Flight of the Raven (17 page)

“You could lend me your gun for protection.” She tried to make her voice light.

“I wish I could. But I didn’t know I’d need one this evening when I left the office.”

“Then back there on the street...”

“I was using your assumptions about me to my own advantage. Good night, Julie.”

Before she could answer he was gone.

* * *

A
LEKSEI
I
LIYANOVICH
had done his share of things that he’d regretted. But one point of personal ethics he’d prided himself on was never using his father’s political connections for his own advantage. Now he searched his memory looking for members of the premier’s staff who would remember the son of Iliyan Alexandrovich and be willing to pull a few strings for him. There was another criterion in his search, as well. He also needed someone who’d welcome an opportunity to put the ambitious Slava Bogolubov in his place.

He finally settled on Deputy Foreign Minister Misha Panov, who had been his father’s friend and superior as head of the Soviet delegation to the U.N.

Aleksei glanced at his watch. It was still the middle of the night in Madrid. But if he timed things right, he could catch the minister after he’d awakened but before he’d left for the office.

He didn’t like placing the call at the embassy, where it would be recorded. But if he were going to pull rank on Bogolubov, he had to make damn sure the general couldn’t find any fault with the procedure.

When it came to actually placing the call, his hand hesitated over the red phone. He had only one chance to get this right, and he didn’t want to think about the alternatives.

He listened as the phone rang thousands of miles away, imagining the heavy overstuffed furniture in Panov’s Moscow apartment and the grandfatherly-looking man who complemented it so well. Panov was a study in contradictions. He might look soft, but his aging exterior concealed a mind as sharp as a military saber.

The minister himself picked up the secure phone on the fourth ring. He sounded as though he’d already had a cup of coffee.

“Aleksei Iliyanovich here,” the younger man began.

“My boy, how are you? I thought you were in Madrid.”

“I am, Misha Davidovitch.”

“Then this must be an important call.”

“Yes. I’d like your advice about a problem I’m having.”

“Go on.”

“I was assigned to cultivate a particular information source. Things had been going rather well and she had offered us a look at some NATO planning documents.”

“Ah, a woman,” Panov remarked knowingly. “But you can’t have come to an old man at six o’clock in the morning for advice about her.”

“No, it’s about the information. I believe our comrades at headquarters would be very interested in these documents.”

“Oh, very interested I’m sure.”

“That’s what I’m distressed about. General Bogolubov has taken a strange about-face. After I’ve spent weeks on this assignment, he’s decided to abort the mission just when my work is about to pay off.”

Panov snorted. “Slava does things like that. There are times when I suspect he’s more interested in one-upmanship than in doing his job effectively.”

“Yes, and that sometimes makes it hard for those under him to serve the motherland.”

Panov laughed. “So you really called to get me to tie his hands behind his back while you complete the assignment.”

“Are you making that offer?”

“Actually, I owe Slava one myself. How urgent is this?”

“Very.”

“Then I’ll wake him up as soon as we get off the phone. But remember, an old man can take chances and it won’t really matter one way or the other how it turns out.”

“You provide good counsel.”

“Bogolubov is a dangerous enemy. You’re putting your neck on the chopping block if it turns out you can’t produce.”

“I’m prepared to take the consequences. Thank you for your help, Misha Davidovich.”

After hanging up the phone, Aleksei reached for his pocket handkerchief to wipe the perspiration off his brow. The white cloth was the one he’d lent Julie. It was covered with cement dust. He couldn’t use it on his face. Instead he dropped it into the bag designed for sensitive documents that were to be destroyed. Before he went home to change and shave, he dropped the bag in the incinerator.

* * *

I
N AN APARTMENT
not far away, Feliks Gorlov was also caught in the grips of a night sweat. Throwing off the covers, he got out of bed and went to the cabinet where he kept his vodka. A stiff drink might help him get back to sleep.

He should have stuck to grain deals, he thought morosely, as he poured the colorless liquid into a heavy crystal tumbler. They might be tedious, but they were certainly a lot safer than the clandestine dealings he’d been engaged in lately.

