"Okay," Emma continued, "we'll meet right here and break into two groups. Nikolai and Sasha will come with Bolling and me. The other car will be our security team. Our SUPO guys."
The two SUPO agents nodded. They were quiet but ready.
Bolling recounted how they would then drive three miles west and stop. "We'll have a physician waiting there to check on Nikolai and Sasha. Dehydration is our main worry. But that depends on how long they've been inside the trunk. All we know is that it will be hotter than Hades in there and suck the water right out of them."
"Then we make our way to Stockholm. The call will be placed to Washington, and Nikolai will speak with the American President. The call will be automatically routed through to our Sovbloc controller, waiting with the P5 team in River House, which will route the call to the President's secure line in Washington."
"All of which assumes the KGB broke off the chase at the water," Bolling said. "We can't promise that, but we do have the security team with us at that point. Just in case."
"We've then got a two-hour drive to Turku," Emma said.
"And Longfellow and Sue Ellen go to meet a lawyer the next day in Helsinki. After that, they return to Moscow."
"Where they'll probably be arrested," Bolling chimed in. "God forbid that, but knowing the Soviets, they will come down hard on the British Embassy for this."
69
6:40 a.m. Dobrinsky Prospekt, Moscow
Roy Longfellow's dog decided to ride along. Her name was Lucky, and her favorite pastime was riding in the car. She came inside the house just as his wife, Sue Ellen, was packing a Helsinki trip bag.
"C'mere, Lucky," Sue Ellen said. She reached down and scratched her dog in the way dogs enjoyed. Lucky's hair was long and very thick. She was a Russian dog, a Caucasian Shepherd Dog that the Russians' bred as guard dogs for their prisons and bear hunting in the Siberian wilderness. Tradition said the dog would wade into a bear twenty times its size without hesitation and kill the bear. Lucky pawed at Sue Ellen's leg. "What?" she said. "Do you suspect a car ride upcoming? Want to go?"
Lucky sat on her haunches and watched the fevered packing. Sue Ellen ignored her. Bored, Lucky walked to her water bowl, took a drink, then headed again for the backyard through her waist-high doggy door.
While they packed and moved about their flat, Sue Ellen and Roy Longfellow kept up an ongoing discussion of Linda’s legal needs and how long the trip would take and how fast they needed to get there and post the sister's bail money. The microphones in their flat reported all of it.
The British MI6 agent knew the Soviets would be using sniffing dogs, infamous German Shepherds, capable of quickly locating concealed bodies at the ferry landing. Longfellow could only hope they went past without sniffing. It was a long shot, because why else did they have the dogs? Still, there was nothing they could do to throw them off the scent.
The day was cold. Sue Ellen wore a wool skirt with a white blouse and padded jacket. She armed herself because her trust in Soviet agreements had been broken too many times during their stay in Russia. Then she went into the kitchen where she put together a picnic basket full of sandwiches and carrots to be brought out at the church parking lot in Tallinn if Nikolai wasn't there and they had no choice but to wait for him. A picnic would provide some cover. She also packed spare diapers, baby food, and a change of clothes for Angie, her daughter, and Sasha. At the last minute, she tossed in Lucky's bowl, a bag of dog food, and a couple of rawhide bones.
They put Lucky on her leash, loaded Angie and her diaper bag and spare supplies, and went to the elevator in their building. Longfellow himself punched the ground floor button.
On a different floor of the same building, Rodney Mallard and Cindy likewise made preparations for a long drive.
The Technical Services engineers had specially modified the Citroën awaiting them in the parking lot down below their building at the British Embassy. Now, its backseat was removable from the trunk, a simple modification involving the unfastening of four L-brackets designed to hold the upright portion of the seat in place.
The Mallards climbed into the Citroën and then waited until the Longfellows in their Saab pulled up alongside, waved, and then drove ahead, leading the way while the Mallards followed.
70
6:45 a.m. Kinovov City Park, Moscow
The Longfellow-Mallard vehicles were paced by two KGB vehicles, one assigned to the Longfellow Saab, one to the Mallard Citroën.
Oleg Medeved, Lieutenant, KGB, drove the KGB vehicle on Longfellow’s rear bumper. He was a stout, heavily muscled man who wore wireframe eyeglasses and chain-smoked. He was a weightlifter and a runner—his 10K times worsening the longer he smoked—always armed with two guns, one in a shoulder holster, the other in an ankle holster. As they said at KGB stations, he was always ready to make a Westerner die for the Soviet homeland.
Longfellow—followed by Medeved with Mallard just behind—drove a circuitous route around Moscow, ever-widening his way from Red Square, as if trying, unsuccessfully, to shake his tail. Medeved accommodated Longfellow, eventually backing off and running parallel to Longfellow’s Saab so that he might believe he had dry-cleaned the KGB vehicle. Mallard’s tail also dropped away as agreed between Medeved and the other KGB drivers on their two-way radios.
Longfellow and Mallard broke off the evasive maneuvers fifteen minutes later and began driving straight to Nikolai’s jogging route.
At the city park where Captain John Winters had hidden, Longfellow and Mallard abruptly turned in and followed the jogging path until coming upon a lone jogger, his face hidden inside his hooded sweatshirt, wearing the same brand of jogging shoes that Nikolai wore, head down, arms pumping.
Longfellow and Mallard pulled up beside Winters, who suddenly stopped his run and double-timed it to the Mallard’s Citroën. Mallard swerved to the shoulder, pulled the key from the ignition, stepped out into the freezing morning air, and opened his trunk.
Winters climbed into the trunk and lay down on his side. Mallard slammed the trunk shut.
None of this was lost on Oleg Medeved, who observed the entire pickup and sequester from a half a mile away with his Kenko binoculars.
Once inside the trunk, Captain Winters, lying on his left side, so he was facing toward the Citroën’s engine in the front of the car, pushed free the backseat’s upright portion and wiggled his body into the rear passenger compartment where he continued to lie flat in the backseat.
Then he was ready for a long, comfortable drive.
At the park entrance, Longfellow turned left, and Mallard turned right. They threaded their way back through Moscow until, on the other side of the city, Mallard turned north to Vyborg, while Longfellow turned west toward Leningrad.
The KGB Volga car radios erupted around Moscow. Mallard was broadcast to be headed for Vyborg with Nikolai Semenov in his trunk. The decision was made to allow him to proceed to Vyborg because the Soviets couldn’t be seen randomly searching an embassy’s official vehicle somewhere in between. At Vyborg, the car would be searched. Everyone inside would be arrested and taken to Lubyanka and thrown into the dungeon for interrogation.