The Russian Deception (14 page)

CHAPTER 31

Alexei Vysotsky brooded in his office on the fourth floor of SVR headquarters. Outside his windows, a postcard view of snow covered trees stretched toward the golden onion domes of the Kremlin in the distance. His newfound prestige as Director of Russia's vast foreign intelligence network gave him considerable satisfaction but something was nagging at him, an irritating needle that probed at his awareness. Something was wrong.

Things were moving too quickly. Orlov had lost no time in utilizing existing plans for military maneuvers as the basis for the real thing. Invasion was a huge gamble, with the potential to deteriorate into war with the Americans.

It wasn't that Alexei didn't want a resurgence of Russian power in Eastern Europe. On the contrary, he was convinced it was Russia's destiny to rule that part of the world. Eastern Europe had always been in the Russian sphere of influence and control.

Just the same, this rapid push to begin a new adventure bothered him. The military was only part way through a five year program of modernization. The new planes, the tanks and vehicles, the guns, all seemed good in tests and on paper. The fact remained that they were untested in battle. Besides, there were not yet enough of them to confront an enemy like America. That meant only one thing. In the event of an all out confrontation, Russia would have to rely on the Strategic Rocket Forces.

The war would go nuclear.

Vysotsky was a student of history. Russia's history had often demonstrated displays of ambition that overruled resource and reason, as Hitler and Napoleon had both discovered. Alexei was afraid that this time a Russian leader was stepping over the cliff.

Alexei closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair and took a few deep breaths. Sometimes, if he managed to let his busy mind get out of the way, insights and solutions to problems would work their way into his conscious awareness.

He felt himself drifting into a no man's land between sleep and wakefulness. Images began to flicker across his inner eye. Faces, fragments of scenes. The dacha on the Black Sea where he'd spent one happy summer as a child, before his father died. The face of an old lover.

Vysotsky smiled, thinking of her.

Kiril Golovkin, talking with Orlov. Golovkin's face filled his mind.

The image startled him back into abrupt wakefulness. Vysotsky's heart was pounding.

What did Golovkin have to do with this feeling that something was wrong?

Alexei opened the lower left-hand drawer of his desk and took out the bottle of vodka always kept there. He filled a water glass and put the bottle back in the drawer. He drank half the glass and relaxed as the glow of the alcohol filled his chest with warmth.

Alexei had known Golovkin for years and thought him a dangerous and devious man. He'd watched Golovkin's rise to power within the rival agency of the GRU. The Main Intelligence Directorate was much larger than Vysotsky's SVR but cursed with an unwieldy military bureaucracy that made it far less efficient. That was a legacy of the days when it had been the Second Intelligence Directorate under Leon Trotsky. In modern times it combined many of the functions performed by America's NSA, CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency. The result was bloated and cumbersome but the GRU was a force to be reckoned with.

Alexei sipped at his vodka. He was under no illusions about the rarefied atmosphere of power in which he now found himself. In the grouping of Orlov, Golovkin, Krupin, Kuznetsov and himself he was low man on the totem pole.

He considered the inner circle. Krupin was preoccupied with the responsibilities of his new promotion. Kuznetsov had the fires of war gleaming in his eyes and could see nothing but the possibility of military glory and a place in history. Orlov's motivation was easy to read, the exercise of power. He would invade because he could.

Alexei felt that nagging sensation again.
Because he could. How had it all become possible so quickly?

He thought about Orlov's meteoric career. Vladimir Orlov had been an obscure deputy in the Duma, a member of a right-wing nationalist party that welcomed him after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. His KGB credentials had served him well with the party leaders. Over the next few years he'd gained control of the party and expanded its base. He was hand in glove with the oligarchs and they were glad to fund his rise. In return, he smoothed the path to government contracts and helped them fill their coffers.

Orlov had somehow arranged a massive infusion of foreign funds that had been used to accelerate the modernization of the military begun by Gorovsky. That was not generally known. Vysotsky had watched the process carefully in his previous position as a deputy director, looking for signs of corruption that went beyond the acceptable boundaries. Along with the nationalist block of votes that Orlov could bring with him, his ability to raise foreign capital had clinched the former president's selection of Orlov as his prime minister.

Voting in Russia for genuine candidates was something new, an uncomfortable experience for a populace used to elections that always produced approval for rigged slates of party hacks. Vysotsky was certain the election that had put Gorovsky in power would be the last with any semblance of legitimacy. Orlov would make certain of that.

Democratic elections were of little concern to Alexei. Russia had always needed strong leaders. Democracy was something foreign to the Russian way of life. But when a leader threatened the existence of the state through misguided policy, that was a different matter.

From a deputy in the Duma to Prime Minister of the Federation to his current role as president. All in a short time. And always, more than enough money to buy influence and votes. Foreign money.

How did Golovkin fit in? Vysotsky thought back on Orlov's rise to power. Golovkin had been there in the background from the beginning, when Orlov was just another reactionary voice lost in a chorus singing the praises of Glasnost.

