Arctic Gold

proclaimed in heavily accented Russian interspersed with even worse English, just the economic boost the city needed, and everyone was soon going to be rich. Lia studied the new construction with a more cynical eye and wondered how deep the Organizatsiya had burrowed into the local landscape.

They checked in at the front desk, argued a bit with the desk clerk over whether their reservation had been for smoking rather than nonsmoking, then went up to their room. As soon as the door was shut, Lia pulled what looked like a compact from her handbag and began walking around the room, studying the tiny LED readout as she passed the device along the walls, over the lamps and TV, across the head of the big king-sized bed, across the big mirror in its ornate frame over the dresser. “Lovely room, John,” she said in a bright voice. “I think the travel agency picked a good one this time.”

“Nice view of the ocean,” Akulinin said from the window. He, too, was carefully scanning the glass doors onto the balcony with something like a small PDA. They continued to exchange uninformative chitchat until they were reasonably sure that there were no hidden listening devices in the room. Their argument at the front desk had been designed to get the desk clerk to make a last-minute change, just in case foreign tourists were automatically dropped into a room wired for sound or video. If they’d found anything, they were prepared-by means of a dead cockroach sealed in a small plastic bottle-to demand yet another room change.

But their room appeared to be electronically, as well as physically, clean.

Of course, the bad old days of the Soviet regime were long gone and tourists were no longer the targets of paranoid suspicion and KGB surveillance. The new and capitalist Russia desperately needed foreign currency and was doing her best to promote a lively tourist trade. The chances were good that no one was spying on the two spies. At least, not here.

Still, many of the old ploys used by the KGB were still employed in the new Russia-especially where business people were concerned. The honey trap was an old favorite. The traveler might come back to his room one evening to find a lovely and willing young woman waiting for him in bed, complete with a story about how she’d bribed a maid to let her in just so she could meet him, or how the people with whom he was working had hired her for his pleasure, or how she’d accidentally ended up in the wrong room. Sound recordings and video footage would then be used to blackmail the traveler. If Russia was no longer as interested as she once was in political or military espionage, industrial espionage was still big business. It was amazing what a business traveler might reveal about a new technical process in order to keep a wife or a boss from seeing a certain compromising and decidedly X-rated video.

And the Organizatsiya was always on the lookout for useful information to sell to the highest bidder or for the payment of a few thousand euros or dollars from a horny and gullible mark. One reason Akulinin and Lia were here posing as a married couple was to make the two of them a less obvious target than the traditional lonely businessman.

“So is everything in there to your satisfaction?” Jeff Rockman’s voice said in Lia’s ear.

“I got weak positives off the wall outlets and the phone jack,” she said. “As usual.” Her detector picked up copper wiring as well as electronic circuits. “But I think we’re clear.”

“I’ve got nothing,” Akulinin said, stepping back inside from the balcony. “It really is a great view, though.”

“We’ll need you to put down your eyes so we can cover your room,” Rockman told them. “And you have a visitor coming up. I just gave him your room number.”

A knock sounded at the door.

Akulinin peered through the spy hole, then opened the door. James Llewellyn walked in.

“Good afternoon,” Llewellyn said with an affable grin. “How’s the old married couple, then?”

“Jet-lagged,” Lia replied. “And in no mood for games.”

“Understood.” He glanced around the room. “We’re secure?”

“Yes.”

“Capital.”

“As secure as we can be, anyway.”

“Yes, well, that’s what keeps the game interesting, don’t you think? You can never be sure.”

“What’s interesting,” Akulinin said with a grimace, “is waiting to hear if you guys ever recovered that tool kit. You said you had a team on it that night, but then we got hustled back to England so quickly we never heard what happened.”

“Ah,” Llewellyn said. “As it happens… no.” He set his laptop computer on a desk in one corner of the room and opened it. “But, actually, that’s a bit of good news. Hang on a tick. I think you’ll be interested in what I have here.” He began booting up the computer.

“They weren’t able to recover the damned thing and that’s good news?” Akulinin said. He looked bleak.

“He’s been afraid they’re going to take it out of his paycheck,” Lia put in.

“Yes, well, the thing is, we were able to track it for a time,” Llewellyn said. “Used a satellite to query the satcom’s imbedded GPS. We were able to plot its movements over the course of two days, from St. Petersburg to Moscow to someplace near Donetsk. The last time we got a signal from the unit, we think it was airborne and moving south.”

“Donetsk is more or less halfway between Moscow and Sochi,” Lia said. “You think it was on its way here?”

“A distinct possibility,” Llewellyn told them. “We’re now certain the gang that jumped you in St. Petersburg was with the Tambovs. Grigor Kotenko is a high-ranking Tambov chief, and he was closely involved in the beryllium sale in St. Pete. Those were probably his enforcers on the waterfront. He specializes in high-tech items, remember, and the black box alone from the AN/PSC-12 would be worth millions to the right buyer.”

“Tell me about it,” Akulinin said. “Rubens is going to have me shot when I get back to the States.”

“Only after he skins you alive,” Lia told him.

Llewellyn grinned. “Maybe they’ll just take it out of your pay. In any case, we couldn’t find the kit on the waterfront where you said you must have left it. The sensors you two left in the area showed the whole place was crawling with people for hours after you left, so it’s a fair bet they found it and looked inside. If they reported it to Kotenko, he would have wanted to see just what it was that had so unexpectedly fallen into his hands.”

Lia looked at Llewellyn. “So does that mean Kotenko is in Sochi now? I thought the dacha was closed except for a housekeeping staff.”

“We thought it was,” Llewellyn said. “But several days ago, we saw signs that the place was open for business. Here.” He typed a set of commands into the laptop, and a full-color photograph came up on the 17-inch screen, a shot apparently taken from a boat offshore. The camera angle looked up from the water, framing a large two-story villa on a hilltop. Snowcapped mountains-the Caucasus-rose behind, almost lost in a blue haze. The house, its walls and roof brightly colored in tropical aquas, reds, and yellows, looked deserted. He hit a key and a second photo opened up, this one taken from either a satellite or a high-flying aircraft, looking down on the same building. The grounds, the large deck, the balconies, all were deserted.

“Those first two are from a week ago,” Llewellyn said, pointing to the date and time stamps on the photos. “You can’t tell for sure from two photos, but our agents watching the place reported no activity at all, save for a gardener, a pool caretaker, and two security types. Then, three days ago, we got this.”

He brought up a third photo, again taken from overhead. This one showed two cars in the driveway at the front of the dacha, an open table umbrella on the poolside deck, and a number of human figures around the pool. Five security men were visible around the property’s perimeter, two of them with dogs on leads.

“My God,” Lia said, looking close. She hit a key several times, zooming in closer on the scene. “Is that an orgy?”

“Kotenko appears to have been, ah, entertaining some guests this past weekend,” Llewellyn said. “We’re checking our sources in Moscow, and going through some backlogged cell phone intercepts to be sure, but we think he’s brought in some VIPs from Gazprom. Probably for some high-level… I think you Yanks call it ‘wheeling and dealing’?”

“Looks like that’s not all they’re doing,” Akulinin said, studying the screen. “Damn. That does complicate things a bit.”

“Indeed. We were counting on you two having the place more or less to yourselves. But if Kotenko is in residence, he’ll have a small entourage with him. Bodyguards. Office assistants. Maids and butlers. Secretaries.