Derek Walsh walked without resistance directly in front of the Russian. He knew the man had a gun in his back, but that didn’t even concern him now. Alena’s safety was foremost in his mind. He barely noticed the normal neighborhood activity going on around him as he climbed the stairs to the landing, entered the front door of the apartment building, and immediately turned right and slowly marched up the stairs. He thought about Alena, who had shown him tenderness and stood by him, even offering her own bank account in support. She had no business being sucked into whatever this was.
The second-story hallway was empty and had what looked like new carpet laid from one end to the other. It was cheap, thin industrial carpet, but at least someone was trying to keep the place up. The far end of the hallway turned gloomy, as none of the lights were on yet. It matched his mood. What could he do in this situation? Everything he’d worked for the last few days was for nothing. And now they had Alena. And he had nothing.
About halfway down the hallway a door opened, and the man shoved him toward the apartment. As soon as Walsh stepped inside he saw the smiling face of Serge Blattkoff. His left eye was still bruised and discolored. He looked like he was eager to exact some revenge.
Alena sat in a wide La-Z-Boy recliner with her hands stiffly gripping the arms. She sat perfectly straight with her legs directly in front of her as if she were preparing to model the chair in a photo shoot. Her brown eyes cut up to him, but she didn’t say a word or move a muscle.
As soon as he was inside, Blattkoff shoved him onto a sofa, which faced out to a wide bay window. Alena was in his line of sight across the room. The questions in his head buzzed like a chainsaw. How had they found her? Why did they have her? But he knew not to ask any questions just yet.
The older man with a scar leaned on the arm of the sofa. He affected a casual attitude like a man at a beach club about to chat with a friend. Walsh noticed his eyes flick around the room to make sure his security measures were in place. Walsh had no doubt one of the men would easily shoot him if he tried to move, or worse, shoot Alena.
One floor lamp at the end of the sofa illuminated the whole room. He listened to the sounds of the apartment building but picked up nothing of interest other than someone with heavy footsteps walking on the apartment floor above them. He had already decided he wouldn’t speak first.
Finally the Russian man said, “You’re quite a resourceful young man. I have been very impressed with your ability to slip out of tight situations. But the only way you’re going to get out of this is to give us what we want.”
Walsh tried to stay calm and control his voice as he said, “And what do you want?”
“First, you can hand over the security plug from Thomas Brothers Financial.”
That caught him by surprise, but he answered honestly. “I don’t have it.”
“Where is it?”
Now he lied. “The FBI took it when they arrested me.”
The Russian smiled and let out an ominous chuckle. “I know you have the plug and activated the security feature that took a photograph of the trade. I will ask you once more in a pleasant tone: Where is the security plug?”
Walsh’s first instinct told him that Ted Marshall was involved and had told them about the security plug. What would make a man sell out his company and his country like that? Walsh kept his eyes on the Russian as he thought about what to say.
* * *
Mike Rosenberg felt his stomach rumble from nerves the entire drive from Langley to his house in Maryland. Just the idea that he took something out of the main headquarters made him queasy. It didn’t matter if the information came from an unofficial source based on his unofficial phone call or if it was the blueprints to an aircraft carrier; he had just broken half a dozen major rules at the CIA.
He walked in the door to his small house and slapped down the sheaf of papers that contained the phone numbers from Vodafone in Germany. He went immediately to the kitchen counter and grabbed his personal cell. He dialed Derek Walsh first but got no answer. His friend had not even set up a voicemail account yet.
He checked his watch and calculated how late it would be in Germany and decided he would risk bothering Bill Shepherd. He sure would love to talk to one of his friends.
He immediately spread the papers out on the kitchen counter and started looking at the phone numbers and determining what countries had been called. There was a mass of information in these pages, and he wanted to break the code and figure out exactly what some of the information meant. Then he had to figure out a way to explain it to his supervisor.
It was going to be a very long night.
* * *
Walsh looked around the room and saw nothing that would help him escape. There was the main door, a second door in the corner of the next room, and a narrow utility door that looked like it went from the kitchen to the end of the exterior hallway. At least his head was on straight enough to be thinking about escaping. This was a war, and that was what the marines had trained him for.
The older Russian with a scar on his face spoke Russian to Serge; then the younger man pulled Alena out of the La-Z-Boy as the older Russian jerked Walsh to his feet. They pushed them both into a spacious bathroom that had one tiny window. It wasn’t big enough for either of them to fit through.
The Russian looked Walsh in the eye and said, “You make any noise or cause any trouble and I’ll put a bullet in her pretty face.” He pulled the door shut, and Walsh could tell someone was leaning against the outside. He didn’t know why they had been moved, but he wasn’t going to waste the opportunity.
He rushed to embrace Alena and said, “Are you okay?”
She just nodded her head, then laid her face against his chest as they both sat on the edge of the wide bathtub. She said, “Just give them what they want so they’ll let us go.”
