Michael Gresham (Book 5): Sakharov the Bear Read online

  SAKHAROV THE BEAR

  JOHN ELLSWORTH

  CONTENTS

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Also by John Ellsworth

  Email Signup

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Reviews

  EMAIL SIGNUP

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  — John Ellsworth

  Chapter 1

  Russell Xiang

  WE'RE BOUNCING around Red Square on Christmas Eve. The Kremlin is off to our right, spread beneath stars that have exploded into the cloudless night sky. Beneath the wheels of our Lada, the frozen snow is rutted where the trucks have it channeled. The bouncing traffic's endless points of light sweep across the sky, buildings and abutments and burnout oncoming eyes. Drivers confuse headlights with after-effects whereupon they over-steer and glide sideways along the roadway. Putin could charge admission.

  Outside the windows of our little car the air is freezing while up ahead the red taillights of our quarry's Volvo send Morse Code signals through their rusted wiring. We can see the lone occupant frantically wiping his windshield with a white cloth. His name is Henrik Nurayov and my guess is that his breath has glazed the windshield because the defroster in his car is shorting out just like his taillights. They are victims of the Russian rust that eventually causes everything to quit working, including the people. We would hate to lose poor Henrik to a violent motor vehicle accident, blinded as he appears to be. If anybody gets to kill him tonight, it should be us. But on the other hand, it would get us home in time for nightcaps were he to crash. At last, Henrik creates enough of a porthole to continue his journey without veering into a car loaded with angels.

  Henrik is a British subject in the employ of MI6. Never mind MI6's loyalty oaths and all that, says Henrik. Instead, he collects Russian rubles in exchange for the wiring schematics of Her Majesty's aircraft carriers the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales, currently under construction. Or perhaps he’ll receive payment for a flash drive loaded with the Prime Minister's nuclear codes to deliver a preemptive strike on Moscow. If it can be downloaded, Henrik has it for sale.

  Tonight Henrik is a little off his usual route home. We know because we have been following him for a week waiting for him to make a move. He heads for the parking lots serving St. Basil's Cathedral, where he will pick up a succulent treat: a ten-year-old refugee boy from Syria.

  Our job tonight—my driver and I—is to infiltrate Henrik's home and steal back all manner of computers, laptops, drives, gadgetry, and papers that could possibly have some value to Her Majesty's enemies. Henrik believes in free enterprise except when it shouldn't be free, which is when it should be paid for, which is always. It is around that syllogism that he has amassed a fortune, money which Henrik stores in the First World banks of Third World countries like the Caymans. Henrik never saw a bank sitting in the middle of banana trees that he wouldn't stuff with money from his traitorous ways. He was very democratic that way, giving all nations a chance to bid on Her Majesty's secrets.

  And why are we from Moscow Station assisting our UK friends? Because we've been ordered to. CIA orders are never questioned. We're more like the military than the military.

  Henrik's Volvo jostles across the washboard to the parking lot alongside St. Basil's. The brake lights flare and hazard lights take over. Children are everywhere along the block wall, standing in ones and twos and threes, some in cheery laughter and games, some blank-faced and despondent; others shiver, coatless, against the cold that would turn us all into statuary tonight. It is one of these—a coatless one—that Henrik waves at, indicating the child should come and speak into Henrik's lowered window. The chosen one points to himself, Henrik nods violently, and the child rushes around to Henrik's side. We can see the boy wipe a long smear of snot from his upper lip with the sleeve of his cotton shirt. Henrik ignores this, reaching outside his window without hesitation to inspect the child's testicles. Gently he weighs the sac in his palm, decides the boy is suitably pre-pubescent, whereupon Henrik, ever the consumer, smiles as if at a waiter tendering the sweetest lamb in all of Athens. The boy, whose nuts have just been jiggled, moves a step nearer the car. Suddenly he bends down and kisses Henrik squarely on the mouth. As he does this, two children rap on my driver's window—we are pulled up behind Henrik as if we, too, are shopping for the holiday—and Petrov, my driver, shoos them away. They kick the trunk of our Lada Vesta as they pass behind us onto the sidewalk. We don't notice.

