The Kremlin's Candidate

by Jason Matthews

  “Fuck,” said Gable peeking around the tangle of riverine brush. “More militia. I make three jeeps a klick out, coming slowly.”

  Ruvo racked the shotgun slide. “That makes no more than twelve loopy lovers; we each take out a jeep and we’re done.” Gable shook his head.

  “They heard our shots. They’ll come in expecting trouble. Odds are too great something happens and we lose the missiles.”

  Lachs slapped a muddy missile case on the truck bed. “Let’s fucking use three of these puppies to take out the three jeeps.”

  “We sure they gonna light up?” said Ruvo. “They been immersed for a long time.”

  Gable looked through the brush again. “They’re slowing down running close to the bank; they don’t know what they’re looking for. You guys take the truck back across the field to the embassy. Bianchi’s waiting at the gate and he’ll open the storeroom. Get those missiles locked down and safe.”

  “What the fuck you think you’re gonna do?” said Ruvo.

  “I’ll knock out a couple of headlights, crawl into the brush, and keep ’em pinned down. They won’t notice you guys and the truck crossing the field.”

  “There’s twelve of those gomers,” said Lachs. “I’ll stay and Ruvo can get those cases back.”

  Gable shook his head. “You both get those cases back to the embassy, one drive, one riding shotgun, don’t stop for anything.” The SEALs were pros, and didn’t argue. Ruvo kept his pistol, but handed Gable the shotgun and a pocketful of shells. Lachs handed over his Browning pistol and two spare magazines. Gable stuck the pistol in his belt and stuffed his pockets with ammo.

  “We’ll get back with more firepower ASAP,” said Lachs. “Just keep their heads down and stay in the damn brush. Don’t be a hero.”

  Gable shook their hands. “Thanks for giving me a hand tonight. You guys made the world secure for another week at least.”

  Lachs pointed at Ruvo. “I’m still turning this asshole in to the World Wildlife Federation for killing an endangered species of riverine reptile,” he said.

  “If this asshole hadn’t got that croc off you, you wouldn’t have an asshole,” said Ruvo. The sounds of the rattletrap jeeps were coming closer, the beams of the headlights waving in the air as the tires bounced over the dried furrows in the field.

  “Back around these weeds and don’t go until I start popping at these gomers. Then steer for the yellow lamp on the corner of the embassy. Get those cases under lock and key.” The SEALs climbed into the truck, backed it up, and sat waiting. Ruvo gave Gable a thumbs-up.

  Gable stood behind the little corrugated hut, peeking around the corner at the approaching headlights. They had spread out from a file into a line abreast as the field had widened, yelling across at one another, not paying attention. But they all held their rifles in their hands. This is gonna be tricky, thought Gable. The jeeps slowed and stopped eight meters from the hut—about twenty-five feet, a long pistol shot—but these troops all had rusty AK-47s and the rounds would go through the tin walls of the hut like a hot knife through butter. Gable figured he’d shoot from the direction of the hut, then scurry into the brush and let the gomers have fun demolishing the hut while he dug into the weeds, which would give the SEALs time to get to the embassy back gate. Gable saw the militiaman farthest to the right stand and point at the field. He’d spotted the truck’s hood sticking out from the brush. In the next second, they would swarm in that direction and engage the truck, just what he couldn’t let happen.

  Gable stepped from behind the shack into the glare of six headlights, racking the pump so fast the shots sounded simultaneous, and fired three loads of buckshot into the right jeep, whose windshield disintegrated; the two men in the front seat fell out onto the ground, dead. The two in the backseat, one wailing and wounded, bailed out and hid behind their vehicle. Before the dead men had hit the ground, Gable pivoted to put three more rounds into the middle jeep, killing the driver, while the other three jumped out and hid under the jeep. He aimed his last two shots at the far jeep, knocking a rear passenger backward out of his seat. By Gable’s count, four were down and maybe one or more wounded. At least seven left and maybe eight. Militiamen were hiding under the respective vehicles, all of them screaming at one another in what sounded to Gable as, “Ahmed, get up and start shooting,” and more jabbering that sounded like, “Are you crazy? You get up and start shooting.”

