The Reluctant Assassin Box Set Page 5

  At the end of the third week, Klaus began to feel anxious, but Rostislav contacted him, and they met again. “I’ve found him. Here is the confirmation information.” He handed Klaus a single sheet of paper.

  With rising excitement calmed by deliberate skepticism, Klaus read down the sheet. “That’s him. What’s next?”

  “I’ll put you in direct contact, but it’ll cost you ten thousand dollars more.” He shrugged. “The man made me pay him to give you that sheet of paper.”

  Klaus sat back in his chair. “I’ll arrange it.”

  A month later, Klaus waited outside of Veniamin’s former weekend home, a repurposed barn north of Paris on a secluded plot of land carved out of a defunct farm. It had been the site of the last plutonium delivery to Veniamin. Half of the million-dollar price had already been transmitted. Today, on receipt of the nuclear material, Klaus would deliver the balance in cash, made possible by Kadir through a cooperating hawala in Paris.

  While waiting, Klaus reviewed his financial position. After paying for forged travel documents, the money remitted to Rostislav, the plutonium transaction, and his normal living and travel expenses, he had more than three million six hundred thousand dollars remaining. After delivery, I’ll have enough material to make four more bombs. Crossing into Germany with it is not difficult. He felt an immense sense of satisfaction.

  He heard a crunch of gravel and looked up to see a sedan approaching. The exchange of cash for plutonium took a matter of minutes, and then Klaus was on his way back to Berlin.

  He spent the next month engaging several machine shops, each one replicating four copies of an individual component of his bomb. In the same time frame, he arranged for illicit cross-border private flights to various countries, to be flown with twenty-four-hour notice. He also rented a small workshop in a secure area of Berlin.

  When the machine shops had completed their work, he checked to ensure that each new component had been produced to his exacting specifications. Satisfied, he took the various pieces to his workshop and there, careful to assemble and wire exactly as the original had been done, he built four more bombs embedded in identical suitcases. He tested and retested each one until satisfied that they were fully functional. Now for my shoulder surgery.

  6

  Washington, DC, January 1991 – Five months after Hussein invaded Kuwait, fourteen months after the Berlin Wall fell. Two days after Burly visited Atcho in Austin.

  “Sofia wants to come here, to DC,” Atcho said. “She agreed to stay out of the field if she could be on your team as an analyst. She won’t go rogue that way.”

  He and Burly were in a secure room in the Executive Annex across the street from the White House. Atcho had flown in the night before.

  “I anticipated that,” Burly replied. His voice was flat and deliberate. “Look, I love Sofia. You know that. We’re great friends. Having her here as an analyst would be terrific, but I can’t have her going off half-cocked to interfere in the mission.”

  Atcho’s temper flared. He held it down. “Slow down, buddy. We’re talking about my wife. She’s been effective for the CIA and the state department. I just told you that she volunteered to be an analyst and stay out of the field.”

  “Got it. But she has a blind spot when it comes to you. That’s normal, and that’s why we don’t let people participate who have a personal stake in a mission. In Berlin, you were the target and she had to stick to her task, or a much larger catastrophe might have taken place. But a year earlier, when you went to Paris and Siberia, she went indie on us. We can’t have that happening here.”

  Atcho controlled his anger while still communicating dissatisfaction. “She ferreted out critical information for you and got that NUKEX to me in the field. Both of those actions saved the mission, and she risked her life to get it done.”

  “She risked her life because she didn’t want you in the field alone and unsupported.” Burly’s voice matched Atcho’s tone.

  “She saved my life, the rest of the team’s, and the mission.”

  Burly heaved a sigh. “I know. Sofia’s incredible. I didn’t stick around to see her in Austin because that wasn’t the time or place to have this conversation. We could use her experience and analytical skills. She has specific knowledge related to this mission. So, I’ll be pleased to have her on the team here, in this office, but there’s a caveat.” He paused to be sure Atcho was listening. “If she tries even once to go off the reservation, we’ll isolate her from the mission and detain her until you come home. She’d be in a comfortable place, but she wouldn’t have freedom of movement. There’s no negotiation on that. I’m not trying to be mean. I want to be sure everyone knows the boundaries. She has to accept the condition in writing.”

