Devil's Fortress, page 12
Voronin jerked his head toward the door. “Consider me warned,” he snapped. “Now get out.”
Still smiling, Rodin sketched a half-mocking salute and left.
Kondakov watched him go through narrowed eyes. When the outer door latched behind him, he turned back to Voronin. “That man is a troublesome son of a bitch,” he warned. “You’ll need to finish him one day. Before he finishes you.”
“A fact ever in the forefront of my mind,” Voronin agreed, with a sour grunt. “For now, though, his master, Zhdanov, still has me on too tight a leash. I can’t move against Rodin without moving against the president at the same time. And that will not happen.”
The other man nodded. He’d heard the implied but unspoken “at least not yet” lurking behind Voronin’s carefully chosen words. Behind the lenses of his glasses, his eyes were hooded. “Son of a bitch or not, though, Rodin is not entirely wrong. Staying purely on defense is a bad idea.”
“I agree,” Voronin told him. “Which is why I have another assignment for you, Vasily. An important one. Certainly more important, anyway, than chasing around after my bodyguards as a glorified chief of internal security.”
“Ah,” Kondakov said, with an air of deep satisfaction. The last months of playing second fiddle to Kiril Rodin had been difficult for him, especially since he’d grasped early on he was being kept in the dark about the next major Raven Syndicate operation aimed at the United States. He leaned forward. “So then, what are your orders?”
Voronin steepled his hands. “I want you to assemble a special hunter-killer team,” he said bluntly. “It should include our best covert operators and most skilled assassins.”
“Men who are also fluent English speakers?” Kondakov guessed.
Voronin showed his teeth. “Exactly so.” He tapped his desk. “Once you’ve organized this team, I want them ready to move overseas immediately. They will be under your personal command. You have the necessary experience.”
Kondakov nodded. Before switching his allegiance to Voronin and the Raven Syndicate, he had headed Unit 29155, the GRU’s special assassination squad. Under his leadership, its highly trained killers had operated secretly around the globe, eliminating defectors, political dissidents, and even foreigners deemed threats to Russia’s national security.
“The instant we obtain actionable intelligence on anyone involved in this attempt to kill me, I want them liquidated,” Voronin went on coldly. “It doesn’t matter if they’re working for the CIA, Israel’s Mossad, MI6, or someone else. And I don’t give a damn if there’s collateral damage when your team kills one of these people—whether it’s their wives, children, parents, friends, neighbors, or even their damned pets. This is not a moment to show weakness. I’m willing to stack up corpses like cordwood if necessary.” He scowled. “Despite what Rodin may believe, I’m convinced that the American intelligence services and their political masters are still weak and squeamish. Maybe, if we shed enough blood, they’ll abandon this absurd quest for revenge.”
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
avalon house, winter park, florida
several days later
Nick Flynn turned off a quiet residential street and continued up a long, curving private drive fringed by tall palm trees. Through more trees ahead, dazzling morning sunlight reflected brightly off the still waters of a small, almost circular lake. He parked his rental car in front of a grand, two-story mansion overlooking the water and got out.
Built in the 1920s as the Florida winter retreat for a wealthy New York financier and his family, Avalon House wouldn’t have looked out of place in classical Spain. Its century-old red clay roof tiles, muted yellow stucco walls, tall, arched windows, and wrought-iron entry gate conveyed a sense of both serene, enduring elegance and the confident self-assurance of old money.
If anything, this impression was strengthened by the weathered bronze plaques fixed beside the heavy oak front door. Their old-fashioned lettering indicated the mansion was now leased to three relatively obscure, but obviously long-established and seemingly respectable organizations—Sykes-Fairbairn Strategic Investments, the Concannon Language Institute, and the Sobieski Charitable Foundation.
It was a classic case of looks being completely deceiving, Flynn thought with amusement as he approached the entrance. Sykes-Fairbairn Investments and the others were actually about as respectable as a honky-tonk bar operating out of the basement of a Baptist church. They were front groups for the Quartet Directorate, some of the many it had created to cloak its clandestine activities over the years.
