The Good Spy (15 page)

With simple adjustments to the joystick, the ROV, nicknamed “
Little Mack
,” soared like an underwater eagle.

For over an hour, Laura maneuvered
Mack
in and around the wreck. She took care not to foul the trailing four hundred feet of yellow tether that supplied electrical power and transmitted signals to and from
Mack
. The monitor displayed color video images along with readouts of water depth, compass heading, and camera angle.

At 4:15
P.M
., Captain Miller reeled
Little Mack
aboard and the
Hercules
headed home. Before reaching the dock, Laura completed the funds transfer.

With
Little Mack
's former owner still at her side, Laura again considered her predicament: She told Yuri that she'd bring it back today. But how?

Laura glanced back at her BMW and then to the ROV and its appurtenances. No way would everything fit. And even if it could, what would happen at the border crossings?

Laura was just about to have the ROV shipped when a new idea hatched. “Captain, how much would you charge me to deliver
Little Mack
to Point Roberts?”

“I'd have to call UPS for a quote and we'd have to mark it up.”

“No, I mean like right now—on your boat.”

“You mean charter the
Herc
, to go to Point Roberts?”

“Yes, leave tonight and get there tomorrow morning.”

“Hmm, she's not scheduled for anything for a couple of weeks, but my deckhand is going elk hunting tomorrow. With such short notice, I'll have to call around for a replacement.”

“I'll pay double-time for a deckhand, if you get under way within the next hour.”

“Double-time, you say.”

“That's right plus your normal charter fee, all in cash if you like. So how much?”

“You'll pay the deckhand separate, so I don't have to put 'im on my books, and no receipts for the charter?”

“Fine, not a problem.”

“You pay for the diesel?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, let me see here . . .”

The transaction closed two minutes later when Laura doled out fifty bills, one hundred dollars each.

* * *

Nicolai Orlov sat in the Suburban for almost forty minutes before Elena and Yuri finally pulled alongside and stopped.

All three got out of the vehicles. They peered through the six-foot-high chain-link fencing that encircled the industrial waterfront site in North Vancouver. The yard lights provided enough illumination; the sun had set earlier. The two-acre yard contained several huge steel shipping containers, a portable office building, and an odd collection of heavy equipment. The equipment captured Yuri's interest.

“That's a deck decompression chamber right there,” he said, pointing at a twenty-foot-long by six-foot-diameter steel cylinder parked next to one of the shipping containers. Painted white with both ends capped with steel hemispherical covers, the tube looked like an oversized fuel tank.

“Are those air tanks?” asked Elena, gesturing at the bank of steel cylinders neatly racked next to the DDC.

“Mixed gases—helium and oxygen I expect.”

“Why helium?” Nick said.

“This rig is set up for saturation diving—deepwater work. Sat-divers use helium instead of nitrogen to counter the narcotic effect of breathing nitrogen under pressure.”

“Got it.” Nick had a rudimentary understanding of diving physics from a scuba course he had taken at a beach resort several years earlier.

“What about the bell?” Yuri asked. “We still need the diving bell.”

“They have one here someplace. They assured me of that.”

Yuri scanned the yard. “I don't see it.”

“Maybe it's in one of those shipping containers,” offered Elena.

Yuri's eyes narrowed. “Maybe.”

Nick checked his watch: 5:52
P.M
. “There's nothing more that we can do here until tomorrow morning. How about we head back to downtown for dinner and get you a hotel room?”

“I have to get back to Point Roberts.”

“But what about the equipment here? Don't you want to come back tomorrow to check it?”

“No, I must return tonight. I've seen enough so you can make the arrangements; I'll help you over the telephone.”

Nick scowled.

Elena said, “Yuri, for the next hour or so traffic's going to be just as miserable going back to Point Roberts as it was getting here. Let's all go to my apartment; we can have a glass of wine and relax for a while. Then I'll drive you back.”

“All right,” he conceded.

Yuri walked to Elena's Mercedes and opened the passenger door.

Elena stood on the opposite side of the sedan. She waited until Yuri climbed inside. She glanced toward Nick and winked. He flashed a smile and slipped into the Suburban.

CHAPTER 37

“W
hat do we do now?” asked Elena.

“Let him sleep.” Nick leaned back into the sofa and yawned. “I'm beat, too.”

