Last Chance to Die

2



The black Town Car pulled up to the curb in the 1100 block of Sixteenth Street in northwest D.C. They parked in front of an old mansion that had a tall wrought-iron fence surrounding it. “Where are we, Mike?” Kate asked the driver.

Vail pointed across the street to a large tan and gray four-story residence. “That’s the old Russian embassy over there.”

“They’re waiting inside for you,” the driver said, ignoring Kate’s question and Vail’s observation.

As they got out, Vail pointed at the building they were about to enter and said, “This is the old observation post where the Bureau used to monitor who came and went across the street, but then the Russians built that big compound up on Tunlaw Road, so this place was no longer necessary. Apparently they’ve found some new use for it.”

When Kate and Vail walked up to the entrance of the huge old dwelling, an agent who was not wearing his suit coat opened one of its heavy, ten-foot-tall oak doors. Along with his sidearm, two magazine pouches were clipped to his belt. He studied both of their faces briefly and then, in a voice that was neither welcoming nor overly official, said, “The director is waiting for you upstairs.”

They followed a curved staircase to the second floor, and Vail took a moment to appreciate the craftsmanship of the elegant structure, which he estimated to be at least seventy-five years old. The staircase was constructed of Spanish black marble that was almost without any impurities to distort its ebony gloss. A large but delicate glass chandelier hung down through the helix of stairs. “Okay, I’ll ask first,” he said to Kate. “What’s going on?”

“Not a clue,” she said. “But considering that today’s a holiday, the smart money is that it’s not going to be good news.”

“Next time I’m planning the date. Someplace without telephones or emergency rooms. Or FBI directors.”

“Do you think if you use the word ‘date’ enough times, we’ll actually be on one?”

“I’m hoping you’ll admire me for my perseverance.”

“Isn’t that the stalker’s official mantra?”

On the second floor, they could hear low voices coming from a room that faced the street. They walked in, and Vail could see that it had once been an oversize bedroom but was now filled with equipment that looked dated. Metal tables, recording equipment, a small telescope on a long table at the window—which was covered with what he recognized as a one-way shade. A second telescope stood on a smaller table at an adjoining window, also shaded.

Aside from the director, there were five other men in the room sitting on a couch and chairs. As they entered, Vail was surprised that most of their curiosity seemed to be directed toward him. A room full of men invariably turned their attention to Kate when she entered, even if they already knew her.

Bob Lasker got to his feet and shook hands with Vail. “Steve, how’s the hand?”

“It’s fine.”

The director nodded to one of the men, who got up and closed the door. “Good morning, Kate,” Lasker said.

She looked at the faces of the other men. “Is it a good morning, sir?”

“We’re about to find out. Please, both of you, have a seat. Kate, I think you know everybody here.” The director then introduced the others to Vail. “Bill Langston is the assistant director in charge of the Counterintelligence Division. His deputy, John Kalix. Tony Battly, Jake Canton, and Mark Brogdon are unit and section chiefs within the division.”

The director watched as Vail gave them each a snapshot evaluation. It was something Lasker wanted him to do, something that would help convince Vail to grant the request Lasker was about to make, that these men, while adequate administrators, were unqualified to do fieldwork.

The three unit and section chiefs were startlingly nondescript, reminding Vail that at FBI headquarters individuality was rewarded only with suspicion. Each of the men was overweight, as if even that shortcoming also met some sort of Bureau standard. Their suits varied little in color or quality and had become too small due to burgeoning waistlines. The sleeves on Battly’s jacket were too long, covering half of his thumbs. Judging by the wear on the elbows, it had fit him that way since its purchase years before, and he’d never felt the need to have the minor tailoring done, probably because he took it off at his desk.

Brogdon’s suit was equally fatigued, the pant cuffs frayed, the lapels wilted and beginning to curl up. Canton’s shirt collar was too tight and had been left unbuttoned. Dusty spots dotted his tie where he had apparently scraped away food particles. The apprehensive expressions on all three faces, aside from their momentary curiosity about Vail, were those of men who were much closer to retirement than to taking on anything remotely associated with the unpredictable rigors of the street.

