I Minus 72 (23 page)

Grant gave her his sort of smile. “I was
wondering how you recognized me. This is Sam. She’s part of this
operation and you can talk freely in front of her.”

The two women shook hands and Billie said to
Sam, “Tell me, Sam, what exactly do you do for the Colonel?”

Seeing that Billie had put Sam in a
difficult situation, Grant answered before she could say anything.
“Sam is my partner in this operation. She’s got my back and keeps
me out of trouble.”

Billie just said, “Okaaay.”

Grant glanced at Sam and saw she was no
longer smiling.

To break the tension, he decided he’d better
get right to business. As they strolled, he filled Billie in on
what he needed, not telling her anything more than he was trying to
find the identity of someone in a particular department. He then
asked her if she had any contacts who might be able to help. Billie
said she did have some current contacts at the Ministry of Defense
and she’d see if they knew anyone in logistics who had been there
long enough to help. Grant gave her his cell phone number and she
agreed to call him as soon as she got the names.

After Billie left, Sam turned to face Grant
and said, “I could have answered her, you know.” Then she chuckled
and said, “I wonder what more she would have said if she knew we
were sharing the same room?” Grant smiled, glad Sam could see some
humor in the situation.

Billie called back in less than two
hours.

“You, my friend, are in luck. We’re having
lunch today with someone who might be able to help. See you at noon
at the café next to your hotel.”

“Roger.” Grant replied.

“Looks like she found someone who might be
able to help. We’re meeting them for lunch,” Grant told Sam.

“That was quick.”

“Quick is good. We only have three weeks to
find and stop this guy.” Grant said.

Sam said, “Yeah, assuming it’s him. What if
the two things are unrelated and we’re spending all our time
looking for this Vladimir guy only to find out he’s not our man?
We’ll have wasted a lot of time on a wild goose chase.”

Grant hesitated a moment
before he answered, “That would be bad. He’s our only lead. If we
don’t get him or it turns out to be someone else, then we’ll only
have one opportunity to catch them and that’s at the inauguration.
That’s
way
too
late and would probably be disastrous. We just can’t let that
happen. It has to be Vladimir and we have to find him . . . and
that’s what we’re going to do.” He sounded confident.

Precisely at noon, Billie entered the café
with a man who looked to be in his fifties. He was fairly ordinary
looking, about 5’9” and stocky with dark hair graying at the
temples and a huge mustache. Billie came over to the table where
Grant and Sam were sitting, gave them a friendly greeting and
introduced her companion. “Vasaly has worked as a supervisor in the
Ministry of Defense logistics section for over twenty years. He
knows everyone who worked there during that time and can obtain
work history records for you to review. He will need you to brief
him on anything you know that could help point him in the right
direction. He speaks excellent English. I’ve told him you’re both
reporters, so he knows that you’re doing background research for a
story.” Billie lied so easily it was clear why she was considered
one of the best at her job.

They had a quick lunch where they talked a
little, mostly about the weather, then went outside and walked down
the street. On the street where they couldn’t be overheard, Grant
explained what he was looking for and the section where the
documents originated. He said he was working on a story about the
brave people who aided the US during the Soviet occupation of
Poland. Billie’s contact seemed to buy the story and told Grant he
knew everyone in that section and, although there had been some
turnover in the past ten years, many of the same people were still
there. Grant asked if he could provide employee records for all
that had left employment in that time and the man said he could do
that and would have them by tomorrow noon. Grant asked if he could
offer Vasaly compensation for his time, but Vasaly refused, saying
that he was happy to do anything that would show how brave his
countrymen were during the Russian occupation. They agreed upon a
time and place for the exchange and Grant and Sam walked back to
their hotel.

The next day, after meeting with Billie’s
contact and receiving the files, Grant and Sam divided up the
records to review. Even sharing the job, it still took a full day
to go through them. Discouraging to both of them, when they were
finished, they were nowhere close to identifying Vladimir. They had
earmarked fifteen people that fit Vladimir’s profile and it could
be any one of them. All fifteen were within the age range they
believed Vladimir would fit into and had worked in the section
during the time frame in which the documents were dated.