Taking the glass to an easy chair by the window, he looked out over the sleeping city. The peaceful view didn’t do any more than the vodka to calm his nerves.

He’d been trying not to think about it, but he could damn well have gotten killed that night at the San Jeronimo. On the other hand, maybe that would have been less painful than what was going to happen if the KGB found out about his extracurricular activities.

Right now, thank the devil, he had that pup Georgi Krasin running interference with his sanitized reports of the incident. But that wasn’t enough. He was going to have to come up with something better, and soon. Maybe, once he’d made good on this present commitment, he could get out of the whole thing. Or was he simply fooling himself? His covert activities had set some powerful forces in motion. Lately they’d developed a momentum of their own, like a snowball rolling down a hill in icy Gorki Park, getting bigger and bigger as it picked up speed. It wasn’t difficult to picture who was going to get smashed when the damn thing reached the bottom.

Was there any way out of this? He certainly couldn’t outrun the snowball. But maybe he could develop a good story to explain what it was doing there and how the Kremlin could use it to its advantage.

The thought made him feel a bit more confident. Setting the glass down, he leaned back against the comfortable cushion and clasped his hands behind his head. There were other avenues he should be pursuing too. Project Topaz, for example. That certainly had the old toad hopping right now. Perhaps there was a way to use what he knew about the operation to buy himself some more time.

* * *

A
POLICE CAR
was parked in front of the main entrance to the embassy when Julie’s cab pulled up. As she climbed the steps to the door, she looked at her reflection in the one-way mirror and cringed. She’d been afraid to get undressed, so her yellow dress looked as though it had been slept in. That was something of a misconception since she’d done little more than toss restlessly on the soft mattress, her ears straining every time footsteps passed in the hall.

Though she’d washed her face and run a comb through her hair, she hadn’t been completely able to remove the cement dust. What’s more, she didn’t have any makeup to cover the dark circles under her eyes.

The marine guard inside had orders never to leave his station unattended. But he was at the door and pulling her inside before she could ring for admittance.

“She’s here,” he shouted into his walkie-talkie.

“I’ll be right down to get her,” Fitz’s voice answered almost at once.

She was waiting on the other side of the metal detector when the elevator opened. Fitz’s freckled face looked ashen. “We’ve been very worried about you,” he said, taking her arm. She expected to be ushered into his office; instead he pushed the button for the ambassador’s floor.

“Are you all right?” he asked as the car moved upward.

“Shaky.”

He nodded. “I feel guilty as hell about this, if that does you any good.”

“I’m not going to tell you it’s all right and try to make you feel better.”

Fitz slanted her a sympathetic look. “I deserve that.”

She didn’t reply.

He changed the subject. “Ambassador Thomas isn’t in this morning, so we can use his office.”

“All right.”

At the door he turned to the secretary. “Bring us two cups of coffee, with cream and sugar.” He turned to Julie. “Do you want a roll or something?”

“Not now.”

The person who came in five minutes later with the coffee was Cal. It was obvious that the man had been up all night, and a good bit of the starch had gone out of his demeanor. But he wasn’t above trying to put Julie McLean on the defensive immediately. “What the hell is the idea of going off on a wild-goose chase in response to a cockamamie note?”

“If you had leveled with me about the San Jeronimo, I wouldn’t have gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know perfectly well. I don’t have to tell you.”

“You didn’t have a need to know.”

“Apparently, I did! And I’d like to know if Paula is okay.”

“She’s fine,” Cal answered in a clipped tone.

Fitz interrupted. “I hate to break in on this friendly interchange, but I want to know where Julie spent the night.”

“With the man who saved my life.”

“And who was that?”

“Aleksei Rozonov.”

Cal muttered a curse.

Julie closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep, calming breath. She had passed long sleepless hours thinking of what she was going to say this morning.

“Maybe you’d better tell us about it,” Fitz said.

“What do you know?”