  Atcho quelled his anger. “Do you want to tell her, or should I?”

  “Why don’t you tell her that I’m open to the idea, and that she should fly here to discuss it with me. I’ll take it from there.”

  “I’ll tell her, but she won’t like that you’re attaching conditions.”

  A knock on the door interrupted the discussion. When it opened, a medium-sized man with a balding head, horn-rimmed glasses, and a wrinkled overcoat poked his head in the door. “Am I in the right place?”

  “Come in,” Burly’s voice boomed across the room. “You found us.” To Atcho, he said quietly, “Relay my message to Sofia.”

  He and Atcho stood to greet Tony Collins, the investigative reporter. Collins thanked the young man who had escorted him from the security desk in the foyer.

  “Great to see you,” Atcho said, extending his hand. “I never got to thank you in person for what you did in Berlin. You had a critical role in pulling that off.”

  Collins shook his hand and waved off the compliment. “I did my job.” He shook Burly’s hand. “What’s up? You guys are usually trying to shoo me away.”

  Burly laughed. “How could you say that? We’ve always treated you like a kissin’ cousin.” His face became serious. “We’re on a short fuse. Everything we talk about this morning is off the record. None of it’s for publication. Agreed?”

  Collins was taken aback and perplexed. “Then why did you invite me here?”

  Burly gestured toward a small, round conference table, and the three sat down. “There’s specific help that you can provide, if you’ll do it. We’ll fill you in. If you’re OK with the conditions, you’ll get first access to any story that can be printed.”

  Collins sighed. “Let’s go.”

  Over the next hour, Burly and Atcho briefed Collins. Atcho included the informal analysis he had done with Sofia two nights ago. “Much of this I already knew,” Collins said when they had finished, “but a lot I didn’t. That part about chatter coming over the bad guy net is new. Are you sure it’s Klaus?”

  Burly shook his head. “No. We have people chasing down other possibilities. The pertinent chatter is on phone lines in Islamic areas, and we’re hearing it everywhere there are radical Muslims. We’d key in on ‘nuclear and ‘bomb’ anyway. Thrown in with ‘Berlin’ and ‘suitcase’ in the context of what went down with the Wall, that’s what perked our ears up, and points to Klaus.”

  He rose and walked to his desk. “Atcho, after I spoke with you in Austin, I remembered that Sofia had also seen Klaus the morning you were kidnapped. I contacted Detective Berger in Berlin, the one who worked with us on the case. He faxed over some sketches that their artist did from Sofia’s description.” He took some papers from his desk and brought them back to the table.

  Atcho studied them. “That’s a good likeness.” He passed them to Collins. “We should get them widely distributed.”

  Collins took the sketches and gasped. “I saw this man. I reported from Checkpoint Charlie all that night at the Wall. I remember him because he was the only person I saw who scowled. He carried a suitcase and seemed to be in a great deal of pain. He stopped to check his shoulder.”

  Burly went behind his desk and brought back a piece of luggage. �
��The bastard was wounded, but we didn’t know which part of his body was hit or how bad. If he’s the guy, now we know one of his shoulders got ripped.” He placed the suitcase on the table. “Did his bag look like this one?”

  Collins stared at the suitcase. “It looked exactly like that. The guy I saw nursed his right shoulder. He wasn’t limping. In fact, he walked faster than the rest of the crowd. I might have footage of him on video. He avoided the camera, but we might have caught him before he became aware of it. We were already past dawn, so the camera lights might not have made much of a difference. I’ll look. If it’s anything, I’ll bring in the video.”

  “Great. That’s news we weren’t expecting today. Each case had a nuclear bomb. The second one is behind my desk. Atcho saw Klaus leave Stasi headquarters with the third one. We removed the plutonium from the two here. They’re inert.”

