Authors: Dale Brown
Northwestern Moldova
T
he pain swirled around Nuri’s head. He felt as if he was flying through a wind tunnel, spinning around at the center of a cyclone.
Then he landed, crumpling into a pile in the corner of a dark room.
Something hit his chest, then his leg, then his chest again. It was diffuse, a cloud of weighted pain falling on him, like snowballs or rain.
Or shovelfuls of dirt.
Something hit his face. A rock.
Another shovelful on his legs.
Nuri couldn’t move. He tried to open his eyes, but all he could see was black.
Outside Prague
“I
t is 12:05. You are five minutes late. Why are you late?”
The plainclothes security guard turned his eyes toward the carpet. Like the sergeant, he was Polish, a member of the state security force assigned to escort the Polish delegation to the air show.
“Who is your superior?” demanded the sergeant.
“Captain Klose.”
“Klose is an idiot. Take your position next to Stefan. Don’t move for the next four hours—not even to relieve yourself.”
The guard took his position opposite the other guard next to the hotel room door. The Polish air ministry had taken much of the hotel, including the entire top floor, where all eight rooms were reserved for the Polish air minister and his guests. This was a bit excessive; besides the minister’s suite, none of the other rooms were occupied. Two would be used for a reception later that night, and the others were available in case the minister decided to invite guests to stay.
But the security people weren’t in a position to complain about the minister’s spendthrift ways. Their rooms, scattered throughout the hotel, were hardly austere, and came fully stocked with alcohol and sweets.
They were also booked one to a room, a boon to the man who had just come on duty.
“What are you looking at?” demanded the sergeant, turning to the second man manning watch.
“Nothing, Sergeant.”
“The men from Warsaw think they are better than the Krakow detail, is that it?” The sergeant turned back to the man who had just arrived. “And you are Exhibit A of this.”
“I am sorry I am late.”
“You don’t know me, but you will,” continued the sergeant. “The minister is not to be disturbed. You will be relieved in four hours. Neither of you is to go anywhere. No one is to be admitted on the floor without the minister’s approval. A woman . . .”
The sergeant paused, deciding how to phrase what he was about to say. He looked at the guard from Warsaw.
“The minister may have guests,” he said finally. “Treat them professionally. Be—judicious.”
“Of course,” said the man.
“You will report to me at 0900 hours.” The sergeant pointed at the guard who had been late. “We will discuss the importance of promptness, and your future in the security forces.”
The guard glared at him, but said nothing. The sergeant shook his head, then stalked off.
“Five minutes, what a jerk,” said the guard who had been on time. “As if it would make a difference. You think he has a girl waiting?”
The other guard said nothing, adjusting his jacket above his bulletproof vest. He started to hitch his pants, then turned away out of modesty.
“You’re from Krakow. That’s the real problem. The sergeant hates everyone from outside Warsaw. The whole idea of drawing people from across the country, as if this were some sort of lark—”
The guard stopped speaking in mid-sentence and slumped to the floor, killed by a single shot to the brain from the silenced .22 in the Black Wolf’s hand.
The Black Wolf reached down and took the man by the shoulder, propping him against the wall. Then he slipped a passkey into the door of the hotel room, and let himself inside.
Kiev, Ukraine
D
anny was almost to the door when Hera stopped him. She had her MY-PID control unit in her hand.
“Nuri isn’t answering,” she said.
“Probably sleeping,” Danny told her.
“No—he’s at the farm. And look at his vitals—his heart’s pumping.”
Nuri’s pulse, recorded by his bracelet, was at 140.
“Something’s wrong,” said Hera.
“The deputy interior minister in charge of the state police who worked with us on that raid,” said Danny, reaching for his sat phone. “We need to talk to him right away. MY-PID should have the contact information somewhere. Get it quick.”
Northwestern Moldova
T
he weight on Nuri’s chest and arms was incredible. He pushed his head to his right, and at the same time scratched through the dirt with his right hand, trying to reach his nose and mouth. He got there finally, cupping a little space over it.
The bastards!
Buried alive!
Out!
He struggled, but the more he struggled, the more dirt seemed to fall. He tried to wiggle to the right. Dirt fell on him there. Left—more dirt.
He wasn’t too deep. He could dig himself out. He could.
His lungs were starting to feel tight, compressed. Nuri pushed his hand over his mouth, making a little pocket for air.
He should wait for them to go away. Wait.
For what? Death?
He was down five feet. Dig, for Christsake!
Nuri tried pulling his left arm up, pushing through the weight that kept it pinned by his side. He pushed hard, but it wouldn’t budge. Then he tried a softer approach, moving it as if it were a snake.
Or a worm. He was a worm. He had to think of himself as a worm, squeezing through the ground, getting out.
A worm.
Is this where he was going to die? In the middle of nowhere in a small country where people wouldn’t even be able to pronounce his name?
I have to get out now. Now!
He curled the fingers on his left hand into a claw and began pushing at the dirt. It seemed to give way slowly.
But it was too slow. He was starting to choke.
Everything! I need everything!
Nuri pulled his other arm up and began to push. He curled his upper lip over his lower lip and tried breathing through his mouth. There was dirt in his teeth. He tasted rot.
Nuri pushed.
Out! Out!
The ground seemed to give way. He moved his elbows toward his ribs, then levered them back against the ground beneath him.
Out! Out!
He couldn’t breathe. He was choking—it felt as if his lungs were full of dirt.
Out! Out!
He pushed with everything he had. And suddenly he felt air on his face.
People were yelling in the distance, calling his name. The two men who had buried him were gone.
