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He had his man, the one individual who would help his cause and who would do exactly what Federov wanted without argument, or regret.
Kirov was thirty-two years old. The last three had been spent in a bleak, isolated prison run by the FSB and overseen by guards who were little better than some of the inmates. These were political dissidents, men, and some women, who posed a threat to the regime, as well as recidivists and terrorists, or possible terrorists. The government played no favors. If someone was an embarrassment, dangerous, with agendas that might create an outcry, then the isolationist regime in the prison would either kill or cure. Once the subject was out of the public eye, it became easier to handle.
Viktor Kirov was a special case. He had been trained by the very people who finally locked him away. Kirov was a natural-born killer, a man who had no conscience when he was given his orders. It didn’t matter who the victim was. Man. Woman. Child. Kirov handled them all with the same cold detachment. His training had come from the best, and Kirov surpassed every one of his instructors. His supreme test came when he was given the order to kill one of the other applicants on the training course. The man had failed to reach anything like the required standard. His dissatisfaction turned him sour, and he began blaming everyone at the training academy for his poor achievements. His grievances were looked on with disapproval. He managed to alienate everyone around him. His vehement lack of control drew the attention of the academy director, a man who despised those who showed weakness. The director solved his problem easily. He chose the best pupil from the course to carry out his order.
He chose Viktor Kirov.
He was confident he had picked the right man. Kirov’s performance during the course had been exceptional. The director, who prided himself on his ability to know his trainees, had reached the conclusion that Viktor Kirov was head and shoulders above the rest. Kirov was an individual. Something of a loner. A borderline sociopath. And his instructors had reported that Kirov had that rare quality capable of making him an excellent assassin. There was a cold streak within him, a propensity for violence that he kept close to the surface, contained and controlled until it was needed.
Three days after the failed trainee had quit the academy, the director asked Kirov into his office. He told Kirov what he wanted in no uncertain terms, explaining that he would not allow the man to spread malicious rumors about the academy. An example had to be made. Kirov understood what was being asked of him and accepted the mission without hesitation. The director offered assistance, but Kirov declined.
Two days later there was a small report in the press that a young man had been found dead in a back ally. His neck had been broken during an attempted robbery. No one had seen or heard a thing. The case was never solved and became just another statistic.
The director found the man’s wallet on his desk a day later.
Kirov was immediately recruited into a special section of the FSB and over the next few years his particular talents were well used. He became his section’s chief assassin, traveling extensively to carry out wet work for his employers. Europe, Africa, even the U.S.A. played host to Viktor Kirov. He was never caught. He was that good. Perhaps too good. He began to enjoy his work too much. His masters tried to rein him in, but all that achieved was to make him strike out at them. He began to kill off the books. He turned rogue, killing anyone sent to bring him in.
In the end he was caught. His secret trial was swift, and the verdict all too obvious. He was sentenced to thirty years in one of the department prisons located in the bleak extremes of eastern Russia, a dark, harsh place where the worst of the worst were confined. Not executed, but placed in solitary exile in case the long-term needs of the state might one day require their dubious talents.
Kirov was one of those instances. He had been created and trained by the state as a killer. There was always the need for such skills. So Kirov was hidden away so he might reflect on his aberrations and consider his future.
Karl Federov had been Kirov’s only true friend. Over a number of years an unspoken bond had developed between the two men. Neither could explain it, nor ever tried. During Kirov’s good years in the section, he and Federov spent social times together. Drinking. The occasional female. It was an odd matching, but it worked for them both. Each accepted the other without question.
When Kirov was detained after his rogue episode, Karl Federov was the only one who spoke in his defense. He used his influence in attempts to have Kirov freed. Nothing came of it. In the end even Kirov advised his friend to give up, realizing he was going to be locked up. The day he was taken away Kirov’s last request was to be allowed to speak to Federov, thanking him for his loyalty. For his part Federov said he would get Kirov out of his cell one day.
And now he had.
Kirov would be the ace up his sleeve, Federov’s own secret weapon to be aimed and guided and allowed to use his unique talents against those who stood in Federov’s path as he homed in on Black Judas.
A few nights after Kirov had come on board, Federov drove them around the city while he explained his intentions. Kirov listened in silence until Federov completed his announcement about Black Judas. He had smiled, then actually laughed out loud.
