Covert One 6 - The Moscow Vector (12 page)

We’re facing one hell of a situation, and I need your input.”

Castilla waited while Klein sat and then lowered himself stiffly into an upholstered armchair on the other side of a low coffee table. “Have you seen the list of sick intelligence and policy analysts?” he asked.

Klein nodded grimly. Over the past two weeks, more than a dozen of the government’s top experts on Russian and former Soviet bloc military, political, and economic affairs had collapsed, falling deathly ill either at home or at work.

“Well, I’ve been getting updates all through the day,” the president said somberly. “Three of our people have already died. The rest are in intensive care and fading fast. That’s bad enough. What’s worse is that nobody—not at the hospitals, the Centers for Disease Control, or USAMRIID—has been able to identify this disease they’ve got, much less how to treat it successfully. So far

the doctors have been trying every combination of treatments they can think of—antibiotics, anti-viral agents, anti-toxins, and chemo-and radiation therapy—without any positive results. Whatever is killing our people is completely outside our medical experience.”

“Nasty,” Klein murmured. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his eyes were troubled. “But this isn’t the first time this mystery illness has popped up, Sam.”

Castilla raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Over the past forty-eight hours or so, we’ve picked up reports of several other people who died of a previously unknown disease, one with identical symptoms,” Klein told him quietly. “In Moscow. More than two months ago.

No details leaked out to the West because the Kremlin clamped a tight security lid on any news of the outbreak.”

The president’s square jaw tightened. “Go on.”

“Two of my best Covert-One field operatives, Fiona Devin and Jon Smith, were separately approached by Russian doctors who had been involved in treating the victims. Unfortunately, both men were silenced before they could provide us with copies of the relevant medical records and other evidence. The first died on a Moscow street two nights ago, supposedly of a heart attack. The second was murdered in Prague yesterday.”

“By the Russians?”

Klein frowned. “Perhaps.” He snapped open his briefcase and handed Castilla a black-and-white print of the ID card photo transmitted earlier by Smith. It showed the image of a narrow-faced man with cold, dead eyes. “This fellow commanded the hit team in Prague. When I ran this picture through our computers, he turned up in half a dozen intelligence and law enforcement databases, usually with a ‘Most Wanted/Apprehend with Utmost Caution’ tag attached.”

The president read the name printed at the bottom of the photo. “Georg Dietrich Liss? A German?” he asked in surprise.

“An East German,” the head of Covert-One corrected. “When the Berlin Wall came crashing down, his father was a high-ranking officer in the communist government’s Ministry for State Security, the Stasi. The elder Liss is currently serving a long prison sentence for various crimes against the German people.”

Castilla nodded. He tapped the photo in his hand. “What about the son?”

“Also a member of the secret police,” Klein answered. “He served as a junior officer in the Stasi’s ‘Filiks Dzierzynski’ regiment, a sort of elite Praetorian

Guard force for the East German government. And there are rumors that he was part of a ‘black ops’ death squad used by the regime to murder political dissidents and even foreign journalists whose reporting proved too embarrassing.”

“Charming,” the president said in disgust.

Klein nodded. “Liss was a very nasty piece of work. By all accounts, he was a cold-blooded sociopath of the first order. Berlin issued a warrant for his arrest

not long after reunification, but he fled Germany before the local police could take him into custody.”

“So who’s been paying his keep for the past fifteen years?” Castilla asked.

“Most recently, we think he was employed by an organization called the Brandt Group,” Klein said. “They’re a very shadowy, freelance intelligence and security outfit based in Moscow.”

“Moscow again.” The president tossed the photo down onto the coffee table. “And just who pulls the strings on this Brandt Group?”

“Our data is verv sketchy,” Klein admitted. “We don’t know much about the organization or its real sources of funding, though they appear to have considerable resources. But there is a lot of back channel chatter claiming that Brandt Group agents sometimes work for the Russian government on a contract basis, conducting deniable surveillance and even assassination operations against Chechen exiles and other troublemakers living outside the Kremlin’s immediate reach.”

“I Icll,” Castilla growled.

