Disposable Asset Read online

  ‘Blakely’s been killed. Just a few hours ago. Outside Moscow.’ At the blank look on Ravensdale’s face, Fletcher blinked. ‘Good Christ. Benjamin Blakely …?’

  Ravensdale shook his head.

  ‘I don’t care how deep your head’s buried in the sand; there’s no way you could have avoided Benjamin Blakely. One of the whiteboard jockeys back at HQ. Decided to steal every secret he could lay hands on, eighteen months ago, and then pass them over to anyone who cared to have a look. In the name of transparency, he said. Really, for the greater good of Benjamin Blakely.’

  Ravensdale’s eyebrows climbed higher.

  ‘Cocksucker leaked classified information that, taken out of context, doesn’t exactly make us look good. The Russians, of course, gave him sanctuary. Anything to turn the screws. But now it’s caught up with him.’ Fletcher couldn’t keep the satisfaction from his voice. ‘Karma’s a bitch,’ he said.

  Ravensdale grunted.

  ‘He was protected by the best private army the Kremlin could offer. Someone penetrated one hell of a security cordon to reach him. Methinks I detect the whiff of a paramilitary operation.’

  ‘You think, or you know?’

  ‘I had nothing to do with it.’ Fletcher took a wax apple from a bowl on the countertop, eyed it suspiciously. ‘Not that I mind. Son-of-a-bitch did more damage than … This is a good thing, Sean. Take my word.’

  Ravensdale stroked his salt-and-pepper beard and held his tongue.

  ‘For all we know, it’s Russian internal politics at work. Someone wanted to embarrass the Premier-ski, take away his trophy. But there’s the possibility …’ Fletcher put down the wax apple, shrugged. ‘The old guard at the agency, you know, hasn’t been too happy lately. And some of us have never been too good at turning the other cheek. But, hell, look who I’m talking to.’

  ‘What do you want, Andy?’

  Andrew Fletcher spread his palms. He had an expensive manicure, Ravensdale noticed: fingernails buffed and neatly clipped.

  ‘Bottom line: I can’t say for certain that our hands are entirely clean. Which puts us in a tight corner, Sean. The Russians have identified a suspect. Currently at large – but they’re pulling out all the stops. If they get her, God only knows what she might tell them. Just twenty minutes ago, they released a statement: “We harbor no suspicion for this heinous act toward our American partners,” et cetera. But you know how their Novoyaz works. It’s all between the lines. They’re pointing a finger, in their own special way.’

  Wind lowed outside, making loose chunks of ice clump in the half-frozen lake. Upstairs, a branch caught in the breeze scratched against a window. In the living room, Dmitri had lapsed into uncharacteristic silence.

  ‘Sean. I know you just want to sit it out. But come on. Special circumstances require special—’

  Ravensdale shook his head.

  ‘You’re looking after your boy. I appreciate that. But consider the bigger picture. Things are goddamned tense right now. It’s a goddamned tinderbox … and this gets pinned on us, it’s just the spark to set things off.’

  Ravensdale said nothing.

  Visibly, Fletcher controlled his temper. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. ‘I passed a coffee shop on my way down. The Sticky Bun, it’s called. Said it’s open until ten. I’ll wait there. Because I know you want to be a good father, Sean. But think it through: that means leaving your son a world worth inheriting.’

  With a final reproachful glare, he retreated from the kitchen. Moments later an engine turned over in the driveway; then tires tickled icy gravel again.

  Ravensdale looked at the stove. The water was boiling.

  MOSCOW

  Yaroslavsky Station had been constructed, over a century before, in the style of a fairy-tale castle, with frosted windows and imposing dark gables. A bird-shat statue of Lenin stood out front, surrounded by bomzhi – homeless – holding bottles in brown paper bags.

  The early morning schedule was thin; no train left for half an hour. A solemn hush hung in the air. Cassie found a private corner, away from a group of derelicts, and sat cross-legged on the dirty floor, taking in her surroundings. An abundance of street people helped her blend in. The troika of Leningrad, Yaroslavsky, and Kazan, collectively called Three Stations, served as a Mecca to the city’s indigent.

