Black Flagged Apex (71 page)

"And I need to warm up for our chat. You won't be disappointed," Reznikov said.

While the mad scientist pulled another shot glass out of a cabinet, Berg placed his leather satchel on the pine floor and sat down at the kitchen table. He surveyed the feast prepared for him by the lodge's kitchen staff. He hoped they were just rolling out the red carpet to loosen Reznikov's lips. Fresh fruit, lobster benedict, smoked salmon and toasted bagels with cream cheese, orange juice.

"Please help yourself. They just showed up with all of this. Can you believe it? Only in America. I should have come to your country earlier. Maybe I wouldn't have turned out so bad," he said and poured two full shots of vodka.

He set one of the glasses in front of Berg and took a seat across the table.

"A toast. To taking down VEKTOR Labs."

Berg hesitantly raised his glass. He eyed Reznikov warily, as the Russian downed his glass of clear liquid. Berg followed suit, grimacing at the sharp burn. A few seconds later, he felt a little less worn out from the previous day's travels.

"Where did you stash your beautiful assistant? I had hoped she would be part of the package. I didn't notice any women here."

"I'm sure they keep a few blow-up dolls on hand for the guests," he said, placing the shot glass down on the table.

"Such hostility. Not exactly the kind of environment that makes me want to share the intimate details of my former employer." The Russian reached behind him to retrieve the vodka bottle from the countertop.

"Perhaps you'd rather have your head stuffed into a diarrhea-filled toilet bowl three stories below the surface of the earth?"

Berg raised his hands to simulate a balanced scale. "Fresh mountain air, nice view, gourmet food, spa-like amenities," he said, raising one hand and lowering the other.

"Or…daily beatings, concrete pavement sleeping arrangements, one meal a day and toilet bowl scuba lessons. Don't fuck with me here."

"Easy, my friend. I get it," Reznikov said, pouring another shot.

He started to move the bottle over to Berg's side of the table, but Berg grabbed it from his trembling hand. On closer inspection, Reznikov didn't look as robust as he was acting. Mention of a permanent prison cell underground had quickly flushed the color from his face.

"I'm not your friend, and you'll get this bottle back after we've made considerable progress."

He placed the bottle on the floor and retrieved a legal pad from his satchel, along with a digital recording device.

"Don't put the bottle on the floor. Radiant heat. Feels wonderful, but you almost have to wear socks," Reznikov said.

Berg removed the chilled bottle from the floor, placing it on the table, shaking his head. Radiant fucking heat? What was next? Daily massage therapy?

"So. Where do you want to start?" Reznikov said.

"From the beginning. How did you become involved with VEKTOR?"

"The roots of that decision reach back to my childhood. Are you in the mood for a story?" he paused.

"As long as it has something to do with VEKTOR," Berg said.

"It has everything to do with VEKTOR and how Russia's bioweapons program long ago eclipsed their nuclear weapons program," he whispered.

Three hours later, Berg emerged from the villa with a distant look on his face. He followed the gravel path through the forest to the main clearing, hardly paying any attention to his footing or his surroundings. The warm, late afternoon sun barely registered on his face. If Reznikov had told the truth, the United States and its allies faced the greatest threat to world stability since the Cold War. A secret race to develop bioweapons of mass destruction, and the Russians had a thirty-year head start. The reckless plan that he'd suggested to Sanderson didn't feel so outlandish anymore. The bioweapons program at VEKTOR Labs had to be destroyed.

**

Anatoly Reznikov peered through the shades of his front window at the vanishing shape of Karl Berg, the enigmatic CIA agent that had miraculously rescued him from a quick death at the hands of his former masters. The past week had been confusing, hazy and punctuated by severe fluctuations in his mental state that kept him unable to focus. He'd spent most of the time feeling utterly helpless, certain that he would be brutally interrogated and discarded. The pessimistic side of him had taken full control of his emotions, which came at little surprise to him. He'd tried to drink himself to death in Stockholm and, failing that, had put a gun to his head to finish the job. And that was just the beginning of a two-day roller coaster ride marked by repeated cardiac arrest, torture and beatings while strapped to a bed.

