Countdown to Midnight

Eleven

Disheveled and dirty after an overnight flight from Austria crammed into the back of a chartered air cargo plane, Skoblin was marched into Pavel Voronin’s private office on the second floor. Two stern-faced bodyguards gripped his arms. Without a word, they pushed him into a chair and stepped back.

Voronin turned away from the window and stared at him in silence for a few moments.

Skoblin looked down at his feet, unable to meet the other man’s icy gaze. This discussion could have only one end, he knew miserably. Rumors within the Raven Syndicate spoke of unmarked graves already scattered through the forest surrounding Voronin’s country estate.

At last, Voronin broke his increasingly ominous silence. “This is an unfortunate turn of events, Viktor,” he said almost casually. “Your mission was to identify and eliminate Arif Khavari’s contact, the foreign spy you initially failed to kill. Instead, your mistakes have exposed this organization to our enemies. Worse yet, you have also managed to rip an even wider hole in MIDNIGHT’s operational security.” The younger man watched Skoblin’s face turn gray. “You are right to be afraid,” he said. “You have been well compensated in my service — extraordinarily so, in fact. But I pay men for success, not for failure.”

Nervously, Skoblin tried to moisten lips that were cracked and bone-dry. “Sir, I—” he said, fumbling for words, any words, of explanation that might somehow help stave off the inevitable end of this meeting. He knew, however, this was futile. For all practical purposes, his fate had been decided the moment his second rifle shot missed the enemy agent who’d been talking to Khavari. Painfully, he forced himself to look up. “I have no excuse,” he said at last, almost too softly to be heard.

Voronin smiled, but it was an expression that never reached his pale, unwavering eyes. He reached out and gently patted Skoblin’s shoulder, pointedly ignoring the way the other man flinched. “That’s true, Viktor. There are no acceptable excuses for your unforced errors and obvious incompetence. Or at least none that I’m interested in hearing. But despite that, you’re in luck all the same. Because I find myself in an oddly generous mood today.”

Scarcely daring to hope, Skoblin stared up at him.

Voronin nodded. “I’m going to give you another chance — though not at the same sort of work, of course. Intricate, subtle operations are quite evidently not your strong suit.” He shook his head. “No, I’ll find you a task that is much simpler and more direct. One that requires guts and brawn more than brains.”

“Thank you, sir… I… I swear that I won’t let you down again,” Skoblin stuttered hurriedly. “I will do anything you ask of me.”

Voronin nodded coldly. “Yes, you will.” He inclined his head toward the door of his office. “You can go now, Skoblin. You’ll be briefed later on your new assignment.” Deliberately, he turned back to the window, ignoring the other man as he was led away.

When the door closed, his deputy, Vasily Kondakov, shook his head in wonder. “You let him off surprisingly easily.”

Voronin glanced at him with a sly, crooked smile. “You think so?”

“Ah,” said Kondakov in sudden realization. “What do you have in mind for Skoblin, then?”

Voronin shrugged. “We’ll put him and his team aboard the Gulf Venture when it sails. He can act as our security liaison with the Iranian captain and his crew.”

Kondakov, aware of their full plans for the converted oil tanker, nodded approvingly. “An elegant solution,” he said.

“It is, isn’t it?” Voronin agreed. “After all, if I’m forced to use someone like our error-prone friend Skoblin, I might as well use him up.”

A tiled veranda ran along the entire length of the lake side of the Spanish-style mansion. A number of battered rattan chairs and settees provided seating, most of them angled to take full advantage of the pleasant view. Ceiling fans mounted under a wood-beamed roof kept the air moving.

Nick Flynn held the door to the veranda open for Laura Van Horn.

A tiny smile twitched at one corner of her generous mouth. “Ever the gentleman,” she murmured.

“Blame it on my childhood training, ma’am,” he replied, allowing his native Texas twang full rein for once. “My mother was very particular on the subject.”

Van Horn’s smile broadened. “I’ll be sure to thank her,” she said demurely. “Should we ever be introduced.”

Fox was seated by himself at a small round glass table set near the far end of the veranda, staring out across the sparkling waters of the small lake. He had a manila folder in front of him. When they reached him, Four’s chief of the American station greeted them with a surprisingly genial nod. “Nick. Laura. Welcome back to Avalon House.”

