The Judas Project

“It sounds good when you say it, Karl. Let’s hope it works that way.”

“Have I ever let you down, Viktor? Given you reason to doubt me?”

“I have to admit that has never happened. In fact you are the only person I know who can be trusted.”

Federov nodded. “Let’s drink to that, my friend. To you and me and Black Judas.”

CHAPTER THREE

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

Aaron Kurtzman waited until his team was assembled before he laid out the information he had been gathering.

They were all there: Carmen Delahunt, a red-haired, ex-FBI agent; Huntington Wethers, a tall, pipe-smoking academic, a thoughtful black man who was a former professor of cybernetics; and Akira Tokaido, a sharp, young computer hacker who listened to hot music piped through the earbuds of his MP3 player.

Kurtzman’s cyberteam, some of the best IT specialists in the world, were the SOG’s eyes and ears. They manned the databanks and, aided by Kurtzman’s programs, had the ability to get into the databases of existing agencies, extracting what they needed to push forward their backup capabilities for Stony Man’s combat teams. Kurtzman’s cybergenius was the driving force that enabled the team to create its unique qualities and advance them day by day. He was versed in computer science to a degree that reached near perfection. If he couldn’t solve a problem with existing programs, he would write a new one to address the problem and get around it. He pushed himself and his team to the limits, constantly aware that when the SOG teams needed help, they needed it ASAP, not in a few days. His unshakable loyalty was legend, and his ability to come up with the goods on time was not open to debate.

“As we have no ongoing missions at the moment, and the teams are on R and R, I need you to look at something I’m going to transfer to each of you. Analyze the data, make up your own minds. I want to see if you get the same feeling I do. No bullshit. Honest opinions. I got the nod on this from a guy I know. He picked this up on one of his database searches and felt it worth further checking. I’ve done some, but I want to hear your views.”

Kurtzman worked his keyboard and transferred the file to each workstation. As their monitors flashed into life, the members of the team swung their chairs around and got to work. Kurtzman wheeled himself across the room to his infamous coffeepot and helped himself to a fresh brew, then returned to his own workstation and began to widen his search parameters.

When mission controller Barbara Price walked into the Computer Room several hours later, she was surprised to see the team so focused on their tasks, as the threat board was just about clear.

“What’s up, Aaron?”

Kurtzman eased his chair around. “Team collaboration,” he said. “I need confirmation on something that could be important.”

“As in Stony Man important?”

Carmen Delahunt looked around. “The way this is panning out, it could be.”

“Hal know about this?”

“Uh-uh,” Kurtzman said. “No point calling him until we’re sure.”

“Well, you’ve got me interested. Am I allowed to join the inner circle yet?”

Kurtzman’s bearded face broke into a wide smile. “If the team’s ready to give its verdict, you might as well come on board. Extra input on this is going to be welcome.”

“Carmen,” Wethers said, “tell her what we have.”

Delahunt held up the printout she was holding. “Okay, basics first. We have three dead people. All male. All in their thirties. One in Grand Rapids. The other two came from Spokane. They all died within a couple of days of each other. Coroners’ verdicts all stated the same cause of death. They were all murdered. Given a lethal injection of a poison that was difficult to pin down until requests for very thorough toxicology reports were requested. The tox reports identified the poison as an extremely potent strain that hasn’t been seen for some years.”

“It’s been used before?” Price asked.

Delahunt nodded. “It was a favored means of execution from the days of the KGB. Back in the day no one could get much information about it, but some years ago a sample was obtained and it was checked out thoroughly. So much so that we now have a complete breakdown of the substance and it can be recognized. The last known instance of it being used was three years ago in Brussels when a former KGB agent was found dead in his apartment. It was suspected he was killed because he was in the process of negotiating a book deal where he was about to expose the old KGB and name names.”

“So three men are dead and you’re saying some cold-war KGB poison was used?” Price held up her hands. “Am I missing something here?”

“Yes,” Wethers said. “Look at my notes.” He handed Price a clipboard. On a sheet of paper he had written each man’s particulars.

