From Russia Without Love (4 page)

“He’s my father,” she said, leaning forward with a smile.

Chris returned the smile. “Really?”

Abruptly, her eyes shifted to the French doors. She pushed her handkerchief forward and inched her chair away from Chris. He turned and saw a handsome man in his mid-twenties, with long blond hair and blue eyes. He stood there with a surprised look on his face as if he’d just been mugged.

The man made a slight motion with his hand that seemed as if he was about to apologize for interrupting what he hadn’t heard. Suddenly, the backyard felt crowded. Quiet filled the air, awkward as an elephant, but the man appeared even more awkward, as if suspended in time and not knowing if he were coming or going. His eyes lowered first, then his head. And he walked back into the house.

“Do you know him?” Chris asked.

“That’s Animus… my fiancé,” she said. “He’s also Daddy’s protégé.”

“Oh?”

She leaned forward. “Why’d you come here? To Greece?”

“My name is Chris. I’m a legal attaché for the US State Department,” he said. “I’m searching for information about the kidnapped American, Michael Winthrop.”

Her eyes widened.

“Is something wrong?”

She fidgeted with her handkerchief. “Nothing.”

“You seem troubled.”

“You better go,” she said in response.

Chris paused for a moment. “A moment ago you were smiling…”

“You should really go.”

“Do you know something about Michael’s kidnapping?” he pressed.

“You have to go.
Now
.”

“I can protect you,” Chris said. “Michael’s life is in danger.”

Abruptly, she stood up. “I’m sorry.” She walked briskly across the patio, opened a French door, and disappeared inside the mansion.

Having stumbled upon something important, he felt dazed. Somehow, Xander or his family was involved. Concern for Hannah and Sonny filled him at the thought, and he hurried into the mansion. Once inside, he slowed down and tried to present an appearance of calm. There seemed to be nearly a hundred people inside the mansion now, and although Xander continued to mingle with his guests, Hannah and Sonny were nowhere in sight. He checked one of the restrooms, but it was empty. After more searching, he found Sonny in a hall, but he shooed Chris away. Maybe Hannah was searching for intel inside one of the rooms while Sonny stood watch.

Chris returned to the main room and waited. Feeling conspicuously alone, he spotted some guests serving themselves from a wide silver platter of hors d’oeuvres and realized he still hadn’t eaten anything. He made his way toward the table. Xander and a gaggle of guests flowed through the crowd in his direction, heading for the hors d’oeuvres, too, until Chris and Xander stood almost face-to-face.

“I met your daughter,” Chris told him.

“Oh?” Xander raised an eyebrow. “I was not aware she was here.”

“She seems like a nice girl.” Chris ate a cube of feta cheese from a toothpick that also skewered an olive and some meat.

Xander glanced around the room. “She must have come through another door.” His gaze returned to Chris, and his normally smooth demeanor ruffled around the edges. “What did you two talk about?”

“Nothing much. My understanding is that she was at the embassy party with you the same night Michael disappeared.”

Xander picked up a drink without hesitating or trembling and took a sip. “Yes, she was,” he said, his voice equally smooth once more.

“I’d like to ask you another question, if I may.” Chris ate the olive from his toothpick.

“Yes, of course.”

“How strongly do you support the creation of TAP in Greece?”

The mention of TAP seemed to cause the ears of nearby guests to perk up, and heads turned in their direction. Xander didn’t answer.

“The Trans-Adriatic Pipeline?” Chris clarified, popping the piece of meat into his mouth.

“Yes, I know what TAP is,” Xander said impatiently.

“Would you say you support it strongly?”

Xander’s eyes were calm. “It is not for me to support or oppose.”

“I like how you put that,” Chris said with a nod.

“How is that?” Xander asked.

Chris forced a grin. “Carefully.”

Xander stared.

“Maybe you can help me understand how you feel about Michael Winthrop’s kidnapping,” Chris whispered, glancing around. Now others were not only looking but
listening
to their conversation.

Xander frowned. “As I said, it is a terrible thing. I hope he is rescued soon.”

Chris’s gut told him Xander was lying, but he kept the tone of his voice polite. “Thank you. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

“No bother. I hope he is rescued soon.” He picked up his drink. “Now if you do not mind, I would like to talk to some more of my guests.”

“Certainly.”

Xander walked away, and Chris couldn’t get over how calm and cool he was—too cool.

He felt a gentle hand on his back and glanced over his shoulder.

“What were you two talking about?” Hannah asked, Sonny standing beside her.

Chris looked for a trash receptacle to dispose of his toothpick but saw none, so he handed it to one of the wait staff. “I’ll explain in the car. Are we ready to go?”

Hannah and Sonny nodded and followed him as he weaved through the crowd toward the front door. Outside, they loaded into the BMW, and Chris flicked on the lights and drove away from Xander’s estate.