Grant took in a deep breath and let it out
slowly. “Okay, Sam, let’s divide these up and make notes. I’ll take
the ones you’ve already been through and you take the ones I’ve
reviewed. When we’re finished, we can discuss the notes and maybe
one of us will see something the other missed.”

It took four hours to go through the fifteen
records a second time. When they were finished they both had pages
of notes.

“Maybe the best way to do this is to throw
out the ones we think are least likely to be our man,” Sam
suggested.

“Good idea. Okay, who’s first?” Grant
clasped his hands behind his head and arched his back, stretching
his legs out in front of him. He was not looking forward to just
sitting around talking, but knew they had do go through the
notes.

They spent the next couple of hours
discussing the ones they thought were least likely and culled the
list down to three people, any one of whom could be Vladimir. All
three were born, grew up and were educated in Russia and were
placed in these jobs when Poland was part of the Soviet Union. Two
went back to Russia within three years of the Soviet Union collapse
and the third quit suddenly about the same time. They had
forwarding addresses in Russia for the first two, but not for the
third. However, they all had to give permanent home addresses in
Russia when they were hired, so at least they knew where the third
guy came from originally. Grant figured that was enough to start
on.

“Looks like we’ll have to try to track these
guys down to see if they’re still alive. Did we ever get visas for
Russia?”

“Yep. Have you ever been to Russia?” Sam
asked.

“Not through the front door,” he replied.
“Went in a few times through Odessa. Met up with our underground
contacts and showed them how to set up an effective network,
communication links, stuff like that.”

“Do we have any CIA or DIA people in Russia
that could help with this? Or maybe just someone at the embassy? It
seems like we’re running out of time trying to do all of this by
ourselves. We don’t have to tell them why we want to know, but if
they could just get current addresses for these three people, we
could take it from there.”

He liked the way Sam was taking the
initiative. She’s being a great help, he thought. Then he said,
“Great idea. And you’re right, we don’t need to tell them why we
need to know, just that it’s a request from DIA. Also, we can do
this on an unsecure line because we just need them to provide us
with current addresses. That saves us a trip back to Warsaw. It’s a
little late today—I’ll call ‘em tomorrow morning.” Grant paused.
“Well, it’s been a good day. Whatta you say we go find something to
eat.”

“Another great idea. I’m famished,” said
Sam, hoping dinner would include a nice bottle of wine.

Paying for dinner, which had included
several very nice local dishes and a really good bottle of wine,
Grant thought, I’m sure racking up expenses. Well, the General is
just going to have to approve my expense reports. If we’re
successful, he won’t even notice and if we’re not . . . well, if
we’re not the General will have bigger things to worry about than
my expense account.

That night, in their room, they took turns
in the bathroom changing into their pajamas. Grant watched, trying
not to stare, as Sam came out of the bathroom after changing. Her
pajamas were flowered flannel with a button up shirt that covered
everything. But somehow, on Sam, they were the sexiest PJs Grant
had ever seen. He was incredibly physically attracted to her, he
realized. Emotionally, too.

The next morning they met again with Billie
and her contact just down the street from the ministry to return
the records.

Grant said they had narrowed down their
search to three of the most interesting people and asked if there
was any additional information he could provide for those three.
Still thinking they were doing research for an article, Vasaly was
more than willing to help as much as he could.

“You know, if it would help, I could
probably make a copy of the badge photographs for those three,” he
said.

“You have photos of these people?” Grant
exclaimed.

“Yes. Everyone in the ministry has to wear a
badge when at work. The badges have access codes and photographs. I
can’t give you the badges, but I can get you copies of the
photographs. In addition to the personnel files you’ve seen, we
have a security file on everyone. In the security file is a copy of
their badge picture. The photos you get may not be the highest
quality because I’ll have to make them on an ordinary copy
machine.”

