The Kremlin Conspiracy

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  The same vision he had experienced so vividly the night before he had proposed, the night before he had been drafted into the president’s service, now consumed him all over again. Only this time he understood it. The great hall was the great country in which he had been born and raised. Luganov was leading Mother Russia into a terrible and tragic fire from which neither he nor Marina could escape. How vast would be the cost in lives and fortunes. How powerless he felt, even here at the power center of all Russia.

  Oleg opened his eyes. He knew what he had to do. It began with calling Marcus Ryker. But since that was impossible from inside the walls of the Kremlin, he steeled himself to do the work to which he had been assigned, to go through the day without anyone suspecting his thoughts or intents until the time was right to make his move.

  Opening his notebook, Oleg stared at the page containing all the assignments his father-in-law had given him. He started working through them one by one.

  His first call was home to Marina. No, he would not be coming home tonight. There was far too much to do, as there would be for the next few days. But there was good news, he assured her. The war clouds were lifting. The storm had passed. What’s more, her father had insisted that they take a break and fly off to Monte Carlo that weekend.

  Marina, as expected, was elated. She didn’t have to be asked twice to make all the arrangements. She even suggested she take Vasily to stay with her mother, now living in exile, as it were, in a small dacha outside St. Petersburg.

  “An excellent idea,” Oleg said. “And your mother—how is she?”

  “She is very scared,” Marina confided. “She doesn’t want to be so close to the Baltics if war is coming. She wants to come back to stay with us.”

  “When did you talk with her last?”

  “Just yesterday.”

  “Call her the moment we get off the line,” Oleg said. “Tell her everything’s going to be fine. Tell her not to worry about the Baltics. Better yet, take Vasily and go see her tonight.”

  “Tonight? But what about you?”

  “I told you, sweetheart, I am swamped with work,” Oleg said. “Your father needs me at his side. But I will feel better—and so will he—if you and Vasily are safe with your mother, comforting her and letting her know everything will be all right.”

  The next call Oleg made was to his parents. He told them the exact opposite. The crisis with NATO could spin out of control at any moment, he told them. It might be best not to be in Moscow for the next few weeks.

  “Are things really that bad?” his father asked.

  “Let me put it this way,” Oleg replied. “I just got off the phone with Marina and told her to book tickets to leave the country immediately. She was beside herself, but what else can I do? I just want you all to be safe.”

  Oleg’s mother began to cry. “Should I call Marina?” she asked.

  “No—I told her not to take any calls right now from anyone but me. I told her to keep the lines open. I expect her and Vasily to be heading to the airport in the next few hours. I really think you should do the same.”

  “And go where?” asked his father.

  “What about Hong Kong?” Oleg replied. “I’d join you myself if I could. Look, I’ve got to go. Things are very tense around here and moving fast. Please don’t tell anyone I called. And definitely don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Just head to the airport and book your flight on the way. Don’t worry about the house. I’ll send someone over to keep an eye on things. In fact, if I get a chance, I’ll go over there myself.”

  “You’re a good son, Oleg Stefanovich,” his father said, his voice trembling. “You’ll let us know when it’s safe to return?”

  “Of course,” Oleg replied. “Hopefully, it will not be long.”

  He told them he loved them and hung up. Then he opened the contact files on his computer and pulled up the personal mobile number of the German foreign minister.

  MOSCOW—28 SEPTEMBER

  It was almost noon when Dmitri Nimkov got back to Lubyanka.

  The massive nine-story building once served as the headquarters for the KGB. Now it was home to the FSB. Waiting for him was his deputy, Nikolay Kropatkin.

  “Sir, we may have a problem,” Kropatkin said as he followed his boss into his spacious office in the northwest corner of the third floor.

  “What kind of problem?” Nimkov asked as he dropped his briefcase on a small round conference table and then moved behind his desk, where he immediately unlocked his computer and began sifting through dozens of new emails.

  “Dmitri Dmitrovich, please, I need your full attention,” Kropatkin said a bit too loudly.

  He hadn’t meant to shout, but it worked. Nimkov looked up, startled. “Why?”

  “Trust me.”

  “I trust no one,” Nimkov said. “That’s how I got this job.”

  “Very well,” Kropatkin said. “I will tell it to you straight. We have a suspect, someone we believe very likely leaked President Luganov’s war plan to the Americans.”

  “Who?” asked Nimkov.

  “It will not be easy for you—or the president—to hear.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “Yes, sir—the person of interest is none other than Oleg Kraskin.”

  Nimkov blanched, then dropped into his chair. “That’s not possible.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Kropatkin agreed. “But here’s what we know.”

  For the next few minutes, the deputy chief of the FSB walked his boss through the evidence his team had gathered. First was a notation in the log kept by the head of Oleg’s four-man protective detail. On Wednesday night, September 24, the log noted that Oleg had entered his bedroom for the night at 8:42 p.m. However, at 9:17 the following morning, Oleg had arrived at the front door, “looking rumpled and disheveled.”