“Only that you got a note sending you to an ambush. We’ve made some discreet inquiries. The police aren’t aware you’re involved. They think the explosion was just a piece falling off a building like the one that almost hit the king last month. Whoever did the demolition must have been an expert.”

Julie’s gaze flicked to Cal and then back to Fitz. She was going to try to stick as close to the truth as she could. “Rozonov wouldn’t say much. I gather there was a difference of opinion about how to handle whatever operation they think I’m involved in. Somebody wanted me killed. Rozonov wants those NATO plans. He says he can guarantee my safety if I give them to him. Last night he took me to a room at the Palace Hotel and left me there while he went to cancel the orders.” She paused. “The orders to have me killed.”

Fitz’s face had gone even grayer.

“But any information we pass to Rozonov won’t stand up to close scrutiny,” Cal pointed out.

“Then maybe I’d better not be in Madrid when he finds out.”

“I don’t know,” he mused.

Julie gave him a direct look. “Perhaps if I fill in Ambassador Thomas, he’ll see things differently.”

Cal’s head snapped up.

“I thought you cleared this with him,” Fitz cut in.

“I don’t answer to the ambassador,” the CIA man pointed out.

The head of the political section swore. “Julie, you don’t know how sorry I am that I didn’t talk to Thomas about this myself.”

“Just start writing up my exit papers.”

“Wait a minute! Who’s going to give that NATO stuff to Rozonov?” Cal questioned.

“You’ll find a way,” Fitz assured him.

Julie looked at the consular officer. “I’d like to see Paula and let her know
I’m
all right and then go home and get some sleep now, if you don’t mind.”

Cal nodded. “All right. But you know what all this proves, don’t you?”

When she didn’t answer, he continued. “It proves that true-blue friend of yours, Dan Eisenberg, was passing information to the Russians.”

* * *

T
HE PHONE
was ringing when he stepped out of the shower. Aleksei grabbed a towel, wrapped it around his narrow hips, and crossed the bedroom floor. He left a trail of wet footprints on the wide wooden floorboards. It wasn’t hard to guess who would be on the other end of the line.

The caller didn’t bother with a greeting. “You must have had a busy night.”

“What makes you say that, Comrade General?”

“I received a top priority call from Moscow—from the office of the foreign secretary—this morning. I have never received such a call before. It was not a request, it was a
demand
that I alter my course of action.”

Aleksei waited.

“How dare you presume that a major can get away with countermanding a general’s orders!” Bogolubov bellowed into the phone.

“You believe I...” he began.

“
Ay-ay-ay!
Don’t play dumb with me.”

“Comrade General...” A pool of water was beginning to collect on the floor by the bedside table.

“Aleksei Iliyanovich—” the general’s tone was uncharacteristically direct “—let me speak plainly. I have thought for some time that you were occupying a position far beyond your limited abilities. I can see now that you must have been trading on your father’s reputation to advance yourself. But this time you have gone too far. When you get those NATO papers—
if
you get those NATO papers—I will be going over them with a fine-tooth comb. And if they are not the genuine article, the
very
genuine article, you will be on your way to Siberia in the next rail shipment of prisoners. Do I make myself clear?”

“Very clear.”

“Now, I want you down here on the double. We will continue this discussion in the privacy of the embassy.”

The line went dead.

Aleksei hung up, feeling a strange mixture of elation and rage. So Bogolubov was coping with humiliation by threatening him. The bastard! The only consolation was that he had bought Julie the time she needed to get out of Spain. But at what cost to himself?

Chapter Eleven

T
he Raven knew that the third phase of Project Topaz was drawing to a close. He had pinpointed the planting of disinformation at various locations around the world and he knew who was coordinating the effect back in Moscow. The last—and most classified—phase was a Quadrozine field trial, to make absolutely sure the assumptions about its properties were true. He was fully aware that the top-secret report on such a trial could not be trusted to even the most secure satellite link.

The data would be sent home as hard copy. Since at least one report was being couriered from Afghanistan, it would probably pass through Madrid. That was his best hope—maybe now his only hope—of getting proof of the Kremlin’s very nasty scheme.