  The coatless chosen passes proudly around to the passenger door of Henrik's Volvo and slides inside. His head instantly disappears from view as the Volvo's hazard lights vanish and it crunches away from the curb, bored with the sidewalk chum. We follow behind but then, just as Petrov thinks Henrik has made us, she swings around him and moves us ahead with the traffic in the fast lane. There is no need to follow our man at this point: we know he is headed home because he has nowhere else to exercise his sexual hunger on the chosen except at his home.

  We angle off through the traffic for a good twenty minutes. At last we leave behind the city limits and more of the sky comes into view.

  Home is a crouching, single-family dwelling along a dark, sharply crowned road north of Moscow. Along its edges are irrigation ditches, and the look on Petrov's face tells me that if we were to slide off the road into one of those we would likely freeze to death after we have run out of gasoline, still undiscovered in this lonely place. So while Petrov takes care, her eyes glued to the road, my own eyes search out Henrik's surrounding acreage. I'm looking for any vehicle or form comprising a new addition to the property since our spy satellite beamed down its pictures late this afternoon. It is a difficult task, mine, because the pictures were an overhead view while mine is a view of the elevation. Still, somehow the mind makes the translation of the one to the other, and I'm happily satisfied to see there is nothing new under the sky. At least nothing on the outside; what or who might be lurking inside, that is anyone's guess. Which is why Petrov and I carry PSS Silent Pistols, the proud sidearm of the Spetsnaz. With our firepower we will overwhelm any person bent upon keeping us from Henrik. We will have our man and be done with it tonight. Make no mistake about that, I think to myself, and the phrase becomes a refrain in my mind. In my state of exhaustion—we have been up three days—my mind produces images of Russian dancers in a line gliding gracefully to the lyric Make no mistake. The tune is Russi
an, I imagine, and I'm suddenly cognizant that I might be imagining this whole entire moment. I suck in a lungful of air and swallow it hard down inside my chest, where it creates a bubble that asserts itself against my diaphragm. Yes, I have hallucinated oftentimes tonight; it must all stop now before I shoot someone who isn't there and hit someone who is. My greatest fear.

  I belch and my pulse returns to normal, the crazy time subsided.

  My name is Russell Xiang. Petrov and the others at Moscow Station call me Rusty. I don't mind; Station is one-half American. But some of our tribe are recruited from the trash heap of KGB discards. Where they were dross to the Russians, they are gold to the Americans. Those of us who came here from America, we were well-received in Moscow, paid well, given new identities and sent out to collect information in that most traditional way of all spycraft: combing the late-night bars and clubs in search of lesbian and gay bureaucrats. These are the desperate ones, the angels who will sell Putin's secrets for warm arms and cuddles. I have held them in my arms, these desperate ones, and I have whispered sweet nothings while my bedroom video recorded us. We were never ones to ruin anyone, either. Neither did we ever expose anyone. But we certainly mined them for their gold while we ignored their dross.

  We pull by the house and back into a lane overgrown with the barest of nut trees. Their branches weave a basket overhead, partially blotting out the starlight and it is from this shelter that we will watch for Henrik's Volvo. We aren't there five minutes until we see headlights approaching and ever so slowly the dashboard light of the vehicle resolves into the silhouette of two human heads side-by-side as if sitting knee-to-knee in the front seat.

  "Two heads now," says Anna Petrov. "Rubles have been earned."

  Without signaling, Henrik maneuvers into a looping right turn and speeds up his driveway to the circle drive in front.

  "What's the hurry?" asks Petrov; we both laugh. All of our work should be so easy as this. Henrik's lust is steering the car and pressing the gas. He parks and the inside light flares and we know, Petrov and I, that Henrik can't make it inside the house and into the hot tub fast enough with his juvenile. The entire scene fills me with nausea and a sense of disgust for the man, which violates my cardinal rule that I harbor no feelings for my quarry, good or bad. I maintain this equilibrium so that I will make no errors in my work that might be born of emotion. Emotions kill. That should be the first line in every recruit's spy book.

