Politika pp-1

by Tom Clancy

  He turned off the light and left, closing the door behind him.

  Tasheya was waiting for him.

  FORTY-FOUR

  MOSCOW FEBRUARY 11, 2000

  Minutes after leaving the television studio from which he conducted his nightly talk show broadcast, Arkady Pedachenko stepped into the backseat of his Mercedes and had his chauffeur take him to the exclusive Hotel National opposite the onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral. He was dropped off outside the front doors, strode through the chandeliered lobby with a familiar nod to the concierge and desk staff, and then took the elevator up to the luxury suite he had been reserving on a long-term lease for several years.

  This was very much a matter of routine for Pedachenko, who would arrive once or twice a week, most often alone, to be joined by a dostupniey dyevochkia, or “easy woman,” in his rooms shortly afterward. The driver and hotel staff knew this well enough, but it was hardly regarded as scandalous behavior, even for a prominent politician. Pedachenko, after all, was unmarried, and his reputation as a playboy only enhanced his charismatic appeal to a public seeking Western-style youth and glamor, as well as a slight flavor of eroticism, in their leaders. Besides, Russians — particularly the upscale Muscovites who formed the core of Pedachenko’s following — valued the good life, and found it difficult to understand the sexual prudishness that seemed to have overtaken the United States. Let the man have his little adventures.

  Tonight Pedachenko had no sooner gotten to his room than he heard a soft knock at his door, opened it, and stepped back to admit a beautiful woman in a short black skirt, black stockings, black leather jacket, and black beret. The concierge had seen her enter the lobby in her spike heels, guessed immediately that she was going to Pedachenko’s room, and admired her long-legged figure with a kind of wishful envy aimed at the politician, whom he was sure would be enjoying his tryst even more than usual this evening. The woman was like a pantheress, he observed. One who was no doubt in heat.

  Now she sat down on a plush Queen Anne wing chair, pulled off her beret, and shook her head so her hair spilled loosely over her jacket collar.

  “The money before anything,” she said coolly.

  He stood in front of her, still dressed in his sport coat and slacks, and shook his head ever so slightly.

  “It makes me sad to know our relationship is based so exclusively on payment for services rendered,” he said with a pained look. “After everything we’ve done together, one would think some kind of deeper bond would have formed.”

  “Save your cleverness for the viewers of your program,” she said. “I want what you owe me.”

  Pedachenko made a slight tsking sound, reached into his inner jacket pocket, and brought out a thick white envelope. She took it from him, opened the flap, and glanced inside. Then she dropped it into her purse.

  “At least you didn’t feel it necessary to count it in front of me, Gilea,” Pedachenko said. “Perhaps we have the beginnings of a closer, more trusting relationship here, after all.”

  “I told you to play the raconteur with someone else,” she said. “We have urgent business to discuss.” Her cheekbones suddenly appeared to sharpen. “I haven’t heard from Korut. He was supposed to contact me two nights ago.”

  “Can you try to get in touch with him?”

  “The members of my band don’t spend their nights in the comfort of expensive hotels, with telephones at their bedsides and fax service at the push of a button,” she said, with a single quick shake of her head. “The surroundings in which they sleep are far more Spartan.”

  He gave her a hard look. “How concerned should we be?”

  “Not too, yet. He could be on the move and feel it’s unsafe to communicate. That’s happened before. But we’ll have to wait and see.” She paused. “He’ll get a message through to me if he’s able.”

  Pedachenko kept his eyes on her face.

  “Well, 1 don’t like it,” he said. “In view of the failure at the satellite station—”

  “It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been in charge of the operation instead of Sadov. You should have waited for me.”

  “You may be right. Certainly I’m not inclined to argue. The important thing now, though, is for us to rectify our mistakes.”

  “Your mistakes,” she said. “Don’t try that psychological ploy with me.”

  He sighed and moved closer to her. “Look, let’s dispense with the antagonism and talk straight. I have another job, Gilea.”

