I Minus 72 (9 page)

He thought about all the years he had fed
disinformation through Koslowski, throwing in just enough real
stuff to keep the Americans believing all the lies. Now he had been
secretly indicted by the Russian government for throwing in too
much real information, supposedly giving the Americans an uneven
edge and costing Russia valuable leverage. His one trusted contact
remaining in the new intelligence services had sent him a message
to disappear. If they could find him, they were going to arrest him
and he knew he’d never be found. There would never be a trial. The
KGB hadn’t gone away, it was just renamed and they were as ruthless
and lethal as ever. He was sure, though, that he had kept his new
identity secret enough so that no one could track him down. His
code name was the only link between his old identity and his new
identity. Of course they knew the code name and his old identity.
That’s how they provided him with the disinformation and how he
told them what information the people in Koslowski’s network were
giving to the Americans. He didn’t see everything all the people
gave, but enough to give the Soviet Union and later Russia a little
edge. Knowing both what lies he was feeding the Americans and what
real information the others gave, allowed his government to control
America’s reaction in certain situations. And yes, sometimes he had
to throw in more real information than he probably should have, but
he wanted the Americans to trust him enough to believe the
misinformation he supplied.

Also, he wasn’t naïve enough to believe he
was the only double agent the Soviets used. There could have been
dozens. In addition, the Soviet Union had deep cover moles
everywhere in the United States military organizations back then,
even in administrative roles. But always in sensitive organizations
where their people had access to highly classified information,
especially anything that identified the source of that information
or how they had obtained it. That’s how he’d learned that someone
deep inside one of America’s intelligence organizations had seen
his code name on a list of known informants. And now, when his own
government had turned against him, he needed to make sure that when
he left Russia permanently for the US, no one was left alive who
could tell either the Americans or the Russians that he was the one
who had been a double agent for over twenty years. They all had to
die, including the key Americans who had seen the list. One in
particular, was going to be a difficult target—Mason, the new
American President. But he had a plan.

I minus 45

Washington

“The clock’s ticking, Sam. We’ve connected
the President-elect to the list, but we’re no closer to finding out
who’s doing this.” Grant and Sam were having an early evening glass
of wine before dinner and recapping what they’d discovered during
the day. The secure phone rang and Sam answered.

“SFC Rogers. How may I help you?”

Grant looked at her, pointed to himself and
shook his head, meaning “I’m not here”.

“This is the DNI, put Thurmond on.”

“Oh, I’m sorry sir; he’s not in the office
at the moment. May I take a message?”

“Tell him he damn well better call my secure
number at home within half an hour.”

“Sir, I’m not sure I can reach him within
half an hour.”

“You’d better.” And with that, Barry hung
up.

“Grant, it looks like you have a call to
make. That was the DNI and he wants to hear from you within half an
hour.”

“Oh, let him stew for a while. I’ll call him
back in a little while from my cell phone and tell him I have no
access to a secure line until tomorrow. He’ll have no choice but to
accept it.”

“You really think it’s a good idea to
antagonize the DNI?” Sam asked.

Grant smiled, thinking of what General
Wheeler had said about lying to the DNI. “I’m probably the only one
who can get away with it, so sure. I’ll calm him down later.”

Meanwhile, Barry had immediately called
Garcia at CIA to learn that he hadn’t heard from Thurmond, either.
His next call was to General Wheeler, who brought him up to speed
with all the information he had received from Grant earlier in the
day, leaving out the part about Grant getting the list. The General
knew it was risky holding out information from the DNI, but this
was obviously important to Thurmond and he had to trust him. As was
his custom, the Barry used the secure phone in his car and had the
speakerphone on for the entire conversation.

After dropping the DNI at his home, Riley
drove away and called his contact number from his cell phone. With
the speakerphone, he had been able to hear both sides of the
conversation, so he could repeat everything he had heard to the
voice mail service the line was connected to. He had only spoken to
a real person a couple of times, mostly just the robot voice that
told him to leave a message at the tone. He couldn’t help thinking
. . . easy money.

***

After finishing his glass of wine, Grant
used his cell phone to call the DNI at his home.

When Barry answered, he said, “Sir, I
understand you called. I’m out of the facility right now and am
calling on a non-secure phone. I hope it will be okay for me to
call you in the morning and give you a complete update.”

“I talked to General Wheeler a few minutes
ago. Do you have anything that he doesn’t know about?” Barry
responded.

“Not really, sir. We’re still going through
the files trying to match names to incidents. We’ve not discovered
anything that would point to the killer.” He couldn’t mention their
discovery about the list being seen by the President-elect until he
could talk with the DNI on a secure line.

“Okay, thanks. I don’t have to tell you,
Colonel, that we’re running outta time. A lot of people have
complete confidence in you, believe that you’re the right person
for this job . . . and I’m one of them by the way. Keep me in the
loop and let me know how I can help. If you run into any roadblocks
or bureaucratic bullshit or stalling let me know. I promise you
I’ll clear the way immediately. Any blocks I can’t clear, the
President-elect can. We’re both at your disposal. And, by the way,
I’m keeping the current President briefed every day. You can count
on him, also.”

“Well, thank you sir. That’s more than I
could hope for.”

After he hung up he turned to Sam and with
his shoulders up and his hands spread out in front of him said, “I
may be forming a new opinion of the DNI. He may turn out to be a
good guy after all. If he’s serious about helping, he certainly
could be useful. I just don’t want him to get in the way.
Thoughts?”

Sam looked puzzled for a moment, then said,
“Geez, Grant, I just don’t know where to turn. I’m way out of my
league here and feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Do we have
time to take a break? Maybe go get dinner, talk about something
else for a while?”