Price read the details. “Three ordinary American citizens killed by lethal injection? Why would anyone…wait a second. Why is the name Leon Grishnov written in brackets after Harry Jenks’s?”

“Nothing gets by Barbara Price,” Kurtzman said. “Go ahead, Hunt, you found it.”

“There was a recurring shred of evidence that came up on all three autopsy reports. Each dead man had characteristicly Slavic facial bone structure. Not second generation that might suggest the men had been born here from Russian parentage. So we dug a little deeper, went into ex-Soviet medical databases. Military as well as civilian. The next problem arose when I realized they were not as extensive as I expected. I kept coming up empty until I ran across some dental records and we got a match.”

“One lucky strike,” Tokaido said. “The X-rays taken by one of our coroners matched the Russian ones.”

“Harry Jenks is Leon Grishnov. Once we had that,” Wethers said, “I concentrated on the guy and hit lucky again. He was in the military, trained as an infiltration specialist and designated as Spetznaz. The last entry in his record has him reassigned to special duty. After that there are no more records of him. It was as if he vanished from the face of the earth.”

“We’re widening our searches,” Kurtzman said. “Might be we’ll pick something up on the other two vics. Akira spotted something and is looking into it.”

Tokaido tapped his keyboard and brought up an enlarged image. “I got this from the autopsy photographic records. From both cities where the deaths occurred. Had to do some cleaning up and sharpening.”

“Is that a tattoo?” Price asked.

“Yeah. Each guy had one on the left shoulder. It’s no larger than a quarter but very detailed. I had to focus in real close to make any sense out of it. Even when it was made clear, none of us could understand what it meant. So I sent them to one of our Russian contacts. I figured if the guys were Russian the tattoos might also have some Russian symbols.”

“That’s smart thinking.”

“Has the contact come up with anything yet?” Price asked.

Kurtzman shook his head. “Lena did report it looked vaguely familiar but she needs a little more time.” He turned his full attention on Price. “What do you think?”

“I worry when I hear KGB and Spetznaz. And especially what you found out about a Russian taking on the identity of a U.S. citizen.”

“Okay, we know the old KGB was disbanded and the FSB took its place,” Wethers said. “We also know that there are still ex-KGB around, some of them hard-liners in place in Lubyanka and who still have some influence. Right now we don’t have a line on what we might have stumbled on. My vote is we keep digging.”

“Could these men have been sleepers?” Price asked. “Put in place as part of some operation that might have been forgotten about?”

“That’s a possibility,” Kurtzman said. “Don’t dismiss the thought about a forgotten operation. Though, we know some sleepers have stayed in place for a lot of years before they got the signal to go ahead with their planned mission.”

“So why have they been killed? If the mission has been wiped, why terminate the operatives? That part doesn’t make sense to me,” Price stated.

“I have to admit I can’t figure that one myself,” Kurtzman admitted. “Unless someone has decided to clean house and remove all traces of a redundant operation.”

Price ran her gaze over Wethers’s notes again, then reached a decision. “Okay, let’s run with it, Aaron. Stay with day-to-day protocols, but see what you can figure out on these three dead people. I’ll update Hal when he gets back, and I think Mack should sit in on any meetings. We could be needing his special input.”

MACK BOLAN COMPLETED his reading of the file presented by Hal Brognola. He glanced around the War Room conference table.

“It points to something that needs checking out,” he said. “There are too many facts to be labeled coincidence.”

“It’s the way we all saw it,” Price said. “I was on board as soon as Aaron showed me the initial data he’d pulled together and got the team’s backup.”

Bolan tapped the file. “Priority is to assess what a possible operation might consist of. We have to work on the assumption that whatever was planned could still be online, just waiting for someone to issue the green light.”

“We’re digging deep trying to get a handle on it,” Kurtzman said. “One problem is, we have no idea how covert this might be. We don’t even have the luxury of a name for the damn thing.”

Akira Tokaido opened a folder. “I may have something for you on that,” he said, sliding photos of the tattoos found on the dead men.

“They tell you something?” Price asked.

