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

her fists at him like some diminutive prizefighter, until he’d been forced to slap her a few times, not enough to hurt her exactly, just enough to remind her who was in charge.

Maybe she hadn’t gotten her release yet, but he had certainly gotten his, several times over, in fact. And by Andrei Lukashenko’s reckoning, that was all that really mattered.

Besides, he’d allowed her to throw her skimpy outfit back on before shoving her out the motel room door, so what did she have to complain about?

Nothing, that was what.

He rose shakily to his feet as his stomach rumbled dangerously. No more drinking for me, he thought, before laughing out loud at the absurdity of that thought. He’d been having it after a night of debauchery for nearly thirty years, and he found it as funny now as he did the first time he’d had it.

All he needed was a shower and some breakfast, and he would be good as new.

***

“Good as new” probably wasn’t entirely accurate, but the shower water was warm enough, and the breakfast was decent, and after two cups of strong black tea, Andrei decided things were a whole hell of a lot better than they’d been when he rolled out of bed.

His plan had been to spend at least two days in Sevastopol before beginning the long drive north to Moscow. Upon reflection, though, maybe hitting the road and stopping in a different seaside town a little farther up the coast might be a better idea. Although a decent-sized city, Sevastopol wasn’t so large he could be certain not to run into Marisha again, and the last thing he needed after selecting tonight’s companion was to risk running into last night’s girl and having her drive the new one away with an angry diatribe.

He paid the check and admired the ass of his server as she was walking away. Then he rose and stretched and wandered up the street to his motel. After packing, Andrei checked out at the office and tossed his bag into the back seat of the Volga.

Then he performed a ritual he’d done hundreds of times since beginning his career as a KGB operative, maybe thousands: he checked the underside of his vehicle for bugs, tracking devices, or other electronic gadgetry. It wasn’t a precaution he took every time he drove, but he’d gotten into the habit of doing so a couple of times a weeks, and over the course of his career had uncovered an unwanted passenger at least a half-dozen times.

It was a small number but, he thought, a significant one.

He bent and reached up under the vehicle, dragging his hand lightly along as he moved, concentrating on the bumpers, frame and wheel wells. It was always possible something could have been attached to a more central location, which would require him to crawl under the car to locate. But in Andrei’s experience, sticking something right up inside the wheel well was much easier and just as effective, since most people would never have occasion to look up there unless they were changing a tire.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered as he pulled what looked like a small ball that had been sliced in half out from under the car. It wasn’t a Russian expression, but he’d learned it years ago operating inside the United States and had fallen in love with it, and now he liked to use it whenever he could.

He turned the object over and over in his hands, examining it while trying to decide whether it was Soviet in origin. He didn’t think so; he’d had plenty of occasion to use similar devices, both inside and outside the USSR, and had never seen anything utilized by the KGB that looked like this.

Of course, it was always possible this was some new development, brought into use inside Russia while he’d been away, and if that were the case he could be in big trouble. Angering the KGB was never a good idea, even if you were an employee.

Especially if you were an employee.

He didn’t think that were the case, though. He’d completed each of his last six assignments flawlessly and could think of nothing he’d done during any of them that would have drawn the negative attention of his superiors.

He dropped into the driver’s seat, still studying the little device. It was clearly a radio transmitter; its antennae proved that.

Andrei sat in the motel’s parking lot for a long time, thinking.

Then he started the car and drove slowly away.

30

 

June 25, 1988

8:50 a.m.

Access road north of Objekt 825

 

Tracie removed the loose brush she’d used to conceal her Lada from view of the access road on her way into Objekt 825 yesterday morning. Then she tossed her backpack onto the front passenger seat and slid behind the wheel. She’d done a thorough job of obscuring the car, and that fact, combined with the lack of vehicular traffic in this area, had made her confident it would still be here when she needed it.

She was relieved to see that it was. If it had been found and removed during the roughly twenty-four hour period she was operating inside Objekt 825, she would have been forced to drag Commander Morozov out of his vehicle, leave him trussed up in the woods, and then try to drive the car she’d just hidden in the woods back onto the road.

It might not even have been possible, as the terrain was rough and sandy. She’d had the benefit of momentum while backing into the trees; moving forward from a standing start might have been more than the two-wheel-drive car could handle.

And even if she managed it, she would be forced to steal another car as soon as possible. Once Morozov was discovered missing, his car would become radioactive.

This side of the