Above all else, Alexei was a patriot. His love of the Motherland was no convenient posture but a fundamental truth of his existence. It took precedence over things like position or personal reward. Patriotism had helped him justify actions some would call criminal or evil. Whatever people might think was of no importance. What mattered was the survival of the nation. Alexei was not as complacent in his thinking about war as the others. He couldn't help thinking that Orlov was leading the Federation into a confrontation with the West that it might not win.

Golovkin had urged Orlov along the path to war, a war that could turn into a disaster. Perhaps he should take a closer look at him.

For a moment Alexei felt a twinge of unease. Why rock the boat? Why risk his newfound power and position? If Golovkin turned Orlov against him, the president could remove him as easily as swatting a fly.

The thought gave him no comfort.

Something was rotten, somewhere. Alexei was determined to find out what it was.

He looked at his empty glass and reached for the bottle.

CHAPTER 31

Hamburg's location on the Elbe gave it access to the Baltic and the North Sea a hundred kilometers away. Always a center of banking and commerce, the city had been governed by a hereditary class of merchants until early in the twentieth century. During the Nazi era it had been a launching port for Hitler's U-boats and a major shipyard of the Third Reich. Hamburg was one of the busiest ports in Europe. It even had an aerospace industry on a par with Seattle.

Business was good in Hamburg.

The buildings that had survived the Allied bombings were picturesque, many dating back to the Middle Ages. Canals cut everywhere through the city, highways of commerce that led to the river. Hamburg wasn't Venice but it was still an interesting tourist destination.

The drive from Vienna had been uneventful. The team stopped at the consulate and picked up an aluminum case containing four pistols and the ammo to go with them before heading for their hotel. Their hotel was in the Hafen district near the harbor. Their rooms were in the back, overlooking one of the canals. Nick set the case with the guns down in Ronnie and Lamont's room.

"I wonder if this town is where hamburgers come from?" Lamont asked.

"As a matter of fact, it is," Selena said. "The hamburger was invented here."

"That wall paper is going to drive me nuts," Ronnie said.

The hotel had a postmodern industrial theme that was vaguely nautical. A fake ladder made of wood and rope hung on one wall. The wallpaper featured sailors and boats, whiskey bottles and women in a chaotic jumble.

"I don't see how wallpaper is gonna make you any more nuts than you already are," Lamont said. "I kind of like it."

"That figures," Ronnie said.

"With any luck we won't be here long enough for it to bug you," Nick said.

"It's a very odd hotel," Selena said. "It's as though someone took Andy Warhol and Alexander Calder as their inspiration and mixed them all together with pieces of industrial equipment for decoration. Did you see the bar that looked like a shipping container downstairs?"

"I thought it was a bar but I wasn't sure," Nick said.

"Look at this," Ronnie said.

He held up a stuffed animal that had been propped on a shelf in the corner. It looked like a cross between a goat and a teddy bear. It had a heart-shaped red bib on it.

"There you go," Lamont said. "Something to keep you company tonight."

"Might be better if you slept with it," Ronnie said. "Keep you from snoring so much."

"I don't snore."

Nick interrupted. "It's too late to do anything today. There's a restaurant downstairs. How about we meet there in ten minutes?"

"You think they've got hamburgers?" Lamont asked.

"I think you can bet on it," Nick said.

Later, Nick was in bed looking at the laptop and reading the file Stephanie had sent about Helmut Schmidt. Selena came out of the bathroom wearing a white robe, drying her hair with a towel.

"Did you see the painting on the wall in there?" she asked.

"Hard to miss."

The drawing was a life-sized illustration done in bold black strokes of a naked woman, her breasts thrust forward and her hands behind her head.

"It's like something out of a bad male fantasy," Selena said.

"The one painted on the wall in Ronnie and Lamont's bathroom is some guy in bulging jockey shorts with stars over his head."

"You really have to wonder what they were thinking when they decorated this place. Cutesy touches like the stuffed animal and then drawings on the wall like that. I guess it's supposed to be modern."

"Your age is showing," Nick said.

"Smartass. Are you done looking at that computer?"

"You have a better idea?"

Selena let the robe fall onto the floor.

"I guess you do," Nick said.

CHAPTER 32

Early the next day Nick and the others were parked two blocks away from Schmidt's walled property in a Mercedes GL SUV they'd rented in Vienna. The car had enough space for all of them to sit in total luxury and five hundred and fifty horses under the hood to make Selena smile. Nick hoped they wouldn't need all that power. If they did it would mean they were in trouble.

Nick studied the compound through his binoculars. It hadn't changed since the last time he'd looked.

"Still looks like a bad idea for us," Ronnie said.

"Yeah." Nick handed the binoculars to him. "I read through the file Stephanie sent. Schmidt has a regular routine. He usually leaves here about now. His shipping business is managed out of a building he owns in the new part of the city but he doesn't always go there. There's another office in the old warehouse district. He runs the syndicate out of there."

"I wonder how he manages to get away with it?" Ronnie said.

"Money buys a lot of privacy. Besides, he's Hamburg aristocracy. His family has been here since the fifteenth century. They've built ships for hundreds of years. His father was one of Hitler's early supporters, a dyed in the wool Nazi. Speer provided him with plenty of slave labor to construct ships for the Third Reich."