Avalon House was the headquarters for Four’s American station, a gift by one of its founding members. He’d been an heir of the same wealthy banking family who originally owned the mansion. As a young man during the Second World War, he’d served in the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS—the precursor to the CIA—and seen the dangers looming over the postwar world.
Among its other advantages, the mansion was a long way from Washington, D.C. To some, Flynn supposed, it would seem strange for a worldwide private intelligence outfit to site one of its major operational centers in an area more commonly associated with theme parks, beaches, and vacation resorts. But that was exactly the point. The Quartet Directorate kept its existence secret by staying off everyone’s radar. Avoiding the Beltway’s toxic maelstrom of rival federal intelligence agencies, keen-eyed foreign spies, busybody journalists, and ego-inflated politicians and government bureaucrats made that easier.
He pushed the buzzer and looked up at the camera above the big door. A second later, its built-in biometric sensors confirmed his identity. With a soft click, the door swung open. It revealed a brown-tiled foyer commanded by a large reception desk. Entries on the left and right led deeper into the building. At the foyer’s far end, a wide, curving staircase swept up to the second floor.
Laura Van Horn turned from where she’d been chatting with the Korean-American woman behind the reception desk. Elaborately, she checked her watch. “Well, look who finally showed up. What did you do, Nick? Blow up the traffic on I-4 or something? Gwen and I were discussing whether or not she should send out a search and rescue team.”
Flynn raised an eyebrow. “Search and rescue? That seems like overkill,” he said with wounded dignity. “I’m barely five minutes late. And that’s because my red-eye flight from Heathrow was delayed. We only landed in Orlando an hour ago.” After leaving Finland, Van Horn and the rest of the team had flown on ahead. He’d stopped over in London for an extra day to brief his European counterparts on exactly where and how the operation against Pavel Voronin had gone off the rails. He shook his head. “Besides, how much trouble do you two honestly think I could get into in five minutes?”
A tiny smile danced around the edges of the other woman’s prim mouth. To anyone who didn’t know her well, Gwen Park would have seemed completely unthreatening—just an ordinary, though very fashionably dressed, receptionist or secretary. But like so much else involving the Quartet Directorate, her outward appearance was a facade. She was both a skilled marksman and an expert in hand-to-hand combat. And before she took over as the head of Avalon House’s security detail, she’d spent several years in the field, masterminding undercover counterterrorist and intelligence operations deep in Southeast Asia’s deadly Golden Triangle.
“Do you really want me to answer that, Mr. Flynn?” Park asked with mock severity. She indicated the computer on her desk. “I have an alphabetized spreadsheet here. It starts with ‘A,’ for arson.”
“We didn’t burn down any public or private buildings,” Flynn protested. “At least, not during this most recent mission.”
Park nodded. “As Laura has assured me.” Her smile widened. “That’s almost a first for you, Nick.”
“I do my best,” he said virtuously. Then he grinned. “Besides, in my defense, I’m usually left unsupervised.”
“So I gather,” Park said, sharing an amused look with Van Horn. “But since you’re aware that Four counts on its people taking independent action when necessary, that may not be as persuasive an argument as you’d think.”
Flynn spread his hands in surrender. “Using logic and reason against me, Gwen? Really? No fair.” He nodded up the stairs. “I suppose they’re ready for us?”
She nodded. “Mr. Fox and the others are waiting for you both in the study.”
Flynn sighed. This was not going to be a pleasant meeting. He turned to Van Horn. “When you poked your head in there earlier, did you spot any firing squads, blindfolds, or last cigarettes in evidence?”
“None that I noticed,” she reassured him.
Flynn took a deep breath and held out his hand to Van Horn. “Okay then, shall we, ma’am?” he asked gravely, yielding to his full, native Texas twang for once. “Go up there and ride out the storm together, I mean?”
