Chapter 14
Ivy Harper sat at her desk in the Treasury building, staring at a stack of requisition forms that had grown throughout the morning.
The Miami project was stalled.
She'd requested transaction records from three banks, two in Miami and one in the Caymans, and now she was waiting for them to be pulled, copied, and sent over through official channels.
The banks would drag their feet. Their lawyers would review every page. It could take a long time if they decided to be difficult about it.
Her desk was organized chaos. Files stacked in precise piles. A coffee mug with the Treasury seal, half-empty and cold. Spreadsheets she'd been working on before the Miami requests went out.
She had time.
She pulled out the notepad where she'd written the single word Joe had given her over the phone the night before.
Volkov.
She'd already spent two hours on it last night after Joe's call. Ivy had gone through Treasury databases first, looking for weapons manufacturers, defense contractors, shell companies. Anything that might use Volkov as a designation or code name.
Nothing.
This morning she'd expanded the search. Came in early, before most of her colleagues arrived.
Used the more comprehensive databases. Ran Volkov through import/export records.
Searched for it in customs declarations.
Checked it against known arms dealers and black-market networks that Treasury tracked through financial transactions.
Still nothing.
She'd found Volkovs, plural. Historical figures that kept appearing in different databases. A nineteenth-century Russian general named Pyotr Volkov who'd fought in the Crimean War.
A Soviet poet, Aleksandr Volkov, who'd died in Stalin's purges in 1937. A composer from the 1950s who'd written symphonies nobody remembered. A chess grandmaster who'd defected to France in 1972 and died there five years later.
Dead men. Old men. Irrelevant to anything happening in 1990.
She'd also searched for locations. Spent forty minutes going through geographic databases.
Cities, regions, military installations.
Ran the name through every map Treasury had access to.
Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, satellite states.
Checked for code names of facilities, operational designations, anything that might be hidden behind a single word.
Nothing matched. No city called Volkov. No region. No known military base or research facility using that designation.
Which left the simplest option. The one she'd been circling around since last night.
Volkov was a person.
Ivy leaned back in her chair and looked at the ceiling tiles. Water-stained, yellowing. The Treasury building was old. Beautiful from the outside, crumbling on the inside. Like a lot of government institutions.
If Volkov was a person, and if that person was important enough to be written on a slip of paper found at a murder scene, then he probably wasn't in Treasury's files. Treasury tracked money. Transactions. Financial crimes. They didn't track people unless those people were moving money illegally.
She needed intelligence files. Personnel records. The kind of information that lived behind higher classification levels than Treasury maintained.
The walk from Treasury to the CIA records facility took twenty minutes. Ivy could have driven, but the morning was clear and cold, and she needed to think.
She walked down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the White House, then cut north through streets that grew progressively quieter. Fewer tourists. Fewer pedestrians. The buildings here were older, more anonymous.
The CIA records facility was tucked into one of these buildings. Six stories of gray stone, no markings, no signs. Just an address. You either knew what it was or you didn't.
Ivy pushed through the heavy glass doors into a lobby that had marble floors and high ceilings. A security desk with two guards who looked former military.
She showed her Treasury credentials at the front desk. The guards checked them carefully. Checked her ID photo against her face. Then one picked up a phone.
"Purpose of visit?"
"Research request. Interagency cooperation. My Director should have sent over confirmation."
The guard spoke quietly into the phone. Ivy couldn't hear what he was saying. He listened, nodded, hung up.
"Third floor. Someone will meet you."
He handed her a clipboard with a sign-in sheet. She filled it out. Name, agency, time in, purpose of visit. He took it back, examined it, then gave her a temporary keycard in a plastic sleeve.
"Elevator requires the card. Keep it visible at all times. Return it when you leave."
"Understood."
The elevator was at the back of the lobby. Ivy swiped the card and the doors opened immediately. No buttons inside. Just a card reader and a small camera in the corner. She swiped again and selected the third floor.
The elevator rose smoothly. No music.
Third floor was a long hallway with unmarked doors.
A woman in a gray suit was waiting when the elevator opened. Late thirties, dark hair pulled back, no jewelry except a watch. She looked at Ivy's temporary badge, then at Ivy.
"Ms. Harper?"
"Yes."
"Follow me."
No names and no pleasantries, just a brisk walk down the corridor.
The woman stopped at a door. Swiped her card, held the door open.
"You'll work in here. The files you requested have been pulled,” she said, gesturing to stacks of folders, binders and papers piled high on the table.
The room was small. Maybe ten feet by twelve. A table, two chairs, a lamp with a green shade. No windows, computer or phone. Just a secure space for reading classified material that couldn't leave the building.
The walls were bare except for a small placard listing security protocols.
Ivy sat down in one of the chairs. It was uncomfortable. Probably intentional. They didn't want people getting too comfortable in here.
She grabbed one of the binders and started reading.
An hour passed.
And then another.
Ivy wished she could use the bathroom, but she didn’t want to leave the room. And she was thirsty.
She plugged away at the stack of papers but found nothing marked Volkov.
Finally, she came down to one more folder. It was red with diagonal white stripes and had classification markings on the cover.
SECRET//NOFORN.
Secret, no foreign nationals. Not the highest classification, but high enough.
Ivy opened the folder.
The pages inside were photocopies, slightly blurred. Typed reports, some in English, some with Russian text and English translations clipped to them. Dates in the upper right corners. Classification markings on every page.
Ivy turned the page and stopped.
The photograph was small, black and white, clipped to the top of the page. A man in his late thirties. Thin face. Dark hair. Glasses. He was looking slightly away from the camera, as if he'd been caught mid-conversation.
*Volkov, Dmitri Aleksandrovich. Born 1951, Leningrad. Education: Moscow State University, PhD in Chemical Engineering, 1976. Employment: Soviet Ministry of Defense, Chemical Research Division, 1976-1988. Specialization: Nerve agents, binary weapons systems, delivery mechanisms.*
Ivy read slowly, taking in every word.
*Subject is considered a leading expert in organophosphate compounds and their weaponization. Published seventeen classified papers on chemical agent stability and dispersal methods. Led research team at Sverdlovsk-19 facility from 1982-1987. Security clearance: Highest level.*
*Status: Disappeared March 1988. Last known location: Sverdlovsk-19 research facility. Circumstances unknown. No body recovered. No communication since disappearance. Presumed defection or abduction. Investigation ongoing. Priority: High.*
*Note: Subject's disappearance coincided with increased security measures at Sverdlovsk-19 following suspected breach. KGB investigation inconclusive. Western intelligence agencies have no confirmed contact with subject. Current whereabouts unknown.*
Ivy read it twice. Then a third time.
A Soviet scientist. One of their best. Specialized in nerve agents—the kind of weapons that could kill thousands in minutes. Binary systems, which meant weapons that were safer to transport because the lethal compounds only formed when mixed.
Disappeared two years ago. Not defected—disappeared. No contact with Western intelligence.
No body.
Just gone.
She sat back in the chair and stared at the photograph. Dmitri Volkov looked like a professor. Like someone who'd spend his life in a laboratory, working on equations and chemical formulas.
Ivy thought about the timing. Disappeared over two years ago. Long enough to get out of the Soviet Union. Long enough to make contact with someone. Long enough to offer his expertise to the highest bidder.
She thought about Joe.
What have you gotten yourself into, Reacher?