“Good—that’s very good.” Oleg quickly recalculated his options. “Listen carefully. I’ve got a gift for you.”
“A gift?”
“Files.”
“What kind of files?”
“Everything off my office hard drive.”
“Everything?”
“War plans. Strategic memos. Transcripts of every conversation the . . .”
Oleg hesitated. He didn’t want to use Luganov’s name or title even though Marcus had assured him nothing they said could be intercepted. But he realized there was no reason to hold back now. If the FSB were on to him, if they could hear what he was saying, he was a dead man. Omitting a few key words here or there wasn’t going to make any difference at all.
“. . . the president has had with other world leaders and members of his cabinet,” he continued. “Emails, voice messages, my private notes. I’m ready to give it all to you. I was calling to ask you how to do that, but maybe we can just meet.”
Now it was Marcus who hesitated. Finally he said, “Of course, but I . . . I don’t know what to say, except thank you.”
“Don’t thank me too soon,” Oleg countered. “It’s not going to be enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m giving you the mother lode, and it will give your people tremendous insights into everything Luganov is doing, thinking, ordering,” Oleg said. “But it won’t stop this thing. It can’t. Events are unfolding too fast. He’s going to war even faster than I’d thought, faster than he said.” Oleg briefed Marcus on how accelerated the timetable had become.
“You’re telling me the invasion is now set to begin in just forty-eight hours?” Marcus asked.
“Correct.”
“Then we need to get you out now, before it’s too late,” Marcus said.
“No, that won’t solve anything,” Oleg replied.
“It’s okay,” Marcus responded. “I have a plan. We can get you out of the country and someplace safe, somewhere they’ll never find you.”
“No, please, that’s not what I want,” Oleg protested. “You don’t understand. There’s only one way to stop this war from happening, and it’s not by me running.”
“Then what?” Marcus asked.
Oleg paused, took a deep breath, and then said, “I need to kill the president.”
MOSCOW—29 SEPTEMBER
“I’m sorry. What did you just say?”
It was a few minutes after midnight. Marcus had been out for a run—trying to burn off his anxieties—when his phone buzzed. Though the streets were empty, he’d ducked into the shadows of a bridge before answering.
“You heard me,” Oleg shot back. “Someone needs to take him out. If NATO fights back, he’s setting into motion a nuclear holocaust. If they don’t, he’ll have broken the back of the alliance, and then it will be open season on the West. With no one willing to stop him, he’ll become the most powerful man in the world and the most ruthless. No one will be safe. He has to be stopped before he strikes. I don’t see any other way. I wish I did. I’ve spent all day trying to come up with another scenario—any other—but this is it. I’ve concluded this is what I need to do. But I need your help.”
Marcus swallowed hard. The logic was unassailable. It was the same conclusion he himself had come to. He’d just never considered Oleg might put himself forward to do the deed.
“What do you need?” Marcus asked.
“A plan,” Oleg said. “I’m willing to do whatever’s necessary, but I don’t have a clue how to pull this thing off, and I’m running out of time.”
“You’re absolutely sure you want to do this?”
“Want to? No. But I must. There is no other option.”
Marcus knew he was about to go where Jenny Morris never would, not in a million years. But he wasn’t an employee of the U.S. government. Not anymore. Nor was he operating on the government’s behalf. Not exactly. That’s why Morris and the higher-ups above her could never know what he was about to say or do.
“Fair enough,” he said, taking a deep breath. “There are three components in any successful assassination—the plan, the execution, and the escape. If you really want me to, I can walk you through each part, step-by-step. I’m going to have to ask you a lot of questions, and of course I’ll answer all of yours that I can. But when we’re done, I’m going to ask you one more time: do you really want to do this? Because if you pull this off, there’s a very real chance you won’t come out of it alive. You understand that, right?”
“I do.”
“If you do beat the odds and survive and escape—and I’ll do everything I possibly can to help you—you have to understand that you’re going to be a marked man for the rest of your life. You’ll have to disappear forever. Off the grid. No contact with family or friends. A new name. A new identity. Nothing will ever be the same. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“Okay, first things first,” Marcus said, pacing under the bridge and trying to gather his thoughts. “Where is the president going to be today? At the Kremlin?”
“No, he’ll be at the residence.”
“In Novo-Ogaryovo?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes. He’ll be there all day.”
“Who else will be with him?”
“What do you mean? He’ll have bodyguards and servants and—”
“I mean, will he be meeting with generals, the war council, key advisors?”
“Unlikely. Most of that will be done by secure phone calls and videoconferencing.”
“Even forty-eight hours before a war?”
“Especially so,” Oleg said. “The generals he needs to interact with are mostly at the Defense Ministry or on the front. There’s nobody at the Kremlin he needs to see face-to-face. He prefers to think and strategize at the palace, not in his office. And of course, she’ll be there as well.”
“She who?”
“Katya Slatsky.”
“I didn’t realize she was still in the picture,” Marcus said.
“Very much so, I’m afraid.”
“Does she sleep there?”
“Sometimes, not always.”
