That Time in Moscow Page 2

  Wolfgang took a sip of water from a bottle and then glanced to the end of the table at the last two members of Charlie Team—Kevin, a fellow operator, and Lyle, the team technology wiz. Lyle was all the clichés—short, wiry, and awkward, complete with smudged glasses that didn’t fit his face. But he was a warmhearted man once you got to know him, and Wolfgang was pretty sure Elon Musk knew less about gadgetry and computer technology than Lyle.

  Kevin was another story. Big, muscular, and moody, he was Megan’s half-brother and aggressively protective of her. He and Wolfgang had a love-hate relationship born out of Wolfgang’s repeated attempts to build a bridge and Kevin’s repeated refusals to meet him halfway.

  You can’t win them all.

  “All right.” Edric spoke from the whiteboard, where he was busy jotting something down with a red marker. As he stepped aside, Wolfgang saw the word, and a rush of adrenaline as strong as that brought on by the Mercedes hit his system.

  “Moscow,” Edric said. “We’re going to Mother Russia.”

  Edric paused theatrically, but nobody reacted. This was Charlie Team. They could’ve been told they were going to North Korea and they wouldn’t have blinked, but behind his forced passiveness, Wolfgang’s heart thumped.

  Moscow. The heart of enemy country for espionage operatives. The hornets’ nest.

  He’d never been, of course, but he imagined Moscow the way he saw it in the movies—grey, cold, locked in ice and snow, and infested with enemy operators with wits and skill sets every bit as sharp as his own.

  This is gonna be fun.

  “You guys give me nothing,” Edric said, rolling his eyes.

  Megan waved a finger. “It’s almost December, Edric, and you’re sending us into an icebox. You want theatrics, call Bravo Team.”

  A ripple of laughter erupted, and Edric turned back to the marker board. “Okay, I see how it is. Let’s get down to brass tax, then.”

  He wrote, and the room fell silent. “The target is Pasha Koslov, code named Trident. He’s a Russian-born chemist with a specialty in airborne transmission of manufactured agents.”

  “Chemical weapons,” Wolfgang said.

  Edric nodded. “Essentially, yes. Koslov began his career working with air fresheners for the Russian equivalent of Proctor and Gamble, but his peculiar talents quickly caught the attention of the Ministry of Defense. They”— Edric made air quotes with two fingers—“‘acquired him,’ and he’s been working in Moscow for the past four years, most recently on a project to design new types of chemical weapons that offer higher rates of transmission, penetration of protection equipment, and cost-effectiveness.”

  “I thought chemical weapons were illegal,” Kevin said.

  “The Geneva Convention outlawed their use in warfare, effective nineteen twenty-eight,” Edric said. “In nineteen ninety-seven, the Chemical Weapons Convention, by power of the United Nations, outlawed the development, production, retention, stockpiling, or acquisition of chemical weapons. So, yes, they’re illegal. Your point?”

  Kevin blushed. “I just thought, if we know this guy is developing chemical weapons for Russia, wouldn’t that be a problem for the state department?”

  Fair question.

  Edric jotted on the whiteboard again. Wolfgang wondered what the point of the whiteboard was. Why couldn’t he just brief them on the details?

  “As I mentioned earlier, Koslov is code-named Trident. That name was assigned to him by the CIA, where he has served as an undercover informant for three of the past four years.”

  Wolfgang’s mind spun, quickly connecting the dots. “That’s why they can’t involve the state department. American would have to disclose how they got the information, which would self-sabotage their own intelligence efforts.”

  “Bingo.” Edric circled a word on the whiteboard and stepped back. “MAD. Mutually assured destruction,” he said. “It’s kept us safe against the Ruskies since Kennedy was in power, and it’s just as effective against chemical warfare as nuclear. If the Russians are willing to risk an international scandal by producing chemical weapons, what else are they willing to risk? The position of the Pentagon is that America is better able to protect herself than the U.N. is. So, for eighteen months, Trident has fed us data on the developments underway in Russia, which has given our scientists time and information with which to build anti-chemical weapons gear, inoculants, and . . . well . . .”

