Putin's Gambit

25

Derek Walsh’s encounter with the New York City police officers had emboldened him. They didn’t recognize him, and he’d showed some balls. He needed to prove to himself he could get out of this, and for the first time he was starting to believe it. Now he sat in a diner off Spruce Street near Pace University’s Manhattan campus. There were even a couple of cops at a booth not far from him, but his confidence made him feel like no one even noticed him. Perhaps his plea to Tonya Stratford really had kept his photo off the news.

He had his cell phone but was hesitant to use it. If he called a number and it was traced, they might be able to get a fix on his position by looking at which cell towers the phone hit. For now, no one even realized he had a phone.

He’d made one call to the hotel and had a short and somewhat unpleasant conversation with Alena. Her belief that she was imprisoned against her will had only grown since he’d left her earlier in the morning, but he convinced her that he’d be back by six o’clock and everything would be all right. She just had to be patient. It was a tough sell, but by the time he broke the connection he felt confident that she’d stay put and spend the day watching Jerry Springer and Steve Harvey.

Then Walsh decided to take one risk with this phone. He called the switchboard at Thomas Brothers Financial. He knew the system and realized it would be difficult to trace a call unless they were waiting for it. Something told him that Ted Marshall was sincere when he said he would help. He certainly was nervous enough in the courtyard to make Walsh believe he was scared. He got no benefit from Walsh being accused unfairly. Walsh was going to have to trust someone besides Mike Rosenberg.

When the operator answered, Walsh asked for Ted Marshall. His former boss picked up the phone on the first ring. Tension strained his voice when he said, “Hello.”

Walsh said, “Ted, it’s me.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. I’ve been a nervous wreck since I tried to eat my lunch on that bench. What do you want, Derek?”

“Just what we talked about, nothing more. Get me on the network and I’ll get the photographs off my security plug.” There was a long pause, and Walsh added, “Come on, Ted, you know I’m straight up. You can stay with me the entire time I’m on the computer.”

“If you don’t get the photos, will you turn yourself in?”

Walsh thought about it for a moment and said, “You can call the FBI while I’m in the office.”

“That’s the problem. There will already be FBI agents in the office. Usually they’re totally focused on files and computers, but I will yell to them if you’re not on the level.”

“I swear I just need network access for my security plug. It will take like two minutes to see if I’m right. If not, I’m screwed anyway. Do you really imagine me as a fugitive for the rest of my life?”

Marshall sounded resolved as he said, “I guess not. It’s just that this is such a huge risk. We’ve gotta make it looked like I just ran into you in the lobby. I’ll need a little time. I’ve got some afternoon meetings, one of them with an FBI agent working in the office.”

Walsh said, “I’m going to have to trust that you won’t say anything. I really need to trust you.”

“Trust me! I’m helping the guy who destroyed Western civilization.”

Walsh had to chuckle at that and said, “Good point. What time?”

“Sometime around five would be good. Most of the FBI agents cut out between three and four.”

“What if I were in the lobby at exactly four fifty?”

Marshall said, “I’ll be sure to be in the lobby at exactly ten minutes to five. We’re gonna have to make this fast.”

Mike Rosenberg had gathered an impressive amount of information in a short time by maximizing the efforts of several analysts. That was one of the things he appreciated about the CIA: They worked together as a team. No one ever cared about personal credit or asked questions about what another analyst was working on. They truly followed the “need to know” doctrine, and Rosenberg felt a little guilty for abusing their trust. But he was doing it for noble reasons: to solve the riddle of this money transfer and, more importantly, to save his friend.

He had traced the scrawled phone number to a mobile phone issued in Germany. He tracked down the company, Vodafone, and found its law enforcement compliance office was located in Berlin. At this point he should have found a translator for the conversation he wanted to have with someone from that office. Instead, he decided to risk it and call himself, hoping to find someone who spoke English. This was not the sort of conversation he wanted someone to witness. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to say. This stunt was not as an employee of the CIA. He had no legal authority; nor had he attempted to gain a subpoena and go through the Justice Department to have it legally served in Germany. By the time he had gotten through all that, Derek Walsh could be sitting in prison.