  “There’s more,” Atcho interjected. “Klaus is right-handed. That’s his shooting arm. He might be less of a threat up close and personal. On the other hand, he’d fight like a cornered jackal.

  “While we’re brainstorming, we might want to look at the surveillance video for that night from outside the US Embassy in East Berlin. Klaus parked the Stasi car across from the main entrance there. That was the target. One of the suitcases was in the trunk. We might find clear video of him there.

  “Another element is that Veniamin spent the most time with Klaus. Remember that Klaus drove him to Berlin from the border at Helmstedt – Marienborn. They were together for several hours. He might have insights.”

  “Good thinking,” Burly said. “Veniamin is coming here tomorrow. I want him to dissect one of those bags and show me what it would take to reengineer it to work. Klaus seems to want to stay alive. I think he must still have his bomb and has either made it operational or believes he can. If not, we wouldn’t be hearing all the noise that points to him.” He paused. “I want to know how hard it would be to get inside the suitcase when you think that opening it would explode it.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that for a couple of days, and it wouldn’t be hard,” Atcho said, his tone grim. Burly and Collins shifted questioning, somber eyes to him. “Given his mentality, all he’d have to do is take a kid out in the desert and promise him ten bucks to wait long enough for Klaus to get out of the blast area and away from fallout. When the kid opened the suitcase and it didn’t detonate, he’d bring it back. For that matter, Klaus wouldn’t have to go to the desert. He could do it in the heart of Berlin, which was the original target anyway. If it went off, at least he’d have killed a lot of infidels. If it didn’t, he has a bomb that’s safe to open and rewire. Has anyone heard of an unidentified nuclear blast anywhere?”

  The other two men’s faces were grim masks. Collins was first to break the silence. “Tell me why you asked me here.”

  7

  The morning after Atcho met with Burly and Collins in DC, Sofia woke up with a start at the house in Austin. A wave of nausea washed over her. She took deep breaths and turned her thoughts to Atcho. This can’t be happening again. They always send him in alone. Another wave of nausea hit. She edged out of bed and staggered to the kitchen.

  There, she poured cereal into a bowl, sat down at the table and ate it dry. While munching, she reflected on her conversation with Atcho last night. He had relayed Burly’s comments about her participation as an analyst. Anger welled. Who the hell does Burly think he is? I offered to help. He wants to handcuff me.

  Half an hour later and despite her pique, she felt better and went back to her room and dressed. Then she took the stairs down into the basement lounge and crossed to the home entertainment center. She reached around to the backside near the floor and pushed a button. The entertainment center swung out, revealing a door into a room as large as the lounge. It lit up automatically and was arranged neatly with a fully stocked gun rack over shelves of ammunition. Next to them were stacks of packaged food and bottled water. One narrow, shuttered window at floor level was built into an alcove on the river side.

  Sofia walked to the opposite end of the room to a cabinet built into a bare limestone wall. She opened it to reveal a safe and punched in the combination. Moments later, she removed a box. Opening it, she glanced through various passports, drivers’ licenses, and credit cards arranged in packets with corresponding aliases. Then she thumbed through several stacks of cash. Keeping out what she needed, she returned the rest to the box, replaced it in the safe, closed it, and retraced her steps.Four hours later, a very different-looking Sofia boarded an international flight in Houston bound for Berlin, the reservation booked under one of her aliases. When she arrived, she checked into a gasthaus and paid with cash. Then she made her way to Little Istanbul, a section of the city largely inhabited by Turks. She sought out thrift shops and stores catering to them, made a few purchases and returned to the gasthaus. When next she emerged, she looked like a Turkish woman, covered from head to toe in layered clothing. Only part of her face and hands remained uncovered.

  Burly and Atcho met back in the office at the Executive Annex in Washington about the time that Sofia dabbled at her dry cereal in Austin. “What did she say about my caveats?” Burly asked.

  “She wasn’t happy. She said to send whatever document you want her to sign. She’d think about it.”