  Wolfgang sat forward. “And matching weapons. That’s where MAD comes in, right? They won’t use it on us if we can use it on them.”

  “You didn’t hear it from me,” Edric said. “Who knows what the CIA is up to? The bottom line for us is that things in Mother Russia are starting to disintegrate. Koslov wants out. I’m not sure if the pressure has gotten to him, or if the Russians are getting suspicious. Either way, he’s demanding that the CIA extract him immediately, or he’s going public with what he knows.”

  “And at this point, that burns America as much as Russia,” Megan said.

  “Pretty much. Which is why the CIA made a phone call to their trusty friends at the SPIRE Corporation. Our mission is to extract Koslov from Moscow and deposit him in Minsk, where the CIA will take over.”

  Lyle spoke for the first time, pushing his smudged glasses up his nose and leaning forward. “I know I always ask, but why can’t the CIA do their own dirty work?”

  Everybody laughed, and Edric motioned to Wolfgang. “You wanna say it this time?”

  Wolfgang leaned back. The answer was obvious. It was always the same answer to the same question. “Plausible deniability. If we get caught, the CIA wants to distance themselves from the operation.”

  Edric recapped the marker and settled into his chair. “Actually, it’s a little more severe than that. The CIA isn’t just distancing themselves, they’re transferring blame. If our mission goes sideways in Russia, they’re not just going to disown us, they’re going to burn us. The CIA will pin the entire Trident operation on SPIRE.”

  The stillness in the room was deathly.

  “That’s a risk SPIRE is willing to take?” Megan said.

  Edric nodded. “I spoke to the director myself. The CIA is writing an extra-large check for this assignment. A seven-figure check. Charlie Team’s cut has been tripled.”

  Kevin let out a low whistle, and Wolfgang sat back. He remembered his last checks from the Cairo and Paris jobs. Together, they were enough to buy the Mercedes and lease a penthouse outside of Saint Louis for a year, with several grand left over. At triple his usual cut, the Moscow job was worth over a hundred grand—more money than Wolfgang really knew what to do with.

  But is it worth it?

  Wolfgang glanced around the room, watching the dollar signs spin behind Lyle and Kevin’s eyes, but not Megan’s. Hers were deep, and distant, and strong. And so damn beautiful.

  It’s absolutely worth it.

  “When do we go?” Wolfgang asked.

  “The plane is being fueled as we speak,” Edric said. “We fly directly into Moscow, and from there, we make contact with the CIA operator code-named Sparrow. Sparrow is a native Russian brought on by the CIA to be Koslov’s handler. They’ll brief us on Koslov’s current whereabouts and schedule, and from there we’ll formulate a plan to get him out of the city. Minsk is about seven hundred kilometers west of Moscow. We may use a train.”

  Edric sat forward. He interlaced his fingers and met each of their gazes, one at a time, before he spoke. “I can’t overstate the gravity of this mission. SPIRE’s entire reputation hangs in the balance. Not only that, but Moscow is one of the most dangerous places in the world to attempt this sort of operation. Spies, SVR informants, and national police are everywhere. One false move, and the success of the mission could be the least of our worries. You could die in Moscow, or worse, be responsible for a teammate dying. To add further complication, we’ll be limited in what we can bring with us. Even landing at a private airport, Russian Customs are likely to search the plane. That means no weapons a
nd only limited tech gear. I’m setting operational protocols at Code Yellow.”

  Code Yellow—the bottom tier of three tiers of operational parameters that Charlie Team worked within. Wolfgang couldn’t remember the exact limitations of Code Yellow, but the essence of it had already been explained. They were going in unarmed.

  Wolfgang’s first two missions with SPIRE had been intense and certainly life-threatening, but the severity he felt from Edric now put a damper on everybody.

  “What’s our cover?” Megan asked.

  “The three of us are banking executives from New York, flying to meet with a Moscow-based investment firm,” Edric said, motioning to Megan and Lyle. “Wolfgang and Kevin are our private security team.”

