Laynie Portland, Spy Resurrected Page 15

  Wolfe said, “Our primary objective is to manipulate the mole into asking for a phone call with Sherman. We’ll start by knocking the mole off-balance through a series of text messages. Then we’ll agitate him, make him need more detail and force him to ask for a call.”

  Wolfe added, “At present, it’s clear that Sherman is emotionally fragile. We’ll need for him to pull himself together when his handler decides to speak to him directly. Until then, it is easier to have Jaz send the texts exactly as we craft them.”

  “And I will triangulate the mole’s location by the cell towers his phone pings. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch him while he’s on the move, and I will track his general direction,” Jaz explained.

  “Too bad we can’t do better than that,” Seraphim muttered.

  “Technology will get us there someday. Just not today—but I will need your laptop to record the call.”

  “Sure. But how will you record the mole’s side of the conversation?”

  Jaz pursed her lips. “I happen to have a little piece of, um, electronic tech that I attached to the phone. It will pick up both voices and send it to the laptop.”

  “That wouldn’t be considered an illegal wiretap, would it?”

  “Not touching any wires, cross my heart. And this tech isn’t illegal.”

  “Uh-huh. But perhaps the way you have previously used it was?”

  Jaz sidestepped Seraphim’s question with, “We’re way past legal vs. illegal. Besides, we’re not planning on using what we glean in a court of law, are we?”

  Seraphim slowly shook her head.

  “Okay, then I need your laptop. At the same time Sherman is on the call, I’ll plug a headset into your laptop, enabling Director Wolfe to listen to the person on the other end of the call. ”

  Jaz installed the software, set Seraphim’s laptop to record the call, and plugged a splitter into the laptop’s headphone jack, then added a second pair of headphones for herself.

  “Are we ready?” Wolfe asked.

  When Jaz, Seraphim, and Tobin nodded, Wolfe gave Jaz the go-ahead signal.

  Jaz keyed in the text they’d agreed upon. At Wolfe’s nod, she sent it.

  Something going down

  Don’t know what

  Lots of activity

  Intentionally vague and concerning.

  As soon as Jaz sent the text, she turned to her laptop to await the traitor’s reply and mark the towers where the phone pinged. The response came immediately.

  Need details

  “No surprise there,” Jaz told the others. She started inputting the next message. When Wolfe nodded, she sent it.

  Not sure

  Task force behind

  closed doors

  I’ve heard words

  PREPPING

  and OPERATION

  They waited. Wolfe turned to Jaz. “Have you triangulated the mole’s phone?”

  “Yah. Nothing unexpected there—your office building in DC is smack in the center of the triangulation.”

  “The traitor’s office, too,” Seraphim said.

  Jaz raised a jubilant whoop. “No! He’s on the move.”

  Wolfe smiled. “We can expect him to ask for a call soon. Let’s get Sherman ready.”

  He and Tobin left to fetch Sherman.

  Tobin and Wolfe appeared with Sherman. Sherman appeared to have shrunk. Fallen in on himself.

  “We need to know before you dial that number. Can you do what we’ve asked of you, Sherman?”

  “Yes. I have to. My wife and my son are counting on me.”

  Wolfe donned the headphones that would allow him to listen in on the call. Jaz slipped on her headset and bent over her laptop.

  Sherman pressed the buttons to call his handler’s number. Jaz was already recording the call. She and Wolfe were ready to listen. On her own laptop, Jaz watched the traitor’s movement.

  A text arrived.

  Call me immediately

  “Finally,” Jaz breathed.

  “Wait,” Wolfe ordered. “Let the traitor sweat. Give him enough time to show Jaz where he’s headed.”

  They waited until Jaz whispered, “Based on the speed the handler’s phone is pinging from cell tower to tower, I’d place him on a highway, headed northeast. General direction of Baltimore.”

  “All right. Sherman? Make the call.”

  Sherman pressed the call button. They heard the call ring through.