They took the chairs he indicated around the table.

“First, congratulations on the success of your Vienna operation,” Fox said quietly. “You achieved all of our hoped-for objectives, and did so cleanly — with near-surgical perfection. It’s a rare plan that even survives contact with the enemy, let alone one that unfolds so neatly and so precisely.”

Flynn shrugged. “A lot of credit for that goes to Professor Ayish,” he admitted. “He anticipated almost every move the opposition would make.”

“And to Tadeusz, Alain, Shannon, and the rest of the action team,” Van Horn added. “They executed their parts in the overall op flawlessly.”

Flynn nodded in agreement. “Yeah, they’re all really good. Probably the best I’ve ever worked with.”

Fox smiled dryly. “Points taken.” His voice took on a sharper, more focused tone. “But now, if we’ve reached the end of this little session of mutual praise, perhaps we can move on to other, more pressing matters?”

Flynn and Van Horn exchanged amused glances. Although he occasionally allowed himself a human moment or two, the older man’s all-business, all-the-time nature was never lurking far below the surface.

“While many of the files were encrypted at very high level, our technical experts have still managed to retrieve significant information from the laptop computer and smartphone you obtained so efficiently,” Fox told them. “Among other things, we were able to clearly identify the man you briefly took prisoner, the one who headed up the surveillance operation against Israel’s Vienna embassy.” He flipped open the manila folder at his place and took out a color photograph, obviously a digitally downloaded copy of a formal portrait.

Flynn studied it closely. It showed a bullnecked man in Russian military uniform with the twin red stripes and gold star of a major. The unit badge on his shoulder showed a winged golden crossbow on a black background, the emblem of Russia’s special operations forces. He frowned. That was the so-called electrician all right. He looked up at Fox. “So this guy’s Spetsnaz?”

“He was Spetsnaz,” the older man corrected. “His name is Viktor Pavlovich Skoblin.”

“So who’s he working for now?” Van Horn asked carefully.

Fox sighed. “That’s where the story gets somewhat murkier,” he admitted. “In a curious bit of symmetry, it appears that this man and the others you encountered in Vienna, all of whom have similar backgrounds in Russia’s various covert services, are currently employed by a brand-new private military and intelligence firm headquartered in Moscow.” His mouth tightened. “Apparently, they call themselves the Raven Syndicate.”

“Catchy name,” Van Horn said with a sniff. “If these guys are our new competitors, maybe Four should start calling itself the Falcon Group to get more up to date.”

Flynn smiled across the little table at her. “Or how about something along the lines of Eagle, Inc. Patriotic and catchy, right?”

Fox studiously ignored their byplay. “What matters,” he said patiently, “is that from what little we know about this Syndicate, it appears to have acquired the services of a substantial number of highly trained members of the SVR, GRU, and various other Russian black ops organizations.”

“Acquired how, exactly?” Flynn wondered. “Last time I checked, Moscow doesn’t exactly encourage people with those kinds of cloak-and-dagger skill sets to set up shop in the private sector.”

“Money, apparently,” Fox said bluntly. “And a great deal of it.”

“How much money exactly?” Van Horn asked.

Fox frowned. “It’s difficult to say. Corporate finance records in the Russian Federation aren’t at all transparent or reliable. But the best estimate by analysts I trust is that this Raven Syndicate has access to resources totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars — and perhaps more.”

Flynn whistled softly. “And this group supposedly just popped into existence? Out of nowhere?”

“Like the dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus and Jason in the Greek myths,” Fox said with a grim nod. “Which then sprouted into deadly warriors.”

“Maybe they’re being funded by the Kremlin on the sly,” Flynn said speculatively. “Zhdanov could be building himself another deniable special operations force, like the Wagner Group — only with a heavier emphasis on covert intelligence missions this time.” The Wagner Group, purportedly a private military company, was known to have extremely close ties to Russia’s Ministry of Defense and the GRU. Its “contractors” had fought in civil wars and low-level conflicts around the world, everywhere from the Ukraine to Syria, Libya, Venezuela, and half a dozen other countries. Not so mysteriously, their lethal work always tended to advance Russia’s national interests.