“Is she there right now?”
“I’d be surprised if she wasn’t.”
“Okay, that’s good to know,” Marcus said, processing it all. “Are you scheduled to be there today?”
“No, not that I know of.”
“Can you get yourself invited, say for breakfast?”
“Well, maybe not for breakfast, given that it’s already the middle of the night. But if I need to go, to bring him critical documents to sign, or whatever, then yes, I can certainly do that.”
“Is that normal?”
“Fairly.”
“How do you get there? Drive?”
“Usually they take me by helicopter.”
“With your whole security detail?”
“No, usually just the head of the detail goes with me.”
“Because there’s plenty of security at the palace.”
“Exactly.”
“Are you ever searched when you get on the helicopter?”
“Never.”
“When you arrive at the palace?”
“Not once.”
“Do you have to walk through a metal detector?”
“No.”
“What about putting your briefcase or other personal effects through a magnetometer?”
“What’s that?”
“An X-ray machine.”
“Oh no, never—I’m the son-in-law of the president. I have walk-in privileges. I don’t even have a security badge. I’m family. They trust me completely. That’s why I began thinking I might actually be able to pull this off. But how? We don’t have much time, and you still haven’t given me a plan.”
“I’m working on it.”
Oleg then surprised Marcus by asking about suicide bomber vests and ways of poisoning a man. Marcus ruled out both optio
ns. First, he said, he wanted Oleg to live, not die. Second, he had no access to polonium-210 at the moment, nor would he likely be able to scare up any on such short notice.
“We have to keep it simple,” Marcus said. “There’s no time—or need—for creativity. You’re not a trained assassin. You’re not trying to send a message. You’re trying to stop a nuclear holocaust. Period. Which means you need to take out the man responsible for leading the world down that path. And you’re uniquely positioned for the mission. Like you said, you’re family. You’re trusted. You have direct access to your target without being searched. So you need a small pistol, preferably one with a silencer. You can hide it in your briefcase or in your waistband under your suit jacket. You still with me?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so you smuggle the weapon into the place, and then you need to get him alone in a private area, just you and him. It doesn’t really matter where—could be his office, his bedroom, whatever. It has to be somewhere there are no bodyguards present, no open windows where anyone could see you, and where this Slatsky woman can’t suddenly walk in on you. Can you picture a place like that in the palace?”
“Yes,” said Oleg. “Several.”
“Do any of them have a restroom connected or nearby?”
“A few, why?”
“I’ll get to that. But first, you have to be able to sit with the president and put him at ease. Give him whatever documents he needs to sign. Chat him up. Ask how the war preparations are coming along, and obviously get any additional intel you possibly can. But the key is, you have to make him feel comfortable, relaxed. You know what I’m saying?”
“I do.”
“Then excuse yourself and go to the lavatory.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s when you’re going to pull out the gun, click off the safety, steady your nerves, and prepare yourself for what you’re about to do.”
“Okay.”
“Remember, he’s not just the president; he’s also the former head of the FSB,” Marcus stressed. “He’s a trained killer—far more trained than you. If he sees that gun coming out, you’re a dead man. He can’t suspect you for a moment. You go into that restroom, ready your weapon, ready yourself, and then reenter that room and come up to him—hopefully from behind, while his back is to you—aim, and pull the trigger immediately.”
“Aiming where?”
“His head. You need to stop his brain functions,” Marcus explained. “If you shoot him in the chest, even several times, he may still have the wherewithal to react, to attack you, to get the gun away from you.”
There was a long silence as Oleg considered everything he was being told. Then he asked, “Won’t all this be very loud? Won’t everyone in the palace hear it—especially the guards—and rush in and kill me anyway?”
“Not if I can get you the right gun,” Marcus responded. “If it’s the one I’m thinking of, no one will hear a thing. Then you might actually have a chance at escaping.”
For the next few minutes, Marcus walked the Russian through a step-by-step plan to get him out of the palace and to the airport, where a plane would be waiting to whisk him out of Moscow and hopefully out of the country altogether. It was a long shot, he readily admitted, yet it was worth trying.
Then Marcus had to bring up a very delicate matter. “I really need that thumb drive with all your files,” he said without apology. “I’m sure you’re right that having this information can’t stop the war, but I need it anyway.”
“Of course,” Oleg said. “I’ll bring it with me to the airport and give it to you on the plane.”
“No,” Marcus said. “I need to get it first.”
There was another long pause.
“Because I may not ever get to the airport,” Oleg said, his voice suddenly somber.
Marcus said nothing.
“I understand,” Oleg said. Then he added, “Actually, I have an idea.”
“Please hold for the president.”
Dmitri Nimkov was still in his office, as was nearly every member of his staff. He was not surprised to receive another call from Luganov. They had spoken every few hours throughout the day as Nimkov provided his commander in chief continual updates on the movement of American troops pouring into Poland.
