Unforgettable - eARC (6 page)

I debated telling him about my talent, but for some reason the bodyguards made me uneasy. I decided it was best to extricate myself. “Just a little debate with a friend. Nothing important. Sorry to have troubled you with it.”

“Oh, it is no trouble at all,” he said, still scribbling on his notebook. “I love to think tangentially. It is a great exercise of the mind.”

At the very least he had given me a place to start—I could do some research on quantum eraser experiments to see if they might have some connection to my talent.

But I still had one job left to do.

As I stood up, I loosened my grip on the papers I was holding, and the middle bunch of about thirty pages spilled onto the coffee table and luxuriously thick carpet. “Whoops!”

“Oh my,” Rezaei said.

I got down on all fours and began scooping up the papers. Rezaei leaned forward on the couch and tried to help.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got them,” I said, as I let some of the papers I had just picked up fall again, this time onto his feet. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

I reached forward and got my hand under the paper. The tracer—a device smaller than a thumbtack head and almost transparent—had two adhesive sides. One was a light adhesive kind of like Post-it notes, and one was a very powerful adhesive sealed in microscopic bubbles. The light adhesive had kept it stuck to the tip of my right index finger since I put it there about fifteen minutes earlier. Now, under cover of the paper, I jabbed my finger to Rezaei’s shoe. The sudden pressure burst the bubbles, the powerful adhesive took hold, and I felt a slight tug on my skin as I pulled my finger away from the tracer.

“Sorry,” I repeated as I gathered up the papers and rose to my feet.

One of the bodyguards escorted me to the door and out.

With my primary mission accomplished, I could now focus on my secondary mission: finding Yelena.

In the hotel lobby, I was about to throw the papers into a trash can when I noticed one of them did not have smooth edges, but rather had been torn out of a spiral notebook. I pulled that sheet out and saw, in scribbled handwriting, the words: “I am a prisoner forced to work against my will.”

Chapter Eight

After my usual phone authentication routine with Edward, he took a couple of minutes to review the latest notes he had made in my file. “So your primary mission was to plant a tracer on this quantum physics guy. How’d it go?”

“No problem,” I said. “But there was an unexpected development.”

“Oh?”

“He slipped me a note saying he was a prisoner being forced to work against his will.”

“Really? That’s a twist. Thought Jamshidi had recruited the guy out of Iranian patriotism. I’ll note that down.”

“Umm,” I said. “Shouldn’t we do something to help him?”

“You planted the tracer on him, right?”

“Yes.”

“The most important thing is to find the lab where he’s working. Once we’ve done that, we’ll see what we can do about shutting it down, at which point he would be free. Okay?”

I reluctantly agreed. Rezaei had seemed like a nice guy caught up in a bad situation, and I felt a little guilty for not helping him out.

“What about your secondary mission, finding the thief who stole the InterQuan prototype?”

“No luck,” I said. “I haven’t spotted her.”

Edward sighed. “Okay. Come back for debriefing and we’ll see if you can ID her.”

* * *

After about fifteen minutes of sitting in Edward’s office scrolling through pictures, I saw her face. “This one,” I said, handing the tablet over to him.

He tapped the touchscreen to bring up more info. “Her name is Yelena Semyonova.” He went silent as he read more.

I watched him, moving restlessly in my seat just to make sure he wouldn’t forget I was there.

“She probably drove to Paris,” Edward said, “because she took a flight to Kiev out of Charles de Gaulle yesterday.”

“So she gave me her real first name?” I asked. “That wasn’t very professional.” I did it all the time, but that didn’t matter because nobody remembered. I wanted her to be a professional, because being taken down like that by an amateur made me feel stupid.

“Hmm.” With arthritic fingers, Edward tapped the tablet. “We’ve got kind of a good news/bad news scenario here. The good news is she’s not with the Russian SVR.”

“Ukrainian?” If so, I felt a bit better about letting her get away with the prototype, as the current Ukrainian government was pro-American.

“No. She used to be in the SVR, but she quit eleven months ago. The bad news is that we suspect she now works for one of the Russian syndicates.”

I winced. “I should have anticipated she would—”

“Everyone makes mistakes, son,” Edward said. “But there’s more bad news: the syndicate she works for has been hired by this man.” He handed over the tablet, which showed a photo of a bald, morbidly obese man. I recognized him before Edward continued, “Kazem Jamshidi. Iranian citizen, made most of his billions in oil.”

“Yeah, I’ve even met him,” I said. “I hacked his computer in London and found out he was working on a quantum supercomputer.”

