The Kremlin Strike

Nine

Tekhwerk, GmbH — a jointly owned German and Russian import-export company — ran its Moscow operations out of a large suite of offices on the forty-second floor of the ultramodern Evolution Tower. Its corporate owners viewed the skyscraper’s unique architecture, a DNA-like spiral created by a slight offset of each floor from the one below, as a valuable symbol of Tekhwerk’s business focus on advanced industrial equipment. Those who knew how much of its profit came from surreptitiously helping the Kremlin obtain sanctions-limited high technology saw the building’s twisting, corkscrew shape as an equally apt visual metaphor.

Crooked they might be, but it was just as clear that the import-export company’s senior managers worked long hours. Even this late in the evening, its offices were still brightly lit.

When his secretary came in, the big beefy man who called himself Klaus Wernicke looked up from the thick dossier he’d been studying. He peered at her over the edge of his reading glasses. “Yes, Oksana?”

“Fräulein Roth is here, Herr Wernicke,” the plump, middle-aged Russian woman said primly, with a hint of disapproval in her voice. In her view, corporate executives, especially those in accounting, should definitely not turn out to be young, good-looking redheads like this woman Erika Roth.

With a nod, Wernicke flipped the file closed. “Show her in, please.” He glanced at his watch. “And then you may as well go home. It’s very late already, and I expect it will take some hours for Fräulein Roth and me to finish going through the financial reports she’s brought from Berlin.”

“Very well, Herr Wernicke,” she said tightly. From the rigid set of her shoulders, it was clear that she suspected paperwork was the last thing on her employer’s mind. Turning on her heel, she pulled his office door open wider. “Herr Wernicke will see you now… Fräulein,” she snapped.

Wernicke hid a smile when his guest came in. Though the young woman was dressed demurely in dark gray wool slacks, a white-collared cotton shirt, and a dark blue double-button blazer, there was no denying that she was remarkably attractive. No doubt many men would have been tempted into sin and vice by her beauty just as his secretary prudishly imagined he was.

He waited impassively until the door closed behind her and then got up from behind his desk. For a big man, he moved with surprising ease. “Welcome back to Moscow, Sam.”

Amusement sparkled in Samantha Kerr’s bright blue eyes. “I don’t think the dragon guarding your gate likes me much, Marcus. Should I bring her chocolates next time?”

“It couldn’t hurt,” Marcus Cartwright said, with a thin smile of his own. “How was Berlin?”

“Damp, dreary, and cool when I passed through.” Sam shrugged. “Which was still better than my time in D.C. By the way, Mr. Martindale said to give you his regards.”

“I’m touched,” Cartwright said dryly. “I had no idea our mutual employer was such a people person.”

Ultimately, Tekhwerk was owned by Kevin Martindale and his private military corporation, Scion — though that fact was hidden from the Kremlin by a byzantine chain of holding companies and investment firms. Revenues earned by the company’s day-to-day business deals paid for intelligence-gathering and covert-action operations inside Russia itself. Better yet, the need for frequent travel between its scattered offices and associated enterprises provided convenient cover for Scion operatives disguised as Tekhwerk executives and employees…

…such as Scion field agents Samantha Kerr and Marcus Cartwright.

At Cartwright’s invitation, Sam dropped gratefully onto a leather couch with a spectacular view of the Moscow skyline. She’d been on the move for what seemed like days — ever since Martindale briefed her on this new assignment. Almost from the moment the Energia heavy-lift rocket launched, Cartwright and his small team of operatives had been working around the clock to collect intelligence on Moscow’s new space program. Sam’s orders were to assist them, by any means necessary.

Cartwright took a seat across from her. “Quite frankly, I’m very glad you’re here. We desperately need a fresh pair of eyes.” Now that he was off his feet, the big man looked almost as tired as Sam felt. “So far, the best thing I can say about this operation is that none of my people are dead or in an FSB interrogation cell. Not yet, anyway.”

“That sounds ominous,” Sam said lightly.

“Hyperbole and I are not old friends,” Cartwright said grimly. “We’ve hit roadblocks at every turn. Both the Plesetsk and Vostochny launch sites are completely locked down, totally off-limits to anyone without special high-level security clearances. The same goes for Star City, where rumor says there’s a very hush-hush cosmonaut training program going on.”

Sam leaned forward with a frown. “Locked down in what way, exactly? Roving police patrols and checkpoints?”

Wearily, Cartwright shook his head. “More like minefields, barbed wire and bunkers, searchlights, mechanized infantry units, T-72 and T-90 tanks, helicopter gunships, and antiaircraft batteries. There’s no way I can sneak a black-bag clandestine team past that kind of security. Nothing bigger than a butterfly has the slightest chance of getting within ten kilometers of any of those places without being detected, intercepted, and killed.” He looked her right in the eye. “I’ve seen nuclear-weapons storage depots and ICBM bases with weaker perimeter defenses.”

