Mission Critical
Zoya shook her head as she read. “No. But I owe it to him to look. Someone from the family should know of his . . . his sacrifice.” Now Zoya looked up. “It’s my final duty to my father.”
Suzanne Brewer looked at Zoya with suspicion, but said, “I understand.”
The Russian woman with the American accent flipped a page and came to the first color photograph. It was of two men, both lying on their backs, face up, twisted among the rubble of what appeared to be some sort of automobile repair shop. Engine parts, tires, shop rags, and car parts lay on the ground near the bodies.
The man on the right Zoya didn’t recognize, but he wore body armor and the combat uniform of a Russian artillery officer. His left hand and forearm were missing, his eyes were open but rolled back in his head, and blood covered his throat and the dusty concrete floor beneath him.
And the other man was her father. He wore a heavy coat that was half pulled off, and a tunic that was blood-soaked and ripped open, exposing his neck and right shoulder, as if someone had tried to render aid, but found the wounds to be unsurvivable. A fur cap lay next to his head, and his eyes were closed.
A jagged hole in his right temple had spilled blood down over his ear, onto a pile of shop rags lying under his head. His arms and legs were askew.
She leaned forward, absorbing every detail of the photo, running a fingertip slowly over her father’s face and neck. All the while Brewer looked on, sipping her tea.
Finally Zoya turned to the next photo. A shot from across the same room showing the bodies on the floor in the rubble under a hole in the ceiling; Zoya had the expertise to recognize the impact of a high-explosive mortar round, fired with a delay fuse to penetrate the roof of the building before detonating.
In this picture she also saw three men standing around, looking over the bodies. They were all GRU officers; she did not recognize the first two, but the third she knew well. “Uncle Vladi,” she said in Russian under her breath, but Brewer did not hear her.
There were more photos of the scene: a close-up of Zoya’s father’s clean-shaven face, placid in death. He looked younger than his forty-eight years, but he looked the same as Zoya remembered him.
After ten minutes more reading the notes, and several more returns to the photos of her father’s body, she slid the papers back to the American CIA officer across from her. “Thank you.”
Brewer had not taken her eyes from Zoya’s face for the past twenty minutes. “Did you see anything worthy of note?”
The Russian shook her head. “It’s just as had been described to me by my father’s colleagues. A million-to-one strike by a mortar that killed the head of Russian military intelligence.”
“Your father.”
“My father. Yes.”
“CIA never found out what a GRU general was doing there on the front lines in the middle of a pitched battle.”
Zoya shrugged. “Neither did his daughter.”
After a sympathetic look Zoya didn’t buy as authentic, Brewer closed the file and slid it into a leather bag on the floor by her feet. “Very well. Shall we move on to tonight’s debriefing?”
The brunette in the George Washington sweatshirt kept looking off through the window, but she answered. “It’s not like I have someplace else to be.”
“Me, either. Let’s begin.”
CHAPTER 2
Just before three thirty in the morning the CIA Gulfstream landed at RAF Ternhill, a nearly shuttered air base in the West Midlands of England owned by the Ministry of Defense but maintained primarily by civilian personnel.
Court sat up and rubbed his eyes, looking out the port-side window as the aircraft taxied up to three big silver SUVs parked next to a large refueling truck in a remote corner of the tarmac. Four men in ground crew coveralls stood by the truck, and as the plane came to a stop, a total of eight men in dark suits climbed out of the SUVs.
Court pegged these guys as MI6. He had done his own share of deliveries to the UK back in his days with the CIA’s Special Activities Division, and he recognized the protocol.
Court was a singleton asset now, a contract agent of the CIA, not an officer. A somewhat reluctant and only occasional team player. But this had been Court Gentry’s world once.
The out-of-the-way airport. The late-night rendezvous on the tarmac. The hooded prisoner with no clue as to where the hell he was.
The big guys in suits, guns at the ready, flitting eyes scanning the night.
Yes, he remembered this life, and he didn’t much miss it.
* * *
• • •
Doug Spano stepped down the jet stairs and walked towards the three SUVs and the men standing around them. He noticed they had dispersed around the vehicles, a man at each wheel, keeping 360-degree security on the area, and this he was glad to see. He knew MI6 would be ready to deal with any threats.
The ground crew moved the fuel truck closer to the Gulfstream and a man pulled on a hose, taking it over to the belly near the starboard-side wing to attach it to the aircraft to start the flow of jet fuel.
Three other men climbed out and began helping with the hose.
Spano shook the hand of a balding man in a black suit who had stepped forward. “You’re Palmer?” he asked.
“I am. And you must be Scott.”
“That’s me.” They shook hands.
The Brit smiled. “I do love how you Agency Yanks only use first-name pseudonyms. It does make it fun and jocular.”
Spano stayed on mission. “You’ve searched the ground crew?”
With a sigh the man said, “Of course we have, mate.”
Spano nodded, then pointed back to the Gulfstream. “If you’re ready for him, I’ll have him brought down.”
“Quite ready. Thank you very much, indeed.”
The CIA officer waved to one of his men at the top of the stairs, and slowly the hooded prisoner was led out of the aircraft and down the steps.
* * *
• • •
In the back of the Gulfstream, Court continued looking out the window at the transaction, thinking about his past. The security cordon around the SUVs remained vigilant, eyes scanning the far reaches of the lights. The four men in the ground crew walked around the refueler, dealing with the hose.
Court watched the early-morning activity, only taking his eyes away when the flight attendant appeared next to him.
“Refueling should take about twenty minutes. We have some pretty fair schnitzel and potatoes we picked up in Munich earlier tonight. Will take me ten minutes to reheat them. Interested in a very late dinner?”