  “How did he slip past his detail?” Nimkov asked.

  “We don’t know,” Kropatkin said. “It was a serious breach of security and had never happened before. The supervisor told my investigators he thought the discrepancy was inconsequential since Oleg was uninjured. So he entered it into the log but did not report it to his superiors.”

  “Where did Oleg Stefanovich go?”

  Kropatkin pulled a laptop out of his briefcase and placed it on Nimkov’s desk. “It’s taken us some time to figure that out, but this is what we’ve found.”

  A moment later Nimkov was watching excerpts of security camera footage.

  “Oleg Stefanovich appears right there,” the deputy noted.

  “He’s checking into the Hotel National,” Nimkov said.

  “Exactly. The clerk gives him a key. Here we see him getting into the elevator. There’s a shot of him getting off the elevator and another of the hallway where he’s letting himself into a room on the third floor, at the very end.”

  “And?”

  “That room is right beside that of Marcus Ryker.”

  “Who is Marcus Ryker?”

  “A member of Senator Dayton’s delegation.”

  “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “I wish I were,” Kropatkin said.

  “You’re saying Oleg Stefanovich gave the slip to his own security team, then checked into a hotel room directly next to a member of Senator Dayton’s delegation—someone he would have met during the senator’s meeting with the president earlier in the evening?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir.”

  “Did Oleg communicate with Ryker after entering the room?”

  “We can’t say for certain. There’s no video footage showing Oleg entering Ryker’s room. But one of my men checked, and there’s an internal door between the two rooms. And several hours later, there’s this.” Kropatkin played a video of Marcus Ryker emerging from his room and rushing for the elevators.

  “In a bit of a hurry, I’d say,” Nimkov observed.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where is he going?”

  “To the U.S. Embassy.”

  “Why?”r />
  “Unscheduled meeting.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A member of our surveillance team drove the cab that took him there,” Kropatkin said. “Twenty minutes later, Oleg Stefanovich exits his room, leaves the hotel, drives his own car around the streets of Moscow for several hours, then returns to his apartment and walks through the front door to the astonishment of his detail.”

  “And then?”

  “Showers, changes, and heads to the Kremlin for work.”

  Nimkov leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “What do we know about this Ryker fellow?”

  “Former Marine, served in Afghanistan and Iraq, worked in law enforcement, then joined the American Secret Service. Decorated numerous times for bravery.”

  “And now he’s working for Senator Dayton?”

  “Not exactly. He’s no longer in the Secret Service. His wife and son were shot dead a few years ago. Quit the Service soon after. Dayton hired him as a security consultant, but he’s not a regular staff member.”

  “Could he have been recruited by the CIA?”

  “It’s possible,” Kropatkin said. “He certainly fits the profile of someone the Agency would recruit.”

  Nimkov shook his head. “You can’t really believe the president’s son-in-law is a mole for the Americans, can you? Can I?”

  “I’m not drawing any conclusions, sir. I’m just giving you the facts as we’ve ascertained them.”

  “And I concede they look bad.” Nimkov got to his feet. “Could there be another explanation for him being at that hotel, in that room, at that time?”

  “Perhaps.” Kropatkin fast-forwarded the string of clips his investigators had assembled. “About ninety minutes after Oleg Stefanovich enters the hotel room, an unidentified woman comes to the same room,” the deputy said, narrating the footage as it played. “That’s her, with her face obscured by the headscarf. We have footage from several angles, but from none of them can we make a positive ID.”

  “Go on,” Nimkov said.

  “The woman remains in the room all night. Then, about two hours after Oleg Stefanovich leaves the hotel and checks out—paying cash—the woman also leaves the hotel, slips out a side door, and we lose track of her.”

  “So,” Nimkov said, getting up and pouring himself a glass of vodka, “is Oleg having an affair? Is he cheating on the daughter of the president and simply got himself caught on video in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or is the woman working for the Americans, and Oleg Stefanovich is the highest-level mole in the history of the Russian government? I can’t possibly take this to the president unless I have answers—solid and concrete and irrefutable ones at that.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “Then what are you waiting for? Get me answers, and do it fast. We’re running out of time. We’re about to go to war, and we have to have this taken care of before we do.”

  Katya Slatsky was ecstatic.

  The moment she hung up her phone and stashed it in her new Prada purse, another lavish gift from him, she excused herself from the party as quickly and discreetly as she could. Then she dashed out the door of the flat, burst into the stairwell, and ran down four flights, too impatient to wait for the elevator, as her thirtysomething friends giggled in her wake, exchanging knowing glances and catty grins over her “urgent business” that had “just come up.”

  They all knew whom she was seeing. Thus they all knew where she was going. From the beginning of the affair, Katya had sworn them to secrecy. None of them had been able to keep the secret, of course, and rumors had spread. At first Katya had been terrified, fearing the gossip would get back to Luganov and lead to a sudden end to the fling. But then the president had separated from his wife, Yulia, banishing her from Moscow to some dacha near St. Petersburg. Ever since, Katya had dreamt of the day her paramour would invite her to move in or, better yet, propose.