John Kalix, although not overweight, had a round, doughy face that was aged prematurely by a receding hairline that he made more prominent by combing over what was left of his mousy brown hair. Sitting to his boss’s right, he somehow managed to mimic the assistant director’s slightest movements. He wore the ageless uniform of an FBI manager: gray slacks, navy blazer, white shirt, and a striped tie that had been knotted too many times between cleanings.

On the other hand, Bill Langston, the assistant director in charge, looked like the second most important man in the room. In his mid-fifties, he was trim, even thin. He had a full head of brown hair that was going gray at the temples. His suit was moderately expensive, and he sat with his legs carefully crossed so as to not wrinkle the sharp creases along the front of his trousers. His posture was unusually erect, as though he were waiting for an “unexpected” photo. The expression on his face, somehow inappropriate for the moment, was one of patrician stoicism. Vail guessed that it was an effort on his part not to be easily read.

“Steve, I never did get a chance, face-to-face, to thank you for what you did during the Pentad investigation in L.A.,” the director said. “I’ve told everyone here about your involvement in the case.”

Waving his hand in the direction of Kate, Vail said, “As a result you offered this one a promotion—some thank-you.”

Lasker smiled. “Speaking of which, nice work last night on those abductions, Kate. We’re getting a ton of good press for a change.”

“Since your driver knew to pick us up at the emergency room, I assume you talked to the chief in Reston. To be honest, sir, the only thing I had to do with finding those boys was driving Steve there.”

“Looks like you were going somewhere nice before you got sidetracked.”

Vail spoke first so that Kate wouldn’t have to be embarrassed by trying to explain the circumstances of their failed date. “The Irish ambassador’s reception. Just as well. I don’t speak the language.”

The director laughed. “You and Washington’s elite in the same room, Steve? That would have been worth the price of admission.”

“You might have been disappointed. I was under strict orders to keep my shirt on and not arm-wrestle anyone for beer.” Vail cocked his head to one side to let the director know that he was becoming suspicious of the small talk. “But then I doubt we’re here to catch up on my lack of social breeding.”

“Sorry,” Lasker said. The single word seemed genuine. “We’ve got a major problem. There’s no way to make this sound like it’s not hyperbole, but it is legitimately a matter of national security. The people in this room are the only ones who know what I’m going to tell you.”

“Classified, I got it.”

“I’ve been through your old personnel file again, so I know you’ve been trained in counterintelligence.” Because of a master’s degree in Soviet history, Vail had originally been hired to work the Russians. Out of training school, he’d been sent to Detroit to work general criminal cases in order to develop broader investigative skills, but he was frequently sent back to Quantico for in-service training. That’s how he knew about the old embassy across the street and the building they were now in. “Other than the technology, not much has changed. It’s still pretty much cloak-and-dagger. Actually, more cloaks than daggers. Have you followed any of the recent cases?”

“I’ve always been interested in anything American-Russian, so I read a lot of what’s published.”

“Good, then we won’t have to waste time explaining every nuance of how all this works. Bill, can you fill him in?”

The assistant director stood up, went over to a laptop computer, and tapped a key. The wall above the fireplace, which was being used as a makeshift screen, lit up. A photograph of grainy surveillance quality appeared, showing a man with the flat, pale features of an Eastern European, his sideburns and mustache a little too bushy to be stylish in the United States. “A month ago this individual contacted our Washington Field Office and requested a meeting. He was guarded in the information he supplied but said that he was an intelligence officer with the Russian embassy here in Washington. He would not identify himself by name but instead used the code name Calculus. At this meeting, to qualify himself as legitimate, he turned over five classified documents. When we asked him what he wanted from us, he said he had a list of Americans, some employed by the government and some by corporations with defense contracts, who were supplying information to the SVR, which if you’ve been keeping up, know is the new KGB. He wouldn’t say how many were on the list or where they worked. However, one of the individuals, he was certain, worked in the U.S. intelligence community. He didn’t know which agency.”