Fox nodded. “That’s a reasonable theory.” He frowned. “But there is another, even more troubling, possibility we need to consider.” He drew out another photo and placed it in front of them. This one was black and white and blurred, as though it had been taken surreptitiously by a concealed camera. “This is the only contemporary image we have of the man who heads the Raven Syndicate, Pavel Voronin.”

Van Horn leaned in closer. “He looks pretty damned young to be heading a business of that size, whether it’s a front group for Zhdanov or not.”

“Voronin is young,” Fox agreed. “Still in his early thirties. But he’s been very expensively educated.” He pulled out three more photos, these in color. Formal school portraits, they showed a much younger Voronin at different ages. He tapped the first. “This was taken during his time at Phillips Exeter.”

Flynn frowned. Located in New Hampshire, Phillips Exeter Academy was one of America’s oldest and most selective prep schools — with a long list of prominent and influential alumni. He nodded at the second picture, showing a somewhat older Voronin. “And this one?”

“As an undergraduate at Oxford.” Fox pointed to the last photo. “And that was taken while he was getting his MBA from Harvard Business School.”

“‘Expensively educated’ was an understatement,” Flynn said, shaking his head in amazement. “You’re looking at close to a million dollars on the hoof, minimum.” He looked across the table. “Who’s his father? Some bigshot industrialist? Or a high-ranking politico in the Kremlin?”

“Neither,” Fox said quietly. “His father was only a colonel in the KGB. And when the Soviet Union collapsed, he ended up holding the same rank in the SVR.”

“He’s the son of a spook?” Van Horn said with a toss of her head. “Not much mystery there, then. Odds are the Russian intelligence services were grooming this guy Voronin for years, planning to use him as a deep-cover agent.”

Fox nodded. “That is the most logical assumption, Laura. But if so, their plans miscarried.” He tossed a final photograph onto the desk. This one showed a much older, larger-boned man with a full head of thick white hair. “Instead, our best information is that Voronin went to work for this man, Dmitri Grishin — one of Russia’s richest and most influential oligarchs.”

“As what?” Flynn asked.

“On paper? As a personal assistant,” the older man told him. “In reality? We suspect he worked as Grishin’s top corporate troubleshooter, his personal hatchet man.”

Flynn shook his head. “I can’t imagine his father, the old-school KGB colonel, was real happy about that career choice.”

“I don’t imagine he would have been,” Fox said flatly. “But both of Voronin’s parents died soon after he returned to Russia.”

Something about the older man’s matter-of-fact tone sent a chill down Flynn’s spine. “Died how?”

“They burned to death in an apartment fire,” Fox said.

Van Horn’s mouth tightened. “An accidental fire?”

“If it wasn’t, the Moscow police arson investigators were never able to prove otherwise,” Fox told her coolly. “Hard as they tried.”

“Swell,” Van Horn said. She pulled out the grainy, black-and-white image that was their most recent photo of Voronin. “So you’re telling us that the son of a bitch in charge of this Raven Syndicate is a stone-cold psychopath.”

“Almost certainly,” Fox acknowledged.

Flynn sat back in his chair with a grimace. Learning more about Voronin was a lot like turning over a rock and seeing all sorts of creepy, crawling things wriggling away out from underneath. “What happened to his old boss, Dmitri Grishin? Nothing pleasant, I assume.”

“Grishin was assassinated a little over a year ago, quite probably on President Zhdanov’s direct orders,” the older man answered.

Flynn stared at him. “Assassinated? Why?”

“Because Zhdanov discovered that he was responsible for arranging the theft and attempted ransom of Russia’s stealth bomber prototype,” Fox said.

“That would be the high-tech plane you crashed in the ass-end of northern Alaska, Nick,” Van Horn reminded him with a cheerful grin. “The one the CIA thought they were buying.”

He snorted. “Yeah, thanks. I sort of figured that out on my own.” He turned back to Fox. “So the fact that this Voronin character is alive and definitely prospering in Moscow, after his boss was killed for treason, strongly suggests—”

“That he betrayed Grishin to the authorities and cut a deal to go free?” Fox finished for him. “Yes, it does.”