  Sherman’s handler picked up the call and without a preamble demanded, “I need to know everything you know about what’s going on, Mr. Stadler—and do I need to remind you? Your wife and your son’s lives depend upon your usefulness to me.”

  Jaz realized she hadn’t even known Sherman’s last name, so she almost missed it—the wave of shock that rippled across Wolfe’s face. Just as quickly, a hard, stony ruthlessness replaced it.

  Whoa. He knows who it is, all right.

  Sherman had years of habit and discipline under his belt. He slid seamlessly into his professional demeanor. “I can report that they are gearing up for something big, but I don’t know what. We’re not allowed inside the gymnasium while the task force is working on anything classified—and whatever is going on must be classified as all get-out, because Lance and I and two other guards have been posted six feet from every entrance into the gym. No one in, no one out, and we can’t hear a thing.”

  “But surely you’ve heard some rumor, some indication of what they are working on?”

  Wolfe and Seraphim had haggled over the exact piece of bait to hang from the hook. Sherman’s response had to be entirely plausible and yet not over the top. They didn’t want to send the mole into a panic.

  “I have heard something, twice now, but I’m not familiar with the term. Not sure I’m even saying it right.”

  “What term?”

  “Fenta-something. Like I said, not sure what it means.”

  Stunned silence. Then, “Can you be more explicit?”

  “Just fenta-something. Fentazole or fentanaide, close to that.”

  “Was the term fentanyl?”

  Sherman, as cool as an April morning, answered, “Maybe. Sounds about right.”

  “And what, precisely, did you hear concerning fentanyl?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I didn’t hear anything else. For some reason, everyone keeps talking about New Year’s Eve. The task force must be planning a big party, I guess.”

  Another long silence, then, “Yes, that must be it. Thank you, Mr. Stadler. Do not call me again unless I give you permission.”

  “I understand—now what about my family?”

  “They are in good health and will continue to be in good health . . . for the present.”

  The caller hung up. Sherman looked around. “Did I do all right?”

  “You did fine, Sherman,” Wolfe replied. He opened the door and called Harris. “Take him back to the library. Guard him well.”

  After Harris took Sherman from the room, Wolfe turned to Jaz. “Tracking?”

  “I’ve just lost the signal, so I assume the mole powered down the phone as soon the call ended. However, the phone’s movement had stopped about a minute before I lost the signal.”

  “Does that mean we might have the general area where Sherman’s family is being held?”

  “Very general. The phone was last pinging a mile the other side of the DC-Maryland border, just north of New Hampshire Avenue Northeast. Best I can do is place it inside a five-mile radius.”

  Jaz studied Wolfe. “You know who the mole is, the traitor, don’t you, sir?”

  “I do.”

  He lowered his voice and revealed the traitor’s identity to Seraphim, Tobin, and Jaz. The three of them recoiled at the revelation.

  In response to their incredulity and anger Wolfe added, “We now have the traitor’s identity, but on the off chance we have yet another unidentified leak here at Broadsword, we’ll tighten our OPSEC even further. We’ll redouble our scans for listening devices to ensure tha
t our classified work spaces remain secure, and we’ll widen the distance between us and Broadsword staff.

  “In fact, after you’ve informed the task force, I want not a hint of the traitor’s name to touch our lips—not mine, not yours, nor any member of the task force, even in this room or the gym. In all conversations and communications we’ll employ the code name ‘Rosenberg’ to refer to the traitor’s identity—Rosenberg as in Julius Rosenberg and his equally guilty wife.”

  He stared at each of them. “Got it?”

  Seraphim, Tobin, and Jaz answered together, “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Meanwhile, I want you, Jaz, and the entire task force digging into every facet of Rosenberg’s life—and I mean everything. Connections to AGFA and Ukrainian mob, clues that will lead us to Sherman’s family, clues as to who abducted Bella and where they have her. Divide the tasks among the team. Spare no effort or expense and leave no stone unturned.”

  Jaz’s green eyes held a glint of malevolent glee. “You needn’t motivate us, sir. No, indeed. This will be our pleasure—and we’ll work fast.”

