Nina walked out of the bedroom again, this time to the smell of breakfast cooking. She entered the kitchen to see Ron hustling about, setting plates, and putting silverware on the table.
“Where’s Mike?” she asked.
“He took some coffee out to Rick, who’s on early morning watch.”
Mike walked in and headed to the coffee pot. He poured himself another cup and turned to Nina.
“Do you think Allison will be up and about by now?”
“Oh, yeah, she’s up, Mike. It’s seven. She’s anxiously awaiting your call—I’d bet my bottom dollar on that.”
Ron laughed and looked at Mike. “She learned phrases like that at the university,” he said. “I love to hear her talk.”
“Everyone loves to hear Nina talk, Ron, even me.”
Mike smiled at her and took out the flip-top. He called Allison and waited for her to answer. She did with a cheerful greeting.
“Hello, TL. How’s it going this morning?”
“Just fine.”
“It’s already been on the news, so you don’t have to go into the details about the cargo.”
“Good, then tell the chain that everything is copacetic and that we are proceeding as originally planned.”
“Affirmative, will do. Have a good day.”
“You too.”
Allison went to pick up the FedEx package that contained the additional phones for the RAVEN support team and came back home. She took out her COVCOM equipment and typed another message. It was sent via an encrypted satellite connection to Helsinki Station. The message was deciphered and given to Moscow’s DCOS. Randy read the message and a few minutes later called Brandson, who answered the phone while looking at a card given to him by his secretary. He sat quietly listening to his DCOS as he read the secretary’s card.
“It seems as though everything is back on track. Mike has agreed to continue with the op. It’s well documented in a COVCOM report that Allison sent to me. Some friendly sort took notice of Brzezinski’s body slumped over on a bench near the Mariinsky Theater and notified the police. It’s being reported on the TV as a robbery that went bad for an RT News executive. It’s getting a lot of coverage. Evidently, he was well known. Say, have you had a chance to look at the write-up I sent you last night?”
“Yes, good job; however, I don’t see any need to send it in now, especially since the body has been found and given that Mike has decided to continue with the op. I’m thinking we’ll put it all together in an after-action success story and then send it in.”
“You’ll get into hot water by not telling headquarters some of the things that have taken place out here, Bill. The chain will not take too kindly to you keeping them in the dark. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do, and, to be honest with you, I don’t give a shit what the chain thinks. I’m tired of being second-guessed by assholes at headquarters. Most of them have far less operational field experience than we do here at the station. They’re frickin’ division bureaucrats, most of them, except for the chief, and they don’t know when to keep their damn mouths shut or when to give the field an accolade for a job well done. Now, what about Allison? Has she got the rest of the RAVENS geared up for action?”
“She’s taking care of it. She picked up the FedEx package and is meeting with them later today. This will be my last update until tomorrow—that is, unless something else unexpectedly happens.”
“OK, talk to you sometime tomorrow.”
Brandson replaced the handset and got up to leave his office. He was in a better mood now that the op was back on track. Several minutes later, he walked out of the embassy. Once outside, he removed a cigar from his jacket pocket, clipped off the end, and lit it. A huge puff of smoke rose through the air as he smiled and stepped away from the building. The ambassador looked out his window and could see him walking the large courtyard situated below. A trail of smoke could be seen rising in the air as Brandson walked toward the far end of the courtyard. Seeing him out there caused the ambassador to wonder what the CIA had going on. He knew, as did the FSB watching from a nearby high-rise, that when the CIA’s COS could be seen out in the courtyard smoking, it was usually a sign that they had something going down operationally.
Brandson actually wanted them to know that he was out there. The diversion team had been busy all night working the back streets of Moscow. One more day for them and one more day until the CIA had Dimitry Mauldin in their possession. Dr. Peters, another former navy officer and long-time acquaintance, was going to get the chance he wanted to test a new drug that he’d been bragging about in back channel correspondence. As he reached the far end of the courtyard, Brandson turned and walked back in the direction of the embassy.
***
They had been in and out of the city and to the warehouse several times, and they were about finished with their recon and trial runs when Mike decided to invite Nina to spend another night with the team. He wanted her close by to mitigate the risk of something else going wrong.
“I’d feel better about tomorrow,” he told her, “if you’d spend another night with us. It’ll make things a lot easier for everyone, especially since you’re a key member of the team.”
Nina knew he was concerned about her safety, and it made her feel good being part of a major CIA operation. She agreed with a qualifying condition.
“OK, but I can’t do it and have to wear these same clothes for another day. Can we make a quick stop at the apartment, so I can run in to get a few things?”
