Gryphon, page 23
Holly really hoped that some old connection of Max’s knew something.
But she didn’t expect Elene to be the one tentatively raising her hand like she was still in kindergarten.
65
“You have a very interesting team, Ms. Chase.”
“I do? Why do you say that?” She’d never have thought to use that particular word to describe them.
“How good are they?”
Meg looked at the general. Miranda wanted to pull up her doggie emotion chart. Meg had neither angry-face nor happy-face. Perhaps waiting-face? “How good are they at what?”
“At what they’re doing.” His tone of voice shifted.
Meg’s waiting-face shifted toward angry-face. She rose onto all fours. Preparing for a fight or to walk away?
Miranda answered carefully. “As I don’t know what they’re doing, I see no practical method of assessing their skills at their current tasks.”
“At stopping a war?” The general’s tone turned…fiercer?
Meg’s answering growl sounded as if it came from a much bigger dog. She liked Meg, but making that sound? It reminded her too much of the Chow Chow that had once attacked her. Miranda took a careful step back hoping that she didn’t hurt Meg’s feelings. Meg appeared to only be watching the general, so maybe it was okay.
“I don’t know. Roy has thanked them for doing precisely that a few times but I never quite understood why.”
“Roy?” the general asked in a less…fierce…tone.
“President Roy Cole.”
“Of the United States?”
“Yes, that one. Are there any other President Roy Coles? I only know of the one.”
“Me too.”
“Then why did you ask?”
She felt the general studying her.
Meg remained vigilant while he considered her question. When he didn’t answer, she walked to the end of her leash to sniff at a lamppost rising from the snow. She piddled on it.
“What is a ULB and a Mark 46?” The general asked softly.
“A ULB is an unmanned Little Bird. It is a stealth-rigged version of an MH-6 helicopter capable of autonomous flight. The Mark 46 is a two-hundred-and-thirty-kilogram torpedo. The former is fully capable of carrying and delivering two of the latter over four hundred kilometers. Perhaps twice that distance if it’s the Mission Enhanced Little Bird with the AACUS unit, that’s Autonomous Aerial/Cargo Utility System, installed.”
The general scrabbled at the top buttons of his trench coat, then reached inside to extract his phone from a breast pocket. He hurried away as he dialed.
She and Meg looked at each other, then resumed their walk.
Miranda hoped that he rebuttoned his coat properly this time.
66
Pavle felt the phone buzz against his thigh.
Elene often texted him funny little messages to brighten up his day. She also often sent him photos of her favorite bird, the Eurasian blue tit, a brightly blue, yellow, and black relative of the American chickadee.
But after last night’s strategizing how to avoid war, she’d looked beaten, no more than a wisp of her usual self.
He hadn’t been negative, honestly trying to consider her ideas, but the well he’d fallen down ran deep and the sides were too slick to climb. Every idea she’d put forth, he’d found too many reasons it wouldn’t work.
When it buzzed again only seconds later, he risked slipping it out. Her innate positivity must have somehow reemerged since this morning. He wanted to bask in that for even a few seconds.
Kurbanov and Kancheli were discussing next steps, though all three of them agreed none should be needed. The next stage of the plan would create such a catastrophic event that battle would be engaged within hours.
It made the events to date appear to be mere harassment in comparison.
Pavle glanced down. No picture. A message, piled on top of two others.
Pavle. Call me.
Now, Pavle.
Please answer me.
What could possibly be so urgent?
He glanced at Kurbanov and Kancheli. They stood side-by-side gazing southeast out the office’s big window. The morning sun sparkling off the Tbilisi Sea. Kancheli stood at a distinct cant, as if the winds of time were preparing to finally blow the chief aside. Couldn’t happen soon enough.
Can’t. Busy. He sent back.
The phone buzzed in his hand before he managed to return it to his pocket. He almost dropped it in surprise.
Now, Pavle! Call or meet me at the Chronicle.
He stared at the message; for her there existed no higher tone of urgency. If there was ever one place in Tbilisi—in the world—that Elene would never go under any circumstances, it was the Chronicle of Georgia.
Her father’s first job out of school had been the first day of work on that monumental piece of art. From 1985 to 1991, he’d risen from laborer to the site manager’s job. He’d become very close to the artist Zurab Tsereteli. His career and his fortune were made.
Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The monument had been underwritten by the USSR. When work here in Georgia had stopped, Tsereteli had moved on. But not Elene’s father.
Out of work, his reputation smeared by his work for the despised Soviets, the man had never recovered. Russia had occupied, then subjugated Georgia for two hundred and eight years and no one would forgive him such a trespass.
The Chronicle towered less than a kilometer to the north, clearly visible from Kancheli’s office. Its thirty-five-meter-tall pillars of stone, bronze, and copper offered an all-round view that included the sea, the city, and the southern Caucasus Mountains. The life of Christ on the lower section of the pillars. Kings, queens, poets and artists above. And celebrations of Georgian life, like the harvest and world’s oldest winemaking tradition reaching back over eight thousand years adorned the pillar tops.
