Long Shot

11

Swanson took an evening Lufthansa flight out of Tallinn primarily because it was not Aeroflot. German efficiency and timeliness was to be trusted, while riding on a Russian commercial aircraft was never really a choice if there were alternatives. His arrival in Belgium was without incident, and the check-in at the downtown hotel was smooth. It was just another city, just another airport, just another hotel. Total routine.

He had been provided with a new laptop computer and cell phone by Deke Cooper and the electronic equipment had been loaded by CIA techs with everything he might need. Brussels was six hours ahead of Washington, so the business day was just wrapping up on the other side of the Atlantic when he checked in with the office.

“Things are kind of stacking up around here, boss. When are you coming back?” Those were the first words from Janna Ecklund, who was running the place in his absence. “You were supposed to be gone for just a few days.”

“Hello to you, too. Anything urgent?” Swanson enjoyed bantering with Janna and knew she had everything under control. Her FBI career had trained her not to leave loose ends.

“Sir Jeff is concerned because you were expelled from Finland. How does anybody get expelled from Finland? He wants to see you soon. You should give him a call. I’ve got some documents for you to sign. The people at XenTek Research in California are getting antsy for you to get out to Twentynine Palms for some new tests on Project Hydra.”

“Use the electronic signature, or just forge my name,” he instructed. “Tell Jeff everything is good on our end. I will contact XenTek as soon as I get back to the office.” Hydra, a laser-guided bullet for a .50-caliber sniper rifle, was the latest invention coming off the drawing board from the skilled researchers and engineers of Excalibur Enterprises and its partners, and had a potential upside of millions of dollars in contracts.

“So when will that be, going back to my original question?”

“I will be in Brussels all day tomorrow, Janna. Then I have a direct flight straight into Dulles the day after.”

“You sound tired.” She had no idea why he was in Belgium and knew better than ask to on an open line.

“I am.”

She laughed. “Stop whining. You can sleep when they’re dead, Jarhead.”

“See you in forty-eight hours, Feeb.” He hung up.

Janna was right. He was tired. Exhausted. It wasn’t the travel, but the saddle of concern that he was lugging around since the meeting with Colonel Markey and Deke Cooper. The colonel was a combat veteran with several tours in the Sandbox, so he was not one to panic in the face of a little adversity. The problems he laid out were bona fide, even without Kyle sharing his own observations from the trip over to Narva. He thought about Anneli, the girl he had rescued, and her Disappeared boyfriend, Brokk. He thought about the spy network being run by the colonel’s fashion-plate wife, Calico. He dialed his memory back even more and thought about the two goons who had tried to kidnap Anneli and kill him in the castle. Even wild combat usually has some meaning or discernible pattern to help it all make sense. He saw nothing in this mess.

One more drink, some bourbon over ice cubes, and he peeled back the cool white sheets and crawled beneath the covers.

The nightmare assaulted him. He dreamed of grime and grit, hopeless desolation, the stench of oil coagulating on the water around the blackened hulks of ships, and the burned remains of vehicles and shattered human bodies. Gaunt and frightened columns of refugees, mangled soldiers with their guts spilled, and buildings in smoldering ruin beneath an evil sky full of choking smoke that blanketed the countryside. Television sets flashed scenes of carnage. Politicians in world capitals arguing about who started it, who would finish it and which flags would still be flying when the war was over. Timers counting off seconds to launch the nukes. Swanson tossed and turned in the big bed, and moaned aloud, as if his brain was in physical pain. He was dreaming of war.

Out of the chaos in his mind appeared a figure who came to him almost like clockwork when things began to flood out of control. The singularly ominous figure was draped in black scraps, and steered a battered skiff with a single oar. The Boatman, as Swanson had come to know him over many years of the hallucinatory visits, was a herald of death.

Three corpses sat in the long boat and their blank eyes were fixed on a horizon of fire. Kyle recognized them as the ISIS fool from Rome and the pair of careless assassins in Narva. In these dreams, the Boatman collected the souls of Swanson’s targets and ferried them off to hell. A sulfurous wind flapped the dark cloth as the bateaux coasted close and the Boatman stood there with his usual hideous grin.

“We did not have an appointment here, Sniper,” came the hiss of a voice. “It was to be one from Rome, and yes, there he is in the front. Then you were to collect another in Cairo. I planned my schedule accordingly, only to have to change it.”

Swanson replied. “I know the feeling.”

“Change is uncomfortable, but I adapt. I had to add this pair from Narva to my roster because no other boats were available to pick up your droppings on such short notice.”