“Ah, polite and old-fashioned as ever,” she commented.
“It must be my childhood training,” he drawled. “I just can’t seem to shake it.”
Smiling, Van Horn took her hand in his and led him up the sweeping staircase.
Most of Avalon House’s upper floor was used as temporary quarters for Quartet Directorate agents who needed rest and recuperation between stressful field assignments. The upstairs study, however, was reserved for important meetings and planning sessions. Originally the inner sanctum of the financier who’d owned the mansion, it was full of old and comfortable, although somewhat worn, furniture. Four’s heads of station tended to allocate their budgets to operations, not fancy accoutrements.
When Flynn opened the door to the study, he immediately noticed the rest of his team grouped at a table. Tadeusz Kossak, still recovering from his shrapnel wounds, had a pair of crutches propped up beside him. Carleton Frederick Fox, the head of Four’s American station, sat across from the younger men. A projector screen tied into Avalon House’s secure computer network was set up to one side, where everyone could see it.
He resisted the impulse to burst out laughing. Tough and experienced covert operators that they were, Cooke, Hynes, and the others were all trying to play it very cool. But somehow the overall vibe was one of a bunch of nervous schoolboys summoned to the principal’s office for a scolding.
He couldn’t fault them. There was no getting away from the fact that they had promised the Quartet Directorate a definitive result—Pavel Voronin’s death—and then ended up only escaping from Russia by the narrowest of margins, leaving Voronin still alive behind them.
Fox, a thin, middle-aged man with graying hair, nodded pleasantly toward the two open chairs. “Nick. Laura.” His pale eyes shone behind a thick pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Except for the powerful intellect and craftiness his gaze revealed in unguarded moments like this, Fox could easily have been mistaken for the boring money manager or mid-level government bureaucrat he so often pretended to be.
Flynn dropped into one of the indicated seats. Van Horn took the other. Silently, he braced himself for the sharp-tongued, after-action review and critique he knew he deserved. In hindsight, it was painfully clear that his original mission concept had been far too reliant on luck. Failing to give Murphy’s Law—“whatever can go wrong, will”—its due was a cardinal sin for any special ops planner. Worse yet, their intelligence on the defenses and alarm systems protecting Voronin’s Raven’s Nest had proved to be woefully inadequate—yet another shortcoming that had nearly ended up getting all of them killed or captured. His shoulders tightened. Fox might be justified in removing him from command of the action team. Or even busting him back to junior agent-in-training status, assigned to count paper clips and pencils in some middle-of-nowhere back office.
Instead, the older man surprised him. “First, let me say how glad I am to see you all alive and well,” he began, peering at them over his glasses. “In light of the opposition you faced—both from the Raven Syndicate and Russia’s legitimate military and internal security forces—escaping virtually unscathed was no small feat.”
“Unscathed, maybe, but not exactly covered in glory,” Flynn felt compelled to point out with a lopsided smile.
Fox shrugged. “As I’ve mentioned before, Nick, glory isn’t something we in Four care much about.”
“Maybe not,” Flynn admitted. “But accomplishing the mission does matter. And that’s where we came up short.”
“Short as in ‘did not pass Go. Did not collect two hundred dollars.’ Did almost get our sorry asses shot to shit,” Cole Hynes clarified helpfully.
Flynn stifled a chuckle at the carefully neutral expression he saw on Fox’s face. He knew the older man was unsure how to take the former army enlisted soldier. Like Wade Vucovich, Hynes was not a product of the Quartet Directorate’s usual screening processes—which tended to gravitate toward recruits with more formal education and a higher social status. If Flynn had to guess, he’d bet that was probably a holdover from the organization’s early days. Most of its original American founders had come out of the World War II–era Office of Strategic Services, which had recruited so heavily from Ivy League universities, Wall Street, and even Hollywood that many regular military men had quipped its acronym, OSS, really stood for “Oh So Social.”
