High Treason

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The Torture Report — that’s what Boxers called it, ever one to make people feel at ease — revealed only one additional bit of data, and it was a doozey. Sometime in the next two days — Pyotr thought it would be tomorrow night — the stores of explosives in the chapel would be transferred to trucks and transported to the United States.

“Okay, now I’m interested,” Boxers said.

Jonathan stopped him with a raised hand. “That’s not our mission,’ he said.

“It is now,” Boxers countered.

“The rescue comes first,” Jonathan said. “Not that we can’t kill two birds with one detonator.”

Boxers smiled. “Nice line. But unless and until we know where the family is being kept,” Boxers said, “or where they will be kept if they haven’t yet arrived, any planning we do is just conjecture.”

“What’s our worst case, then?” Jonathan asked. “Assuming that they’re in the most remote part of the facility, how do we get in and out?”

“I actually have some construction details,” Venice said.

All heads turned.

“Hey, if you’re going to zone for public use, you have to tell people how the hotel rooms are constructed.”

“Do you want to join the FBI?” Irene asked. She phrased the question as a joke, but Jonathan knew there was a serious offer in there.

“You can’t afford her,” he said. And he believed that to be true. In fact, he was willing to bet that what he paid Venice trumped what Irene made as director of the FBI. With change. A lot of change.

“The jail actually started life in 1792 as a single row of stone cells,” Venice said. She highlighted the western wall of the compound — the part that looked on the photo to be part of the outer wall and contained the chapel with the explosives. The southern end of the section became the northern edge of the archway that served as the main entrance. “Back then, not only was there no glass in the windows, the doors themselves — then made only of iron bars — opened directly to the outside. Can you imagine what manner of wildlife must have crawled in there?”

The question was meant to be provocative, but Jonathan wasn’t in the mood. Apparently, no one in the room was in the mood.

“Okay,” Venice said. She clicked, and the picture of the cell returned to the screen. “Those floors are constructed of six-by-six oak timbers. It was an attempt at insulation, but after all these years, they must be dense as concrete.”

“But nowhere as brittle,” Boxers observed. Many in the room didn’t realize it, but that was a vote against explosives. Whereas stone and old concrete will shatter with a relatively small hit of HE — high explosives — heavy timbers will absorb a lot of the shock. It was a crapshoot whether they’d break or merely heave up and bend.

“What about the roof?” Jonathan asked.

“Originally, it was timber, too,” Venice said, “but sometime in the 1920s, it was covered with slate. It’s not entirely clear from the info I’ve been able to read whether the slate was ultimately replaced with something else.”

Jonathan calculated whether the roof would make a good entry point, and decided that it posed too many challenges. “What are our ground options?” Jonathan asked.

“I’ve got a better question,” Big Guy said. “Who’s our team?”

“I’m going,” the First Lady said.

“Oh, no you’re not,” Jonathan said. “You’re the res-cuee, remember? And you’re already safe. There aren’t a lot of rules in my business, but one of them is that once a PC is safe, you don’t throw them back into danger.”

“PC means ‘precious cargo,’ ” Venice explained to David and Becky.

Yelena smirked and cocked her head. “How sweet. You think I’m precious?”

Jonathan let it go.

“That’s my son and grandson, Mr. Grave. You can’t expect me to just—”

“I can expect you to let me do my job, which means you staying out of my way.”

“Would you rather I take a commercial flight to Ottawa and then just drive to the front door?”

Jonathan stared. She was serious.

Yelena continued, “It’s not as if I would be completely useless. You know, I have—” She checked herself and threw an uncomfortable glance at the director of the FBI. “Admitting to nothing, it’s entirely possible that I have some experience setting explosives.”

“Holy shit!” Boxers proclaimed with a giant laugh.

“Then I’m going for sure,” David said.

“The hell you are.” That came as a unanimous chorus from everyone else in the room, and the words seemed to press him back in his chair.

“Think of me as an embed.”

“You’re not writing about this, remember?”

David held up his forefinger. “Not true,” he said. “I promised not to reveal details. No real names. I never said anything about the story itself.” He looked directly at Jonathan. “A deal’s a deal. You can’t change the terms now.”

“Watch me,” Boxers growled.

