The Oracle Code (8 page)

12

Kabul International Airport

Kabul, Afghanistan

February 13, 2013

Thomas Lourds deplaned in Kabul, made it through customs without a hitch, and started for baggage claim. He hadn’t made it twenty feet past the checkpoint when he spotted Layla standing next to the wall.

She looked a lot different in Afghanistan than she did when they were in London or Rome or New York. They’d arranged to meet in all those places when her work had taken her there and Lourds could get away.

In Afghanistan, Layla observed more of the customs. She wore a black-and-white-print
hijab
that covered her head and circled her neck. She honored the traditions, but she did so with her own flair at the same time. The loose-fitting
jelbab
, the outer cloak, offered no hint of the beautiful body that lay beneath it.

Lourds had seen her in a black evening dress, a bikini, and in the altogether. He didn’t care how she was dressed. She was lovely. For a moment, he just stood there—ignoring traffic—and drinking in the sight of her.

Then she glanced in his direction and saw him. She came across the floor to meet him, and he went to her. When he reached her, she turned and headed to baggage claim with him.

Not being able to hug her or kiss her bothered Lourds deeply, but he knew in Afghanistan, such actions could get her killed. Women still lived tightly regimented lives in the country, which was one of the missions Layla had undertaken to change.

But the change had to come gradually.

“Good evening, Thomas.”

Local time was eight thirty-seven.

“Good evening.” Lourds was used to the stiff, formal greeting. It was a learned behavior while they were in country.

“I trust your flight went well?”

“It did. Thank you.”

“I do wish you hadn’t come here unannounced.”

Lourds grinned ruefully at that. “Since you were waiting at the airport for me, I would hardly say my arrival was unannounced.”

“I talked to Tina.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I called your office. She answered. She seems like a delightful girl.”

“Young lady, actually. An adjunct at the university. She’s taking over my classes while I’m visiting you.”

“That’s very nice.”

“It was.”

“About the visit...”

“Yes?”

“I was unprepared for it.”

The flat statement didn’t hurt Lourds’s feelings. One of the things he most treasured about Layla was her ability to say exactly what was on her mind. “I’m sorry.”

“It is not you. It is me. I should have remembered Valentine’s Day and that you might be tempted to do something special.”

Lourds hadn’t even been able to send flowers because of the culture. Neither he nor Layla wanted to run the risk of some kind of retaliation for her behavior. Trying to manage the Islam rules was proving more difficult than he would have thought.

“You’re right, Valentine’s Day
is
tomorrow. I thought maybe we could get away. Maybe to Bucharest or to Istanbul. Either one of those places is less than five hours away by plane.”

“It is a very pleasant thought, but tomorrow is a Thursday. That is a workday for me, and I have booked it solid, I’m afraid. In fact, I had to work hard to get off in time to meet your plane here.”

The drive from Kandahar to Kabul was over three hundred miles. There were no available hotels in Kandahar, and large pockets of the city remained without electricity.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Nonsense. I care about you deeply. I didn’t want to leave you unattended and unwelcomed.”

“Well, I thank you for that. Perhaps we could have dinner tomorrow evening.”

Layla looked at him with sad, dark eyes. “I wish I could do so, but I have been booked into a fundraiser.”

Lourds refused to be crushed by the distressing news. “Perhaps I could crash the fundraiser.”

“I do not think that would be a wise idea. You would be a distraction.”

“Surely I’m more than a distraction.”

She smiled at him. “You are more than a distraction. And when I get you to your hotel, I’ll show you how distracting you can be.”

Lourds grinned. “We can skip baggage. I’ll have my luggage delivered.”

“I won’t hear of it. We’ll get your things.”

***

When they arrived at the Kabul Serena Hotel, twenty minutes from the airport, Lourds confirmed his reservation and accepted his room key. Layla stood apart from him and didn’t speak. They took the elevator up to the second floor, then slipped into his room.

Once inside, they didn’t waste time on words. He reached for her, and she was in his arms. He hadn’t seen her since Christmas, and for a moment, he just held her, feeling her warm body against his, smelling the shampoo that filtered through the
hijab
, and hearing her breathing in his ear.

Then the clothes came off, and Layla became his again.

***

Afterwards in bed, Lourds lay on his back and wondered at how being with her made him feel. There was a completeness that he had never experienced before and a calm that fell over him. He thought about the ring in his pants pocket, but he knew he didn’t want to have that discussion now. Having it on Valentine’s Day was apparently out of the question. With everything Layla had planned, he didn’t want to disrupt everything she was balancing.

She lay at his side with an arm across his chest, holding him tightly.

“I am sorry that I cannot be there for you on Valentine’s Day.” She spoke softly.

“It’ll be all right.”

“Yes, it will. I will have some time this weekend, I think.”

“Good.”

“Tina said you will be returning to the university next week?”

“That’s right.”

Layla sighed. “Timing is such a problem.”

“We knew that going into this. We’re both busy people. A relationship like this, you have to work at it.”

“I know. The fact that you’re willing to do so means a lot to me.”

