Thumbing through his second copy of The Intelligencer, Falcone had just come upon a John le Carré quote—the only real expression of a nation’s subconscious is its secret service—when Drexler’s daughter entered the library. The idea that he was part of America’s subconscious brought a smile to Falcone’s face.
“What are you smiling at?” Annie asked, smiling herself. “The Intelligencer usually doesn’t have any funny things to say.”
“Sometimes, Annie, laughing at the world is the only way to stay sane,” Falcone said, standing.
“Dad says things like that sometimes,” she said wistfully. “Well, he asked me to escort you to the briefing room. Please follow me.”
Annie led him down a short corridor with doors along each wall. She opened one, revealing a metal door behind it. She tapped six numbers on a keypad where a doorknob would ordinarily be and the door swung open.
“A skiff,” Falcone said, using the acronym for “Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.” She did not respond. The door swung closed behind them and recessed overhead lights came on as they entered. They were in what was basically a huge metal box.
Falcone knew that the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies required that certain contractors entrusted with sensitive matters be obliged to work in skiffs containing special computers whose key strokes and other electronic emanations were also shielded from the outside world. The contracts laid out skiff specifications in great detail; no approved skiff, no contract. So, Falcone thought, Drexler is a government contractor. He’s getting paid from a black covert fund. He’s in the nation’s subconscious, too.
Drexler sat at a metal table. Falcone recognized the design: The table’s legs were solid aluminum bars and its top was a solid aluminum slab. There was no place to accommodate eavesdropping bugs designed to slip into the recesses of conventional furniture. The chairs across the table from Drexler were similarly designed. Falcone sat directly in front of Drexler; Annie sat at Falcone’s right.
“Welcome to my inner sanctum,” Drexler said. “I hope you have a good memory. We don’t take notes here. So, what brings you?”
“I need an extraction,” Falcone replied.
“Where?”
“Moscow.”
“A Russian?”
“No. American.”
“Snowden?”
“No. I hope that bastard stays there forever.”
“What do you need?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Drexler raised his head to the metal ceiling for a few moments as if it held the answer. “Minimum, I figure four or five men. A getaway vehicle. And a Gulfstream G-550 to get him back to the U.S.”
“Does a G-550 have enough legs?” Falcone asked.
“Thirteen hours, maybe even fourteen, that should be enough,” Drexler answered.
“And, I assume, you know how to get an untraceable G-550,” Falcone said.
“Right,” Drexler said. He looked at the ceiling again and in a moment added: “You’ll need at least two guys who speak Russian. A top-notch driver. A technical guy—locks, turn off security cameras. That sort of thing. And two shooters—to create a diversion, if necessary.”
“Shooters? In Russia? But—”
“Don’t worry, Sean. They’ll just have Tasers.”
“Fine,” Falcone said, looking relieved.
Drexler smiled faintly and said, “Now then, who’s the extractee?”
“Robert Wentworth Hamilton.”
Drexler tapped the keyboard and an image of Hamilton appeared on the monitor at the end of the table. “Here’s our boy, right?”
“Right,” Falcone said, hiding his amazement. He thought he recognized in the background a drab wall of the FBI conference room where Falcone had been questioned about his temporary possession of a SpaceMine laptop that the FBI had linked to the law-firm shootings. He knew that Hamilton also had been questioned, and the FBI must have interviewed him in the same room.
Falcone leaned forward and saw that Hamilton was at a highly polished table, which Falcone also remembered. And he could see another item dredged up from his memory: an aperture, presumably for a video camera, in the wall. At the corner of the image he could make out the edge of a yellow pad and a ruby pinky ring on someone’s left hand. Christo! Falcone thought, the nickname for Akis Christakos. Falcone knew that Christakos had gone with Hamilton for the FBI interview. And he knew that Christakos wore a pinky ring.
“That’s an FBI photo,” Falcone said. “You got it from Carlton—maybe even from the FBI. This is a goddamn game. How much else do you know?”
“Not much, Sean. All I know is that he’s there and wanted here. I honestly don’t know why he has to be extracted.”
“Please, Drex, how can you say ‘honestly’? You’re obviously very well connected—and you’ve been briefed. Private citizen, my ass.”