Tokaido nodded. “The writing in the tattoo design turned out to be an obscure Cyrillic alphabet.” He picked up one of the remotes that controlled the wall-mounted monitors and clicked on a screen. “On the left are the original three tattoos. Worked into the entwined snakes-and-scorpions design are number and letter sequences. Two of the tattoos have the same number-letter sequence. The third is different. Two different sequences come from the dead men from Spokane. The remaining one is Grand Rapids. If you look on the right, here, I’ve laid out all three sequences, this time in English.”

They all studied the sequences. Even in English the lines didn’t make much sense.

“Computer codes?” Bolan asked.

“I don’t think so,” Kurtzman said. “Not the sort of configuration that makes any sense. We’ll run them but I can’t see them giving us much.”

“Maybe a number-letter code,” Delahunt said. “I can check them against the FBI code-breaker data, but they don’t seem to have anything I can get a hook on.”

“Lena Orlov did find something that might offer us a starting point,” Tokaido said. He highlighted a curving banner that sat over the main design. It was identical on each tattoo. “In English it means Black Judas.”

“Great work,” Brognola said. “We all understand Judas. The disciple who betrayed Jesus. Give anyone a thought?”

“Not immediately,” Delahunt admitted.

No one else had any flashes of inspiration, so they spent some time going over what they had, pushing theories back and forth.

“Did Akira’s suggestion about the three dead men being into computing go any further?” Bolan asked.

“Yes. He did find out they were all familiar with the latest technology. Systems. Security advances. They took every IT course they could log onto. These guys were heavily into it. You have an idea?”

“Pretty loose at the moment,” Bolan stated. “We have three dead men. It’s becoming more than likely they were foreign agents sent to the U.S. to assimilate into society and stay low. Each has a tattoo that appears to contain some number-letter sequence, meaning unknown at the moment. Our guys were all into finance-based employment and also heavily into computer knowledge, which in today’s climate isn’t suspect in itself, but could be.”

“Don’t forget Judas,” Tokaido prompted.

“My next piece of the puzzle. Judas walked with all the other disciples. Passed himself off as one of them, while all the time he was working against them. Just what a sleeper does. Then Judas broke his trust and betrayed those who saw him as a good guy.”

“Okay,” Price said. “The Judas analogy works fine. But where is the betrayal here? Were our sleepers here to betray someone? Set him up as an assassination target?”

“Think about that.”

“Why so many men?” Price asked. “An assassination wouldn’t need that many, would it?”

“Good point,” Bolan said. “And a hit against a current figure doesn’t gel with a sleeper put in place for a long period. People and situations change over the years. Your assassin is more likely to be inserted in the short term.”

“So no individual hit?”

Bolan shook his head. “Not someone. I’m thinking something. This looks like a complicated operation. A killing is a relatively simple matter. A target. A weapon. An operator. I believe these guys were going after something bigger, and not a bomb or a bioweapon.”

“Striker, even my head is starting to spin,” Brognola said. “Is there a payoff here?”

“Speculation at the moment. Theorizing. But I’m looking at the special interest in computers and the financial backgrounds all these guys had. And then Black Judas. I remember one of Katz’s favorite words when he was building scenarios—extrapolation, making an educated guess at a possible conclusion once facts were brought together. In this case I’m linking Black Judas to Black Monday. I think we all remember that day in ’87 when the stock market went haywire.”

“Okay,” Brognola said, pushing to his feet. He took a moment to consider what he was about to authorize. “I believe we have enough to initiate an initial probe.”

“More than enough,” Kurtzman said.

“Okay, people. I need to bring the Man up to speed. He’s going to grumble about the possible effects on U.S.-Russian relations. I’ll have to put the emphasis on possible illegal Russian presence within our borders. I guess that should convince him we have enough to look into this. Press the Go button, Barb. We need to be on the starting blocks. You ready to move out, Striker?”

Bolan picked up his copy of the file. “Give me an hour to run through this again and I’ll suit up.”

“Any thoughts where you might be heading?” Price inquired.