The Russians relaxed in the living room of Elena's high-rise condominium apartment.

“What do we do when he wakes up?” Elena sat in a chair across the coffee table from Nick. She sipped wine.

“Reason with him. I think he'll come around—eventually.” He yawned again.

“I'm not sure about that. He's stubborn and incredibly loyal to his shipmates.”

Nick's eyelids flickered and closed. His head slumped to the side.

“Nicolai!” Elena called out.

No response.

She tried again—nothing. The three glasses of merlot had taken their toll.

Elena swallowed the last of her wine. She walked to the guest bedroom and cracked the door. Yuri Kirov remained on top of the bed fully clothed and snoring.

The sedative worked. She'd spiked his wine with the drug. He would sleep for at least eight hours; it had been a desperate measure.

The mandate handed down by the SVR chief had been explicit: Remove Kirov from Point Roberts—whatever it took. Elena and Nick had carried out their orders.

The deep-diving equipment had been nothing more than bait. Nick had solicited the basic information from the Canadian diving company over the phone. He learned enough to entice Yuri. There would be no meeting with the company in the morning. The diving bell Nick had promised currently operated from an oil exploration platform in the North Sea.

When Yuri eventually awakened from his chemically induced rest, he'd be livid that his compatriots had duped him.

Elena closed the bedroom door. As she walked back into the living room, she wondered what to do with Yuri. Two options came to mind. First, convince him to return to Russia to receive treatment for his injuries.

Should Yuri refuse to cooperate, the second option would come into play. If Nick balked, Elena would take care of it herself. But she fretted over another quandary: the American woman that Yuri had entrusted. How would Elena deal with her?

Elena toyed with driving to the Point and taking care of the loose end. But she dismissed it; that business could wait until tomorrow. She had something else on her mind.

Elena returned to the living room where she cozied up to Nick's inert form, stretched out on the sofa. She slipped a hand inside his trousers and whispered into an ear, “Come on, lover, time for fun.”

CHAPTER 38

D
AY
12—F
RIDAY

T
he two men rarely spoke directly to each other. Both were powerful in their own directorates; each considered the other a rival. This afternoon they had united in their common cause. The order came from the president himself.

The subject matter called for a face-to-face, yet neither budged, each demanding the other visit their respective office. The Military Counterintelligence Directorate occupied a floor in the mammoth headquarters of the FSB at Lubyanka Square. The SVR—foreign intelligence—had its own palace at Yaseenevo on the Moscow Ring Road.

They settled for the private club. Both had memberships—perks of their positions. There on the banks of the Moskva, they met in an elegantly appointed private room with a riverfront view. Their personal aides stood by outside the door. Undercover security forces occupied the lobby and patrolled the grounds. Just prior to meeting, the room was swept for listening devices.

Both men sipped tea. With the pleasantries concluded, it was time for business.

“What do you propose we do with this mess?” asked FSB Colonel General Ivan Golitsin. Pushing sixty with thinning blond hair, Golitsin wore an off-the-rack black business suit that did little for his portly physique.

The SVR chief tossed the hot potato back. “You tell me. This is certainly not my mess.” In his early fifties, Borya Smirnov wore a Savile Row navy herringbone classic fit suit. The custom tailor ensemble complimented his trim six-foot build.

“Nor is it my doing, need I remind you,” countered Golitsin. “The Navy is to blame here. It is
their
submarine that sank and it is
their
captain lieutenant who's running around loose on American soil.”

“But he's assigned to you.”

“Doesn't matter, he's still Navy.”

Smirnov looked away. The river's banks froze overnight, but the main channel remained ice-free. A workboat towing a barge pushed upstream.

Golitsin said, “So I ask you again Borya, what should we do?”

The SVR director turned back. “I directed my case officers in Vancouver to conclude the matter with Captain Lieutenant Kirov. By today's end he will be either on a plane back to Moscow or terminated.”

“Otlí
no!”
Excellent.

Smirnov reached for a glass of water. “Still, that leaves the problem with the submarine itself. My people can't deal with that. That's a military matter.”

“Operation Eagle is under way. A team is being mobilized but it will be at least twenty-four hours before they will be on scene.”

Smirnov took a sip. “They must have deep-diving experience?”

“No—they're not divers.”

The FSB general explained the mission of his special operations team.