  During the next five minutes, she did her best to identify the security presence in the station. Four pairs of blue-suited politsiya circulated, and at least three plainclothesmen, the latter betrayed by the slow, steady sweep of their eyes. Two soldiers, wearing camouflage and Kalashnikovs, stood near the boarding concourse. The soldiers and police held small leather-bound digital tablets, which they consulted discreetly.

  Bestirring herself, giving the authorities a wide berth, Cassie visited the gift shop and spent eighty rubles on a pair of dull scissors and a black magic marker. Moving into the ladies’ room, she allowed herself an instant of self-reproach. She had fled the three-story cottage in Beliy Gorod so quickly that she had not even paused to take the man’s wallet. As a result, her funds were severely limited.

  Inside a bathroom stall festooned with graffiti (If you had a million years to do it, Holden Caulfield had said in her favorite book, you couldn’t rub out even half the ‘Fuck you’ signs in the world), she chopped her hair short and colored what remained black with the magic marker. The result, choppy and unevenly two-toned, could pass for punk. After a moment of deliberation, she hid the GSh-18 inside a toilet tank and then flushed the keys to the Mondeo down into Moscow’s antiquated sewage system.

  By the time she emerged from the bathroom, another clump of soldiers had appeared by the ticket counter – and still another, by the departure board. She walked brazenly between them, past a bench on which a mother sat with a young child, and lifted the woman’s purse. Inside a faux-alligator wallet she found fifteen hundred rubles. Dropping purse and wallet into a trash basket just two meters from a gun-toting soldier, she approached the ticket window and bought passage on the next train leaving the station. Get out of the city; that was the priority.

  Over the loudspeaker, her train was called. Waiting on the platform, she lost herself in the thin crowd, avoiding to the best of her ability prying eyes and security cameras. When doors hissed open, passengers boarded in a slow, halting line.

  She took a seat across the aisle from a young man reading a Japanese comic book. Two politsiya passed outside her window, consulting their tablets and peering owlishly into the train; she turned her face away.

  After five interminable minutes, a whistle blew and the rusty old car jolted into motion. She rocked gently along with the sway of train on rails, trying not to think too much. Through the foggy windows passed first the Moscow suburbs, weed-choked and indistinct in darkness – full light would not come until almost ten a.m. – and then forests of birch, dotted with humble dachas.

  After a few minutes, the young man beside Cassie closed the comic book, took out a knock-off phone, and opened Yandex.ru. She peered over his shoulder, straining to decipher the Cyrillic lettering without being too obvious. The headline sent a chill wandering down her spine:

  ASSASSIN IDENTIFIED

  by Andrei Dubov

  MOSCOW – The Prosecutor General’s Office has opened an official investigation into a ‘person of interest’ with regard to the murder of US defector Benjamin Blakely.

  Represented in the police sketch below, the suspect appears to be a young woman in her late teens or early twenties, with shoulder-length blonde hair and a slight build. Last seen early Monday morning at the government dacha in Turygino where Blakely was killed, she is considered armed and dangerous.

  At approximately 2:30 a.m. on Monday, January 9th, sixty kilometers south-west of Moscow Oblast, Benjamin Blakely was viciously murdered by an assailant or assailants. The former CIA officer was protected by no fewer than thirty security agents at the time of his death, three of whom perished defending their charge. (See PROFILES OF VICTIM
S, page 8.)

  Government representatives charged with handling the Blakely case were left speechless by the cowardly early-morning assassination. A universal round of finger-pointing quickly followed.

  Benjamin Blakely left the United States eighteen months ago, carrying a digital cache containing evidence that the CIA has codified illegal policy, including entering the homes of US citizens to conduct warrantless searches. How many of Blakely’s documents have thus far been released remains unclear …

  The article was accompanied by a photograph of Benjamin Blakely – same receding gray hairline and layers of muscle going to fat, but different, pre-surgery, nose, brow and chin – caught in the act of leaving a restaurant, looking surprised, surrounded by FSB agents. Beside the picture was a rudimentary police sketch of Cassie’s face. The shape of the jaw was wrong … because of the gas mask, of course. Otherwise, the likeness was uncomfortably near the mark.

  The boy scrolled to a sidebar and clicked a link, bringing up a photograph of a gaunt, well-dressed man with a pretty little mustache and short blond hair, addressing a crowd of reporters.

  INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEE URGES VIGILANCE

  by Natasha Yurganova

  MOSCOW – Speaking from Investigative Committee Headquarters on Bauman Street, Senior Inspektor Piotr Vlasov urged nationwide vigilance in the wake of the early-morning assassination of Benjamin Blakely.

  ‘A brave and noble man has been murdered in cold blood,’ said the Inspektor. ‘But with the help of our faithful and watchful citizenry, the cowardly criminals responsible for this heinous act will soon be flushed from the sewers like the rats that they are. And to whomever is behind this travesty, we remind you of one incontrovertible fact: retribution is inevitable …’

  ‘Tickets, please.’

  Cassie handed over her ticket without looking up.

  The world seemed to be shutting down, fading to a colorless blur. Her fingers pinched the thick part of her thigh. The world sharpened again. She accepted the punched ticket.

  For a few minutes she pretended she was back in a safe place: the old hang-out pad in the East Village, or one of the better foster homes, or, going back farther, the small university town in which she’d been raised. But the memories were fragile, dissolving almost as soon as she managed to find them. The train rocked insistently, rolling her head on her neck, bringing her back again to the here-and-now. At last the thought she wanted to avoid above all others rose stubbornly to the surface, demanding recognition:

  Quinn had set her up.

  Her target had not been a mafiya kingpin, as she had been told, but something else. Benjamin Blakely. An American defector. Probably not even—

  A gray coolness clicked in; emotion guttered and died. First things first. She must put some distance between herself and Moscow. Then – once she could exhale and get her head on straight – she could begin untangling the knot of what, exactly, had happened in the Turygino dacha and the little cottage in Beliy Gorod.

  Staring fixedly out the window, a light sweat drying on her collarbones beneath the parka, she concentrated for the moment on thinking of nothing at all.

  TICONDEROGA

  For a long time after Fletcher had gone, Ravensdale sat watching his son, listening to ice shifting in the lake outside.

  Eventually, the distant bell at Saint Mary’s marked the hour, making him start. Pushing out of his chair, he returned the Beretta to its shoebox and then fixed a simple dinner. As he and Dmitri ate macaroni and cheese, Dmitri described a complex and obscure drama involving Elmo, Nemo, Thomas the Tank Engine, and cars of various colors.

  At seven thirty they climbed creaky stairs, brushed teeth, and sat down before bed for a story. Dmitri chose his current favorite book, Frog and Toad Are Friends. Ravensdale read absently, his mind far away. ‘Frog ran up the path to Toad’s house. He knocked on the front door. There was no answer …’

  Bottom line: I can’t say for certain that our hands are entirely clean. The Russians have identified a suspect. If they get her, God only knows what she might tell them.

  But once upon a time, Fletcher had not needed to add, Ravensdale’s connections had been the best in Moscow. If anyone could pull the strings required to steal the prize away from the Kremlin, it was he.

  ‘Frog walked into the house. It was dark. All the shutters were closed. “Toad, where are you?” called Frog. “Go away,” said the voice from the corner of the room. Toad was lying in bed. He had pulled all the covers over his head …’

  I know you want to be a good father. But that means leaving your son a world worth inheriting.

  Did that mean a world in which the killers of Benjamin Blakely escaped justice? Ravensdale had played dumb. But of course he was familiar with the man and his actions. Moreover, a large part of him approved. Any empire allowed to expand unchecked – any empire that could not look at itself and ask the hard questions – was an empire destined for collapse. The breakdown would come first at the expense of that empire’s own citizens, whose civil liberties would have been systemically stripped away, whose homes would have been illegally searched without warrants, and who, if they’d dared cause a ripple in the master plan, would have been detained indefinitely without trial or counsel. An empire which accrued total power among the ruling elite, history had shown, eventually used it. And there were all too few Benjamin Blakelys standing up to challenge the status quo. Most Americans – Ravensdale himself, if he wanted to be brutally honest, among them – had chosen to sit back and watch things play out on TV. The People have abdicated our duties, Juvenal had said; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions, everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.

