Paul Vidich - The Mercenary

“I don’t need to spend it. Understand?”

“So why two hundred thousand?”

Garin recognized in GAMBIT a man who engaged with other men on the principle of advance and retreat. When challenged, he stepped back from an outrageous request, and when he felt weakness, he pushed forward. He was the type who didn’t respect weakness in other men, and he reserved his esteem for men who challenged him.

“To judge how serious you are,” GAMBIT said. “To see how much I’m worth to you.”

“I’ll recommend it. The rest will go into a Swiss bank account in your name. It’s yours when the job is done.”

“So, you’re just the errand boy. The CIA,” GAMBIT scoffed. “A bureaucracy of permissions.” He stared. “I am not putting my family’s safety in the hands of a Washington deskman who folds up work early and goes to a hotel to fuck his girlfriend. Do you understand?”

“You’ll have the money.”

“Good.” GAMBIT tossed back his drink. “Let’s start.”

“What’s your name?”

GAMBIT hesitated, and then smiled. “The point of no return.” He took a red leather wallet from his jacket and removed an official identity document issued by the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti. Garin compared the embossed photograph to the man sitting opposite—Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Semyonovich Petrov, forty-eight years old. He committed the identity number and birthplace to memory and handed it back. He knew he was looking at an authentic document: worn paper, crisp embossing, good ink.

“ Khorosho .” Okay. Garin had what he’d come for. If GAMBIT got cold feet, his name could be used against him: blackmail, threat of exposure, the point of no return.

“What’s your position?”

“Deputy head, Third Department, Fifth Chief Directorate.”

Garin went down the list of questions he’d been given and recorded answers in his spiral notebook. It was a standard list of questions—overseas postings, positions held, personal background, names of colleagues. Standard material to confirm Petrov’s bona fides.

“Where do you work?”

“Seventh floor, KGB Headquarters. Dzerzhinsky Square.”

“Lubyanka?”

“Have you been there?”

“No.” A lie.

“It has the best view in Moscow,” he said, and laughed. “From the basement, you can see all the way to Siberia.”

Garin saw he was more comfortable now, opening up with an old joke.

“I work on the DOM1 side, on the seventh floor, which is inconvenient, because the passage to DOM2, the place where I copy documents, is on the fifth floor. It is a marvel of Soviet misplanning. DOM1 is from before the Revolution and the other was built by Stalin, but they don’t quite line up.” Petrov’s hands widened a short distance. “I have to walk down the stairs, then across, and then back up, and in the whole process I am carrying secret papers. So, you can imagine what people ask. ‘Viktor, what are you doing, walking up and down?’ I have to be clever with my answers. The stress is not good for my heart.” Petrov took a deep breath and lightly patted his chest.

“By the way, for our next meeting I want you to bring ginseng root. It’s good for stress, my wife says. Moscow shops don’t carry it. Can you have it shipped in via diplomatic pouch?”

“Of course.” Garin watched Petrov finish his second glass of vodka. Drinking and stress , he thought. A bad combination.

“What do you call me?” Petrov asked. “We give every asset a cryptonym. You must do it, too. What’s mine?” When he saw Garin pause, he added, “Look, I’m not just being nosy. From time to time, I see the encrypted cables that we intercept. If a cable with my cryptonym comes across my desk, I need to know if I’m in it. What if the KGB commentary on the cable is ‘We’re close to uncovering this sonofabitch’? You should want me to know to protect myself.”

“GAMBIT.” Garin spelled it. “A chess term, but it has no meaning here.” Codenames were taken from a sterile list of random words that had no rhyme or reason, and no connection to an operation.

Petrov presented a hand-drawn sketch to Garin. “This is the lobby of the building where I will drop exposed film. There is a radiator. I will leave an envelope between the radiator and the wall.”

Garin demonstrated the camera he’d brought. It was the Agency’s most sophisticated miniature camera, one-sixth the size of a Minox and small enough to be concealed in a Montblanc pen. He had brought two—one as a backup. The film, lens, and shutter were housed in an aluminum casing and the eight miniature ground-glass lenses were stacked vertically to enable high-resolution photographs of technical drawings in low light. Garin showed Petrov how to place the end of the pen thirty centimeters over the document and click once.

“With this, you won’t need to use the copier.”

Petrov wagged his finger. “Don’t tell me how to work. You think I can walk out with the originals.” His brow creased, and his eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me things you know nothing about, and I won’t reject your suggestions. Those are my ground rules. If you agree, we’ll make progress. And by the way, I need more film.” He held up the dozen tiny canisters. “There are hundreds of documents, the entire cache of Soviet weapons in development. I will copy as much as I can by May 28.”

It was the first time Garin had heard the date.

“It’s Border Guard Day,” Petrov explained. “Many guards take the day off, and those who are on duty drink. It is the best day to cross the border. I will have most of the film on me. It will be me, my wife, and our five-year-old son.”

Garin looked hard at Petrov. “You’re crazy. You will be hard enough to get out. A five-year-old? We’ll send for them.”

Petrov stood. “Fuck off. Those are my terms. My family comes with me, or you can walk out the door.”

Garin stretched out his long legs and gazed up at the big man with his weak heart. He respected Petrov’s concern for his family, but emotional attachments, he had learned, were the jeopardy that compromised an operation. Still, the purpose of this meeting was simple—get to a second meeting.

“Which border?” Garin asked.

Petrov sat down. “Two choices. Uzhgorod is on the Czech border. A lot of smugglers cross there, but it’s a long train ride. Raja-Jooseppi on the Finnish border is two hours closer and the terrain is remote. They might expect that, but sometimes it’s better to do what they expect.”

Petrov looked around the room. The glow of burning coals had dimmed during the meeting as the coals became dark embers. “This is a good place to meet,” Petrov said. “There are no safe houses in Moscow. People listen. Neighbors talk. This will do. The lunkheads you saw won’t suspect anything, and if you do your part, they won’t see you. They’ll think I’m having a good time with my girlfriend. I know their gripes. They hate the Party.”

Petrov drew a sharp breath, and his eyes settled warily on Garin. “It was Talinov at Red Square. I recognized him. I don’t believe in coincidence. How many people will know my name?”

“Me. Two, maybe three, in Langley.”

“Moscow Station?”

“One.”

“One too many.” Petrov wrapped the leftover meats for the guards. “One more thing,” he said. “I need medicine for my son. It is not possible to get the medicine in Moscow.” Petrov wrote the name of the medicine on a piece of paper, which he handed to Garin. “I need this for his seizures.”

Petrov looked around the room. “Yes, this shit hole will do for now. You pass for a Russian. You speak Russian. I’ve met Americans who don’t understand how much they stand out.”