With his left elbow planted on the tabletop and his arm and hand supporting his chin, Smirnov pondered his military counterpart's latest disclosure. “Won't the Navy be suspicious when this equipment is shipped out?”

“We already have it; we've been experimenting with it for cable taps. Works well from what I've been told.”

“Good, this just might work.” Yet, something still nagged at him. “What have they been told about the
Neva
?”

“That the crew is dead but the hull remains intact and pressurized. Because of its location the hull has to be neutralized to keep critical components out of American hands.”

“How will that be accomplished?”

“Shaped charges inserted onto the exterior surface of the pressure casing. They don't have to be huge. Just crack the shell and two hundred meters of seawater will do the rest.” General Golitsin anticipated the next question. “They'll go quick, Borya. In an eye blink.”

“But what if the
Neva
's crew tries to alert the team? What then?”

“They've been told it is impossible to rescue any remaining crew—too deep.”

Smirnov commented, “The Navy can never learn of this. They can't go after the president or prime minister, but you can be certain they'll crucify both of us.”

“I'm well aware of that. Right now only you and I know where all the pieces are and how they fit together.”

“And we need to keep it that way.”

“We will.”

CHAPTER 39

Y
uri switched on the lamp by the bed and checked his wristwatch: 5:48
A.M
. He glanced out the window at the cityscape. Vancouver remained asleep.

Searing pain in his lower leg made sleep impossible. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and still fully clothed sat upright. The back of his calf throbbed. A new ache in his forehead announced its presence.

How could he be hungover from one glass of wine?

He opened the bedroom door and stepped into the hallway. He had no recollection of when or how he ended up in the bed, but he did remember the bathroom at the end of the hall.

Yuri shuffled past a partially open door to the master bedroom. He would have ignored it except for the trail of clothing that led to the bed: a pair of briefs, black socks, a shirt, and trousers. He peered inside. No lights on but the huge window next to the queen-size bed broadcast residual city light.

Elena occupied the center of the queen bed under a quilted bedspread. One bare arm projected out from under the cover along with a clump of flaxen hair. Nicolai lay prone on the carpet along the right side of the bed, his head resting on a pillow. A down comforter covered his body.

Yuri shook his head as he continued down the hall.

Five minutes later, he returned to the bedroom. He was about to lie down when he remembered:
Laura!

* * *

“Nicolai, wake up!”

Elena squatted next to Nick; a bathrobe covered her nude body. He remained wrapped mummy-style inside the down comforter.

She tugged on his shoulder. “Nicolai! Come on—get up.”

Orlov turned toward Elena. His eyelids fluttered open; he coughed once and sat up. “What's going on?” he asked.

“He's gone!”

“What?”

“Kirov—he took off! He's not in his room and the keys to my Mercedes are gone.”

“But how could . . . ?” Nick's brain misfired. “He was supposed to be unconscious until noon.”

“I don't know, but that doesn't matter. He's gone and we've got to deal with this.”

Nick stood draped with the comforter. “When did he leave?”

“I have no idea. He was out cold when we went to bed.”

Their lovemaking lasted half an hour. Somehow, they ended up on the carpet and Nick, too sated and too tired to move, stayed put. Elena had retreated to her bed.

Nick rubbed his throbbing temples. He was not used to wine. “What time is it?”

She gestured to the clock on the nearby nightstand: The readout announced 7:06
A.M
.

“Chërt voz'mí
!
”
Dammit.

Elena said, “He could have taken off hours ago.”

“I knew this was too easy.” Nick admonished himself for not binding Kirov to the bed; he'd trusted Elena.

“But why would he take off like that?”

“It must be the woman that's been helping him.”

“Then he's gone back to Point Roberts!”

“That's my guess.”

“Should I call the mission and get some help?”

Both operatives recalled the orders from their boss.

“No way. Nobody else is to know about this screwup. We're going to take care of it ourselves.”

“Okay.”

Nick paced across the carpet, thinking. He turned back toward Elena. “Do you still have the RFID scanner that we used the other day—to follow him to the beach house?”

“Yeah, it's in the Suburban but its range is limited.”

“I know but it could be useful if he still has your business card.” A new thought sparked. “How about a weapon, do you have one?”

“Not here. There's one at the mission, a nine-millimeter Beretta—with a suppressor, if needed.”

“We may need it.”