“That would be very helpful,” Grant said,
trying to keep his face neutral. “How soon could we get them?”

“I could have them by lunch time.”

“Great. I’ll buy you lunch. And thanks for
all you are doing to help us,” Grant replied.

After Billie and Vasaly had left, Grant
turned to Sam and said excitedly, “I can’t believe our luck.
Pictures. That’s so much more than I had hoped for. This is really
gonna help.”

By noon, Grant had pictures of all three
men. He couldn’t believe his luck.

I minus 23

The embassy staff in Moscow said they’d be
happy to help the Colonel locate the three men and they did not
need a formal request through DIA. Grant gave them both the
permanent home addresses for all three and the forwarding addresses
for the two he had.

Later that afternoon, the embassy called him
back to say they had been unable to locate any of the three, but a
neighbor of one of them said he thought the guy had died. For one,
however, the permanent home address given at the time he arrived in
Poland was false. There was no such street now or ever in Moscow.
Since the permanent home address was the one shown in his identity
papers when he was hired, that meant the papers were false. Turns
out, it was the same guy who had quit suddenly and left no
forwarding address. Grant was becoming convinced that this guy,
Sergey Baskov, was Vladimir. Confirming that, however, was going to
be difficult. Well, at least he knew what the guy looked like.
Well, at least he knew what he looked like several years ago.
Fortunately the department required new badge pictures every few
years and this one was taken less than a year before he quit. The
picture he had was really grainy but Grant was pretty sure he would
recognize the guy if he saw him in person. Assuming he wasn’t
disguised. It was one more piece to the puzzle. A big piece,
though.

Grant turned to Sam and said, “It looks like
we’ll have to go to Moscow to get any closer to finding this guy.
I’d better update General Wheeler and, hopefully, he’ll agree to
update the DNI. I only have my cell phone and I don’t know if the
DNI knows the protocol for unclassified conversations. He might
unintentionally say something that would alert anyone who happened
to be monitoring cell phone calls.

A minute later, Grant was on his cell phone
dialing the General’s number. It was mid-morning in Washington and
the General was at his desk in the Pentagon.

After the General answered Grant said, “Good
morning, this is Thurmond. I’m on my cell phone so this will be
brief.” Grant knew the general would pick up the unsecure cell
phone reference and not use titles or refer to the actual operation
during the conversation.

“Thurmond, how’re you doing? Where are you?
What’s going on?”

“I’m in Krakow researching the story and it
looks like I can find out more information in Moscow. So, with your
permission, I’ll be heading there tomorrow.”

“Fine. Do what you need to do in order to
get the story. Remember the deadline is closing in and you need to
wrap up over there pretty quickly.”

“I understand. I’ll call you from Moscow
with another update in a day or two.”

“Sounds good.” With that, the general hung
up.

He turned to Sam. “Pack up, Sam. We’re
leaving. I wanta be in Moscow tomorrow morning so we have to drive
back to Warsaw this afternoon and return the car to the Embassy.
Please see if you can get us into a hotel close to the Warsaw
airport and on an early morning flight out of there to Moscow.”

“Will do. I should be able to book the
flights by phone within the next few minutes. Where do we go from
there?”

“At this point, I really don’t know. I do
know, however, that we only have two or three days to spend in
Moscow. If we’re not any closer to finding Vladimir by then, we’ll
have to go back to the States.”

Sam called and quickly booked two business
class tickets on a LOT-Polish Airways non-stop flight leaving
Warsaw the next morning.

“It’s done. We stay tonight at the Hilton
airport hotel. We leave at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning and arrive
Moscow at 3:00 p.m. I just bought one-way tickets. By the way, I
also booked us a room at the Marriott Grande hotel in Moscow on
Tverskaya, wherever that is. She said it was in the middle of the
city.”