The skiff rocked gently on imaginary waters. Kyle asked, “Why are you here?”

The answer was quick. “I am here because you are my responsibility, and as I said, all of the other boats are busy. Ask me why they are all busy.”

“Okay. Why are the other boats busy?”

“They are being made ready for the Big One.”

“The war, you mean? Don’t be so dramatic. There is not going to be a war.”

The Boatman cackled. “No. That part is guaranteed. You will get it started. I have a lot of trust in your ability.”

The stormy sky above the Boatman loosed forks of lightning that snapped and popped along the white-topped waves. Curtains of ash and rain followed. “Then you are wrong. I have one more quick assignment with no blood involved, and then I am safe and sound back home. No war.”

Again the laughter seared. “Again, my gunnery-sergeant-turned-spy, you are not asking the right question.”

Swanson’s mind swirled and in his sleep he felt dizzy and nauseous. “Then what is the right question, you bag of rags?”

“Do not ask why I am here tonight. Ask instead what you are doing here.”

Kyle felt as if he had been struck by one of those ominous thunderbolts. He lurched from the bed and fell to the floor with his head spinning and his stomach in spasm. Crawling to the bathroom, he heard the final echoes of the Boatman’s laughter as the nightmare released its hold. He made it to the toilet bowl and leaned over and vomited hard, and a foul smell rose from the water as the waste splashed in. He heaved again, then once more, and finally rolled to the chill tile floor. Reaching up, he managed to flush it away.

Why am I here? How did Inspector Rikka Aura in Finland know to track me down?

Swanson struggled to his feet, holding the sink to steady himself until the uneasiness faded. He wandered the room, turning the dream over in his mind, went to the window and looked out over the old city. Inspector Aura had said she had discovered he was aboard a CIA plane coming in from Rome because he went through Finnish customs on the military side of the Helsinki airport. That was a lie. Why did she check that in the first place? It was not an uncommon thing — diplomats and other officials wanting to remain out of public view did exactly the same thing on a daily basis. Picking up on his name could not have been accidental.

His eyes closed and he drank some more whiskey and slammed the tumbler down hard on the wooden windowsill: She knew that he was coming! She had been told in advance! There was a fucking leak!

He put the pieces together. Swanson went to Finland only because Ivan the Terrible had popped into the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki, and would only talk to Kyle. Inspector Aura from the Finland Security Intelligence Service had no previous idea of who he was, but she was expecting him that night. Then she expelled Swanson immediately, swooping down without so much as a protest from the U.S. Embassy. Her action had spurred Kyle to move quickly, and he had decided to follow Ivan’s instruction to go to Estonia. Kyle had done so, as compliant as a puppet on a string. He remembered the colonel’s warning about how Ivan always played games and always had a reason for everything he did.

Swanson went to the sink and washed his face and brushed his teeth, then staggered back to bed. He had been used and had not even noticed.

Kyle Swanson did not go to the massive central NATO headquarters complex in Brussels the next morning. Instead, still another CIA type met him in the hotel lobby and drove him northwest into the lightly populated municipality of Koekelberg. The small, out-of-the-way part of the central region of the metropolis was ideal for the safe house that was an entire building only a few blocks from the huge Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Another anonymous company escort waiting at the elevator in an underground garage checked his creds and then took him past a guard with a submachine gun and up to the second floor. Nobody said a word.

He had not made up his mind on how to handle this meeting with Ivan Strakov and was still measuring the variables when he stepped into a neat little conference room. After having listened to Colonel Markey and being visited by the Boatman, Kyle was seething with anger at the Russian for having duped him back in the sniper school days. Balancing that personal affront was the fact that it was only Swanson’s ego being bruised for that one. After all, Ivan was just doing his job as an intelligence officer, and he had not learned any secret material because he flunked out before getting very far along in sniper training. But after the strange, brief visit to Finland and the deadly trip to Narva, Kyle was certain something serious was going on, and the Russian was part of the mystery, so it was worth hearing what he had to say. Some day in the future, perhaps, he could get Strakov alone and beat the crap out of him just for old time’s sake. For now, Swanson knew he should remain cool, listen to what the defector had to say, then dump the whole matter onto someone else’s desk. He would prove the Boatman wrong this time.

