Blood Line (9 page)

I pressed myself into the asphalt as the big SUV made a U-turn. Its headlights washed over my position for a split second. I waited to move from my hiding place till I could no longer hear the SUV’s engine. I crawled out from under the car and was reaching back for my pack when I heard Leecy’s voice.

“Do you need a lift?”

I stood to see my daughter smiling at me from the front passenger seat of the four-door Ford pickup truck she and Valerie had been hiding behind.

“I don’t want to know,” I said.

“Dad, it only took Mom three minutes and forty-five seconds to steal this truck. And we switched the license plates with the car parked next to it,” Leecy said, and then asked, “How cool is that?”

“It’s not cool. It’s just necessary,” I heard Valerie say from behind the wheel. “Let’s not make this more dramatic than we have to. You coming, Ron?”

“I’m coming,” I said. I opened the rear door and climbed in the back seat.

“Why is Wakefield in Atlanta? Did you ask her that? What do you think she wants from you in return for her help?” Valerie asked as she accelerated slowly through the parking lot like nothing had happened at all.

“I don’t know,” I replied, “and I never got a chance to ask her. That’s the least of our concerns right now. I think we should be more concerned with the fact that the Smiths and Porter got on to us so easily. How’d they do that?”

“You know my theory, Dad: either your contact at the CIA gave you up or they got the number without her knowing.”

“Tammy would never give us up, Leecy,” I said. “It’s more likely they got the numbers from the store where we bought the phones.”

“You’re right, Dad. They probably looked at a map and made an educated guess as to where we might go. They checked the store and bingo,” Leecy said. “Why would the lady you say you trust so much and that knows you so well betray you? That doesn’t make any sense to me.”

I was already thinking ahead.

“How are we supposed to drive into a big city like Atlanta, enter a hotel and meet with Wakefield with an APB out for us? I don’t see how we can do that. Maybe one of us, but not all three of us.”

“We’ll be fine,” Valerie said.

I listened with my customary amazement as my wife rattled off the plan, and her extreme confidence in what she was saying was contagious. I believed we had nothing to worry about.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” she continued. “First we drive into the city and park the truck close to the hotel. Then we walk the short distance from the car to the hotel lobby and into the elevators like we’re guests at the hotel.”

I hoped it would be that simple. She thought it would be that simple, and if history was any indicator, she was right. I trusted her, and that’s all that mattered.

I settled into the seat as we left the airport lights behind us. I could see the clock on the dashboard. It was almost 2:00 a.m., only 24 hours since the break-in.

Leecy broke the short-lived silence, asking her mother, “Will you tell me about the mission to Russia in the winter of 1989?”

“Sure, we have a little time now,” Valerie said, and then began, “I told you about meeting with my liaison and being told to be ready to go in one hour.”

“Yes, I remember all of that. What happened next?”

“It was snowing and freezing cold when I arrived in Leningrad. I was met at the airport and driven to a safe house in the heart of the city. There was a briefing on the latest intelligence report, and after the meeting I slept for about three hours, and then ate dinner with the others before walking to the Rinaldi Hotel a few blocks away. A room had been reserved for me using my false credentials and my team had given me a key. Once I was in the room, I checked the closet and found a red wig and a KGB officer’s uniform. I changed into the uniform, put on the wig and left the hotel through the rear entrance. I walked two blocks and entered the front door of 31 Blokhina Street at exactly 2045 hours. I remember there was a group of young men gathered in the vestibule. They were smoking and passing a bottle of Vodka around. I told them in Russian not to loiter and move along. Part of the plan was to make certain I was seen. That group of guys was perfect. I figured they’d surely remember the red-haired female KGB officer entering the building. They grumbled at me in Russian, but moved along.

“Once the men were gone, I climbed the stairs two at a time. They were metal stairs, and I thought the echo would wake the dead before I reached the roof access door, which I found open just like I was told it would be. I stepped out onto the roof and the wind cut through the heavy wool overcoat. I could see the glass onion dome in the center of building thirty-one’s roof. The dome was in direct line of sight with the front of the Yubileiny Concert Hall. I crossed the roof and entered the dome to find the Dragunov SVDSN sniper rifle and backpack in place.

“The rifle was mounted on a bench rest and aimed in the direction of the front of the concert hall through the one glassless pane in the dome. I checked the contents of the pack and removed my change of clothes. The plan was for me to leave an insignia button from the uniform and blame the KGB for the assassination. That piece of evidence along with the gang of guys as eyewitnesses in the lobby would be all that was needed.”

