The Elizabethan Secret (Lang Reilly Series Book 9) (19 page)

43.

Directorate X

Sluznha Uneshny Razvedki (SUV)

Yasenervo 11 Kolpachny

Moscow

At the Same Time

(21:20 Local)
 

              Eduard Avalov took a deep drag from the Prima Lux Blue. As a smoker, he came under official disapproval. A lower-level government employee would have twenty minutes added to his daily eight hours to compensate for the four five minute cigarette breaks allotted. Until June. At that time smoking would be banned at and within twenty-five feet of all government buildings as well as in restaurants, bars, transportation hubs, and a list that included just about anything under a roof.

Avalov suspected that like most laws in Russia, this one would be selectively enforced. Varenichnaya No 1, on ul Arbat, with its book-lined walls, old films on its black-and-white TV and high government official clientele, would have the same blue tobacco haze clinging to the pressed-tin ceiling as ever. The American Burger King, Subway, and the other low-priced fast-food franchises would see rigid adherence to the new health laws.

He stubbed out the cigarette in a crystal ashtray bearing the Romanov double headed eagle. There were, he thought, more Czarist memorabilia in the offices of Russian government than in all the museums of the world.

But neither political irony or the threatened smoking ban was the reason he was in the office at this hour when the streets below had become ribbons of moving auto lights as Moscow’s night life awakened. Instead of joining his coworkers for hours of
schastivy chas
, Russian happy hour, before heading home, he had remained here, waiting for the call that would come from the embassy in Washington. As usual, he had no idea when it would come, only that he must be here to receive it. A glance at his watch confirmed what he already knew: It was only a little past lunchtime in the American capital. He could be waiting well past midnight.

He swung around, taking his eyes from the scene outside his window and began to review the file open on his desk although he had long ago all but memorized every word.

The crew, the Russian equivalent of the American Navy Seals,
Spetsnaz
, had failed on the street in London, failed again in the Atlanta parking lot and, most recently, apparently failed on the Croatia-Italy ferry. “Apparently” because Avalov was looking at a grainy but quite recognizable photo of Reilly descending the ferry’s gangplank in Ancona and the two men who were to dispatch the American had not been heard from.

He was getting daily calls from the upper levels of the SVR (S
luzhba Vneshney Razvedki),
the Russian intelligence organization that included Directorate X. Technically, one of the thirteen departments of Directorate S, the sub-agency that dealt in sabotage, assassinations, and the like should be handling the Reilly matter. But since his office, Directorate X, had commenced the operation, he was stuck with it.

Bureaucracy, even in the intelligence business, was the art of shifting both blame and burden elsewhere. He was sure his
babushka
would have had a Georgian proverb for it: Not every day is Shrove day; in time it will be Lent, the wolf is not beaten because he is gray but because he ate the lamb. She had a saying for everything but Avalov rarely understood what was meant.

He. . .

The phone on his desk, the one with a single, secure line, rang.

Avalov resisted the impulse to snatch up the receiver. He took a deep breath and let it ring twice more. He had no intention of betraying the anxiety that was a lead weight in his stomach. One more failure and Siberia would be all but assured of an increase in population by at least one.

“Avalov.”

The voice on the other end made no pretense at the niceties of conversation. “We are prepared to go forward once you give the final word.”

In other words, any possible failure and probable political fallout would be Avaov’s. His choice was between failure to carry out his instructions with banishment a likely penalty and failure to succeed in a mission of which he was only a spectator--with Siberia a likely result of failure.

He heaved a deep breath. “Go forward as instructed.”

Without further conversation, he hung up.

For a moment he stood, his hand still on the receiver as though frozen. He nodded once, then twice, a decision made, before opening a desk drawer from which he produced a half-full bottle of
Putinka
vodka and a glass. Filling the glass, he held it up as though inspecting the clear liquid for impurities.

Vodka spoils everything but the glasses,
he thought, one proverb he understood all too well.   

44.

Kim Il Sung Square

Pyongyang

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

10:42 Local Time

The morning sun glistened on patches of snow that were, at last, melting. The cloudless sky held a promise of spring. Across the river, the naked branches of the Sha Li trees reached upward in supplication for an end to winter, but it required little imagination to see instead the clouds of white pear blossoms that would soon surround the base of the Juche Tower. The square below was alive with people, some preening in the long absent sun like animals exiting winter boroughs.

