Objekt 825 (Tracie Tanner Thrillers Book 9) by Allan Leverone (year 7 reading list txt) 📗

Tracie sat silently, thinking.

Stallings sat silently, watching her do it.

Eventually she said, “I assume you want me to track down this Weasel character and recover the communication device he liberated from Marine Technix. But if he’s stationed at the Russian Embassy, that presents a number of challenges.”

“Clearly. But he’s no longer at the embassy.”

“How do you know? Obviously he hasn’t been under direct surveillance, otherwise we could have stepped in and stopped the transfer before it happened.”

“No,” Stallings agreed. “He wasn’t under direct surveillance. Even this agency, with its budget and resources, doesn’t possess enough of those resources to follow every bad actor twenty-four hours a day.”

“That’s my point. If we don’t have eyes on him, maybe he’s still across town, right under our noses. If I work quickly enough, I can probably—”

“No,” Stallings said firmly. He was shaking his head, making the flap of skin under his chin wave back and forth. “Laska is gone. It’s how he operates, and one of the many reasons he’s so successful. The moment he gets his hands on his prize, he leaves the victimized country behind. He was probably on a plane back to Moscow, with the communications device in his possession, no more than twelve hours after taking it from Limington.

He blew out an angry breath and continued. “I had hoped I was wrong about this, that maybe another country had taken the device, or at least a different Soviet operative. In that case, there was perhaps the possibility of recovering it before it had left the states.”

He shook his head. “But no. Not if it was taken by Laska.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you spooked by a Soviet operative before,” Tracie said. “This guy is that bad?”

“He’s that good,” Stallings answered. “And I’m not spooked, I just know what we’re up against here. Andrei Lukashenko’s involvement greatly lowers the odds we’ll ever recover the device.”

“Isn’t it now a lost cause, anyway? Assuming the device is already in the Soviet Union, even if I can get there and steal it back, it will likely be too late. The Russians will reverse-engineer it, taking it apart and determining how it works. They’ll unlock its secrets and the damage will be done.”

“Not necessarily,” Stallings said.

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve spoken with FBI Director Steinman at length regarding this case, and according to Matt, the research director at Marine Technix says they were so concerned about industrial espionage, either by the Soviets or one of their competitors here in the states, that they built some red herrings into the prototype that was stolen.”

“Red herrings?”

“Yes. The device was never meant to be manufactured exactly as currently configured. Several of the electronic components are not wired as would be necessary to make the unit operational, and a key electronic chip is even missing.”

“That means…”

Stallings nodded. “That’s right. If the Russians manufacture their own version of the Extra Low Frequency undersea communication decoder using the device they’ve stolen, it will be worthless.”

“Marine Technix was that worried about the Soviets?”

Stallings chuckled. “Not exactly. They were that worried about their competitors in the United States market stealing it.”

“Jesus,” Tracie said. “And I thought international espionage was brutal.”

“Apparently it’s a jungle out there in the electronics manufacturing world, especially where defense department contracts are concerned.”

Tracie sat for a moment, thinking. “So if the device is littered with red herrings, why do we need to recover it at all? Let the Soviets copy it and waste months, maybe even years of their time.”

Stallings had begun shaking his head before she was even finished speaking. “Because the red herrings would only delay the Soviets. Eventually they would break through the technical issues and replicate the device. Our goal is to make sure that does not happen.”

“I understand. So, theoretically at least, it’s not too late to get this communication decoder back. If I can recover it before they realize it’s not ready for deployment, it would be like they never had it at all. But if this Laska guy is as good as you say, then—”

“He is,” Stallings interrupted.

“Okay. So with a seven-day head start, he will have disappeared by now. That device is probably already in an electronics lab somewhere.”

“Not necessarily. A week may be just enough time to cut him off at the pass.”

“How so?”

“Lukanshenko won’t know exactly what he has in his possession. He’s The Weasel, he’s not a scientist. That being the case, he’ll do what any good Soviet spy would do.”

“He’ll bring the device to Lubyanka.”

“Yes,” Stallings said. “Once there, KGB scientists will almost certainly examine it, at least in a cursory manner. That will probably take anywhere from twenty-four hours to a three or four days.”

“Obviously, you don’t think Lubyanka will be the final stop in its journey.”

“I don’t,” Stallings agreed.

“Then where?”

“Let me ask you a question, Tanner, given what you know about this missing piece of electronics. If you were in the KGB’s shoes, where would you send it to be studied? I’m not looking for a specific facility name, of course, just a general idea.”

She sat still, her brow furrowed, thinking hard.

Then she shrugged. “It’s a comm device, but it’s manufactured for a very specific use. Only submarines have any need for it, since its purpose is to decrypt encoded messages deep beneath the surface of the ocean, presumably up to thousands of miles from any transmitter.”

“Keep going.”

She’d been staring down at her feet, but now she lifted her head and met Stallings’ gaze. “I’d send it off to a naval base, somewhere my submarines receive their maintenance and equipment overhauls. That’s where the experts would be, so that’s where the device should go.”

A smile spread slowly across the CIA director’s jowly face. “This, Tanner, this is exactly why