“Very clever,” Leecy said.

“So, I removed the wool coat and pulled a button free, dropping it on the floor. Then I folded the coat as a kneepad before placing it on the floor. I checked the weapon thoroughly, making sure it wasn’t loaded and the barrel wasn’t obstructed. Three hundred meters isn’t a difficult distance, but it’s challenging, and was the exact distance I’d been training at for months. But I also had to find something through the scope to help me gauge the wind. I watched the flags atop the concert hall billowing for a few seconds. The wind was minimal, so I only corrected for it by turning one click on my scope. That click recalibrates the scope’s bull’s-eye, accounting for the wind’s effect on the bullet. Now I was ready to load up with the 7N1 Russian sniper round, and the weapon was ready to fire.”

Valerie paused. We were exiting Interstate 75 at Techwood Avenue. She took Tenth Street and turned right again on Spring Street. Spring ran south for four blocks before intersecting with North Avenue, where she turned right and drove over the interstate below, making a left into the parking lot of a Comfort Inn.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, parking in front of the hotel check-in window.

I watched her from the backseat. She walked up to the Plexiglas window and booked the second hotel room of the night for us, paying cash in advance.

She opened the door to the truck, tossing me a key card and saying, “Come on. The room is close by. We can walk from here.”

She wasn’t exaggerating. The room was on the first floor directly behind the office. I was unlocking the door to the room and about to ask if we needed to set up for watch detail when Leecy spoke first.

“Finish the story, Mom?”

I dropped my pack and lay down on one of the small double beds.

Valerie dropped her pack on the small desk and walked to the bathroom to wash her hands and face. I watched her reach for a towel and simultaneously check her watch.

“Look, it’s after three in the morning. We have to be up and moving in six hours. Let’s get some sleep.”

“Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Just tell the rest of the story and then bed time.”

“Okay,” Valerie agreed, and picked up where she’d left off. “At that point, it was a waiting game. I changed out of the KGB uniform and into the American student outfit from the backpack: Guess jeans, sweatshirt, Reeboks and heavy jean jacket. The last thing I removed from the backpack was the detonator I’d requested. In our meeting earlier that day, I was worried the single shot would give away my position and not give me enough time to escape. So I’d asked for a car rigged with light explosives to be placed next to the concert hall, 150 meters from the sniper’s nest, slightly north of my line-of-sight, which meant I’d have to shoot with my right hand and activate the remote detonator with my left.

“I finished my exit prep work by packing the uniform in the backpack along with the wig just as my watch alarm chimed. I took up my position behind the rifle and watched through the scope for Volodarsky to exit the building. And then he did. There he was, his big profile in the scope.”

I heard Leecy gasp to herself, but say nothing.

“I had a clean shot. I remember saying to myself
breathe
, and then triggering the car bomb while simultaneously squeezing the pistol grip and the trigger. I watched the target’s head explode, sending a plume of red mist into the air.”

“Oh my god!” Leecy cried out, plain and clear this time.

“He was dead. I left the rooftop the same way I’d arrived, but I used the back door this time. I was wearing the backpack, and I walked across the inner courtyard behind the Blokhina Street building to the rear door of number 5 Zverinskaya. I walked through that empty building and out the front door unobserved. I crossed the street to the Rinaldi Hotel and took the stairs to the third floor. I found the trash chute for the incinerator room and dropped the backpack and its contents inside the chute. I was assured the chute connected directly to the incinerator. I was worried about that because I hadn’t been able to verify that fact for myself, but I had to trust the intelligence report. I walked to my room and retrieved the small travel bag from the closet and packed the clothes I was wearing. I washed my face and hands and dressed in the clothes I’d been wearing before I put on the KGB uniform. All I had to do was wait for my flight to leave Leningrad. I would fly to Moscow the next morning, then Berlin, and in two days I was back in the USA.”

“Holy crap,” Leecy exclaimed, “you did all that? Man, you’ve got ice water in your veins. What were you, twenty years old back then? That’s just nuts,” Leecy continued as she walked across the room closing the door to the bathroom behind her.

“Well, that one will hold her for a while,” I said.

Leecy was back in two minutes, ready for bed.

“Are you okay?” Val asked.