As of yet there was still no evidence that NATO members were working in concert. There was no announcement out of SHAPE headquarters in Brussels about positioning troops and supplies in the Baltics to create an adequately robust deterrent force. Indeed, most NATO sources were telling reporters, “No comment.” But uncertainty about official decision making had not precluded individual nations from following the lead of the Clarke administration and coming to the defense of their Baltic brethren. Now, in response to an urgent request from the White House, at least four NATO member states were moving steadily despite Moscow’s insistence that the West was “overreacting to normal and peaceful military maneuvers.” In recent hours not only had Polish forces been fully mobilized for war, but British, Czech, and Hungarian Special Forces, attack helicopter squadrons, and fighter jets were arriving in each of the Baltic states as well.
Luganov had become more outraged with every update Nimkov had provided. But what had truly shaken the president was when Nimkov finally broke the news to him that there was circumstantial but compelling evidence that his son-in-law had had inappropriate contact with Senator Dayton’s staff and might be the source of the leak of Luganov’s war plans. Thus, while the FSB chief was by no means surprised by this latest call, he braced himself for another volcanic eruption.
“Dmitri Dmitrovich, are you there?” Luganov asked as he came on the line, his voice far more calm than Nimkov had expected.
“Da, Aleksandr Ivanovich—how can I help you?”
Nimkov could hear Katya Slatsky giggling in the background. He rolled his eyes and held his tongue. He didn’t care what the president did in his private life, though he harbored concerns about Katya. She was too young and had far too many connections to the West from her years as an Olympic skater. The FSB closely monitored all her social media activity as well as her bank accounts and credit card usage. So far, Nimkov and an elite team of his most trusted men, led by Nikolay Kropatkin, had not found any evidence that Katya posed any direct threat.
“I still cannot get my mind off the suspicions your staff have against . . . you know,” Luganov said after harshly telling his mistress to be silent when he was on the phone. Clearly he did not want to use Oleg’s name in Katya’s presence.
“We are doing all that you have asked of us, Your Excellency,” Nimkov assured him. “My men have been interviewing employees at the Hotel National all day. We’ve also been digging deeper into Marcus Ryker, and I—”
“That’s not what I mean,” Luganov said, cutting him off. “I’m sure you’re conducting an aggressive investigation, and I want you to brief me on everything you’ve learned at our 9 a.m. meeting. But that’s not my point.”
“Forgive me, Your Excellency. What are your concerns?”
“If the Americans are targeting him as a possible intelligence asset,” Luganov said, “his life could be in danger, and then . . .” His voice trailed off.
“I’m sorry, Your Excellency. I’m not following.”
At this, Luganov asked Nimkov to wait a moment. The FSB chief heard him excuse himself from Katya’s presence. He heard several doors open and close. And then Luganov reengaged the conversation, presumably somewhere he felt freer to talk openly, probably in his personal study.
“Listen, Dmitri,” the president began in a hushed voice. “Oleg Stefanovich has always been a good and loyal son. He has known and worked with me for years. I find it absolutely inconceivable that he would have willingly betrayed me. He certainly wouldn’t have reached out to the Americans. But can I imagine a scenario in which Ryker and the Americans lured my son into a trap? I have been thinking about it for hours, ever since you first broached the subject, and I cannot rule it out. Oleg is brillian
t, but he never worked for the FSB. He has no training in counterintelligence. And at times, despite all his worldliness, I have found him shockingly naive for a man operating at the highest levels of our government.”
Luganov paused. Nimkov wasn’t sure where this was going, yet rather than ask, he decided to wait. The president had not called to explore Nimkov’s worries or his theories. He was a man of action. He had a plan, and if Nimkov was patient, he would find out soon enough what it was.
“Is Oleg at home with Marina?” Luganov asked.
“Well, he is at home, but Marina and Vasily went to stay with her for a few days.” Nimkov was careful not to mention the name of the president’s ex-wife.
“Does my daughter have security with her?”
“Yes, two female agents.”
“That’s not enough,” Luganov said. “Increase her detail to a dozen. What about Oleg?”
“His usual detail is with him, sir.”
“Four men?”
“Yes.”
“Again, that’s not enough,” Luganov said. “He could be in real danger. Give Oleg a dozen agents as well. Then bring him to me by chopper in the morning.”
“Of course, Your Excellency. What time would you like for him to arrive?”
“Have him here by eight. I’ll meet with him after breakfast. Then you and I can meet at nine. He’ll be safer here. Plus I want to confront him about this woman, find out who she really was, and ask him about any contact he’s had with this Ryker fellow.”
“Yes, Your Excellency,” Nimkov said. “It will be as you wish.”
“And one more thing, Dmitri Dmitrovich.”
“Yes?”
“Bring the tape from the hotel.”
“We need to go tonight,” Marcus said when he got back to the safe house.
“What are you talking about?” Jenny Morris asked from the couch. She’d fallen asleep waiting for him to get back. “It’s one in the morning.”
Marcus pulled out a backpack and began filling it with the things they’d need as he explained that Luganov was planning to invade the Baltics in just forty-eight hours. He said nothing about the plot he and his source had cooked up to take out the president, only that the Raven had a treasure trove of material he urgently needed to get to the Agency.