“The documents he turned over—how critical was the information?” Vail asked.

“Nothing earth-shattering, but enough to convince us that he could have access to what he claimed. Why do you ask that?”

“Just curious.”

Kate watched Vail carefully. She detected a note of discovery in his voice.

“I assume he wants money,” Vail said.

“Why else would someone betray Mother Russia and risk the executioner?” Langston said. “The way he set it up was quite clever. He would give us, in his words, the ‘smallest fish first, the largest, last,’ which we assume is the intelligence agent. Once we identified the first one, we were to wire-transfer a quarter of a million dollars to a Chicago bank, for which he provided an account number. He said it’s a large bank and that the account, which was opened by one of his relatives who works there, is in a dummy name. He warned that if the Bureau tried to find out who it was or trace the funds, the relative would be alerted and all contact with us would be severed, because if he couldn’t trust us, he was as good as dead. Once the relative notified him that the money had been deposited, we would get the next name. He wanted a quarter of a million for each of them and a half million for the last one, because according to him it’s a highly placed intelligence agent.”

“Did he say how quickly after payment you would get the next name?”

“In fact, he made that quite clear. We would get it, in his words, ‘immediately if not sooner,’ because he felt the longer this dragged out, the better the chances of his being exposed. He said the SVR had been given strict orders by Moscow that it must never become public knowledge that the Russians were spying on the United States again. Although their agents are extremely cautious to start with, apparently that directive has made them completely paranoid. Even the faintest hint of disloyalty launches an all-out probe.”

Vail said, “So he gives you a name, you arrest that person, and then wire a quarter of a million dollars to the Chicago account. Once it’s deposited, you get the next name, and so on until the intelligence agent is caught, and then you send a half million.”

“Right.”

“Does that mean he’s given you the first name?”

“More or less,” the assistant director said.

“As far as spycraft goes,” Vail said to the director, “this sounds pretty paint-by-the-numbers. Why am I here?”

“A couple of reasons,” Langston said. “Two days ago we got a short, cryptic text message from him. He has been recalled to Moscow unexpectedly.”

“Uh-oh,” Vail said.

“What?” Kate asked.

“When someone is suspected of spying, the Russians find some routine excuse to get them back to Moscow. Once there, they’re interrogated, for months if necessary. Should they confess or if the SVR develops any proof, the suspected individual is usually executed for treason. And since it’s not something the Russians are likely to make public, you’d never know,” Vail said.

Langston continued, “Since the first letter, we’ve been trying to identify Calculus. And now we think we know who he is. The CIA has a fairly high-level source in the Russian embassy. In a rare act of cooperation, they’ve identified an individual for us. If they’ve given us the right name, he’s an electrical engineer by training and is extremely cautious, even obsessive, which in the spy business is a good thing. His job is what we call a technical agent. He’s sent all over the United States to their safe houses to wire them for sound and video and record meetings in case any of their double agents should get cold feet. Then they could be threatened with exposure, a foolproof way of keeping an asset’s attention. The rest of it we’re guessing at. We think, after meetings between American sources and their Russian handlers, he would collect the recordings and store them at the embassy. We think that with his financial future in mind, he started making a list of their identities. Maybe even keeping copies of the documents they turned over or other information we could use as corroborating evidence.”

Vail said, “You got to love a communist who appreciates capitalism more than we do.”

“Exactly.”

Vail asked, “Well, let me ask you—hopefully for the last time—why me?”

“The only ones who know about this are the people in this room. If we gave this to any of our agents, I guarantee it would leak out. Your discretion has been established more than once. You have a certain reputation for getting things done despite obstacles that our agents would find . . . well, procedurally insurmountable.”

Vail laughed. “You mean none of you want to get caught.”

The director said, “The rest of us here are not exactly street-ready, and this has the potential to get challenging. The men in this room haven’t been out there in decades.” Lasker glanced around to see if anyone objected. “Sorry, guys.”

Vail glanced at Kate and then back at the director. “When you offered me this kind of arrangement before, I said no.”

