The Oracle Code

37

Anna met Emil Basayev in the hotel lobby.

He was six feet tall and looked clean and professional in khaki trousers and a pullover that he left untucked. His blond hair was neatly combed, and he had soft brown eyes.

He smiled when he saw her coming over to him. “Anna. You look lovely.”

Anna didn’t feel lovely. She felt tired and worn out. But she returned his smile and accompanied him as he led the way out of the building. A car waited just outside. He opened the door for her, and she got in while he put her bag in the trunk. She slid across the seat, and he followed her in.

“A military flight?”

Emil nodded and grinned. “The general’s idea.”

“I had expected to see you in uniform.”

“You will when we return to the airport. And I have one for you as well. I thought it best to leave the uniform since you were being pursued. A Russian uniform would have marked you for anyone to see. The general wanted me to get you back home with as little fuss as possible.”

The driver got the car underway, pulling smoothly into traffic.

“How did you cross paths with Sergay Linko? Your message to me did not say.”

The question puzzled Anna. “Who?”

“Colonel Sergay Linko of the FSB.”

“I do not know this man.”

“Of course you do. You sent me his picture.”

Understanding dawned on Anna, and she felt slightly sickened. “You identified the man.”

“Yes. Sergay Linko.” Emil frowned in disapproval. “He is a ghost in the FSB. A story agents tell to scare young agents. And other people as well, actually. It is said that if you betray the trust of Russia, the president, or the FSB, Linko is the man who will be sent for you. And once he finds you — and he will — you will never be heard from again.”

Anna searched her memories of all the stories she had done for The Moscow Times. She didn’t think she had ever encountered the man’s name before.

“You act as if you have never heard the name.”

“I have not. You did not get back to me, so I thought you had not identified him. I suppose you just now have?”

“No.” Emil looked confused. “I identified him that night. The general asked me to.”

“My father?”

“Yes. Once I was able to use his security level, doors were opened to me — and files — that I might not have been able to get otherwise.”

“And you identified Linko.”

“I did.”

“Why did you not call me?”

“The general said that he would take care of it.” Emil shifted uncomfortably on the seat. “Did he not do this?”

“No.”

Emil sighed. “He must have become busy.”

No, Anna thought. He lied to me. A killer is after me, and he lied to me. Why? She wanted to scream, but instead she made herself breathe, and all she said in reply was, “Invading the Ukraine was a very taxing process.”

“Yes. One that not every Russian is in agreement with. Many feel that President Nevsky has overstepped his bounds in this matter.” Emil paused. “And it is sad to say that I have never breathed a word of this inside Russia. Nevsky is everywhere. I am afraid that if I even think these things too loudly, I will be sent to a Siberian gulag.”

He smiled to let her see that he was only joking, but Anna, making an effort to pull her thoughts away from her father’s betrayal, got the sense that he was afraid. She did not blame him. She was afraid as well.

“Now that Nevsky has the Ukraine, where is he going next with his grand reunification?”

“I do not know if there are any further plans, but everyone I have been around — though I have posed no questions myself — seems to believe that something else is coming.”

“What would you take after the Ukraine?”

Emil shook his head. “I would never have taken the Ukraine.”

Anna smiled coldly at him. “You would not have freed the true Russian people trapped there, miserable and jobless and robbed blind by their capitalist government?”

“No.”

“I am glad.” Anna patted his hand, and he smiled. “What are your orders?”

“Pardon?”

“What did the general say to do with me?” Anna refused to think of the man as her father at the moment.

“Only to get you home.”

“Good. We will start with that.” But plans were already taking shape in Anna’s mind. There were too many things she did not know, and it was time that she knew them.

Linko stood on the street corner and talked to the informants he’d cultivated over the past few days. He knew the ANA was hiding Thomas Lourds, but they couldn’t make him disappear completely.

No matter how hard military or police units tried to remain discreet within a city, there were people around who knew things and who would exchange their knowledge for money. The CIA, the SVR, all the intelligence agencies used these people.

Linko had used them as well, spreading money and paying for information. Twice he had killed men who had tried to lie to him, just to send a message to the others who were bringing him stories of the ANA and of Americans within the city. As it turned out, there were several CIA operatives on the ground in Kandahar. All of them were seeking Taliban terrorists.

That made the city a target-rich environment and Linko’s job more difficult. He had already found five CIA operations and managed to get away before any of them discovered him. He had been busy, but the American professor continued to elude him.

As it turned out, only one of the two men had told him lies. The man he was talking to now gave the same story that the other one did. Except this new informant had identified Anna Cherkshan from the six-pack of photos Linko had prepared. He had also prepared photos of Thomas Lourds and Layla Teneen, who had since returned to work but had not ventured back to wherever the American was in hiding.

He had the Teneen woman tailed constantly and had even entertained thoughts of kidnapping her and forcing Lourds to come to him, but she was kept under heavy guard by the ANA, and such a move would have been costly. And he could not have guaranteed the results. If she was accidentally killed, Thomas Lourds would only go more deeply into hiding.

But this latest information sounded promising.

“I promise you, sir, this is the woman I saw leave this building three days ago.” The old man held up three fingers as a visual aid in case Linko didn’t understand his broken English. He pointed to the picture of Anna Cherkshan again. “It was this woman.”

The photo was a good one. Linko had cropped it from The Moscow Times.

“You say she left three days ago?” Linko was curious. None of his contacts in Moscow had said anything of the young woman’s arrival there. But Russia was in turmoil at the moment, and security was tight.

“Yes. Three days.”

“Where is this building?” Linko took out a street map. This copy had no marks on it, nothing to let potential information dealers who would lie know their lies were going to be easily caught if they repeated falsehoods or duplicated things Linko already knew.

“It is here.” The old man pointed to a neighborhood that had not been investigated yet.

Linko knelt and opened his backpack. He took out a tablet PC and brought up Google Earth over the satellite receiver he plugged into the device. Working quickly, he entered the location of the neighborhood and zoomed in.

The picture was probably months old, but in all likelihood, not much had changed. Many of the buildings were damaged or destroyed, obvious victims of Taliban rockets and explosives. Or maybe it had been the American forces saving the Afghanistan people from the terrorists.

“You are sure?”

The old man nodded and held up his fingers again. “Three days ago. If I knew you were looking for woman before, I would have found you sooner.”

Linko was frustrated over the slowness of communication when it had to be done by word of mouth. If he could have taken out a television ad or posted the American professor’s photograph on the Internet, he would probably have located his target within minutes.

As it was, he’d lost valuable time.

“Why would she be in this building?”

The old man shrugged. “She is foreign. I do not know these things.”

Linko barely restrained himself from backhanding the old man. “Who lives in these buildings?”

“No one, sir. These buildings are used by the American soldiers and the ANA.”

“What do they use the buildings for?”

Shaking his head, the old man shrugged again. “They run through the alleys and the buildings with their guns. They shout, and they discourage anyone from going there.”

Linko smiled. The area must be a training area or a holding facility of some kind. He was confident he had them now.

“Sir?”

He looked at the old man. “What?”

“Do I get paid now?”

Linko stuffed money into the man’s hand, gathered his things, and walked around the corner to his vehicle. It was time to call in the troops.