  Gable jacked four of the dark-green shells into the Remington, his last shells and these were the rifled slugs—tapered solid-lead projectiles as big as marbles, the equivalent of a .50 caliber bullet—and one by one put a slug into the radiator of each jeep, causing a great whooshing explosion of steam, and cascade of water under each vehicle. Those jeeps weren’t going anywhere now, and the SEALs were home free.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Gable saw movement along the back wall of the shack; the metal flexed as someone slid along it inside the hut. Gable shot the last slug at the bulging metal, knocking a back-wall panel out and blowing the militiaman through a front-wall panel. Shotgun empty, two fifteen-round pistols left with two spare mags, and maybe seven militiamen left with AKs. Shit odds.

  More movement in the bulrushes by the river—where were the crocs when you needed them?—and rifle fire started up from the reeds, too close, and Gable dove into the shed—temporary concealment, but certainly not cover—and slow-crawled behind some broken wooden crates that stunk like fish, and hunkered down as a militiaman stuck his head into the hole in the wall and Gable shot him in the head, but two other gomers were coming through the door shooting from the hip and Gable dropped one of them with a snap shot in the face, and felt a punch in his right shoulder, no pain, just numb down to his hand, so he shot the second gomer with his left hand twice in the chest, feeling another round hit his thigh, this one hurt like a son of a bitch hot knitting needle, and rounds started coming through the flimsy metal, each hole creating a glancing shaft of light from the jeep headlights. Gable wiggled into a corner, putting in a fresh mag one-handed by holding the pistol between his knees with the magazine well pointing up—emergency reload—and he released the slide and started firing at the two gomers coming through the door, but felt two more slugs hit him in the chest, and rounds were still coming through the metal, but Gable was feeling numb and it was like he was breathing through a straw, not enough breath, and he saw Nash in Athens Station, and Dominika in a summer dress, and Moira playing piano barefoot, his only regret, how he screwed up his marriage, and how she died before he had a chance to patch it up. He remembered the happy first month, the honeymoon on Cudjoe Key, and he could smell the salt air.

  The two surviving militiamen were leaning against the fender of their hissing jeep shakily lighting cigarettes when both their heads exploded and they dropped like string-cut puppets, the cigarettes still in their mouths. Ruvo and Lachs came out of the darkness and looked at the dead soldiers around the shattered jeeps, then looked inside the shack. Five militiamen lay piled in front of Gable, who was sitting up against the wall, eyes closed, his shirtfront black with blood.

  Ruvo checked his pulse. “He’s gone,” he said. “Goddamn it.” They were quiet for a second, fellow gladiators mourning one of their own.

  “Let’s get him back,” said Lachs. SEALs never leave their fallen behind.

  “We got a little work to do first,” said Ruvo.

  * * *

  * * *

  The next morning, with Colonel Bianchi sitting in a chair in front of his desk, Gondorf reported by secure phone to Benford, who after a stunned silence on hearing that Gable was dead, cursed for five minutes and told him to stay by the phone. He secretly vowed to drum him out of the Service. Gondorf blanched when Bianchi told him about the firefight with the militia patrols, but he did not appear to be concerned any longer about the missiles, now that they were securely returned to the embassy storeroom. And he seemed not to care that a CIA officer was in a plastic bag, lying on a pallet in the embassy cooler. He saw a way to d
ivert blame as he reverted to the gasbag bureaucrat-careerist his colleagues knew him to be.

  “Your guys killed twelve militia troops? Are you crazy? There will be serious repercussions when they’re found.” Gondorf was thinking about official protests, riots at the embassy front gate, a fuming ambassador, diplomatic expulsions.

  “More like fourteen. Your guy got eight himself. No one’s going to find anything,” said Bianchi. “They parked the jeeps down the road behind a warehouse with the keys in them.”

  “You’re all maniacs. When they find the men, all hell will break loose.”

  “Those guys ain’t coming home for supper. Here.” Bianchi flipped a pile of militiamen’s ID booklets on Gondorf’s desk. They were soggy with sweat and blood, one with a bullet hole through the center. Gondorf’s mouth curled with disgust as he flipped open one booklet with the point of a pencil.

