I Minus 72 (22 page)

The general answered on the second ring with
his customary “Wheeler”

“General, this is Thurmond.”

“Thanks for getting back to me so soon.
You’re on a secure line?”

“Yes, sir,” Grant said.

“One of the analysts going through the files
found something that might lead you to Vladimir,” Wheeler said.
“We’ve traced several of the documents which show Vladimir as the
source back to the same department. These documents were received
over several years, so our analysts believe it may be the
department he worked in. Also, some of what he supplied has, over
the years, turned out to be fake. We don’t know whether he faked
the documents just to be able to supply more stuff, or whether he
was directed to provide us specific misinformation. He might have
been a double agent. I don’t know how much that helps, but it sure
does point us in the right direction. You might want to write down
the department name and location. Maybe you can find someone there
who can recall something. A long shot, I know, but it’s the best
we’ve come up with.”

“General, could you check with the CIA to
see if they have any trusted assets in Krakow?”

“Sure. If they do, I’ll set it up so that
they contact you at the hotel. I’ll tell him to use the code name
Billie. I’ll also call you on your cell and just say ‘okay’ or ‘no
dice’ to let you know what to expect.”

“Thanks, General. we’ll be heading to Krakow
tonight.”

“Good luck, Thurmond. Stay in touch.”

Grant turned to Sam and
filled her in on what the General told him, then said, “Okay, at
least we have
something
to go on. Let’s get back to the hotel and see if
we can get a flight tonight to Krakow.”

Sam thought for a moment and said, “You
know, we could drive. It’s only a hundred and fifty miles or
so.”

Grant took a moment to stand up and think
about this. “Well, it’s still snowing, but it might be a way to
give Vladimir the slip, just in case he’s still tracking us. The
snow is supposed to get heavier later tonight but we could be there
before then. Also, a car would be useful in Krakow. Let’s do it.
I’ll see if I can get the Defense Attaché to take us to a rental
agency.”

When Grant asked the Defense Attaché to
recommend a rental agency, the officer told him there was no need
to rent a car, he could just check out an embassy car and keep it
as long as he’d like. They picked up the car, a black four wheel
drive Chevrolet Trailblazer, at the rear of the embassy and drove
back to the Hilton. It was early enough that despite the snow there
were still plenty of cars on the streets. Since Grant couldn’t be
sure he wasn’t being followed, he parked on a side street a block
or so from the hotel.

He checked the area out pretty thoroughly on
the way back to the hotel and didn’t see any sign they were being
followed. When they arrived they went in through the side entrance
and up the back stairs to their room. They packed their bags and
checked out by phone, using the credit card Sam had given them when
she arranged for this room. They went back down the stairs to the
side entrance. Grant told Sam to wait inside the hotel and, when
she saw him pull up, to come out quickly and he’d load the bags
into the back. It all worked well and they were soon on their way
to Krakow with no sign that they were spotted leaving. The attaché
officer had given him a map and directions and said he would call
ahead to the Grand Hotel, reserving a room for each of them. He
paused and looked into Grant’s eyes for only a moment when Grant
told him they’d only need one room. Grant just met his stare.

The drive to Krakow took over four hours.
Traffic was light, but the roads had not been plowed and the snow
was piling up. Even in the dark it was easy for Grant to see they
weren’t being followed, so he began to relax a bit. During the
drive, Grant and Sam talked some more about their past and Sam
asked what led him to join the Air Force.

Grant, keeping his eyes on the road said,
“My father went to Annapolis as did his father and, although no one
insisted I had to go, I just felt like my dad would be proud of me
if I went to a military academy. Unfortunately, he died while I was
in high school and never got to see me in uniform.”

“If they were Navy, how did you end up in
the Air Force? I know you went to the Air Force Academy,” Sam
asked. In the dark she was able to see Grants profile, lighted
slightly by the glow of the instrument panel lights. She liked what
she saw and knew he couldn’t see her staring. She smiled.

“Well, I chose the Air Force because I
wanted to fly and I was told that a much higher percentage of Air
Force Academy graduates went to flight school than did Naval
Academy graduates. I also wanted to have a family and didn’t want
to spend as much time away from home as they Navy types do. You
know the old saying, ‘Sailors belong on ships and ships belong at
sea.’ The ironic thing is that with the career path I chose, I
spent very little time at home, far less than a typical naval
aviator.”

“That leads to the obvious question—why
aren’t you a pilot? Did you ever go to flight school?” Sam
asked.

“No, I didn’t. One of the things the academy
did for us was to bring in people to talk about the different
career fields available. Nothing but flying interested me until I
heard the guys from intel talking about all the things you could be
involved in as part of the intelligence community. I had a chance
to spend a couple of hours with them and by the end of that time, I
was hooked. I never looked back. After graduation, I spent over a
year in specialized training and was assigned to the National
Reconnaissance Office, the NRO. It was okay for a while, but I
really wanted more action, so I wrangled a job at DIA where I
insisted on anything but a headquarters staff job. There were less
than a hundred field agents, so it took a little while to work into
one of the slots. I stayed with them until I retired.”

She was intrigued. “How do you start setting
up a network?”

“Actually, the first slot
to open up was a new one created to establish a network in Lebanon.
I told you about that one. That’s the only network I really grew
from scratch and, given the circumstances, it was never too
successful. When I got back to the States, I was given a very small
network based in Eastern Europe and grew it. When I took it over,
there were two informants. I managed them and reported to a handler
in DIA. As I got promoted, I was given other informants to manage,
I recruited others and by the time I retired, there were about
sixty people in my network. It was
very
productive and we received a
lot of helpful intelligence, continuing even after I retired. I’m
sure there was some junk in there also, but that was for the
analysts back at HQ to sort out.”

