Endangered Species: PART 1 (12 page)

“
I admit,
eliminating Laski was a minor victory for them, as was interfering
with the planned assassination of that irritating
presence
we
foolishly placed in the White House. In the scheme of things,
however, I don’t think they’ve gained any advantage. They aren’t a
serious threat as long as we don’t get careless again.”

“
Not a serious threat?
Their group of super commandos, or whatever they are, you don’t
consider them a serious threat? As I understand it, those bastards
have faked their deaths twice. Is it even possible to kill them?”
Martin sat back in his chair and stared across the
table.

Fairchilde put his fork
down and smiled at the other man. “They are only as dangerous as we
permit them to be.”

“
You seem quite smug about
all this, Harland. Why? I thought those men were super beings or
something.”

Fairchilde shook his head.
“Not super beings, Henry. True, they are stronger, faster, and more
intelligent than most other humans. Apparently, for whatever
reason, they are genetically evolved, sort of like beta models of
human beings in the distant future. We don’t know why that is,
yet.”

“
Well, I certainly wouldn’t
want those sonsofbitches chasing my ass! Not after what they did to
Laski and his private army of thugs.” Martin paused and finished
his martini. “You may not think they are dangerous, but others of
us do.” He stuck the fancy toothpick with two bleu cheese-stuffed
olives in his mouth and pulled the empty pick between his
teeth.

Fairchilde smiled a cold,
mirthless smile. “Those troublesome individuals you seem so
frightened of, are known rather quaintly as the Sleeping
Dogs.”

“
I suppose there’s some
clever reason behind their name?”

“
Of
course, isn’t there always? In this instance it’s in reference to a
line from the tragedy
Troilus and
Criseyde
by the medieval English poet
Geoffrey Chaucer. He cautioned against waking a sleeping hound for
fear you would be rather savagely bitten. Actually, the phrase is
recorded a bit earlier than that in the French
Proverbia Vulgalia et Latina
, where
it’s worded,
‘
Ne
reveillez pas le chien qui dort
’ or
‘
Do not wake the dog that
sleeps’
. Some even believe it may have been
based on chapter 26, verse 17 from the Book of
Proverbs.”

Martin sighed and said, “Thank you for
sharing, but that really was more than I cared to know.” He was
well aware of Fairchilde’s intellect and extraordinary classical
education. He disliked being reminded.

At sixty, Fairchilde’s face still had firm
features and near perfect skin, a benefit of being well born. Now,
there was a look of smugness on those features. “You needn’t waste
time being concerned with these Sleeping Dog fellows, Henry.”

“
Really? How is
that?”

“
It seems that the man who
ran Laski’s ‘private army’, as you called it, has been successfully
recruited into our fold. Interestingly, the Russians think he’s
their man, which provides us with yet another mole inside their
operations.”

“
Pardon me for
interrupting,” Martin said, leaning forward, “but on the subject of
moles, I understand we have managed to place one inside the
Society?”

“
Yes, but I’m not at
liberty to discuss it at this time, Henry.”

“
Then tell me more about
this fellow who formerly worked for Laski.”

“
Most significantly, as it
turns out, he’s like these Sleeping Dogs, genetically speaking. And
he has a personal vendetta to fulfill. He believes their successful
action against Laski was a personal humiliation, a failure on his
part. He intends to hunt them down and kill them, one by one, as
well as Clifford Levell and General McCoy.”

“
Isn’t that a bit of a
daunting task, given that these ‘Sleeping Dogs’ are at least on an
equal footing with this man, and there are more of
them?”

“
There are two factors
involved here, Henry. First, by tracking them individually, it
becomes an even match. Actually, it favors our man because he has
the element of surprise on his side.”

“
And what is factor number
two?

Fairchilde smiled the empty
smile again. “One of these Sleeping Dogs is the leader. He’s the
most dangerous one. He absolutely must be eliminated. But in his
case, we have the luxury of a backup plan, a second
assassin.”

“
And he is...?”

“
You no doubt will be
surprised to learn that he is an agent of our Federal Bureau of
Investigation.” Fairchilde sat back and watched the other man’s
reaction.

