That Time in Moscow by Logan Ryles (summer reading list .TXT) 📕

to the first, detailing different types of machinery. Wolfgang couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The sixth PDF, however, was a drawing he’d have recognized anywhere.

“Is that a football stadium?” Megan asked.

Wolfgang’s blood turned cold. “It’s Soldier Field, in Chicago.”

“Oh shit . . .” Kevin said. “So, these drawings—”

“Are for a chemical weapon deployment system,” Megan finished. “Big enough to take out sixty thousand people.”

The room fell silent as they all processed what they were looking at. It took Wolfgang a minute to fully appreciate the gravity of the situation, but then his mind clicked into gear again, quickly unfolding the path of dominos that led into the future.

“The Bears are playing well this year,” he said. “Imagine a playoff game. A full stadium. Thousands of tailgaters in the parking lot.”

“But . . . why?” Lyle asked. “You can’t seriously think the Russians want to bomb a football stadium. I mean, come on!”

Wolfgang clicked out of the drawing of Soldier Field, then navigated to the next document. This one featured pencil notes in the margins—rough English translations of more Cyrillic text. Seconds after scanning the page, he looked up. “They don’t. The Russians know nothing about this.”

Everybody crowded in around the screen, leaning down to read the compact document on view. It was blurry, probably photocopied multiple times, but the pencil notes were legible, alongside photographs in the main body.

Wolfgang set the laptop on the coffee table, then drained what remained of his lukewarm coffee. “The Russian Ministry of Defense has been infected by the same anarchist organization that we encountered in Paris. We asked ourselves before—why would the Russians develop illegal chemical weapons? They’re a modern, civilized nation. The answer? They aren’t developing them. A group of radical terrorists has infected the Russian government and is operating in secret in the heart of Moscow. They’re the ones who recruited Koslov and forced him to design these weapons. The CIA has been tracking him for months, thinking the Russians are going rogue on the Chemical Weapons Convention, when in reality, the Russians don’t have a clue.”

“Or maybe they do,” Megan said. “Maybe that’s what this SVR guy—Ivan—is doing. He was in Paris, remember, sniffing out the same terrorists. Maybe he was at the club tonight because he thinks Sparrow, and now Edric, are part of the network. Maybe he’s heading up an investigation into his own government.”

Wolfgang made a noncommittal rock of his head. “Maybe, but Sparrow works for the CIA. Sparrow must have just found out about the Soldier Field attack, which is why she called the emergency meeting tonight and brought the flash drive to Edric. She’s under pressure, probably from Ivan. She thinks Ivan is part of the terrorist ring.”

“He could be,” Lyle said. “Maybe that’s why he wanted to stop Sparrow. How could we know?”

Wolfgang pictured Ivan in all his brutish glory—the look on his face when he saw Wolfgang—the delight and lust for blood. Then he remembered his conversation with Ivan back in the hotel bathroom in Paris, where they joked about beating each other to death.

Wolfgang opened his eyes and shook his head. “He’s not one of the terrorists. If he was, his men would’ve shot Sparrow and Edric, not arrested them. As prisoners, they have the potential to talk—to tell stories he wouldn’t want told if he were a terrorist. He’s true SVR, and he arrested them because he’s investigating them.”

“This is huge,” Kevin said. “We have to get this back to corporate right away. They can use the files to uncover the whole thing.”

“We can’t do that,” Wolfgang said.

“Why the hell not?”

“Because if we give them to corporate, they’ll give them to the CIA. The CIA will use them for leverage against the Russians, which will inflame tensions. That’s exactly what these anarchists want. My guess is, they planned to attack Soldier Field, then leave behind evidence that points to the Russians. For all we know, they’re the ones who clued the CIA in on the chemical weapons program in the first place so that the Soldier Field attack would eventually lead to a war between the world’s superpowers. It’s an anarchist’s dream. Meanwhile, Edric will spend days, if not weeks, in Russian custody. Remember, Ivan thinks Edric is a terrorist. What do you think he’s doing to him right now? Cuddling? Edric doesn’t have weeks, and he doesn’t have days. We have to get him out, now.”

“I follow your logic,” Megan said. “But we can’t just ignore a planned terrorist attack. We have to address that.”

“We will,” Wolfgang said. “We deal with the terrorists by giving the Russians a chance to clean up their own mess, thereby avoiding a standoff between our countries.”

“So, we trade the flash drive for Edric?” Lyle asked.

“Ivan will never bite,” Megan said. “If we show up with that flash drive, he’ll be more convinced than ever that Sparrow and Edric—and us, for that matter—are part of the organization.”

Kevin tapped his knee with one hand. “There’s got to be a way.”

Wolfgang looked up from the laptop. “There is.”

7

Wolfgang leaned over Lyle’s shoulder, watching as his fingers flashed across the keyboard. Three laptops on the table were all linked by cables, and Lyle’s attention turned from one to the next as he set up various programs, then waited for them to execute.

“What do you think?” Wolfgang asked.

Lyle shook his head, taking a sip of water before returning to the keyboard. “I don’t know.”

“Can you hack it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Isn’t there, like, a back door or something?”

Lyle stopped tapping and looked up, his dark eyes blinking behind the ever-smudged glasses. Wolfgang took the hint and backed away as Megan walked into the room.

“I’ve got the tickets, and I coordinated with our pilots. Timing is tight, but he should be in Minsk on time.”

“What about Kevin?” Wolfgang asked.

“Haven’t heard back from him. Give him another few minutes before you call.”

Wolfgang walked into the sitting room, leaning over the coffee table and the spread of maps that covered it. He picked up a pen and circled