Flight of the Raven

  Flight of the Raven

  Rebecca York

  To our special research assistants, Norman and Howard

  With special thanks to the staff of the United States Embassy in Madrid for their valuable assistance, and to John Riehl, for giving us the benefit of his expertise in Russian language and customs, and to Dr. Paul Burka for taking the time to answer our many medical questions

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Julie McLean—When it came to spying, she was a rank amateur.

  Aleksei Rozonov—Seducing Julie McLean was just part of his job.

  Feliks Gorlov—The agricultural undersecretary cultivated form rather than substance.

  Yuri Hramov—The KGB’s secret weapon.

  Georgi Krasin—The young political officer was in charge of monitoring—and sometimes abetting—terrorists’ activities.

  Dan Eisenberg—Was his death an untimely accident, or did it have darker implications?

  Bradley Fitzpatrick—His unprepossessing exterior hid a sharp, analytical mind.

  Amherst Gordon—He ran the Peregrine Connection with the skill of a veteran spymaster.

  Constance McGuire—Data on all Peregrine agents was at her fingertips.

  Cal Dixon—Officially an American embassy staffer, but he was rumored to have connections to the CIA.

  General Bogolubov—He was obsessed with catching the Raven.

  The Raven—A double agent on the run, with one last mission to complete.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  We were delighted when Harlequin Intrigue told us they would be republishing our Peregrine Connection trilogy. They are some of our favorite stories, and we had a wonderful time creating daring women and dangerous heroes and catapulting them into plots swirling with high-stakes intrigue and jeopardy.

  With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the restructuring of Eastern Europe, the world has changed at warp speed over the past eight years since the Peregrine novels were written. Yet, with spy scandals at the upper echelons of the CIA and even a terrorist attack at the World Trade Center, themes of preserving peace and the balance of world power are just as relevant today as they were in the eighties when the Peregrine Connection was written.

  Ten summers ago we were held hostage by a darkly attractive, extremely dangerous KGB agent in Ruth’s office. He’s Aleksei Rozonov, the hero of Flight of the Raven, one of the most exciting adventures we’ve ever written. We did extensive research for this book, traveling to the American embassy in Madrid, visiting residences of the staff and deputy ambassador, exploring the Prado and combing the city for rendezvous spots.

  While we were in Madrid, the embassy staffers urged us to visit a restaurant out near the air force base. Days after we left, the place was a target of a terrorist attack. Fortunately we missed it, but it gave us a dramatic opening for our spy story.

  To get a handle on our Russian characters, Ruth read textbooks on Russian life and tuned in to Radio Moscow to listen to programs being beamed from behind the Iron Curtain. Eileen interviewed a Russian linguist and gathered data on Spanish terrorist groups.

  The Soviet Union has dissolved since we wrote the tale of innocent-abroad Julie McLean playing a deadly cat-and-mouse game with KGB agent Aleksei Rozonov. Yet, if current headlines are any indication, spies are still around. And there are still fascinating stories to tell about what people will do for passion, loyalty and greed. After reading Flight of the Raven—and all the Peregrine Connection books, we were pleased with how well the books stood the test of time. We hope you think so, too.

  Rebecca York (Ruth Glick and Eileen Buckholtz)

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  The roll of film in his pocket was a death sentence. And if he wasn’t careful, it was going to be his.

  It took all his discipline to feign interest in the flashy display windows lining the Plaza Mayor, but it was important to blend into the noisy evening crowd. He’d stopped under the shadows of the stone colonnades lining the square and doubled back often enough to assure himself that a KGB agent wasn’t following. But the reprieve was only temporary for the double agent with the code name Raven. At any moment his cover could be ripped away with all the violence of a jealous husband who has discovered a naked lover in his wife’s bed. The image brought a grim smile to his face. In this case he suspected that the injured party would shoot first and ask questions later.

  A wiry youth in a black leather jacket jostled him from behind and mumbled a “Pardon, señor.” The Raven’s hand automatically shot to his pocket to make sure it hadn’t been picked. Nerves.

  Reaching a corner of the plaza, he started down the stone steps to the narrow street. The meeting place was around the corner. Instead of entering, he stopped at a tapas bar with a carryout window and ordered a plate of fried setas. Although tasty, the Spanish mushrooms didn’t compare to the wild ones near his family’s dacha outside of Moscow. The nostalgic memory from his childhood made his chest tighten painfully. How could you love your homeland yet be compelled to give away its most guarded secrets, he wondered for the thousandth time. Then his fingers curled around the roll of film. The thought of leaving the fate of the world to the tender mercies of the Kremlin strategists made him shudder.

  From long practice at subterfuge, he gave no sign of recognition when his contact, Eisenberg, strolled past him and sauntered into the Taverna San Jeronimo. As though he had nothing more important to do, he washed down the mushrooms with a glass of sangria. But his thoughts were racing ahead. Soon the information in his pocket would be on its way to the one man who would know how to use it. After dropping a handful of pesetas onto the counter, he started across the street toward the San Jeronimo.