Edward raised his eyebrows. “You’re the one who got that intel? That’s caused a bit of ruckus around here—especially since Jamshidi returned to Iran last week and then we lost track of him. Anyway, we used to think he was relatively harmless, just trying to make Iran into the Silicon Valley of quantum computing so they’ll have something to export when the oil runs out. But it turns out he’s got a top-notch quantum physicist working for him. Guy by the name of Parham Rezaei—he’s Iranian, too.”

“Yes, I met him in Rome—I’m the one who confirmed he was working for Jamshidi. The report I gave you should be in your folder there somewhere. He gave me a note that said he was being forced to work against his will.”

“Really?” Edward blinked a couple of times. “I figured Jamshidi recruited him through Iranian patriotism.”

“Maybe at first,” I said. “But not anymore.”

Edward scratched his nose. “Anyway, from what we can tell, Jamshidi’s trying to build a quantum supercomputer to precisely predict the future. That has strategic implications we’re still trying to figure out, but for one thing he could easily become the richest man in the world just buying and selling stocks at the right time. And that’s the most benign scenario.”

“And he’s hired the Russian mafia to steal technology to help build it?” I asked.

“Not just steal. They’ve kidnapped quantum physicists and engineers from around the globe—although they’ve steered clear of Americans and Western Europeans, probably to avoid riling us up. We’re pretty sure they’ve assassinated key people in the industry, too.”

“So,” I said, “how do we stop him?”

Edward grinned at me. “That’s my boy! Your file said you were enthusiastic, but it’s nice to see it for myself.” His smile faltered. “I mean, I guess I have seen it for myself, before, but…”

“Don’t sweat it,” I said. “I’m used to people forgetting.”

“Right.” He gave me a brief nod. “We know Jamshidi’s built an underground lab somewhere in the Iranian desert, but we don’t know where it is. We’d love to get a tracer to his lab. And you can help set that up.”

“Actually, I already have,” I said. “I put a tracer on Rezaei when I was in Rome. That was my primary mission there.”

Edward rubbed the corners of his eyes with both hands. “Sorry, I—”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not you, it’s me. Happens all the time.”

“Right. So, let’s see where your tracer’s been.” He pulled up a map program on his computer screen, punched in some commands, and the map zoomed to Europe. It showed a trail from Rome to London.

“Rezaei said he was headed to London for some business,” I said, “then back to Iran.”

Edward zoomed in on London. “Unfortunately, it looks like the tracer stopped transmitting about five hours ago. The last location was…” When the map reached street level, the tracer path clearly entered a warehouse-type building on the bank of the Thames. “…a Jamshidi Oil warehouse.”

“They must have detected it somehow,” I said. “But why take a quantum physicist to an oil facility?”

“Oh! Oh!” Edward seemed excited. “There’s something I read earlier. Where was it?” He swiped through some document folders on his tablet. “Here it is. An analysis of shipping traffic to and from Jamshidi Oil’s London branch. The company has its own tankers. And, naturally, when they come into London filled with oil, they run relatively low in the water compared to when they are empty. But sometimes when the tankers leave, they are still too low in the water to be empty.”

“So they’re shipping something out from London.”

“Precisely,” Edward said. “They could be shipping quantum technology to their London warehouse to get around laws prohibiting trade with Iran. So they’re probably having Rezaei check out the technology before it’s shipped to the lab.”

“Makes sense. But unfortunately, since they killed the tracer, we’re not really any closer to finding the lab.”

“Well, that’s your next mission.” He pulled a circuit board out of an anti-static envelope and slid it across his desk to me.

It looked awfully familiar. “That’s the InterQuan prototype,” I said. “How did you get it?”

“No, it’s a GPS tracker and locator beacon built based on the pictures our source at InterQuan sent us. You see, we don’t think Yelena has had time to transfer the prototype to Jamshidi’s people. So, we need you to catch up with her and switch this for the real prototype. Your talent can make it so she won’t remember the switch, right?”

I nodded. “Shouldn’t be a problem, if I can find her and she still has the prototype.”

“Uh-hmm.” He gave me an appraising look. “I like the can-do attitude, but I really don’t like sending you into the field like this without any kind of backup.”

Smiling, I said, “We’ve discussed this before. If I ever have to go radio silent for a minute, my backup will forget me.”

“Right, of course. Sorry for bringing up an old subject.”

“No problem, I appreciate the concern for my well-being. Don’t worry about me—I’m used to getting myself out of tough situations.”

A woman knocked at the door and brought in a manila envelope for Edward.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“The documents you requested,” she said.

“Ah, thanks.” He opened it and leafed through the contents. “Quite satisfactory.”

As she walked out, he said, “Okay, son, there’s a seat booked on a plane to Moscow this afternoon.” He handed me an itinerary, a credit card, and a passport.

I flipped the passport open to find my name was Bob Daniels. The passport photo was a digital shot we had taken earlier and printed in my presence.