He agreed, and later when Ron pulled the van over and stopped up the street on Gorokhovaya, Mike got out to accompany Nina to her apartment. A police cruiser had been parked in the same spot just minutes earlier.
“Are you coming too?” she asked.
“Yup. Can’t afford to let you out of my sight; we’re too close now to being operational.”
She smiled at him with a warm feeling and turned her head to look down the street toward the apartment. He saw a distinctive look on her face—one that had him wondering what she could have been thinking.
“It won’t take long, will it?” Mike asked.
“No, just a minute or two. Come on, let’s go.”
They walked into the apartment, and Nina headed straight toward her bedroom. She stood in the doorway for a moment, looking back at Mike as he moseyed about the living room. She once again wondered what it would be like having him as a partner. Finally, telling herself to forget such notions, she moved into the bedroom and started packing a bag. Mike moved about the room, eventually stopping in front of the windows looking out in the direction of the Admiralty. It was a pleasant view. Minutes later, he heard Nina’s voice as she came out of the bedroom.
“I’m ready now.”
Mike caught up with her halfway across the room. Nina glanced at the foyer table as they neared the door. She grabbed Mike by the arm and suddenly stopped.
“It’s gone,” she said. “His cell phone is gone—it’s not on the foyer table where it was when I left yesterday morning.”
Mike instinctively knew that something was wrong.
“I don’t like the feeling of this. Come on, let’s get out of here. We’ll talk about it later.”
The apartment manager’s office was situated to the left of the elevator bank. The glass office façade provided a see-through view of the elevators, although the view was somewhat obstructed by the descriptive office lettering etched in the glass. The manager had not been at her desk when Mike and Nina entered the building, but she was there when they came out of the elevator. She moved for a better look to make sure it was Nina. Assuring herself that it was, she picked up the phone. The CIA operatives didn’t notice her stare. They hurried out the building and up the street, later crossing to the other side to get into the van. They were safely inside when Mike, curious about the missing cell phone, looked back at the building entrance. He saw a woman rush out and hastily move about to look up and down the street. He grabbed the flip-top, quickly, opened it, and snapped a picture before putting the phone back in his pocket.
“Move it, Ron, let’s go. Head back to the house.”
Mike turned to Nina and asked for her personal cell phone. She took it out and handed it to him. He pried it apart, took the microchip out, and tossed all of the parts out the window.
“Why did you do that?”
“Don’t want the police attempting to track your location.”
Minutes later, as Ron sped out of the city, Mike took out his ops phone and pressed the quick dial for Allison; he had thought of a question for her. She was busy with the RAVENS when he called. She stopped her briefing and stepped away from them to take his call.
“Hello, what can I do for you?” she asked.
“Have a quick question. Was there anything said in the news about the cargo that could possibly give me cause for concern?”
“No, nothing that I could tell; otherwise, I would have told you. However, there was a news report asking people to call the police if anyone had any information pertaining to a murder incident. They gave a number to call. Also, RT News is offering a cash reward for anyone who provides information leading to an arrest. That was it.”
“OK. Thanks. That’s all I wanted to know. Good-bye.”
He closed the phone and sat thinking about things. Mike opened it up again and pressed the photo icon. He handed the phone to Nina, who was sitting in the back of the van.
“You recognize her?”
Nina looked at the image.
“Yes. She’s our apartment manager. Why?”
“She came out of the building after we did, hastily looking up and down the street as if trying to spot someone. My guess is that someone was us.”
They were all quiet as Ron made his way out of the city, practicing a different route.
***
After finishing the call with Mike, Allison walked back to where she had left the RAVENS, thinking it best to report Mike’s call up the chain after she finished the briefing. She had to assign new duties and changed the plans previously made for R/4, the tow truck driver. She took his phone and gave it to R/2. Before being interrupted by Mike’s call, she had assigned a number to each RAVEN for ease of communicating during the op. In the process, she also assigned a number to Nina, who would be FIVE and one to herself; she would be SIX. With the change in plans for support coverage, Allison put R/2, the accountant, in charge of linking the cell phones and decided that he would be riding with R/1 in one of their high-speed sedans. It was their job now to go by the institute to verify that the area was clear and that R/2 would be the one to call Nina and advise her that the area was clear.
“Once TWO makes the ‘all clear’ call, the ops team will depart the warehouse for the institute,” she told them. “It will take them about thirty minutes to get there. They will park up the street from the pedestrian gate and be ready to commence the op at approximately 1400. We need to be on the streets near the institute by then, but at different locations and linked telephonically. If they are being pursued by the police at any point, we’ve got to take out the pursuing vehicles. How either of you do that is up to you, but for your security, it must look like an accident. Now, here’s how the phones are to be linked.” Allison held her phone out for the others to see as she demonstrated the linking process.
