Читать книгу The Legacy of Shadows - William Speir - Страница 9

Markus Dittrich, a Knight from the Commandery in Prague, grabbed the lapels of his raincoat and held them tightly to keep out the cold rain as he made his way along the banks of the Dnieper River, which ran through the center of Smolensk, a picturesque city in western Russia.

The Order of the Saltire had no Commanderies in Russia, but members of the Intelligence Committee across Europe had a number of contacts in Russia who provided information from time to time. When Markus received an urgent message from the contact that he knew only as Sergei, he wasted no time getting to their usual meeting spot.

The sun had set an hour earlier, making the long walk through the city difficult – a necessary precaution to ensure that he wasn’t being followed. Russian security didn’t like spies, and even though the Order didn’t represent any one nation’s interests, Marcus’ meeting with Sergei could still be considered an act of espionage.

Markus passed several of the city’s landmarks, including the old city walls, the Eagles monument, which commemorated the defeat of Napoleon’s forces, and the excavations of ancient temples that had been discovered years earlier and were still being unearthed and studied.

Markus entered the Lopatinsky Gardens – called the Central Park of Culture and Rest – and walked through the puddles covering the sidewalks leading toward the Cannon Monument. The monument was an antique muzzle-loading cannon on a metal carriage sitting on top of a white stone pedestal and surrounded with a wrought-iron fence. This is where he’d meet Sergei when they needed to make certain that their conversations weren’t overheard. The lamps along the sidewalk reflected in the rain puddles, giving the gardens a beautiful glow in the darkness.

As he approached the monument, he saw Sergei step into the open from behind a nearby tree.

“Thank you for coming, my friend.” Sergei kept his hands in his pockets.

“You said it was urgent.”

Sergei nodded and gestured with his chin for the two men to walk around to the other side of the monument. “It is. We’ve had a breach.”

Markus didn’t look at the Russian. “What kind of breach?”

“Someone stole the activation codes for our sleeper agents in North America.”

Markus’ foot caught on a cracked part of the sidewalk, and he stumbled slightly. “So your country still uses sleeper agents? Why?”

Sergei coughed. “Really? That’s what you want to ask me right now? It doesn’t matter whether we still use them or not. The problem is that someone stole the activation codes for our agents. Why would they do that unless they planned to use them for some reason?”

“And it’s only the activation codes for the agents in North America?” Markus asked. “What about the activation codes for your agents in other countries?”

“What agents in other countries?” Sergei asked blandly.

Markus looked sharply at Sergei. “And you’re certain that this was a real breach and not an attempt by your country’s security bureaus to initiate something without it looking like they’re behind it?”

“I forgot what a suspicious nature you have,” Sergei commented.

“Just answer the question, please.”

“I’m reasonably certain,” Sergei assured him.

“Can you notify your agents not to follow any attempts to activate them?”

Sergei stopped walking, as if to admire the monument. “I wish we could. Whoever stole the codes also deleted them from our systems. That’s how we discovered the breach. We no longer know who the agents are, where they’re located, or how to reach them.”

“Aren’t there backups of that information?” Markus was shocked that Russia’s cyber protection procedures could be so lax.

“The backups were also deleted. Whoever stole the codes knew our cyber procedures inside and out. The thief used a portable EMP device to wipe out our servers and drives, and when we restored the system from the backups, we discovered that every file related to our active North American sleepers was missing.”

Markus nodded. Electromagnetic Pulse, or EMP, devices could destroy electronic equipment in a matter of seconds and leave no trace of what data had been stolen or compromised. “This took a lot of planning to pull off.”

“Potentially years,” Sergei acknowledged as he started walking along the sidewalk again.

“How many sleeper agents are we talking about?” Markus asked.

“I don’t have the exact number, but it’s in the hundreds. Perhaps thousands. The program has been in place for decades, but starting with the fall of the Soviet Union, the number of sleeper agents in North America increased dramatically. It was so much easier to place them, because the Americans cut funding to their counterespionage programs after the communist threat was removed. Everyone became so focused on the Middle East that no one noticed our agents calmly walking into their country and settling down – just waiting to be activated. Most activations were for specific missions, like assassinations and information gathering. But if someone were able to activate all of the agents at the same time and direct them toward a single objective, it could destabilize a country in a matter of days. And our agents would never even know that we weren’t the ones who activated them. The sleeper protocols would keep them from confirming their orders with anyone from our embassies or security bureaus. They’d just carry out their instructions as if they were acting on our orders.”

Markus was stunned at the implications of what Sergei had just told him. “Any ideas about who stole the codes or what they’re planning?”

