Parallax View (5 page)

This was bad. This
was worse than bad. This was a nightmare come to life.

“WHAT WAS THE ITEM
YOU DELIVERED TO YOUR CONTACT?”
the bald man screamed in Aleksander’s
face. Spittle sprayed out of the man’s mouth as if from a fire hose. A fat gob
of saliva splattered the side of Aleksander’s nose and dripped slowly into his
mouth.

Aleksander sobbed,
“I don’t know! Secretary Gorbachev gave me a sealed envelope. Inside was some
kind of document, I don’t know what. He forbade me to look at it.”

His tormentor
stepped back and looked at his comrade. He seemed genuinely shocked. “You
risked your life to deliver a document and . . . you
don’t even know what it
was?”

Aleksander hung
his head and shook it miserably. He would never see Tatiana or his children
again. He would never see the sun rise over the eastern edge of the Moscow skyline.
He was going to die here in this dirty, dark torture chamber at the hands of
two people he had never seen, two people who believed him a traitor to his
country. And there was nothing he could do about it.

A wrenching sob
shook his body and pain flared in his shin. “The envelope was sealed. I could
not have opened it even if I wanted to.”

His two captors
laughed as though he had said something funny. Then his interrogator switched
gears. “Your contact, he was a German, was he not?”

“Yes, that is what
Secretary Gorbachev told me, and I don’t know why he would lie about it.”

The two men
grunted and his interrogator spit on the floor. “Yes, why would he lie?” the
bald man said. “He is destroying his ancestral homeland, the land Russians have
spilled blood to protect for generations, but surely he would not
lie.

“Now, getting back
to the document the traitor Gorbachev asked you to pass along to this German,
what was it?”

“I already told
you, I don’t know.”

The man waved his
hand like he was brushing a fly away from his face. “Don’t take me for a fool,
please, Comrade. There is no one alive who would not look inside the envelope
the first chance he got.
What was it?”

Aleksander raised
his head and looked at the man beseechingly, but said nothing. What could he
say? It was clear another denial would be ignored.

And then, out of
nowhere, inspiration. His contact! “If you were watching me, you must have been
watching my contact, too,” he said, speaking quickly, enthusiastically. “If you
can find him, you can take the envelope away from him and see for yourselves
what it contains.”

“Thank you for
your very helpful advice,” his tormentor replied with exaggerated politeness.
“Your German collaborator claims to know nothing as well, and he passed the
envelope off before we were able to intercept him.” The man shook his head in
disgust and spit again on the floor. “We are getting nowhere and time is
passing quickly.”

He smiled at
Aleksander, his lips a thin bloodless slash. “I would like to say I am sorry
for what is to come next, but, alas, I cannot. I have little patience for
traitors, but would have gladly ended you quickly had you only given me the
information I require. Now, I am afraid you are in for a rather unpleasant
little while. I can’t be more specific because, you see, I don’t know how long
it will take you to die. One can never predict these things, but the time will
probably seem much longer to you than it actually is.”

The other man
walked away and began dragging equipment across the concrete floor, placing it
next to Aleksander’s chair. He didn’t seem sorry, either. He whistled a
tuneless ditty as he expertly clamped a set of booster cables to a series of
automobile batteries stacked atop a wooden pallet on wheels. A cable ran from
the batteries to a small box fitted with dials, switches and a couple of grimy
meters. To Aleksander the box resembled the transformer from the small electric
train set he and Tatiana had given his son, Aleksander Junior, for his fourth
birthday last year. It had taken months to save up enough money to buy the toy,
but the look on his son’s face when he opened his gift had been worth every bit
of sacrifice.

Tears spilled down
Aleksander’s cheek at the memory and mixed with the spittle drying on his face.
The quiet man continued working and whistling. Two cables extended from one
side of the transformer-like box, snaking across the floor, terminating at
Aleksander’s shackled feet. At the end of each of the cables was a shiny copper
connector, spring-loaded and fitted with sharp teeth. A feeling of dread wormed
its way through Aleksander’s gut and he no longer suspected he was going to
throw up again, he knew it.