  “Thank you. I’ll remain here at Broadsword to coordinate with the strike team for Rosenberg’s takedown and HRT’s rescue of Sherman’s wife and son.”

  YAVER AND HIS TRUCK reached Baku that evening. He drove to an empty warehouse on the outskirts of the city where he joined another driver named Emil. Yaver and Emil unloaded enough crates of wine from Yaver’s truck to reach the longer crate and haul it out.

  “It has been eight hours,” Yaver told Emil. “We must hang a new bag of fluids and inject the drugs to keep this woman Sayed wants so badly unconscious. Allah willing, she will remain unconscious—and alive—until you reach your destination.”

  “Ya Allah! I would not wish to be the man who fails Sayed, would you?”

  Yaver shook his head vehemently and they set to work without wasting more time. They pried open the crate, checked the woman’s condition, changed out the saline bags, and injected the drugs. Then they turned their attention to the other man’s produce truck. It was a small truck destined for the rural community of Botlikh in Dagestan, Russia. The driver had already unloaded a portion of the cargo, making a narrow hole for the crate. The men slid the long crate into the truck and finished surrounding it with boxes of cabbages, bags of potatoes, and fruit imported from Iran.

  Their last task was to repack the crates of wine into Yaver’s truck.

  “What will you do about the missing crates?” Emil asked Yaver.

  Yaver laughed. “The Patriarch’s clerk is not as faithful as the Patriarch might wish. The man is not averse to a few crates ‘falling off the back of the truck’ if it fattens his wallet. He will attest to receiving the entire shipment and pocket what I pay him for the wine. Later on, records will show the rate of wine consumption quite inexplicably increasing—to account for the missing cases.”

  Emil slapped Yaver on the back. “A good arrangement, Yaver. Very good! Well, I must be off if I am to reach Botlikh and my rendezvous inside eight hours.”

  The men parted company. Yaver’s truck would spend the night in the warehouse, and he would deliver the wine in the morning.

  Emil, the produce driver, however, had a long night ahead of him.

  He headed northwest on Azerbaijan’s M1, to the border crossing at Samur, Azerbaijan, on the Reka Samur River. There, he would cross over to the Russian checkpoint of Yarag-Kazmalyarskiy Tamozhennyy. Since he regularly delivered produce to the mountain villages of the Republic of Dagestan, and as the border guards were well compensated, the examination of his produce truck was cursory.

  Once in Dagestan, he drove north, following the coastline until he reached Novyy Khushet. At the junction, he turned west. This was the harder portion of his route. The road twisted and turned, up and down, through the rugged foothills of the Greater Caucasus Mountains. Botlikh was at the far end of the tedious 100-mile drive, with his rendezvous point another ten miles beyond.

  It was an hour past midnight when he passed Botlikh. The houses, many generations old, sprawled across the foothills, hanging to the rocks and hills by their fingernails. Like many mountain villages in Dagestan, Botlikh was a poor, obscure community that could boast a population of no more than 11,000. It was, however, not far from the border of its sister Russian republic, Chechnya.

  He did not stop, but continued west, then north. Eventually, he took a right turn onto an unpaved road that led up a canyon. Far down the road, headlights winked on, then off.

  His rendezvous.

  He pulled over. Men surrounded his truck.

  One of them yanked open his door. Another shined a light in his face, blinding him to what lay outside the circle of light. He raised his hands to show he was not armed.

  “As-Salamu Alaykum,” someone in darkness said.

  “Wa alaykumu s-salam,” Emil answered.

  “Do you have General Sayed’s package?”

  “Yes. I would ask some help in digging it out.”

  The light clicked off, and Emil stepped down from the cab. As his eyes adjusted, he counted four men watching him and noted two pickup trucks parked behind them that had seen many years on mountain roads.

  Emil jerked his head. “This way, please.”

  He unlocked and rolled up the rear door. Pointed. “Straight through here. If we unload the boxes of produce from here back, we will unearth the package.”