  “No,” she said. “We’ve gone far enough. The minister, Bashkir, has been set up for a fall and Starinov will follow him into the pit. Just as you planned.”

  “But there’s the possibility someone’s stumbled onto us. You know it as well as 1 do. That incident at the headquarters of the New York gangster, the rumors that it was somehow connected to UpLink. And then the resistance at the ground station…”

  “All the more reason to keep a low profile,” she said.

  He expelled another sigh. “Listen to me. Starinov has notified the Ministry that he’s going to be at his cottage outside Dagornys for the next several days. I’ve been there before and can tell you it’s particularly vulnerable to assault.”

  “You can’t be serious about what you’re suggesting,” she said. But her eyes had suddenly brightened, become razor sharp, and her lips had parted a little, showing the upper edges of her front teeth.

  “I’ll pay anything you ask, make any arrangements you wish for your safe haven afterward,” he said.

  She stared into Pedachenko’s eyes, her tongue moving over her lip, her breath coming in short, rapid snatches.

  A second crawled past.

  Two.

  She stared into his eyes.

  Finally she nodded.

  “I’ll take him,” she said.

  FORTY-FIVE

  MOSCOW FEBRUARY 12, 2000

  There were three men in dark suits, widebrimmed fedoras, and long gray overcoats hanging around outside the bathhouse when the Rover pulled up in front of it.

  “Will you take a look at them?” Scull said from the backseat. “It’s like they’re fucking play-acting at being gangsters.”

  “They are and they aren’t,” Blackburn said, glancing out the front passenger’s window. “In some ways, I really don’t think these monkeys can distinguish reality from what they’ve seen in old-time American gangster flicks. But you have to remember that every one of them is packing a weapon under his coat.”

  “You guys want me to come in with you?”

  This from Neil Perry, who was behind the steering wheel.

  Blackburn shook his head.

  “It’d be better if you wait here, in case we need to take off in a hurry,” he said, and halfway unzipped his leather jacket. Scull could see the butt of his Smith & Wesson nine in a shoulder holster underneath it. “I don’t think they’ll give us much trouble, though.”

  Perry gave him a small nod.

  Blackburn looked over the seat rest at Scull.

  “Okay,” he said. “You ready?”

  “Been ready for days,” Scull said.

  The two men exited the car and strode across the sidewalk. It was a sunny day and a few degrees above freezing, warm for Moscow in winter, but despite the relatively moderate weather the street was nearly empty, and business was slow in the trendy shops along Ulitsa Petrovka. It was the uncertainty about worsened food shortages, and the withdrawal of NATO assistance, and a potential economic embargo, Scull thought. People were holding onto their money in anticipation of the worst.

  The hoods closed ranks as Blackburn and Scull approached the bathhouse entrance, blocking their path to it. One of them, a tall man with dark hair and a large shovel chin, said something to Blackburn in Russian.

  “Ya nye gavaryu pa russkiy,” Blackburn replied.

  Shovel Chin repeated what he’d said, motioning the two Americans off. Out the corner of his eye, Blackburn noticed another of the men edging forward, opening the middle button of
his coat. He was shorter than the first one and had a mustache that looked as if it had been traced over his upper lip with an eye pencil.

  “I just told you I don’t speak Russian,” Blackburn said, and started forward.

  Shovel Chin bumped him back with his shoulder.

  “I tell you again in fucking Engleeski, then,” he said, shoving out his chest. “You get the fuck out of this place right now, you motherfucking American asshole.”

  Blackburn looked at him a moment and then punched him hard in the sternum, pivoting toward him as he connected, putting his full weight into the blow. Shovel Chin sagged to his knees, grimacing. He heaved twice and then threw up all over his coat.

  Still watching him peripherally, Blackburn saw the thug with the mustache stick a hand into his coat. He whirled and drew his Glock, shoving its barrel into the thug’s throat, cocking its trigger. Mustache’s hand froze under his lapel.

  “Get your hand out where I can see it,” Blackburn said. “You understand?”