The quiet man
unbuckled Aleksander’s belt and pulled it completely free of his trousers. He
unsnapped the pants and unzipped the fly and motioned impatiently for
Aleksander to lift his ass off the seat. Numbly, Aleksander did as he was
instructed, and the man yanked his trousers and underwear down to his ankles.

Aleksander puked,
barfing up the acidy-tasting remnants of the East German vodka, not caring this
time that it splattered all over the quiet man. He began babbling, begging for
his life.

The quiet man
continued, unaffected. He attached the copper ends of the two cables to
Aleksander’s bare scrotum, tugging lightly on each one to ensure it was
fastened securely. Then he walked behind Aleksander’s chair, returning seconds
later with a bucket of foul-looking water. He splashed some on Aleksander and
on the cables.

He looked at
Aleksander, his eyes hard and remorseless. “Goodbye, Comrade,” he said. They
were the first and last words Aleksander ever heard him say. Then he walked to
the small table on wheels upon which the transformer-like box was placed, and
he flipped a switch. Then he turned a dial. Then Aleksander’s situation changed
for the worse.

It took a long
time for him to die.

9

May 30, 1987

12:15 a.m.

Ramstein Air Force Base, West
Germany

“Hello?”

“Is this
Mitchell?”

“Who wants to
know?”

“Kopalev.”

“Yes, it’s
Mitchell.”

“You are alone,
yes? You can speak freely?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Because we
have an assignment for you. An item has been taken out of Russia through the
GDR and is being flown to the United States from your air base.”

“So? Stuff flies
out of here to the States all the time.”

“Not ‘stuff’ like
this. It is critical this item not reach its intended destination. You will
ensure that it does not.”

“What is the
item?”

“An envelope
addressed to your President Reagan. We believe the envelope contains a
handwritten letter from Mikhail Gorbachev betraying his country.”

“I’m supposed to
intercept a letter? In one small envelope? I don’t know anything about mail
delivery. It’s not possible.”

“It
is
possible, Major. And it will be done. We have been paying you good money for
many years and you have provided little return on our investment. Now it is
time for you to earn those tens of thousands of American dollars we have
deposited into your bank account.”

“But…how?”

“This item is far
too valuable to be left unguarded. It will be placed on the first available
military flight leaving Ramstein and will be carried personally by a member of
your CIA. We believe that representative will be a young woman, red-haired and
beautiful.”

“A beautiful,
red-haired CIA spook?”

“That is correct.
We have two witnesses who saw such a young woman execute one of our men in cold
blood. We are certain she is in possession of the item. The airplane she boards
for the United States is the airplane the envelope will be on. You will ensure
that plane never arrives at its destination.”

“Crash a U.S Air
Force jet? Are you out of your mind? Why can’t I just steal the letter and
deliver it to you through a contact?”

“You propose
stealing a Top-Secret document from a CIA professional? It would never happen.
You would be dead before you got within three feet of her.”

“But if I can?”

“You do not
understand. This item could conceivably change the entire balance of world
power. It is imperative it be destroyed. We cannot risk you being caught trying
to steal it. You will crash the airplane and thus destroy the letter. Those are
your orders. They will be followed. Period.”

I already told
you, it’s impossible. It can’t be done!”

“You will find a
way, Major.”

“You’re a fucking
crackpot. Forget it. I’m out. Find someone else to do your dirty work.”

“Major, you will
never guess the report I received today.”

“Report? What are
you talking about?”

“One of our
operatives followed Roberta as she drove little Sarah to dance class this
afternoon. He tells me, Major, that your young daughter is getting quite
beautiful. Growing like a weed, as you Americans like to say.”

“He what? Roberta
and Sarah? Listen here, you psychotic bastard, you leave my family out of this,
do you understand?”