“None. Our security bureaus are working furiously to find that out before our government is forced to notify the Americans about what has happened. As you can imagine, no one in the government wants to admit openly that the sleeper program is still active, let alone that we’ve lost all control over our agents.”

“Has there been any chatter about major shifts in foreign policy or military build ups among countries that could have commissioned the breach?”

As Sergei turned to walk back the way they had come, he slipped a small flash drive into Markus’ coat pocket. “All we have is on that drive. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”

Two policemen walked past the entrance into the gardens, but Markus and Sergei continued walking calmly toward them, making certain not to appear to be doing anything unusual.

“You’d better go, my friend,” Sergei said once the policemen had disappeared from sight. “If I hear anything more that could be helpful, I’ll let you know.”

“Be safe, Sergei,” Markus said as Sergei turned left and walked toward a different exit from the gardens.

“You, too.”

Patrick Mills, the Order’s Chief Intelligence Officer and Intelligence Analysis Committee Chairman, sat in Grand Magistry conference room at the Headquarters Commandery with members of his team, meeting with representatives from Commanderies around North America and Europe. Markus Dittrich had just finished presenting the information that he had learned from Sergei.

“Are you certain that this information is correct?” Patrick was deeply concerned about what Markus had shared.

“I’m afraid so,” Markus stated. “The intel that my contact in Russia provided points to the same conclusion: Someone is about to activate a significant number of sleeper agents in America, but who and for what purpose is still unknown. One thing seems certain, though. Russia doesn’t appear to be behind this, even though the agents are all Russian.”

“Why do you believe that?” Patrick asked.

“Because the Russian government appears to be doing all they can to keep anyone from finding out about the breach. I doubt anyone in the U.S. intelligence community knows about it yet. The only reason the Order knows is because my contact felt he needed to tell someone, and I’m the only person he trusts.”

Patrick shook his head in disbelief. Sleeper agents were foreign operatives sent to another country, where they waited for years – even decades – before being activated for their mission. Sleepers were embedded so deeply into their local communities that no one would ever suspect them of being foreign operatives ordered to act only when the prearranged signal was given.

Most sleeper missions involved acts of espionage or assassination, but they had rarely been used to destabilize a country while whoever activated the sleeper agents capitalized on the resulting confusion with political or military moves of its own. And Patrick had never heard of one country activating the sleeper agents of another country. The implications were terrifying.

“And your contact in Russia has no idea what the target or targets will be?”

“No, sir,” Markus replied.

“How do you want to proceed?” the representative from Chicago asked.

“We need to identify who is going to activate the sleepers and why, and we need to identify who the sleepers are and what their targets are,” Patrick replied. “In the meantime, I’ll alert the Grand Magistry and our contacts in the U.S. intelligence community. The more people working on this, the better.”

Later that afternoon, Patrick met with Alasdair Stirling, the new Grand Master of the Order who replaced Jamie’s father, Thomas “Tom” Campbell Anderson, when Tom retired from the position a year earlier.

Alasdair finished reading Patrick’s report and looked up at him from across the desk in the Grand Master’s office. “How many sleepers do you think are about to be activated?”

“No way of knowing, your Excellency. It could be more than a thousand. The FBI estimates that there are several thousand operatives in the United States from dozens of countries around the world. Some operatives are active, and some are sleepers. The biggest problem is that we don’t even know which country is about to activate Russia’s sleepers.”

“And we’re sure that it’s not Russia?”

“Our man in Prague seems convinced that it’s not. At least his contact in Russia was adamant that the Russian government is not behind this, although it could be someone else in Russia who is.”

“I imagine the list of other countries that want to attack us this way is fairly long.” Alasdair commented.

“Undoubtedly,” Patrick agreed. “Any country that doesn’t like us or sees us as a threat to their ambitions could want to make use of so many agents already here and waiting to strike.”

“Have you alerted our contacts in the intelligence community?”

Patrick nodded. “I alerted our contacts in the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, and the military less than an hour ago. I’ll coordinate our efforts with them, and we promised to keep each other informed.”

Alasdair nodded. “The Order is spread thin, working on the human trafficking initiative. Do we have enough resources to take on this kind of intelligence work?”

“We have to,” Patrick replied. “So we’ll find the resources somehow. The risk to the country is too great to give this anything less than our full attention.”

Alasdair nodded. “The members of the Grand Magistry should be here in the next twenty minutes. I’ll need you to provide them with this information and let them know how you’re planning to proceed.”

“Yes, your Excellency.”