  In her excitement, Katya raced out to the street and fumbled with her keys for a moment before finally finding the right one. She clicked open the driver’s-side door to her brand-new silver BMW, another of his many gifts, buckled up, and roared off to Novo-Ogaryovo, her music blasting and her heart racing. She hadn’t seen him in nearly a week—he was so consumed with his work—and she craved time alone with him.

  Twenty minutes later she arrived at the first checkpoint on the outer perimeter of the presidential palace. She pulled to a stop and lowered her window. All the guards recognized her, of course, and she was on the list of expected and approved visitors. But she’d done this enough times to know the strict procedures that had to be followed. One guard asked her to look into a portable retinal scanning device. Another worked his way around the BMW with a mirror attached to a long pole, examining the underside of the chassis for possible explosive devices. Still several more agents carefully checked through the contents of her trunk and glove compartment and beneath the hood of her car, while the K-9 unit checked the sedan inside and out for any whiff of explosives.

  Finally cleared with a smile and wave from all of the guards, who were completely dazzled by her stunning good looks, Katya winked back and drove on to her assigned parking spot even as she heard the roar of the presidential helicopter arriving at the landing pad on the north lawn. Now her heart was racing even faster. She was greeted and helped with her overnight bag by the chief steward, who led her to the next checkpoint. There she chatted up the security men, each of whom she knew by name, as she put her things through the X-ray machine and walked through the metal detector. Even after that, she was wanded down for good measure by a female uniformed guard. Katya knew family members weren’t subjected to any of this. Yet she also knew all too well that she was not family. Not yet, anyway. So she didn’t resent any of these measures. The agents were just doing their jobs. They were keeping her lover safe in unsafe times. Still, she looked forward to the day when she finally wore a diamond on her left hand and could come and go as she pleased without any of this hassle.

  Not five minutes later, Katya was alone in the enormous bathroom off the master bedroom, changing into a new negligee and dabbing French perfume behind her ears and on her neck. Would tonight be the night? Would he propose to her and sweep her off her feet?

  She was trembling with anticipation as she turned off the bathroom lights and slid beneath the silk sheets. Tonight, she felt sure, was going to be a night to remember.

  It was well past 11 p.m. when Oleg was at last ready to leave the office.

  He had made every call the president had demanded. He’d spun the man’s lies to world leaders and their deputies. He’d conferred with the number-two man in the Russian defense ministry and made sure he knew he had the “president’s deepest appreciation for his steadfast loyalty and dedication to excellence.” He’d dutifully typed up the minutes of the morning meeting with the war cabinet and transmitted them to the classified distribution list, and he had been in and out of Luganov’s office at least a dozen times in between, getting new call lists and assignments and providing the president hourly updates as the man relentlessly drove his government toward a war set to begin in scarcely more than forty-eight hours.

  Now, with everything else on his list crossed off, he turned to a task he’d never written down. He plugged a thumb drive into his office computer, copied the hard drive’s contents, and then shut the computer down for the night. Next he put all the classified documents spread out on his desk into his wall safe and locked them up. Then he donned his raincoat and cashmere flat cap, put the thumb drive in his briefcase, and locked the door to his office behind him.

  Hardly anyone had gone home. The floor was still humming with activity, and Oleg had no doubt it would continue like that all night. But Luganov had just choppered back to his palace in Novo-Ogaryovo. That meant Oleg was free to go, and he had other work to attend to that most certainly could not be done from inside the Kremlin’s walls.

  After his security detail drove him back to his empty house, he excused himself and said h
e was retiring for the night. Once inside his master bedroom, he locked the door behind him, lit a cigarette, and grabbed the satellite phone from the safe. When it was powered up, he walked over to the windows and pulled the drapes. At some point during the day the rain had turned to flurries, but none of the snow had stuck, and the precipitation had ended for the night. As he dialed the phone, though, he realized how much his hands were trembling, and it was not because of the cold or the wind. He turned and walked into the bathroom and locked the door.

  After the fifth ring, someone picked up but said nothing.

  “‘A great disaster has befallen Russia,’” Oleg said, citing Solzhenitsyn.

  “‘Men have forgotten God,’” the voice at the other end replied. “‘That’s why all this has happened.’”

  Then, per their predetermined verification plan, Oleg now cited Dostoyevsky from The Brothers Karamazov. “‘Above all, don’t lie to yourself.’”

  “‘The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him,’” the voice replied.

  “‘And he loses all respect for himself and for others—and having no respect he ceases to love,’” Oleg added with a sigh.

  “It’s good to hear your voice,” Marcus said at last.

  “It’s good to hear yours,” Oleg said. “We can speak freely? You’re certain this is secure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Where are you right now?”

  “Closer than you might imagine.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m in Moscow.”

  “You’re here? How? I thought—”

  “I know. I did, but I came back. Don’t ask me how. Suffice it to say your security services don’t know I’m here, and for now I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Of course. Do you have access to a car?”

  “I do.”