This rather abrupt shift in topic left Grant
puzzled, but he decided to put a good face on it and in a positive
tone said, “Sure. Sounds good. Let’s go.”

Dinner was uneventful.
They talked about each other, sharing things about their pasts. It
was easy banter. For Grant, it was much easier being with Sam than
it had been being with any other woman in a long time. Usually he
was tight lipped, having little to say, allowing his companion to
do most of the talking. Tonight, however, with Sam, it seemed
comfortable and he talked freely. She was the same, smiling as she
recalled her life. She talked about high school, how she didn’t
care much for the high drama of the social scene, how volleyball
was her life. She said she didn’t date much, although, looking the
way she did, Grant couldn’t figure out why. Maybe the guys were too
intimidated—she
was
a force.

Grant talked about his time in high school,
the girlfriend he’d had all four years who’d dumped him in his
first year at the academy. He smiled, recalling the football, the
camaraderie, and the few classmates he’d kept in touch with. Two
hours flew by and the waiter hovered close to their table, clearly
hoping they’d finish up and settle the bill.

Finally, Sam said, “Suppose we oughta pay.
Looks like he’s trying to clean everything up and go home.”

Grant insisted on paying. After all he was
on full expenses; he could afford to be generous.

They continued talking as they walked back
to the apartment, arriving a little after 10:00 p.m.

“How about one more glass of wine?” Sam
asked when they were inside.

Grant hesitated a moment and then said,
“Sure—red or white?”

“I think I’ll continue with red, thanks,”
she smiled . . . something she seemed to be doing a lot when she
was around Grant.

While Grant opened the wine, Sam lit the
three candles that were on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
As he brought her the wine, Grant couldn’t help noticing how
attractive she was, sitting on the sofa in the candlelight with her
hair down. It was longer than he thought. She should wear it down
more often . . . screw regs. They continued to talk, getting more
and more into personal things they normally wouldn’t share.
Although neither would admit it, the attraction was obvious to
both.

It was after midnight when they went to bed
in their separate bedrooms. Grant lay in bed thinking about the
evening and his growing attraction to Sam. He pictured them
together in easier times, smiling, holding hands, kissing . . .
.Wait. He was close to twenty years older than Sam. What was he
thinking? She probably looked at him as a father figure. What a
schmuck he was. Grant turned over and closed his eyes to go to
sleep, but lay awake a while longer. He just couldn’t get Sam out
of his mind. He didn’t need this right now. He had a job to do and
this distraction could get someone killed. He finally drifted off
to sleep, but Sam was in his dreams.

I minus 44

Koslowski

“Hey, Thurmond, this is Garcia. Call me
back. One of our guys who reviews the news found something
important. You’ll wanna know.” Garcia left a secure number where
Thurmond could reach him, hung up and turned to another case
file.

Grant called back within fifteen minutes:
“Garcia, I got your message. What’s up?”

“Where the hell you been? I’ve been trying
to reach you since we got back.”

“Around. Fill me in.” Grant responded,
determined not to reveal anything to Garcia.

“You on a secure line?”

“Yes,” Grant answered.

“Well, I put the word out to the Eastern
European desk to look for anything that mentioned Koslowski. They
got a hit this morning. The Krakow paper carried a small item about
a long-term government employee dying. It went into his past about
how he secretly aided the underground right after WWII during the
Soviet occupation. Nothing about him and us. Thought you’d like to
know the old guy croaked.”

“Did it say how he died?” Grant asked.

“Yeah, said of natural causes. Looks like he
just stopped breathing.”

“Okay, Garcia, thanks for the info. Gotta
go.” Grant said.

“Hey, wait a minute! What are you up
to—we’re supposed to be partners, remember?” Garcia stood up and
leaned over with one hand on his desk.

“Probably same as you. Just going through
files, trying to see anything that stands out. A needle in the
haystack, but it’s the only thing we can do right now. Want to
help? We have hundreds.”

“Help go through files? No thanks, but keep
me in the loop. I’m under a lot of pressure from the DDI to keep
her up to speed.” Garcia sat back down behind his desk.

“You got it. You get any brainy ideas, let
me know. See ya,” Grant said, hanging up without saying anything
further. He smiled.

After Grant hung up, Garcia sat for a while,
then slammed his open palms down on his desk. “He’s up to
something!” he exclaimed out loud.

At the same time, Grant turned to Sam and
said, “Okay, let’s go. We have to get to the source—that means
going back to Poland and probably Moscow. Get visas and tickets for
us both. We’ll pose as an American couple traveling together to see
the world. It’ll work. And, while we’re waiting for the visas, I
need a history lesson. I know there’ve been a lot of changes after
the Soviet Union split up, but I really haven’t kept track of them.
Would you see if we can get someone from the Eastern Europe desk to
bring me up to speed?”

“
I’ll get right on it. I
assume, since we’re going as tourists, we won’t be using our
government passports?” Sam asked as she started towards the
door.

“Not this time. Remember, we’re just two
people traveling together to see the sights.” Grant said, thinking,
I wish.

I Minus 43

“Okay, so a united Germany I get. Poland is
the same and so are Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Czechoslovakia
has been split up and part of it is the Czech Republic and the
other part is Slovakia. There is no Yugoslavia?” Grant asked,
raising his eyebrows.

“No, sir,” the young analyst from the
Eastern European Desk said. “Yugoslavia is now six independent
states: Serbia is the largest and contains the old capital
Belgrade. Then, in alphabetical order, there’s Albania, Bosnia,
Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia. Also, in addition to the Eastern
European states, there are a lot of other former Soviet Union
republics that have declared their independence: Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
For travel purposes, all of these now must be dealt with as
independent states.”

“Holy shit. I’ll never remember all this.”
At that point Grant yelled out, “Sam! Get in here!”