Rules of Vengeance (44 page)

So it was no surprise to Graves that he had never heard the name David Kempa, listed as a second secretary for cultural affairs at the Russian embassy, or to learn that he was in fact the FSB’s ranking agent posted to London station. It was further news that the quaint townhome located at 131 Prince’s Mews was actually an FSB safe house.

“Drink?” asked the Russian.

“No,” said Graves. “I’m in a bit of a rush.”

Kempa poured himself a tumbler of Stolichnaya, which he ruined by adding half a can of Red Bull. He was a youthful, kinetic man, with a direct gaze and shaggy brown hair. Dressed in a vintage Sex Pistols T-shirt and pencil-leg jeans, he looked more the diehard rocker than a government agent. Raising the glass in a toast, he said, “Chagalinsky tells me you know who detonated the bomb.”

Chagalinsky
. At least the old regime’s anti-Semitism was firmly back in place.

“That’s correct,” said Graves.

“A name would be nice.”

“In due time. Why did you pass Russell the message about Victoria Street? ‘Victoria Bear’ came from you, didn’t it? What do you know?”

“Not much more than you. ‘Victoria Bear’ came from some notes scribbled on a paper we got out of Shvets’s trash. The same paper had a list of active nuclear facilities in Western Europe. From that and other chatter we’d picked off the ether between Shvets and his soldiers, we surmised he was putting together some kind of attack against a nuclear plant. From all indications, it’s going to happen soon. In fact, I’d wager we’re too late. If we could have stopped them before the attack on Ivanov, we might have had a chance.”

“Them? You just said it was Shvets’s doing, and I believe you fall under that category.”

“Yes and no. I’m FSB, but I had nothing to do with the operation. This one is Shvets’s baby. Run by a splinter faction he controls himself. Something called Directorate S.”

“Never heard of it.”

“That’s the idea.”

“Do you know where the attack is going to take place?”

“If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say France. There’s been a lot of activity moving through Paris in the last few days. Money. Vehicles. Residences taken out of circulation. I asked some questions, but I was shut down by Shvets’s soldiers.” Kempa swallowed another mouthful of his drink and chomped on an ice cube. “But if I were Shvets, I’d want to take out something new. Someplace everyone thinks is fail-safe. I’d do something to scare the pants off the entire world.”

“What’s the goal?” asked Graves.

“For Shvets? Everyone knows he has his eyes on the presidency. It looks to me like he’s making his play. Lev Timken died yesterday. They say he had a heart attack while screwing his mistress. Mikhail Borzoi’s plane went down this afternoon. That leaves Ivanov and Shvets as the only serious contenders for the throne.”

“That may be Shvets’s long-term goal, but I mean now. Today. What does he hope to get out of this?”

“To protect the goose that lays the golden egg.”

“Oil?”

“Oil prices. They’re already low, and everyone is worried about the West reembracing nuclear power. Shvets wants to stop this movement dead in its tracks. One accident is all it will take. The West will never build another nuclear plant.”

“Another Chernobyl?”

“If you’re lucky,” said Kempa. “If you’re not, something worse. Far worse.”

“You’re a barrel of good news, aren’t you?” said Graves.

“No one ever came to a Russian for good news.” Kempa gave a world-weary shrug before beckoning Graves closer. “If I were you, I’d look at how they might get in. To cause an accident, it will be necessary to physically penetrate one of the plants.”

“You mean slip an operative inside?”

“Precisely.”

“But the entire point of attacking Ivanov’s motorcade was to find a way to steal the override codes.”

Kempa scoffed at the suggestion. “The codes can do nothing, especially if the plants are on alert. Even if Shvets could manipulate the reactor controls, it would take an hour to create an accident. The control room would light up like a Christmas tree. There would be plenty of time to take back control of the commands.”

“What are you suggesting?” asked Graves.

“If it were me, I’d take a shorter route. I’d use a bomb. It’s cleaner that way—everything’s tied off. When the plant goes up, no one’s going to be able to get close enough to look for twenty years, give or take.”

“But you can’t get high explosives anywhere near a plant. They’d pick up the signature a mile away.”

The Russian shook his head. He wasn’t buying. “There’s always a way.”

