Chapter 32: CIA. Russia. Tanya

I took a corporate jet from Luton Airport north of London to the Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport about twenty miles west of the center of Rome. The sun was setting over the Mediterranean just as we were landing, giving me a gorgeous welcome on my first visit to the city.

After a limousine ride through the worst traffic I’d seen in years, I met Crystal and the rest of the crew getting settled in the Grand Hotel De La Minerve’s Presidential Suite in Rome. Having grown up and worked around Boston for a good part of my life, I had learned a little Italian; I had the rudiments to ask for basic necessities and to express my gratitude for services rendered.

The next day we played tourist in the morning, and I believe that no one figured out our celebrity status. We spent the next three nights doing the Italia premiere of Pressure Limit – my movie with Jill Danes, an upscale concert at the Parco della Musica Auditorium, and the premiere of Crystal’s movie - The Naked Truth. In the days that followed, we repeated that schedule, with a day or two in between, in Madrid, Lisbon, Munich, Vienna, Oslo, and Stockholm.

My life took a crazy turn when we reached Berlin. We had a few more concerts to give, and our concert was at an arena called O2 World in Berlin. One afternoon we were rehearsing for a sellout crowd of eighteen thousand that evening. A couple of dozen roadies were setting up for the concert. We’d done all the sound level checks of the various microphones and band instruments, so we’d gone to an interior room to go over the concert program, song by song. We had a relaxed rehearsal with a lot of repartee with each other and the band as we got into the late afternoon.

While there were many people coming and going in our rehearsal room that we didn’t know, two people suddenly stood out to me – a man and a woman, both in their late thirties and wearing casual clothes. Their motions were stilted and stiff, and they clearly didn’t belong; they had another agenda for being in the room. I’d met many people like this when I had been in the Special Forces, particularly on more clandestine missions. The hair on the back of my neck stood up: these two were CIA or I was a monkey’s uncle. What the hell were they doing in our rehearsal room?

We took a break, and I took the initiative with the couple. I walked over to where they had found a seat; “Hi, I’m Jim Mellon. I hope your coming tonight to hear the real McCoy without all the side talk and laughter of this rehearsal. Tell me your names, and why you’re here?”

They were caught off guard. I guessed they were used to always having the upper hand in a situation. “Errr, hello. I’m Gene Prantz, and this is my colleague, Nancy Martin.”

I jumped in, still the aggressor, “And, you’re with?”

Both stammered and stuttered. Nancy calmly said, “Can we go somewhere to talk?”

I gestured to Crystal, Jill, George, Terry, and the others hanging around, “I have no secrets. You can be open with this group.”

The pair balked; Gene said in a low voice, “We have something we need your help with; we’re with ... the government – the U.S. government.” I laughed to myself; I recalled a conference I’d been at as a computer geek; all the name tags people wore had their name and some company’s name, except for a couple from the CIA – the only words on their nametag said ‘Government,’ clearly a euphemism for Central Intelligence Agency.

Ah ha! I had been right. I chalked up a score for the home team. I humored them, “OK. Let’s step into the hallway, unless you have a better place.” They didn’t. I gestured to the others that I’d be right back.

When the door to the rehearsal room closed, I looked at them expectantly. “Well? You’re CIA; what’s this about?”

Nancy looked surprised that I’d deduced their affiliation, but tried to ignore my labeling. She appeared the more senior of the two; “I’ll get right to the point on a couple of issues. First, this is a matter of national security, so you are hereby notified that this conversation never happened and you are to restrict your retelling of what we are about to discuss. Second, we are well aware of your background and history in the Special Forces, your past efforts supporting our branch of the government, as well as your training and work with computers before you got into the entertainment business. The mission we are asking you to take may draw on skills and experience from those areas of your life.”

Now, I was the curious one. What could they want a star entertainer to do that they couldn’t do themselves?