  For a horrible, confusing moment the air around the tavern seemed to shimmer. Or maybe it was the deafening blast he heard first. In the next second, the wooden door of the tavern ripped from its hinges, and shards of glass and splintered wood flew through the air like tiny missiles. Several tore through the fabric of his suit, digging into his flesh and making him stagger, but he didn’t stop to register the pain.

  Next to him, an old woman clad in black doubled over and sank to the uneven pavement.

  “Madre de Dios,” someone else sobbed.

  Suddenly the pavement was jammed with running feet heading away from the scene of the explosion.

  But the Raven was riveted in his tracks. Holy mother! Eisenberg was in there and other innocent people too. From inside the tavern he heard the cry of someone in agony. He had to help get the people out of there.

  It had been only seconds since the explosion. But his analytical mind was registering a whole series of damage assessments and speculations. The old stone building was already starting to collapse. He could picture the scene inside. Heavy wooden beams falling, plaster walls disintegrating, centuries-old floorboards giving way. Probably the bomb had been hidden in the front room. Could he get in at all? Could he get out alive?

  Khaki-clad police with their ever-present machine guns materialized from the direction of the plaza, taking the decision out of his hands. His gut reaction was to stay, but there was too much at stake for him to be placed at the scene of what
appeared to be a terrorist attack.

  Drawing back in the shadows of a grimy doorway, he watched the Spanish civil guard begin coping with the chaos. From what he could see now, it looked as though they were going to be bringing out more bodies than survivors.

  Turning reluctantly away, he shoved his hands in his pockets and felt the cold metal of the film spool. The implications of what had happened suddenly slapped him in the face. Chyort! He was in one hell of a fix now.

  Chapter One

  At the headquarters of the Peregrine Connection in Berryville, Virginia, Amherst Gordon blotted his lips with a white linen napkin. “Tell the chef the poached salmon was seasoned with just a bit too much tarragon.”

  Constance McGuire gave her gray-haired contemporary a sympathetic look above the rims of her half glasses. A visitor who stumbled into the country elegance of the Aviary would probably take the two of them for Virginia aristocracy. It was a pose that Gordon ordinarily relished. Yet she knew that on days like this, responsibility weighed heavily on his tweed-covered shoulders. He might be independently wealthy, but he wasn’t Virginia gentry. He was a veteran spymaster known to a few highly placed members of the intelligence community as the Falcon. His daily business was coordinating the activities of a worldwide network of intelligence agents.

  And when the Falcon started finding fault with the Aviary’s exceptional cuisine, it was because he was really worried about one of his operatives.

  Gordon stood up. Leaning heavily on his cane, he walked over to the doorway that led to the solarium. Lush with tropical plants and his cherished birds, it was his favorite part of the house. But today, gazing at his indoor paradise did nothing for his stress level. “I suppose the damn siesta’s over in Madrid by now,” he muttered. “And we’ll find out what Eisenberg got from the Raven.”

  He’d had the feeling for weeks that both men were being maneuvered into a net, and he could sense it tightening around them. He’d already offered to pull them off. But the Raven had refused to abandon his dangerous perch. He’d insisted that the information just within his reach was too vital to abort the mission now.

  The curt refusal had filled Gordon with a sort of fatherly pride. He’d found Justice Louis Brandeis’s “spark of idealism” in the Raven and fanned it into a flame. But even he hadn’t realized at first how extraordinary the man really was. By conventional standards he would be considered a traitor to his country. But to anyone who understood his motives, he was nothing less than a hero. The problem was to keep him from becoming a martyr as well.

  Gordon’s grim thoughts were interrupted by a chime that in an ordinary home could have been the doorbell. But this was no ordinary home.

  “I think we’d better get to the office.” Connie pushed back her own chair. The special bell always meant trouble. It was connected to the computer that monitored the State Department’s most secure communications line. When a key word from their data base—like an agent’s name or cover identity—showed up in text, the alarm would sound.

  Connie never seemed to hurry, yet by the time Gordon reached the library she had already triggered the dual mechanisms that opened the section of wall leading to their shielded sanctuary. Age, he noted, had not impaired her economy or grace of motion.

  Connie crossed immediately to the computer. For a man with a rebuilt kneecap, Gordon was at her side in surprisingly short order. Together they scanned the message on the screen. It detailed a suspected terrorist bombing of a restaurant in Madrid. One U.S. embassy employee had been among the victims.

  Behind her, Constance could hear the spymaster utter a curse. “I was afraid of something like this. They got Eisenberg. I just hope they didn’t get the Raven too.”

  “Maybe it was just bad luck.”

  “Not likely. The first thing I want you to do is get the whole damn political section of the embassy on the case. And drop a hint to Ambassador Thomas that U.S. defense strategy could be riding on his staff’s detective work. I want immediate access to everything they find.”

  “The Raven could still be alive,” Connie reminded him.

  “If so, we’ve got to pull him out of there. When you’ve finished getting the embassy off their tails, transfer some funds from his Swiss bank account to Madrid.”

