Before he saw any targets, however, Page came over the radio: “We’re good my side. Three passengers locked in and ready.”
Conway saw two passengers on his side. One was the prisoner. He called to the Delta team leader. “Black Wolf Two Six. Ready to depart with five pax, including prisoner. Confirm that is correct.”
“You are correct, Two Six. Get off the fucking roof.”
“Roger that.”
The helicopter rose into the night. Men on the fuselage opened fire on more attackers coming over the side from the balcony. Conway knew to fly in the opposite direction of the origin of fire, so he flew out over the western wall, then dropped down toward the street like a rock in the hopes any armed men on the balcony would not be able to get a shot off.
—
Dom Caruso held on to the strap attaching him to the helo and shut his eyes. He was certain they were going to auger into the street, but as every time before, the Kiowa leveled off and his spine paid the price. He didn’t open his eyes for nearly half a minute, and when he did, he was happy to see they were out over the water again.
—
The flight back to Boryspil was as eventful and uncomfortable as the flight in. Multiple times Dom thought they were being chased by other helicopters, because the Kiowa took all sorts of crazy evasive-action maneuvers.
Nesterov himself vomited right next to Dom. The puke seeped out from under the man’s hood, and Caruso stuck his gloved hand under the cover to clean off the man’s face and nose so he didn’t suffocate.
This made Dom want to vomit again, but he had nothing left to offer the forest below him.
87
John Clark stood alone on the flight line when the helicopters arrived. He watched as the critically wounded Delta operators were taken off first and piled into ambulances, then two dead Americans were carried off on litters.
Men who were only lightly wounded were helped over to a place on the flight line where Air Force pararescue men could tend to their wounds.
Finally the bruised and battered and tired left the helos, most walking along with their prize possession, the Russian in the vomit-covered hood.
As this was all going on, Midas found Clark standing by himself. He shook his hand. “Your boys sure as hell came through on this one. Not sure how I can thank you.”
Clark did not miss a beat. “I know just the way. We want to talk to Nesterov. Give us five minutes.”
Midas cocked his head. “As far as I’m concerned, you can take him out back and beat him with rubber hoses. Why do you want to talk to him?”
Clark explained, briefly, that he and his team had information about Nesterov that could be used to compromise other members of the Russian government. He didn’t go into any details, but he finished his semi-explanation by saying, “We see this as a potential way to get Russia to quit Ukraine. It might be a long shot, but it’s worth pursuing.”
“I’m all for that,” Midas said. “What the hell? I’ve been playing fast and loose with the regs on this op enough as it is. Might as well go all out and pass my prisoner over to a couple of civilians for a chitchat. Five minutes max, though, I’ve got to get him ready to fly out of here in an hour.”
—
Nesterov was brought into a small office in the back of a warehouse in the JOC property and he was chained to a chair. His filthy hood was kept on except when a pararescue man checked his vital signs and gave him a drink of whiskey.
Two Rangers stood guard outside, and Nesterov thought he was being left alone in an empty room, so he jumped at the sound of a light switch clicking on. Clark and Ryan entered, pulled up chairs in front of the hooded man, and sat down.
It was quiet for a few seconds more. Nesterov looked around left and right, but he couldn’t see past his hood.
Clark spoke in Russian: “Dmitri Nesterov. At last we meet.”
Nesterov did not react.
Clark said, “I know who you are. I know you are Gleb the Scar, vory v zakonye and member of the Seven Strong Men, as well as Dmitri Nesterov, president of Shoal Bank, Antigua and Barbuda, and chairman of the board of IFC Holdings.”
Nesterov spoke in a weak and unsure voice: “Untrue, but please continue.”
“Pavel Lechkov is in U.S. custody.”
“Who is that?”
“He is the man who delivered the polonium to the United States last month. He is the man who conspired to attack the son of the President of the United States, and he is the man who was photographed here in Kiev, meeting with you. He tried to assassinate British businessman Hugh Castor in Switzerland. He failed, and now he and Hugh Castor have given us everything on you.”
Clark was hoping these lies based on truths would carry weight with the Russian.
Nesterov said, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Clark said, “You are here working for the FSB, but the tide is going to turn before Russia makes it to Kiev, so that won’t help you. We’ll have you shipped off to a black site, anyway, so it doesn’t really matter what happens here.” Clark leaned right into the man’s shrouded face. “You belong to us now, Dmitri. You are fucked.”
Nesterov did not reply.
Clark leaned back up and changed his tone. It was less grave, more matter-of-fact. “I want to know how it is you can work for Roman Talanov.”
“Talanov? I don’t understand. A minute ago you said I was in organized crime, and now you say I work for the intelligence services? Can you get your story straight and try this again?”
Clark didn’t miss a beat. “Talanov is the leader of the Seven Strong Men. That has been confirmed.”
“Confirmed?” Nesterov laughed. “Did you read it on Facebook?”
Clark laughed with him, patted him on the back roughly. Then his voice darkened. “Something else is confirmed, Dmitri. Roman Talanov was in the gulag system—in the late eighties and early nineties. This is where he became Seven Strong Men. He was a charter member.”
