Arctic Gold (24 page)

No. But you will

need to pack cold- weather gear, I promise you.

This did not sound particularly promising to Dean, but he nodded and said, Right.

You, Rubens continued, will be hitching a ride on a submarine in two days.

The NOAA base in the Arctic, then?

Yes. And the Russian base near there as well, if necessary. We want Braslov, Mr. Dean. And even more, we want the Americans being held up there released two in particular, a congressman daughter and an NSA technician.

Leave no one behind, Dean said. I understand.

Spoken like a true Marine.

Ooh- rah. He recited the battle cry without emotion.

He’d always hated the cold.

Deep Black 7 - Arctic Gold

14

Kotenko Dacha

Sochi, Russia

1510 hours, GMT + 3

GRIGOR KOTENKO WATCHED impassively as the man walked into the room, stopped, spread his arms, and stood motionless, waiting. Antonov had been through this many times before, and he knew the routine. Andre, a man- mountain as heavily padded as a Japanese sumo wrestler, emerged from the far corner to check him for wires or hidden weapons. Yuri Antonov had been with the Organizatsiya for fifteen years, but since Victor Mikhaylov sudden and untimely death last week, Kotenko was taking no chances. No

one entered his presence without a thorough search, even after the metal detectors and X- ray scanners downstairs.

It wasn’t Mikhaylov unknown killers Kotenko feared so much, and it certainly wasn’t the police, most of whom belonged to him. The majority of his security efforts were actually directed against other Russian Mafiya groups, the circling sharks, as he thought of them. The events at the waterfront in St. Petersburg last week had both wounded the local arm of Tambov and reflected the toothsome possibility of weakness. In such a starkly competitive environment

as modern Russia, the other gangs could turn on Kotenko organization like sharks in a feeding frenzy, maddened by bloodlust.

Within the shadows of the Russian underworld, the wounded, the weak, the indecisive were shown no mercy.

Mr. Antonov, Kotenko said as Andre straightened up and gave the signal indicating that the visitor was clean. So good to see you again. What is it you have for me?

Something most interesting, Mr. Kotenko. Ah, one of your people took it from me downstairs.

Antonov was a small, nervous individual with a goatee and a receding hairline that gave him a passing resemblance to Vladimir Lenin. He did not, Kotenko knew, have Lenin strength of purpose, or his sheer force of will. Antonov did, however, know how to follow orders.

Yes, yes, Kotenko said. Security, you understand?

Dmitry, one of Kotenko personal assistants, walked in carrying a capacious metal toolbox. Antonov had brought it with him from St. Petersburg, surrendering it to Kotenko trusted people outside for a careful search.

This is the box? Kotenko asked.

Yes, sir. We found it close to where one of the assassins was hiding. We believe he forgot it as he fled the scene.

Carefully Kotenko took the toolbox and began removing its contents. There wasn’t much a length of climbing rope tightly bundled and tied; some devices obviously designed to slip over a person boots or hands with protruding spikes to help him or her climb walls or telephone poles; some cinches, straps, and buckles that likely were rappelling gear; five thirty- round magazines manufactured by Heckler & Koch, loaded with 9mm ammunition. Of more interest was a set of low- light binoculars with a single light- gathering tube, obviously of military manufacture.

And a communications terminal complete with folded satellite antenna, battery, and encryption box.

Have our people in St. Petersburg looked at these? Kotenko asked, examining the binoculars. They might be worth fifteen thousand rubles on the open market. They were certainly much better than anything in the Russian military inventory.

Yes, sir, Antonov said as Kotenko set aside the binoculars and began looking at the satcom gear. They say it is obviously CIA issue. The communications equipment is something called an AN/PSC-12 com terminal, I’m told. Our friends in China might be quite interested in purchasing it.

Indeed. Kotenko picked up the encryption device, a black box the size of a pack of cigarettes. He knew little about the technologyone employed others to do the knowing with complicated gadgets like thisbut he did understand the price of technology. The satellite terminal itself might be worth some hundreds of thousands of rubles to governments that might from time to time find themselves the target of American intelligenceChina, yes, but also Iran, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea, Venezuela oh, the list of America enemies was quite

long.

But the true treasure here was this small and seemingly innocuous black box. There would be codes stored within the computer chips inside, codes that would allow the owner of the box to turn it on its makers and listen in on their

secret communications.

And that bit of technology was almost beyond price.

Almost. Grigor Kotenko made his very comfortable living by acquiring priceless items, putting a price on them, and finding people able and willing to pay. Normally, these days, he trafficked in corporations and in the future of Russian oil and gas production, but he traded in military hardware as well.

There was also a danger, however. He examined the case of the device closely, searching for any words, logos, or imprints at all. He didn’t expect to find them.

Dmitry!

Yes, sir!

This device has been screened for radio emissions?

Yes, sir. There are no transmissions. Everything in the tool kit, and the case itself, is dead.

Devices such as this frequently included global positioning trackers and transmitters. Its manufacturers might also have placed very tiny listening devices or other intelligence- gathering sensors inside the case, and there was always the possibility that the tool kit had been deliberately

abandoned at the warehouse, in order to lead its owners straight to him. In the world of espionage, nothing was ever quite what it seemed.

So long as it was not actively transmitting to the Americans, it was probably safe, however.

Probably

He set the device back inside the tool kit along with the other items he’d removed, closed it, and signaled to Dmitry.

Put this in the safe.

Yes, sir.

Kotenko safe was a heavy walk- in downstairs, with walls three inches thick. If the device did

start transmitting, the signals could not possibly penetrate those walls.

They checked the box and everything in it for RF transmissions in St. Petersburg, sir, Antonov said as Dmitry walked out of the room with the tool kit. The devices all are inert.

