“Of course not! She got into my phone. I had been exchanging texts with him about getting something from his safe. Just some bearer bonds, but the text was there. I know she saw it, she is too careful to miss it.”
“You do know what’s locked in that safe, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. And that’s why you need to stop her. She’s your daughter . . . but she’s . . . she’s different now. More dangerous.”
Mars nodded, stood, and began walking away without another word.
Belyakov stood himself and pursued him. “You are planning something. Something I know nothing about. We’ve been comrades for forty years. Friends. I’ve always been there with you, been there for you.
“Tell me, David . . . Feo . . . What’s all this about? What’s your endgame?”
General Feodor Zakharov, aka David Mars, looked up to the gray sky, and rain washed his face. After a time he said, “You don’t understand. Nobody understands but me. There is no endgame in the Cold War. It is a permanent conflict of ideas, of soldiers, of spies. I have devoted my life, I have devoted everything I have, everything I am, to the great battle against the insipid forces of the West. They fought back, they took so damn much from me, but I will reap my vengeance soon, Vladi.”
“I don’t want anything to do with your personal war, Feo. I did not sign up to—”
“You have connections to Moscow still.”
“Of course I do. Only by the Kremlin’s good graces have I been so successful.”
“But, Vladimir, you are forgetting the most important thing about Russians living abroad.” Mars stepped close. “As long as your nuts are in Moscow, the Kremlin can squeeze whenever they want.”
Belyakov felt the menace from his old friend and colleague. “And you are the Kremlin?”
Zakharov shook his head. “No. I am just a man in the middle, passing on helpful advice to an old friend.”
“This operation you’ve cooked up on your own. I don’t believe any of it is sanctioned.”
David Mars said, “The Rodina will benefit, and they will benefit more if they don’t know what I’m doing.”
Belyakov blew out a worried sigh. “That’s a dangerous game, comrade.”
“For dangerous times, comrade.” General Feodor Zakharov walked off without another word, and this time Belyakov did not follow.
* * *
• • •
David Mars continued towards the bridge, thinking about resolve now. He was a hairsbreadth away from the culmination of his life’s work. He could not let anything interrupt it.
Not even his little girl.
He steeled himself for what he would have to do in the coming days.
His men formed around him, and together they walked back over the bridge and climbed into a waiting limousine. Once they were all inside, Mars said, “Mr. Fox. I need you to take Hines here along with a crew of two . . . no, make it three good men to the offices of Terry Cassidy. Take the Israelis. They are good. I expect they will encounter an intruder this evening. Is all that clear?”
“All but the rules of engagement when they find the intruder.”
“The intruder will be taken alive. No exceptions.” He turned to Jon Hines and pointed a finger his way. “Alive.”
Hines replied, “Right, sir. Alive. Very well.”
Fox hesitated, then added, “It would help if you could tell us something about our target.”
Mars turned to Fox. “My daughter is not dead. She went to Belyakov, and he led her to Terry Cassidy’s office. She’ll go there next, looking for answers about me.” Despite his fury and his concern, he smiled a little. “And if you don’t stop her, she’ll find the safe, and she’ll crack it like it was nothing.” He smiled even more now, and his eyes filled again with tears. “I taught her well.”
* * *
• • •
Zack Hightower had spent the first couple hours of the day tailing Maria Palumbo, a CIA officer and one of the four who was a potential source for all the recent Agency compromises.
To be precise, tailing wasn’t the correct term. He was using an old FBI tactic known as “bumpering,” an overt surveillance measure used to cause a subject to flee or make some other desperate choice that might tip off the surveillance professional that the subject being followed was indeed checking for a tail and had something to hide. Police departments all over the country did the same thing, but referred to the tactic as jamming.
It was the opposite of covert surveillance, really.