Endgame

5

Approximately forty hours after leaving Fushiki, Japan, the MV Rus reached Vladivostok, at 8:17 A.M., and Hansen congratulated himself for two small accomplishments: He had not become seasick nor had he contracted food poisoning, even though the ferry had crossed into some rough seas and the sanitary conditions in the kitchen were undoubtedly questionable.

Given the circumstances, Hansen had kept to himself for the entire voyage, bowing out of conversations at meals and spending the majority of his time in his cabin, brushing up on his Russian. He had checked out the casino and spent some time observing people, ferreting out their histories based on the details of their appearances. As far as he was concerned, he had no one tailing him. Now he stood on the upper deck, waiting as the ferry made final preparations to dock.

A thick mantle of clouds hung over the craggy hills of Vladivostok, the name meant “Lord of the East” in Russian. The city did, indeed, seem to lord over not only Golden Horn Bay, but most of Russia’s weatherworn hinterlands. All around him, high-rise buildings jutted up from patches of snow-covered forests, and the windows on the closest buildings were fogged and framed by icicles.

Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the old Soviet Union, had once referred to the city as the “Russian San Francisco,” which was a fairly accurate comparison. Both cities were located on hills that offered spectacular views, and Vladivostok had been home to the Soviet Navy’s Pacific Ocean Fleet. Since being opened up to foreigners in 1992, the place was simultaneously clutched by the cold hand of lawlessness and warmed by the promise of new wealth and commercialism after years of being a closed region dedicated to the support of the military. In short, Vladivostok was a city seven time zones away from Moscow and truly a world unto its own, heavily influenced by the peoples of China, North Korea, and Japan. Though his visit would be brief, Hansen looked forward to breathing in what he could.

Within twenty minutes, he was off the ferry and walking along the icy pavement toward the bustling train station, where he would meet Sergei Luchenko. Unsurprisingly, a knot had already formed in his stomach. Part of him wanted to apologize for being selected as a Splinter Cell; the other part wanted to tell Sergei, “Too bad, buddy, but you didn’t cut it, and I did.” Hansen didn’t want to feel sorry for his own success.

But hell, Hansen did. Sergei’s reflexes and mental agility had been good enough for the CIA, but substandard for Third Echelon. He could’ve returned to his old three-letter agency (or another, like UPS, they liked to joke), but Hansen figured Sergei might be too embarrassed to return. Besides, his fellow operatives would wonder exactly why he hadn’t lasted in his new position with the NSA (which was all they’d been told).

Hansen reached the train station, a pale yellow and alabaster-white affair with ornate glass-block windows and thick columns and spires suggesting that its architects had once worked for Disney. The word “Vladivostok,” in bright red Cyrillic letters, hung high above the main entrance, and out front lay a bus terminal and a parking lot jammed with private cars and taxis whose drivers stood by and chain-smoked, waiting for their next fares. A pair of footbridges over the tracks gained passengers access to the buses and lots, and Hansen already noted how someone could lie low behind the railings and observe the comings and goings of those passengers. It was there that he spotted Sergei.

Before Hansen veered off the sidewalk, he chanced a quick glance over his shoulder. Then he hustled forward and slipped down behind the railings, where Sergei came to greet him.

Hansen was taken aback by the weight his old friend had lost — at least twenty, perhaps thirty pounds, his face thin and unshaven. Sergei took a long drag on his cigarette, dropped it, stamped it out, then proffered his hand. “I see you found me, Ben. I thought I was being more discreet. Guess that’s why they flunked me, huh?” Sergei spoke in perfect Russian, but that was one of the many languages he had learned — or relearned as he liked to say. He’d been born and raised in Sacramento, California, the son of Russian immigrants.

Tensing, Hansen took the man’s hand, shook firmly, and answered in Russian: “Sergei, thanks for being here.”

“Just doing my job. Equipment transporter. Taxicab driver. All in a day’s work.”

“Look, I wish things had worked out differently.”

“You? Hell… me, too!” He shuddered against the cold and pulled the collar of his woolen coat tighter to his neck. “Come on, I have the car parked over there.”

“No tails?”

“None that I can tell. But are you trusting me, the flunky?”

“Come on, enough of that.”

“I’m just busting your chops. I knew this would be awkward for you, and you know what a wiseass I am.”

Hansen sighed and curled his lips in a weak grin.

They started across the street, toward the parking lot, and Sergei led him to a late-model Toyota Mark X sedan with right-hand drive. The lock chirped, and Hansen crossed to the left side, stored his bags in the backseat, then climbed in.

“Murdoch still hasn’t checked in to the hotel, so I’m getting a little worried,” Sergei reported, switching to English.

“We headed there now?”

“Yeah, I’ve been there for a couple of days.”

“And the meeting is still on for tonight, 8:00 P.M., in Korfovka.”

Sergei shrugged. “No one’s told me otherwise.”

“How far is it from the hotel?”

“About ninety minutes, give or take.”

“Give or take what?”

“Give or take a snowstorm, an ice storm, a nuclear event.”

Hansen looked at him. “Always the wiseass.”

“Always.”