Graves knew he was right. There had yet to be a security system created that couldn’t be circumvented. Emma Ransom had skirted Russell’s system, then devised a method to get into 1 Victoria Street. That was two strikes right there. Graves made a note to check how nuclear plant personnel were vetted. If Kempa was correct, there had to have been something on the stolen laptops’ hard drives that made such surreptitious entry not only possible but undetectable.

“Now it’s your turn,” said Kempa. “Who blew the car bomb?”

“Her name is Emma Ransom. She used to be an operative for the Americans. A unit called Division.” Graves handed him the photographs of Emma Ransom standing on the corner of Victoria Street and Storey’s Gate. “She killed Russell, too. Know her?”

“Of course not.”

Graves couldn’t tell whether the Russian was lying or telling the truth. What he could tell was that the mention of Division had rattled him. “Russell believed the attack was due to take place within seven days. Don’t you know anything more?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t have had Chagall contact Russell,” answered Kempa heatedly. “Russell disappointed me. I’d heard that he had excellent contacts close to Shvets. I was mistaken.”

Graves smiled grimly. A Russian intelligence agent contacting an English civilian to spy on the Russian’s boss, no less than the chief of the FSB. Matters were simpler before the Iron Curtain fell. “What about Ivanov?” he asked. “It was no coincidence he was at the precise location when the bomb went off.”

“I’d have to agree. Shvets’s office monitors all diplomatic visits. He may even have had a hand in arranging it. He must have thought he could kill two birds with one stone.”

Graves ran a hand over his mouth. An attack against a nuclear plant in France. Activity in Paris. A team in place. He felt as if he had taken two small steps forward and one giant step back. He was tantalizingly close to learning the target, yet in actionable terms—and those were the only ones that mattered—he was hardly better off than he had been an hour ago. He thanked Kempa and asked that they keep channels open between them.

“Good luck, Colonel,” said the Russian. “Please hurry. And remember—it’s been six days since I contacted Russell.”

   Midnight.

The house on the Rue Saint-Martin was dark, except for a dim glow in an upstairs window. A nightlight, Emma guessed, in the children’s room. Crouched behind the stone wall that ran around Jean Grégoire’s house, she slid the balaclava over her face, taking time to adjust the eyes and mouth. Her knees ached.

She had held this position for an hour, keeping watch as the lights were extinguished one by one and Grégoire took a last walk around the garden, picking up a stray rake and righting his daughter’s bicycle before enjoying a cigarette on the back stoop. He was a compact man with narrow shoulders and the beginnings of a paunch. An unassuming man to look at, except for his posture, which was ramrod straight and hinted at a military background. She pegged him as a fighter and made a note to take him first. The air hummed with the sawing of crickets. Somewhere close by, a swift stream hurtled past. Despite this, she’d heard the rear door close quite clearly and even the lock as it fell into place. A moment later Grégoire had opened a side window to allow the night air to cool the old cottage.

Emma checked her watch. Forty minutes had passed since the last light had gone out. It was a guessing game now. Some people enjoyed their deepest slumber immediately after nodding off. Others took ages to fall asleep. She could go now or later. The risks were the same.

In a single fluid motion, she rose and bounded over the wall. There wasn’t a soul within a kilometer, but she ran to the house all the same and pressed her back against the wall. Training. A circuit of the cottage revealed no evidence of a security system. The back door was locked.

Instead of risking her steel picks, she circled to the open window. The sill was at shoulder height. Freeing the screen, she propped it against the rock slurry that belted the cottage and peered inside.

The ground floor appeared to be a large, uninterrupted room with groupings of furniture defining its spaces. Closest, there was a television and a couch and two chairs. To the right was a dining room set. The stairwell rose in the center of the room, blocking her view. She guessed the kitchen was behind it, accessed by the back door, through which Grégoire had retreated after his cigarette.

Emma held her breath, listening.

The house was silent.

Taking a breath, she boosted herself onto the sill and swung her legs inside. The floor was wooden, aged, and warped. She shifted her weight from her left foot to the right. The floorboards groaned. Pulling off her shoes, she laid them by the window. The secret was to move fast. Everything had to happen quickly. There was no time for hesitation. No room for second thoughts.