  He was careful to use a nonspecific term. From what he’d heard, Sayed was more suspicious than most men and did not like people—even his own—mouthing the details of his business, even when such knowledge was impossible to avoid.

  The men worked with a will at the direction of their leader, a large and muscular man. At his command, they were mindful of Emil’s true cargo, stacking it with care on the ground to get at the hidden crate, repacking the truck with the same care as when they’d dragged the crate out. Two men carried the crate toward one of their pickup trucks.

  Emil touched the arm of their broad-shouldered leader. “It has now been eight hours since the package was last sedated. I wish to caution you that the drugs will be wearing off soon.”

  “We will shortly be where the drugs will not matter, but thank you for the notice.”

  Emil got in his truck and Sayed’s men in theirs. The last Emil saw in his rearview mirror were the taillights of the trucks as they moved farther into the mountains.

  IT WAS MONDAY, AND Collier was in his office at the US consulate in Tbilisi. He hung up with his caller, sat back, and considered his next move. A minute later, he left his office and entered the consulate’s SCIF. Within the walls of the SCIF, with the door locked behind him, he was confident that the call he was about to place would not be intercepted or the number he dialed flagged and reported.

  He had committed the number to memory ten days ago—following the visit of his uninvited, middle-of-the-night guest. The call rang and rang. He looked at a clock. Nine in the morning in the Republic of Georgia. Six in the evening in Washington, DC. He let the call ring.

  After ten rings, someone picked up. “Wolfe here.”

  “Director Wolfe, Nathan Collier speaking.”

  “Mr. Collier. Do you have information for me?”

  “Yes. I’ve compiled witness interviews and my conversations with the police. I will forward them to you by courier—although the upshot, in my opinion, is more than a little confusing.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’ve distilled the following facts from my interviews. Several eyewitness accounts agree that, just prior to the accident, a female pedestrian stepped into the intersection. Traffic snarled and ground to a halt to avoid hitting her.”

  “The car my agent was in?”

  “Second from the intersection when this occurred.”

  “Then?”

  “The driver of the vehicle behind your agent told me that, as the line of cars pulled forward, a dump truck drove into the intersection from the left and hit your agent’s sedan. The witness said
, and I quote, ‘The truck was lumbering along, quite fast for its size, and it looked to me that it swerved toward the car ahead of us. There was no reason for it to veer. Perhaps the driver was drunk and lost control. That’s what it looked like.’”

  “And perhaps it was intentional,” Wolfe opined.

  “Yes, it very well could have been, for the same witness and his wife both declared that immediately after crashing into the car, the truck driver backed up, turned, and drove away without a backward glance.”

  “What do the police say?”

  “Ah, things get a bit more interesting—and confusing—at this juncture. Bystanders declare that the emergency response was quick. Two unmarked police cars and an ambulance. Near instantaneous, in fact, the witnesses say. A pair of police officers pushed back the growing crowd. Another pair worked to free the passengers in the seat behind the driver while the paramedics rolled a gurney to the car.”

  Collier hesitated, struggled to frame his next words. “I don’t want to read my own conclusions into the witness accounts, sir, but what the closest witness said next seems . . . odd, perhaps astonishing.”

  “Push on, Collier. I’m fairly certain the ‘astonishing’ testimonies of your witness won’t surprise me at all.”

  “Oh?”

  When Wolfe didn’t respond, Collier continued. “The driver of the car behind your agent described the paramedic’s gurney as having ‘lumpy blankets’ piled on it rather than a flat, uncluttered surface. Later, just before the explosion, when the smoke obscured the wreckage and everyone, including the paramedics, pulled back, the witness caught a glimpse of the gurney. The astonishing part? He said, and I quote, ‘Until I read in the papers that all the vehicle’s passengers died at the scene, I was convinced the paramedics had pulled at least one victim from the car.’”

  This time, Wolfe’s reply was a soft and understanding, “Ah.”

  “Sir?”

  “Finish, if you please, Mr. Collier.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll now condense my conversations with the police—as conflicting as they are.”