“Spokane first, then Grand Rapids. See if I can pick anything up from the crime scenes. Liaise with the local P.D.”

“I’ll set up flights,” Price said, “and arrange for rentals at each airport.”

“If you get to talk to the cops, check out whether they got hold of the victims’ computers,” Kurtzman said. “If they have them, I could do with downloading whatever’s stored. Might add to our information.”

“You’ll be going in under Justice Department cover,” Brognola added. “I’ll call ahead and tell them we would appreciate their help. Aaron, what do you need?”

“Internet link is all. I can go in and pull out what I need from that.”

“If they know we’re downloading data, the cops might start asking questions,” Bolan said. “Cooperation is one thing. Downloading from a victim’s computer might hit their suspicion button.”

“Tell them all you need is ten minutes to have a look at their e-mails,” Kurtzman said. “My program can worm inside and download without even showing on screen once you get me Internet access. Nothing will be deleted and they won’t know.” He grinned broadly. “Sneaky, am I not?”

“You have no competition,” Bolan said. “Okay, Hal, set it up.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Natasha Tchenko had flown from Moscow to Heathrow Airport, in the UK, where she had been met by a cousin she hadn’t seen for many years. She spent almost a week in London, and carried out the first part of her plan by tracking down one of the men she had been looking for. She had gotten his name from the hired thug who had attacked her in the basement garage under her apartment. Before she had rendered him unconscious she had extracted the name of the man who had given him instructions on how to find her. She kept that part to herself, planning to deal with Ilya Malenkov her own way. All she had told people was that she needed a long vacation to get over the sudden deaths of her family. Her main goal remained her secret. If she had even hinted at what she hoped to achieve, she would not have been able to proceed.

It was in London that the first moves in the tracking of her family’s killers started. Using the information she had gained, she located Malenkov.

ILYA MALENKOV had paused at the entrance to the house, his feelings of uncertainty rising again. He half turned to look back over his shoulder, expecting to see someone watching. Apart from a couple of pedestrians at the far end, the street was deserted. The only movements close by were leaves from the trees blowing along the sidewalk. Even though he felt a little foolish, Malenkov took his time checking out the area until he was satisfied his feelings had proved false. Only then did he push open the door and step inside. Closing the door behind him he felt the silence of the house wrap itself around him. It still amazed him that despite being in one of the busiest cities in the world, here inside this house it was so quiet, removed from the frantic pace of London.

Malenkov shrugged out of his topcoat and hung it on one of the hooks in the narrow hallway. He felt the chill in the house and realized he had forgotten again to put on the heating before he went out. He moved along the hall to the door that led into the kitchen. As he pushed it open, his world went dark and silent around him as something slammed across the back of his skull….

HIS FIRST IMPRESSION WAS of bitter cold. Not just the chill he had felt earlier, but a persuasive cold that pervaded his whole body. The air he breathed in held a dampness that went with the smell of mildew. Malenkov tried to move, then realized he was unable. His wrists and ankles were bound and when he forced open his eyes he saw he was tied to the arms and legs of a wooden chair.

He realized he was completely naked, as well, his body pale and so chilled he was shivering. Now he could feel a sickly ache across the back of his skull. The clammy feel of drying blood that had run down the back of his neck. Someone had struck him as he had entered the kitchen, then dragged him down to the cellar beneath the house. He saw bare brick walls and felt the boarded floor beneath his naked feet. A single bulb hung from an electric cord, throwing pale light on the stacked boxes and other household items that had been stored in the cellar and pushed against the damp walls.

He squinted his eyes and tried to ignore the pain in his skull as he attempted to understand what was happening. Who had done this to him?

And why?

Malenkov believed it could be down to Karl Federov. He would do anything to discredit Krushen’s authority.