In addition to the members of the Grand Magistry, several other members of the Order were present in the Grand Magistry conference room. Tom Anderson, Emily McCafferty Anderson, and Ralph Gardner, though retired from their previous roles in the Order, were still special advisors to the Grand Master and attended most meetings of the Grand Magistry. There were also three other individuals present at the meeting: Paul Sellers, the new Chief Intervention Officer and Intervention Analysis Committee Chairman, who took over the position from Maxwell Preston when Max became the Lt. Grand Master; Monroe Patterson, the Chief Training Officer and Training Committee Chairman; and Terri Ogilvy, the Chief Surveillance Training Officer.

Patrick presented his findings about the sleeper agents to the members assembled in the conference room. He also relayed the results of his conversations with his contacts in the intelligence community and his plans for identifying the sleepers, their targets, the people trying to activate them, and their motives.

After the meeting, Alasdair met with Max, Tom, Emily, Ralph, Paul, Monroe, and Terri in the Grand Master’s office.

“Things seem so calm in the world,” Max noted. “If tensions with another country were escalating right now, I could see them activating sleepers to create a disruption, but there are no major conflicts going on. It makes me even more worried about what someone is up to. If they’re going to follow up on whatever the sleepers are going to do with a military strike somewhere, wouldn’t we see some kind of escalation?”

“You’d think so,” Patrick agreed, “but so far we haven’t identified any nation making preparations like that. It doesn’t mean that they’re not making preparations; it just means that we haven’t spotted it yet.”

“What do you want us to do?” Terri asked.

“Dust off our surveillance training programs and adapt them specifically to counter-terrorism and counter-espionage activities,” Alasdair replied. “It might be a good idea to have updated training ready quickly for the Commanderies involved in this initiative.”

“Yes, your Excellency,” Terri responded.

“As for the rest of you, if you have any ideas that could help Patrick figure out who’s behind the sleepers, pass that directly to him. There’s no reason for it to go through me first.”

“Yes, your Excellency.”

Tom and Emily drove home from the Commandery in silence. Finally, Emily spoke up.

“Are you all right”

Tom smiled. “Of course. Why do you ask?”

“Well, this is the first major initiative that the Order has undertaken without you being in charge,” Emily replied. “How does it feel to be sitting on the sidelines while Alasdair handles everything?”

“A little strange,” Tom admitted. “But I stepped down because Alasdair was ready to be Grand Master, and he seems to have the situation under control.”

Emily nodded. “I guess it’s a little like how we felt when Jamie moved out and stood on her own two feet without us there to catch her if she fell.”

“Similar,” Tom agreed, “but about ten thousand times more intense. After all, the Order is a global force for good. Jamie is just our daughter.”

“Our awesome, talented, fierce, kick-ass daughter,” Emily corrected him.

“You forgot engaged daughter.”

“I didn’t forget. It’s just taking some getting used to.”

Tom chuckled. “I know exactly how you feel.”

The Counter-Terrorism Command Center in Washington, D.C. was filled to capacity that night. Representatives from the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security, as well as all branches of the United States military were present in the council chamber to review the intel regarding Russia’s sleeper agents. The intelligence community liaisons with the Order were careful to make it look like the intel came through normal channels so the Order wouldn’t be exposed.

“And these are Russian sleeper agents, right?” the U.S. Counter-Terrorism Committee Chairman asked after the intel was presented.

“Yes, sir,” responded the presenter, who was also one of the Order’s intelligence community liaisons.

“But we don’t think the Russians are behind this?”

“Too soon to tell. The Russians appear to be in a panic over this, and they’re doing everything they can to keep anyone from discovering the breach. Our assets in Russia don’t believe that anyone inside the Russian government is responsible, although they do concede that someone else inside Russia may be responsible. They just don’t know.”

The Chairman nodded and flipped through the report again. “So it could be the Russians pretending that it’s not really them to keep us from blaming them; or it could be someone trying to trick us into taking action against Russia; or it could be someone who just wants access to the agents that are already in our country to keep from having to infiltrate our borders with their own agents; or it could be a combination of these scenarios. Is that about right?”

“It appears so.”

“We need to deploy all domestic counter-terrorism units immediately,” the Director of the FBI interjected. “We can’t wait until after the sleepers are activated to start looking for them.”

“I agree,” the CIA Director echoed. “All units need to be put on high alert now so they’ll be ready at a moment’s notice once we have something actionable.”

“Many of the units are filled with inexperienced operatives,” the general in command of the army’s counter-terrorism units stated. “We haven’t had to deploy them in a long time, and their training is out of date. All of our counter-terrorism units need refresher courses in advanced surveillance and target acquisition.”

“And we need that training as quickly as possible,” the Director of Homeland Security added.

The Chairman stood. “I’ll start working on getting the training we need. You start working every intelligence angle you can to identify who these sleepers are, what their mission is, and who is trying to activate them. If we can’t identify that, no amount of training in the world will help us stop whatever is about to happen.”