"A war criminal."

"Yes. But after the war all he got was a slap on the wrist. The allies needed him to rebuild the industry."

"That kind of thing happened a lot," Selena said.

"Once the shooting stopped, everyone went back to business as usual. The old man is dead. Helmut took over years ago."

Lamont shook his head. "Doesn't seem right, letting hard-core Nazis go free."

"No, it doesn't. All those people should have been locked up."

"Or worse."

"The gate's opening," Ronnie said.

The elaborate iron gate that blocked entrance to the property was sliding open. A silver Mercedes AMG GT came through the opening, a sleek creation of the German carmaker's art.

"Nice car," Lamont said. "It looks fast."

"That's an understatement," Selena said. "That car has a turbocharged V-8 that'll do zero to sixty in a little over three and a half seconds."

"How do you know things like that?"

"I thought about buying one a while back. You know I like Mercedes."

"That has to be Schmidt," Nick said.

Selena was driving. Much as he hated to admit it, Nick knew her driving skills in a crunch situation were better than his. Besides, she spoke the language. It would come in handy if they had to deal with the police. She started the engine and waited until the silver car was a few blocks away before pulling out to follow.

They left Schmidt's exclusive suburb and in a short time entered the city. The Mercedes headed for the old part of town.

"He's going to his warehouse," Nick said.

They entered the
Speicherstadt,
the old warehouse district. Rows of red brick buildings lined canals feeding into the river. They might as well have stepped back into the nineteenth century, when steam was king and most of the world was ruled by a few royal families.

Ahead, Schmidt's car turned off into a narrow street between buildings. At the end of the street was a high metal fence with a gate and a warehouse beyond. As they drove past they saw the gate closing behind Schmidt's car. There was a guard shack by the fence and a large man standing outside. He was armed.

Nick said, "We're not getting in that way."

"There has to be another entrance," Ronnie said.

"The other side of the building faces on the canal."

"All these buildings seem to be connected," Selena said. "Maybe there's a way to move between them."

"If there is, I don't see how we're going to find it."

She pulled the car to the side and let it idle. Nick waved his hand at the row of warehouses lining the street.

"We can't just walk in and ask someone how to get into the next building."

"There have to be plans, architectural drawings," Selena said. "They'll be on file somewhere, probably at the town hall or whatever passes for it. Stephanie could access them. If there's a passage between these buildings, the plans would show it."

Ronnie spoke up. "Yeah, maybe, but what good does it do us? Even if we get in I don't think Schmidt is going to sit down and have a nice talk with us."

"Let's go back to the hotel," Nick said. "We need to think about this. At least we know where he lives and where he works."

"That sounds like a plan," Ronnie said.

"I guess it's better than no plan at all," Nick said.

There was no traffic on the street. Selena pulled out, backed up and turned around. She started down the street. They were passing Schmidt's warehouse when the building disintegrated in a deafening roar. The blast lifted the heavy car into the air, flipped it onto the side and slammed it into a brick wall. The airbags deployed and pinned them in their seats. Bricks and chunks of concrete rained down on the car.

The airbags deflated. Thick, black smoke folded out over the street and engulfed them. Selena hung sideways in her seat, unconscious. Nick coughed and choked.

"Jesus," Lamont said.

Nick struggled with his seatbelt. Lamont swore as he tried to get free. Ronnie took out a pocket knife and cut his belt, then reached over and freed Lamont.

"Ronnie, help me with Selena," Nick said.

Ronnie climbed from the car and wrenched open the driver's side door. Nick freed Selena's belt and boosted her up while Ronnie lifted her out. He laid her down on the street. A large, red lump swelled on her forehead. Nick climbed out of the car, followed by Lamont.

Selena opened her eyes. "What..."

"Take it easy. You took a hit on your head."

She sat up, braced herself. "Dizzy. What happened?"

"Schmidt's building. There was an explosion."

He looked back at the warehouse.

"Guess we're not going to get a chance to talk with Herr Schmidt."

The building was in ruins. The front and back walls were  gone. The interior was open to the sky, collapsed in on itself. A broken gas main sent a column of flame fifty feet into the air with a sound like a giant blowtorch. Flames licked over the remains of the building. A thick column of noxious smoke coiled into the air.

Selena stood up and steadied herself by holding Nick's arm.

"Gas explosion?" she asked.

"I don't think so," Nick said. "Someone would've smelled gas long before enough accumulated to make an explosion like that. It's not like this is the middle of the night with nobody around."

"Someone wanted Schmidt dead," Ronnie said.

"Looks that way. Someone with serious explosives who knew how to use them."

The sound of sirens echoed in the distance. People were coming out of buildings along the street and staring at the destruction. The street was littered with bricks, shattered timbers, bits of paper, smoldering piles of debris.

The lump on Selena's head had grown larger. An ugly purple bruise was spreading around it.

"Helluva knock you took," Lamont said.

Selena reached up and felt the bump and winced. "It's a good thing I have a hard head." She looked at the wreckage of their car. "I think we're going to need another Mercedes."

Nick pulled out his phone. "I'd better call Harker."