Divide and Conquer

TWENTY-FIVE

After the fall of the Soviet Union, many officials in Moscow were afraid of the Ministerstvo Bezopasnosti Ruskii, or MBR, the Security Ministry of Russia. They were even more afraid than when the intelligence agency had been known as the KGB and was routinely tapping their phone lines and opening their mail. The officials feared that leaders of the former Soviet intelligence group would either support ousted Communists in an effort to recapture power or attempt to seize power themselves. Because of this, the Kremlin’s new regime had created an autonomous intelligence agency outside of Moscow, away from the immediate reach of the MBR. They based it in Saint Petersburg. And, following the adage of hiding in plain sight, they located the Op-Center in one of the most visited places in Russia: the Hermitage.

The Hermitage was built by Catherine the Great as a retreat. The towering, white, neoclassical building was formally known as the Winter Palace. It was a place where Catherine could enjoy the gems and great old masters paintings, drawings, and sculptures she had collected. She literally acquired them at a rate of one every other day from 1762 to 1772. When Catherine first opened her home to the patrician public, her only comments were that visitors should be joyful. However, she added, they “shall not try to damage, break, or gnaw at anything.” The Hermitage remained a repository of the imperial collection until 1917. After the Russian Revolution, the Hermitage was opened to all the people. Its collection was expanded to include art from other schools as well as modern art. It currently houses over 8,000 paintings, 40,000 etchings, and 500,000 illustrations. Today, it is second only to the Louvre in Paris in terms of the size of its collection.

The Russian Op-Center was constructed underneath a fully operational television studio. Though the broadcast facility had been built as a cover for the construction of the intelligence center, satellite dishes beamed famed Hermitage programs around the world. Most of the time, however, the highly advanced uplinks allowed the Op-Center to interface with satellites for both domestic and international electronic communications. The comings and goings of museum staff and tourists helped to disguise the presence of Op-Center personnel. Also, the Kremlin had decided that in the event of war or revo lution, no one would bomb the Hermitage. Even if an enemy had no use for art as an aesthetic possession, paintings and sculptures were always as negotiable as currency.

It was still dark when the fifty-three-year-old Orlov arrived at the museum. Because the Hermitage was still closed, he entered through an inconspicuous studio door on the northeastern side of the museum. As he did, he gazed north across the dark Neva River. Directly across the water were the stately Academy of Sciences and Museum of Anthropology. Nearby was the Frunze Naval College. In addition to training cadets, the college housed the dozen soldiers of the center’s special operations force, Molot, which meant Hammer.

There was a guard seated behind a desk inside the TV studio. Orlov acknowledged him as he passed. The elderly guard stood and saluted. The general reached a door and used the keypad to enter. Once inside, he made his way through the dark reception area and down a short flight of stairs. At the far end, he punched the new day’s four-digit code on a keypad, and the door popped open. The next day’s number was always given to Orlov by the center’s security chief at the end of each workday. When Orlov shut the door behind him, the overhead lighting snapped on automatically. There was another, longer set of stairs. He walked down where a second keypad gained him access to the Op-Center.

The facility consisted of a very long corridor with offices to the left and right. Orlov’s office was at the end, literally at the shores of the Neva. There were times when he could hear barges passing overhead.

Ordinarily, Orlov did not arrive until nine o’clock. There was a skeletal night staff, and they were surprised to see the general. He greeted them without stopping. When he entered his small, wood-paneled office, he shut the door and walked over to his desk. The desk faced the door. On the walls were framed photographs Orlov had taken from space. There were no photographs of the general himself. Though he was proud of his accomplishments, he didn’t enjoy looking at the past. All he saw was how short he fell of his goals. How he had hoped to walk on the moon and command a manned mission to Mars. How he had dreamed of seeing the cosmonaut corps grow and prosper. Perhaps if he had used his celebrity more constructively, more aggressively, he could have helped make that happen. Perhaps if he had spoken out against the war in Afghanistan. That struggle drained the nation’s resources and pride and hastened the union’s downfall.

There were no photographs of himself because General Orlov preferred to look ahead. The future held no regrets, only promise.

There was a voice mail from Paul Hood. The message did not say very much. Only that the matter was urgent. Orlov sat down and booted his computer. As he opened his secure phone list and auto-dialed Hood, he thought back to how the American Op-Center had helped him prevent a cabal of right-wing Russian officials from overthrowing the government. The counterattack had cost Hood one of his top field operatives, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Squires. Since then, the two Op-Centers had occasionally exchanged information. But they had never become fully integrated partners, which was something both Hood and Orlov had wanted. Unfortunately, like many of the progressive dreams Orlov had, the bureaucrats had not been ready for this. Distrust between the nations was still too deep.

The phone beeped once. Hood answered.

“Hello?” Hood said.

“Paul, it’s Sergei,” Orlov said.

Op-Center’s translator was on standby. It only took her a moment to get on the line.

“General, I need your trust, and I need it fast,” Hood said. His urgent tone left no room for discussion.

“Of course,” Orlov said.

“Our team searching for the Harpooner suffered a catastrophic hit at a hospital in Baku,” Hood informed him. “It happened a little over an hour ago. Two of our men were killed. The first was taken down by a sniper outside the hospital. The second had his throat cut inside the lobby. The last man is a patient. His name is David Battat, and he is ill with a fever of some kind.”

Orlov took a moment to write the name down.

“The police are at the hospital, but we don’t know who the killer is,” Hood said. “He or she may still be in the hospital.”

“The killer could be a police officer,” Orlov pointed out.

“Exactly,” Hood said. “General, do you have anyone in Baku?”

“Yes, we do,” Orlov said without hesitation. “In what room is Mr. Battat located?”

“He’s in one fifty-seven,” Hood said.

“I will send someone at once,” Orlov said. “Tell no one.”

Hood gave him his word.

Orlov hung up.

The three most powerful Russian intelligence groups had their own personnel. These groups were the MBR; the military’s Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie, or GRU, the Main Intelligence Directorate; and the Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del, or MVD, the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Russian Op-Center did not have the financial resources to maintain its own network of intelligence and counterintelligence personnel, so it was necessary to share people with other relatively small Russian agencies. These were administered by the Sisteme Objedinennovo Utschotya Dannych o Protivniki, or SOUD, the Interlinked System for Recognizing Enemies. SOUD also provided personnel for the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, or SVR, the Foreign Intelligence Service; the Federal‘naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, or FSB, the Federal Security Service; the Federal’naya Sluzhba Kontr-razvedky, or FSK, the Federal Counterintelligence Service; and the Federal’naya Sluzhba Okhrani, or FSO, the Federal Protective Service.

Orlov quickly accessed the SOUD files. He input the highest-priority code, Red Thirteen. This meant that the request was not only coming from a senior official — level thirteen — but involved a case of immediate national emergency: the apprehension of the Harpooner. The Red Thirteen code gave Orlov the names, locations, and telephone numbers of field personnel around the world. Even if the operatives were involved in other situations, he would be authorized to commandeer them.

Orlov went to the file for Baku, Azerbaijan.

He found what he was looking for.

He hesitated.

General Orlov was about to ask a deep-cover operative to try to help an American spy. If the Americans were planning an operation in Baku, this would be the quickest way to expose and neutralize Russian intelligence resources. But to believe that, Orlov would have to believe that Paul Hood would betray him.

Orlov made the call.