The Kremlyov Infection Read online

  THE KREMLYOV INFECTION

  ALLAN LEVERONE

  Copyright ©2016 by Allan Leverone

  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is unintended and entirely coincidental.

  Special thanks to:

  Elderlemon design and Kealan Patrick Burke for the outstanding cover art and to Jane Dixon-Smith for the formatting and design of The Kremlyov Infection print edition.

  PART ONE

  SPRING 1984

  1

  March 17, 1984

  8:35 p.m.

  Washington, D.C.

  David Goodell felt fuzzy and disoriented. It wasn’t surprising, given the fact he’d been drinking nonstop since the start of happy hour, which was—he glanced at his watch, struggling to focus on the tiny dial—more than three hours ago.

  He didn’t mind the disorientation.

  Didn’t mind the fuzziness.

  He welcomed them with open arms, in fact. His life had been sliding steadily downhill for nearly a year now and the only respite from near-constant pain and misery had been the anesthetic effects of whiskey and water.

  Or rum and coke.

  Or vodka and…well, just about anything.

  David had long believed there was nothing quite so depressing as unfulfilled potential, and now that he’d had the opportunity to experience the concept firsthand, he realized how right he had been.

  After receiving his graduate degree in Russian History from Georgetown University, David had hired on with the CIA as an analyst specializing in Eurasian Operations.

  Translation: David’s job description consisted exclusively of analyzing data regarding the activities of the Soviet Union: military buildups, troop movements, intelligence capabilities. Anything provided to Langley by the CIA’s team of covert operatives working in the region, or from wiretaps or satellite surveillance.

  David was an agency star almost immediately. He was perfectly suited for his job, possessing an innate ability to sift through the reams of intelligence funneling into Langley daily and determine which items merited immediate routing to his superiors for more thorough analysis, and which were destined to gather dust in a filing cabinet.

  Promotions followed, a succession of them in a short period of time. Before David had celebrated his fortieth birthday he found himself occupying a corner office in the massive CIA complex. “Assistant Director for Eurasian Operations” was his official title. David Goodell had become one of the youngest AD’s in CIA history.

  Even now, more than fifteen years after his hiring, the responsibility of the Eurasian Operations division was the same as it always had been: monitoring the USSR’s activities. This made David Goodell’s job was one of the most critical—and pressure-filled—positions in the entire agency.

  He’d faced stiff competition for the promotion, mostly from intelligence professionals older and far more experienced than he. But David had benefitted from the full and unreserved support of legendary CIA Director Aaron Stallings. That support had made the difference. Now David Goodell oversaw a staff of dozens, working in a wing of CIA headquarters devoted solely to his division.

  The size of his paycheck placed him in the top one-half of one percent of federal employees.

  He reported directly to Director Stallings himself.

  He had the world by the balls.

  Then it all started to fall apart.

  The first fissure in David’s previously uninterrupted run of personal and professional success came in his marriage. His wife Dana began spending more and more time among the well-to-do denizens of D.C., and correspondingly more money on the glamorous trappings of life among the social climbers who tended to congregate around a Washington bigwig like David.

  Parties, plays, charity auctions, it seemed Dana had an event to attend nearly every night. With the events came expensive gowns and even more expensive jewelry. David was expected to attend as well, when all he wanted was to sink into his couch with a drink.

  The problem was twofold. David had no interest in living a life among the Washington elite, but worse, even a man earning a salary that placed him near the very top of the government’s pay scale could not hope to match the truly wealthy, dollar for dollar.

  Both concerns seemed lost on Dana.

  As debt began to pile up, so did the arguments, and before long David and Dana found themselves sleeping in separate bedrooms. They maintained the fiction of a happy marriage in public, at state dinners and other obligations, but away from the bright lights and society gatherings they rarely spoke, other than to bicker and fight.

  Adding to the mounting financial pressures were college bills. Both their children attended Georgetown, one moving on to medical school and the other to dental school.

  The education loans began coming due just about the time David moved out of the house, and he had absolutely no idea how the hell he was going to pay them.

  Unfulfilled potential.

  David Goodell was truly mystified at how his life had gone so completely off the rails, and how it had happened so quickly.

  He sipped his drink and checked his watch again.

  Nearly nine o’clock.

  He smiled. As badly as things had gone over the past year, there was one bright spot.

  Well, two if you counted the liquor.

  Lisa Porter would soon be joining him for drinks and, with any luck, some bedroom gymnastics immediately afterward.

  Lisa was younger than David by a lot. He’d never asked her age because he didn’t really want to know. He doubted she was much older than his kids. A little voice occasionally whispered in his ear that she might even be younger, and that voice always made him feel guilty and ashamed of himself.

  But not ashamed enough to break off their relationship. How could he consider ending it when she was the only thing keeping him sane?

