| "Samurai Stepan" | ||
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Tokyo June 13, 2008, 1235 hours Lima As experienced as he was, and he knew there were very few people still in the business who were as skilled and experienced as him, there were still things that could go wrong. This was one such time. There had been others of course; he had nearly been killed twice; on four further occasions the opposition had been close to fingering him but had failed due to nothing more than sheer luck. So far nothing had ever gone drastically wrong in his career. Of course there had been failures, but they had been caused by events outside of his control. He was the consummate professional, and that explained his current posting in Japan. Japan will always pose a problem for foreign intelligence agencies to infiltrate because of the culture and the fact that even the Chinese stood out like a sore thumb when in the country. The Russians have proven to be the most effective of the `White Countries' at infiltrating the Japanese intelligence community as well as the government, and is was with the skills taught to him by his instructor that allowed Stepan Levevich Volkv to operate with such confidence. At forty-two he had been in the business for over two decades, having served in some of the most prestigious (or dangerous, depending on how you look at it) postings in the world, such as America and Afghanistan. Now he was here. Another high profile post, and another success story in his long and accomplished career. Until now. He had been running this particular agent for nearly five months now. Still a novice, he thought to himself from his seat in the sushi bar. He ignored the looks he was getting from the local regulars, instead concentrating on watching his young agent make the brush pass without actually looking at him directly; the reflection from a shop window, the bar mirror, out of the corner of his eye� he was extremely proficient at this, and none of the patrons in the bar realised that he was following the path of the junior government official through the crowded streets. To them he was just another foreigner, although a polite one. They had never had any trouble with him. That didn't stop them talking about him though, even though he was sitting beside them. They often made comments about him, derogatory remarks that amused them while he looked on without comprehension of the amusement he was causing. Or so they thought. Volkv was fluent in Japanese though he had not let on about that. It was something that would have both amazed the horrified those who had spoken in his presence, for they often discussed things from work that were highly sensitive. It was all he could do to not smile each time he heard them mention a secret. He knew so much about the inner workings of their government that he was beginning to predict events. It would not save him here. He realized something was wrong by his agent's body language, which in turn was affected by the body language of his contact. Volkv felt his skin grow cold as his eyes rapidly searched for the danger. In a second he caught sight of what had to be his agent's contact. Small compared to himself, but then that wasn't hard in Japan, the man had a slight build that the expensive suit he was wearing fitted well. There was something in his hand, something that should not have been there. Instead of conducting the brush pass as had been planned the contact pulled the agent out of the crowd and into the doorway of a shop where he began to talk excitedly. Volkv watched intently as the conversation continued, noting that the contact became more animated as the conversation continued. Volkv's eyes flicked back down to the contact's hand. The object there glinted in the afternoon sun. His body was a fraction of a second ahead of his brain. The bar stool screeched in protest as all of his weight pushed off of it, his body hurtling towards the door at a speed it hadn't reached since he had been a young and impatient intelligence officer with ideas about being James Bond floating around in his head. His eyes fixed onto the two men across the street, still deep in conversation, as his mind began to assess the situation. He was reminded of his training back at Moscow Centre when the organisation had been called the KGB. His instructors would have had a heart attack if they were here now, watching him commit the cardinal sin of breaking cover and exposing himself. He wasn't like them though, and he could never abandon one of his people despite what the KGB instructors had tried to force into him. It was something that he greatly admired in his western counterparts, their loyalty to their agents. Darting across the street drew the angry sounds of car horns but he didn't care. Halfway across he saw he was going to be too late. The contact had already begun moving his arm, and Volkv could only watch as his agent's eyes grew wider at the site of the blade as it cut into his chest with force. The contact immediately fled the scene, using the crowded street to his advantage. Volkv reached his agent as passers-by began to realise that something was wrong. He looked into the young man's eyes and saw both fear and peace. It was a strange look, not expected, and it nibbled away at the edges of his conscience. The agent managed to point a finger to his shirt pocket. Volkv knew what that meant, and he had time to praise the young man for his adherence to the rules which had been laid down by the mentor who was now standing over him and watching the final breaths leave his mouth. Stepan reached into the mans pocket and withdrew a tiny Dictaphone, deftly moving it from the pocket to his hand, and from his hand to his own pocket. A final smile was all he had time for before the eyes of his agent closed for the last time. Time to move, he thought to himself. Quickly exiting the area was easy, but doing so covertly as a tall white man in a country of little yellow men was not. It took all of his skills to make his way stealthily to his modest accommodation. Once there he used a one- time pad to encrypt the call he was putting through to his control officer back in the SVR. "Da," the voice on the other end of the line said. Volkv simply replied, "There has been a forest fire." The line went dead. Stepan Levevich Volkv sat down and quietly planned his escape from the country. Return |
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