Martin’s eyes widened and
he blinked twice in rapid succession. “An FBI agent? I don’t
understand.”

“
It appears that the chap
believes this leader of the Sleeping Dogs, a man named Brendan
Whelan, is responsible for alienating his wife, who subsequently
divorced the FBI fellow. It seems he now has a very strong desire
to kill Whelan. Apparently, our new friend has something of a
history with him, and is assisting in that endeavor.”

“
Does our ‘new friend’ have
a name?”

“
Yes. His name is
Maksym.”

Chapter 10—Albuquerque,
NM

Using accrued vacation
time, Christie arrived at Albuquerque’s
International Sunport for the first leg of his flight to
Ireland. He wished he’d used the days to spend more time with his
wife and children when he’d had the chance. He tried to take his
mind off the subject by studying
the
concourses and complementary facilities of the
airport. They were a mélange of clearly separate pieces, both
visually and physically pleasing. It was an embodiment of the old
saw, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. Its
commercial aspects, like all airports great and small, mostly
offered fast food, beverages, tee shirts, and other tourist
memorabilia. But even there, its motif fittingly was based on the
culture and tradition of the American Southwest.

Mitch Christie was a
Midwesterner by birth and disposition. He admitted that he just
didn’t get the whole Southwestern thing. To him a desert was, after
all, just a damn desert, a desolate and lonely pile of sand
sprouting cacti and devoid of water. Still, the Sunport impressed
him. It seemed surprisingly large given the size of the population
of the Greater Albuquerque area. Then he remembered that it was the
only major airport hub in the State of New Mexico, and serviced a
far greater geographic area than Albuquerque and its environs. At
the moment, the terminal was mostly deserted. Not many flights
departed at midnight.

He had checked his single
suitcase with a skycap at the curb, and was killing time before his
flight departed for its connection in New York City. He ducked into
the only sundries shop still open at the hour. He wanted to be
certain he had enough Rolaids to last for the duration of the trip,
assuming he would be in a position to catch a return flight. He
didn’t know much about Ireland and wasn’t sure he could find
Rolaids there. He bought ten packs and stuffed them into his small
briefcase. There wasn’t much else in the case except a recent
thriller by his current favorite author, Lee Child. Christie wasn’t
sure how well he would sleep on the long flight, given the nature
of the mission, and brought the reading material in case he wasn’t
able to doze off. Along with the Rolaids, he bought a copy of
the
Wall Street Journal
and stuffed it into the briefcase also. He wasn’t
sure why he bought the paper, as it was almost a full day old. He
considered it to be the most relevant and accurate of any major
newspaper. In that regard, he mused; he probably wasn’t very
different philosophically from that super patriot Levell and his
fellow members of the Society of Adam Smith. That thought stopped
him in his tracks. He shook his head vigorously as if trying to
dislodge the idea that he might have anything in common with
Whelan.

A woman walked past him,
her heels clicking on the floor of the terminal. The sound
interrupted his thoughts. His eyes automatically turned toward the
sound and followed her. She was a Latina woman, and from a certain
angle bore a passing resemblance to Camilla Ramirez. A feeling of
guilt flushed over him.

Three days earlier, on
Saturday, they’d had their second date. Things didn’t go well.
Christie shook his head again; this time the thoughts didn’t
dissolve. He remembered picking her up at her place, fully
expecting to spend the night there after dinner. She had suggested
a small steakhouse with a cozy, intimate atmosphere. Again, tequila
was their drink of choice. A lot of tequila. Christie remembered
feeling relaxed and comfortable for the first time in recent
memory. Maybe he was too relaxed. Over an after dinner cappuccino,
she casually said, “I felt really cheap when you left without
saying a word the other morning.”

It caught him by surprise.
He had thought that matter was behind them. He stammered and said,
“I…I’m really sorry about that.”

“
Why,” she had said, with
hurt and anger rising in her voice, “would you do such a
thing?”

That was where he’d shot
himself in the foot; hell, blew his whole leg off. He’d stared at
her for several moments, trying to remember what excuse he’d given
her previously. Finally, he’d licked his lips and his eyes darted
down and to the right as he said, “I had a report that was overdue.
I had to get to work early to finish it.” Then he’d rubbed his
nose. All those actions are a liar’s downfall.