  Lisa was beautiful, with a tight body of which any Hollywood actress would be proud.

  More importantly—or at least of equal importance to David—was the fact that she actually listened to him. When he unburdened himself about Dana, about her extravagances that were slowly bankrupting him, about the mountain of education loans hanging over his head, about how he feared his life and career had peaked before his fortieth birthday and then begun sliding inexorably backward, she actually listened.

  Without rolling her eyes.

  Without telling him he was being silly, or selfish, or dramatic.

  If he was being truly honest with himself—and he could never bring himself to be honest with himself unless he was drunk, like now—he had to admit that were it not for Lisa Porter he might have considered ending it all by now.

  “Suicide is painless,” the theme song from M*A*S*H went. It was one of David’s favorite shows, and while he didn’t know whether the painless part was true, if nothing else suicide was permanent, and that was starting to look pretty appealing from his perspective.

  A hand placed lightly on the back of his neck told him Lisa had arrived. Her touch was cool and brief, but it never failed to light in David a fire he hadn’t felt since the very early days of his relationship with Dana.

  He smiled and lowered his drink to the little round lounge table. He thought he was being careful, moving smoothly, but the glass thunked loudly and precious whiskey slopped over the top, running down the side and forming a small pool on the scarred wood.

  Normally David would have been pissed at wasting even a drop, but not now. Not with Lisa here. Suddenly he didn’t care much about his drink.

  He rose to his feet, wobbling like one of his legs had grown longer than the other while he was sitting.

  She laughed, the sound girlish and sweet. It never failed to turn him on.

  “Sit down before you fall down, baby,” she said. She wrapped an arm protectively around his waist and eased him back onto his chair, then crossed to the other side of the table and slipped into the seat.

  “So,” she said with a bright smile. “What are we drinking tonight?”

  “Jameson’s.” Thanks to his three-hour head start, it came out more like “Shameson’s,” which struck him as appropriate. Also far more amusing than it probably should have.

  “Really,” she said, her megawatt smile clicking up another notch. “You only drink Jameson’s when you want to be an extra bad boy.”

  Was that true? David had never thought about it before. But looking at the vision of loveliness and barely-contained sex appeal sitting across the table, he decided her observation was a good one. He really did want to be bad tonight.

  And he wanted to be bad with her.

  He raised his hand to get the attention of the overworked cocktail waitress. He needed to order Lisa a drink.

  Hopefully only one drink.

  And then they could stagger down the street—well, he could stagger while she walked—to his apartment and get bad.

  2

  March 17, 1984

  8:50 p.m.
br />   Washington, D.C.

  Tonight would be the night.

  Lisa Porter—whose real name was not Lisa Porter, although she had not used her real name since she was a very little girl—had worked hard to get to this point. She’d been given David Goodell’s name by her handler more than six months ago and instructed to proceed slowly, with extreme caution. To avoid spooking the man at all costs.

  Goodell was near the top of the CIA’s management roster. If successful in turning him, Lisa would ensure KGB access to one of the highest-ranking American officials they had managed in years. Decades, perhaps.

  And she liked her chances. Goodell had recently been exhibiting many of the classic signs the KGB looked for when identifying potential CIA moles: extreme financial difficulties, marital problems, and alcohol or drug abuse.

  To prepare for her assignment, Lisa studied up on David Goodell, learning all she could about the CIA bigshot before ever approaching him: where he had grown up, where he had gone to school, when he’d gotten married, the names and ages of his children as well as where they went to school. She learned how many credit cards Goodell had (a lot). She learned how many cards his wife had maxed out (also a lot).

  She practiced patience, maintaining as close to constant surveillance on the target as it was possible for one woman—one stunningly beautiful woman—to manage without being noticed, either by the subject himself or by his coworkers or family members.

  It wasn’t easy. It was lonely work, and dangerous, operating with minimal backup in the very society she had sworn an oath to overthrow. She’d moved to the United States as a very young child and the American version of society was all she knew. She never doubted the superiority of the Soviet system to the American one, but having grown up among the American people made her realize most of them were every bit as good and decent as the ones in the country of her heritage.

  But that realization changed nothing. She had been well trained and was dedicated to her cause. She would follow her instructions to the letter, or die trying.

  So she watched and waited, allowing Goodell to slip ever farther down the rabbit hole and into a hell of his own making. When she had finally determined the time was right—six weeks ago—she struck up a conversation with him at a bar very much like this one.

  He’d been nearly as drunk that night as he was tonight, the desperation and hopelessness as plain to see as if he’d shouted it to the world. Even drunk he’d been clearly surprised that a girl as beautiful and young as Lisa would give him a second look, much less chat him up and drink with him and smile at him and talk quietly at a corner table until last call.

