His father tapped the table for emphasis. “And a good thing, too, boy. Or you might have wound up dead — just like those poor Russian sods.”
Helen let them talk for a while longer, about drugs, other ships to Russia, crime in Bergen, but finally found a graceful pause in the conversation and made their goodbyes.
It was chilly outside, the midsummer twilight holding only a little warmth and a sea breeze from the west stripping even that away. Helen shivered slightly, but then glanced at Peter. “Well, what do you think?”
“I think we head for Wilhelmshaven, don’t you?” he replied quietly.
“Yep.” She couldn’t hide the satisfaction in her voice. The trail left by the people who’d ambushed them and murdered Alexei Koniev hadn’t grown completely cold after all. They’d found another link in the chain.
“What do you think about passing this information back to the Bureau?” Peter asked.
Helen thought about that a moment. She doubted they had enough hard data to penetrate the FBI’s bureaucratic inertia yet, but that shouldn’t stop them from trying to prod Washington into taking official notice that something very strange was going on with whatever material Serov and his officers had smuggled out of Kandalaksha. At a minimum, it wouldn’t hurt to leave a paper trail of their findings — just in case they ran into trouble somewhere along the line.
She looked back at Peter and nodded. “Fine. But I’d rather not give the Bureau a chance to zero in on us just yet.”
He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Not to worry, Special Agent Gray. We’ll be the very soul of discretion.”
Leiter, a trim, telegenic man in his early forties, read the document intently.
From: Special Agent Helen Gray To: Deputy Assistant Director Lawrence Mcdowell, FBI International Relations Branch via fax: (202) 5559987
Jet engines described by SEROV as possible contraband were transferred in BERGEN, NORWAY, from freighter STAR OF THE WHITE SEA to freighter BALTIC VENTURER, which immediately left for home port of WILHELMSHAVEN, GERMANY. Strongly recommend you investigate re: ultimate destination of engines, precise contents of crates,
Lawrence Mcdowell handed the fax he’d received only an hour before to the Director, careful to hide his resentment from the other man. David Leiter had been a hotshot prosecutor before he’d been picked by the President to head the FBI, but he’d never served a day as a field agent. Mcdowell was prepared to kowtow to anyone above him, but it irked him to realize how far down the FBI’s totem pole he still was — despite all his years of service and ass-kissing.
“That’s it?” demanded Leiter.
Mcdowell felt his palms starting to get damp. The Director had a reputation for backing his subordinates to the hilt — as long as they were producing. But he had zero tolerance for inefficiency.
Mcdowell knew if he didn’t give Leiter the right answers, he could be on his way to Billings, Montana, as a junior G-man before the day was out.
He cleared his throat. “The cover sheet was from a commercial fax service in Berlin, sir. It was sent earlier today, which places Special Agent Gray and Colonel Thorn in Germany some fortyeight hours after they missed the meeting with their Army escort.”
Leiter frowned.
“I can read a calendar, Assistant Director Mcdowell.” He slapped the fax down on his desk. “Do you have any goddamned idea about what they’ve been doing in the meantime?”
“No, sir. Not exactly,” Mcdowell reluctantly admitted. “But I’ve dispatched an agent from our Berlin office to this fax service.
We’re also checking out airline and passport records to see if they actually went to Bergen to obtain this information — or if Agent Gray is simply trying to pull rabbits out of her hat to save her own hide.”
Leiter’s eyes narrowed. “Exactly what do you mean by that, Mr. Mcdowell?”
“What I mean, sir, is that Special Agent Gray is obviously still chasing after this Russian drug smuggling ring — despite the fact she’s been pulled off that case. So now, having violated your directive to return here, she’s running around Europe — presumably with her Army boyfriend.”
Mcdowell grimaced. “I’m afraid that she’s completely out of control.”
“You’re her supervisor. Are you telling me you didn’t see any sign of this coming?”
Mcdowell tried to sound concerned and distressed. “I believe Special Agent Gray is under massive stress, sir. She hasn’t done very well in the Moscow office”—the poor performance reviews he’d given her would document that — “and then she involves herself in that crazy shoot-out in Pechenga.”
He shook his head. “Add that together with her memories of that bloody counterterrorist raid here in the D.C. area two years ago, and I think we’ve got an agent who may be coming apart at the seams.”
Leiter nodded gravely, clearly remembering the details. The HRT section under Helen Gray’s command had lost four out of ten agents while successfully attacking a heavily fortified terrorist safe house.
She’d been badly wounded herself. Nobody could walk away from a bloodbath like that psychologically unscathed.
Mcdowell pressed his point. “Plus there’s her association with this guy Thorn, whose only real ability seems to be to disobey orders.”’ He frowned. “Frankly, I think she’s become a liability to the Bureau and to you, sir. You’ll remember I recommended revoking her law enforcement powers when we recalled her from Moscow—” Leiter broke in.
“And I still won’t approve it, Mr. Mcdowell. Agent Gray hasn’t committed any offense serious enough to justify such action — especially when we haven’t heard her side of the story.”
Mcdowell shrugged. “What can she say in her own defense?”
“That’s for Agent Gray to establish, not you,” Leiter growled. “In the meantime, I want all FBI offices to watch for her and Colonel Thorn. If they’re found, I want them escorted back here. They’re not to be arrested or placed in custody of any kind. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.” Mcdowell knew when to get out. The meeting hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped, but at least Leiter had been diverted from asking specific questions about the fax’s contents.
Five minutes later, Mcdowell closed the door to his own office and moved to the window — staring blindly down at Washington’s bustling streets while pondering his situation. He was uncomfortably aware that his neck was in a noose — a noose largely of his own making.
He scowled. It had seemed so easy back in the 1980s. His salary as a field agent hadn’t been high enough to match his expensive tastes.
After all, why drive a Chevrolet when you could take a spin in your very own Porsche or BMW? So he’d gone looking for a little extra something to pad his paycheck. And he’d found it.
Mcdowell found himself wanting a drink. He turned away from the window and found the bottle of bourbon he had stashed in his bottom desk drawer. He poured a generous dollop into a water glass and downed it in one go.
When East Germany’s secret intelligence service, the Stasi, offered him fifty thousand dollars — as a simple retainer, but with the promise of more to follow — he’d jumped at the money. And why not? Pure patriotism was for suckers, the kind of all-American idiots he’d left gasping in his tracks ever since entering the FBI Academy. East.
West. Communism. Capitalism. None of the grand causes mattered much.
Not when you were looking out for the only interests that were really important in the end — your own.
Besides, Mcdowell thought angrily, he’d never done a damn thing wrong for the money. Since the East Germans hadn’t contacted him again before the Wall came tumbling down, he’d never actually betrayed his country. All he’d done was redistribute a little wealth from an enemy spy agency into his own back pocket. And where was the real harm in that?
He grimaced, pouring another slug of bourbon. But now this ex-Stasi son of a bitch Heinrich Wolf, or whatever his real name was, had come crawling back from the shadows to blackmail him. The man’s confident use of the
