by Nick Cook
I don’t know.
But I do know something.
As I’d sat in a cell several levels below ground questioning Cal Offutt, he’d asked me when the President’s nightmares began. Because, he said, the Grid keyed in on events that were beyond the oversight of regular assets at the disposal of our intelligence agencies.
When the Pope and Thompson had disappeared into that church to pray, the intel community had no means of knowing what had passed between them.
Except for the Grid. The meeting had taken place in April. The President’s nightmares had started a few days later.
My thoughts are interrupted by Vasiliy slowing to take a turn. I ask Sergeyev what’s happening.
‘I need a cigarette. And you need some air. The guards at the Sarov checkpoint work in eight-hour shifts. On a night such as this, even the best of them get a little careless at the end of a shift.’ He glances at his watch. ‘We’ll stop here for a half-hour and arrive just before the handover.’
We pull onto the side of the road.
‘You are my boss, remember, Joshua. And I need you to act like him. We only get one shot at this. Let us take a walk. There’s something else I want to tell you.’
The forest is so dense that, a few meters in, there’s barely any snow on the ground. The headlights of the two BMWs have all but vanished. In the glow of Sergeyev’s cigarette, I see anxiety on his face.
‘When you came to see me in the embassy, you asked about the photograph of me on the tank. Do you remember?’
‘Yes. Taken in Chechnya.’
‘In 2006 – the year you were fighting the insurgency in Iraq.’
He looks up as a few flakes manage to fall through the canopy.
‘I fought that war, first as a lieutenant, then as a captain, fueled by a belief that what we were doing was right. Because the Chechens had violated our land and killed our people.’
He inhales deeply and exhales as he speaks. ‘In September 1999, they hit four apartment buildings – two in Moscow, two in provincial cities. More than three hundred civilians died. Over a thousand more were wounded.
‘Within a fortnight, President Yeltsin had ordered an all-out assault on Grozny, the Chechen capital. The slaughter was unbelievable. But I was high on anger. So were most of my countrymen. Half a decade later, approval ratings for the war were still through the roof.’
He grinds the stub of his cigarette underfoot and lights another. ‘It wasn’t until afterward that I was better acquainted with the facts. I began asking questions. About why we’d fought. Who had really gained from it. I even wrote a paper, but it didn’t go very far up the chain. Or so I thought.
‘A year ago, soon after the election of our new president, I was called to the Kremlin and asked if I would join a commission tasked with analyzing our defense-industrial complex and its value to the economy. I did. I was also able to look deeper into the origins of the Chechen wars.
‘The answer to the questions I’d asked was now clear. It had been for a number of years to some journalists who are now dead. The person who stood to gain most was Vladimir Putin. Putin was in charge of the FSB when the apartment bombings took place. All the evidence points to the fact that they were authorized and financed by the FSB. Three months later, Yeltsin resigned and Putin was sworn in.
‘Why am I telling you this, Joshua? For two reasons. First, your country doesn’t come out of this well either. The origins of the Chechen wars go back to the end of our war in Afghanistan and the many active programs instituted by the CIA to foment unrest in the North Caucasus. To kick us when we were down. They helped to inspire the militancy that gave Putin the excuse he needed to start his war.
‘But it doesn’t end there. The people who carried out his orders – the people who still do – are a cadre of young colonels you never see. The cogs in the machine. You have them, too. Ours are drunk on corruption, yours are drunk on winning; at beating the enemy, whoever he is, at any cost.
‘Along the way, they have both lost sight of the fact that millions of people are paying the price. Along the way, too, some of them evidently decided that the greatest threat came from their own democratically elected leaders. My guess is when Thompson pulled in the heads of your agencies and they told him they had no knowledge of the Grid, some of them were telling the truth. This is the essence of the secret states our two leaders are committed to exposing. The essence of what has led us here.’