  Burly shot Atcho a piercing glance but said nothing. She’s buying time.

  A knock on the door interrupted his thought. An old man entered. He was thin and stooped and wore wire-rimmed glasses. He cast a wary glance about the room. Behind him, his security escort left, closing the door quietly.

  “Dr. Krivkov,” Burly greeted, advancing toward him, palm extended. “I’m glad you agreed to come.” After shaking hands, he turned to present Atcho. “I’m not sure you ever had a chance to meet Eduardo Xiquez while we were in Berlin. We call him Atcho.” He chuckled. “There’s a long story about his war-hero father named Arturo. His American Army buddies couldn’t pronounce his name correctly, so it morphed to Atcho. That became Eduardo’s code name at the Bay of Pigs invasion, and it stuck.”

  While Burly spoke, the old man peered at Atcho, studying his face. “I know about you,” he said. He used formal vocabulary in a French accent tinged with Ukrainian. “The general was very concerned about you. He was afraid you would get in the way of his plans. You did. You know, he was my cousin?” He smiled. “Please, call me Veniamin.”

  Atcho reacted coolly to Veniamin’s greeting.

  The old man sensed his reserve. “I’m afraid I helped cause a bit of trouble,” he said. “Yermolov threatened my family. He said he would kill all of us if I didn’t build three bombs and bring them to Berlin.”

  Atcho’s expression softened. “No apologies needed. I’ve been in your shoes. The way you wired those bombs to neutralize them was brilliant. You risked your life to do it. Your family members’ too.”

  Veniamin removed his glasses and wiped them with a cloth he pulled from inside his jacket. His eyes misted. “Well, my family is safe, thanks to all of you.” He looked around to include Burly. “What can I do for you now? By the way, you can trace back the origin of the plutonium. I never knew where it came from. A man would show up and deliver it, and that was that. But nuclear materials leave a signature that you can use forensically to find out its source.”

  Burly nodded. “We know where it came from. I’m not at liberty to say.”

  They moved to the small conference table. “We need two things,” Burly began. “First, tell us your impressions of Klaus. He’s active. Maybe with the bomb.”

  Before Burly could continue, Veniamin’s head jerked upright. His eyes became wide and rounded. He looked at Atcho. “Oh, Klaus hates you. His face became terrifying whenever your name was mentioned. You could see the fire coming out of his eyes. He told Yermolov that he would plant that third bomb under your bed in DC. He might have been kidding, but you never know with a man like that.”

  He sighed. “He’s highly intelligent, speaks several lan
guages, and is physically very fit. He can easily be underestimated because he can present himself as a thug or as an educated person within seconds, and he knows how to dress the part.

  “Most of the time I saw him, he was the thug, so I think that is his natural state. But, when I first met him, he dressed and acted like a Stasi officer. He did it so easily that no one questioned him. That’s how he got me through Immigration and Customs into East Germany. He assumed authority, and nobody dared question him. Yermolov said that Klaus had been recruited and trained by the Soviet special forces, the Spetsnaz. He is very dangerous.”

  Now Burly’s eyes were wide. He whistled as he leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Spetsnaz, huh? I didn’t know that. We’d better get word into the field about what we’re up against.” He glanced at Veniamin. “Those are great insights.”

  Atcho’s eyes narrowed, but he did not speak.

  “One thing about Klaus that might be useful,” Veniamin continued, “he does not want to know why things work. He just wants to know how to make them work. He gets impatient with technical explanations.”

  “That’s good to know,” Burly interjected. “The other thing to discuss, Veniamin, is the bomb.” He set one of the suitcases on the table. “How could it be rewired to make it work?” He read Veniamin’s horror on seeing the suitcase and added, “Don’t worry. We opened it under controlled conditions. The plutonium has been removed. The Atomic Energy Commission has it under lock and key. We know that Klaus has one of the bombs, but we don’t know if he’s figured out that the fail-safe system is fake. If he has, he’ll want to rewire it. I need to know how that’s done. Knowing that might help identify who could do it.”