  “Jesus,” Gondorf said. “That’s one of my support assets who got rid of the missiles in the first place.”

  “Any more?” said Bianchi. Gondorf opened the other booklets with the pencil. His face fell.

  “This one too, and this one, three of them. I don’t know the others.”

  “Pretty efficient agent network you got going there, Mister Chief of Station, recruiting Khartoum militia as clandestine assets,” said Bianchi.

  “Who your SEALs gunned down last night, like some gangsters.”

  “Your so-called assets were coming last night to retrieve those missiles, you dickhead,” said Bianchi. “Your man Gable got zapped to save your ass, which I’d personally like to kick.”

  “What about the missiles?” said Gondorf, ignoring the threat. “I want them out of here.”

  “You want them out?” said Bianchi. “I called up a Seahawk-60 from the Nimitz in the Red Sea. The Navy’ll fly ’em out—Gable too.”

  Gondorf looked at the Milatt, trying to decide how to strengthen his position, for there was always some bureaucratic dodge, some refuge. His thoughts raced to creating a distracting controversy with DOD as scapegoat. He pointed at Bianchi accusingly.

  “Your office is going to have to answer for murdering those men. I’m filing an official crimes report to DOJ.”

  “Based on what?” said Bianchi, getting out of his chair. The SEALs flew out for Little Creek last night. (All flights departed Khartoum after midnight when the soft, sunbaked tar runways hardened in the cooler night air.) “The Pentagon isn’t going to help you, the way you act on the country team, and the ambassador is pissed at your scary good performance. My guess is that whoever that was from Langley screaming over the phone will make you feel like you were swallowed by wolves and shit over a cliff.” Bianchi walked to the office door.

  “You’re forgetting one thing,” said Gondorf, sweating. “When they find those men, there’s going to be a shitstorm, with you right in the middle of it.” Bianchi looked out at the river through the blinds.

  “The SEALs took care of it. Like I told you, those militia troopers won’t be home for supper,” said Bianchi, over his shoulder. “River crocs already had ’em over for dinner last night.”

  SHCHAVELYA SUP—SORREL SOUP

  Sauté greens (traditionally wild sorrel, or substitute dandelion, watercress, or spinach) with chopped onions until wilted and soft. Add chicken stock, bring to a boil, then simmer to finish. Remove from heat, add sugar and lemon juice for balance. Temper egg yolks with broth, stir into soup, and simmer without boiling. Serve hot or cold with sour cream.

  21

  Smell a Rat

  Benford woke Nate up in the middle of the night with the black news about Gable. Nate felt the icy shock run up his back, and he stood gripping the receiver. Gable. Indestructible. A shootout in Khartoum, for nothing. That piece of crap Gondorf. Nate asked about services, the funeral, memorials.

  “Never mind that,” Benford said. “You get to the safe house tomorrow and do your job.”

  “How do I tell her?” Nate said. “He was like a brother . . .”

  “You do not, under any circumstances, tell her. She cannot fall apart, not now. Keep her focused. She’s got to lead us to MAGNIT, we have to wrap up that illegal in New York, and she’s got to make sure Shlykov is thrown in prison.”

  “Pretty long to-do list, Simon; you forgot ‘bury Marty Gable.’ ” Nate braced for the explosion, not really caring. Surprisingly, Benford’s voice was muted.

  “You know perhaps better than most, what he would have told you right now. He would have told you to do your job, protect your asset, get the intel, and set up the next contact. I would add that you should make him as proud of you as he always was.” Nate swallowed hard.

  “I’ll send the cable when we’re finished,” said Nate.

  * * *

  * * *

  Istanbul safe house AMARANTH stood behind a massive wooden gate with iron studs topped by medieval spikes. The gravel drive wound slightly downhill toward the water. The ornate villa—yali in Turkish—with its sloping red-tile roof stood alone amid pine trees right at the edge of the Bosphorus, its lower foundation continually wetted by the gentle wakes from passing Black Sea freighters. The interior of the yali was magnificent, full of elaborate moldings, and painted ceilings, and walls decorated in endless geometric Islamic patterns in gold and turquoise. A broad central salon was graced by a bubbling marble fountain. The salon was flanked by corner sitting rooms that overhung the Bosphorus, cooled by breezes through panoramic gallery windows. The corner rooms were furnished in high Ottoman style, with low sofas and massive copper tray chargers on carved wooden legs. Up the curved staircase of pink marble, on the second floor, four broad bedrooms featured canopy beds in peacock blue. Each bedroom led to a matching bath.