Sam shook her head slightly from side to
side. “Wow, it must have been interesting. That’s a world I know
nothing about.”

Grant risked a quick
sideways glance at Sam. “Well, neither you nor anyone else
were
supposed
to
know anything about it. That’s kinda the point of a spy network,
you know. The best way to keep something from being compromised is
to make sure you keep everything at the ‘need to know’ level and
that’s what we did.” Grant was smiling now.

Sam chuckled. “I get your point,” she
said.

Grant turned back to once again stare at the
road. “It was always an interesting field, but the work was often
either boring or, like the other night, you get more excitement
than you want.”

Just before 10:00 p.m. they approached the
outskirts of Krakow. The directions provided by the attaché were
right on and they had no problem finding the hotel. Grant easily
recognized it from his stay a couple of weeks ago. They used valet
parking and as they were walking to reception, Grant reminded Sam
of their cover as tourists traveling together, saying they would be
in the same room. “Two beds,” he said before Sam could reply, “and
I have pajamas.” They registered in Sam’s name. As far as they
could tell, only the General knew they were in Krakow.

I minus 27

Early the next morning, back at his usual
post, Garcia brushed the snow off the bus stop bench and was
sitting, sipping a cup of hot coffee while he kept an eye on the
front door of the Hilton. It was bitter cold. By noon, he was
growing weary and took a short lunch and warm-up break inside a
diner, not far away. He sat by the window where he could just
barely see the front door of the hotel. By the end of the day he
was getting worried. Had they slipped out while he wasn’t watching?
He’d give it another day or so before he took any action to find
out.

After two more days of seeing nothing and
freezing his tail off, he decided to check in with the DDI to find
out if she’d heard anything. Half an hour later, he was at the
Embassy using a secure phone. During that conversation he learned
that General Wheeler had updated the DDI right after his
conversation with Thurmond. Thurmond and Sam were in Krakow. Damn.
Somehow they had given him the slip. Why the hell hadn’t the DDI
called him? Well, he’d be in Krakow by nightfall. His guess was
that Thurmond would stay in the same hotel as the first time, so,
as soon as he got there he’d check to see if he was registered. If
he’d used another name, Garcia would just have to wait around
trying to spot him without being spotted. Damn, this was getting
old.

Vladimir, meanwhile, had made his way to his
very discrete Moscow doctor who gave him a local anesthetic, dug
out several bullet fragments, put in eight stitches, gave him some
bacterial cream to apply twice a day and told him to keep the wound
clean. He also told him that any physical stress could rip out the
stitches and start the bleeding again. Vladimir paid the doctor and
left. The whole thing had taken less than half an hour.

Back in his suburban flat, Vladimir started
planning his next steps. Even though it wasn’t going exactly as
he’d hoped, the overall plan was still valid and he was sure it
would work. Less than a month to go and he’d be free and clear.

He briefly thought about calling off the
assassination, but knew his future depended upon getting rid of
everyone who might be able to identify him. He still had his former
Russian controller to take care of, but that would be easy.
Thurmond would be more difficult, but not impossible. The hard part
would be identifying and killing the other guy, this Garcia. That’s
what he needed to work on. Especially since the man was clearly
after him and was trying to kill him. He had to be working for the
Russians and Vladimir had no way of knowing how much the guy had
communicated back to them. Maybe the guy even described him.
Killing all the others was just part of the job, but killing that
guy would be a pleasure.

The next morning Vladimir began making plans
to go to the United States. His new passport and identity papers
had been easy to come by. Russia was full of illegal activities and
identity forgery was everywhere. It had cost him less than one
hundred US dollars and it was excellent work. Of course, he had to
kill the forger. Couldn’t have any loose ends. Looking now at the
passport, Vladimir couldn’t tell in any way it was a forgery. He
was now a citizen of Poland. His plan was to use a Russian passport
to get into Poland again and then use the Polish passport to fly
from Warsaw to New York. He also had a US passport and a driver’s
license from the District of Columbia, also obtained from the
passport forger, and would use that as ID for the train from New
York to Washington. He’d use the time before the inauguration to
set up bank accounts and arrange for some money to be transferred
from his Swiss bank to his new banks in America. Then in about
three weeks he could go anywhere he wanted. He opened the bottle of
vodka he had bought on the way home and took a large swig. Had to
keep the pain at bay, right?

I minus 26

At breakfast the next morning, Grant and Sam
were discussing how to approach finding someone who worked at the
old Soviet department identified in the Vladimir files. They were
interrupted by the ring from Grant’s cell phone.

“Everything’s okay,” the General said, then
hung up. Let anyone who might be listening in on the cell
transmission try to figure out what that means, he thought.

After hanging up, Grant looked up at Sam and
said, “Apparently we, at some point, are going to have a visitor
who might be able to help us out.”

“What do we do until then?”

The question went
unanswered because at that moment a woman who looked to be in her
thirties approached their table and said, “Hi, I thought that was
you. It’s me, Billie. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
It’
s you!
Just sitting at a restaurant table in Krakow. I haven’t seen
you for years. How are you?” She remained standing.

Grant stood up to greet her and said, “Oh,
hi Billie. It’s great to see you.” He gave her a quick hug and
continued. “We were just finishing up and going for a walk. Would
you like to join us?”

Billie gave a quick look at Sam, then
returned her gaze to Grant and said, “Sure. It’s beautiful outside.
The sun is out and is starting to melt the snow already,” Billie
said.

Once they were outside walking along the
sidewalk, Grant chuckled, “It’s a good thing the General didn’t
choose Robert. It would have been a bit awkward.”

“Yeah, these old Generals always assume an
operative’s a guy. They seem so surprised when I show up. Now, how
can I help you? I received no background on this at all. All I got
was your name, location and your picture.” She glanced again at Sam
and said, “And I thought you’d be alone.”