Nesterov’s hood was perfectly still.
“But Roman Talanov was not born in the gulag, Dmitri. He arrived after working for the KGB.”
Nesterov laughed again. “Whoever you are, you are operating with so many incorrect assumptions that it is obvious you are just flailing around, trying to find out some information from me.”
“Tell me, how I am wrong, Dmitri?”
“The accusation you just made is impossible.”
“How is it impossible?”
Nesterov just chuckled under the bag.
Clark said, “You think it is impossible because you know that Talanov is vory v zakonye, and he was vory v zakonye before he went into the FSB. This was allowed by the leadership, because of the times, because of the access this gave Seven Strong Men to the real power in Russia. The Kremlin.”
Nesterov said nothing.
Clark said, “But he used you, just like he uses everyone.”
After a moment of quiet, Nesterov said, “He didn’t use us. He is one of us.”
Clark said, “How can he be vory if he was a captain in the GRU and then a KGB assassin in the eighties? Did you guys change your entrance requirements?” Very coldly, he added, “He is using you right now. Your organization was just a stepping-stone to power. Becoming vory was a KGB operation to them. A very successful one, at that.”
Nesterov said, “That is all a lie. And even if it were true, that was a long time ago.”
“No, it wasn’t. I know how organizations like yours work. You won’t forgive him just because a few years have gone by. Each one of those years when he was honored as vory was a further insult to the sanctity of your code. He made a mockery of you all.”
Clark leaned closer. “And you can’t let that stand, can you?”
The pause was long. Finally the voice under the hood asked, “What do you want?”
“The news I just told you is about to go public. Talanov might deny it, but you know how this works. People who knew him will come forward now. Everyone will know th
e head of the FSB is also head of the Seven Strong Men. This will be troublesome at home. Troublesome for everyone, except perhaps the man directly under him in the hierarchy of the organization.”
“What are you saying?”
“When the word gets out that Seven Strong Men was nothing but another shill, another proxy force doing the work of the Kremlin, then your organization will have no alternative but to make some changes.
“You can survive this, Dmitri.” Clark leaned forward again, almost into Nesterov’s ear. “But Talanov won’t.” He paused. “Will he?”
88
President of the United States Jack Ryan sat at his desk in the Oval Office. On the blotter in front of him was a legal pad with several bullet points written in his own hand. He looked at the clock quickly, then down at his telephone, and he did his best to control his racing thoughts.
This was one of those crucial moments of statecraft where he knew that everything he did in the next few minutes could determine life and death for thousands, tens of thousands, or perhaps even hundreds of thousands.
He’d spent hours in meetings the night before, with Scott Adler, with Mary Pat Foley and Jay Canfield, with Bob Burgess and Mark Jorgensen and Dan Murray.
They had all talked him through this conversation, but more important than the input of any of these learned professionals was a ninety-minute phone call he’d had with his own son that set the ball rolling.
Jack Junior had started the conversation with the news that Bedrock had been killed by the Russians. His father’s first question was about the safety of his own son. Jack Junior convinced his father he was safe only by putting Domingo Chavez on the line.
Once that was done, and with President Ryan still reeling with the news that the man who’d once saved his life had died saving the life of his son, Jack Junior then bombarded his father with facts and figures and details. Stories about Roman Talanov and Valeri Volodin and the man who poisoned Golovko and his relationship to a mafia boss in Ukraine.
Jack Senior had jotted notes down, asked for clarifications, and then made notes under his notes about things he would be able to double-check on his own.
The news that the account at Ritzmann Privatbankiers had been liquidated into diamonds owned by another account holder had been especially interesting to him. Ryan vaguely remembered that at the time there had been a question about diamonds, though he could not recall any specifics after thirty years.
When he got off the phone with Jack Junior he called everyone into the Situation Room and he explained everything. Foley and Canfield and Murray hustled out to check what items they could. Adler had advised the President on what he needed to do about all this.
Ryan made the decision to order the immediate arrest of Dmitri Nesterov. Burgess suggested operators in the field in Kiev could handle it, and Ryan signed off on the plan.
Now that Nesterov was in pocket, even though he hadn’t said a word yet, the consensus was that President Ryan needed to get on the phone with Volodin and lay everything out. It was little more than a Hail Mary attempt to marginalize the man by threatening to reveal everything they had, or everything they could convince Volodin they had, which was a lot less than what they could actually prove.
The light on the phone blinked, letting Jack know the call had been put through to Moscow. He took one deep breath, situated his paperwork in front of him, and lifted the receiver off the cradle.
Volodin’s voice came over the line. He spoke Russian, of course, but Ryan recognized the fast tempo, the self-assuredness. The voice of the translator in the Communication Room was louder than Volodin’s, so Ryan could hear the translations easily.
“Mr. President,” Volodin said. “We speak at last.”
Ryan spoke English, which was handled quickly by Volodin’s translator in the Kremlin. Ryan said, “President Volodin, I need to start this conversation by making a suggestion that I hope you will seriously consider.”