He gestures to the trees that surround us, digs into his pocket and hands me a pair of mirrored Aviators to cover the bruises around my eyes when we get to the perimeter. He flicks his final cigarette into the forest and starts to walk back toward the cars.
‘Dmitri?’
He stops and turns.
‘Excellent speech. Was it for my benefit, or yours?’
His eyes narrow. ‘A little pep talk before we do what we now have to do.’
‘You said there were two reasons.’
‘The second is a little more personal.’ His expression darkens. ‘My family. The family you had the kindness to remark upon the day we met. They were killed in the second apartment bombing.’
57
A SIGN BELOW THE WINDOW PROHIBITS PHOTOS. THE FEMALE officer stamps the papers and hands them back. The guard passes them to the driver. They exchange words. The barrier swings up.
Vasiliy guns the engine. We pull up next to the booth.
Right beside the checkpoint is a three-man watchtower.
One of the guards leans over the parapet, a rifle on his shoulder, scanning the traffic going in. Sergeyev winds down his window. Smog and snow swirl in our headlights.
Sergeyev hands over our papers to the guard, who carries them to the officer in the booth. We watch her glance from one document to the next, then pick up the phone.
Ignoring the guard’s barked instructions, Sergeyev gets out of the car, walks over to the booth and raps on the window. The officer looks up sharply and puts down her handset. The guard joins in the discussion. I can’t hear what’s being said. Sergeyev taps the top of his holster and points in our direction.
The guard starts walking toward Vasiliy’s side of the BMW. He winds down the window.
The guard leans in. ‘Dobry vyecher, Polkovnik.’ He’s looking at me.
I know polkovnik means colonel. But that’s all I know.
He says it again, followed by a bunch of stuff I don’t understand at all. He’s so close I can smell the meal he just ate.
I see Sergeyev making his way back.
He has our documents in his hand.
‘Neudobnyy,’ I say.
His face goes a shade paler, and he takes a step back.
Sergeyev gets into the passenger seat.
The barrier swings up.
‘Da vai,’ Sergeyev says softly to Vasiliy.
We drive. I’m still holding my breath. Then Vasiliy says something and Sergeyev starts laughing.
‘Did you see the look on his face? I thought he was going to shit himself.’ He slaps his thigh. ‘The guard asks, slightly anxiously, what the 12th Chief Directorate thinks of their security arrangements. And you tell him they’re inconvenient.’
Vasiliy joins in the laughter. I’m laughing too.
‘Inconvenient. God, Joshua,’ Sergeyev says, ‘your talents are many and various, but I never had you down as a comedian.’
The sulfurous wind carries in more snow, sleet and hail from the east, and makes the glow of the monastery lights even more welcoming.
Sergeyev told the FSB guards at the checkpoint that any attempt to inform anybody, in any facility across the city, that we’re on our way in, would be tantamount to treason; and that I, as the officer in charge, would relay this to the head of Strategic Rocket Forces on my return to Moscow. He’s hopeful this will do the trick.
We’ll see. He parks a member of his team among the trees, so he can monitor any calls on a scanner.
Two black-clad priests appear as we enter the courtyard.
&nb
sp; We duck beneath an arch. Sergeyev shows them ID and they direct us toward a door at the base of a tower.
Sergeyev’s phone buzzes as we reach the first floor. He listens for a moment. ‘One of those priests is calling the abbot to alert him to a visit by state officials.’
Sergeyev listens again. ‘They are still talking. Yefim is pinpointing the recipient.’
The cloister stretches ahead of us. A burst of hail drums on the roof tiles above our heads like machine-gun fire. A gust of wind through the arches rattles a row of pictures on the wall to our left.
Sergeyev pauses at the second to last of a series of doors, turns the handle and pushes.
The abbot discards his cellphone and struggles to his feet. Judging by the burst capillaries that crisscross his nose and cheeks, he’s enjoyed the few earthly pleasures his Spartan surroundings have to offer.
Sergeyev gestures for him to sit. Two of his men file in and take up position either side of the desk.