Nancy nodded to Gene, who took over. “We’re trying to take some of the bite out of an issue that plagues every government agency and company in our country today. The issue is hacking – computer hacking of business and government operations, everything from the United States power grid, gas lines, missile silos, and the like, deep into hidden quarters of the Pentagon, NSA, and even the White House. Usually, the hacks aren’t successful, but once in a while whoever it is gets into the computers they attack. I should tell you that we do consider it an attack – this is Cyber War, an unstated war between nations that goes on around the clock. At least so far, no one’s been shot.”

Nancy said, “Just to remind you, we’re in the game, too, although as a country we don’t admit it. If you recall, in mid-2010, it came out that the U.S. had partnered with Israel to create a computer worm called Stuxnet. It was malware that reported on various industrial processes, in particularly five Iranian organizations widely suspected to be part of a Uranium enrichment infrastructure. The worm was built to slow down their bomb building capabilities. The overall effort was part of an intelligence operation called ‘Operation Olympic Games’ that started in 2,006 and continues today.”

Gene said, “We read that you are going to Moscow next week to give a concert and premiere your movie and Crystal Lee’s movie. While you’re there we want you to receive some highly classified information from a mole we have in the country. A mole we don’t dare go near because they are so well placed. We can’t take a chance on compromising them.”

I asked, “Why not use some of your own people?” Based on what I’d heard so far, I thought I would have been a long shot and an unknown in pulling off something like what I imagined they wanted me to do.

Nancy reluctantly said, “A couple of reasons. Five of our agents were recently compromised, and we’re not sure how much knowledge got out about our ‘in country’ people, or even the people we use that are routine visitors. Our normal couriers are too well known; we’ve known that for years and sometimes take advantage of it acting as if we don’t. Anyway, to offset our uncertainty about what the Ruskies know, we thought we’d take advantage of you and your high visibility profile – being a star and such. We believe that you would be above suspicion when it comes to Russian customs and immigration. Your purpose for being in the country is known by everybody in the country, and they wouldn’t suspect any ulterior motive. You’d always be under scrutiny, if not by the secret police, then by a bevy of fans.”

Gene said, “Before we go further, are you willing to consider this job? It’s a once and done operation.”

I nodded, “So long as I don’t have to dispatch anybody to do the job, the answer is ‘Yes.’ Go on.”

Gene pulled out a battered iPod from his pocket with an attached set of well-worn earplugs. He handed it to me. “This is a normal Apple iPod, loaded with a particular set of music. There is a carbon copy of this little device in Russia right now; the only difference is that device contains about a terabyte of additional memory that by now is hopefully full of computer code and other documents we want to get our hands on. The other iPod has a small nick in the case about here, just so you can tell them apart.” Gene pointed to the lower panel on the back of the chrome case.

Nancy started to speak, but stopped short when a couple of the band members left the rehearsal room, probably to go get something to eat. When they were out of earshot, she continued, “We’re not exactly sure when or where the swap will take place, but while you are in Russia a woman will find you and you’ll switch iPods with her. She may be able to just walk up and ask for the exchange, or it may need to be more cloak-and-dagger, maybe an exchange while she asks you for an autograph or something like that. She may speak; she may hand you a note which you should be sure to destroy. She may try to do this in secret or be amazingly open about it. The decisions will be hers, and we have no way now of confirming what she plans to do. Because of this uncertainty, you have to carry the iPod with you at all times while you are in country, and particularly after the exchange. Safeguard that data once you get it.”

I asked, “Care to tell me what the data on her iPod will let us do?”

The two looked at each other. Nancy answered, “It’ll let us build better firewalls to those hacks, as well as give us a couple of years leap on what their ‘hack’ plans are. There will also be some names of people involved in the operation that we might be able to convert or co-opt in some way to help us. For all we know, we might find some names of Americans who decided to help them in some way. It’s a crazy world these days.”

I pushed further, “I thought we were on good terms with the Russians, except maybe for Putin specifically.”