Only a sheer miracle could explain his sudden moment of clarity on the jet ride back to the United States. It had probably just been a natural fluke. A random release of chemicals, possibly dopamine, to relax his anxiety long enough for him to wrestle control of his mind. Maybe it had been triggered by the sight of Karl Berg sipping scotch or the sharp smell of aged liquor filling the cabin. It didn't matter. Within the short span of time it took for Karl Berg to walk down the business jet's aisle, he had formulated a plan that was guaranteed to set him free. Free from all of this.

Earning a transfer to this facility was just the first step in his plan. As soon as his mind had devised the plan, he wondered if it had been his fate all along to fall right into Berg's lap. He couldn't think of a better scenario now that his mind had cleared enough for him to see the bigger picture. He'd been despondent about Al Qaeda's betrayal and his subsequent failure to recover more of the virus canisters, but this new turn of events would take his original plan to the next level. He just needed to place a single phone call to activate part two of his plan.

He hadn't lied to Berg. On the contrary. He had told the agent everything, except the part about how he had successfully stolen samples of every weaponized virus and bacteria created at VEKTOR. He hadn't been dismissed from VEKTOR for attempting to steal viral encephalitis samples. By that point, he had already stolen samples of everything he had seen in the bioweapons division. He had been caught trying to access a section of the laboratory off limits to everyone except for three scientists. Rumors started circulating that the small group had created something nobody had seen before. He took the bait and attempted to sneak into the lab. At that point, security features at VEKTOR relied more on humans than technology, and large sums of money helped him circumvent most of the security surrounding the isolated laboratory cell. Or so he had thought.

Seconds from crossing the point of no return, he was warned off by the only security guard not infiltrated by FSB agents. Without stepping foot in the off-limits section, they couldn't shoot him on the spot like they had planned. Instead, FSB agents backed off and allowed him to continue work at the lab, under close supervision. A week later, he received an offer to lead a lab group at their sister institute in Kazakhstan. He knew it was a setup, and the rest was history. He'd escaped with his life and bioweapons samples worth millions of dollars. Fate had given him one more chance, and he didn't intend to waste it. One call to some very nefarious "friends," and he could take leave of this place, free to sell his weapons to the highest bidder. And the icing on the cake? VEKTOR's bioweapons division and all of its key personnel would likely be targeted by Berg's people. He'd finally avenge his parents' murder at the hand of Russian security forces. Revenge was sweet, especially when it required no effort on his part.

Chapter 2

9:15 PM

Viggbyholm, Sweden

Mihail Osin stared at the glowing windows of 14 Värtavägen and considered his options. He hadn't detected any movement inside the one-story house, but the interior lights had greeted them upon their silent arrival at the edge of the property's thick evergreen screen, and he couldn't ignore the possibility that their target might still be present. Even snagging one of the safe house's "keepers" could put them back on the path to finding Reznikov. Unfortunately, his own experience with the use of foreign safe houses didn't leave him optimistic. Reznikov's abduction had occurred over two weeks ago, which was an eternity to keep a high-value target in such an exposed, but well-concealed location.

The CIA made a wise choice with this house. The neighborhood was surprisingly rustic and eerily quiet for a suburb less than fifteen kilometers from the center of Stockholm. Close enough to the city for quick access, yet isolated enough to ensure natural privacy. Hidden in plain sight. Judging by the amount of time it took the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service to uncover the location, the CIA had gone to great lengths to bury this place in the open.