After fifteen minutes, he leads me back into the hallway.
The abbot knows of no payments made by the Ilitch Foundation.
There’s been no restoration work in the decade he has been here.
Nor has the name Ilitch ever been mentioned in any exchanges with officials at the Sarov episcopacy.
The name, in fact, appears to be completely unknown to him.
‘You think he’s telling the truth?’
‘From a brief search of his files, they’ve found no evidence to the contrary. But without applying any more pressure, it is hard to be sure.’
He heads back inside and closes the door.
I raise the collar of my jacket and walk far enough along the hallway not to hear whatever exchange Vasiliy is about to have with the abbot, and then find myself drawn toward a chink of light on the far side of the cobbled yard. Steps down to a basement. I follow the aroma of incense.
The snow swiftly eradicates my footprints.
At the bottom of the stairwell there’s another archway, and beyond it, a small crypt with three simple wooden pews and a stone altar. Two candles on it, which glimmer on the icon screens to their left and right.
A black-robed figure kneels to the left of the entrance, eyes closed, praying. I take a step back, but she hears me and looks up. I place my hand over my heart.
‘Prasteetye.’
Sorry. It’s all I know to say.
I retreat.
‘Wait.’ A soft command.
I turn. The nun is under five foot tall, in her late seventies perhaps, or early eighties, and wears the Orthodox headgear that’s now familiar to me.
‘English?’
I shake my head. ‘American.’
‘You are a very long way from home.’
‘It sure feels that way.’
‘Please.’ She gestures to the pew beside her. ‘You came to pray?’
I think better of lying, and say nothing.
‘Stay.’
I look at her. It isn’t just the word, but the way she says it.
She gestures again toward the pew. ‘Just for a moment.’
I sit.
‘What is your name?’
‘Joshua.’
‘Why are you here, Joshua?’
‘We are looking for someone.’
‘Who?’
‘A Muslim. An engineer, maybe. We know very little about him, except that he has black hair and blue, blue eyes.’
‘This is a Christian monastery, Joshua. There are no engineers here. And no Muslims.’
I nod and get to my feet. ‘I’m very sorry for disturbing you.’
I’m back at the arch before she calls to me again.
‘When hope is lost, Joshua, faith can still be found.’
I turn once more.
‘Ask the abbot about this man.’
‘My colleagues, they—’
‘No,’ she interrupts me. Her eyes burn brightly. ‘You ask him.’
I cross the courtyard. As I turn into the cloister, I feel broken glass underfoot. The wind has lifted a picture from the wall and smashed it to pieces.
I kneel beside the wrecked frame. Two photographs. The top one is of a group of monks outside the walls. Some writing. 1911. I’m guessing it commemorates the year the order was founded. Below it is another of maybe thirty priests in two rows, one seated, one standing, in the exact same spot, a century later.
I recognize the abbot, center front, leaner than he is now.
Then my gaze is drawn to the man on his right.
I turn and run to the abbot’s quarters. When I enter, Vasiliy has his pistol drawn. The abbot looks terrified.
I put the photo down on his desk.
‘Ask him who this is.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Just ask him.’
Sergeyev turns to the abbot. There’s a brief exchange.
‘OK, he remembers this man.’
‘He’s no longer here?’
‘He left, maybe eight or nine years ago.’ Sergeyev pauses. ‘He uses a word to describe him that’s quite hard to translate.’
‘Try me.’
‘Osobyy. It means—’
The abbot starts to speak again.
Sergeyev talks over him. ‘His name was Danilovsky. From Dagestan, in the Caucasus. One of our southern Muslim republics.’
‘Muslim?’
‘Yes. Before he was orphaned, the boy’s given name was Magommed.’
By now, the abbot is babbling and won’t stop.
Sergeyev translates.
‘Soon after he was placed in the care of the monastery, the boy converted to Christianity. Maybe the monks forced him, maybe not. The abbot doesn’t know. This was before his time. In any case, as a young man, Magommed Danilovsky trained here.’