Pavle had visited there many times—before Elene.
The work on the monument had continued slowly, but her father had refused to return to the site. Elene, raised to want no part of her brooding father, wanted no part of the work that had destroyed him either.
Pavle tucked the phone away. Keeping a hand on it in his pocket to suppress any further incoming buzzes, he crossed to stand beside Chief Kancheli.
“There are some things I must see to. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Kancheli barely acknowledged him. Once this mission was over…
Pavle swallowed hard.
You’re too smart to get caught up in this when it comes apart, Elene had insisted.
If he was so smart…
There were only three futures.
One: this worked and he would be trapped as Chief K’s hatchet man. A role he’d never survive for long.
Two: this worked and Kancheli erased Pavle’s existence to protect the operation’s secrecy.
Or three: Elene’s prediction came true. It is going to come apart. And then they would both be executed; him as the fall guy and her for the secrets he’d told her.
He hurled down the stairs, for once not caring what Kancheli’s receptionist Tamar thought of him as he raced by. There was already a target on his back.
67
“Pavle!” Elene cried out the moment she answered her phone.
He squatted in one of the secure booths used for communicating with overseas agents, two floors below Kancheli’s office. He prayed that Chief K didn’t have these rooms monitored as well.
“I’ve been so afraid for you!” Her voice had lost all control.
“I’m fine, Elene. I’m completely fine.” Which was the biggest lie of his life.
“You need…need…to listen to…” Her speech, choked by sobs, finally broke down completely.
“Elene?”
There was a brief sound of someone taking her phone and her sobs fell into the background.
“G’day, mate. I think we need to have a wee bit of a chat.” A woman with a thick Australian accent covered Elene’s background sobs.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Aw, mate. I’m your new best gal.”
“If you hurt so much as a hair on—”
“Not on the agenda, mate. Here, got a friend wanting to chat with you.”
“Tell him to go—”
“Hey, buddy. You somewhere secure?”
Pavle knew the voice, but he couldn’t place it. Familiar enough that he knew it well, but too out of context to pin down. It was deep and rough, like it spent more time being used to shout than talk. Like…
Shouting over a busy crowd and a dance band in a busy bar.
To take a drink order.
“Somewhere secure? Yes, I am.”
“Good. Let’s leave names out of this. Answer the lady’s questions. Time is running short. Your lady is fine with me.”
“Uh, thanks. It really helps to know that.”
Max was one of those people he knew well but knew nothing about. The man had poured him hundreds of drinks over the years. Had shared a toast with him when he and Elene became engaged. Always had a pleasant nod. And nothing much else beyond the story of his tattoos. Tattoos. GSOF. And when someone like Max introduced you to someone else…
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“Good man.” And Max faded into the background.
The Aussie returned. “Looking for a chap doing a dance in a NATO outfit. About five-eight, dark hair—”
“I’ve spent the last few hours with him.”
“Aw, give the man a kewpie doll. Well done, mate. Where is the bloke?”
“Upstairs, meeting with Chief Kancheli. At GIS headquarters.”
“Not the sort of squat I can go strolling into, I’m guessing.”
“That would be a clear no.”
There was a brief round of whispers he couldn’t quite catch.
“Glass, rooftop office?”
“Yes.”
“What’s their plan?”
“I don’t know much beyond the scale of it. Torpedoes from a helicopter and a boat somewhere, but they don’t say which one. I think they’re on the verge of shutting me out completely. Why is NATO conspiring with Kancheli?”
“NATO is asking the same question, mate.”
“They’re…what?” Pavle was missing something.
“That’s two hints,” the Aussie seemed to be enjoying this madness. “Do ye need a third? Chappie’s doing a dance. NATO asking…”
Pavle finally caught on. “He’s not NATO!”
“Ding! Ding! Ding! Stuffed koala bear with the kewpie doll. Ready to go for the big money?”
“Sure.” It was all Pavle could think to say. Not NATO. Then his back door might still be open to get them out of this. But wait, she’d said that NATO was asking the question. He didn’t have to reach out to them, they were already reaching out to him. “Yes. What can I do?”
“Can you get them out of that building?”
He laughed. “Not a chance. Rumor is that Kancheli has a panic room somewhere here that he lives inside of, like a vampire in his coffin.”
A long silence, followed by a few more whispers.
“Is there a patio out front of that glass office? Can you get them both out on the roof?”
“Maybe…”
“Make that a yes and you get the dinky-di prize, mate.”
“And what’s that?”
“I give you a better than fifty percent chance of surviving this fiasco.”
He didn’t need to think about it, “I like those odds.” Best he’d had since the day Kancheli had called him up to the office.
68
“Ms. Chase. If you would come with us please.” Two men in military uniforms met her as she and Meg stepped back into the hotel lobby.
“I was planning on a shower and breakfast.”
“This way, ma’am.” The two men moved in closer. She stumbled backward against the glass door. Meg sprang in front of her and barked viciously at both of them.