“Karl, you have become even more devious than before I went to prison.”
“Does that mean you are in?” Federov asked.
“Of course. Did you think I would pass up the opportunity to screw the bastards who locked me away? I owe my loyalty to you, Karl, and no one else. In the whole of Russia there was only one man on my side. Karl Federov. My friend.” Kirov peered through the sleet-covered windshield of the car, pointing to neon-lit signs that indicated a bar. “We can use this Black Judas to take back what those bastards owe us. Karl, let’s go and celebrate. Then in the morning we can start to fuck the Kremlin.”
Federov parked the car outside a nightclub. As he led the way inside he laid a hand on Kirov’s shoulder.
“By the way, Viktor, I have a passport and visa for you.”
“Am I going somewhere again?”
“Yes. This time your trip will be much more comfortable and pleasant. The U.S.A. You will go as a member of the Russian diplomatic service. Using the information we have from the Black Judas files, I want you to start tracking down the sleeper teams and eliminating them.”
“Didn’t you explain that these men carry the codes needed to operate the system?”
“Three teams of two men. Only one pair is actually required to activate the project. Now that we know where they are located, we can dispense with four out of the six. It reduces the chances of Krushen gaining control. If we take charge of the surviving team, we have the upper hand.”
“It sounds good when you say it, Karl. Let’s hope it works that way.”
“Have I ever let you down, Viktor? Given you reason to doubt me?”
“I have to admit that has never happened. In fact you are the only person I know who can be trusted.”
Federov nodded. “Let’s drink to that, my friend. To you and me and Black Judas.”
CHAPTER THREE
Stony Man Farm, Virginia
Aaron Kurtzman waited until his team was assembled before he laid out the information he had been gathering.
They were all there: Carmen Delahunt, a red-haired, ex-FBI agent; Huntington Wethers, a tall, pipe-smoking academic, a thoughtful black man who was a former professor of cybernetics; and Akira Tokaido, a sharp, young computer hacker who listened to hot music piped through the earbuds of his MP3 player.
Kurtzman’s cyberteam, some of the best IT specialists in the world, were the SOG’s eyes and ears. They manned the databanks and, aided by Kurtzman’s programs, had the ability to get into the databases of existing agencies, extracting what they needed to push forward their backup capabilities for Stony Man’s combat teams. Kurtzman’s cybergenius was the driving force that enabled the team to create its unique qualities and advance them day by day. He was versed in computer science to a degree that reached near perfection. If he couldn’t solve a problem with existing programs, he would write a new one to address the problem and get around it. He pushed himself and his team to the limits, constantly aware that when the SOG teams needed help, they needed it ASAP, not in a few days. His unshakable loyalty was legend, and his ability to come up with the goods on time was not open to debate.
“As we have no ongoing missions at the moment, and the teams are on R and R, I need you to look at something I’m going to transfer to each of you. Analyze the data, make up your own minds. I want to see if you get the same feeling I do. No bullshit. Honest opinions. I got the nod on this from a guy I know. He picked this up on one of his database searches and felt it worth further checking. I’ve done some, but I want to hear your views.”
Kurtzman worked his keyboard and transferred the file to each workstation. As their monitors flashed into life, the members of the team swung their chairs around and got to work. Kurtzman wheeled himself across the room to his infamous coffeepot and helped himself to a fresh brew, then returned to his own workstation and began to widen his search parameters.
When mission controller Barbara Price walked into the Computer Room several hours later, she was surprised to see the team so focused on their tasks, as the threat board was just about clear.
“What’s up, Aaron?”
Kurtzman eased his chair around. “Team collaboration,” he said. “I need confirmation on something that could be important.”
“As in Stony Man important?”
Carmen Delahunt looked around. “The way this is panning out, it could be.”
“Hal know about this?”
“Uh-uh,” Kurtzman said. “No point calling him until we’re sure.”
“Well, you’ve got me interested. Am I allowed to join the inner circle yet?”
Kurtzman’s bearded face broke into a wide smile. “If the team’s ready to give its verdict, you might as well come on board. Extra input on this is going to be welcome.”
“Carmen,” Wethers said, “tell her what we have.”