  We decide to give it ten minutes. At that point, Henrik and the chosen will be at the peak of their transaction with their attention sidetracked; Petrov and I will move in on them then. We wait now, without talking, watching the beginnings of snow as the sky is clouding over and flakes are sifting sideways all around our little car. It is serene here, almost, and I find myself wishing that I could just be with Petrov like this throughout the night except maybe even closer together in the car. She knows nothing of my feelings for her and would never guess: back Stateside I'm now a married man. Petrov would never suspect that a man like me would allow himself to embrace feelings for a work partner. I'm known as cold and methodical and able to kill without even a flinch at the instant the death blow is struck. Moreover, I'm known as the best field agent the Station has in Russia—particularly in Moscow—which requires the highest degree of self-control and lack of whimsy in one's personal life as is possible. There are other parts of me my comrades know nothing about, parts that could lead to a needle in my arm with a paralyzing agent streaming toward my heart. But those parts are never shown—ever. Those secrets will die with me. Those same secrets, ironically, could also be the death of me.

  She nudges me. "Ten minutes," she whispers across the frozen air.

  Without a word, I open the passenger door and stand up. She follows. There is no dome light; we are too seasoned for that. Wearing our goose down coats with hoods, we trudge off down the middle of the frozen road. Then we are turning up Henrik's drive and making our way from shadow to shadow as we come up on our quarry. The heavy gun inside its holster is tight up under my arm; Petrov carries hers likewise. Together my partner and I have expended tens of thousands of rounds through our service weapons at the range in Zarkovnia. We are expert marksmen, both of us, capable of field stripping our weapons then reassembling them in forty seconds, blindfolded. We are, in a word, ready for war as we slip around behind the house. There is but one light on inside, and I'm quite sure it is a night light in the master bedroom. That's right, I have been here before, as Henrik's guest, when the Station and MI6 were still talking. Anymore, not so much, as relations have been abraded. Blame it on Henrik.

  We glide along the back of the house, pausing at the sliding door. I try it first. It is locked. Petrov produces two suction cups with handles and fits them tight against the glass, pressing down a hasp affair that seals the vacuum against the glass. Using an industrial glass cutter, I turn and carve out a man-sized hole in the glass, large enough for both of us to step through together. Petrov manipulates one suction handle and I the other as we lift the excised glass up and out and lay it roughly in the snow. A blast of warm air coming from inside causes the curtains to flutter, momentarily providing a quick look inside. There is no one in the room, though my field of vision is limited. I tap Petrov on the shoulder and we step through into Henrik's kill zone. Momentarily it will be our kill zone—if we are lucky, if we are fast, if Henrik isn't luckier and faster.

  Just as we step inside and pause to get our bearings, a calm, commanding voice booms forth.

  "Don't take another step. There are all manner of guns pointed at you right now."

  The light that was on earlier is doused. We are completely in the dark and helpless, our guns still holstered—for whatever difference that makes: there are no targets.

  "Withdraw your weapons and hold them by the muzzle as if you're passing them along. Because you are."

  We follow the direction. No sooner have I extended my weapon than it is plucked from my hand.

  Then the lights come alive and we are stunned by harsh spots being directed at our eyes. Now we are really blind.

  "Rusty, old bloke, did you really think we didn't see you behind us?"

  It is Henrik. I raise my hand to shade my eyes and I can just make him out in front of me. A heavy gun is held in his hand, its muzzle pointed at my head. Beside me I can sense Petrov doing the same, searching through the light for any kind of opening, any kind of advantage. She sees what I see, I'm sure: we are in the company of five men plus Henrik, all heavily armed, all prepared to shoot us, I have no doubt. They are Russians, I know by their ill-fitting suits and lackluster haircuts. One thing is for certain: they are not MI6 operators like Henrik. No, this little affair tonight is being held not under the auspices of British Intelligence. We have stepped onto the set of Russia Behind the Curtain. Which means we will die here tonight before we're done.