Lourds kissed her tender lips. “You mean a lot to me.”

She smiled and snuggled against him. “As you do to me.” She yawned. “Excuse me. I have been really tired of late.”

“That long drive probably didn’t help.”

“No, and I have to make it again in the morning.”

“I could drive you. Let you sleep on the way back.”

“No. That would cause complications if we were seen. It would be better if you found something to do until we can be together again. I’m afraid I won’t be able to see you until the weekend.”

“All right.”

“I’m sorry, Thomas, that your Valentine’s Day is not going to be as perfect as you had planned.”

“It’s fine. It’ll be fine. I’m sure I can find something to do. I’m in a city that’s thousands of years old. I’m sure there’s some part of it I haven’t seen.”

“I do wish things were different, but they are not.”

“I understand.” Lourds did understand, but he didn’t like the situation either. Perhaps once they were married, things would be different. He looked forward to that. For a moment, he thought about getting the ring, showing it to her, and asking her to marry him right then and there.

But he didn’t. Instead, he felt her soft breath against his bare chest and knew that she was asleep. He closed his eyes and just held her.

13

Tverskaya Street

Moscow, Russia

Russian Federation

February 13, 2013

“You do not look like you are having a good time.”

Blearily, through a vodka-fueled haze, Colonel Sergay Linko stared at the young woman before him. She was beautiful in the way that young women always were when they took care of themselves. She exercised and kept her body fit, but her hair was too brunette, with a blue and white streak on the right side. The artificial green of her eyes told him she was wearing cosmetic contact lenses. She wore a dark red dress, almost the color of blood. She spoke English with a Russian accent. Evidently, she’d thought he was American.

She believed that because his suit was too good to be a Russian suit. In truth, he had gotten it from a black market dealer. The suit was dark, fashionable. Not like some of the colorful rags other men in the nightclub wore.

The crowd around them moved with the basso beat of the heavy metal rock music thundering through the speakers. Huge wallscreens showed snippets of video footage of the patrons. When the men and women saw themselves on the screens, they waved in triumph, like they had instantly become famous.

It was ludicrous. Linko only came to the bar to pick up women and to hate the New Russians even more than he already did.

“Are you shy?” The young woman smiled at him.

Linko knew he was an attractive man, but at thirty-six, he was almost twice her age. He was dark and virile, and he kept himself in tip-top shape with regular visits to the gym and to martial arts dojos. He was a soldier, but more than that, he was a survivor. He carried scars from Chechnya. He stood a little over six feet tall and was well built. He kept his black hair cut short and had a permanent five o’clock shadow that allowed him to look Middle Eastern when he needed to. As a colonel in the FSB, sometimes missions carried him into the satellite countries that had once been under Russian rule.

“No. I’m not shy.”

The woman came over to him and bit her lower lip. Perhaps she had seen this in an American movie and thought it was sexy. Perhaps she believed all American men loved women who bit their lower lips in such a way.

It was attractive, but Linko was no fool. The woman was here for a reason.

He had left enemies in Chechnya, and there were more in the Middle East and the satellite countries. People who knew him, who knew what he truly did under the cover of the FSB, feared him. He was a ghost, a man who could do the impossible, get into fortified places and kill those marked for death.

In the past eight years, he had slain forty-three targets. He kept count, and he remembered their faces, how they had been afraid and begged for their lives at the end.

Linko knew he’d gotten too good at the killing though. His superiors used him as a small, tactical nuclear device, but they were wary of him at the same time. It was regrettable because he had surely risen as far in rank as he could under the circumstances.

“That’s too bad.” The woman bit her lip again. “I like shy men.”

Scanning the crowd over the woman’s shoulder, Linko spotted the two men watching her. Both of them wore loose clothing and weren’t lost in the bar’s party atmosphere. They were working, hounds preparing to meet the fox.

Linko smiled. They were bearding no fox. They were on the trail of a true Russian bear.

“You have a nice smile. You should smile more often.” Boldly, she seized his glass and drank the rest of his vodka.

“Perhaps I will.”

“Come with me. I will put a smile on your face. I will teach you to love Moscow. You will come back again, even more excited than you were the first time.”

Linko gave a show of hesitation, but he knew he was going to go. The young woman and her friends were what he had been needing to break the restlessness that gripped him between missions. He was used to being in play, used to chasing or being chased. Downtime did not agree with him.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. When he checked the phone, the woman’s smile faltered a little. No doubt, she was thinking she was about to lose her prey. Nervously, she glanced back at the two men. She lacked professionalism, but the men did not appear to notice her. They were holding to their covers.

Linko’s estimation of them went up, and excitement climbed within him. He had thought they were merely street thugs. Evidently, they were more experienced than he’d thought. That was promising.

The caller ID on his phone showed NO DATA. That was curious because no one had this number.

He punched the button and held the phone to his face. “Yes.”

“Colonel Linko?”

“Yes.”

“This is Mikhail Nevsky.”

The world tilted crazily around Linko. In all his years with the FSB, a Russian president had never contacted him. He had acted on their orders several times, to be sure, but never direct contact.

