by Flynn Vince
“With all due respect . . .”
The man speaking was the youngest in the room. Oleg Gorsky had been chosen as the commander of Russia’s aerospace forces because of his admittedly impressive grasp on technology. More and more that kind of expertise was becoming a requirement for anyone directing a modern air defense system.
“Yes?” Sokolov said.
“While I think what you’re suggesting is logistically possible, the ramifications seem incredibly far reaching. The economic sanctions against Russia will be tightened—”
“You don’t think President Krupin has thought of this?” Sokolov asked, letting the anger creep into his voice. “Those sanctions will be offset by the increase in commodity prices that always follows instability.”
“That’s not all, though, sir. The Americans—”
Krupin finally spoke up. “The American president is in no mood to send his men into a bloodbath to liberate three countries his constituents have never heard of. And the Europeans will be paralyzed by the thought of a nuclear weapon being used against Stockholm or Berlin.”
Krupin’s voice was quieter than it would normally have been, but the force of it was still sufficient to cause the young general to retreat.
“I want to be clear, sir. I’m in favor of moving against Ukraine if they insist on bringing NATO membership to a vote. But what you’re describing is very different. A miscalculation by any one of myriad players could cause an escalation that no one can control.”
“NATO is utterly unprepared for a move like this and doesn’t have the men or matériel in place to stop us,” Sokolov said. “In the aftermath of this humiliating defeat, the alliance will fail. Why would any nation be interested in membership in an organization that is incapable of carrying out its mission? Why would—”
“I agree with your tactical assessment,” Gorsky said, daring to cut him off. “We’re in a position to take the Baltics. But what then? Perhaps NATO will implode, but just as likely it will wake from its stupor and retool itself to resist an active threat. I agree that the West won’t risk nuclear retaliation with an attack en masse, but that’s not their only option. What if they just encroach slowly from Poland—pushing their border out? Or quietly insert special forces via the endless Baltic coastline? What if they simply supply an endless insurgency like they did decades ago when we moved into Afghanistan?”
Sokolov glared at the man, but didn’t immediately say anything. He had no issue with his junior officers speaking their minds and this particular one voiced valid concerns. The problem was that none of these men understood the situation in its entirety. Nor could they be permitted to.
This wasn’t just about the external threat posed by the West. It was about preventing Russia from falling into the hands of some weak-kneed political hack. Now, more than ever, they needed war. They needed a level of chaos that Krupin could disappear into. But even more, they needed glorious victories that reminded the Russian people who they were and what they could again become.
It was Krupin himself who broke the silence stretching out in the room. “If you don’t feel you can do your duty, General Gorsky, I would be happy to remove you.”
The man stiffened. “I made an oath to give my life in service of Mother Russia. I intend to keep that oath.”
“Then General Sokolov will follow up with you individually to clarify what’s expected of you in the coming days and weeks.” He rose from behind the table with a movement that was a little too careful, but not so much so that anyone would notice. “We’re adjourned.”
CHAPTER 23
EAST OF MANASSAS
VIRGINIA
USA
RAPP accelerated through his isolated subdivision, scanning its dark edges even more thoroughly than he normally did. There were a few completed houses with lights on and two more under construction, but most of the lots were empty. One day, they’d all be occupied by shooters he trusted and connected by a linked security system.
Not that it would matter in the shit show he now found himself in. All his plans were built around the idea of turning back a bunch of terrorist pricks or, at worst, a private contractor he’d crossed. Maxim Krupin was a very different kind of threat.
Rockets, drones, gas. Hell, bio. What good was concrete and bulletproof glass against that? And what about the water supply? They were on a combined well that would be a bitch to compromise by ISIS, but a walk in the park for the Russians.
He passed Scott Coleman’s nearly finished home and heard the sound of a circular saw running. The former SEAL liked tinkering after work even though he was paying a contractor an unconscionable amount of money. He said he found it relaxing. Distracting was more accurate. A Spetsnaz team could roll by in a tank completely unnoticed with the racket that saw made.
A barn emerged on the left and in the road next to it, a tiny figure was walking north. He pulled alongside and leaned out the window, looking down at Claudia’s seven-year-old daughter.
“What are you doing out here at night, Anna?”
“You’re back!” she said, not breaking her stride. “Did you have a fun trip?”
“I asked you a question.”
“I was working on the horse stall. Scott said he’d help me paint it. It’s gonna look cool. Maybe tomorrow. And it’s not really night. It just got dark early ’cause of the clouds.”
She’d been wearing him down on this horse crap since she moved in. Of course, she’d promised to take complete responsibility for her new half-ton pet, but he knew what that was worth. He and his brother had said the same thing about the dog they’d conned their parents into buying.
“Get in the car.”
“I can just walk,” she said, picking up on his mood. “I’m okay.”
“I said get in the car. Now.”
He stopped and Anna jogged around the front, yanking the door open and slipping in. She focused silently on the dashboard as they accelerated up the street and passed through the gate that protected his house.