“Moscow?” I said. “I thought she was in Kiev.”

“She left for Moscow this morning.” He picked up the tablet, pressed a few things, and a printer next to his desk started spitting out papers. “I’ll give you Yelena’s file to read on the flight.”

* * *

While on the plane I perused Yelena’s file.

Yelena Semyonova was born seventeen days after I was. Even though her parents could remember her, that didn’t stop her father from leaving like mine had. Her mother had remarried, though, when Yelena was eight. She had twin half-sisters—Ekaterina and Oksana—nine years younger than her. Apparently her mother had been a figure-skating fan.

She majored in world politics at Lomonosov Moscow State University, but was recruited by the SVR and left before graduating.

According to the information the CIA had collected, Yelena was on track as a career agent for the SVR until a family crisis intervened. Her mother and stepfather had divorced when she was a teenager, with full custody of the twins given to the mother. But after a dispute with their mother last year, the sixteen-year-old twins had run off to live with their father.

Yelena requested various government departments to return the girls to the legal custody of their mother, but nothing happened. She had resigned from the SVR, and that’s where the CIA information on her ran out, except for a note that she frequented a Moscow night club owned by the Bukharin syndicate.

I was a little disappointed by Yelena after reading the dossier. I could understand that she might get disillusioned by her government when they refused to help return her sisters, so her resignation didn’t bother me. But working for the Russian mafia? Surely she had other options.

Then again, if the CIA hadn’t hired me, I might have continued with my life of crime. So who was I to cast stones?

I put the folder back in my carry-on and slid it under the seat in front of me. Then I leaned back in my seat, closed my eyes, and remembered the kiss. It had been a good kiss.

I daydreamed a bit. I would locate her in Moscow, try approaching her several times until I found something that worked. We’d go out for a drink, she’d fall for me, and then she would kiss me again—before I stole the prototype from her, of course.

* * *

Idle daydreams are not a good basis for operational planning. So my actual plan involved locating the prototype and stealing it without even bumping into Yelena, let alone kissing her.

After landing in Moscow, I had a taxi take me to the apartment building that was her last known address, in case she hadn’t moved after resigning from the SVR. The building was in a low-rent district, and the intercom at the door wasn’t working. I walked up seven flights of stairs to apartment 73.

I knocked on the door. If she answered, I would be a befuddled American tourist who had come to the wrong address. I’d apologize and go wait outside the building until she left.

But the twenty-something Russian woman who answered the door was not Yelena, so I went with Plan B.

“Is Yelena here?” I asked in my atrociously accented Russian.

“She doesn’t live here anymore,” she said.

“I am a friend of Yelena. I was an American exchange student at the university with her.” I had rehearsed these lines on the flight over. My vocabulary was good, but I couldn’t get the grammar right without practice. “Could you give me her new address or phone number?”

She looked me over head to toe, and apparently decided I wasn’t to be trusted with that information. “No,” she said. Maybe she was overprotective, or maybe she was just a good judge of character.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said, and walked away. I heard the door close behind me.

I stopped and counted to sixty, then returned and knocked on the door again. She answered.

“Is Polina here?” I asked.

She frowned, shaking her head. “You have the wrong apartment.”

I scratched the back of my right ear. “Sorry, my mistake.” I started to turn as if to leave, then said, “Can I use your phone to call Polina and get the right address?”

She looked me over head to toe. This time, the verdict was different. “Just for a minute.”

“Thank you,” I said.

She showed me to the phone on an end table in her living room. I dialed a random number. The phone call itself didn’t matter. But it gave me the chance to surreptitiously stick a penny-sized electronic bug onto the bottom of her telephone.

Someone answered my call. I said, “Sorry, wrong number,” and hung up.

“Thank you,” I said to the woman, and I left.

Once I got to the stairwell, I sat down and took out a pad of paper and a pen.

Writing in Russian takes me a while, even if I’m just copying Cyrillic characters off the web browser on my cell phone. With the aid of an online translation program, after five minutes I managed to write the following message:

Warn Yelena not to trust the Iranians.

I knocked on the door for the third time. But instead of waiting for the woman to answer, I left a folded sheet of paper on the ground and then ran.

Sitting back in the stairwell, I pulled out my iPhone and brought up the app to let me listen to the transmissions from the bug I’d put on the woman’s phone. As I had hoped, she made a phone call.

Yelena’s voice answered.

As the woman passed on the warning I had left, an audio analyzer in the cell phone decoded the phone number she had dialed. I wrote it down, then called Edward’s direct line at Langley.

“Strong here,” he said.

“There is a file folder labeled ‘CODE NAME LETHE’ in the back of your bottom desk drawer on the right,” I said.

“What? Who is this?”