The only darkness was the mood of Kwak Pum Ji.

He had correctly guessed the route of the American’s departure from Dubrovnik in time to have Reilly’s car met at the Bosina “neck” by a pair of Special Operations Commandos, members of the world’s largest and, arguably, most elite, special forces.

But not elite enough, it would seem. The survivor of the encounter at the customs shed described his and his partner’s surprise that Reilly was not only not alone but armed. They had, the man said, been virtually ambushed by their prey.

Excuses were not going to work. There would be questions for which he had no answers: Why had he not known the American was not alone, particularly after he knew that Reilly had left the scene at the base of the Dubrovnik lift in the company of two men whom he should have presumed to be with some branch of American intelligence?

No, he was going to have to take immediate, radical action.

Except for South Korea, The People’s Democratic Republic rarely, if ever, sent assassins into other countries and wisely so, considering their most notorious effort. The plot had involved their neighbor to the south and  ended in disaster: Accurately perceiving the United States was too heavily embroiled in Vietnam to be of assistance in January 1968, North Korea had sent thirty-one specially trained members of Unit 24 of the Korean People’s Army to assassinate South Korea’s president. The plot unraveled in two days, leaving twenty-nine dead, one a prisoner, and another presumably escaped back into the North. None got within gunshot of The Blue House, the residence of South Korea’s president.

The international repercussions had been enough to convince the Kim regime to leave political liquidations to nations more adept at it.

What Kwak had in mind was not as elaborate nor did it entail killing the leader of a sovereign nation, although committing murder on American soil by foreign nationals would cause trouble enough were he not successful in disguising the identity of the perpetrators. Hopefully, it would be more successful than what was known as the January 21 Incident or his recent previous attempts.

His life could well depend on it.

45.

Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport

International Terminal

3:26 pm

Two Days Later

Park Seo-hyeon was exhausted. The flight from Seoul always wore her out but one round trip in the Airbus A380 fulfilled her maximum flight-crew hours for an entire month. She would spend the next day and a half relaxing at one of several hotels within earshot of the Atlanta airport. Maybe she and Hee-Young, her best friend, would take MARTA down to Atlantic Station in midtown Atlanta and see a movie. The airline encouraged flight attendants to see American films. They really did improve her English.

But first, she had to help clean the aircraft, or at least pick up loose trash before the cleaning crew came on board. The amount of litter that could accumulate in a little over fifteen hours was. . . awesome? Yes, awesome, that was what Americans would say.

She was leaning over, stuffing some sort of food wrapper from the floor in front of seat 53B, well in the back of the aircraft, into a plastic garbage bag when she noted a slip of paper stuck between the seat cushion and the reclining back. She started to add it to the collection in the bag when she noted handwriting on it. Specifically, she noted guillemets, the double arrow-headed marks North Koreans used instead of quotation marks.

It was not unknown for citizens of North Korea to travel on Korean Air but it was unusual enough to notify the authorities whenever it occurred. Having no airline of their own (or right to travel, for that matter), North Korean officials, almost always under bogus credentials, traveled with their neighbor’s carrier when for some reason using their own military aircraft was impractical. Such as when travel needed to be covert.

Seo-hyeon stared at the rear bulkhead, trying to remember the passenger who had sat in 53 B. Three hundred and one economy passengers, but fifteen hours was a long enough time to notice someone. A man, a man in a cheap black suit that looked like it had been manufactured in China. Now she remembered there had been three others, all in the same type of black suit, all wearing sunglasses. Hee-Young had remarked that the flight had its own double version of the Blues Brothers, a reference to an old American film they had seen on TV one night in a motel near LAX.

These Blues Brothers had not communicated with each other nor had they been seated together but somehow all eight economy class flight attendants agreed they seemed to be acquainted.

She looked at the scrap of paper again. Directions of some sort. But to where? She would have simply used the Map Quest app on her iPhone had she wanted to go somewhere. But few if any North Koreans had iPhones. Or any other device that might give the user a view of the world outside.   

“How’s it going?”