Jonathan felt the weight of the others’ anticipation as he considered his option. In his world, on an operation this small, an embed was another word for liability. This kid wasn’t a war correspondent. To bring him along could actually endanger others.

On the other hand, he had already endured a lot, and seemed to be handling it well. “If you come, you’re not coming to observe and write,” he said. “You’re coming to engage. Have you ever fired a weapon?”

David smiled. “Glock nineteen and twenty-three, Remington eleven hundred, Bushmaster M4 and 308, and, in one day of overkill, a Browning A-bolt composite stalker in three hundred Win Mag.” He seemed to have been waiting for the question.

And his answer sucked all of the air out of the room.

“What kind of scope did you use on the Win Mag?” Boxers asked.

Without dropping a beat: “A Leupold Vari-X three.”

“Did you hit what you were shooting at?”

“Dead center,” David said. “At six hundred yards.”

The room gaped in unison.

“My dad belongs to a gun club out in Loudoun County,” he explained. “I went there a lot as a kid.”

“Targets?” Boxers asked.

David rolled his eyes. “Generally, they don’t let you shoot at people.”

“So the targets never shot back at you.” Boxers stated that as his point.

“In a perfect world, he can hit what he’s shooting at,” Jonathan said, summing it up. It also served as his decision that the kid could come. They needed the manpower.

When Becky sensed that it was her turn, she cleared her throat and gave a shy smile. “I took a gun safety course in Girl Scout camp,” she said. “But I’m willing to go if I can be of any help. At the very least, I can carry stuff while my partner, Rambo, shoots up the place with his three hundred win-thing.”

“There’s a sentence every warrior wants to hear,” Boxers said.

“Stop,” Jonathan said. “We’ll stipulate that everyone wants to or is willing to go. Now we need a plan.”

“First we need to know where the PCs are going to be held,” Boxers said.

“That’s a level-three concern,” Jonathan said. “First, we have to get in country with the appropriate tools.” He knew it was stupid, but he resisted talking about weapons and explosives in front of the others. As if they didn’t know what “appropriate tools” meant. “Next we have to figure out how to get into Canada and then onto the island. The actual extraction and evacuation don’t happen unless we can get past those two points. Irene, I don’t suppose you have any contacts in CBP, do you?” Customs and Border Protection.

“No one high enough on the food chain,” she said.

“It’d take too long to get false passports for everyone,” Jonathan thought aloud, “so driving is out.”

“What’s the hurry?” Becky asked. Then, to Yelena, “Sorry, but an extra few hours to get it right might be worth the delay.”

Jonathan shook his head. “No. We know where the PCs are headed now. We don’t know where they might be moved later. If they get whisked off again, we’ll be out of business. The clock is definitely ticking.”

“Not all roads are monitored,” Boxers said.

“Yeah, they are,” Jonathan corrected. “There might not be checkpoints, but there are ground sensors and drones in the air.” He smiled at Irene, who seemed surprised that he knew about the drones. “It’s not worth the risk to drive. Plus, that’s a twelve-hour commute from here.”

“We can always charter a jet,” Boxers said, “but there’s still the problem of customs.”

Jonathan never quite understood why it was so much harder to get in and out of Canada that it was to traverse the Mexican border, but he figured it had something to the relative strengths of the two nations’ respective lobbyists. Fact was, the border was carefully watched, and the penalties for illegal crossings were huge. At a minimum, it included impounding the vehicle that carried you, and in Jonathan’s case, given all the weaponry that his vehicle would be transporting, that would be especially problematic.

Given the time constraints, they needed a way to literally pass under the radar between the two nations, but that would mean treetop flying, and that attracted a lot of attention. Unless, of course, they could start and end in relatively unpopulated areas.

In a perfect world, they’d use a helicopter. Working the logic, then, they needed a helpful contact in New England, close enough to make the flight out and back on a single tank of gas.

Vermont, maybe.

That’s it!

When he looked to Boxers, the Big Guy was already grinning.

They said it together: “Striker.”

Len Shaw, a.k.a. Alexei Petrov, arrived in his office to find Dmitri Boykin already seated in Len’s chair, with his feet on the desk, paging through paperwork that he had no right seeing. “Excuse me,” Len said.