Nuri pushed himself to his knees. He was still half buried, covered with dirt. He reached his hand into his pocket and found the MY-PID unit.
“I need the words for ‘seal off the area,’ ” he told the computer. “I need the words for ‘not one motherfucker leaves.’ ”
CIA Headquarters, Virginia
J
onathon Reid frowned as he scrolled through the list of intercepts. There were several screens full—more than a hundred messages.
The sheer number alone was significant. Add to that the fact that they came from military units spread around the country, and the conclusion was inescapable: the Ukraine army was about to revolt.
But Reid smelled a rat.
He moused over to the folders with the latest satellite images. There were unmistakable signs that two of the units in the eastern part of the country were mobilizing. And there were no corresponding orders indicating that they should do so.
Concrete evidence of a coup, especially when coupled with the intercepts.
Still—a coup with the NATO ministers about to descend on Kiev? How very convenient for the Russians.
“Mr. Reid, the director is waiting.”
Reid looked up at his assistant, Mark Dalton. Dalton, a field officer who had been rotated back home following an injury in South Asia, wore an exasperated expression—pretty much the one Reid always saw.
“I’m just reviewing the data he’s going to be interested in,” said Reid. He cleared his screen and got up from his desk.
“You don’t think it’s a coup?” asked Dalton. He’d come on duty at 6:00
A.M.
; he’d been working for more than twelve hours and was very likely to be here for several more.
“I think someone wants us to think it is, yes,” answered Reid.
“But you don’t.”
“It looks so much like a coup it could come out of a textbook,” Reid answered. “And real life very rarely resembles what goes on in the classroom.”
R
eid made the same argument upstairs in the director’s conference room twenty minutes later, this time in front of a packed house of CIA officials, including Herman Edmund, the Agency chief. Several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their aides were watching via video from the secure center at the Pentagon, and an equal number of NSC people were over in the White House situation room. Reid, speaking after the Agency’s in-house experts of Ukraine had made a case for the coup, patiently dissected the intercepts.
“What you’re saying is that it’s too perfect,” objected Stephen McGovern, the Agency’s ranking analyst for Eastern Europe. “That’s really a difficult argument, Jonathon. What would be the point?”
“The point would be to disrupt the NATO meeting. Showing that the country is unstable. Without, of course, having to go to the trouble of actually encouraging a coup.”
“It’s a
lot
of trouble,” said McGovern.
“Not very difficult to do,” said Reid. “The Russians break into the network and send a lot of messages. They get two divisions to move their units around. Bribe the right officer, and these trucks will drive to Paris. It’s no secret how badly most of these troops are paid.”
“But what would the point be?” said Edmund. “That’s the real question. Let’s say that it is fake—we’ll know it in a few hours.”
“A few hours’ indecision may be all it takes,” said Reid. “But we may only be seeing the opening act. There may be more. It may end up looking as if a coup was planned, and then aborted for some reason. And it’s not just us—every Western intelligence agency is seeing these intercepts. Even the French have them.”
“Well, that
is
an indictment,” said Edmund.
Everyone laughed.
The meeting proceeded quickly to the conclusion favored by the analysts: a coup might be under way in the Ukraine within a few hours. Reid succeeded only in getting them to emphasize the word “might” and add a few caveats to their alert. Given the tendency of the analysts to stay away from any definitive statement that might come back to haunt them, it wasn’t much of a victory.
Director Edmund stopped him at the door as he was leaving.
“If you have a moment, Jonathon.”
“Always for you, sir.” Reid stepped back as the others filed out.
“Whiplash was successful?” Edmund asked when they were alone.
“The action in Moldova eliminated everyone at the farm,” said Reid. “There were about a half-dozen people, Russians we think, and they all appear to have been associated with the Wolves.”
“Is it possible these intercepts were related to what they had planned?” said Edmund. The operation against the Wolves was still so secret that neither Reid nor Edmund had shared it with the others.
“I didn’t bring it up because the timing of this activity seemed wrong,” said Reid. “If there were a direct link, then we wouldn’t expect these messages until at least the day after tomorrow when the NATO ministers gather.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Edmund.
“Unless there’s something we’re missing.” Reid smiled. “It’s too pat. It seems so obvious I wouldn’t even give it to a junior officer as an exercise.”
“You do like complications,” said the director.
“A character flaw, I’m afraid. Hopefully, not fatal.”
Outside Prague
T
he Black Wolf examined his face in the mirror. He didn’t look all that much like the dead man on the bed inside, but that wasn’t necessary—the people he had to fool wouldn’t be looking all that hard at him. All he had to do was look enough like the dead man that they wouldn’t bother with a second look until it was too late. Far too late.
Toward that end, he sprayed a little more gray into the side of his hair, dappling it with his fingers for a salt and pepper look.
Distinguished.
There was a knock on the outer door. The Black Wolf took his pistol from the counter and went to it.
“Yes,” he said, still speaking Polish.
“Wolf,” said the voice outside softly. He was speaking English.
“Black Wolf.”
“We are ready.”
The Black Wolf opened the door. Two of his assistants on the job—men he had not met until now—stood in the hallway. They were dressed in brown and gray suits, looking very much like the men he had killed earlier.
“Watches,” said the Black Wolf, holding his out.
They held out their arms and made sure their watches all had the same time. It was exactly 0432 local.
“We must be downstairs in exactly twenty-one minutes,” the Black Wolf told them. “It will take the car five minutes to arrive, and another ten for us to reach the Old State Castle. The others will meet us there. Are we ready?”
The men nodded.
“Let us proceed.”