“I’m fine. I’m just really tired and excited and scared all at the same time. It’s confusing. It’s the kind of thing I want to do, but…I don’t know. Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” Leecy said and added sweetly, “Goodnight, Mom and Dad.”

It was 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning, the 22nd of June – my wife’s birthday. I’d left her and my daughter sleeping in the hotel room and wandered back across the interstate overpass using the pedestrian walkway to the corner of North Avenue and Spring Street. The gas station there served double duty as a Dunkin Donuts. I planned to buy Valerie a birthday donut and return to the room to surprise her with it. But I hadn’t slept much, if at all, so first I sank onto a counter stool and into a large cup of black coffee.

My seat at the counter faced the parking lot. I watched the locals filling their cars with gas and their bellies with donuts for ten or twenty minutes, waiting for the caffeine in the coffee to kick me into gear.

I picked out a traffic camera at the stoplight and two more mounted on opposite corners of the Varsity restaurant across the street. There was no escaping the eye in the sky. I wondered if cameras somewhere had caught my family and me, and that’s how Porter got onto us. I seemed to recall a camera at the Chick-fil-A yesterday, and several red light cameras along our route. If Porter and his team were searching all the cameras in the Atlanta area, they would find us. There was nowhere for us to hide.

At 9:00 a.m. I ordered another cup of coffee and bought bottles of water, some fruit and yogurt, and one donut with sprinkles. With a bag full of food in one hand and a drink carrier in the other, I made my way back to the hotel and my girls. I was struggling with the key card when the door to our room opened.

Leecy said, “Yummy, breakfast. I’m starving,” and grabbed the bag I was holding between my teeth.

“The donut is for Mom’s birthday; don’t eat it,” I called after her, and closing the door behind me, said, “I hope you both slept well, ‘cause it’s going to be a long day.”

Leecy was holding the donut facing the bathroom door and I took the hint, grabbed Val’s coffee and stood next to Leecy and waited. We sang, “Happy birthday to you,” as the bathroom door opened.

Valerie took her cup of coffee from me and said with a sleepy smile “Thank you, I appreciate the donut…and the sprinkles especially.”

“You’re welcome. We need to think about heading to the meeting. I noticed the traffic was standing still as I crossed over the interstate.”

“On a Saturday?” Leecy asked.

“Yep, the traffic was at a standstill in the four southbound lanes.”

“I’m sorry, guys,” Val said as she ate her donut, “but this isn’t exactly how I wanted to celebrate my birthday. Can I just have a do over later?”

“That’s a great idea,” Leecy said. “A party when this stuff is behind us.”

“Deal,” I said, “but what about the traffic issue?”

“Not a problem. I know how to get to the Westin without using the interstate. It’s why I picked this hotel,” Valerie said. “Ron, you drive, and I’ll tell you where to go.”

I was first out of the room and into the truck. The girls were moving slower than normal, but that would soon change. All Leecy needed was food, and Valerie needed a little caffeine. I connected the ignition wires, and the truck roared to life.

“Which way, birthday girl?”

“Make a left out of the parking lot.”

We arrived at the Westin fifteen minutes early, or on time, according to Valerie. I couldn’t ask anyone else to hot-wire the truck, so I drove past the hotel valet stand and away from the hotel for a block, finding a self-parking lot on Williams street.

“Okay, this is as close as we can get,” I said. “Are you guys ready?”

“Ready,” Valerie and Leecy said together. It sounded like music to my ears.

We grabbed our packs and covered the one block distance to the hotel at a leisurely pace. I watched the faces of the people we passed on the sidewalk and none of them paid us any attention. They were all busy with handheld devices just like Val said they would be. The doorman at the hotel was the only person to make eye contact with me, but he showed no signs of recognition. We crossed the lobby to the bank of house phones located near the reception desk. I picked up one of the receivers and pressed 2-2-1-1 on the keypad. The phone rang once, and I heard an unfamiliar female voice.

“We have you on camera. Walk to the elevators and take the next available one. We’ll activate it for you,” the woman instructed and ended the call.

I replaced the receiver. “Follow me, ladies.”

I led the girls across the lobby, finding the elevator bank for the hotel guests. There was an open elevator door waiting for us. The door closed as soon as we were inside. I watched as the number ‘22’ illuminated on the panel of buttons, and we were moving.

“They have us on camera and also took control of the elevators,” I said. “Tammy has embraced the technological age.”