The look she had given him
was still as vivid in his memory as the moment it had come over her
face. Absolute rage. And betrayal. Later he’d remembered that he
had originally told her he’d had an early meeting that morning, not
an overdue report. There had been no more conversation in the
restaurant or in the car on the ride back to her apartment. When
he’d pulled to the curb, she had jumped out of his car and slammed
the door forcefully behind her. He had sat and watched her storm up
the walkway toward her apartment. An icy dread almost overpowered
him. He was falling apart physically, and maybe more. His wife, who
had been his sweetheart since college, had dumped him for another
man, an Irish renegade at that. Clearly, the Bureau had little
regard for him anymore. Then, just when he was beginning to feel
acceptable to an attractive woman, the budding relationship
suddenly crashed and burned. The feeling of loneliness and
rejection – career, love life, everything – was so overwhelming, he
had almost wept. The tequila hadn’t helped. He’d spent a sleepless
night.

A shiver surged through
Christie at the recent, painful memories. He glanced at the clock
high on a wall of the terminal. Twenty minutes to midnight. Time to
board the flight to New York. If all went well in the
not-always-friendly skies, he would be in Dublin in little more
than twenty-two hours. Then, thanks to information provided by his
unlikely new ally, Maksym, he would finally get some measure of
satisfaction for all the miseries he had experienced.

Chapter 11—The Kremlin,
Moscow

There were several
kremlins in Russia. The word means fort or citadel, and the
structures generally were located in the heart of a city. Kirill
Federov had seen a number of kremlins in various parts of Russia,
but none of them could compare with the one he was approaching now.
The Moscow kremlin, or as it was more commonly called,
the
Kremlin, was the
symbolic heart of the Russian Federation. According to legend, it
had been built on the site of a hunting lodge owned by Prince Yuri
Dolgorukiy. At that time, the Kievan Rus empire was disintegrating
under the pressure of the invading Mongol hordes. The site was a
sensible place to develop a fortification. It sat atop Borovitsky
Hill overlooking the Moskva River and Red Square.
Federov was aware that most Westerners ignorantly
believed that the Russian government occupied the Kremlin. The
Russian parliament, or Federal Assembly, consisted of two
separately located chambers. State Duma, located in Central Moscow,
was the lower. The 166-member Federation Council was the upper one.
Its main offices were located on Bolshaya Dmitrovka Street.
That, Federov knew, as did all Muscovites, was
about to change. The city of
Moscow was
about to become 2.4 times larger by absorbing a huge wedge of the
Moscow Region between the Kiev and Warsaw highways. All state
agencies were being relocated to this area, and new offices would
house both the legislative and executive bodies.

The walls of the Kremlin
formed a rough triangle. Within them there were
five palaces, four cathedrals, together with museums and
armories. The complex also served as the official residence of the
President of the Russian Federation. This, Federov assumed, was the
principal reason why stupid Westerners thought the Kremlin was the
Russian version of Capitol Hill in the United States or Westminster
in the UK. It definitely was the reason for his visit to the
Kremlin today.

Federov’s immediate
superior was Gennady Vasilyev, director of the Sluzhba Vneshney
Razvedki or SVR, Russia’s primary external intelligence agency.
Unlike the FSB, the SVR was responsible for intelligence and
espionage activities outside the Russian Federation. Vasilyev
reported directly to the president of the Russian Federation. In
addition to being Federov’s boss, Vasilyev also was his mentor. The
older man had handpicked Federov from the Spetsnaz Vympel unit, the
elite Special Forces group formed from a merger of two KGB special
units. Similar to the CIA's Special Activities Division, the unit
was responsible for the most secret and sensitive covert
activities, as well as counter-terrorist and counter-sabotage
operations. Gifted with extreme intelligence, physicality and
nerve, Federov had risen swiftly through the ranks of covert
operators to become Vasilyev’s right-hand man. His skill as
a
judo-ka
and
former Olympic marksman also had gained the admiration of the
Russian president.