She dialed the quick-dial number for TWO. Paavi answered. An “Add Call” icon appeared on the face of the phone. She showed it to everyone and then pressed the icon and demonstrated that his phone was on hold. She went to favorites on her phone and pressed the quick dial for THREE’s phone. When he answered, a ‘Merge Call’ icon appeared on the face of her phone. She showed it to them. She pressed it and the phones were linked; they could all talk to each other.
“That’s how it works. I will explain this to Nina, who is listed as LOCAL so that she can call in and be linked with the group, Paavi. Any questions from anyone thus far?”
She looked at each of them.
“OK, then, let’s move over to the map.”
They moved to where an open map of the city was laying on a nearby worktable.
“We know,” she said, “that the Neva River flows from inland out to the bay causing the city to be divided into four sectors. Sector A is Vasilyevsky Island abutting the bay to the west. Sector B is Petrogradsky Island, also abutting the bay, northwest of Sector A. Sector C lies to the east and Sector D to the south. The ops team will need to exit the city through Sector D. This will allow them to make their way to the exfiltration point—which we all know to be the cabin near Narva.”
She continued.
“The institute is located here in Sector C on the north side of the river. The closest bridge to cross the Neva to get to Sector D is located here: the Liteyniy Bridge. We must not allow the police to force them into either Sector A or B where they would be trapped on one of the islands and unable to get out of the city. The Arsenalnaya Highway runs parallel to the Neva River and is the quickest route for them to get to the Liteyniy Bridge. I’m sure that’s the route they’ll take to make their getaway. It will be our job to make sure they can get to the bridge and cross it without being pursued by the police. Any questions?
“OK. I thought there would be at least one,” she said, continuing on. “Here’s the position I want each of you to be at during the op. Otto, you and Paavi are to be located here just north of the institute on a side street. Reko, you are to be located here, parked along the Arsenalnaya Highway near the Kresty Prison. You can make it look like you’re having vehicle problems as you watch for them to pass heading to the institute. Let us know if you see them. Sakke, you are to be here with the truck and the vehicle you’ll be towing. It will be your job to block traffic after the team drives onto the bridge, thus preventing any pursuing vehicle from following them across the bridge. Oh, yes, you are to use the word ‘bear’ when referring to a police car.”
“Where will you be?” asked Otto.
“Here, on the other side of the bridge in Sector D.”
They concluded the meeting a few minutes later with Allison pleased by the way the briefing had gone.
***
At the station in Moscow, it was nearly close of business when Brandson opened the “Eyes Only” ops cable sent to him from Windstrum. He expected it to be an “ass chewing” message from her for his lack of reporting on NEEDFUL QUEST. Instead, it was something quite different: a birthday message from the DDO. He smiled. It had been a good day and one full of surprises.
***
They were back at farmhouse and sitting around the kitchen table discussing the missing cell phone saga.
“What do we do now?” Rick asked.
“Don’t know at this moment,” Mike answered. He turned to look at Nina. “Let’s talk about Brzezinski some more,” he said to her and the rest of the team. “We know that his cell phone was on Nina’s foyer table yesterday morning. I think we can assume that it was still there during the day and up until his body was discovered and reported to the police.”
“That would be right based on what Nina has told us,” stated Rick.
Mike continued. “Allison told me the news story this morning contained a segment by the police who gave a telephone number to call if anyone had relevant information pertaining to his death and that RT News was offering a reward for anyone with information leading to an arrest.”
“That’s interesting,” Nina said. “The top executive at the station didn’t like Alex very much, and he’s tight when it comes to spending money.”
“Noted,” stated Mike as he continued with his supposition.
“You told me earlier that the apartment manager knew that you and Mr. Brzezinski were friends and that she knew he came to your apartment frequently. That correct?”
“Yes, but not as frequently as you are implying.”
“OK, but he was there the night before last, and it’s possible she saw him going up to your apartment floor. Do you think she knew that he was married?”
“Yes, I think she would have known. He was well known and probably seen in public with his wife.”
“Assuming that she knew that he was married and if she saw him going to up to your apartment the other night, she might have suspected that you two were having an affair. Let’s say that she watched the news this morning and learned of the cash reward being offered for information leading to an arrest. If she suspected an affair between you two, she might well have concluded that his wife had motive for wanting him dead. If that is the case, and if I were her, I would have called the police to tell them what I knew.”
“I don’t know. That’s a lot of conjecture, Mike,” stated Rick, always getting his two cents in.