  Wolfgang processed the information, still a little stunned at the prospect of being unarmed someplace so potentially hostile. He recalled his last encounter with a Russian operative—the big man he nicknamed Ivan during their Paris operation. He and Ivan had engaged in a no-holds-barred brawl in the bathroom of a fancy Parisian hotel, and Wolfgang had come within an inch of losing his life. As had Ivan.

  “Well,” Kevin grunted, “we better do it. Wolfgang’s gonna need spinners for his car.”

  Everybody chuckled.

  “Does everybody know about my car?”

  “Bright yellow Mercedes in downtown Saint Louis?” Lyle said. “Dude, the mayor is probably scrambling to find out which Chinese business mogul is visiting.”

  “What I don’t get”—Kevin leaned forward—“is why yellow? Don’t you think it’s a little, I don’t know . . . piss colored?”

  “There might be something in that,” Megan said. “A nickname, maybe. You haven’t got a nickname yet, do you?”

  “We can’t call him Piss. That’s just mean,” Lyle said, but he was laughing.

  Wolfgang waved his hands and sat back. “Have your laughs. You’re all jealous, and you know it.”

  “Sunshine,” Edric said. “It’s kind of a sunshine color, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Sunshine Pierce!” Kevin slapped the table. “Let’s go to Moscow.”

  3

  SPIRE’s Gulfstream G550 boasted a range of almost eight thousand miles, putting Moscow well within range from Saint Louis, but they needed flight logs that showed Edric’s team of “banking executives” leaving New York, so Edric had the pilot land at LaGuardia, where they refueled and checked in and out of airport security. Kevin picked up a couple pizzas from an airport pizzeria, and ninety minutes later, they were in the air again and headed east.

  This was only Wolfgang’s third trip inside the plane, headed out on a new mission, but it already felt a little like home. The plush leather seats and well-stocked snack bar made for a comfortable transition around the globe. Even so, he felt vaguely naked without the presence of his Berretta holstered beneath his jacket or any backup weaponry stowed in the cargo hold.

  To his surprise, he also felt uneasy without the stacks of obscure crates that were usually packed around the tail of the plane, housing Lyle’s complicated array of high-tech gadgetry that had been instrumental in Charlie Team’s success in both Paris and Cairo.

  Lyle looked just as nervous, sitting in the back and sifting through the three bags of electronics Edric had allowed him to bring.

  Wolfgang stood up, sipping from a can of Sprite as he made his way to Lyle’s table, and sat down across from him. “You okay?”

  Lyle looked up, then pushed his glasses up his nose. “Fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Wolfgang chuckled. “You’re beet red and sweating. What’s up?”

  Lyle surveyed his small pile of equipment. “I don’t like being under-equipped. I’ve got two computers and some communications hardware. No surveillance gear. No tracking technology. I don’t even have the drone.”

  Wolfgang recalled the giant drone Lyle had employed in Cairo and wasn’t altogether sure he missed it.

  “You’re the wiz, Lyle. You’ll make it work. Plus, don’t forget the watch.”

  Wolfgang tapped the smartwatch on his wrist, and Lyle nodded impatiently. The watch was far more than a timepiece—it boasted an array of detection sensors and a camera that fed video footage back to Lyle’s computers.

  “Huddle up!” Edric called from the middle of the plane.

  Wolfgang slid out from the table and took a seat in a captain’s chair, facing the middle of the plane.

  Edric tapped on an iPad as the others gathered in. “We’ll land around midnight, local time. I’ve arranged for a limo to pick us up at the airport and transport us to the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya, where we’ll be staying.”

  “Isn’t that a bit . . . loud?” Wolfgang asked. “A limo, a fancy hotel. I thought we were flying under the radar.”

  “We are, but the Russians are accustomed to international travelers behaving in a certain way—especially rich travelers like bankers. Calling a cab and staying at the DoubleTree would draw more suspicion than the limo and the Hilton. We’ll hide in plain sight.”

  Kevin grinned. “Doesn’t bother me. Do they have a spa with a hot Russian masseuse?”