“Ma’am, we’ve been instructed not to touch you. Please, could you just come with us.”
Everything was a jumble. No sign of Jeremy yet this morning. Perhaps he was talking to Taz. Or had he been kidnapped?
And Mike and Holly were gone.
And that Tad Jobson had shown up claiming he could replace Andi, which was impossible. No one could replace her.
And the NATO general with the news that she’d been reporting confidential Swedish military information to an imposter general before he’d rushed away.
And Meg wouldn’t stop barking.
And—
She dragged on her headphones and turned the noise-canceling up to full. It wasn’t enough, and she started the audio track. It was ambient sound generated by transforming the frequency range of solar wind particles striking the Earth’s magnetic field. There was a gentle swooping randomness that always helped to soothe her.
Then she scooped Meg up into her arms and looked around for what to do.
Everyone was looking at her. Meg was still barking, though Miranda felt more than heard that fact. But Meg was no contest for such weapons.
When one of the armed men waved a hand toward the direction they wanted her to go, she bowed to the inevitable. Keeping her head down so that she didn’t have to see anyone, she went where they told her.
Meg stopped barking but kept banging the top of her head against Miranda’s chin as she swiveled about to watch everything. After the third time the impact made her bite her tongue, she firmly clamped her jaw closed and lowered her chin to her chest to avoid further collisions.
They held open a door for her.
It was the lecture room for the conference sessions. Enough tables for all the attendees to sit comfortably and view one of the two large screens.
She recognized the sole occupant by the black woolen trench coat draped over the chair beside him. In the half hour since she’d last seen him, he appeared to have lost some control. An open briefcase sat on the white tablecloth. A computer, his phone, and a battered notepad were spread before him. None of their edges lines up.
Meg pushed up in her arms and looked over Miranda’s shoulder. She turned part way so that she could see without blocking Meg’s view.
The doors had closed, with the two men now on the outside.
A careful scan of the room showed that it was only the three of them, Général Vachon, herself, and Meg.
She saw the general was speaking to her.
Miranda stopped the solar wind music. When that appeared safe, she risked turning off the headphones.
Still okay.
Before she could take them off, there was a chaotic noise that had her jumping away from the double entry door and turning the noise-canceling back on.
Meg began barking again.
Finally, a man burst into the room, with one of the soldiers grabbing at him.
“Jeremy!” she called out.
His mouth moved.
She turned off her headphones, but didn’t push them aside.
“Are you okay?” he repeated.
“I don’t know!”
Jeremy glared around while trying to yank his arm out of the soldier’s grasp who kept a firm hold on him.
Général Vachon waved the soldier aside. “It’s okay. Leave him be.”
Jeremy almost fell onto his face between the man releasing him and his efforts to reach Miranda. Not quite falling into Meg, he stopped a step away.
“Why aren’t you okay?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t. I said I didn’t know. You need to ask the general.”
Jeremy turned, then planted himself firmly between them as if he was trying to be Andi, Holly, Mike, and Taz all at once. “Well?”
“She’s fine. I simply need to talk to her.”
“And who are you?”
“NATO Général Pierre Vachon.”
Jeremy glanced over his shoulder at her. “Didn’t we already have one of those?”
“Kurbanov was a fake general,” she told him.
“Really?” Jeremy blinked once, twice. “You know, that makes sense in a strange way. He never used his ID, always following someone else through security checkpoints. You never invited him on the plane with us, did you? Yet he joined in with—”
He spun to look at the general, then back at her.
“Holly, Mike, and Tad!”
“They’re okay. At least Holly and Mike are. I would assume that they’d have mentioned if Tad wasn’t.”
“Oh.” Jeremy took a deep breath, shook himself like Meg after a bath, and scratched Meg on the head. He turned to the general. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“No.”
69
“Holy hell, mate. That’s beautiful.” Holly wanted to take it out of his hands and give it a hug.
“Russian Orsis T-5000. Chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum.” Max had extracted the impossibly nasty-looking rifle from the case in the back of his SUV, which they’d parked a hundred meters from the crest of the Chronicle Monument.
“Where did you lay your hands on that?”
“Oh, got it from this guy who hated to let it go.”
“I can only imagine.” It was Russia’s newest sniper rifle. First shown in 2011, it had risen to be the sniper rifle of choice at the very top levels of the Russian clandestine services. She’d never actually seen one in the flesh. Only two ways a Russian sniper would let go of such a weapon, a lot of money or…
“I talked him out of it with this,” he tapped the other case. “In 2014.”
Holly sighed happily when she cracked it open. Inside lay the TAC-50 that she knew best. Both rifles reached past a kilometer and a half with ease. In 2014. That meant Max must have been among the Georgian volunteers to fight the Russian takeover of Crimea and far eastern Ukraine. At least one sniper had returned to Moscow in a box, without his rifle.
Mike dragged her aside. “Do you trust Tad?”
Holly couldn’t answer at first. “I thought you were the one who checked out his credentials.”
Mike shook his head. “I did. They came back clean. But…I’ve got an itch.”