  Nate drove to the safe house via a circuitous SDR over the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge into Asia, where he strung together a series of stair-step turns and loops in the hilly neighborhoods of Üsküdar, Ümraniye, Görele, and Zerzavatçi. During one loop in the scrubland, he stopped at a turnoff and used the surrounding gnarly hills as a sound-catching bowl to listen for the purr of fixed- or rotary-wing aircraft, a denied-area trick Gable had taught him. Nothing. These were poor districts, with muddy lanes and rusted satellite dishes, ruined trucks balanced on cinder blocks, and mountains of discarded tires visible behind corrugated metal walls strung with barbed wire. This Asian Istanbul was nothing like the glamourous enclaves of the coast road on the European side.

  He was black; no surveillance team—not even those TNP pros—could stay undetected so completely and still know where he was. He had rented the little Hyundai that morning from the lobby of the Mövenpick Hotel in Maslak, so he was not sweating vehicle beacons. He knew DIVA would be as thorough, running a tight route before she got on the ferry. Given the splash she’d made by bagging Shlykov, a too-long absence from the rezidentura would be risky. Nate was not sure they’d have even five hours for debriefings. Nate’s final SDR leg—memorized by studying maps like an actor memorizes lines—was along Macar Tabya Caddesi, working his mirrors, and catching glimpses of the water between the trees. He drove through the gate, closed it behind him, and coasted down the gravel drive to the house. Its three stories, with ornate roofline, was painted pink with white gingerbread trim, incongruous in the piney woods.

  Nate quickly surveyed the opulent interior. Triple doors on the ground-floor salon led outside to the breezy veranda with the Bosphorus glittering in the morning sun. There was a narrow strip of grass between the house and the pier. White wrought-iron lanterns were spaced along the breakwater wall. Some pasha must have had glittering soirees in this house, thought Nate. Time check. 0900 hours. She’d be here in three hours. He sat on a low couch in the Ottoman-style living room and reviewed his notes. He had rehearsed what he would say to Dominika, but he didn’t know if he could avoid telling her about Gable despite Benford’s orders. Would she still be furious at him? Now she was inside the Kremlin, enveloped by the approving embrace of President Vladimir Vladimirovich. She probably would be
come Director of SVR, and would be generating staggering intelligence for Langley. Her latest reporting had averted an apocalyptic terror campaign in this city.

  Nate was sitting in the relative dark of the room, doors open, the long gauzy sheers floating in the wind. He peripherally registered movement on the lawn. It was Dominika, holding a small case in her hand. She had somehow gotten through the gate (or over the wall?) and come around the side of the house. Two hours early. Nate did not move, watching her through the French doors. She faced the water, dropped her bag, shook out her hair in the breeze, and looked at a freighter thrumming down the channel. She lifted one foot, then the other, slipping sandals off her feet. Her dark-blue summer dress billowed in the breeze, right out of Wuthering Heights. Nate walked to the open door and leaned against the frame.

  “I’m sorry, but the property is not for sale,” he said. Dominika did not turn, but continued to look at the water.

  “Are you the owner?” said Dominika over her shoulder.

  “I represent the owners,” said Nate, stepping down to the grass and walking up behind her.

  “Are you sure they will not consider selling?” she said. She turned around and brushed wind-blown hair off her face. She took a step toward him. They were inches apart.

  “How much are you willing to offer?” said Nate.

  “For a view like this, price is no object,” said Dominika. She put her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder. Nate lightly held her waist. They stood like that for a long minute, then Dominika stepped back and wiped her wet cheek.

  “Kak ty?” she whispered, in Russian, how are you?

  “Privet,” said Nate, Hi. “I missed you.” Business now. “How did you get here early? How long do we have today? I’ve got a lot of questions.”

  “I took a different ferry, then a bus, then I walked. It was a lovely morning.”