Flynn shook his head in disgust. “Nice. Real nice.” He looked closely at the older man. “Okay, then why don’t you believe the funding for Voronin’s Raven Syndicate is coming out of the Kremlin’s secret accounts? Where else would he get that kind of money?”

“From our own government,” Fox said simply.

“Very funny,” Flynn shot back.

Fox shrugged. “I only wish it were.” He looked off toward the lake. “My sources inside the CIA admit — very reluctantly, I might add — that Langley transferred a substantial sum to secret accounts they now believe were controlled by Dmitri Grishin. And this money has never been recovered.” He turned back to Flynn and Van Horn. “I suspect Voronin now controls those same secret accounts… and that they were a motivation for betraying his employer to Zhdanov.”

“Wonderful,” Van Horn muttered caustically. “Basically, then, we’re up against a bunch of highly trained Russian spies and special ops soldiers who’re using our own taxpayer dollars against us?”

Fox nodded. His face was impassive.

Flynn eyed him. “But that’s not the worst of it, right?” he challenged.

“Perceptive as ever, Nick,” Fox said with the faintest ghost of a smile. He shook his head. “No, what troubles me more is that we now know this Raven Syndicate is run by someone who is both supremely ruthless and a consummate survivor. A man, moreover, who seems drawn to daring, large-scale schemes.”

“And now we have clear confirmation that Voronin and his agents are working hand-in-glove with Iran’s radical regime,” Flynn pointed out quietly.

Fox nodded again. “Yes, and very clearly with explicit authorization from President Zhdanov himself,” he added.

“Which brings us right back around to square one,” Flynn realized.

“True,” Fox said. “Knowing the identity and quality of our opposition is useful indeed, but I admit that it doesn’t bring us any closer to understanding the top-secret project Arif Khavari gave his life to warn us about. We still don’t know how the Iranians — and their Russian backers and allies — actually plan to use this heavily retrofitted oil tanker, the Gulf Venture. All we have right now is the code name they’ve given to this operation: MIDNIGHT.”

“MIDNIGHT?” Van Horn repeated. She frowned. “That’s it? Just the code name? Nothing else?”

“Nothing,” Fox confirmed. “From what we can tell, the full operational details are tightly restricted to a very small group. Bit players like Skoblin and his men are only given the bare minimum of information they need to carry out their assignments.”

Flynn sat quiet for a moment, thinking things through. There was only one place left they might be able to find the answers they needed — inside Iran itself. And acquiring and repositioning the equipment and personnel required would take time, some weeks at a minimum… which meant they were already right up against the clock. Further delay could be fatal. He looked straight across the table at Fox. “You know we don’t have any easy options left,” he said deliberately. “Except, I guess, maybe just sitting back on our hindquarters and hoping that someone else, somewhere else, will take care of this problem for us.”

Slowly, and with evident reluctance, the older man’s mouth twitched in a tiny, almost imperceptible, smile. “Sadly, Nick, sitting idly by is not a real option. Not for those of us in Four — as you’re well aware. In this particular case, we are the only ‘someone else’ available.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “As my colleagues at the other Quartet Directorate stations now also admit.”

“Does that mean I’m authorized to go into Iran?” Flynn pressed.

Fox nodded. “You are.”

For a moment, Flynn felt a wave of satisfaction. And then he realized the magnitude of the task he’d just set himself. Successfully infiltrating Iranian territory was one thing — and a damned difficult thing at that. Surviving undetected long enough to penetrate the veil of secrecy the Revolutionary Guards and Voronin’s Raven Syndicate had thrown up around the Gulf Venture was quite another. I must be out of my fricking mind, he thought with a touch of dismay.

“Oh, man, I am such an idiot,” he muttered under his breath.

Laura Van Horn patted his shoulder. “No, you’re not, Nick,” she said consolingly.

“I’m not?”

She grinned at him. “An idiot? No. Suicidal? Oh, hell, yes.”

Almost unwillingly, Flynn laughed. “Fair enough.” Crazy or not, he was committed now. Which meant he didn’t have any real choice left but to buckle down and make sure that his complicated plan, which looked workable enough on paper, would actually pan out in practice.

He rose to his feet with a fleeting smile. “What’s that British commando watchword? ‘Who Dares Wins,’ right? Well, I guess I’m about to find out if that’s true.”