His team of four operatives had been dropped off on the street behind the safe house a few minutes before dusk. Their van quickly departed the area and joined a rented Volvo sedan parked at a church less than two minutes away. The two-man team in the Volvo had conducted the initial reconnaissance of the neighborhood, quickly determining that street parking was either prohibited or discouraged in the residential areas of Viggbyholm. They hadn't seen a single car parked on any of the nearby streets and had a difficult time picking out a discreet spot along the road behind the house to drop the team unseen. Parking one of their vans on the street for any length of time or lingering nearby would simply invite disaster. Sitting in the church parking lot after dark probably wasn't the best idea either, but it was the only non-residential parking zone with quick access to the safe house.

Mihail shifted knees and removed a hand-sized black electronic device from the open nylon backpack next to him. The device had two stubby antennae and a muted orange LCD screen. He examined the LCD screen, which cast a barely detectable orange glow on his face. The multi-channel, wireless radio frequency (RF) detector showed a few faint wireless signals in the 2400-2480 MHz range used by off-the-shelf, commercial home wireless routers. He was more interested in anything using the 800-1000 MHz frequency range, which included specific sub-ranges most commonly used by wireless motion sensors. Anything lower than 800 MHz would similarly pique his attention. The RF detector had passively collected data since their arrival twenty minutes earlier, twice detecting a short frequency burst at 910MHz, which was one of the most common frequencies associated with the local GSM-900 cellular network. The short transmission also resembled what he'd seen before when a cell phone regularly registers to a local cell tower. At this point, he felt satisfied that the neither the yard nor the house was protected by motion detectors. He stood up and signaled for the team to move forward, placing the detector in the pack before slipping it over his shoulders. He disengaged the safety on his PP2000 submachine gun and stepped into the backyard.

Three of the four Spetsnaz operatives converged on the back door from different points in the yard, while the fourth operative slid along the right side of the house, looking for the power line connection. Mihail listened intently near one of the illuminated windows, but heard nothing beyond the distant hum of a car motor. He decided that they would try to pick the lock and deadbolt, instead of forcing the door open. He desperately wanted to avoid making noise in this neighborhood. If nobody was present in the house, he wanted time to inspect it for anything useful. While one of his operatives worked the locks with a small tool kit, he listened underneath a different window. The house was still. By the time he returned, less than one minute later, the two locks had been silently opened.

He lowered his PN21K night vision monocular into place over his right eye and spoke softly into the microphone attached to his headgear. Two seconds later, the house darkened, and the lead member of his team burst through the door with enough force to dislodge any chain lock barring their entrance. Mihail followed the second man through the door, and they fanned out, scanning the darkness with their goggles. Once the doorways leading out of the kitchen were secured, he whispered orders for the team to go silent and listen. Roughly two minutes later, he raised his night vision goggles and ordered the fourth operative to return electrical power to the house.

When the lights reenergized, they could plainly see what the rough green images cast by their night vision had indicated. The house had been cleared of everything, "sanitized" all the way down to the toilet paper rolls. He recalled the fourth member of his team, and they spent the next five minutes checking closets, opening drawers and prying at wallpaper in a futile attempt to find anything. Each operative returned to the kitchen cradling his submachine gun and quickly shaking his head. Nothing. He opened his backpack and scanned the radio frequency detector. He found a strong reading at 1621 MHz, which had started a few minutes ago. This was an L band frequency used for satellite communications. Someone knew they were here and would very likely receive a video feed of their foray through the house.

He signaled for the team to evacuate the structure, recalling the van once they were outside. On their way to the front of the house, he ordered the power to be permanently cut from the house. He checked the RF detector again and saw that the device hidden in the house continued to transmit, indicating an independent power source. He thought he had committed an error restoring power, but it wouldn't have mattered if he had kept the power off. The big mistake had been assuming that they might find anything useful in a sanitized CIA safe house. Now someone knew for certain that they hadn't lost interest in Anatoly Reznikov, which meant it was time to exercise the least desirable option on the table. As they waited for the van in the shadows, Mihail pulled out his encrypted cell phone and placed a call to SVR headquarters. As he had anticipated, their night had just begun.

Chapter 3

1:26 PM

CIA Headquarters