“The roads, Major,
they are so dangerous in your country. Automobile accidents are a daily occurrence,
often fiery crashes where the victims, sometimes mothers with their young
children in the back seat, they crash their cars and burn to death in the fiery
aftermath. They may survive the initial accident but then literally cook to
death inside the burning vehicle. So sad, Major. So painful for the victims. So
avoidable.”

Silence.

“Are you still
with me, Major? Are you paying attention?”

“I’m here, you
sick son of a bitch.”

“Good. You will
ensure the airplane carrying the item of which we spoke never reaches your
country. If you do not accomplish this assignment, well, let us just say I hope
you have many photographs of your beautiful little family to keep their memory
alive. Do not think about alerting the authorities, either. We
will
get
to your wife and child if you do. Please believe that. Do you believe that,
Major?”

Silence.

“Do you believe
that, Major?”

“Yes. I believe
that.”

“Then get going.
You have a lot of work to do and very little time. The item is either already
on the base or will be soon. It won’t be long before the plane carrying it will
be lifting off, likely with the CIA operative as the sole passenger.”

“God damn you.”

“Oh, and Major?
One more thing.”

“What?”

“Good luck. And
goodbye.”

10

May 30, 1987

2:35 p.m.

Ramstein Air Base, West Germany

The back of the envelope was
sweat-stained to a murky off-brown from being plastered to Tracie’s skin in the
stifling heat of the East German dance club. The front, where was scrawled,
“President Ronald Reagan,” by Mikhail Gorbachev, if her handler was to be
believed—and Tracie believed him—remained undisturbed. 

After fighting her
way out of the dance club, Tracie had snuck out of East Berlin uneventfully—it
was never a problem if you had the right contacts—and driven as fast as she
dared back to Ramstein Air Base in West Germany in a waiting CIA-supplied
automobile. By the time she arrived at Ramstein it was approaching six a.m.,
and she crashed, exhausted, in an empty apartment maintained just off the base
by the CIA. After just a few short hours of sleep, she was awakened by
telephone and advised her flight to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland would be
departing at eleven p.m.

Tracie showered
and dressed, reveling in the luxury of a little time to herself and the added
bonus of an unlimited hot water supply. In many of the locations she had worked
as a CIA field operative there had been no water at all, much less
hot
water.

During her shower,
Tracie placed Gorbachev’s envelope atop the ceramic toilet tank, less than four
feet from where she stood soaping and rinsing. Her assignment had been to
retrieve the letter, spirit it out of East Germany, and then accompany it to
Washington, never allowing it out of her sight until its delivery to the
President, and that was what she intended to do.

She had slept with
the letter hugged to her chest, cradling it like a tiny baby. She slept
fitfully, but then she always slept fitfully, awakened by the slightest hint of
a sound, a disruption in the room’s air currents, a barely perceptible noise
outside her window. Her supersensitive perception, even while asleep, had kept
her alive in some of the most dangerous locations in the world.

Tracie had
performed missions in Asian and Middle Eastern countries where being female
meant you had no rights, possessed no intrinsic value other than what the men
around you were willing to bestow upon you. You could disappear without warning
at any time and for any reason, and no one would ever question why.

The United States
government would be no help, either, as her missions were almost always off the
books and so highly sensitive that if she was captured, rather than fighting or
negotiating for her release, the government would deny her very presence in the
country, all the way up the official channels.

This was the life
of a CIA Directorate of Operations agent. It was Tracie Tanner’s life, and a
career she had never once regretted undertaking. It was a solitary, often
lonely life, but as the daughter of a four-star U.S. Army general and a career
State Department diplomat, Tracie had been groomed for it. After graduating
Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, with a degree in linguistics,
Tracie had been recruited into the ranks of the CIA. She had trained for three
grueling years, initially at The Farm and then in the field, under a crusty old
badass veteran of a quarter-century of covert operations whose real name she
still did not know. Then she began working solo missions under her mentor and
direct supervisor at CIA, Winston Andrews. Despite her inability to share even
the broadest of details about her career with her parents, she knew they were
proud of her decision to devote her life to the cause of freedom and service to
her country.