  Henrik gets right to it. "How much do you know of Ehrlyich IT?" he asks us both.

  In all honesty, I have no idea what he's talking about. And I tell him so.

  "We know nothing about Ehrlyich. We don't know who he or she is and that's not why we're here."

  I can hear the sarcasm almost before Henrik speaks: "You dropped in to check on my juvenile visitor? Is that what you're going to use to squirm out of this? Pity that, both of you. Bloody hell, how dare you insult me!"

  "I wasn't going to say that at all," I reply. "We came here to rob you. We had no idea you were anywhere near."

  Henrik laughs long and hard. "Please, spare me. You followed me here, you wanker. You damn sure knew I was here."

  "On my honor, one American spy to one British operator, we weren't behind you tonight, Henrik. Whoever you saw back there, it wasn't us."

  I still can't see clearly because we are blinded by the spots, but I can hear the clearing of a throat, a mild cough, an emphysematous inhalation of air: they are allowing me to formulate, in my mind, the location of those spread around us waiting to shoot us.

  "Your hono
r. I see," Henrik says. Then his voice becomes strong. "You two, take these two interlopers out to the pig pen and shoot them. Leave them for the pigs to devour. By morning there won't be even a bone left over for us to clean up."

  "You will turn around and walk ahead of us," commands a new voice. "You will not turn around. If you do, you will be shot on the spot. We are going forty meters straight back until we come to a feedlot. You will unhook the gate and walk inside and wait."

  "And then you will shoot us?" I ask.

  "Then we will shoot you," says a second voice, a female. "And we will leave you to the pigs."

  Already I know a deal has been struck between Petrov and me. She will attack the female; I will take the male—if the chance comes around, which it probably won't. These people are professionals. They're not known for giving chances.

  We turn as ordered and step back through the hole we made in the sliding door. The wind has picked up and the snow is coming down in fat flakes that catch on my eyelashes; they would be a welcome touch from a caring universe at any other time. But tonight I tell myself that I don't want to die in a snowstorm; I want to die an old man, at home in my own bed, my children gathered around and my wife reading from Psalms.

  Forty steps more and we are abreast of the pig pen. You smell it long before you can make out its confines by the ambient light from the house. Never a welcome perfume in anyone's night.

  "Halt!" cries the man. Petrov and I freeze mid-step. We know better than to disobey but we also know he wants us to use our last energy getting ourselves inside the pen. It would be a great labor for him to have to wrangle us inside and, clearly, he isn't about doing that.

  "Open the gate and step inside."

  I slip in the snow, catch myself, and reach out for the gate.

  "There's a loop over the gate post. Lift it up and away."

  I do as instructed and pull at the gate. It slides toward me on the frozen ground.

  "You first," the female orders Petrov. I know the moment has come as soon as she says it.

  Petrov takes one step toward the opening in the livestock pen, feints with her body, then flings the back of her hand like a hammer across the nose of the woman with the gun. In that same instant I bring my foot around and catch the gentleman behind me across his left skull. He crumples to his knees, stunned, but his gun is still gripped in his right hand. Then—thankfully—he loses his balance and swings his gun hand down onto the frozen ground to catch himself from pitching face-first onto the ice. In that exact instant I finish him with no less than a soccer kick to the head and, as I connect, I hear the sharp crack of his vertebrae as his head snaps sideways, all but lopped off. In these same milliseconds, Petrov has jammed her elbow into the female's throat and the woman has crumpled to her knees, gripping her throat and gasping to draw air over her crushed larynx. She dies like that moments later, a startled look spread across her face as one who has received a telegram advising of one's own death. We quickly retrieve their guns and, without speaking, fire one shot each into their skulls. Henrik will hear the shots and know that we are dead and presently in the jaws of the feedlot's residents.