Page 57 of Denied Access

CHAPTER 29

PLAYADEPALMA, MALLORCA

PRESENTDAY

RAPPstared at Hurley.

He’d known his mentor was a crazy son of a bitch, but the story he’d just relayed took things to a whole other level. “You recruited a KGB officer at gunpoint?”

“Yep. Ran him personally too. Together we formed an espionage cell I called the Boys from Berlin. You already know some of the founding members.”

“Ohlmeyer?”

“Exactly. The man in the hatbox, Felix Bauer, was another. I know from Volkov’s reporting that Petrov used Hughes to create his own spy ring. I think some of those bastards are still active.”

Rapp considered that proposition as the ocean breeze ruffled his hair.

Counterintelligence was not his area of expertise, but he knew a thing or two about complacency and arrogance. If Hurley had penetrated the KGB and Stasi through a combination of audacity and good fieldcraft, it was the epitome of arrogance not to think that his hard-charging Soviet counterpart couldn’t have accomplished the same thing.But even if this were true, there was still an underlying issue Hurley hadn’t addressed.

“Why is Petrov is using Hughes to go after the Boys from Berlin now?” Rapp said.

“That’s the million-dollar question, kid. Petrov’s around the same age as Stansfield. He began his career during World War Two and has served his nation for the last forty years. Now that nation no longer exists. Watching the Soviet Union dissolve must have been like watching the foundation on which he’d built his life suddenly give way. Maybe now is as good a time as any to balance the checkbook, but this feels bigger than that. It’s no accident that the world’s best chess players are Russian. They play the game of espionage better than any other intelligence service. Does killing one of the Boys from Berlin and threatening another make Petrov feel good? Sure. But would he give Hughes the green light in an operational vacuum? Not a chance. There’s more here. Something we’re not seeing.”

The rumbling of a turboprop engine grabbed Rapp’s attention. He looked up to see a high-wing floatplane pass overhead. After turning into the wind, the plane touched down in a spray of seawater and then taxied up to the floating dock at the edge of the beach.

“Then we pay a visit to Hughes like Ohlmeyer wanted?”

Hurley shook his head. “Not yet. Working in Russia is hard. Working in Moscow is damn near impossible. We’ll get exactly one shot at Hughes. We need to interrogate him, not just ask a couple of scripted questions. Before either of us sit across the table from Hughes, we have to understand what Petrov’s thinking.”

“How?”

“By talking to Petrov’s former deputy.”

“Dmitri Volkov?”

Hurley smiled. “Now you’re getting it.”

“Is he stateside?”

“Nope. Like me, Volkov was convinced the CIA’s mole problemswent beyond just Hughes. After he defected, he refused to be repatriated to America for fear that the KGB would find him.”

“Was he right?”

Hurley shrugged. “He’s still alive. Either way, I want you to bring him in from the cold.”

“Alone?”

“Yep. I’ve got something else to run to ground. I’m going north and you’re heading—”

“East? To Greece?”

Hurley gave him a strange look. “Why Greece?”

“If I were Volkov, I’d want to hole up somewhere my CIA pension would go a long way, but not a country that’s overtly Western. Somewhere that has enough tourists that a person with a strange accent wouldn’t stand out, but far enough off the beaten path that my former KGB colleagues wouldn’t come snooping. Greece seemed to fit the bill.”

“Great logic. Wrong country. You’re heading southeast, not east. Tunisia.”

Rapp’s stomach sank. “Another boat ride?”