Despite his not being accepted into Third Echelon’s Splinter Cell program, Sergei, like Hansen, had received some of the best training in the world, compliments of the CIA. The average citizen had no idea of the length, the breadth, the sheer scope and magnitude of such schooling and the areas it encompassed. Both men had been given courses on advanced military technology; military strategy and tactics; computer security; countersurveillance; the art of disguise; etiquette and arts in foreign cultures; languages; explosives; fake IDs and secret banking; field medicine; forensics; guerrilla warfare; hand-to-hand knife combat; incendiary devices; international and local law; lock-bypassing techniques; photography and videography; poisons; psychology; drugs; sniper techniques; and, finally, surveillance.

Third Echelon’s training had taken those areas to the next level by incorporating more unconventional warfare techniques borrowed from American special forces as well as hand-to-hand combat techniques like krav maga, borrowed from the Israelis. The French-born art of parkour was also studied as a technique for deftly navigating around obstacles while fleeing. And then, of course, was the newer, more controversial training conducted by a pair of world-famous Chinese acrobats seeking political asylum in the United States. Those lithe men taught Hansen to hook his arms and legs around pipes and other objects in ways he had never considered. That they were contortionists helped, if not frustrated, the rest of the recruits.

“I still think about Somalia, even after all this time,” Sergei said out of nowhere.

Hansen took a deep breath, wishing he could forget about his short time in that country. “All we did was light their fires. And now look: We have even more pirates.”

“You didn’t believe me.”

“I know. But it’s the hits that count, not the misses, and I still love this. I still think it’s important.”

“Still a rush, huh?”

“I won’t lie. But listen to us. We sound like a couple of vets when we haven’t put the time in, not really.”

“I don’t know, buddy. Took me a long time to wind up here. And I just turned thirty. You never trust anyone over thirty.”

Hansen chuckled. “My old man used to say that. Some mantra from the 1960s.”

“I thought it was a quote from the Planet of the Apes movie,” Sergei said with a frown.

Hansen shrugged and leaned back on his seat to take in the sights for just another two minutes before they reached the Gavan Hotel at 3 Krygina Street. According to a travel brochure Hansen found on the seat beside him, there were fifty-seven guest rooms “where customers can find a maximum comfort. Following the home-away-from-home style, the Gavan hotel shows a unique combination of homelike atmosphere and modern comfort.”

They parked, and Sergei led him up to a room on the seventh floor. When they entered, a young woman was standing near the bed, wearing only a bra and panties.

Hansen’s jaw fell open as Sergei rushed into the room, grabbed the woman by the wrist, and backhanded her across the face. Then he screamed at her in Russian, “What the hell are you still doing here! I told you to leave! Get your clothes and get out!”

“I was talking to my sister.” The woman groaned, clutching her face.

“Get out!”

The woman quickly wriggled into a cheap dress, grabbed her purse, and rushed past Hansen, who remained in the doorway, dumbfounded. “Sergei, what the hell are you doing here?”

Hansen’s old friend dismissed him with a wave and turned to the desk, where he wrenched open a laptop, took a seat, and began typing furiously. “I’ve hacked into the hotel’s registration system. We’ll see if our boy has checked in yet.”

“She was a hooker, wasn’t she?”

“Whatever. Just shut up.”

“Did she see you do this? You left her alone with your computer? She could compromise this entire mission! How the hell do you know her? How long has she been here? Maybe she works for them. Maybe we’re being set up.”

“Jesus Christ, dude, sit down before you have a heart attack. She’s just a whore I picked up.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I’m here to give you your gear and get you to the location. Where the hell does it say I can’t screw a hooker?”

Hansen threw his duffel and garment bags onto the bed and began to activate his OPSAT. “This is ridiculous. Insane. Beyond unprofessional.”

“What’re you doing now? Calling Mommy to tell on me?”

Two empty bottles of vodka sat on the desk beside Sergei’s computer, along with two glasses and several packs of cigarettes. Sergei lifted one of the bottles, sipped the remaining few drops, then shook his head in disgust, while Hansen stood there, deciding what to do.

Hansen took a deep breath. “You’re not all right, are you?”

“I’m perfect. And you know why? Because I’m helping you, my old friend. It could be a lot worse, right? Look, I’m sorry about the… Just forget about it. She’s not working for them.” He rapped a knuckle on his computer screen. “And right here… this shows our boy just checked in, about fifteen minutes ago.”

“What room is he in?”

“Eighty-four. Eighty-three is empty.”

“Then let’s get to work — if you’re still a part of this operation.”

“I never left.”

Hansen took a deep breath. “Sergei, you’ve put me in a terrible position. When this is over, I will have to say something.”

“I understand where you’re coming from, but you forget that you still owe me.”

Hansen’s brows knitted. “Owe you what?”

“When they were getting ready to send us over to the ’Stan, who got you through Dari? Or should I say, who helped you cheat your way through Dari? And if they really sent us there, you wouldn’t be talking jack to anyone because you couldn’t hack the language. But it was okay to cheat then, huh?”

“That wasn’t a live operation. And I passed the oral. That was just a multiple-choice exam.”

“And you wanted to go so bad that you’d do anything to get there, even cheat, and so you did — and you still didn’t get to go. Now here we are.”

“So you want to trade a hooker for a multiple-choice test?”

Sergei grabbed a cigarette, stuffed it between his lips. “Now you’re talking.” He reached below the desk and grabbed a backpack. “You ready?”