Once the search for Black Judas had been activated, all interested parties would be alerted. Any information gained would be fair game for the others. But Malenkov was surprised at how easily his location had been discovered. The London safehouse had always been just that. Safe. It was a jumping-off point where agents could travel from London to distant points, away from Moscow. Despite the stepped-up security in the UK capital, it was still a freer place than back in Russia. A cosmopolitan city, where almost every nationality from around the globe moved back and forth, London was still one of the easier cities to maintain a safehouse. And they had always been so careful. The address and location had never been committed to any database. It had been rented through a number of anonymous aides, making sure none knew any of the others personally, nor had any more contact than via dead-drop mailings. Malenkov reconsidered that, admitting that nothing in reality was ever completely risk-free. Somewhere along the line, someone might have let something slip that had been picked up by a third party. Also, there was no discounting the possibility of betrayal by one of their own. Again that was something not unheard of.

In the final analysis it came down to the fact that the safehouse had been compromised. At this juncture of Malenkov’s life the who and the why didn’t really matter.

Especially in regard to himself.

What did matter was whether he was going to emerge alive from this situation.

He heard movement off to his right. As he turned his head, a dark shape loomed from the shadows. A figure stood over him, silhouetted against the light from the suspended bulb. There was a sudden blur of movement and he took a hard blow to the side of his face. The force twisted his head, blood welling from a gash in his cheek. The blow dazed him for long seconds, and Malenkov let his head fall forward. Blood dripped onto his naked chest. He picked up more movement and braced himself for more blows. Nothing happened.

“What the hell do you want from me?”

“It speaks,” a voice said from behind in Russian.

The sudden sound startled Malenkov, and what added more surprise was that it was a woman’s voice. Young, too, from the tone. He was reminded of his naked condition.

The voice’s owner moved to stand in front of him, easing aside so that the light from the bulb fell across her. She was young, he saw. Midtwenties and very attractive, though the expression on her face hardened her features. Black hair framed a strong, well-defined face. Her eyes were cold, devoid of any emotion. She wore dark, slim-fitting pants and a black turtleneck sweater. A long, dark topcoat completed her outfit. Malenkov saw the dark shape of a handgun tucked in her waist belt and recognized it as his own. She had to have found it in the drawer where he kept it upstairs. Now she took her time deliberately looking him over, her gaze lingering, a wry smile edging her lips. Malenkov felt an embarrassed flush color his face.

“Who are you? Dammit, woman, do you realize who you’re messing with?”

“No one very big,” she said. “Just a small scrap of lowlife.”

“A dangerous mistake,” Malenkov said. “I have no idea what this is all about, but you are playing games with the wrong kind of people.”

“Believe me, Malenkov, I am not playing games.”

Malenkov struggled against his bonds. His face darkened even more as he failed to loosen the ropes. Added to his frustration was the fact that the woman apparently had no immediate fear of anything he might say.

“Get me out of here, you bitch!” he yelled. “This will bring you more trouble than you can imagine. One word from me and I could have your family wiped out.”

He saw her stiffen, recognized the fierce look in her eyes as she fought back some deep emotion.

“But you already did that, Malenkov. You and your sick comrades. My family all died at your hands, you pig. It’s why you’re tied to that chair. So I can let you feel what my mother and father and my young brother felt before you vermin finally killed them all. It wasn’t all that long ago, so you must still recall the name. Tchenko. My father was Captain Pieter Tchenko. You do remember? Yes, I thought you would. So you see, your threats don’t worry me. There’s nothing left you can take away from me.” She reached inside her coat and took out a gleaming steel-bladed knife, holding it so light rippled along the smooth metal. “Today is your turn. I ask questions, you answer. Each time you lie, I use the knife.”

Malenkov realized from the start that she was not just trying to scare him. She made him aware of this by making a token cut across the soft flesh of his stomach. Deep enough to make him bleed and feel the pain. Not enough to incapacitate him. As the warm rivulets of his blood settled in his groin, Malenkov realized he needed to make a swift decision.

Refuse to answer the woman’s questions and suffer further living pain, or tell her what she wanted and accept the bullet through the back of his skull that would end his life far quicker. He was under no illusion. One way or another, he was going to die today. The only question was whether he gave up the names of his partners and sent this woman after them, or tried to protect them and suffered by the knife in her hand. It was not much of a trade-off either way.