Delahunt held up the printout she was holding. “Okay, basics first. We have three dead people. All male. All in their thirties. One in Grand Rapids. The other two came from Spokane. They all died within a couple of days of each other. Coroners’ verdicts all stated the same cause of death. They were all murdered. Given a lethal injection of a poison that was difficult to pin down until requests for very thorough toxicology reports were requested. The tox reports identified the poison as an extremely potent strain that hasn’t been seen for some years.”
“It’s been used before?” Price asked.
Delahunt nodded. “It was a favored means of execution from the days of the KGB. Back in the day no one could get much information about it, but some years ago a sample was obtained and it was checked out thoroughly. So much so that we now have a complete breakdown of the substance and it can be recognized. The last known instance of it being used was three years ago in Brussels when a former KGB agent was found dead in his apartment. It was suspected he was killed because he was in the process of negotiating a book deal where he was about to expose the old KGB and name names.”
“So three men are dead and you’re saying some cold-war KGB poison was used?” Price held up her hands. “Am I missing something here?”
“Yes,” Wethers said. “Look at my notes.” He handed Price a clipboard. On a sheet of paper he had written each man’s particulars.
Price read the details. “Three ordinary American citizens killed by lethal injection? Why would anyone…wait a second. Why is the name Leon Grishnov written in brackets after Harry Jenks’s?”
“Nothing gets by Barbara Price,” Kurtzman said. “Go ahead, Hunt, you found it.”
“There was a recurring shred of evidence that came up on all three autopsy reports. Each dead man had characteristicly Slavic facial bone structure. Not second generation that might suggest the men had been born here from Russian parentage. So we dug a little deeper, went into ex-Soviet medical databases. Military as well as civilian. The next problem arose when I realized they were not as extensive as I expected. I kept coming up empty until I ran across some dental records and we got a match.”
“One lucky strike,” Tokaido said. “The X-rays taken by one of our coroners matched the Russian ones.”
“Harry Jenks is Leon Grishnov. Once we had that,” Wethers said, “I concentrated on the guy and hit lucky again. He was in the military, trained as an infiltration specialist and designated as Spetznaz. The last entry in his record has him reassigned to special duty. After that there are no more records of him. It was as if he vanished from the face of the earth.”
“We’re widening our searches,” Kurtzman said. “Might be we’ll pick something up on the other two vics. Akira spotted something and is looking into it.”
Tokaido tapped his keyboard and brought up an enlarged image. “I got this from the autopsy photographic records. From both cities where the deaths occurred. Had to do some cleaning up and sharpening.”
“Is that a tattoo?” Price asked.
“Yeah. Each guy had one on the left shoulder. It’s no larger than a quarter but very detailed. I had to focus in real close to make any sense out of it. Even when it was made clear, none of us could understand what it meant. So I sent them to one of our Russian contacts. I figured if the guys were Russian the tattoos might also have some Russian symbols.”
“That’s smart thinking.”
“Has the contact come up with anything yet?” Price asked.
Kurtzman shook his head. “Lena did report it looked vaguely familiar but she needs a little more time.” He turned his full attention on Price. “What do you think?”
“I worry when I hear KGB and Spetznaz. And especially what you found out about a Russian taking on the identity of a U.S. citizen.”
“Okay, we know the old KGB was disbanded and the FSB took its place,” Wethers said. “We also know that there are still ex-KGB around, some of them hard-liners in place in Lubyanka and who still have some influence. Right now we don’t have a line on what we might have stumbled on. My vote is we keep digging.”
“Could these men have been sleepers?” Price asked. “Put in place as part of some operation that might have been forgotten about?”
“That’s a possibility,” Kurtzman said. “Don’t dismiss the thought about a forgotten operation. Though, we know some sleepers have stayed in place for a lot of years before they got the signal to go ahead with their planned mission.”
“So why have they been killed? If the mission has been wiped, why terminate the operatives? That part doesn’t make sense to me,” Price stated.
“I have to admit I can’t figure that one myself,” Kurtzman admitted. “Unless someone has decided to clean house and remove all traces of a redundant operation.”
Price ran her gaze over Wethers’s notes again, then reached a decision. “Okay, let’s run with it, Aaron. Stay with day-to-day protocols, but see what you can figure out on these three dead people. I’ll update Hal when he gets back, and I think Mack should sit in on any meetings. We could be needing his special input.”