I don’t pretend to know how these devices work, Mr. Antonov, Kotenko said. Turning, he walked toward the large double doors leading out onto the western deck. But I do know there are devices called transponders that will patiently wait to send out a signal, but which do so only when they receive

a signal. Until then, the device could well be, as you say, inert.

He pushed open the doors and walked outside, with Antonov and the ever- watchful Andre following behind. It was mid- afternoon, and the westering sun glared from the broad expanse of the Black Sea. Laughter, male and female, sounded from somewhere nearby.

Kotenko walked to the railing. The back deck overlooked his large pool two stories below, where six of his girls were entertaining two senior officers of Gazprom and a member of the Duma, all of whom had been invited to the Sochi dacha for a working weekend.

At the moment, it appeared to be most enjoyable work. Swimsuits had been discarded some time ago, and shrill feminine laughter chimed from the patio. Expressionless servants silently came and went with bottles of vodka, the vital lubricant of all Russian business meetings.

In any case, Kotenko continued, watching the pleasant scene below from the railing, I intend to take no chances. I suspect that the communications equipment is from the American NSA possibly on loan to the CIA, but not necessarily.

The NSA? Antonov asked. What is that?

An even larger, more secretive, and more powerful American spy agency than the CIA. The fact that many people have never even heard the name proves how good they are. Did our people carefully check the St. Petersburg shipment for tracking devices planted by the intruders?

Yes, sir. Every square centimeter!

And it was clean?

Some slight radioactivity, but no radio signals of any sort.

Hmm. Kotenko chewed for a moment on one end of

his bushy mustache, thinking hard. Those intruders on the waterfront, he said after a moment, were American. The equipment they carried proved that. If the break- in at the warehouse had been engineered by one of the rival gangs of the Organizatsiya, they would have been using Russian, German, or Japanese devices or less highly advanced American equipment, the sort of stuff in current use by the American military. That might include the light- intensification binocularshe was pretty sure that such devices were in common use by American Special Forces like the SEALs and the Army Rangersbut the satellite communications equipment was not in widespread use, he was certain. Not yet.

CIA? Or NSA?

The CIA was the organization most likely to carry out covert operationsblack ops he thought was the American termin foreign countries. The NSA primarily handled electronic eavesdropping, employing a variety of listening devices both on the ground, in aircraft, and in spy satellites. Still, there were persistent rumors that the NSA also ran covert operations like their CIA brothers.

In the long run it didn’t matter which organization was behind the operation. He did want

to know, however, if only because Grigor Kotenko liked to know exactly who his opponents were. Knowing your enemy, knowing who he was and how he thought and what his strengths and weaknesses were, all was a long part of the path to victory.

The CIA and their operating methods were well known to people in the Organizatsiya like Sergei Braslov, who’d once been GRU, Russian military intelligence. Some of their successes were known, but so, too, were many of their failures.

The public knew very little about the NSA, however, and that spoke volumes for their efficiency, as well as for

their potential deadliness in the arena of international espionage. A successful spy mission was the one of which no one ever heard.

Kotenko survived because he took no chances. He prospered because he could see angles other people could not and he had the muscle to take advantage of that.

In fact, Kotenko had believed for some time that the NSA was trying to get a line on him for intelligence purposes, and the St. Petersburg affair had been arranged to give him the upper hand. He’d recruited a low- level enforcer in his organizationAlekseevto approach an employee at the American consulate in St. Petersburg with information on the beryllium shipment to Iran, and then he’d carefully orchestrated the trap at the waterfront warehouse.

That ambush should

have netted a couple of American agents for deep interrogation. Some of the people working for Kotenko had learned the fine art of interrogation with the KGB, in the basement of the infamous Lubyanka Prison in Moscow during the Soviet era. They enjoyed their work and were quite good at what they did. The information they extracted from prisoners could be most valuable.

And afterward, if there was anything left, the prisoners might prove to be profitable in other ways, either as insurance or for ransom.

But the ambush had misfired. There’d been at least two Americans, as Alekseev had promised, but they’d arrived at the warehouse separately and the men led by Mikhaylov, concentrating on Alekseev and the woman with him, had missed the second agent. That second agent had been able to help the woman escape from the trap but evidently he’d left behind the tool kit in the chaos of the firefight.

No matter. Kotenko thought he could still make a handsome profit from the affair.

The special Rybinsk shipment at St. Petersburg, he said after a moment thought. Is it safely away?

Yes, sir, Antonov told him. It left for Bandar Abbas two days ago, as scheduled.

Then it the Iranians’ problem now. Andre!

Yes, sir.

Alert the staff. We will be going to first- level security here at the dacha. We may be having visitors.

Immediately, sir.

He would also transmit further instructions to Braslov, though he would use Antonov to do so, using a onetime satellite phone, and from a location far removed from the dacha, just to be sure. The enemy might soon be taking an interest in Operation Cold War, as well as in his activities here in Sochi.

His opponents in this game, whether they were CIA or NSA, were not magical, whatever their reputations might be. They were good, very

good, but there were limits to their powers, and to what they were able to pull off with their technology. The Americans were feared, and justly so, for their technological prowess in the military arts, but technology could only take you so far.

In this game, you neededwhat was the American expression?boots on the ground, that was it. The Americans would need to put boots on the ground to get at Kotenko and his operation. When they tried it, he would cut them off at the ankles.

Meanwhile, he had work to do. The Duma representative from St. Petersburg and the Gazprom industrialists needed to be convinced that their best interests would be served by a closer alliance with Tambov and what Kotenko could offer them. At the moment, he saw, looking down from the deck, his girls were doing their very best to demonstrate one aspect of Kotenko generosity. His guests seemed to be enjoying their visit quite a lot at the moment.