The director pursed his lips. “That was because I thought your not being an agent was a waste of talent and I was hoping you’d eventually realize it. When you were vehement, I accepted it. But this is different. This is vital.”

Vail got up and walked over to the window. He raised the shade and stared at the old Russian embassy across the street. “Funny, five years ago I thought this was exactly what I’d be doing right now. Instead I’m a bricklayer.” He turned back and looked at the men. “While you may find that ironic, I find it unjust.”

“Steve, we have to assume that Calculus is being interrogated in Moscow right now. If the Russians break him, there will be no list and all those spies will go on selling our secrets.”

“I’m sorry. I’m going home.”

Everyone in the room was silent. Finally the director said, “Could you come with me for a minute? There’s something you need to see.”

Vail followed him downstairs and then through a series of small, unfurnished rooms.

Once Lasker was satisfied they were completely out of earshot of the others, he said, “Did Kate tell you what happened to her just before Thanksgiving?”

“No.”

“She almost died.”

“What?”

“She left her car running at her place as well as the door to the garage open. She’d been drinking. Wound up in the hospital for a couple of days.”

“You think it was a suicide attempt?” Vail’s voice was accusatory.

“No, I don’t. But it was a couple of days after she’d gone to see you in Chicago, which OPR tells me did not go well.”

“Kate’s way too strong for anything like that. And as up and down as we’ve been, I’ve never seen her depressed for a second.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“She dumped me. I’m the one who’s supposed to be suicidal.”

“I thought you guys made up. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“That was a lie. She didn’t know I was coming. I was trying to patch things up. She was driving me back to the airport when she got the kidnapping call.”

“Like I said, I know it wasn’t a suicide attempt, but I can’t call off the OPR investigation just because I think so. I’m sure you can remember how petty people can be in this organization when it comes to someone else’s problems. When somebody is as successful as Kate is, they want to believe it. She’s got people looking at her like she’s a time bomb. I want her to work with you on this Calculus thing. If you two did half the job you did in L.A., all that petty whispering would come to a screeching halt.”

Vail laughed. “Are you blowing this out of proportion to hook me?”

“When you and she walked into that room upstairs, did you notice that none of those men would look at her? When’s the last time you saw that happen?”

Vail took a moment to consider what Lasker had said. “I’d be a fool to say yes to this.” There was something in Vail’s tone that told the director that was exactly what he was about to do. “Fortunately for you, it’s not exactly construction weather in Chicago.”

Lasker clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

When they walked back into the upstairs room, the director said, “Steve’s decided to give us a hand, and Kate will work with him.”

Kate’s eyes locked onto Vail. She had heard the surety in his tone when he’d said no to the director. She’d never seen him change his mind once it was so firmly set.

Vail looked back at her. “However, this time, if you’re going to saddle me with Deputy Assistant Director Bannon, she has to understand that I am working with and not for her?”

Kate took a moment to recover and then said, “Yes, those were the two big disruptions in L.A., me giving orders and you following them.”

The director looked slightly distracted by what he was about to say, missing the humor in Kate’s response. “I know how you feel about answering to anyone, Steve, but because this is so potentially explosive, I’m going to need you or Kate to report to Bill at least once a day so he can keep me advised.”

“Define ‘report to,’ ” Vail said.

“This is extremely complicated, so I need everyone to work together. Whatever other intelligence agency might be involved, add in the Russians and our own State Department and it’s going to be a diplomatic high-wire act. The potential for disaster is incalculable. You have to keep Bill advised.”

“Is that actually what you want us to do, or are you giving me one of those orders that when you’re called in front of some congressional subcommittee, you can say I disregarded your instructions? If it’s the second, I have no problem with it.”

“I’m sorry, Steve, I need you to report daily. I wouldn’t be much of a director if I didn’t keep a very close eye on this one.”

Vail knew that because of Kate he had no choice. “You do realize how this is going to end.”

“I’m hoping it doesn’t.”

“Which means you can see exactly how it’s going to end,” Vail said. “Kate, I’ve got to tell you that this is the worst date I’ve ever been on.” She just shook her head. “Guys, consider yourselves warned: This is not who I am, but I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you,” Lasker said.