MACK BOLAN COMPLETED his reading of the file presented by Hal Brognola. He glanced around the War Room conference table.
“It points to something that needs checking out,” he said. “There are too many facts to be labeled coincidence.”
“It’s the way we all saw it,” Price said. “I was on board as soon as Aaron showed me the initial data he’d pulled together and got the team’s backup.”
Bolan tapped the file. “Priority is to assess what a possible operation might consist of. We have to work on the assumption that whatever was planned could still be online, just waiting for someone to issue the green light.”
“We’re digging deep trying to get a handle on it,” Kurtzman said. “One problem is, we have no idea how covert this might be. We don’t even have the luxury of a name for the damn thing.”
Akira Tokaido opened a folder. “I may have something for you on that,” he said, sliding photos of the tattoos found on the dead men.
“They tell you something?” Price asked.
Tokaido nodded. “The writing in the tattoo design turned out to be an obscure Cyrillic alphabet.” He picked up one of the remotes that controlled the wall-mounted monitors and clicked on a screen. “On the left are the original three tattoos. Worked into the entwined snakes-and-scorpions design are number and letter sequences. Two of the tattoos have the same number-letter sequence. The third is different. Two different sequences come from the dead men from Spokane. The remaining one is Grand Rapids. If you look on the right, here, I’ve laid out all three sequences, this time in English.”
They all studied the sequences. Even in English the lines didn’t make much sense.
“Computer codes?” Bolan asked.
“I don’t think so,” Kurtzman said. “Not the sort of configuration that makes any sense. We’ll run them but I can’t see them giving us much.”
“Maybe a number-letter code,” Delahunt said. “I can check them against the FBI code-breaker data, but they don’t seem to have anything I can get a hook on.”
“Lena Orlov did find something that might offer us a starting point,” Tokaido said. He highlighted a curving banner that sat over the main design. It was identical on each tattoo. “In English it means Black Judas.”
“Great work,” Brognola said. “We all understand Judas. The disciple who betrayed Jesus. Give anyone a thought?”
“Not immediately,” Delahunt admitted.
No one else had any flashes of inspiration, so they spent some time going over what they had, pushing theories back and forth.
“Did Akira’s suggestion about the three dead men being into computing go any further?” Bolan asked.
“Yes. He did find out they were all familiar with the latest technology. Systems. Security advances. They took every IT course they could log onto. These guys were heavily into it. You have an idea?”
“Pretty loose at the moment,” Bolan stated. “We have three dead men. It’s becoming more than likely they were foreign agents sent to the U.S. to assimilate into society and stay low. Each has a tattoo that appears to contain some number-letter sequence, meaning unknown at the moment. Our guys were all into finance-based employment and also heavily into computer knowledge, which in today’s climate isn’t suspect in itself, but could be.”
“Don’t forget Judas,” Tokaido prompted.
“My next piece of the puzzle. Judas walked with all the other disciples. Passed himself off as one of them, while all the time he was working against them. Just what a sleeper does. Then Judas broke his trust and betrayed those who saw him as a good guy.”
“Okay,” Price said. “The Judas analogy works fine. But where is the betrayal here? Were our sleepers here to betray someone? Set him up as an assassination target?”
“Think about that.”
“Why so many men?” Price asked. “An assassination wouldn’t need that many, would it?”
“Good point,” Bolan said. “And a hit against a current figure doesn’t gel with a sleeper put in place for a long period. People and situations change over the years. Your assassin is more likely to be inserted in the short term.”
“So no individual hit?”
Bolan shook his head. “Not someone. I’m thinking something. This looks like a complicated operation. A killing is a relatively simple matter. A target. A weapon. An operator. I believe these guys were going after something bigger, and not a bomb or a bioweapon.”
“Striker, even my head is starting to spin,” Brognola said. “Is there a payoff here?”
“Speculation at the moment. Theorizing. But I’m looking at the special interest in computers and the financial backgrounds all these guys had. And then Black Judas. I remember one of Katz’s favorite words when he was building scenarios—extrapolation, making an educated guess at a possible conclusion once facts were brought together. In this case I’m linking Black Judas to Black Monday. I think we all remember that day in ’87 when the stock market went haywire.”
“Okay,” Brognola said, pushing to his feet. He took a moment to consider what he was about to authorize. “I believe we have enough to initiate an initial probe.”