“It’s no game, Sean,” Annie said quietly, with a touch of anger. “Three days ago we were told we’d probably be hearing from you. And, from a source I can’t reveal, we received information that Hamilton is in the executive suite of the Hotel Baltschug Kempinski. I looked it up. The hotel is on the Moskva River, across from the Kremlin.”
“That’s about all we were given, Sean,” Drexler said.
“And you code-named me ‘Chamberlain’ because you knew when I heard ‘Chamberlain’ I’d figure that you had a file on me, complete with an old code name. And I’d know something funny was going on.”
Drexler shrugged, smiled, and said. “Let’s get on with it, Sean. We can lay out a few things now, and tomorrow morning—”
“So I’m definitely here overnight?”
“Right,” Drexler said. “You’ll be sleeping in a bedroom that George Washington slept in.”
“And a tin bathtub?”
“I believe you’ll find our accommodations quite modern,” Drexler said. “Now, down to business. You’ll run the op from the scene. There will not be any backup.”
“What about the Agency? Will the Moscow station chief know?”
“Not my call, Sean. But this is freelance, off the grid. Right?”
“Right,” Falcone replied, suddenly seeing himself walking into darkness.
“You’ll be registered in the hotel that Hamilton’s in.”
“Under my name?”
“You’re too well known for a cover name.”
“And why am I in Moscow?”
“You’ll be attending a conference on behalf of your firm. And three associates are coming, too. But not with you. They’ll be coming, from, say, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. They’ll be in other hotels.”
“And what conference am I attending—along with my associates?”
“Well, how do you get four American guys into Moscow without arousing suspicion? Annie came up with a brilliant answer. She checked out a Russian online page that lists—in English—conferences and trade shows at Moscow exhibition sites. I mean, there’s even an international tattoo convention next week!”
“That wouldn’t work, at least not for me,” Falcone said.
“You’ll be attending the International Conference on Cyber Defense. It’s on next week. A thousand bucks a head. So it’s serious. And—get this. They—”
“Hold on, Drex. You’ve got to be kidding. Cyber defense? In Russia? The country that has some of the best criminal hackers in the world, guys who drain bank accounts, sell credit card numbers, get into IRS data banks. I can’t—”
“That’s the point,” Annie Drexler said, softly interrupting. “The guy who set up the conference is a British software developer. He thought he would get more publicity by, as he put it, ‘going into the lion’s den to find out what the lions are up to.’”
“Where did you get the information on this lion’s den guy? A CIA suggestion?”
“We’re never connected to—or beholden to—the CIA,” Annie said. “I read about the conference on his blog. One of many that I faithfully read, believe me. And—”
“Annie’s my research department,” Drexler broke in to say.
“And, to continue,” Annie said, sounding annoyed at the interruption, “when Dad gave me an idea this morning about what you needed, I … well, I thought of this.”
“This morning?” Falcone exclaimed. “Come on, Drex. This has been in the works a while.”
“Look, Sean. You’re wise enough to know that there are a lot of things on the edges of ops like this. Lots of things that—let’s face it—aren’t worth going into. The deal is to get this guy out of Moscow. That’s all we need to talk about. Now, getting back to that, you’ll be working with four of my guys plus a guy in Moscow. His code name is Domino.”
“He’s not ‘one of your boys’?”
“Basically, he’s freelance. On a retainer.”
“Retainer?” Falcone asked. “Who else does he work for? China? Russia?”
“Come on, Sean. He’s been vetted. He’s okay. Trust me.”
“You know, Drex, the funny thing is that you say ‘trust me’ exactly at the point when that’s all I can do. Sure. I trust you. Okay. Let’s say that the conference works as a cover for me and my associates,” Falcone said. “What about the op? How do we snatch Hamilton?”
“You run the op out of your room in the Hotel Baltschug Kempinski.”
“How the hell do I do that?”
“Don’t worry, Sean. We’ve had ops like this. We know how to get people out of places they shouldn’t be in. Including Moscow. I just told you. I’ve got a fine asset there.”
“Tell me about the rest of the team,” Falcone said, rapidly growing suspicious about how much people in the official U.S. government knew about the abduction plans—while knowing that he had passed the point of no return.