“So forced entry isn’t an option either,” she realized.

“Not unless Mr. Martindale can whistle up a team of those Iron Wolf combat robots for us,” Cartwright agreed dourly.

Sam sighed. “That might be considered just a tad unsubtle.”

Almost against his will, the big man smiled. “I suppose so.”

“You said entry to Plesetsk, Vostochny, and Star City required special security clearances,” she said slowly.

“Correct.”

“Can we forge the necessary IDs?” Sam asked. It was a tactic the two of them had relied on in the past, all the way up to masquerading as officers on Russia’s general staff. Scion’s false document section had a justly earned reputation for working miracles.

“No,” Cartwright said bluntly.

Now there was a surprise, Sam thought. She stared at him. “Why not?”

“Because we don’t even know what the damned things look like,” the big man told her. “Security clearances for what we think is called ‘the Mars Project’ are issued only to those on a special list tightly controlled by Gryzlov himself.”

She frowned. “Tricky.”

“That’s not all,” he said gloomily. “From what little we’ve been able to confirm, there’s yet another layer of security — beyond those special ID cards. Even with the right documents, no one gets past the perimeter of any of those sites without positive biometric confirmation of their identity.”

“Do tell,” Sam murmured. “Well, that certainly suggests the Russians have something worth hiding. Something very big and very nasty.”

Cartwright nodded. “No question there.”

She leaned back against the couch, pondering the problem further. As a first step, they needed to focus their efforts. The Vostochny and Plesetsk launch sites were remote and difficult to reach from Moscow. They were also tight-knit technical communities devoted to a common purpose, firing off rockets into space. Strangers would stand out, no matter how good their forged documents. More importantly, U.S. reconnaissance satellites could easily monitor any new Russian spacecraft rolling out for launch. That was the sort of data-driven espionage America’s official intelligence agencies had mastered long ago, from the earliest days of the Cold War.

The trouble was that this was primarily a human intelligence problem, Sam decided. Learning that Moscow had developed more powerful rockets meant little unless they could also figure out how the Russians planned to use them. All of which led her back to Star City and its rumored top secret cosmonaut training program. Finding out what these brand-new cosmonauts were being trained to do would answer a lot of questions. So figuring out how to penetrate the security around Star City was where the Scion team should devote its time, energy, and resources.

Cartwright nodded when she explained her reasoning. Then his broad face darkened. “But there’s the rub, Sam,” he pointed out with regret. “The equation’s damnably simple: no special ID card and biometric confirmation, no access. So we’re right back where we started: stuck outside the Star City security perimeter without a way in.”

“So we take this one careful step at a time,” Sam said dispassionately, concealing her own doubts. Seeing a veteran operative like Marcus Cartwright so spooked by Gryzlov’s new security measures was not a confidence builder. “And the first step is taking a closer look at one of those new Mars Project identity cards.”

The big man frowned. “Easier said than done, I’m afraid. As far as we can determine from distant surveillance, nobody with Mars-level clearance goes anywhere without an armed escort. Pulling a snatch job to grab one of those IDs would be messy as hell—”

“And end up triggering Russian security service red alerts from here to Vladivostok,” she finished in disgust.

Cartwright nodded gloomily.

Now what, genius? Sam asked herself silently. Scion didn’t recruit field agents who froze at the first hurdle. Obstacles, Martindale often said coldly during debriefings, were there to be overcome — not used as an excuse for failure. Sure, it was the kind of rear-echelon motivational bullshit that tempted a lot of people to strangle him… but that didn’t make it any less true.

Thinking hard, she stared out toward the twinkling lights that marked Moscow’s crowded city center, distantly noting her own reflected image superimposed on the darkened glass. During the last half hour the summer sun had slipped below the horizon. Somehow, she knew, they needed to lay their hands on a Mars Project ID. Which was manifestly impossible. So how was she supposed to untangle this particular Gordian knot?

Something about the way her own face stared back at her from the window tugged at her mind. And then, quite suddenly, Sam saw a path forward, or at least its first tentative, faltering steps. She looked back at Cartwright. “Okay, we don’t try to steal a Mars Project ID card itself,” she said cheerfully. “We just steal its soul.”

Seeing the puzzled look on her colleague’s broad face, she laughed. “Remember what some cultures think will happen to them if someone takes their picture with a camera? We don’t need a physical copy of the identity card. We just need a good, solid image. At least as a start.”