Dmitri looked bored and slightly amused. He started to speak in Russian.

“No,” Len said. “Not here. English. French if you must, but I do not allow Russian in my compound.”

Dmitri’s eyebrows raised halfway up his forehead. “You do not allow? Comrade Petrov, tell me you are not ashamed of your heritage.”

“Those days are gone, Dmitri. Comrade this and comrade that, you sound like an old movie. You must embrace change. And the first change is to get out of my chair.”

Dmitri didn’t move. He was a bully in the most basic definition of the word. Built like a fire hydrant, he had a face that had survived too many fights, and the personality of a man who longed for more. While he intimidated most of the men with whom he interacted, Len was not among them.

“Are you going to make me?” he asked.

It was a level of discourse to which Len would not stoop. If it came to that, so be it. The odds in the ensuing fight would be even at best — and in Dmitri’s favor, at worst — but there’d be a lot of blood on the walls, and no one would want that.

Dmitri held his posture for a few seconds — long enough to impress Len with his faux fearlessness — and then lowered his feet to the floor and stood. “You are getting bold in your old age, Alexei.”

Len waited until he had clear passage — avoiding the temptation of the schoolyard shoulder-knock and the unspoken challenge it brought — before walking behind his desk and sitting down. “The name is Len. Len Shaw. And I am a real estate developer. That is the life I lead, mission notwithstanding. The men who live here are construction workers. The public is not welcome because a construction site is a dangerous place. That is our cover, and our cover is working.”

“You seem to have taken deep ownership of a property I bought.”

“It’s a property that I bought,” Len snapped. “Check the land records.”

“What is it that the Americans like to say?” Dmitri asked. “Ah, yes. Follow the money.”

Len sighed. “Must we engage in this — what else is it that the Americans say? Ah, yes. Must we engage in this dick-knocking? We are on the same side, Dmitri. We have known each other too long for this. We are too close to our mission’s end. Nineteen eighty-eight was a long time ago.” He was referring, of course, to the fall of the Soviet Union.

“The Mishins are on their way,” Dmitri said, getting right to the point. “They should be here in the next few hours.”

Len had taken special care to shower, shave, and fully dress before responding to Dmitri’s summons at this ridiculous hour. He wore creased blue jeans and a crisply ironed white shirt. On his right hip he carried a Glock 23, a .40 with which he could hammer nails at twenty-five yards. He was not pleased to find out that he would be harboring high-profile hostages. As any senior leader of Al Qaeda could tell you — if you could raise them from the dead — few terrorists (and that’s exactly what the Americans would consider Dmitri to be) died of old age.

“I’ve made my opinion known on the risk of this,” Len said.

“Yes, you have.”

“It is madness to risk all of the progress we have made on something so personal. To involve the president’s family—”

“It is the bitch’s family, not his.”

“That’s not how the American people will see it. They will see an attack on the first family, and they will react with violence. Everything you’ve worked for will be jeopardized.”

“Everything I have worked for will be guaranteed,” Dmitri said. He’d settled himself into the cane-backed guest chair in front of Len’s desk. “I have told that fool Winters that if word ever leaks out, I will simply kill the hostages and move on. Just as I told him that I would take them in the first place if our operation became jeopardized.”

Len understood that actions had to have consequences, that once a promise was made, it had to be fulfilled. He didn’t argue with any of that. His difficulty with the current arrangement was the danger that came from mixing the missions. Saint Stephen’s was first and foremost a weapons repository. In that light alone, it was a huge target, in recognition of which they’d gone so far as to prohibit incoming and outgoing phone calls. No one was to know what transpired within the twelve-foot walls of the compound. Shipments arrived at night, mostly by boat. Only a select few among the cadre knew the nature of the materials stored in the chapel, and none of them knew more than was necessary for them to do their jobs.

Now, in addition to those responsibilities, they would also become jailers. With the added duties came added risk. The Americans would move heaven and the stars to find the spawn of Yelena. To find them was to find everything. If their search brought them to Saint Stephen’s the whole mission would be finished.

“Are you aware that we have not heard anything from Vasily or Pyotr?” Len asked.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Dmitri said.