“A suggestion? Maybe you will suggest that I resign. Is that the idea?” He laughed at his own joke.
Ryan did not laugh. He said, “My suggestion is that you ask your translator to leave the conversation. What I have to say to you is for you alone, and my translator can convey this. If you choose, when I finish, you can bring your man back into the conversation.”
“What is this?” Volodin asked. “You do not set the terms for our conversations. This is just some ploy so you can control the dialogue. I will not be bullied by you, President Ryan. That was the last president of Russia, not me.”
Jack listened to another few seconds of bluster conveyed through his translator, and then he said, “This is about Zenith.”
This made its way through Volodin’s translator, and then all was quiet on the line for a moment.
“I don’t know what that is,” said Valeri Volodin.
“Well, then,” replied Jack Ryan, “I will tell you. I will tell you every last detail. Account numbers, names, dates, victims, consequences. Would you like your translator to step away, or shall I go ahead?”
Jack didn’t expect to hear anything on the other end, but Volodin said, “I will indulge you briefly.” His voice already sounded on guard.
When there was no one else at the Kremlin on the line, Ryan went in a different direction: “Mr. President, I have direct evidence that connects you to the polonium poisoning of Sergey Golovko.”
“I expected to hear this even sooner. I told the world you would have all manner of lies to implicate Russia.”
“Pavel Lechkov, an operative of the Seven Strong Men criminal organization, passed the polonium off to the Venezuelans, who in turned poisoned the victim. We have photographs of Lechkov in the United States.”
Volodin said, “No one believes photographs. Plus, if this man was a criminal, what does that have to do with me? Your own nation has trouble with crime, does it not? Shall I blame you for the activities of your gangs?”
“Lechkov was also photographed meeting with Dmitri Nesterov, a member of the Seven Strong Men.”
“I am putting my translator back on the call. You have nothing that cannot be heard by every citizen of Russia, although it will only show them the foolishness of an old Cold War spy.”
Ryan said, “Roman Talanov’s relationship to the Seven Strong Men was established by you as an intelligence operation, and he rose to the top of that organization, just as you have risen to the top of the Russian government. But Roman Talanov is now damaged. We have already informed key members of Seven Strong Men that Talanov was KGB before he became a made man, and that is very much a sign of disrespect to their organization.”
Ryan added, “I should think this will make life very difficult for him indeed.”
Volodin spoke up now, and Jack noted that he had not called for his own translator to return to the line. He said, “These are all lies.”
“Mr. President, Hugh Castor has given us evidence. Evidence you know exists. We captured Dmitri Nesterov alive last night. We have shown him the evidence, and he is angry enough to where he is talking quite a bit already. Once we put him on television explaining how he was paid one-point-two billion by the FSB to destabilize Ukraine, to poison Sergey Golovko, and to facilitate illegal business transactions so that the siloviki can continue to rape the public holdings of the people of Russia, then your situation will become dire.
“President Volodin, even though Talanov will be destroyed by this, there is a way forward for you, if you so choose. We will reveal our findings of the polonium investigation. They will point to the Seven Strong Men. That, and the fact that Talanov just became as toxic as Golovko was, gives you an opportunity to publicly distance yourself from him before your affiliation destroys you.”
Volodin asked, “What is your objective in all this?”
Jack knew what he meant. Volodin was asking what it was that the United States wanted in return for not exposing the Russian government’s payment to the Seven Strong Men.
Ryan said, “It is very simp
le. Your armor stops where it is, and returns to the Crimea. You will have won a small victory, but any victory at all is more than you deserve. If that happens, we will not connect the dots between yourself and Zenith.”
“I cannot be blackmailed!”
“But you can be destroyed. Not by me. I don’t want war. But you can be destroyed from within. Russia needs to know who is at its helm. No one in Russia will believe me. But there is evidence. Evidence from Nesterov and Castor and other men, and the evidence will speak for itself, and it will get out there.”
“If you think I am afraid of your propaganda, you are mistaken.”
“President Volodin, the old guard still alive in the KGB will look into the dates. The bankers will look into the account numbers. The bureau of prisons will look into information on Talanov. Several European nations will reinvestigate old crimes. If it is my propaganda that starts the snowball, it will only be for a moment, at the top of the hill. Everything I say will be proven now that everyone knows where to look.”
Valeri Volodin hung up the phone.
An aide came on the line a second later. “Mr. President, shall I try to get him back?”
“No, thank you,” Ryan said. “I delivered my message. Now we have to wait to see his response to it.”
—
Roman Talanov resigned from the FSB two days after Russia ceased offensive operations in Ukraine and pulled forces back to the Crimea. Typical of his career in government service, Talanov made no announcement himself; instead, Valeri Volodin went before his favorite news presenter, and after accepting high praise for his successes in stamping out terrorism in eastern Ukraine, he said he had a very unfortunate announcement to make.
“I have decided I have lost confidence in Roman Romanovich Talanov. Disturbing facts have come to light about his dealings with organized crime, and as the person responsible for the integrity of all Russian citizens, I recognize Talanov is not the right man for the job.”