Gene said, “Oh, we are, but they hedge their bets. The competition today is more economic than military, but it still goes on. For instance, we know they have tried to slow down our drug development programs related to cancer research so their own pharmaceutical companies can get a leg up in international markets.”

I thought a minute and asked, “So, how will I know this mystery woman?”

Gene said, “Her name is Tanya Lebed – a person nicknamed ‘The Swan’ because of how her surname translated from Russian into English.” He handed me a photograph of the woman to look at, but reclaimed it after I had studied it for a minute. I’d been through this before; I tried to cement the image in my memory. Tanya was an attractive, mid-thirties woman who wore glasses with short auburn hair. She had a slightly nerdy look to her.

Gene hesitated for a moment before revealing another fly in the ointment. “There’s a small problem. Tanya doesn’t speak any English, and according to your records you don’t speak Russian.”

I grimaced.

Nancy asked, “Any idea how we can get around that problem? We have no ideas that wouldn’t complicate the mission.”

I quietly said, “I have Nadia, a young Russian housekeeper in Tennessee. She’s fluid in English, but grew up in Russia. She has family there, but has told me repeatedly how glad she is to be out of that country.”

Nancy said, “Can you trust her? If you can, bring her over?”

I thought about it before responding, “I guess we’ll just have to see.” I felt that Nadia would be intensely loyal to me, but some inner loyalty to her birth country might over ride my asking her to help me. I had faith.

“Give me the photograph,” I said to Gene. “I’ll need it to get Nadia on board and position her to help.” He reluctantly complied.

I asked, “What if on the way out of the country, some border guard at the airport decided to listen to some songs on my iPod to be sure there’s no contraband on it?”

Gene proudly smiled; I could tell he must have been the father of the technology in this operation. “They’ll hear exactly what is on this iPod, about sixteen-gigabytes of mostly country music. It’s our guess about your taste in music, but they won’t be able to see any of the internal memory storage except for what Apple would normally provide; the rest is hidden. Even if the device is opened, it resembles a regular Apple iPod except for a couple of hidden chips between layers on the circuit boards. The device is actually one-millimeter thicker than a normal iPod, but it’s impossible to tell that without applying a micrometer.”

I tried to think of other vital questions I should be asking, but none came to mind.

I told the pair, “I want to share this deal with Crystal Lee. She has to be part of this; otherwise, she may put our collective foot in it when I try to switch iPods; you know like blurting out something like, ‘Wait, you mistakenly picked up each other’s iPods.’”

Nancy said, “You do what you have to do to get that iPod back to us safely. We’ll contact you after you’re in a friendly country again. If we’re not mistaken, your next concert on this tour after Moscow is in Dublin before you head home, right? Their Aviva Stadium, I believe. Gene and I already have tickets along with about fifty-thousand of our closest friends.” She smiled warmly at me.

I nodded. “If there’s some foul up, who do I call? Any other bench depth here?”

“Call the embassy and ask for the ‘Help Desk,’ or else you can contact me at this number.” Nancy handed me a business card. The name on the card said, “Lina Cornfurth, Interior Decorator.” There was no address only a stateside telephone number with a Nashville area code and an email address for a company called ‘cornfurthdecorating.com.’ I put the card in my wallet. I knew the decorating operation would check out to any probing inquiries.

I called Ellen after our Berlin concert. I caught Ellen, Nadia, and Claire in bed – the same bed, playing together. I didn’t go into any detail; I just explained to Ellen that I needed her to get Nadia to Berlin by the end of the day after next. That way, she’d connect with us and could accompany Crystal and me as part of our entourage. Ellen knew exactly how to set up complex travel arrangements, so I knew we’d see Nadia shortly.

Nadia left Nashville the next day about noon, flew to Philadelphia, caught a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, and then a short hop to Berlin. She walked into our hotel room about ten-thirty in the morning. She had a grin from ear to ear, and didn’t even look jet lagged.