She crossed the living room and mounted the stairs two at a time, careful to rise on the balls of her feet. In her right hand she held the Taser. In the left, flexicuffs. Precut strips of duct tape were laid across her forearm; her work bag was strapped snugly against her back.

She reached the top of the stairs and kept moving. The ceiling was low, the corridor short and narrow. A door stood open on either side. She remembered that the nightlight had been on the east side of the home— the right-hand side of the corridor. Grégoire and his wife slept in the room to the left.

She poked her head around the doorframe. Grégoire was sound asleep on his back, snoring quietly, his mouth open wide. His wife lay on her side, separated from her husband by several inches. Emma walked to his side of the bed, placed the Taser against his bare chest, and fired the 10,000-volt charge. Grégoire bucked, then lay still. The scent of burned flesh soured the air. Before he’d settled, she’d slapped a strip of tape across his mouth. Her left hand pulled down the blankets. She dropped the Taser and with both hands grasped his limp arms in an effort to secure the flexicuffs. One arm was pinned behind his back. She struggled to lift him. Grégoire’s wife awoke and bolted upright in bed. Emma dropped his arms and reached for the Taser. The stun gun was not where she’d left it; she saw that she’d placed the duvet on top of it. The woman started to scream. Emma backhanded her across the mouth. Leaping onto the bed, she pinned Grégoire’s wife down and taped her mouth. The woman was wiry and fit. A mother’s fear amplified her strength. She shoved Emma violently, sending her sprawling onto the floor. Emma jumped to her feet, her vision blurred, her head throbbing. Grégoire’s wife was sliding out of bed, working to pull the tape from her mouth.

Kill her
.

Emma’s hand dived into her bag. Her fingers closed around the pistol as her thumb dropped the safety. She thought of the little girl and released the pistol. With a cat’s agility, she stretched out an arm and took hold of the woman’s hair. She gave a single brutal tug, and the woman crashed to the floor. Emma dropped to a knee and brought her elbow onto the bridge of the woman’s nose, immobilizing her.

Up again. Breathing hard now.

Emma found the Taser and rammed it against the woman’s shoulder. Grégoire’s wife shuddered, eyes rolling back into her head, saliva issuing from her mouth.

Panting, Emma stood, sweat streaming down her back. She looked at Grégoire. Thankfully, he remained unconscious. She went to his side of the bed and cuffed his wrists. More tape bound his ankles. She returned to Grégoire’s wife and bound her similarly.

In their room, the children continued to sleep. Emma stepped toward the boy, then halted. The nightlight fell upon his face, and she observed his long, graceful eyelashes, his unblemished cheeks. An angel’s hair, she thought, looking upon his blond locks. Three years old. He would forget.

Then she heard a sound emanating from the parents’ room. A grunt. The efforts of a man struggling to free himself. A split second later came a thud as Grégoire rolled off the bed and hit the floor.

Emma returned her attention to the boy. She moved quickly. Tape. Cuffs. She did not look at his terrified eyes.

The girl was awake. She sat up, staring at Emma. A vision from her worst dreams. A wraith in black. Tears fell from her eyes.

How old? Emma wondered. Six? Seven? Old enough to remember. Old enough never to forget. Emma wanted to say something, to tell her not to be afraid, that everything would be all right. It was a stupid thought.

Peeling off tape, she pressed it over the child’s mouth and cuffed her hands.

Then Emma left the room, closing the door behind her.

She walked into the parents’ bedroom and saw Grégoire struggling to his feet.

There was no time for mistakes.

Quietly she closed the bedroom door and reached for her pistol.

   Charles Graves returned to his office in a state of agitation. He slid behind his desk and rang his assistant. “Get me Delacroix in Paris,” he said, asking to be connected to his opposite number at the SDEC. “If he’s at home, wake him up. It’s an emergency.”

“Right away, sir.”

Graves put the phone down and loosened his tie. He felt uncomfortable, and not a little embarrassed at having to wake his colleague with so little information. He might as well shout that a tsunami was coming, but he didn’t know precisely where along the French coast.

There were over seventy nuclear installations in France. Kempa suspected that the attack might take place against one of the newer facilities. That lowered the number to ten—if he was correct. An evacuation order would cause panic. France would never shut down its power grid on the basis of a rumor. Pride, as well as pragmatism, would force the French to brazen it out.