Brokk Mihailovich writhed on the bucking and jerking floor of the freight car, searching for a bit of comfort. His bruised eyes and the broken nose and the cuts on his face gave him the look of a battered raccoon. The forsaken passengers aboard the train had lost one man during the first night, an elderly fellow with a bad head wound who had coughed blood from the moment he was thrown into the stinking car. So far today, the only death had been a frail child who had been hauled in along with her mother. Both had been cruelly brutalized. The child, about twelve, died with tears on her face, unable to comprehend what had happened. That left a cargo of nineteen people still alive and rolling northeast, unaware of any legal charges against them, unaware of where they were going, unaware of what the next mile might bring.

Mihailovich lay still so it didn’t hurt so much as the train lurched onward. He had spent the previous night—Two nights ago, was it now? He had missed some hours while unconscious—in a warm bed with Anneli after drinking with that Canadian writer who could hold his liquor but who had proven to be of no use to them politically. Breakfast had been a bit of pastry and coffee, and she was still beneath the sheets when he left for the university. He was scheduled for a nine o’clock lecture on the strategic business skills necessary for working in this changing new day of progress in Estonia. A few students were still yawning during the early class, but they all made it through. It was a bright group, and he had hopes for them. They were the future of the nation.

By noon, Brokk was well into the stride of his workday and had gathered his popular usual luncheon group on the greening lawn to discuss politics. He acted as an unofficial moderator so the kids could debate aspects of freedom and reform. It was stimulating and hopeful and inspired volunteers to help his campaign for mayor.

When Brokk went into the bathroom to empty his bladder of the strong coffee and tea he had been drinking throughout the morning, there was a large, lumbering man with wavy brown hair and a round face at the sink. He looked out of place on the campus in his lace-up boots with thick heels and heavy vest over blue work trousers; he smelled of cigarette smoke. The man did not even glance into the mirror, but concentrated on washing his hands, sluicing water around and around.

Brokk stepped to the urinal and pulled at his zipper and stared down, as men do in public bathrooms to create a polite zone of privacy. The man at the sink turned off the water, pulled a paper towel from a dispenser on the wall and slowly dried his hands. Brokk finished, straightened himself, adjusted his backpack and went to the now-vacant sink. The big man reached into a vest pocket as if he was taking out a cell phone, but suddenly spun back and plunged the twin prods of a stun gun into the side of Brokk’s neck. The young lawyer arched back in pain as the electricity seized him and there was a sudden smell of burned flesh. He collapsed to the dirty floor with arms and legs thrashing in spasms, his mouth gaping open in surprise, then his body went limp. Brokk did not feel the prick of the needle that was thrust into his arm to administer a strong sedative.

That was when he lost track of time, for when he swam back to the surface of consciousness, he could not count how long he had been out. He awakened in a windowless room of sturdy stone walls. When he had groaned, someone sloshed water into his face and demanded, “Where is the girl?”

Brokk’s confused brain could not shape who was yelling at him or what the loud voice was yelling about. The beating began. “Your slut, lawyer-boy! Where is your partner, Anneli Kallasti?” He realized that whoever this was did not have her in custody, a bit of knowledge that made him feel better. Knowing his own future had flown from being bright and limitless to being as bleak as a dirt grave no matter what he said or did, he would not give her up. They worked him hard. His lies made no difference.

Later, he was pulled from the room with his toes dragging along the stones because he could no longer stand on his own. In a cavernous terminal waited a diesel locomotive and a string of freight cars, all painted flat black and lined up in deep shadow. It seemed like a long, hungry snake. Soldiers with weapons guarded each car. Other prisoners shuffled forward on their own or were carried into the cars, then the guards slammed and locked the doors. Brokk passed out again. When he awoke, pain was squeezing his head and he rolled to his side and threw up, coughed and wiped his bloody mouth on a sleeve and wondered in a brief moment of clarity if he had said anything that might have helped them find Anneli. He hoped not.

The train was under speed, stopping periodically to load even more prisoners and remove the corpses. It was impossible to tell time or direction, but the stunned prisoners talked among themselves and decided it had to be going east and north, and out there lay the great Siberian wastelands.

Dying wasn’t so hard, Brokk thought as blood hemorrhaged in his head. He had made a difference, had done all he could to help his country, and although the election would turn out badly now, he hoped the people would rise up to stop any attempt at reunification with Russia. Also, and just as important to him, he had enjoyed the love of a good woman; every moment with Anneli had been a treasure. Finally, tired and hurt and without hope of being saved, he gave up, smiled at the remembered image of her face and floated away. His final view was one that was conjured by his imagination; a black train far below him, snaking through the dark countryside.