He dialed the ten-digit phone number that included the country code for Germany and waited as he heard the odd ringtone in his phone. A woman answered the phone speaking German. All Rosenberg caught was, “Vodafone and Schmidt.” He recognized she was mentioning her company and her last name. For some reason this made him hesitate for a moment; then he said, “This is Mike Rosenberg from the United States. Do you speak English?”

There was a frustrated grunt on the other end of the phone, which made Rosenberg recognize the arrogance he had in calling and having no idea how to speak the native language. But the woman was a professional and managed an accented “One moment” in English before she put him on hold.

He intended to use a trick an FBI agent had shown him for getting maximum cooperation in a hurry without official paperwork. It was one of the things law enforcement occasionally had to do to protect citizens, no matter how underhanded or sneaky it seemed.

After more than a minute, another woman came on the phone. Part of this plan needed a female. Preferably a female with a family. He hated to be so manipulative but sometimes had to remind himself he worked for the CIA.

With almost no accent, the woman said in English, “My name is Barbara Gould. With whom am I speaking?”

The stern and direct tone caught him by surprise, but he managed to mumble, “My name is Mike Rosenberg, and I work for—” He paused for a moment. This could come back to bite him on the ass in a big way. Finally he decided to take the plunge and said, “The national police of the United States.” He was hoping the German would assume every country had a national police force like Germany. It also would make it more difficult for anyone to figure out who called the company. They would probably assume it was the FBI, and interest in finding out more details would fade long before it was traced back to him. His only hope was that she would buy it and didn’t understand there was no national police in the United States.

The woman said, “Yes, Mr. Rosenberg, how may I help you?”

Rosenberg smiled as he pulled the legal pad with his notes closer. Now he was getting things done.

Joseph Katazin waited on the platform of the Whitehall Street station. This time of day there was not a lot of traffic, and he thought he might get lucky and surprise Lenny Tallett as he got off the train. It was just a guess on Katazin’s part, but an educated guess, that the little anarchist would take the train and get off at this station. Katazin had told him he knew a wooded area by the bus line under the Battery Park overpass. In fact, that was his fallback position. There was a surprisingly wooded area where he could do whatever he had to do and slip away. He doubted anyone would notice a body for at least a day. But he liked his plan to surprise the little creep. Then he’d take the N or R train uptown. No one would even know he was in the area.

At least now he was prepared. Not only did he have his pistol, but he had the knife he normally kept in the car. He also carried a vinyl satchel with some paperback books shoved in it to look like cash. He had scooped the latest Lee Child and Tess Gerritsen novels off his secretary’s desk. He had novels by Brad Thor and Brad Meltzer in his own desk drawer. The four books together, along with some crumpled newspaper, made a credible bag of money. At least for as long as he would need it.

He planned to act quickly and quietly but was torn about what to do with Tallett’s quirky girlfriend. He had no desire to kill her, but she could ID him, and there was no telling what secrets Tallett had already spilled to her. Once he was done with this problem, he could focus all of his attention on Walsh.

There were a few people at the far end of the platform waiting to go uptown. He could hear the train in the tunnel and knew it was about showtime. He was surprisingly nervous and felt a tremor in his hand. As a kid he never would’ve thought about spies being nervous. But he was realizing his lifelong dream, so he took a deep breath and made one more scan around the platforms.

To his right he noticed a young man for the first time. He was tall and slender with a scraggly beard and had a heavy coat wrapped tightly around him. His dark hair was cut short, and his eyes darted in every direction. Katazin tried not to pay much attention because he didn’t want this guy being able to give a description to the cops later on.

The train rolled into the station, and Katazin immediately saw Tallett and his girlfriend through the window. The car was surprisingly crowded, and he hoped most the people would clear the station before Tallett noticed him.

There was a certain thrill to this kind of work, and the fact that he could surprise his target, blocks before he would expect it, was sweet.