Collateral (Tier One #6)

Kovtun Storage (Number 3)

Akademika Vorobiova Street

Odessa, Ukraine

0241 Local Time

Gavriil stood in the center of the empty storage facility—a rectangular, metal-framed building with a smooth poured-cement floor, stretching north all the way to the corner of the street. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, turning slowly as if inspecting the space carefully. The man beside him—a heavy man with a thick gut grown from a combination of wealth and an utter lack of self-discipline, and the ruddy cheeks and nose of a functional alcoholic—waited patiently, clearly resisting the urge to check his watch again.

The building was sufficient for Gavriil’s short-term needs, with the high roof and fifteen-meter-wide rolling doors on both sides that rose to the top of the frame. It would be easy enough to drive the missile transporter in and out of the building. But what was it they said about real estate? Location, location, location . . .

“What will you be using the space for, if I may ask?” the fat Ukrainian warehouse mogul asked.

“Of course you may,” Gavriil said, his Ukrainian deliberately speckled with a Western European accent. “As I said, our production line in Mykolaiv is running, but with restrictions on commercial flight operations, we are having trouble with the shipping end for our commercial tractors. We produce one of these behemoths about every fifteen days, and with all that is going on, we prefer to continue production until forced to stop. With the violence to the east and now the transportation problems—well, it is best if we build as many as possible and store them until they can be sold. At least until we know how long the Russians will continue their little temper tantrum.”

“Pfft,” the obese man said, pulling at his shirt. “Hard to blame this on the Russians, I am afraid. It’s time to make peace with our Russian brothers, and then there would be much money to be made for everyone. It’s the politicians who ruin everything for everyone.”

“Agreed,” Gavriil said, smiling at the man. “Anyway, the space is perfect for my needs. Herr Hemmler thanks you for agreeing to meet me so late. I will tell him how accommodating you were and recommend we increase our business with you.”

“Yes, please tell Mr. Hemmler we have much more space available to rent.”

Gavriil nodded. “The rate for this facility is one hundred and twenty thousand hryvnia per month, is that correct?”

“Yes, well.” The man now looked more awake and excited. “That is on a six-month lease, with a month’s deposit and the first month up front.”

“I see,” Gavriil said. “And for a shorter-term lease? Perhaps one hundred and fifty thousand per month, with one month deposit up front.”

“Two months deposit up front,” the Ukrainian countered.

Gavriil sighed with feigned aggravation. “Very well, two months deposit.”

The other man set his briefcase down and retrieved a clipboard. “Give me a moment to write some of these numbers in, and we can sign now if you like. I would like to get on the road as soon as possible. Have you brought a check with you?”

“Of course,” Gavriil said. “Will you be able to confirm funds at this hour?”

The man waved his hand and continued writing. “It is fine. We already confirmed your credentials, so if there is a problem with your check, we can sort it out easily. We know where to find you, yes?” The man gave a laugh that shook his sweaty jowls.

Gavriil nodded. “As we discussed, we prefer that our lease be completely confidential. Obviously, if there are rumors of transportation or production issues, it will impact our stock price on the Deutsche Börse.”

“Yes, yes,” the man said, again waving a chubby hand. “Everything with us is completely confidential. Here, please have a look and sign, if it is as we agreed.”

Gavriil made a show of looking over the paperwork. “What of you, my friend?” he asked. “Are you staying in country and riding this out? I heard American Marines are already here in Odessa. Odessa, for God’s sake! Leave it to the Americans to overreact and make things worse.”

“I am leaving as soon as we are done here,” the man said. “I’ll head north to Znamianka tonight for a closing I have in the morning, and then I will drive west to Moldova. I have a flight tomorrow night to Madrid, where my wife is already settled in with my children and no doubt spending my money like a mad woman.”

Gavriil looked up and smiled, then began to sign the lease, flipping through and initialing where the yellow highlight marks could be found.

“She must be worried about you.”

“No, no. She is excellent at turning a crisis into an expensive vacation. And in any case, she is terrified of all that is going on, so I let her believe that I am in Moldova already. All of my staff in Odessa have already left, so I needed to close this out myself.”

Now, a real smile curled Gavriil’s lips. “So, no one knows you are here with me? Not even your family?”

“No,” the man said, but the timbre of his voice changed, as if he had just realized he’d made a terrible mistake.

“How wonderful,” Gavriil said, this time in Russian, and the fat man’s eyes went wide.

Gavriil dropped the clipboard and smoothly drew the GSh-18 9 mm pistol from under his coat and squeezed the trigger. A single red-black hole appeared in the center of the fat man’s forehead, and for a moment he just stood there, mouth open in a curious O, hands flapping. Then he fell straight backward, the back of his head smacking the concrete floor, splattering grey matter about, eyes wide but lifeless and mouth still locked in the same silly O.

Gavriil stepped over the dead man and slipped the clipboard into the brown leather briefcase. Then he stared down at the dead body and made a tsk sound. It would be a bitch to get the rotund man’s corpse into the back of his hired SUV, but it had to be done.

He jogged over to his vehicle beside the open warehouse door and stared out at the park across the street to the north. Yes, he had found the perfect spot to store the disguised MZKT Astrolog missile transport vehicle and its payload of two Iskander short-range ballistic missiles. Thanks to the warehouse’s high ceiling and roll-up garage doors, when the time came to launch, all he would have to do is drive it across the street into the park, raise the missiles, and press the button.

At least, in theory that was the plan, but plenty could go wrong between now and then.

He started his SUV’s engine, drove through the open garage door and across the cement floor, positioning the rear bumper beside the corpse. He killed the engine, opened the tailgate, and hopped out. Looking down at the bloated body that had to weigh well over a hundred kilos, he sighed.

I should probably check in with the driver first, he decided and pulled his encrypted mobile phone from his inside jacket pocket.

He dialed a number from memory. It rang only once.

“Da?” a gruff male voice answered.

“What is your position?”

“Just outside of Sychavka,” the Russian driver answered. “I pulled off the road to wait.”

“Good,” Gavriil said, imagining a mental map of Odessa. “You’re fifty kilometers away.”

“Are you ready to receive me?” the driver said in Russian. “The disguise is good, but this is a very dangerous game. I don’t want to drive into Odessa during daylight hours. If I am stopped by Ukrainian police and they search the trailer section . . . it’s game over.”

“I know,” he said. “So, make haste. I’m waiting.”

“Da.”

The line went dead.

Gavriil looked down at the corpse again, then at his watch. He had one hour to dispose of the body before the transport arrived. After that, he’d pick up Arkady from the airport and they’d return to the warehouse together. Maybe it would be good to have the old man with him. Gavriil had never launched, let alone programmed, an Iskander SRBM before. Not having to rush the launch would be a luxury, and it would give them time to talk—really talk, not just trade riddles over an encrypted phone line.

He understood now that the old spymaster had designs on a coup. He even agreed that Petrov’s recent actions made such a radical move necessary. And yet knowing and accepting the reason didn’t change the gravity of the task at hand. What they were contemplating was treason. But if the old man believed that Petrov had taken Russia as far as he could, and that new leadership was needed to raise the country from its second-tier standing to the reemergent superpower status it deserved, then Gavriil trusted him. Arkady was a genius the likes of which he’d never encountered before, and he would follow the man to hell and back.

Even if that meant doing the unthinkable . . .