  The guy nodded, a fearful, bolting look in his eyes. His hand appeared from inside his coat. Scull hurried over and patted him down, reached under his lapel, extracted a Glock pistol, and shoved it into the right hip pocket of his jacket.

  Blackburn glanced at the third man. The guy hadn’t budged from where he’d been standing when they got out of the car. He shook his head quickly back and forth as Blackburn’s gaze fell on him, then put his hands up in the air.

  “No trouble,” he said. “No trouble.”

  Scull frisked him, found his gun, and pocketed it, shoving it somewhere inside his jacket.

  Blackburn screwed the bore of his gun deeper into Pencil Mustache’s throat.

  “Help your komerade to his feet.”

  The gangster did as Blackburn asked. The three of them stood there, trembling.

  Blackburn gestured again with the gun. “All three of you, I want you to walk slowly and quietly into that bathhouse. If you make a sound that I don’t like, you won’t live long enough to regret it. We’ll be right behind you. Now move!”

  A moment later, all of them were headed down the sidewalk. Shovel Chin was still unsteady, and had vomit dripping from his chin.

  They pushed through the door of the bathhouse and a kind of stewy, humid warmth spilled over them. An attendant peeked his head out of a doorway. A moment later he pulled his head back and quietly closed the door.

  Scull looked around and started opening likely-looking doors. Halfway down the corridor he found what he was searching for. A closet, stacked high with towels and cleaning supplies. He pushed the gangsters inside, whispering a chilling promise of what he’d do to them if he should hear a sound from this closet in the next hour or so. Then he closed the door, shutting them in, and propped a chair against the knob. They’d be able to break out eventually, of course, but not without making lots of noise — and they’d be too scared to do that for a while.

  “Come on,” Blackburn said to Scull.

  The sauna was on their left toward the back. They could hear groans coming from inside it. A man, at least two women. Blackburn nodded to Scull and reached for the door handle, pulling open the door to release some of the steam. The Smith & Wesson was in his free hand.

  Yuri Vostov was naked. So was the woman on his lap, her back against his rolling middle, his hands on her belly. And so was the second woman with her head between both their thighs. The three of them looked up from the bench in shock and bewilderment, jumping apart as they saw the armed man in the doorway.

  Scull pulled a couple of towels off hooks on the wall, tossed them to the women.

  “Good-bye,” he said, cocking his thumb over his shoulder at the steamroom door. “Da svidaniya!”

  They got out in a hurry, the towels draped haphazardly around their bodies.

  Vostov started pushing up from the bench.

  “Hold it.” Blackburn raised his palm, training his gun on Vostov. “You sit right where you are.”

  Vostov’s small, flat eyes skipped between Blackburn and Scull like stones off the surface of a pond.

  “Who are you?” he said in English. “What is it you want from me?”

  Blackburn moved closer to him, his gun still aimed steadily in his direction.

  “You’re going to tell us who ordered the bombing in New York,” he said. “Right now.”

  “Are you mad? How would I have any idea—”

  Blackburn shoved the gun between Vostov’s legs.

  Hard.

  Vostov flinched in pain. His back seemed to slide up the tile wall behind him.

  “Tell us,” Blackburn said, and cocked the hammer of his nine.

  Click.

  Vostov looked down at himself, wattles forming under his meaty chin, and drew a ragged breath. His eyes bulged.

  “Are you CIA?” he said. “My God, this is criminal!”

  Blackburn rammed in the gun. Vostov mewled and cringed, tiny rosettes of color forming on his cheeks.

  “CIA won’t blow your balls off,” Blackburn said. “I’m about to. Unless you talk.”

  “Please…”

  “You’ve got three seconds,” Blackburn said. “One. Two…”

  “Pedachenko,” Vostov said, and swallowed. “It was Arkady Pedachenko. And others from outside this country.” He swallowed. “Look, take the gun away from there, I’ve told you what you want to know.”

  Blackburn shook his head, his mouth a tight seam.

  “No, no you haven’t,” he said. “In fact, you’ve only gotten started.”