“And there’s more,” Klein said. He leaned forward in his chair. The expression on his face was grave. “I’ve been making discreet inquiries. What looks verv much like this same illness is apparently affecting the top Russian specialists in every major Western intelligence agency—the UK’s MI6, Ger-main’s BND, the French DGSE, and others.”

“We’re being blinded,” Castilla realized suddenly. “This disease is being used as a weapon. by killing our best intelligence analysts, someone is hoping we’ll find it more and more difficult to understand exactly what’s happening inside Russia.”

“It’s possible, even probable,” Klein agreed. He opened his briefcase again and held a single sheet of paper filled with names and locations. “We also started scanning news sen ices and medical databases around the world, looking for other reported cases showing similar symptoms. It’s taken some digging, but this is what we’ve found so far.”

The president took the new list and studied it in silence. He whistled softly.

“The Ukraine. Georgia. Armenia. Azerbaijan. Kazakhstan. All former Soviet republics bordering Russia.”

Klein nodded again. “And in each and every case, the men and women getting sick are among the key military and political leaders in those countries. From what I can see, most of those replacing them are significantly less competent —or more closely aligned with Russian interests.”

“Son of a bitch,” Castilla swore out loud. He scowled. “That sly son of a bitch Viktor Dudarev. The Russians already tried to screw around with the last Ukrainian presidential election —and failed. Having to back down so publicly must have rankled something fierce. Well, maybe the Kremlin is playing the same game again, but this time on a much bigger scale.”

“The pattern is certainly suggestive,” Klein said slowly.

The president glanced at his old friend. The ghost of a crooked smile crossed his broad face. “Meaning, don’t go off half-cocked, because we don’t have any real evidence yet, right?”

“That is ultimately your call,” Klein pointed out. He cleared his throat softly. “But I submit that we are very long on theory and very short on hard facts at the moment. In the present world circumstances, I’m not sure how an unsupported American suggestion of Russian dirty work would be received.”

“No kidding,” Castilla said. His broad shoulders slumped, as though they were being weighed down by an immense burden. “Fairly or unfairly, we’re perceived as having cried ‘wolf too often over the past few years. As a result, our old friends and NATO allies are readv to believe we’re prone to exaggerat-ing dangers —and equally ready to cut and run from us at the first whiff of controversy. We managed to rebuild some of our credibility in the aftermath of the Lazarus crisis, but it’s still an uphill fight.”

The president frowned. “One thing’s certain. Nobody in London, Paris, Berlin, or Warsaw is going to thank us for risking a new round of the Cold War.” His eyes fell on an antique globe in the corner of the room. “And with our troops, ships, and aircraft tied down all around the damned planet, we’re sure as hell not in good shape for any open conflict with the Russians. Not on our own, anyway.”

Castilla sat silently for a few moments more, contemplating the situation.

Then he shook his head sharply. “So be it. We can’t undo the recent past.

Which means we’ll just have to find the proof we need to convince our allies to act with us, if necessary.” He sat up straighter. “That first disease outbreak in

Moscow seems likely to be the key.”

“Agreed,” Klein said. His eyes were cold. “Someone is certainly determined to eliminate anyone who tries to tell us about it.”

“One more thing is clear,” Castilla continued. “I can’t rely on the CIA to take the lead on this. They’re not prepared to operate effectively in Moscow—

at least not clandestinely.” He snorted. “We’ve been so focused on trying to play nice with the Russians these days, trying to keep them as our allies in the war on terror. Langley has spent its time and energy building working relationships with their security services, instead of recruiting networks of deep-cover agents inside the Kremlin. If I ask the Agency’s Moscow Station to reverse gears now, at such short notice, the odds are that they’ll only muff it.

And then we’ll end up with so much diplomatic egg dripping down our faces that no one will believe a word we say.”

His exes gleamed for an instant. “That leaves you and your outfit, Fred.

Front and center. I want a priority investigation by Covert-One. But it’s got to be quick, and it’s got to be quiet.”

