Dale Brown - Puppet Master

“Can you get a picture of his face?” Jenkins asked.

“I’m trying.” Chelsea slid her fingers around the glass pad at the center of the control panel. She tapped twice, then pinched her fingers. The image changed; they were now looking from a feed focused ahead of the Hum, as if seeing through its eyes.

The figure was about fifty yards ahead of the Hum, walking quickly. Chelsea directed the drone to circle forward, banking so that it would come around from the front. But before it reached him, the suspect ducked into an alley. As Chelsea urged the drone on, he emerged on a bicycle and began riding back in the direction of the ATM.

He was fast, very fast — the little UAV couldn’t keep up. The suspect turned left at the end of the block, then rode down a long hill. He was soon out of sight.

“It’s all right,” said Jenkins finally.

“I didn’t think he’d use a bike,” admitted Chelsea. “Or be so quick. I could have directed the others to help.”

“It’s fine. Let’s go check the ATM. Robinson, you stay with the van.”

Chelsea ordered the Hum to orbit the area, watching in case the suspect came back.

“I want you to stay in the car while I check the place out,” he told her as they drove. “Just in case.”

“In case what?”

“If they’re still around.”

“The profile on these kinds of criminals is overwhelmingly nonviolent,” said Chelsea.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“I did my homework.”

“Even so.”

“I can take care of myself,” insisted Chelsea.

Jenkins laughed.

“What’s so funny?” she said, more a challenge than a question.

He glanced sideways as he drove. Her face was taut with anger far out of proportion with the situation, or so he thought.

“I didn’t mean it as an insult. I just, you know, it’s a question of common sense. Even I’m cautious.”

“I was back in the car when Johnny got hit. If I’d been with him, he wouldn’t have been.”

“I doubt that. You would have been run over, too.”

“I have to go to the bank machine,” said Chelsea. “You said that’s the way we’d work.”

“Once we check it out, fine.”

Chelsea waited anxiously while Jenkins walked around the ATM. Finally he waved her over.

She hopped out of the car, anxious to see what the suspect had planted. Her heart was pounding.

“It’s clean,” said Jenkins as she approached. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nope. Nada.”

“Damn.”

“Can you tell if the ATM was used?” he asked.

“It didn’t trip the monitoring software,” she said. “So, if it was used, there was nothing strange about it.”

“We’ll keep it under surveillance,” said Jenkins. “But it doesn’t look good.”

He sounded as if he’d just lost a million-dollar bet.

After delivering the information to the resistance messenger in Kerch, Tolevi headed back south, this time to a village in the center of the peninsula. He was visiting his mother-in-law.

It wasn’t a visit in the conventional sense — he wouldn’t see her while he was there. This was best for both; neither could stand to be in the other’s presence for very long. The old lady blamed him for her daughter’s death with a mother’s logic: if he hadn’t kept her in America, her baby would still be alive.

Forgiveness was impossible. Tolevi naturally resented this and found it impossible not to berate her for the venomous stares she threw his way when they were together.

Still, he felt the obligation, and he left pictures of her grandchild, along with several hundred dollars’ worth of Russian rubles, in an envelope just inside the door. He spent the night in the ramshackle barn behind the old woman’s tiny house and left in the morning, traveling to Yalta at first light. There he returned the old man’s car and spent the day in taverns and bars, picking up gossip; at night he rented a car and drove back to Simferopol, near the airport. He would have liked to check the northern border areas, just to get a firsthand look at what was going on there, but that would have been asking for trouble, or at least complications. He had one more job to do.

Despite the fact that he was helping the Ukrainian side, Tolevi was, in his mind at least, neutral on the matter of the civil war. He recognized the injustice of the Russian interference, despite their lies, but he also knew the rebels who had broken away had real grievances against Kiev and its government. Kiev’s corruption and greed could not be easily dismissed — even if he himself benefited from such proclivities. The irony did not make it just, especially as he himself sought no justification.

He spent the day before his evening flight wandering the city, once more listening and gathering light gossip. Immediately after the Russian invasion, a plebiscite had been held in Crimea; over ninety percent of the voters were in favor of their new “status” as a sham independent state under Russian “protection.” The results, of course, were phony, but Tolevi had no doubt the result was in line with what the majority felt, if not quite so strongly or unanimously as the announced results suggested.

Russia had a strong pull, historically, culturally. And business, always business. He himself was a businessman.

He got to the airport two hours before his flight. Security had been increased since the Syrian incident, and he stood in line to have his briefcase hand-examined. It was more thorough than the checks at American and European airports, where an X-ray sufficed; here each item was removed and inspected. But it was easier as well; if there was any trouble, Tolevi had no doubt he could buy his way out of it.

The newspapers he’d purchased just before coming to the airport were of no interest to the inspectors, and as they were the only thing in his briefcase, he was passed through without comment. On his way to the gate, he stopped for a coffee; he bought it and sat at a table, stirring it slowly, waiting for his contact and the final task of his trip. He fussed with his briefcase — he’d checked his overnight bag to his final destination in the States — making sure the lock was set properly before leaning it against his leg on the floor.

It was then that he spotted the man watching him several tables away. He was young, no more than twenty-five, wearing jeans and dress shoes. But it was the bad haircut and quick glances away that were easy tip-offs.

Tolevi played with his coffee. If one man was watching him, there were surely others — where the Americans used tech gimmicks, the Russian spy services obsessed with human resources; it was not unusual for the SVR to use upward of a hundred agents when tracking a subject of interest.

There could not be nearly that number here; the terminal halls were fairly empty, and he would surely have spotted someone earlier. But he was sure he had attracted the man’s attention.

He’s a baby, Tolevi thought, fresh out of training.

Tolevi felt a little insulted — surely he was worthy of being tracked by someone with more experience.

Even if the surveillance team amounted to only one — unlikely — it would be difficult to lose the man in the airport; it simply wasn’t that big a place, and in any event he had to eventually go to a gate. The SVR had access to the passenger lists and would know where he was headed. A last-minute change could be easily detected.

Am I being paranoid? Surely if they wanted me, they would just pick me up; they’ve done it before. I am, after all, on their payroll.

But if they were following him here — Tolevi started to have some doubts, seeing how inept the young man was with his glances — then they might be waiting for him to make his pickup. This way they would have the incriminating evidence they wanted, as well as his contact.