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

and now she realized that if she played her cards right—and also got lucky—she might actually manage to pull off both prongs of the mission.

She reached under the collar of her blouse and fingered Ryan Smith’s gold cross necklace. It gave her a sense of strength, and of community, like her fellow operative was with her, like she wasn’t exposed and alone, thousands of miles from anyone who could help if she got in trouble.

Lukashenko’s parking spot was located farther from the guard shack than the commander’s, two-thirds of the way along the side of the lot. Tracie reached his vehicle in less than sixty seconds. She secured the second transmitter under his right front wheel well, exactly as she had done with the base commander’s.

By now the muscles in her legs were burning from duck walking, and her injured ankle was screaming for relief. She ignored it all and moved in the same manner back to the safety of the foul-smelling dumpster.

Once behind it, she dropped into a sitting position and leaned back against the hot metal. Sweat was pouring off her and she wished she’d been able to bring a water bottle.

She gave herself two minutes to rest and used every second of the allotment. Then she rose and began moving back the way she’d come. She would return to her observation post and wait to see what happened next.

20

 

June 24, 1988

3:50 p.m.

Objekt 825

 

Andrei was still enjoying the pleasant alcohol buzz as he stepped through the front door of the administration building and strolled toward his car.

One of the major drawbacks of spending so much time working inside the United States and Great Britain was the substandard quality of the dishwater-like swill they called vodka in those countries. He still drank it, of course he did, and in copious quantities. Coming home to Russia, though, served to reawaken his taste buds.

Sharing two glasses with Commander Morozov before his impromptu facility tour had been perfect: enough to take the edge off his impatience and frustration with acting as a glorified delivery boy, but not so much that he lost his operational edge. It would take much more than two moderate-sized glasses of vodka for that to happen.

The afternoon had grown even warmer and more humid during his time inside Objekt 825, something Andrei wouldn’t have thought possible. But now that the vodka was running through his veins, he found he didn’t care. He was sweating and looking forward to a shower, but so what? With the delivery of the electronic thing in the shoebox-sized container complete, he was now officially off the clock.

It was time to relax and enjoy a little time to himself, something he hadn’t done since beginning this latest assignment.

He unlocked the car and rolled down the driver’s side window, then repeated the exercise with the three remaining windows. He’d parked beneath a shade tree, so it shouldn’t take long for the interior to cool to at least a reasonable level.

He shrugged out of his suit coat and placed it on the front passenger seat, then bent and folded it carefully to prevent wrinkles. He wished he had done so a couple of hours ago when Morozov had tossed his uniform jacket into his own car, but had at that time been so anxious to complete delivery and be on his way that he hadn’t wanted to take the thirty seconds to return to his car.

Live and learn, he thought.

He leaned against the front fender and lit a cigarette. He really needed to learn how to relax. Take time to smell the roses, as the Americans would say.

That was easier said than done, however. Working to foment treason in enemy territory, and smuggling classified material out of countries where he would be imprisoned for the rest of his life should he be caught, wasn’t the sort of career field that leant itself to smelling many roses.

Tonight, though, he was not working in enemy territory.

He was not working at all.

Tonight, he would smell a few roses.

His vision for the remainder of the day was simple. He would depart Objekt 825 moving north, in the direction from which he’d come. Sevastopol was just a few kilometers away, and as a Black Sea coastal city it was a popular tourist destination this time of year. He would drive just far enough to find a decent hotel that was located close to bars and nightclubs, and once he found one he would rent a room for a couple of days.

Then he would drink lots of quality Russian vodka. He would stroll the shops and attractions in Sevastopol. He might even spend a little time on the beach.

But most of all, he would search out a young woman with whom he could share a night or two of carnal pleasure. American women were okay; he’d spent more than one enjoyable evening in the arms of more than one Western girl. But most of them were a little more independent than Andrei preferred.

When it came to pleasuring a man, Russian women were different; at least the ones he associated with were different. He knew that with a little effort on his part, he would find the perfect girl in Sevastopol, someone to whom Andrei’s pleasure would be more important than her own.

He smiled as he tossed the remains of his cigarette to the pavement and ground it out beneath his shoe. Then he dropped heavily into the driver’s seat. The car was still hot but not unbearably so.

He started the engine and motored slowly away from Objekt 825.

21

 

June 24, 1988

5:05 p.m.

Objekt 825

 

It was hard for Tracie to sit inside her surveillance cubbyhole and watch the murderous Andrei Lukashenko, The Weasel himself, climb into his car and drive away. Eliminating the man would immediately