Borodin stood on his tiptoes and brought his face closer to Kurtz’s. Close enough to see the beads of perspiration pooling on his lip. “I just asked the prince if he could see the lights of Turkey. Would you care to try?”
Kurtz looked out the open door toward the plane, which remained on the runway. Finally, he returned his gaze to Borodin and discerned in his expression what had happened. “No, sir,” he replied with a violent shake of the head.
“Well, then.”
“Berlin,” said Kurtz. “H and I against the Americans.”
“H and I” stood for “harass and intimidate,” and referred to provocative, often violent, measures taken to keep the American diplomats in a state of fear and apprehension, aware at all times that Russia was not a nation to be taken lightly.
“Call her at once,” said Borodin. “Get her back to Moscow by the time we return.”
“If I may remind the general, things did not turn out as neatly as planned the last time we engaged her services.”
“Tell me, Ivan Ivanovich, did she fail to accomplish her objective?”
“No, sir. Not that. It’s just that she…”
“What?”
“She tends to get a bit too…too…”
“Too…?”
“Involved,” said Kurtz, spitting the word out as if it were a bone stuck in his gullet. “The woman doesn’t know when to stop. She’s reckless. I’m only thinking of you, General.”
“Under our current circumstances, I’d prefer to use the word ‘effective.’”
“‘Effective,’ then.”
“That’s precisely what I’m counting on.” Borodin walked to the door and cast a backward glance at the foul room. “Berlin, eh? What the hell is she doing there?”
Chapter 6
The dark figure crept closer to the mansion, crawling expertly through the undergrowth. It was nearly eleven p.m., the sky cloudless, the moon overhead. From her position in the woods bordering the home, Valentina Asanova, a fifteen-year veteran of Directorate S, Department 9 of the SVR—currently on enforced segregation—surveyed the property. Am Grossen Wannsee 42 was an old imposing mansion built on the western shores of Lake Wannsee, an inlet of the Havel River twenty-five kilometers from central Berlin. A guardhouse stood at the entry to a long curving driveway, manned twenty-four hours a day by plainclothes United States Marines. A mesh fence enclosed the grounds, topped by a double strand of razor-sharp concertina wire. At the back of the house a dock extended into the water, a handsome motorboat moored at its end. Here, too, an armed sentry stood guard, his silhouette visible as he paced back and forth. The home’s current resident was the Honorable Thomas Pickering, the United States ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, and his wife, Barbara.
Valentina edged forward until her hands touched the lawn that ran to the forest’s end and she enjoyed an unencumbered view of the home. She was thirty-eight years old, trim and athletic, clad only in tight shorts and a black tank top, a watch cap concealing her hair, and bootblack on her face. Few lights burned from the upper floors. The grounds were quiet, almost too still. At the moment, the ambassador was away, attending a ball at the Hotel Adlon at the foot of the Brandenburg Gate, celebrating the end of the G20 summit. It was the first time in twenty years Russia had not been invited to the meeting of the West’s largest economic powers.
Valentina had been sent to give voice to her government’s displeasure.
Crouching, she dashed to the fence, throwing a compact black bag over the top. Even before it landed she was loping down the slope to the lake. She waded into the water and swam out past the final fence post, her head barely above the waterline. The guard on the dock faced away from her, smoking a cigarette against regulations.
Valentina emerged from the lake, silently and with purpose, and skittered up the gentle grade to retrieve her bag. Lying flat, she pulled on black leggings and a skintight, long-sleeved tunic. On her feet, she wore crepe-soled shoes, soundless on any surface. She secured her tool belt around her waist. Two items remained in the bag: a Taser set to twenty thousand volts and a knife. Both were to be used only in emergencies.
Keeping low, she continued to the side of the house. The walls were built of rectangular stone blocks, deeply carved grooves separating them. Using her fingers, she scaled the wall to the first floor and vaulted onto a spacious balcony. She remained still long enough for her heart to slow, her eyes on the sentry, checking that he had not registered her presence.
French doors leading to the master bedroom were secured. She selected a pick and jimmied the lock. A minute later, she was standing inside the ambassador’s home.
Valentina had not come to steal. Her mission was of another nature: to harass and intimidate.
She started in the bathroom. She dumped Madam Ambassador’s perfume in the toilet and emptied her medications on the floor. She snapped a pearl hair comb in two. Finding an appropriately violent shade of lipstick, she wrote “Die Americans” on the mirror. Coarse, perhaps, but frightening enough.
She continued her work in the closet, slashing dresses with a pair of scissors and throwing them into a heap on the floor.
Returning to the bedroom, she spent fifteen minutes rearranging the furniture. She dragged a pair of Louis XV chairs from one corner of the room to another. She spilled books off their shelves onto the floor. She tore the comforter and sheets off the bed. She rehung the paintings upside down. She placed bedside water glasses in a towel, stomped on them, then spread the shards over the parquet floor.
Moving across the hall to the ambassador’s study, she caught the wash of headlights that swept across the driveway and illuminated the grand foyer. She heard a car door slam. Footsteps crunching on the gravel drive. The front door opened. Voices echoed from the grand foyer.
She froze. Her heartbeat did not accelerate. Her blood pressure did not rise. If anything, she grew calmer, oddly excited by the slip-up in her briefing. It came to her that she might have a chance to do something more than deliver a minor fright.