Klein nodded his understanding. “I have a small but excellent team already in place in Moscow,” he agreed. Thinking hard, he drew a handkerchief out of his coat pocket, took off his glasses, and polished them. Then he slipped the wire-rims back over his ears and looked up. “Plus, I have another top-notch field operative on stand-by. He’s tough, resourceful, and he’s worked in Russia before. Best of all, he has the medical training and scientific expertise to make some sense out of whatever information they uncover.”

“Who have you got in mind?” Castilla asked curiously.

“Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Smith,” Klein said softly.

February 17

Poltava, Ukraine

Halfway between the industrial city of Kharkiv and the capital of Kiev, Poltava occupied three hills in the middle of the vast and otherwise almost featureless Ukrainian steppe. Its central streets and avenues radiated outward from a circular plaza. And set in the very center of this open expanse lay the Iron Column of Glory, ringed by small cannons and topped by a golden imperial eagle. Erected in 1809, this towering monument commemorated Czar Peter the Great’s decisive victory over the invading Swedes and their Cossack allies a century before, a victory that had ensured Russia’s lasting domination over the region.

Large neoclassical government buildings constructed during the nineteenth century ringed this round park. Their upper-floor windows looked out toward the Iron Column.

Leonid Akhmetov, chairman of Poltava’s regional group of parliamentary deputies, stood staring out the window of his office. The burly, white-haired politician and business oligarch glowered out at the golden eagle and then swung awav. I le shul the blinds with a muttered curse.

“You do not approve of the view?” his visitor, a slender, thin-faced man in a drab suit, asked sardonically. He was sitting in a chair on the other side of Akhmetov s ornate desk.

Akhmetov frowned. “Once I rejoiced in it,” he grunted dourly. “But now that column is only a reminder of our shame, of our abandonment to the ef-fete West.”

Both men were speaking in Russian —the first language of nearly half of Ukraine’s people, most of them concentrated in the country’s eastern industrial regions. Two recent presidential elections, the first of them overturned by

allegations of fraud, had split the country into rival factions, one heavily authoritarian and favoring renewed ties to Moscow, the other more democratic and more oriented toward Europe and the West. Akhmetov and his cronies were among the local leaders of the pro-Russian faction. They controlled most of Poltava’s industries and businesses.

“Mother Russia never truly abandons her loyal sons,” the thin-faced man said quietly. His eyes hardened. “Just as she never forgives those who betray her.”

The taller, heavier oligarch flushed red. “I am no traitor,” he growled. “My people and I were ready to move against Kiev months ago, right up to the moment that your President Dudarev reached his ‘accommodation’ with the new government. When the Kremlin pulled the rug out from under us so suddenly, what real choice did we have but to make our own peace with the new order?”

The other man shrugged. “The accommodation you condemn was only a minor tactical retreat. We decided the time was not yet right for an open confrontation with the Americans and the Europeans.”

Akhmetov’s eyes narrowed. “And now it is?”

“Soon,” the other man told him quietly. “Very soon. And you must do your part.”

“What must I do?”

“First? We want you to organize a public demonstration, one coinciding with Defenders of the Motherland Day, February 23,” the thin-faced man said. “This must be a mass rally demanding full autonomy from Kiev and closer ties to Mother Russia —

The oligarch listened closely and with mounting excitement while the visitor from Moscow outlined his orders from the Kremlin.

An hour later, the man from Moscow left the Poltava Region Administrative building and strolled calmly toward the Iron Column of Glory. Another man, taller, with a broad, friendly face and a camera slung around his neck, detached himself from a small group of schoolchildren studying the monument and joined his shorter colleague from the Russian FSB’s Thirteenth Directorate.

“So?” he asked.

“Our friend Akhmetov has agreed. In six days, he and his supporters will gather here in this plaza, at the base of the column,” the thin-faced man reported.

“How many?”

“At least twenty thousand. Perhaps twice that number, depending on how many of his workers and their families obey their orders.”

“Very good,” the broad-faced man said, smiling openly. “Then we can assure them a warm reception—and a demonstration to a horrified world of just how far Kiev will go to suppress peaceful unrest among its troublesome ethnic Russians.”

“And you have all the information you require?”