Hannah checked the side-view mirror. “Sonny guarded the hall while I gained physical access to the laptop in Xander’s study,” she reported. “You remember after our last mission how Young showed us how to bypass the login?”

Chris nodded, focused on both Hannah and the road.

“I got into Xander’s laptop and logged into Young’s website.” One merely needed to use the target’s device to log into Young’s website and then he could access the device remotely and begin hacking. Then he could install hidden monitoring software that wouldn’t show up in the start menu, control panel, or index. Using the hidden software, he could keep a keystroke log of e-mails, chats, and other internet usage. In addition, the monitoring software took routine screen captures. “Young is hacking Xander’s computer as we speak.”

Chris grinned.

“What?” Hannah asked.

“I actually sent Young a digital recording of my conversation with Xander and asked for a voice match. The more time I spend around that man, the more my spider senses tingle.”

“Me, too.”

“Me, three,” Sonny said.

_______

I
n the villa north of the pool, Animus stood in the living room while Evelina sat slouching on the sofa. “What was that all about?” he asked.

“What was what all about?”

“Who was he?”

“Who was who?” Evelina said innocently.

He was determined to get an answer. “You know who I’m talking about,” he said.

She sighed. “If you
must
know, his name is Chris. He’s a legal attaché from the US Embassy.”

A hard knock came at the door, and they stopped talking. Animus reached for his pistol, keeping it concealed under his suit jacket as he approached the door and looked through the window. “It’s your father.”

She stood up from the sofa. “You know how he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Xander was more than a mentor to Animus, he was the father Animus never had. While Animus’s contemporaries earned their bachelor’s degrees in subjects like business and biology, he earned his in the art of killing. And Xander was his sole professor.

Animus answered the door and invited him in.

“I was looking for you,” Xander said as he stopped in front of Evelina. “I could not find you in the main residence, so I came here.”

“Is something wrong?” she asked, worry creasing her brow.

“Before the party, I tried to reach you, but your phone was off. I sent a text asking you to stay away from the party. And I left the same message with your answering service.”

“I’m sorry. I was having trouble with my phone,” she explained.

Xander took a deep breath. “It is okay. I understand, sweetheart.” He paused for a moment. “There was an American here tonight from the State Department, a legal attaché.”

Evelina hesitated for a moment. “Yes.”

“Did he ask you about Michael Winthrop?”

“He did, but I didn’t tell him anything,” she said.

“Are you sure? I will not be angry. It is simply important that I know what you told him.”

“I didn’t tell him anything. When he brought up the subject, I walked away and came here.”

“He was not like any diplomat I have ever met,” Xander said. “Too calm for a bureaucrat. Did either of you see what his colleagues were up to this evening?”

Animus and Evelina shook their heads.

Xander hugged Evelina and kissed her on the head. “Could you bring us some drinks, please?”

She smiled and left the room.

“Our Albanian friends might need some help,” Xander said to Animus quietly. “Make sure the rest of our people are standing by to back them up at a moment’s notice.”

He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Kidnapping Michael Winthrop has already caused concern among the other UKP employees participating in the pipeline project. I tried to milk this for all it is worth, but with these attachés snooping around, we may have to kill the kid sooner than I expected. We may need to move on to Phase Two.”

“UKP headquarters in London, sir?”

Xander nodded. “Go ahead and make reservations for our crew. Get us as close to the target as you can. I want to be ready to move in an instant. We can always cancel the reservations if we decide to begin Phase Two later.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We may not be able convince UKP’s leadership to stop constructing TAP, but if we hit their employees hard enough, we should be able to slow construction down.” Xander patted Animus on the shoulder and smiled. “Striking fear in their hearts is key.”

_______

C
hris, Hannah, and Sonny were back in Hannah’s hotel room when Chris’s cell phone rang.

“Young,” he answered, “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

“The computer hack Hannah initiated was terminated from the target’s end,” Young said, getting right to business.

“What does that mean?” Chris asked.

“Someone cut the power source and internet connection.”

“Do you think he suspects we tried to hack him?”

“It’s possible,” Young said. “I haven’t had time to analyze the data we were able to download, but a visual check is showing a lot of searches about Michael Winthrop and United Kingdom Petroleum.”

“Hannah accessed the bathroom in the master bedroom, too,” Chris said, “and she took a hair sample from a comb, I assume it’s Xander’s, but she’ll send the samples to you by courier, so you can check the DNA and see if it matches anyone in our database.”

“Will do,” Young said.

“Can you get a cell number for Xander?” he asked. “And have NSA feed us the GPS coordinates in real time?” Xander’s phone wouldn’t even have to be switched on for NSA to track it.

“I’m on it,” Young said.

“Thanks,” Chris said. “Out.”