Seo-hyeon stood erect so suddenly she nearly banged her head on the overhead storage bin. She had not heard Captain Park Dong Yu come up behind her. With his square jaw, rugged brow, and brilliant smile, the captain was a combination of father figure and heart throb to the much younger and all-female cabin crew. He frequently joked about being related to Seo-hyeon because of their mutual name, Park, although it was the third-most-common family name in South Korea. Other than that, he was always friendly but never flirtatious. That, plus his wife and four children did little to diminish his place in his subordinates’ fantasies   

She had to compose her reply in English before replying, proffering the paper, “I think this may be interesting to both the American and our own authorities.”

The captain’s eyebrows met as he studied it. “North Korean.”

She remained silent rather than mentioning she had already made that deduction.

“Looks like an address,” he observed. “Do you know where it came from?”

Seo-hyeon pointed to 53B. “It was stuck between the back and the seat.”

“Check the manifest, get the passenger’s name,” Dong Yu said. “Probably false. None of our business but, you are right, the Americans might be interested.”

He turned his head to watch her make her way up the aisle. Her baby blue blouse was tucked into the beige skirt, a skirt just tight enough to make the view worthwhile before he returned his attention to the piece of paper in his hand:

A local address?

No matter. As soon as he completed his final cockpit check, including squawking one of the transponders that had been intermitting, he would turn the paper over to the American Homeland Security people.

Not his business.

But he couldn’t help but wonder: Who or what was at 472 Lafayette Circle?

46.

Westminster

April 28, 1603

The procession was led by the queen’s lead coffin on a catafalque pulled by four black horses draped in black velvet. Atop the coffin was a regally dressed dummy whose lifelike image of Elizabeth amazed the crowd lining the streets. Behind were the peers of the realm, each dressed in black and preceded by flags bearing the family coat of arms. Following, also in black, were members of the court, the nobility and some of the late monarch’s favorites. Then came the mob, the mere citizens of London who wanted to say farewell to Good Queen Bess. Many of their soot caked faces showed the tracks of recent tears.

Among the lesser nobility and court favorites, an old man trudged along at a pace that suggested each step was influenced by rheumatism or arthritis that neither bergamot oil nor meadowsweet could ameliorate. His white beard was unfashionably long. Instead of clothing more normal to his station, he wore an ankle length robe displaying almost as many holes as fabric. His cap, long out of style, had seen better days before half the spectators had been born.

The casual, uninformed observer would have guessed him to be a physician, a stable hand, a cook, or some other lowly member of the queen’s retinue.

That observer, then, would have been astounded when a nobleman, elegantly attired, sword by his side and black plume in his matching cap not only stopped to speak to the old man but showed him considerable deference. That observer, or any other, would have instantly recognized Sir Walter Raleigh.

He stooped slightly so that his face was even with his elder. “’Tis a sad day, Master Dee. Now she is of the spirits with whom thee converse.”

Dee shook his head slowly. “ ‘Sooth, she is of the spirit world, Lord Raleigh. But the day is to be celebrated as well as mourned.”

Raleigh stood erect. “ ‘Celebrated?’ How so?”

“The queen was weary, ready to join those who served her well: Frobisher, Drake, Hawkins. Thou art the last of the Sea Dogs. Then there was her very favorite at court, Devereux, second Earl of Essex, whom she was forced to send to the Tower Green these few years past.”

Raleigh said nothing, remembering the strange case of Robert Devereux, undoubtedly the queen’s favorite, some said lover despite the age gap. She had sent him away from Court for some petty offense, no doubt to recall him shortly. He had appeared unbidden in her bed chamber before she was wigged or dressed, shocking both monarch and court, an unimaginable impertinence. Elizabeth had ordered him confined to his London town house in the Strand, which Essex promptly fortified, an act of treason.

Dee continued. “In the two years since Essex met the headsman, Her Majesty was listless, suffered ill humors. Even The Lord Chamberlain’s men were unable to amuse her with Master Shakespeare’s latest play preformed Epiphany before last at Whitehall. In her last few months, she refused to retire to her bed. Her ladies strew the floor of her apartments with pillows lest she swoon and fall.”

“You spoke of celebrating today rather than mourning, Master Dee.”