Paranoia gripped him, and he at first believed he was being set up. But that was foolish. There was no reason to do such a thing.

“I trust you know who I am?”

“Yes. Of course.” Linko wasn’t certain if the president was joking or truly making certain that he knew who he was.

“I have a task I need you to perform. One that must be done quickly and quietly.”

“Of course.”

“I have made arrangements for you on a charter plane to Herat, Afghanistan. Once there, I want you to find a man named Boris Glukov. I will send you further instructions at that point.”

“When do I leave?”

“As soon as you can get to the airport.”

“I am on my way.”

“Do this right, Colonel, and that promotion you’ve been longing for will soon be yours.” The connection broke.

Linko put the phone back in his pocket.

The woman looked at him quizzically. “You’re smiling again. You have a beautiful smile. You have good news?”

“Possibly.”

“I thought you were going to be called away to business.”

“Not yet.”

“Good. That would have made me sad.” She put on a little pout to give him a preview of her sadness. “Would you like to go now?”

“Yes.”

The woman put her arm through Linko’s and guided him out of the bar onto Tverskaya Street. The two men at the bar waited an appropriate time before following. The fact that they weren’t overeager gave proof to their expertise.

***

Outside, cars whisked by. Neon lights spilled out over the street and reflected from the buildings. Snow fell in small flakes, dancing as it was caught in the wind. Dirty snow lined the streets, and only half a block away, a truck equipped with a plow blade ground along, keeping the thoroughfare clear.

The winter chill cut into Linko and made him draw his coat more tightly, but not too tight. The woman leaned into him as if for warmth, but he knew she was only anchoring him, controlling him.

She looked up at him. “Do you have a car?”

“No. I do not like rentals. I took a taxi.” Which was true enough. Having a car meant potential trouble when he needed to disappear quickly.

“It’s fine. I was going to suggest using my car anyway. I have a permit for my building.” With her arm in his, she guided him to the alley. “It is just at the other end of this. Be careful. The alley is always very dirty.”

“At least it blocks the wind.”

“Yes.”

The lights behind Linko gave him all the warning he needed. They penetrated deeply into the alley and revealed the refuse piled outside of buildings. The shadows of the two men fell in behind him. Their footsteps were very quiet, but Linko heard them all the same.

“Just a moment.” Linko stopped in the alley, far enough in now that the men had no choice but to reveal themselves. His coat was left unbuttoned, and his GSh-18 rode in shoulder leather.

“What is wrong?” The woman tensed then, and some preternatural instinct must have warned her that her confidence game was no longer working.

“I want to say hello to your friends.” Linko turned and the two men came at him at once.

There was no hesitation and no mistake about what they intended to do. They worked well as a team, one automatically going to the left and the other going to the right. Combat knives gleamed in their hands, revealing their intention to kill him quietly.

Linko shoved the woman away so she couldn’t interfere, then, instead of running from the men, he ran toward them. They were already too close to stop themselves, and he’d robbed them of any time to react.

The man on the left swung his blade at Linko’s head while the one on the right tried to plant his knife in Linko’s stomach. Linko dove between them, sliding under both blades, then catching himself on his hand and rolling forward so that he came at once to his feet. He reached under his coat as the men tried to turn around to once more face him. When he drew the pistol and pointed at them, they froze and put their hands up.

Calmly, Linko put his hand in his coat pocket and took out a suppressor. As he threaded it onto the barrel, the two men ran for the end of the alley. But Linko had guided them to a trap of his own. He knew where he had chosen to stop, and he knew that over fifty meters remained before they reached the alley’s mouth.

Almost detached, he shot both men in the back of the head. Motor functions gave way immediately. They stumbled and fell, then lay still.

Trembling, her mouth wide with fear, the woman stood against the alley wall. She took a breath, and Linko knew in the next moment she would scream.

Crossing over to her, he clapped a rough hand over her mouth and put the heated barrel of the pistol up under her jaw. He spoke in Russian. “Scream and I will blow your pretty little head off.”

The woman closed her eyes, and her breath whistled between his fingers.

“Do you understand?”

The woman nodded.

Gently, Linko took his hand away. “Good. I knew about your friends in the bar. A pretty little scheme you have, yes? Pretending to be attracted to American men, then leading them out into the alley where your friends can kill them.”

“They weren’t going to kill you. Only rob you.” Tears glittered in her eyes.

Linko stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. He knew she was lying. “Okay. That is too bad for them. But it doesn’t have to be so bad for you.”

“What do you want?”

“I want what you teased me with.” Linko turned her around to face the wall, then he lifted her coat and short skirt and tore her panties away. He was ready for her, and he took her roughly, listening to her squeal and cry out, but not too loudly. Her reaction made the moment even more exciting.

When he was finished, he put the pistol to the back of her head and squeezed the trigger. He put his clothing back together and headed for the street.

Once at the curb, he thought about the promotion President Nevsky had promised, and he felt very satisfied. He pulled his coat tighter and flagged down a passing taxi. He looked forward to getting out of Moscow. Afghanistan was never so cold as Russia at this time of year.