He updated the others once he hung up, and Hannah requested an Agency courier to pick up the DNA sample. Within an hour, it had been picked up and was on its way. Soon after, Chris’s phone rang again, and he answered it.

“NSA found a match for the digital recording of the first person in the conversation with you,” Young said.

“The first person in the recording was Xander Metaxas,” Chris said.

“NSA matched it with a Russian spy.”

“Russian spy?” Chris asked, immediately sparking Hannah and Sonny’s interest in the conversation. He met Hannah’s eyes, then Sonny’s. “Are you sure Xander is a Russian spy?”

“His code name is
Bayushki Bayu
.” Chris recognized the phrase as something Russian mothers said to their babies to put them to sleep, but there was no direct English translation for it. “NSA and the Agency’s code name for him is Lullaby. He’s an FSB officer, a Non-Official Cover.” After the USSR was dissolved, the KGB’s foreign operations were restructured into the FSB, Russia’s version of the CIA. “Rather than work as an official spy with diplomatic cover in an embassy, Lullaby operated away from embassies and trade missions. Although Lullaby didn’t have diplomatic immunity, he had more independence and could mingle more easily in Greece, go into deep cover.”

“I suspected Xander of being a Greek terrorist, but I’m stunned to hear he’s a Russian spy. How sure are you about this?” Chris asked.

“Given the quality of the comparison recording and the quality of your recording,” Young said, “it’s almost a seventy-five percent match. It isn’t one hundred percent, but these matches never are. Lullaby works under Directorate S, which handles illegal intelligence, including resident spies. It is believed that Lullaby assumed the identity of a dead Greek in Albania and lived there for a short time customizing the identity before moving to Greece. To help with his legend, he probably married a Greek woman, and it is believed that he lives in Greece.”

Chris shook his head. “I guess it is what it is—until it isn’t.”

“One more thing,” Young said. “I tapped the phone Hannah requested. Xander made a phone call to a man he called Talos. They spoke using code words about a ‘package.’ We’re still trying to decode their conversation, but Talos’s phone was tracked to the Kypseli neighborhood.” Young gave the address.

Chris checked the GPS on his phone and found the location. “That could be where they’re holding Michael. Kypseli is only five klicks north of our location.”

Chris thanked Young, ended the call, and briefed Hannah and Sonny.

“Let’s check it out,” Sonny said.

“Better than just sitting here,” Hannah said.

They left their room and took the elevator down to the garage where they loaded into the BMW. Hannah took her turn behind the wheel, started the engine, and mounted her GPS on the dash.

She drove to Kypseli, in the center of Athens, where the city became denser with apartment buildings and people—more foreigners than Greeks. The GPS coordinates corresponded with a brown, 1950s apartment building that stood four stories tall. As Hannah drove by, they searched for nearby surveillance, but all they found was a stocky man standing outside the apartment building.

Hannah drove two blocks away and found an open spot in a line of cars parked next to the sidewalk. Graffiti marked the wall beside them.

“My gut is telling me Michael is here,” Chris said.

“Could be indigestion.” Sonny chuckled.

Hannah and Chris both ignored him. “Tomorrow morning, we can pose as movie location scouts and rent out one of the apartments across the street from the target building,” Hannah suggested as she turned the car away from the building. “Find out what’s really going on here.”

Early the next morning, they dressed casual, returned to Kypseli, and slipped through a back entrance into an apartment facing the target building. They went from apartment to apartment to request a room to rent, but the language barrier proved to be more of an obstacle than the movie production pitch.

They hit the jackpot on the second floor, though, when an elderly Pakistani man let them inside and showed them a room. One area of the wall was a patchwork of three colors: an unfinished yellow paint, the beige color beneath, and a worn patch of brown wood below it all. Scribbled on part of the beige color were childlike drawings, and a makeshift curtain hung from a rope by clothespins. Sonny opened the curtain partway, finding an excellent view of the target building across the street.

The Pakistani wrinkled his nose. “Albanian mafia, rude they are,” he said.

“The men across the street are Albanian mafia?” Hannah asked.

The Pakistani nodded. “Communism fell. Albanians illegally immigrated. Crime organizations they make.”

“What else do you know about the men across the street?” she asked.

“Albanian mafia, police hate.”

“Anything else?” She showed him a photo of Michael.

The Pakistani shrugged as if he didn’t recognize Michael. “Albanian mafia rude. Women buy and sell. Money take. You room want?”

“Human trafficking and extortion doesn’t equal Michael being in there,” Sonny said.

Maybe I’m wrong this time. But there’s only one way to find out.
“It’s the best lead we’ve had,” Chris said.

After some haggling with the Pakistani, they settled on a price.

Peering through the window, they could see there was a new guard across the street, taking the place of the one the night before. This guard was taller but not as stocky and had a permanent scowl.

“The right window on the fourth floor is protected with metal bars,” Sonny noted.