  “I should ask,” Edric said. “I could use a massage while my security detail stands guard.”

  Kevin rolled his eyes. “Funny, really. So, when do we meet Sparrow?”

  “First thing in the morning. We’ll get the details of the meetup via secure email after we reach the hotel. Sparrow will supply us with Koslov’s immediate location and schedule over the next two days. Koslov is expecting an imminent extraction but hasn’t been briefed on our identities or timeline, for obvious reasons. Koslov works daily at the Russian equivalent of the Pentagon—their military headquarters. It’s literally called the Main Building of the Ministry of Defense and is located on Arbatskaya Square. Ideally, we’ll pull Koslov on his way to work when his absence is least likely to be noticed. Extracting him from the Ministry of Defense headquarters would be next to impossible.”

  “When will the Russians know he’s missing?” Megan asked.

  “Good question,” Edric said. “We can assume they have him under some sort of surveillance—probably digital—while he’s at home, and he probably has some kind of tracking device for when he runs his errands. Koslov probably knows about all of that, and he can help us disable it. Anything he doesn’t know about will be trickier, which is why I want to pull him on his way to work. His home is likely wired with all kinds of bugs and detection devices, but it’s highly unlikely that the Russians are tasking somebody to follow him to work, so that will be our point of opportunity. Once we nab him, we’re looking at half an hour before the Russians know.”

  Kevin whistled again. “We can’t get out of Moscow in half an hour. No way. And once we clear the city, there will be roadblocks. Checkpoints. It’s a helluva long way to the Belarusian border.”

  “About two hundred eighty-five miles, to be exact,” Edric said.

  “Sheesh,” Wolfgang muttered. “It would be easier to break him out of Gitmo. What’s your play?”

  Edric puckered his lips. “I’ve got some ideas. Let’s meet with Sparrow, first. In the meantime, you guys should sleep. We land in eight hours.”

  Edric disappeared into the aft cabin, leaving the group huddled around the table, exchanging dubious looks.

  “Be easier with some gear,” Lyle muttered.

  “Be easier with some weapons,” Kevin added.

  Megan rolled her eyes. “Be easier with a battalion of tanks, but we don’t have that, do we? You’re all a bunch of pussies.”

  Kevin and Lyle waved her off, then found their way to the minibar, still muttering to themselves.

  Wolfgang watched them go, then leaned across the little table between himself and Megan. “They’re right, you know. Edric doesn’t seem to have much of a plan on this one. And the stakes are higher than usual.”

  “He’s got a plan,” Megan said. “You really think he’s sleeping back there?”

  Megan dug into her carry-on and produced a small stack
of books and folded maps. It was her custom to study up on their destination during their flight. Wolfgang had witnessed her doing it on the way to both Paris and Cairo, and both times, her trivia knowledge had proven useful.

  She waved her hand dismissively as she spread a map across the table. “Give me some room. I’ve got my own work to do.”

  Wolfgang looked down at the map, then slid closer to the table. “Mind if I join you?”

  She glanced up, raising one eyebrow. “Is this another lame attempt at a pickup? Because it isn’t gonna work.”

  “In Cairo you said I should know more about the cities we operate in. I think you’re right. Surely, you can’t object to a study partner.” He gave her a wink, matched with his most innocent smile.

  She stared him down a moment, then a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Okay, boy wonder. Just stay on your side of the table. And find a pen. You’re gonna need to take notes.”

  The G550 touched down exactly eight hours later, around eleven p.m. local time, its thick tires squealing against cold Russian tarmac. Wolfgang sat next to the window, peering out at the city lights as the plane circled twice, then made its final approach. Moscow was nothing short of massive—nine hundred seventy square miles in size, with a population of over twelve million, according to Megan’s study material, making it every bit as large as New York City.

  Snow encased the city like a blanket, piled high next to the airstrip as the plane rolled toward a hangar. Wolfgang couldn’t see people, but the lights from downtown Moscow were so bright, they reflected off the low-hanging cloud cover and shone over the airstrip, almost like ballpark lights.