“I did and well we should. The Queen leaves us far better than when her reign began. England now hath many ships and hath grown from a tiny, insignificant nation to challenge even Spain, France, the Dutch. The near morrow will bring a time when England rules much of this world, an empire so vast that at no time will the sun not shine on part of it. Already the East India Company doth trade in India and Cathay. The New World across the Atlantic will someday be British. The empire of England will exceed that of Alexander or Rome. All because of our late queen.”

The idea of empire, let alone one as vast as Dee described, was beyond Raleigh’s conception, even his imagination. But had not this man predicted the Spanish Armada and Queen Mary’s death? Did he not consort with angels and spirits?

“It is to be hoped, Master Dee. But no small credit is thine. Without thy sun instrument, measurements of east and west would remain more matters of speculation than fact. ‘Twas a thing that savest many days of a voyage.”

Dee bobbed his head. “Thou art kind, Lord Raleigh.”

The former Sea Dog stood in place as he watched the old necromancer hobble away. As improbable as his prediction might be, Raleigh might, just might, someday believe it.      

47.

Atlanta

472 Lafayette Circle

3:02 am

Lang was dreaming of a beehive, about to flee an angry swarm of the creatures when he came awake with the realization that what he was hearing was not insects.

He turned to shake Gurt into consciousness but she was already sitting up, her torso limned against the dim glow of street lights flowing through the windows.

“The alarm,” she said matter-of-factly. “Someone is on the property.”

The yard was surrounded by an invisible electric beam. When interrupted, one of several alarms went off in the master bedroom as well as downstairs.

Lang yawned. “Or the Henderson’s German Shepherd has gotten out again.”

Gurt pointed. “If so, he brought company. There are at least two incisions.”

A screen beside the bed displayed an electronic schematic of the property lines. Red dots appeared across both the front and rear. The presentation did not mean there were only two intruders but two breaches of the electronic fence.

“
Incursions
,” Lang corrected. Gurt’s English vocabulary sometimes slipped when she was agitated or excited. “Could be any number. Let’s put the security measures into effect,” he added, sliding out of bed.

Neither took time to find slippers or bathrobe but went about a well-rehearsed routine. Lang snatched a .40 caliber Glock from a drawer in his bedside table. He stopped by the closet, reached inside and slid his arm through the sling of a Mossberg 590A1 shotgun with an eight-shot tubular magazine. It was fully loaded with shells, each containing nine pellets of hardened 00 buck. He hesitated for a split second before using his free hand to scoop up a handful of loose ammunition. He paused long enough to slip his cell phone into the single pocket of his pajama pants

On the other side of the bedroom, Gurt was in her closet. She emerged armed, Glock in one hand and the loop of the sling of an M16 automatic rifle in the other. Lang did not have to look to confirm the thirty-round box magazine or the AN/Pus 2 night scope attached to the weapon.

Not your average collection of home-protection weapons; but then, neither Lang nor Gurt had reason to believe an invasion of the home would be by ordinary robbers or those as inept as that Laurel and Hardy team of ONI housebreakers, Semitz and Rogers.

Lang went down the steps. Gurt followed, pausing long enough to shut Manfred’s door softly to not disturb either the sleeping child or Grumps. In the etching of light seeping through the windows, she could see the dog as he snored next to her son’s bed.

Downstairs, she activated the same mechanism that slid plates of steel over not only the doors and windows that had entrapped the two naval officers but those on the rest of the house.

Not a moment too soon, judging by the whir of an electric lock pick from the front door.

“There are four of them,” Lang announced, looking at the television in the den.

In addition to the normal channels, the home-security service included a few not available to cable subscribers. The screen was displaying images from a series of Fluke Ti 400 thermal imaging cameras discreetly mounted on half a dozen of the property’s oak trees.

Gurt was watching the small TV in the kitchen. “I see them. Two of the ones not on the front porch seem to be covering the corners. The fourth is advancing on the pool house. He’s carrying a weapon larger than a hand gun.”

Leon.

Until Leon had become part of their family, no one had considered protective devices for the pool house. Lang mentally cursed his procrastination and baseless hope that the part of their lives that necessitated such precautions was past. That vain optimism had left Leon’s present residence unprotected.

Shit!

“We can’t just leave Leon to whatever these people want,” Lang said.