We all hugged and kissed, and welcomed her to our movie premiere-and-concert tour. As of yet, she was clueless as to why we’d brought her over. At that point, I explained that we needed someone who spoke Russian when we went to Moscow, and for the present that pacified her. I had to look for an opening when I could examine her loyalties and maybe open up about the situation to her.

A few hours later, the three of us sat naked in our master suite bedroom. Crystal, Nadia, and I had just made love, a favorite pastime of ours. Both women had those freshly fucked glows all over their naked bodies, and for that matter I probably did too. Nadia cuddled against me as I stroked her breasts. I didn’t like what I had to do, but I thought the goal worthy.

“Nadia, I need to know something. If you could help the United States versus Russia, what would you do?”

She thought about the question, “It’s hard to say. Give me a situation.”

“You could stop people in Russia from slowing down and hurting people in the United States. Maybe for instance, help good drugs get to market faster – all over the world.”

Nadia spoke without hesitation, “Then I’d help your country. I know Russia wants to hurt the United States in many ways; I guess because of the life style there. I don’t approve.”

I spoke carefully; I didn’t want to misrepresent what the situation was but I didn’t want to give away too many details either, at least not at this point. “What I just described is a situation I have been asked to help with, to stop Russia from hurting worthy efforts in the U.S. I don’t speak Russian, and one of the people I have to meet with inside Russia doesn’t speak English, so without your help I would be at an impasse.”

“Oh, on that basis, I definitely help you. I do anything to help you or Crystal ... or Ellen or Claire, and the others in our circle of friends. I put all of you before everything else.”

“Why?”

Without equivocation she said, “Because I know you all love me the way I love you. People that love each other help one another without question.”

I marveled at how she had so simplified things down to their bare essentials.

I described a simplified situation to Nadia, telling her only that a lovely woman had some information to give to us on her iPod, and so that she still had some country music to listen to we would give her my iPod. I showed her Tanya’s photograph and asked her to memorize the face because we would not have the picture after that moment. I also showed the picture to Crystal.

Nadia studied Tanya’s picture, even commenting on the likely region of the country she came from based on her facial bone structure and lips. When she handed the picture back to me, I put it in an ashtray on a bedside table, lit a match, and set fire to the photo. If Nadia hadn’t thought about the secrecy and importance of the mission before, that single act demonstrated to her the criticality of our mission and the level of secrecy. When the flames died out, she knee-walked over to me, her breasts swaying in a most seductive way. She hugged me, almost in reassurance of her support.

“Thank you, Nadia.” I gave her a hug back. I turned to my other lover and said, “Crystal, let’s see whether we can give Nadia couple of more orgasms.”

Terry had arranged for a private Boeing 737 to fly our entire entourage, including band equipment from place to place in Europe, and in that case from Berlin to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport. We touched down about eleven in the morning Moscow Standard Time, and taxied to the general aviation terminal where we were met by a customs and immigration team to check us into the country. A few of hours later, we were ensconced at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in downtown Moscow, a few steps from Red Square and near the Bolshoi Theater. Terry had reserved the entire top floor of the five-star hotel.

The last time I’d been in Russia, I had not been invited, and if my presence had been detected, I would not have been welcomed. I crashed the party so to speak on a mission that also involved the CIA and the intelligence agencies of several other countries. The place was still falling apart and those in the know could see the power vacuum that would be left. There was even a scramble to keep various known nuclear weapons out of the hands of sympathetic terrorist organizations. Not all the teams were successful, but mine was.

I sent Nadia off to connect with some of her family for the first time in nearly two years since she’d come to the United States. I made sure that Terry got her a fist full of tickets to the movie premieres and the concert. We were making some of her wildest dreams come true by being able to reconnect with her family, and explain to them how she supported two important American celebrities. I promised her that Crystal and I would welcome a visit from any of them while we were in the city. I suggested she bring them to the premiere parties or to the greenroom at the concert.