C. Graham - The Solomon Effect

“But you already told them everything.”

“You don’t actually think Andrei believed me, do you?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

Jax snorted. “The first lesson you need to learn in this business is, Don’t believe anything you’re told.”

“By anyone?”

“Anyone. Including your own government.” He thought about it a minute. “Make that, especially your own government.”

“So how do we know what we’ve been told about this U-boat is true?”

“We don’t. I was told it’s true. That doesn’t mean it’s not bullshit.”

“Well, that’s comforting.” She burrowed her cold hands deeper into the pockets of her jacket. “So what’s the second lesson?”

“The second lesson? Don’t expect anyone to believe anything you tell them.”

She stared across the parking lot to where Andrei was talking to a guard. “You think that could be why he’s taking us to look at the U-boat? Because he doesn’t think you’ll believe him if he just tells you about it?”

“Partially.”

She watched the Russian step off the curb and walk briskly toward them, his leather jacket flaring open to reveal the Makarov pistol in a shoulder holster beneath it. She said, “I don’t think I’d like to cross that guy.”

“You don’t. Not if you want to live to tell about it. People who cross Andrei have a nasty habit of turning up dead.”

She was silent for a moment. “You said that to scare me.”

“Yeah. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Just remember: you’re here as the woo-woo specialist. I do the talking. Understand?”

She ducked her head and pulled an imaginary forelock. “I’ll try to remember my place, Sahib. You want I should walk three steps behind you, Sahib?”

A big silver sedan swung in close to the curb and stopped. Gone were the days of Zhigulis and Ladas; Andrei’s car was a shiny new S-Class Mercedes, with a stocky, round-faced driver who looked like he might have come out of the steppes of Asia with the Golden Horde.

Jax reached to open the door for her. “Just let me do the talking, okay?”

But she just gave him a wide smile and slid into the car.

Rodriguez stood with eyes narrowed against the strengthening rain and watched as the target from the CIA ducked into the Mercedes across the street. Beside him, Clay Dixon lowered the visor on his motorcycle helmet and started his Kawasaki 750ii.

“Salinger and I will stay behind you,” said Rodriguez. “Keep the tail loose. When we figure out what’s going on, then we can decide when and where to make the hit.”

Dixon nodded.

Rodriguez waited until the Mercedes pulled out into the light traffic, then stepped back. “Go.”

Sliding into the passenger seat of the Range Rover, he said to Salinger, “Follow Dixon. But keep your distance.”

“Who the hell is this Russkie?” said Salinger, dropping in three cars behind the Kawasaki.

“I don’t know. But whoever he is, he’s damned important. You should have seen the way everyone in the airport was scrambling to do what he told them.”

“So why’s he with our CIA guy?”

“Because life is never easy.” Rodriguez unwrapped a new piece of gum and shoved it in his mouth.

They followed Dixon out of the airport and onto the hopeless excuse for a road that passed as a highway in Kaliningrad.

“Shit,” he said as the Mercedes turned away from the city, toward the northwest. “The sonofabitch is taking them to the shipyard.”

Beside him, Salinger grunted. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll trip the booby trap on the U-boat and blow themselves to hell.”

“What part of ‘life is never easy’ did you miss?”

“You never know; we might get lucky.”

Rodriguez laughed. “We might.” He checked his watch, figured out the time difference in Washington, then put in a call to Boyd anyway.

“What is it?” said the General. His voice was low and icy, but he sounded instantly awake.

“Things are not going as well as we’d expected. The representative from Washington arrived in Kaliningrad this morning.”

“I thought someone was dealing with this guy in Berlin.”

“We haven’t been able to contact our man in Berlin to ascertain exactly what went wrong. It’s not a problem; we’ll deal with him here. There’s just one detail that requires clarification.”

“Yes?”

“The representative from Washington has joined up with another individual who flew in from Copenhagen. A woman. You didn’t tell us about her.”

“I didn’t know about her.”

“Her name is October Guinness,” said Rodriguez. The information had been easily obtained from the sulky, green-eyed woman with spiked hair and well-developed capitalistic instincts who worked behind the Scandinavian Airlines counter. In the New Russia, anything and everything was for sale.

“I’ll see what I can find out about her,” said Boyd. “Where are these individuals now?”

“They were picked up by a Russian escort. An official Russian escort. We’re following them.”

“I want this guy taken care of by nightfall. Even if you have to take out a few Russians to do it.”

“Understood,” said Rodriguez, closing his phone with a snap.

Salinger threw him a quick glance. “We really going to kill the Russians?”

“Those guys? Not if I can help it. But if we have to…” Rodriquez clipped his phone onto his belt and shrugged. “People don’t disappoint Boyd and live.”

Washington, D.C.

General Boyd pushed up from the edge of his bed at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel and went to pour himself a drink. He stood for a moment, his gaze on the dark and quiet streets of the city spread out below. Then he reached for his phone and punched in a number.

It rang four times before a colonel named Sam Lee picked it up, his voice slurred by sleep and confusion. “Hello?”

“Lee? Boyd here. I need you to do something for me.”

Jax noticed the Kawasaki behind them as they were pulling out of the airport. It might not mean anything-after all, there weren’t that many roads in Kaliningrad, and the rider wasn’t exactly being careful about keeping close to them. Then again, he could be part of Andrei’s escort. Chase riders were no longer as necessary in Russia as they had been in the wild, lawless days after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but they were still common. Jax noticed Andrei casting one or two glances behind, before looking away.

They drove through thick, desolate pine forests interspersed with flat empty fields that lay dark and sodden beneath the leaden sky. Turning sideways in the passenger seat, Andrei shook a cigarette out of his pack and said, “So where exactly did you learn your Russian, Ensign?”

Jax was aware of October casting him a questioning glance, but he only raised his eyebrows. She cleared her throat and said, “I spent a semester in Moscow, when I was nineteen.”

“A semester only? And you learned our language so well? No wonder the CIA finds you useful.”

She wisely let that slide, saying only, “I’ve never been to Kaliningrad Oblast, though.”

Andrei stuck a cigarette between his lips and fumbled in his pocket for his lighter. “Until recently, no one was allowed in Kaliningrad Oblast. It was a closed military area. Kaliningrad is the only ice-free port in Russia, you know.”

“Not to mention the fact that it’s within such easy striking distance of so many European capitals,” said Jax.

Andrei laughed, his eyes narrowing against the smoke as he drew on his cigarette. “That, too. I’m afraid the breakup of the Soviet Union has been hard on Kaliningrad Oblast. Military expenditure used to be the mainstay of the economy, but no longer. And when you add to that the fact that Poland and Lithuania have both closed their borders to us, making the Oblast an exclave…” He shrugged his shoulders again. “Many of the people here have been forced to turn to smuggling, just to survive.”