the Dnieper, and then onto Naberezhno-Luhova.

While they drove along, Dominic Caruso opened an app on his iPad and prepared himself to input a quick but crucial set of commands as soon as the time was right.

There was a great deal of traffic in both directions, but Ding stayed three cars behind the target vehicle until they hit a red light. The instant both cars stopped moving, Caruso tapped an icon on his tablet.

Under his seat, attached to the underside of the Toyota, a radio-controlled car the size of a brick lost its magnetic connection with the metal oil pan and dropped to the street. On his screen Dom saw the camera view of the little vehicle, and he pushed forward the throttle icon to accelerate the RC car below him, driving it under a truck parked in traffic directly in front of his Highlander, and then under a four-door sedan.

When the RC car arrived below the target SUV, he tapped an icon on the tablet, changing the image to an upward-looking camera. A tiny light automatically turned on, and now Dom drove his little car slowly, moving it left and right by turning the tablet accordingly, looking for just the exact location on the bottom of the vehicle.

He stopped his tiny remote vehicle below the SUV’s oil pan, then tapped a few icons, locking the wheels of the device in place. Once this was done, he switched to his deployment screen on the app, and he tapped a graphic that said, simply, “pneumatic deployment.”

Below the SUV the slap-on GPS device attached to the top of the RC vehicle popped into the air under the power of a compressed air-powered launcher. The matchbox-sized transmitter hit the metallic surface below the SUV and stuck to it with its powerful magnet, and instantly the transmitter began sending the GPS location of the target vehicle.

On the conference call, Gavin Biery, who was sitting in front of his laptops back at the safe house, said, “Receiving signal.”

“Roger that,” Dom replied, and as the vehicles in front of him began rolling forward again, he hastily unlocked the RC car’s wheels, switched his camera back to the forward view, and turned the little car around and raced it back to his Toyota Highlander.

Chavez drove forward while the RC car rolled back to him. When the two vehicles met, Dom pressed an icon on his screen and the vehicle itself popped into the air on its spring-fired wheels. With a loud and satisfying thunk, Ding and Dom knew the electromagnets on the RC car had reattached themselves to the oil pan, and they made the next turn to their left so they could head back to the hotel.

They stopped along the way back, pulling into a gas station on Volos’ka Street, and here they retrieved the RC car and loaded it with another slap-on. It was early afternoon, after all — Gleb the Scar might well have other appointments that would need tracking.