“What if they don’t let us go after they have what they want?”
“Then we’re in no worse shape than we are now.”
“Unless they kill us.” He could see she was scared. Who wouldn’t be? She was just a student and had no idea what men like this were capable of. He thought back to all the kindness she had shown him. Laughing at his corny jokes, giving him her debit card, trusting him with her heart. It hurt to think of her mixed up with him in something like this.
After a few seconds Alena said, “Where is the plug?”
“It’s safe. I can get to it if I need it.”
“I think you need it.” Her tone had turned flat and cooler.
After a long silence Walsh said, “Do you know how they found you?”
She shook her head.
“Did they take you anywhere else?”
“No.”
Walsh tried to concentrate on the noises outside. He could hear people speaking, but it was mostly in Russian. He could barely hear any traffic sounds. The neighborhood wasn’t particularly busy, and the apartment building was sturdy. Noise might not carry if he yelled.
Alena said, “Who is the old guy they keep talking about? The one that hit the guy who lives here.”
“Charlie? He’s just a friend of mine. A vet that’s fallen on hard times. Why are they asking?”
Alena shrugged her shoulders. “They asked a lot of questions. Like if you talk to anyone on a regular basis, what you told the FBI. They wanted to know if you picked up on the fact that they were Russian. They asked everything. But mainly they want to know where the security plug is.” She focused those big brown eyes on him and said, “Where is it?”
Walsh didn’t want anyone to know that answer. Not even Alena. He just didn’t answer as he started to consider what he might use as a weapon here in the bathroom. Perhaps if he struck one of them hard enough he could get the man’s gun.
Then Alena stood up and stepped toward the door. Before he could ask what she was doing, she knocked on it hard. The door opened, and Serge Blattkoff peered in.
Alena spoke to him in Russian. Or was it some other Eastern European language? Whatever language it was, it wasn’t Greek, and it made Walsh’s stomach turn. He had been a fool.
* * *
The small plane Fannie Legat was riding in bumped along on its way to Stuttgart. She wouldn’t have time to grab any sleep once she reached her home base but was pleased with herself for having so easily talked Major Shepherd into meeting her the following day. Now it was the middle of the night and she’d already found a small team to help her. It was a simple plan that would coincide nicely with the plans of the Red Army.
She intended to have a sizable bomb placed under whatever vehicle Major Shepherd drove to meet her. The café they were meeting at was close to his base, and he would be able to get back quickly. If all went as planned, they would still be at brunch when the news of the Russian incursion into Estonia reached him. She could picture him rushing back to his car and racing to the base. As soon as he reached the main entrance, another confederate would remotely detonate the bomb, causing all kinds of chaos and confusion.
It would also leave the marines, who Fannie understood to be the elite fighting force of the U.S. military, in disarray.
She could catch up on sleep sometime after that.
* * *
Mike Rosenberg could eliminate many of the numbers on the toll records he had taken from the office. It was a long shot, and the fact that the number was scrawled on the side of an application for a Swiss bank account in Bern might not have meant anything, but there were a bunch of calls to capitals all over Europe, as well as to cell phones that appeared to have come from Jordan and Syria. He did his best to eliminate the numbers he could find working through databases on the Internet. Some of the databases were well known and some much harder to find. Mostly all he could tell was if a number was a commercial number or not.
He also separated the numbers that had been called more than once and then grouped them by country. It appeared that whoever used the phone lived in Germany and made a number of calls in the Stuttgart area.
He swigged another gulp of coffee as he sat at his kitchen counter with CNN running on the TV in the living room. He had always thrived on doing several things at once. It was his job to stay up on current events, and at least he felt like he wasn’t shirking his duties at the CIA while he worked on his own project.
It seemed that the lone wolf terror attacks had calmed down the protests across most of Europe and the United States. Even the Germans were saying that the protesters killed in front of the army base where his friend Bill Shepherd was stationed was the result of a suicide bomber. They had identified the man as a disaffected French youth who lived in one of the “no go” areas that housed so many Muslims.
As always, Rosenberg perked up at any reports on the Russian economy. Every couple of years, people wanted to dismiss Russia as any sort of threat to the United States, and every couple of years, they were proven incorrect. With its economy in shambles and the price of oil still below profitability, Russia was becoming desperate to make itself relevant. More accurately, Vladimir Putin was becoming desperate to make Russia relevant, as well as to keep citizens supporting him.
The Russian military was still a potent threat, and one that no one with any brains underestimated. What Rosenberg was listening for was any information about the cyberattack that had hit Western Russia.
He paused for a moment as video of Russian tanks played on the screen, but there was no mention of any computer glitches.
At almost the same time, his eye caught a number on the sheet he was scanning. Something about the number seemed familiar and held his attention. Then he had an uneasy feeling as he reached for his own phone.
It only took a moment to confirm that whoever owned this phone in Germany and contacted so many people around the world, including Middle Easterners, also had called his friend Bill Shepherd.