onto the computer. He logged onto the NSA server and began reading the translated transcripts of the calls made by Oleg Gabrilov since he had last checked. Thanks to his bugs, the NSA had all of Gabrilov’s calls, from the embassy, from his apartment, and from his cell phone. There was a single phone number that Gabrilov had called once a day; the first time, after he’d made his call to Alyona’s cell phone following Scorpion’s visit. A transcript of another call caught his attention. Gabrilov had said: “They’ve taken the bait.”
The SVR was running something, probably the frame for the Cherkesov killing, Scorpion thought. But why would the SVR want to assassinate Cherkesov, Russia’s biggest ally in Ukraine? And how would Gabrilov know that he and Iryna had taken the bait about Pyatov? What was happening at the time? Scorpion checked the date and time of the call. And then it hit him.
Gabrilov had made the call yesterday, before the assassination, right after he told Gorobets about Pyatov. That meant Gabrilov knew Michael Kilbane was in Dnipropetrovsk, and the only reason for him to be there was because he knew about Pyatov. Scorpion checked the phone number on the NSA database. When he read it, it made no sense. The number was registered to a Chinese trading company, Lianhuay China Trading, Ltd., on Vorovskogo Street in western Kyiv. The SVR and the Chinese intelligence service, the Guoanbu, were deadly enemies. Why would Gabrilov be contacting the Chinese?
Things were spiraling out of control. And what the hell did the Chinese have to do with it? He needed to get to Shaefer. He plugged earphones and a minimicrophone into the computer and Skype’d Shaefer’s BlackBerry. It was a private BlackBerry, not in Shaefer’s name, and that the Company didn’t know about. On the third ring, someone picked up.
“Cine este?” Shaefer said in Romanian over sounds of a conversation in the background.
“It’s FOBE. Can you talk?” Scorpion said in English.
“Un moment,” Shaefer said, and Scorpion heard him say something to someone in Romanian. When he came back on the line, the background sounds were quiet. “Are you out of your mind!? I shouldn’t talk to you! I shouldn’t know you!”
“We were set up,” Scorpion whispered.
“Who gives a crap? Have you any idea how hot you are? You are so PNG you don’t exist!” CIA-speak for persona non grata.
“I need a drop.”
“Don’t you get it? If I wanted to-which I don’t-I can’t come near you with a ten-foot pole.”
“What about FOBE?” Scorpion said. What he and Shaefer had been through together in Forward Operating Base Echo had to trump anything coming down the Company’s chain of command. They were foxhole buddies. Shaefer was one of the good guys.
“You’re out past Pluto, amigo. This is a bridge too far.”
“I just need-” Scorpion started.
“I’m burning this number. Don’t call again,” Shaefer said, and hung up.
Scorpion sat there for a moment, stunned, staring blankly at the computer screen. Not Shaefer, he thought. It couldn’t be. In Chaprai in Pakistan, bad intel had turned FOBE into a death trap. Their Delta Team had come under an intense Taliban attack that lasted three days and nights, at the end of which he and Shaefer were the only ones left alive. When they finally got evac’d out, they’d decided to join the CIA so no other American grunt would get killed because of lousy intel.
Only now, even Shaefer had cut ties with him. It meant this was so hot the CIA didn’t want to be associated with this thing. It also meant the Company-and the NSC-had concluded that unless the U.S. walked away now, they were headed for war. It was too big. He had to get to Rabinowich.
He checked his watch. It was almost 11:00 A.M., four in the morning in Virginia. He Skype’d Rabinowich’s home number. The phone rang three times, then clicked over. A recorded telephone company voice came on the line. It said the number he was calling was no longer in service and there was no new number. Christ, they’d gotten to Rabinowich too. The CIA’s best brain and ultimate in-house rebel! Apart from Shaefer, the only person he had always counted on.
The only connection he had left was the teenage chat room where Rabinowich, posing as a teenage girl from Omaha named Madison, chatted with him as her online boyfriend, Josh. Scorpion unplugged the earphones and mike and went to the online chat room. When he tried to log in, however, he was blocked. Instead of a login, he got a message telling him he had been permanently removed. Only the chat operator using a kill command for him specifically could’ve done that, he thought, feeling like he’d been kicked in the stomach. Even Rabinowich wanted no part of him. He was alone; completely cut off.
“Everything all right?” Iryna asked him.
“Fine,” Scorpion said, entering the Alt key sequence that would cause the NSA software to completely scrub any trace of his activity or that he had ever been on the computer, even resetting the computer’s clock and clearing his transactions from its local Internet server. When it finished, the software would delete itself. He tried to think of what to do next.
“I found a flat,” Iryna whispered. “In Desnianskyi raion. It’s on the Left Bank, near Volhogradska Square.”
Scorpion looked toward the door as a pair of Black Armbands walked in and began shoving people out of the way. They grabbed one young man at a computer-he looked like a student-and threw him to the floor. They started kicking him. No one interfered.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Scorpion said.
Chapter Twenty-One
Desnianskyi
Kyiv, Ukraine
That afternoon, they watched television and made love. The apartment was on the tenth floor. It was small, with only a few pieces of furniture, and had a view of the street below. Their next door neighbor, Pani Pugach, a short, round woman in a housedress, came over to introduce herself. She chatted with Iryna about the building, gossiping about the other tenants as Scorpion sat at the kitchen table with his laptop computer. He let Iryna do the talking, saying only, “Dobry den,” Good day, when Pani Pugach came in and “Buvay,” So long, when she left.
“She told me where the local Furshet supermarket is,” Iryna told him. “I can go shop, and when I come back, I’ll make us borscht.”
The male announcer on TV started talking very loudly. The screen showed Russian troops marching, followed by a man in a suit speaking at a press conference. Scorpion recognized him immediately. Brabov, the Russian president.
“What’s he saying?” he asked Iryna.
“He’s demanding an end to the crisis. He says Russian lives are being threatened. He says that Russia will take over as much of Ukraine as necessary in order to ensure the safety of ethnic Russians.” She looked at Scorpion. “It’s what we feared.”
“Wait,” he said, indicating the TV. It had switched to a conference going on in Brussels. Scorpion couldn’t understand the commentary and could only catch a word or two of the news ticker on the bottom of the screen: NATO V STANI KRYZY. KOZHANOVSKIY: “ VIYNA YDE. ” “What’s it say?” he asked.
“NATO in crisis,” she read. “It quotes Kozhanovskiy: ‘War is imminent.’ I’ve got to talk to Viktor.”
“Wait till I get you a new identity,” Scorpion said.
“I can’t. Things are moving too fast.”
“Listen, they’re not kidding around. The ones who set us up are safer if you’re dead. Then the only one putting out a story is them.”
“I know,” she said, “pulling on her coat, wig, and Ushanka fur hat. “I’ll call Viktor from the Furshet store. I’ll be back.”
“Be careful,” he said when she headed out.
While she was gone, he tried to think it through. The only way for him and Iryna was to find who killed Cherkesov and why. The key was that so far everything had come from or through the SVR agent, Gabrilov. Even
