Objekt 825 (Tracie Tanner Thrillers Book 9) by Allan Leverone (phonics reading books .txt) 📕

in vigorous use. Additionally, there was a large, paved parking lot adjacent to the building that from a distance appeared to be in much better condition than it should.

And it was at least half filled with cars.

Tracie was certain she’d found the right place.

Undoubtedly somewhere near here was a residential complex where the Russians housed the scientists and technicians needed to keep Objekt 825 operational, and to perform the necessary maintenance and upkeep on the Soviet Navy’s submersible fleet.

Finding that residential complex, should it become necessary, would likely prove barely more challenging than locating the base itself. Unlike the closed cities Tracie had infiltrated in the past, which had featured large populations of civilians and military, the area surrounding Objekt 825 seemed mostly abandoned. The majority of the homes and other structures Tracie could see had plainly been empty for years.

The sight of the modern—by Soviet standards, anyway—administration building standing proudly among the relics of homes and businesses whose owners had been forced to leave them behind and relocate elsewhere gave Tracie an uneasy feeling. It was like seeing a cemetery filled with lonely ghosts.

She shook her head and forced herself to focus. Every moment she spent in and around Objekt 825 increased her risk of detection and capture. Were she to be apprehended here she would never see freedom again and would likely be executed.

It was time to find a suitable location from which to conduct surveillance.

16

 

June 24, 1988

1:30 p.m.

Sevastopol, Russia, USSR

 

Andrei Lukashenko was tired. He was also hungry and unhappy.

But mostly he was tired.

He was tired of ferrying this damned electronic decoder thing around. It meant nothing to him. Supposedly it was some kind of breakthrough in submarine communication technology, but that meant little to Andrei. What the hell did he know of submarines? Nothing. He’d never set foot inside one of those metal underwater death tubes, and if he had anything to say about it, he never would.

Andrei was all about the chase. He was all about identifying the weak links inside whatever foreign government or industrial facility he’d been assigned to, and then selecting a man or woman to bribe, blackmail or terrorize into providing him with the classified material it was his job to recover.

And he was exceedingly good at his job.

He was a master.

He was better than anyone the KGB had ever employed, seen or heard of. That wasn’t his opinion—actually, it is my opinion, he thought—but it wasn’t only his opinion. That assessment had come directly from his handler during a debrief a couple of years ago, and while normally Andrei Lukashenko didn’t give a damn about the opinions of his supervisor, in this case he had to admit being reassured as to his excellence was a pretty good feeling.

But what wasn’t a good feeling was what sometimes occurred once the chase was over, what was occurring right now. Standard procedure called for Andrei to bring the object of his search—the document, or piece of equipment, or whatever—straight to Lubyanka, and to surrender it to his handlers. Andrei was fine with that.

Then he would be forced to cool his heels in Moscow for anywhere from a few hours to several weeks while KGB experts examined the intel he’d recovered. During that time, he must remain available to answer any questions that might arise as to the intel’s provenance. Questions rarely arose, but that fact seemed to matter little to the KGB big shots who made decisions on these types of matters.

Eventually, Andrei would be released; sent home or, as happened most often, immediately dispatched somewhere around the globe to his next assignment.

That was how things typically worked.

But every now and then, if the scientists and investigators employed at Lubyanka felt further analysis was necessary and the experts required were unable to travel to Moscow, Andrei’s handlers would return the item to his care and order him to ferry it to the expert’s location.

That was the part Andrei hated.

It was what he was doing now.

There was no one to blackmail, no one to kill, no one to torture, virtually no risk at all. As far as Andrei was concerned, using him as a parcel delivery driver constituted a gross misuse of his unique skillset, but when he’d told his handler as much, Major Kovalev had reminded Andrei he would be utilized in whatever manner the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics felt was appropriate.

“Besides,” Kovalev had said after putting Andrei in his place, “these items are always classified and sometimes dangerous. We could not very well send them via civilian courier, now, could we?”

Andrei wanted to tell Kovalev he didn’t give a damn what the KGB did with the items following his delivery of them, but arguing would have been pointless. Besides, he had to admit there was a certain amount of logic to Kovalev’s words.

It didn’t make them any easier to accept.

To top things off, that damned fool Gorbachev had made another in what Andrei considered a continuing series of foolish, stupid and occasionally even dangerous moves. As part of his “fighting privileges” campaign—the program designed to convince Soviet commoners that the political elite would no longer enjoy luxury items—the Communist Party General Secretary had decreed that the Russian elite would no longer utilize the luxurious GAZ Chaika automobiles they’d been accustomed to driving.

Instead they would be forced to use less prestigious Volga models.

Of course, high-ranking military and KGB officers were part of that “elite.”

So now, instead of traveling from Moscow to Sevastopol inside the automotive splendor to which he’d become accustomed, Andrei was forced to endure the cramped cockpit of the Volga. The irony of this new reality was that this particular Volga model, the 24-10, was far outside the reach of Russian commoners anyway.

He shook his head and spit out an angry curse. At least