“Perhaps so, but if she called the police, they could have gone to RT News to question Nina, and with her not being there, they could have gone to her apartment to further investigate. The manager could have let them into Nina’s apartment to have a look-see. It’s possible they saw the cell phone on the foyer table and, through inspection, discovered that it was Brzezinski’s phone.”
Mike was almost certain that he had it right.
“The police probably told the apartment manager to call if or when she saw Nina coming home and to report anything she saw. She could have seen us and called the police. That would be the reason she came running out of the building to discover where Nina was heading.”
“I think you’ve about got me convinced now,” stated Rick. “So, I say again, what do we do about it?”
“Nothing. We don’t do anything. We just complete the op as planned and get the hell out of Russia.”
Mike noticed a frown on Rick’s face, causing him to wonder about his concern.
The night passed without any further action, including activities pertaining to the team—that is, except for the shift changes that took place during the night at the farmhouse. At the Shamrock Pub, a waitress picked up a wallet that had fallen to the floor. She handed it back to the old man who had come in just minutes earlier.
“You’re in time for the last call,” she said, not paying much attention to his face or the picture ID displayed on the open face of the wallet she handed him.
Spasibo, he said. “I can use a drink. It’s been a long evening and it’s cold out there.”
***
Mike had risen early. It was Friday morning, and he had lots to think about ops-wise as he walked to the barn to assume his watch. Charlie was expecting him, and after a few brief words and giving Mike the night vision goggles, Charlie hustled back to the house, hoping to get a few hours of sleep while there was still time. Mike moved about the barn, using his small infrared flashlight to check things out and then sat for a spell. Later, he put the NVGs on and walked outside to scan the surrounding area. There was nothing to be seen but the dark of the night. He thought of Marcie, wondering how her trip was going. She was his soul mate and he missed her, but no one would never know it because Mike never talked about family while on an assignment. He pushed the doors of the barn to have a good view of the farmhouse and then found a place to sit. An hour later, Mike saw a light come on in the house. Someone was up early. A short while later, he saw the door open and an individual come out. He strained to see who it was. Dawn was breaking as he watched Rick walking toward the barn.
Rick walked in and found Mike sitting on a bale of hay, twiddling a piece of straw. He handed Mike a cup.
“I like to return favors. Be careful. It’s still pretty hot.”
“Thanks,” Mike said, taking the oversized cup and removing the lid. Steam rose from the cup and with it came the smell of freshly brewed coffee. He carefully took a sip and rested the cup at his side on the bale while holding the handle to keep it from falling over.
“Well, today’s the big day,” Rick stated, while casually walking about the front of the barn. “If Mauldin’s sitting out there on the bench like we expect him to be, this will be as easy as taking candy from a baby.”
Mike sensed that Rick brought him the coffee for a reason and not just to return a favor. He looked at him.
“I hope that’s the case. I’d like for us to be heading back to the cabin this afternoon with nothing but Mauldin to worry about.”
“Speaking of worrying,” Rick said, “I saw the look on your face last night after you said good night to Nina. I think you were probably thinking the same thing that I’ve been thinking about this morning.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“Ah, come on, Mike. You know as well as I do, given what’s happened, that she’s at risk, and we have to do something about it; otherwise, she could end up in prison.”
“It’s not for me or you to decide her future,” Mike stated.
“Bullshit! I’m not talking about her future. I’m talking about her immediate safety. She’s a member of the team. If it were me or one of the other SEALs, this wouldn’t even be the subject of our conversation.”
“No, it wouldn’t be, but that’s not the case. She’s an asset. Besides, she’s got a mind of her own and may look at things completely different than we do.”
“I know from listening to some of your conversations, Mike, that the agency takes care of its people—including its assets. I’m certain you’re concerned about her safety, so why the hesitation to do something about it?”
Mike didn’t have an immediate answer, or if he did, he didn’t want to share it with Rick. He just sat there twiddling the piece of straw. Finally, Rick spoke again to get his attention.
“I think we need to talk to her about it. I can do that if you want me to.”
Mike looked up at Rick. “No. We’re not going to talk to her about it. If she approaches me and speaks of concern for her safety, then I’ll consider taking it up the chain of command, but we don’t say anything to her about leaving the country with us. Am I clear on this?”
“But—”
“No buts, Rick. Keep your focus on the op and your men, and let me take care of handling Nina’s situation.”
Rick turned his back to Mike and then turned around just as quickly.
“OK, you’re in charge, but I’m voicing my opposition to your decision,” he said with a tone of finality in his voice.
“I hear you. Your concern has been duly noted.”
Rick walked out and headed back to the house, pissed that he couldn’t do anything about Nina’s situation.