  FORTY-SIX

  DAGOMYS BLACK SEA COAST, RUSSIA FEBRUARY 12, 2000

  Vladimir Starinov strolled along the shore dressed in a light windbreaker, sweatpants, and sneakers, staying just above the tide line, salt-tinged semitropical breezes slipping over his cheeks like a warm caress. His cocker spaniel trotted along behind him, bounding over the talc-white sand, chasing incoming and retreating wavelets, occasionally snatching straggles of seaweed from the surf, shaking them in its jaws in an antic flop of ears and fur, and then tossing them back where he’d gotten them. It was a clear, gorgeous night, coppery partial moon over the water, stars glimmering in the sky like diamonds scattered randomly over a black satin jeweler’s cloth.

  Starinov felt at peace. For the first time in much too long. At peace. Many miles to the north, he knew, the cruel deceits of winter still prevailed, and the threat of national hunger threatened to sweep over the Russian population like a whirlwind. Here, though, there was a respite, a caesura, from the unrelenting martial rhythms of leadership and political survival.

  Sometimes, he mused, life in the Kremlin was like being caught in some colossal machine, one that was running down and down beyond control.

  Now he paused, hands in his pockets, looking out over the water. Perhaps a third of a kilometer off, he could see the running lights of a small boat moving slowly across its surface, almost like a snail on smooth, dark glass.

  “So, Ome,” he said, leaning to scratch his dog’s head. “There’s more to my existence than trouble, you see? Here we can think, and remember that there’s a purpose to our struggles.” He looked at the grinning expression on his dog’s face and had to chuckle. “Or do you neither know nor care what I’m prattling about, baby angel?”

  The dog swiped at his hand with his tongue.

  Still smiling, Starinov turned and looked back across the dunes at his cottage. Pale yellow lights glowed in its beachfront windows. Barely visible in the darkness, he could see two members of his guard detail standing watch outside, their outlines still and straight. Ah, how they fretted over his insistence on these solitary walks. But there were times when a man needed to be alone.

  He stood there at the water’s edge a few more minutes, watching the boat ply its lazy track to some unknown port of call, and then decided to head back inside for some tea. Perhaps he would read a little before going to bed. At any rate, it was getting late, and he was feeling pleasantly tired.

  “Come,” h
e said, clapping his hands to get the spaniel’s attention. “We don’t want to make our guards any more unhappy with us than they already are!”

  He started back toward shore, the dog playfully following along at his heels.

  * * *

  Perfect, Gilea thought, peering at the beach through the double circles of her NVD goggles.

  “How’s our friend doing?” a male voice said behind her.

  “He’s apparently broken from his rapture and turned back to the dacha.” She lowered the binoculars, blinking away spots of green as normal darkness flooded around her. “Perhaps he’s sensed that the cold black sea waits for him tonight. Do you think, Adil?”

  The tall, rawboned man grunted neutrally. Like Gilea and the others on the trawler, he wore a black spandex wet suit and swim fins, and had a diving mask pushed up over his forehead. There were depth gauges on all their wrists and waterproof weapon and equipment cases over their shoulders. Once they were underwater, the closed-circuit breathing apparatuses on their chests would recycle their own breaths, absorbing exhaled carbon dioxide, mixing the cleansed air with oxygen supplied by pressurized tanks.

  “We’ve got the Subskimmers ready,” Adil said.

  She looked at him. Nodded. In her pupils, the reflected light of the moon looked like slivers of broken glass.

  “Then it’s time,” she said.

  * * *

  Light and quiet, the ATVs tooled across the strand, hopping rises and troughs with nimble ease, sound-baffled engines humming as they powered the vehicles forward. Specially designed for Sword by an UpLink subsidiary, they were equipped with fully automatic trannies, accommodated two-man driver-gunner teams, and had pintle-mounted VVRS weapons aft of the cockpit. There were blackout shields over their off-road lights. The riders wore black Nomex stealthsuits, shock vests, and protective goggles, with microfilament radio headsets under their impact helmets. Their faces were daubed with camo paint.