Gurt sighed her agreement. “We’ll have to put down the shields.”

“That or call the police.”

“You want to put Leon’s life in the hands of 911?”

Both minds went to a spate of news articles about the local emergency phone service: Busy signals, an ambulance sent to a wrong address while a heart-attack victim perished, a fire call answered by a crew, who, seeing no actual fire, didn’t bother to get off the truck, leaving a family of four to die in the flames that exploded through the roof within seconds of the departure of the hook and ladder. The twenty-year-old system worked not by GPS but by proximity to cell phone towers if the victim happened not to know the zip code in which his emergency was occurring.

“I guess not,” Lang admitted, reluctant to expose Manfred to the potential dangers of abandoning the security system.

He moved to the front of the house. “I’ll go ahead and call the cops for all the good that will do. I’m cutting off the system. Just as soon as the shield lifts, here’s the plan . . .”

Within seconds there was the sigh of well-oiled machinery.

Lang made a brief call on the cell phone: “There’s a home invasion in progress at 472 Lafayette Circle, three-oh-three-oh-nine. No ma’m, I don’t have time to repeat.”

He hung up, doubting the call would achieve anything beyond providing clean up for what could very easily become a messy situation.

Plus, if there was any question he had summoned the authorities, both his and the police’s recording systems would resolve it. He had no time to ponder the absurdity of having an emergency response operator who had trouble with simple, expletive English as this one had.

Instead, he positioned himself in front of the door, listening for Gurt’s signal. The whir of the lock pick had stopped. There may not be time to wait.To lower the chances of being seen, Gurt duck-walked down the three steps from the kitchen before sprawling out on the walk from the drive. The day’s warmth had leached from the clay bricks, now hard and cold through the flimsy cotton of the shirt in which she slept. Tonight, it might be her shroud.

She smiled as she thought of the assemblage of curious neighbors and police, staring at the near nude body of a woman wearing only a man’s shirt and holding a military issue rifle in dead hands. The possibilities of speculation among onlookers was endless.

She rarely stopped to consider the reason such irrelevant and macabre thoughts spooled through her head in potentially deadly situations. When she did, she supposed it was some mental quirk, a natural response to pressure, a tension-relieving device.

She could ponder that later. At the moment, she concentrated on sweeping the back yard with the eerie green halo of the night scope. Trees, the dark pit of the swimming pool, furniture grouped around the grill like some herd of wild animals around a watering hole. All dark shapes with fuzzy edges.

Movement caught her attention. The blob of action took on the form of a human being, a man carrying the weapon she had noted earlier. Either he was unsure of himself or he thought his presence might have been detected. He moved quickly from tree to bush, taking advantage of such cover as existed with a certainty that suggested he was wearing night vision glasses.

Gurt’s finger tightened around the trigger and she began that sequence of regular breathing that is taught a marksman the first time he (or she) picks up a rifle.

Careful! This is not shooting on a dirt backed range. You are about to send a 5.56 mm missile moving at 3900 feet per second for over nearly a mile in an intensely populated area. Be sure to line your shot up with a sure backstop. Shooting one of your neighbors in his bed would be very bad form.

She had to suppress a nervous chuckle at her own wit.

There it was! The figure paused in front of a massive red oak. No doubt he planned on the tree breaking his silhouette should anyone be watching. Unfortunately for him, trees exuded very little body heat, not enough to even blur his image in the scope.

Particularly the head. A head shot would pretty well end it.
Breathe in, breathe out, breath in . . . hold it.

The crack of the rifle split the silence of the night like an ax splitting a log.

The figure in the scope spun, flinging his weapon away as though repudiating such earthly things, before he slumped forward to slip to the ground.

The front of the house was quiet. As far as Lang knew, the electric lock pick had done its job. The door was unlocked but still closed.

If so, what was its operator waiting for? Perhaps a signal that would initiate a full attack?

The sudden rifle shot from behind the house had given him pause. It was Lang’s signal to act.

The shotgun in his right hand, he used his left to turn the door knob. As it clicked, he snatched the door open, simultaneously bringing his weapon to bear.

The figure in front of him could have been in Halloween costume: full Ninja black, including Balaclava. There was nothing costume about the AK 47 the man held.