  “You know he’s refused to accept any payment for what he’s supplied to us.”

  “Dammit, this time he’s going to have to burn his bridges. And that means he’s going to need some cash.”

  * * *

  JULIE MCLEAN had passed up an invitation from another embassy staffer to see a current Burt Reynolds movie dubbed into Spanish and had opted for a quiet evening at home.

  She was just putting her dinner dishes into a sink full of sudsy water when the phone rang. Bradley Fitzpatrick, her immediate superior, was on the other end of the line.

  “Julie, am I glad you’re home!”

  The clipped delivery told her it wasn’t a social call. “What is it?”

  “We need a fourth for bridge.”

  “Deal out the cards. I’ll be there,” she said. Neither one of them played bridge, which was why they had selected it as a telephone code. It meant she was needed at the embassy on the double.

  After easing back into her pumps and pulling on the jacket of her navy suit, she paused to catch the shoulder-length mass of her dark hair in a wide barrette. Damn, she thought, she probably should have washed it when she’d gotten home this afternoon. From the strained tone of Fitz’s voice, she suspected she might be on duty for the next twenty-four hours. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to pack a change of underwear and a few toilet articles in a tote bag.

  Eduardo, the portero, glanced up from his post in the lobby as the elevator door groaned open. “So you changed your mind about going out, after all.” He looked pleased that she was taking his advice about enjoying herself more.

  The stoop-shouldered man with the craggy visage was one of the reasons why Julie had moved into this particular building three years ago. Eduardo treated every one of his twenty-five tenants like family.

  Julie smiled and nodded as though she were setting out on an evening of fun. “I may not be back tonight, so don’t wait up.”

  “Have a good time, señorita,” he called.

  As soon as she stepped out the door a grim expression captured her oval face. Her job in the political section of the embassy was monitoring terrorist activities. Fritz wouldn’t have called her unless something pretty serious had happened—like last year when a restaurant near Torrejon Air Force Base had been bombed.

  Her redbrick apartment building was only a fifteen-minute walk from the embassy, and she was tempted to make a beeline for the closest gate. Yet, despite her anxiety, she walked a block north before heading back toward the American enclave. Security had been adamant lately about employees not taking the same route to and from work every day. If somebody hostile had been listening to her conversation with Fitz, he could be waiting up the block.

  The thought brought back all the reasons she had decided months ago that this would be her last post with the State Department. She’d been with the service for eight years, and at first she’d relished the chance to experience other cultures firsthand. But her last tour in Moscow had been like living in an isolation bubble where every word spoken was overheard. Madrid was a paradise by comparison. In fact it was a plum assignment. But over the last few years American embassies all over the world had turned from glamorous outposts into handy targets for leftist and rightist militants.

  The compact umbrella she’d forgotten in the bottom of her tote bag made the metal detector at the consulate entrance buzz. With an apology she handed the canvas carryall over to the marine guard for a quick inspection. By the time she’d finally keyed in the combination for the black metal gate that barred the entrance to the third floor, Bradley Fitzpatrick was pacing up and down her office.

  “What kept you?” he demanded.

  “The security drill.”

  With his red hai
r, freckles, and stocky build, her boss hardly looked like a seasoned diplomat. But his unprepossessing exterior hid a sharp mind with enough political savvy to put him in the top echelons of the Foreign Service ranks. His rumpled brown suit and the tie loosened around his collar told Julie that he hadn’t been home at all since morning.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Now that they were in the protected environment of the embassy, he got right to the point. “Another terrorist bombing. One of the taverns near the Plaza Mayor.”

  “How do we figure in it?”

  Fitz’s voice was grim. “The civil guard is withholding the details pending positive identification. But one of the bodies pulled from the rubble was carrying Dan Eisenberg’s wallet.”

  Julie sank down into the padded cushion of her desk chair. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. The shock left her completely numb for a few seconds. Then tears started to well in her brown eyes. Ladies control themselves in front of others, a voice from her past reminded her sternly. With a fierce effort she held the drops back.

  The man who’d broken the bad news studied her now chalk-white features from across the desk. Julie and Dan had been good friends ever since the lanky army captain had been assigned to the office down the hall six months ago. Fitz had even thought there might be a romance brewing, but Julie had deftly cooled down Eisenberg’s ardor into a more manageable relationship. Maybe it was because her tour had been coming to an end, he reflected, and she hadn’t seen any future in a romantic liaison.

  Walking around the desk, he put a hand on her slender shoulder. Needing the comfort, Julie reached up and pressed her fingers over it. Her wide-set brown eyes avoided his, and her gently rounded lower lip was trembling. He knew she was struggling to rein in her emotions. He would help by giving her a job to focus on.

  “Why Dan?” she asked, her voice quavering.

  He shook his head. “It could just be a tragic coincidence. But we need to find out exactly what happened, who’s responsible, whether the tavern was a random target, or whether there was some specific motive.” His voice was businesslike now. “I’ve already been in touch with the police. But we’re getting pressure from Washington to have a report ready in the morning.”