  But there was another reality to consider. A confession to the Kremlin from an American assassin would give Russia substantial leverage for her own geopolitical ambitions – the last thing the world needed right now. Mother Russia’s – Rodina’s – dictator in charge, her supreme leader for life, her empire-building and saber-rattling czar, wanted more than anything to flex his muscles and reassert his right to sit at the grown-up table. And so he would seize any opportunity to push harder against his borders, stoking ethnic fires, engineering armed rebellions, driving a wedge into NATO, playing a game of brinksmanship which could lead only to more war, more death … perhaps even to the ultimate war, the ultimate death. It’s a goddamned tinderbox … and this gets pinned on us, it’s just the spark to set things off.

  Would Fletcher really be displeased by that? Over the years the man had washed gallons of blood from beneath his manicured fingernails, sometimes literally. In the process, he had cultivated a steely hatred and searing disdain for his opposition. Mortal combat with Russia was his life’s work, his divine calling. Not for Andy Fletcher the joys of glasnost. A ramping up of tensions meant larger budgets, less oversight … more power. Every move made by the enemy justified a countermove. Anything short of Armageddon actually served the man’s purpose.

  Fletcher, thought Ravensdale, must have another, unstated reason for wanting this nipped in the bud.

  The Russians have identified a suspect. If they get her, God only knows what she might tell them.

  What she told them, perhaps, would lead back to Fletcher himself.

  That Ravensdale’s former boss ran his own game on the side was beyond question. But anyone who might be able to shed light on the details had an uncanny way of turning up dead.

  But this time, the girl was still out there.

  Get her for himself and Ravensdale might redeem, with one bold stroke, a multitude of past sins: defusing the tinderbox, calming the international waters, and then dragging the assassin before the higher-ups at Langley, providing evidence at last of Fletcher’s overreaching, pinning his former boss to the wall.

  Sitting in his father’s lap, Dmitri suddenly craned around. ‘Why Toad sad?’ he asked.

  Ravensdale forced a smile, tousling his son’s
dark hair. ‘He’s not sad, kiddo. He just doesn’t want to go outside.’

  ‘Toad sad. But Frog make him happy. Frog nice.’

  ‘Absolutely correct,’ agreed Ravensdale gravely. ‘Frog is nice, indeed.’ Clearing his throat, he continued: ‘Toad blinked in the bright sun. “Help!” he said. “I cannot see anything …”’

  After switching off the light, he found his address book, ran a finger pensively down a list of potential babysitters, and reached for the phone.

  Twenty minutes later he was pulling into The Sticky Bun’s parking lot. An hour before close, the shop was mostly deserted. Stella Cohen, the owner, was running vinegar through the espresso machine. Norm Harding sat at the counter, toying with the flaps of a red plaid hunter’s cap.

  Andrew Fletcher was stationed in a corner where nobody could surprise him. As Ravensdale slid on to a chair, Fletcher almost – but not quite – managed to hide a victorious smirk. ‘Here’s the plot,’ he said. ‘We take my car to a field a mile away. Helicopter from there to Buffalo/Niagara. In eight hours, we’ll be on the ground in Moscow.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then you work your magic.’

  ‘My bridges have burned.’

  ‘You’ll find a way. Whatever it takes. Put the blame on Carlson, maybe.’

  Ravensdale said nothing. A long shot … but there might be something to work with there. Jack Carlson, part of the FBI’s Transnational Criminal Enterprise Section, had been Ravensdale’s erstwhile partner in Moscow. Neither had been eager to work with the other, but the increasingly international landscape had made cooperation – ‘Force Multiplication’, in the language of the day – unavoidable. While Ravensdale had ultimately left his agency in disgrace, Carlson’s career had taken wing; receiving a promotion, he’d moved back stateside to run, from Washington, the Bureau’s Eurasian Organized Crime unit. In absentia, he would make a handy scapegoat.

  ‘Make the deal sweet enough,’ Fletcher was saying, ‘and they’ll let bygones be bygones. The purse strings are wide open on this one. The overseers are looking the other way. All that matters is results.’ He inspected the placid surface of his coffee. ‘Nobody wants to see how bad this thing could turn. The way things have been going lately … I think you’ve reached the same conclusion. Otherwise we wouldn’t be talking. So let’s not dawdle.’