“Pretty much,” he agreed. Flynn turned back to Fox with an apologetic look. “Which is why I imagine the ‘I told you so’s’ are flooding in from all over?”
“Perhaps not as much as you might expect,” the older man said. “Remember, Voronin’s determination to target the United States with weapons of mass destruction first tipped the balance in favor of direct action against his Raven Syndicate. And some new developments have made it clear that he has every intention of pursuing these dangerous ambitions. Given that, I’m reasonably confident my colleagues at the other Four stations can be persuaded to authorize another attempt to preempt his continuing efforts by killing him.”
“New developments?” Flynn asked. “Like what?”
Fox said nothing for a moment. Watching him closely, Van Horn suddenly leaned forward, her eyes alight. “Spit it out, Br’er Fox,” she said. “You’re looking awfully content considering the circumstances. Which means you’ve been raiding the henhouse again. Heck, I can practically see the feathers poking out the sides of your mouth.” She sat back again and folded her arms. “What is it you know that we don’t?”
“One of the other Quartet Directorate stations has a mid-level intelligence asset in the Moscow area,” Fox said carefully. “An asset who is occasionally privy to knowledge of Voronin’s movements—at least in and around the Russian capital.”
Flynn stared at him. “Why are we just hearing about this intel source now?” he asked finally.
“Because the very existence of this asset has been a closely held secret,” the older man explained. “One confined, in fact, to a handful of Four’s most senior people, and even then only on a strict, need-to-know basis.”
“And I suppose we didn’t need to know,” Flynn realized.
Fox nodded. “Correct. Given the perceived odds against your team succeeding in killing Voronin without being captured or killed, the Four station in control judged that revealing the existence of this asset to you was too great a risk.” He shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I concurred in their decision.”
Van Horn snorted, half in amusement, half in irritation. “Nice vote of confidence, Br’er Fox.”
“Unfortunately, there’s usually a gap between probable outcomes and desirable ones, Laura,” Fox told her. “I do my best to keep that fact firmly in mind.”
“So what’s changed now?” Flynn asked.
“First, this intelligence asset has been able to identify a location Voronin has apparently made repeated visits to over the past several months—including the same day you carried out your attempted reconnaissance of his estate,” Fox told him. He picked up a small wireless remote and activated the projector screen. It lit up, revealing a high-resolution overhead view of a large complex of modern buildings. Many of them, those in the very center, appeared to be roofed with glass. The entire compound was surrounded by barbed wire fences and dense forest. “This picture was obtained during a recent pass by a commercial imaging satellite,” Fox explained. He nodded at the screen. “It shows a facility known as the Special Research Institute for Plant Genetics.”
“Which does what, exactly?” Flynn pressed.
Fox shrugged. “Therein lies the rub. To the best of our knowledge, this so-called Institute is entirely unconnected to the ordinary world of scientific research. The scientists employed there have never published papers or test results in any known scientific or technical journals. In fact, it seems impossible even to learn precisely who works at this Institute, let alone what exactly they’re working on.”
“That level of secrecy suggests we’re looking at a bioweapons lab of some kind,” Flynn realized.
Fox nodded. “The analysts we’ve consulted agree.”
“Run by the Russian government?”
The older man shook his head. “It seems not. What little we can dig up suggests that the Institute is a private facility.”
Flynn grimaced. “Funded by Voronin and the Raven Syndicate,” he guessed.
“Quite probably,” Fox agreed. His expression grew somber. “Given the name, it at least seems likely that the facility’s research efforts revolve around creating new biological weapons aimed at plants, rather than at people directly.”
“At food crops, you mean,” Flynn said.
The older man nodded again. “American agriculture is the linchpin, not only of this county, but of the whole world’s food supply. If some new and untreatable plant diseases were unleashed against us, the damage inflicted on our crops could easily trigger devastating famines, both here and around the world.”