  They made plans to meet again the next night, and the night after that, and by the fourth night, she’d allowed the man to bring her home and take her to bed. He thought it was all his idea of course, all his doing, and she was perfectly happy with allowing him to think that.

  It was exactly what she wanted him to think.

  Because if it were his idea, there would be no cause for suspicion on his part.

  The affair was a torrid one, and soon they were spending nearly every free moment together, often drinking, more often making love. He spilled his guts to her on a regular basis about his estranged wife and his financial difficulties, but never did he mention his job and she didn’t ask.

  For awhile.

  Eventually it would have been more suspicious to continue avoiding the subject than to inquire how Mr. David Goodell earned a paycheck, so she did.

  “Bloodless bureaucrat,” he had answered. “I’m nothing but a nameless, faceless entity, an anonymous cog in the cumbersome machine that is the United States government.”

  Even drunk, he never said a word about the Central Intelligence Agency.

  And that was fine, too. Lisa continued to cultivate the relationship, using sex and a sympathetic manner to convince this poor, lost man that someone in the world gave a damn about him, that at least one person would listen to him, and sympathize, and allow him to cry on her shoulder and then screw her silly.

  All of it had led to tonight.

  She could not have helped but notice the fact that even when he was drinking, he was very careful not to misplace his briefcase, nor to leave it unattended in public, nor to toss it casually onto his living room couch even when his apartment was locked up tight. No matter how drunk he might be, or how depressed, or even how amorous, he was always careful to stow the case in his hallway closet.

  He was more likely to forget his name than to misplace or mishandle his briefcase.

  But one thing Lisa had noticed he was not careful to do was spin the tiny wheels that served as a mechanism to activate the briefcase’s pair of brass locks when he was at home. He’d rummaged through the case on three different occasions in front of her, and not once had he spun the little brass wheels when he was finished.

  The briefcase had been the prime focus of Lisa’s interest almost from the moment she “met” David Goodell. Thus, it had been critical he not become aware of her interest in it.

  She was careful never to mention it or ask questions about it.

  She pretended not even to notice it.

  All of that would end tonight.

  Tonight she would search it.

  * * *

  March 17, 1984

  9:20 p.m.

  Washington, D.C.

  “Nightcap, baby?” They hadn’t been inside David’s apartment more than three minutes and already Lisa had stripped down to her bra and panties.

  Normally she would have waited the few minutes it took her horny “boyfriend” to get around to undressing her, to let him think, as always, that he was making the first move. But now that she had decided to make a play for the briefcase it was all she could think about. She wanted to get down to business.

  Immediately, if not sooner.

  “I don’t know,” he slurred. “I’ve had a lot to drink already and I wanna be able to…perform…”

  “Please, baby?” she purred. “I’ve only had one drink and I want to have at least one more before we start. You know how alcohol makes it easier for me to get naughty.”

  A pleased smile slid across his face. She had known he wouldn’t be able to resist the offer of a drink when she phrased it in terms that were so dear to his heart.

  “Fair enough,” he said, and began to rise unsteadily from the couch.

  “No, baby, I’ll make the drinks. You just relax, it’ll only take me a minute.”

  He sighed gratefully and dropped back onto the couch. “Good. I love watching you walk around when you’re…undressed.”

  She flashed him a lascivious smile and padded to the small bar in the corner of the living room. Grabbed the whiskey bottle and a tumbler of water. Dropped ice cubes into two glasses. Poured the whiskey and then mixed in the water.

  Her back was to David and she glanced over her shoulder to see him watching intently, features slack, eyes glazed. She grinned at him while reaching into her bra and removing a tiny plastic bag filled with two even tinier white tablets.

  She dropped the tablets into the drink on the right and they began fizzing quietly. By the time she’d finished stirring both drinks the tablets had fully absorbed into the liquid.

  Lisa wasn’t into drugs—in her line of work, altered states of consciousness did not lend themselves to long careers, or long lives—but she considered Rohypnol almost magical. She’d used it before to render targets unconscious and she knew she would use it again, once David Goodell had faded into the past, nothing more than another career success.

  David’s eyes were drooping as she carried the drinks to the couch. The drug was probably unnecessary, given how much he’d had to drink. Once he passed out—and he looked like he was almost at that point now—she doubted anything short of a nuclear blast would rouse him.

  And even then, he’d be too damned hung over to worry much about what his “girlfriend” might be up to.

  She didn’t care.

  Better safe than sorry.

  * * *

  March 17, 1984

  9:50 p.m.

  Washington, D.C.

  It took maybe twenty minutes for the Rohypnol to take effect. Lisa—whose real name was Anna Tarenko—could tell immediately when it did. David went from drunk and wobbly and slack to unconscious. Out cold.