Vail turned to the assistant director. “Bill, I don’t know you at all. What I’m about to say is based on my personal history with Bureau bosses. If it doesn’t apply, ignore it.”

His face expressionless, Langston said, “Go ahead.”

“If you try to obstruct me simply because of your ego, I’ll be on the first available flight to Chicago, and I’m going to guess that won’t make the director happy.” Langston still showed no reaction. Vail turned to the others. “Okay, then, does anybody have any ideas where to start?”

The deputy assistant director, John Kalix, said, “The second time we met with Calculus, we had finished analyzing the documents that he had turned over to us and knew that he was legit, so we gave him a special phone. He was supposed to use it only to contact us. It’s a miniaturized satellite phone, very ordinary-looking. That’s all we told him about it. It had other capabilities, one of which was to constantly track his position, even when it was supposedly turned off. He used it only once, to text us about being recalled to Moscow. Six words, that’s all. That was the last time we heard from him.” Kalix got up and tapped the computer keyboard. A photograph of the message appeared.

To Moscow unexpectedly. Find CDP now!

“We’re guessing ‘CDP’ are the initials of the first person on his list,” Kalix continued. “We’ve checked them through every available database, most of which don’t have middle initials, and have no clue who it is. Not everyone lists a middle initial. There could be hundreds, even thousands of them across the country. It’s not much to go on. The only other thing we have is where he traveled. It’s all documented in the dark blue file on the table there.”

Vail took a moment to process what he’d been told and then looked over at the folder and nodded. “And where is the phone now?”

“As soon as that message was sent, we could no longer determine where it was. Somehow the GPS must have been disabled.”

“The last location?”

“Inside the Russian embassy.”

“That doesn’t sound promising. Anything else that might help us?”

“That’s it. Like I said, it’s not much to go on.”

The director stood up. “Thank you, guys.” The men understood that the meeting was at an end and they were to leave.

After everyone filed out, the director closed the door behind them. “Steve, you two should probably work out of here. It’s secure, and there’s some equipment you might be able to use. The computers are current and have complete Bureau access. The building is alarmed, and there’s a stocked kitchen, a shower, and some cots for sleeping. The briefcase on the table is for you. Gun, credentials, credit card, cell phone are all inside. Parked out front is a blue Chevy sedan. The keys are in the case, too.” He took out a blank business-size card and wrote down a number on it. “If you need anything else—anything—call this number.”

Vail said, “Any objections if I move in here?”

The director glanced at Kate. “If that’s what you prefer, sure.”

“It’ll eliminate travel time from the hotel,” Vail said, and Kate understood that he had offered the reason so she wouldn’t be embarrassed at whatever way the director interpreted their relationship.

“And I’m only about fifteen minutes away,” she said.

Vail said, “If we round up any of these people, aren’t you afraid it’ll point the Russians in Calculus’s direction? If they’re not already onto him.”

“We do have an obligation to try to protect him as best we can, but we have a greater duty to protect this country. Actually, we have discussed our options for keeping this quiet as long as possible. Through legal and bureaucratic foot-dragging, we figure the whole thing could be kept quiet for about ten days. So if you do bring someone in, that ten-day clock will start ticking. After that, I’m afraid Calculus’s anonymity could become tenuous.”

Kate said, “Ten days isn’t much time to get from A to Z. Especially since we’re not sure where A is or how many letters there are in the alphabet.”

“No, it’s not. And to compound the problem, we don’t know if we’ll get any more information from Calculus. Steve, you have no idea how much I appreciate this. Between keeping everything secret and the idea of a bunch of traitors running around Washington, it was an impossible challenge. But now we have you. I’m sorry about handcuffing you with reporting daily, but this is a completely different situation from Los Angeles. If you have any problems, you’ve got my number.”

“ ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!’ ”

The director smiled. “Dante, right?”

“Rather than who wrote it, it’s more important to know where it was posted.”

“Which is?”

“It was the inscription at the gate to hell.”