Chris nodded. “Maybe these Albanians are more interested in keeping someone inside than keeping people out.”

Smoke rolled out of an apartment window next to the Albanian building.

The Pakistani became agitated and pointed to the smoke. “Everyone say, ‘she oil too much! She food burn!’” He walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Hannah sat down, opened her laptop, and typed. “I’m sending an update to the station chief, telling him we need Technical Intelligence to confirm what’s inside that building.”

After spending the night in the small room, a message returned from the station chief, telling the trio to keep an eye on the Albanian building until the agency’s technical wizards arrived. In the afternoon, before TECHINT arrived, smoke poured out of the same apartment window next to the Albanian building.

“Looks like someone burned the toast again,” Sonny said.

Soon, flames crept out of the side of the window. Shouting came from inside the burning building. Strangely, the smell reminded Chris of a backyard Texas barbeque. “If the toast wasn’t burned before, it’s burned now,” he said. “I’m going to ask the Pakistani to call the fire department. It’s getting out of control and the people in there are going to need some help.”

Hannah nodded in approval.

Chris left the room and talked to the Pakistani, who made the call. When Chris returned to their room, an ethnic mix of people were noisily evacuating the burning building, carrying armfuls of papers, pictures, electronics, clothes, and other belongings. One woman dumped her things in the street and ran back into the burning building, presumably for more. Another tried to follow, but others stopped them.

In front of the Albanian building, the guard moved away from his position in front of the door and peered around the corner. Now the fire next door was licking the side of his building. He shed his composed demeanor and ran inside. Chris could hear the shouting from across the street. Two Albanians came out with the guard, and he showed them the situation, pointing up at the fire and gesturing wildly. His comrade shook his head and spoke loudly in Albanian. The guard became quiet, but the third man spoke up in a booming voice. The guard paced as the other men argued.

One of the Albanians pulled out a cell phone. Behind him, a man staggered out of the front door of the Albanian building. Plasticuffs were bound around his ankles, but the plastic band between his ankles was severed, and he had full use of his legs. His hands were bound by plasticuffs in front of him, still intact. Although the man was disheveled, he was clearly Michael Winthrop. The guard must have spotted him out of the corner of his eye because he turned and looked straight at Michael.

“Shit!” Without thinking, Chris burst out of the room, ran through the Pakistani’s house, and dashed down the stairs. As he rushed out of the apartment building, he realized he had his pistol in hand, even though he didn’t remember drawing it.

The guard tackled Michael, and Chris ran at him, instinctively pointing his pistol. “Get off him, now!” Chris commanded.

The guard turned his head toward Chris’s voice. When he saw who it was, he let go of Michael, who crawled away. The guard got to his feet and reached into his waistband. Chris adjusted his angle so he could shoot the guard in the upper body without hitting Michael or the others in the street. It would be a tight shot, but he could do it.

His rapid breathing and stampeding heart caused his pistol sights to wobble uncontrollably.
Just pull the trigger when the sights wobble over the target
, Instructor Hickok had told him
.
Although he was aiming for the guard’s chest, his first shot put a hole in the man’s gut. The second shot caught the guard in the chest, knocking him backward. The guard pulled his pistol free and fired in Chris’s direction but hit a woman in the crowd, who screamed as she fell. Chris’s respiration and pulse calmed down a notch, and he aimed at the guard’s head and squeezed the trigger.
Pop!
Gray brain matter spilled, and the guard fell to the asphalt as if he’d been pasted there. Screams came from all directions.

Pop!
Another gunshot sounded. Then more gunshots. It sounded like Hannah and Sonny were shooting it out with the Albanians, but Chris couldn’t be sure. His adrenaline was pumping so wildly out of control he couldn’t tell whether he’d even been shot.

“Michael Winthrop, I’m from the United States government!” Chris blurted. “I’m here to save you!”

Michael turned and stared at him, his expression a mix of fear and confusion.

While helping Michael to his feet, Chris glanced behind him. One of the guard’s comrades lay in the street, moving slowly, and the other seemed to have taken cover around the corner. The slow-moving Albanian aimed up at the Pakistani’s window. Another gangster appeared in the doorway and aimed there, too. He could see Hannah now on the street level while Sonny remained upstairs providing overwatch, both firing at the Albanians.

With the fire in the building next door and the shootout in the street, a handful of the civilians waved their hands wildly and cried out. Chris had seen such pandemonium before. Some helped those in need, some ran away, some froze, and others collapsed.

In the pair of hostage rescues Chris had performed, he hadn’t lost a hostage. Each rescue was intensely personal, and he wasn’t about to lose Michael now. There was no time to waste; he had to trust Hannah and Sonny to cover his six, and he didn’t have time to worry about their safety. He had to get Michael to the car… two blocks away.