‘As what?’
‘As a priest. He had a reputation for curing the sick.’
‘Osobyy,’ I say to Sergeyev. ‘What does it mean?’
He thinks for a moment. ‘Special, I guess.’
‘So, he trained as a priest and a doctor?’
The abbot shakes his head.
‘Nye doktor. Inzheneer.’
As we’re heading back across the moat, Sergeyev’s cell goes. He stops, listens, puts it back in his pocket. His men are waiting for us in the cars. As a precaution, the abbot is coming with us.
‘Moscow,’ he says. ‘They think they’re onto something. A pattern in the traffic between the Ilitch Foundation and the Orthodox compound in Jerusalem.’
‘What kind of a pattern?’
‘Around six months ago, for three weeks, blocks of text were transmitted from a single desktop to an office used by the foundation to coordinate its restoration works. It’s impossible for us to decrypt it without a key, but all the blocks begin with a G and comprise letters and numbers that never exceed 256 characters. This pattern is characteristic of digital data converted into a 3D model and consistent with programming language that’s used only in computer-aided design.’
‘What does it mean?’
Sergeyev shakes his head. ‘This I don’t know.’
As I follow him to the cars, I remember Yuri at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity. He invited me to study the fiberglass mold in the ceiling, high above the altar. The angel’s head.
Everybody has agreed that it’s impossible to smuggle a piece of kit as sophisticated as a nuclear trigger into Jerusalem, because the Needle Eye system will pick it up miles before it gets to the city.
But an intuitive doesn’t need explosives. He needs a small, perfectly built sphere he can rapidly collapse – a ballotechnic – which delivers enough heat and pressure to kickstart a tritium and deuterium chain reaction.
58
TIME WAS WHEN I THOUGHT I’D NEVER SEE HOW THIS CAME together, but I use the silence in the car to build it into a coherent pattern: a rehearsal for what I’ll say when I get on a phone at the GRU’s field HQ outside Nizhny and cough up my guts to Reuben and Christy.
This is how it plays. T
hompson comes to office with an agenda of radical reform. He’s going to make a lot of people really pissed, but he doesn’t care, because fighting injustice is hardwired into him. It always has been.
In his crosshairs is the part of the military-industrial complex that’s been beyond oversight for far too long, which he believes is as much responsible for conflict as it is for defending us against it.
He launches a probe, not knowing at this stage that a large part of the black world of US intelligence operations is funded by a cabal of organized criminals in Moscow, and places it in the hands of a man he trusts, literally, with his life – Special Agent in Charge Jim Lefortz.
At the same time, he opens up a backchannel line of communication with the Pope, a man who hasn’t been beyond ruffling a few feathers himself.
There is a chance, the two men agree, for the world to hit the reset button, especially now that a radical reformer is also in place in Moscow. But it’s going to need all the tact, charm, secrecy and guile that Robert S. Thompson can muster.
In the background, his mentor, Senator Abnarth, has told him about technology the intelligence community has been working on, which, though in its infancy, has the capacity not just to listen in on people, but to see what they’re doing, anywhere in the world, in quasi-real time.
Does the operational technology exist, based on what Abnarth saw in an Army weapons lab almost a decade ago, before the tech was demonstrated and they brought the shutters down?
The President doesn’t know, nobody does. Not even Abnarth, because all trace of it has somehow disappeared off the map.
When the nightmares begin, Reuben contacts me, desperately concerned about the sanity of his boss.
Thompson and I click, and I’m brought on board.
We veer off the ring road toward Moscow.
I glance at my watch. It’s coming up to midnight.
According to the abbot, Danilovsky was nine or ten when he came to the monastery – a single photograph, retrieved from his files, depicts a lanky, raven-haired, blue-eyed boy – one of the very last children, I imagine, to have been recruited under Kalunin’s intuitives program.