Paul Vidich - The Mercenary

The room smelled of woodsmoke. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. He saw the Lada parked outside and remembered the drama of the storm.

“So, you are alive.” Natalya sat on the large bed, gingerly holding a hot cup of tea. She sipped. “You’ve been restless. I called your name twice, but there was no response.”

Garin was cold, and his breath fogged. He was still dressed in his clothes from the day before, and an old blanket lay across his legs. He heard voices outside the room, and then he turned his attention to Natalya. There was a small bandage on her lip and her forehead had purpled, but her eyes were fixed on him.

“You look better,” he said.

“I’m fine. It was nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.” She tapped her head. “A bump.” She saw his skepticism. “Would I be drinking tea if I was hurt? Would I be making jokes? Do you notice any difference?”

“Same voice. Same ingratitude.” He saw her mouth open, aghast. “Remember what happened?”

“I stopped the car.”

“You crashed the car. I drove us here. Golukov found a doctor who stitched your lip and examined your head. He said you were lucky.” He looked at her. “Maybe the blow knocked some sense into you.”

“Insults!” She threw off the covers.

He pointed out her clothing, which lay folded on a dresser. “The housekeeper put you in a nightgown.”

Natalya had begun to undress, but she stopped and shot him an angry look, nodding at the door. “If you don’t mind.” She added, “We should return to Moscow. People will be asking questions.”

“Who?”

“We have been gone overnight. Questions will be asked.”

“Who?”

“People,” she snapped. “There are people whose job it is to ask questions.” Her hand swept the room. “This will interest them. Are you naïve?”

Garin gazed at her for a moment. “There were two Soviet Army jeeps parked across the bridge.”

Silence. “I saw them,” she said. “I recognized the Volga. We need a story for what happened. It is better if we have the same story.” She touched her forehead. “We should say that a tree had fallen across the road. I didn’t see it in the storm. The car skidded, and we drove here.”

“Is that to protect me or you?”

Her eyes flared. “Does it matter?”

Garin agreed the details with her without asking for further explanation. It was easy for him to be complicit. The story was believable. In substance, it was true. Natalya’s stitched lip was real, the bruise on her head was visible, her worry was evident. All that was false was the tree and the omission of the vehicles.

The morning was still young when they left Koltsovo. Diamond-bright sunlight sparkled on the freshly fallen snow, and the clear sky burned pale blue. Plows had cleaned the road, and the warming sun was melting snow from the pine branches.

“Who were in the vehicles at the bridge?” Garin asked.

“Shitheads. Second Chief Directorate. They are looking for Afghan war deserters. Pashtun and Uzbek conscripts who don’t want to fight.”

They were coming up to the intersection where she had turned off. He glanced down the unmarked back road, remembering. The sudden turn and her excuse for a shortcut.

He looked at her. He knew. Posner’s absence. The turnoff. Her hand on his. Her lies. He played out the puzzle pieces in his mind, trying to make sense of what she wanted of him. She was young and inexperienced, and he had seen those qualities before, but there was something else he saw in her amateur performance.

“SHE’S KGB.”

Garin offered his judgment the next day to Rositske in Moscow Station. Mueller had joined the conversation by secure telephone link from Langley. Garin waited a day to make his report. He wanted to let his suspicions settle overnight, hoping he’d make sense of what had happened, but the opposite occurred when he shaped his thoughts in his notebook. The incident made no sense unless he saw everything through the lens of entrapment. Her invitation to the Bolshoi. Her insistence that they have a story to cover up her mistake. But entrapment didn’t explain the vehicles waiting across the bridge.

Garin waited for Rositske’s response. He couldn’t gauge Mueller’s reaction except by the silence on the phone, but he saw Rositske’s neck redden and his fist clench.

“Your cover is blown. She’s a sparrow,” Rositske said.

The door opened, and Ronnie Moffat walked in. “Sorry I’m late.”

Garin was startled to see her.

“She works here,” Rositske said. “She knows what’s going on.” He motioned for Ronnie to sit. “He thinks the woman is KGB.”

Garin looked from Ronnie to Rositske and felt suspicion begin to corrupt his thinking. But paranoia was the real enemy, so he moved on. He spoke carefully, measuring his words. “Nothing fits together. Why was the Volga there to meet us?”

“It makes sense if your cover is blown,” Mueller said, his voice tinny through the speaker.

“George, hold on,” Rositske said. “It was dark. How do you know it was a Volga?”

“Three vehicles,” Garin said. “Their headlights illuminated each other. There were four men inside. A Volga with radio antenna and two UAZs.” He met Rositske’s eyes. “I could be wrong, but the danger of being right outweighs the risk of being wrong.”

There was crackling static on the telephone. “George?” Garin said. “Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“What do you make of this?” Garin asked.

“I don’t know. What’s your guess?”

Garin had folded his hands on the table, and his face was gray. “Something is off. She seems too untrained. Too indecisive. Too naïve. She may be a sparrow, or a sparrow in training. They may be using her to see what she can do.”

“Your cover is blown,” Rositske repeated.

“I don’t think so. Something doesn’t make sense.”

“What, then? Coincidence?”

“Maybe.”

“A coincidence?” Ronnie didn’t try to hide her skepticism. “You tried to get close to Posner, and you found yourself alone with her.”

Garin met her challenge. “If they doubted my cover, I’d have surveillance on me when I leave the embassy. I don’t. No one follows me. I’m clean when I meet GAMBIT. Something is off, but I don’t think my cover is blown. They’ve targeted me for another reason.”

“What’s next?”

“Go dark,” Mueller said.

Garin looked at the others. “Why would a temporary, non-diplomatic employee suddenly withdraw and go dark? That would attract attention. We still need a way to protect GAMBIT from Posner.”

“Do nothing,” Rositske said. “Take the risk. Business as usual.”

“She’s invited me to the Bolshoi. Do I ignore her? Call it off?” His question was met with silence. “I saved her life. Now I don’t talk to her? Let’s play this out,” Garin went on. “There is a greater risk in changing how I operate. Their people will take an interest in the hard-drinking fuck-off who has suddenly changed his spots.” Garin addressed the speakerphone. “What’s the worst thing that could happen, George?”

“They try to recruit you,” Ronnie interjected. Her remark was made in jest, but when the laughter faded, a long silence followed and the idea settled in like the missing piece of a puzzle.

The audacity of the suggestion, its symmetry, and the power of its appeal silenced them. Could it work? Let Garin be turned? A CIA asset working for the KGB, playing both sides.

“It’s ridiculous,” Garin said. He’d played that game before. He knew what to expect. “Ridiculous and dangerous.”

“That’s why it might work,” Ronnie said. “If she isn’t KGB, nothing happens. If she is, Alek’s cover improves, we feed them misinformation, and we buy time until May 28.”