“Why would you be sure of that?” As he spoke, Len opened the top left-hand drawer of his desk and withdrew a Cohiba Espléndidos cigar and a cutter. “I’ve been monitoring the US news outlets, and there has been no word of a reporter being killed.”

Dmitri pulled a silver cigarette case from the inside pocket of his suit coat. Dmitri always wore a suit. Always dark, always at least ten years out of date. As if in competition with Len, when the spring-loaded case opened, it revealed two complete rows of black Sobra-nies. “They no longer allow smoking in America,” he said. “It’s a law that makes for very long days.”

“But much healthier fat Americans,” Len said with a smile. He allowed the light moment to glow for a few seconds, and then returned the discussion to that which could kill them all. “They should have called in by now. One of them or both of them. The fact that we’ve heard from neither is of great concern. Nor have we heard that their targets were killed. I think they may have been compromised.”

Dmitri’s features darkened. “How compromised might they be?”

“Vasily and Pyotr know most of everything. They know this facility. They know what we keep here.”

“Did they know about the plan to take the Mishin boys?”

Hearing a midthirties man referred to as a “boy” was startling. To hear the use of the plural in “boys” was troubling. “Did you know that the grandson would be visiting?” Len asked.

“I try to know as much as I can,” Dmitri said.

“So you knew all along that the boy would be a part of this?” In Len’s world — in the world of sanity and proportion — there was a sanctity to childhood that should never be breached.

“I did not choose the timing of the bitch’s betrayal. She alone chose that.” For years, Dmitri had refused to speak the name of Yelena Poltanov.

Len’s mind reeled. This was the problem with zealots. They got so wrapped up in emotion and principle that they forgot about the practical ramifications of what they did. Americans would tolerate the taking of an adult as a hostage to a larger cause — they would profess dismay and make threatening gestures — Daniel Pearl, anyone? — but they would ultimately shrug it away and tolerate it. To take a child, though, was to invoke the wrath of the self-righteous.

“This is a mistake, Dmitri. We have the San Francisco operation ready to launch in just days. And after that, the Los Angeles operation and the Washington operation.” Each focused on largely unprotected mass-transit systems. “Per your orders, I moved the explosives shipment from tomorrow to the next day. These little changes incur huge risks. Ours is a balancing act.”

Dmitri had never been one to take bad news well. His features hardened. “We cannot project weakness,” he said. “If we do that, then we lose all of the influence we have at the White House. They have to know that we say what we mean, and we mean what we say.”

Len raised his hands, a gesture of surrender. With the argument lost, it became all about coping with the reality.

“If it helps,” Dmitri said, “the Mishins will be here for only a few hours. Forty-eight at the most.”

“Where do they go after that?”

“Do you really want to know?”

Len intentionally answered before he had much time to think about his words. “No,” he said. “As long as I don’t have to worry about them and about the fallout, I don’t want to know.” He heaved a deep breath and turned a page in his mind. “We are forty-five strong now. At any given moment, we will have fifteen men on guard detail, and fifteen on operational detail, doing whatever needs to be done. That leaves fifteen to be sleeping. I am confident that we can provide coverage for the Mishins when they arrive.”

“I want everyone well-armed,” Dmitri said. “Rifles and pistols for every on-duty guard, pistols for everyone, all the time.”

“It is difficult showering with a pistol,” Len joked, but it landed dead on arrival. When he saw the deep concern in Dmitri’s face, he changed his approach. “Do you have information that I should know about?” he asked. “Information that I should share with my people?”

Dmirti took a long pull on his black cigarette, and then waved the smoke away after he’d exhaled. “You ask for trust, Len, yet you do not offer it in return. We have turned the corner in our struggle to hurt America, and those in power will soon wake up to the threat. It is the moment we have been waiting for, and the moment we have been training for. If we give our men the tools of strength, they will show strength. I want them to feel very, very strong.”

Len found himself nodding as he listened. He’d seen it before: Good soldiers became great soldiers when they were entrusted with live ammunition. When all was said and done, potential became reality when the choice was to live or to kill.

But in all of Len’s experience, these truisms only worked when the enemy was clearly identifiable, and the mission was clear. In this case, neither factor applied, and that worried him.

“I will make them feel as strong as I know how,” Len said. As for the rest, the clock would tick as it ticked, and he would learn what history wanted him to know.