“I want you to stay inside the walls after dark from now on. Do you understand? And if you leave during the day, you need to tell me or your mother where you’re going.”
“Why?” she whined.
He was about to say “because I said so” but then remembered how much he’d hated those words when they’d come from his mother.
“Because it’s not safe.”
“But there’s no one up here, Mitch! Just a bunch of your friends.”
He pulled to a stop near the front door and turned off the engine. “Don’t argue with me, Anna. Just do what I tell you.”
“Fine!” she said, displaying a flash of the rage that had gotten her father in so much trouble. She tried to slam the door but the Kevlar made it too heavy for her to get the desired effect. Rapp swore quietly under his breath as he watched her run into the house. At what he wasn’t sure. Probably the fact that he was playing around at the edges of fatherhood and he sucked at it.
Finally stepping out into the warm evening, he walked through the open front door and tossed his keys in a bowl that probably wasn’t meant to do anything but radiate artistic significance. The house was built around a central courtyard and he slipped through the slightly overgrown landscaping to get to a glass door leading to the kitchen.
Claudia was lying on her back in the cabinet beneath the sink, leaving only her long legs and grimy work jeans visible.
“What are you doing?” he said, stopping near her feet.
She writhed sideways, nearly knocking over the trashcan in an effort to look up at him.
“Welcome home!” she said in French. “The garbage disposal died. Can you believe it? Almost brand-new. I’m replacing it.”
“Ever heard of a plumber?”
“I couldn’t get any to return my calls.”
“There are at least two working on houses in the neighborhood.”
“Hard to get their attention for such a small job.”
“Are any going to be working to
morrow? I’ll get their fucking attention.”
She put down her wrench and stood, looking into his face with her head slightly cocked. “The company sent me a new one and the instructions are easy. I don’t think we need to shoot any plumbers in the knees.”
He didn’t respond, instead walking to the refrigerator and digging around for something to eat.
“I understand that Russia didn’t go exactly as planned,” she prompted.
He closed the fridge empty-handed and turned back toward her. “No.”
“But Irene tells me you’re all right.”
“Fine.”
“And Grisha’s at the hospital?”
“Yeah.”
“Why the one-word answers?”
“I’m just tired.”
“No, you’re not. You sleep like a baby on planes. What’s wrong with you, Mitch?”
He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “If Krupin doesn’t know that was me at Chkalov’s house yet, he probably will by tomorrow.”
“And?”
“Look what he did to Cara. That could be you lying in the hospital wondering when your new liver’s going to show up. Or Anna. I can’t protect you from him. Maybe I can’t protect you from anyone. Most of the time I’m not even here.”
“Anna and I would already be dead if it weren’t for you.”
“But you’re not. You’re alive. Maybe you should start thinking about how you’re going to stay that way.”
“I have enemies, too, Mitch. The new identity you gave me is good, but no lie is perfect. Can you protect me from Maxim Krupin? Probably not. But I’m much more likely to be targeted by someone from my past than yours. And in light of that, living with a vindictive professional assassin isn’t bad for me.”
“Tell that to the people who scraped my wife off the sidewalk.”
She let out a long breath. “Are you sure this is about me and Anna? Or is it about you? If you drive us away, you can have your nice neat life back. Just you and Scott’s supermen. When one of them dies you all get drunk together and talk about honor and duty and all that other male nonsense. Then you forget them. You tell yourself that their time was up or that they made a mistake you wouldn’t have. And when it’s finally your turn, they’ll do the same for you. Drink and tell stories and forget.” She shook her head. “Life’s messier than that, Mitch.”
CHAPTER 24
CIA HEADQUARTERS
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
USA
RAPP crammed the Egg McMuffin in his mouth and chased it with what was left of his Coke. A garbage can had recently appeared in the corner of Irene Kennedy’s private elevator, likely because she’d gotten tired of finding his fast food wrappers on the floor. He took advantage of it and watched the numbers above the door climb.
Rapp normally steered clear of Langley, but a text he’d received at 1 a.m. suggested this meeting would be worth an exception. Apparently, the Agency’s Russia analysts had finally come up with something more useful than shrugs and bullshit speculation.
Kennedy’s assistants weren’t in yet and he strode through the reception area, leaving his empty cup on one of their desks. Azarov had beat him there and was standing in the middle of Kennedy’s office, looking a little lost. She was oblivious to them both, sitting at her desk, talking quietly into her phone.
“How is Cara?”
“Her spirits are improving. But there’s more to think about. To talk about.”
Rapp remembered waking up in the hospital to the news that his wife was dead. It had been the worst moment of his life, but at least it had been over quickly. Seeing Cara full of tubes and knowing that she was going to stay that way for the foreseeable future was something completely different. Azarov had to face her every day with the knowledge that he was the cause of her suffering. It was better than the alternative, but Rapp wasn’t sure by how much.
“He’s ready for us,” Kennedy said, hanging up the phone. “We’re going to meet in the conference room down the hall. The AV equipment is better.”
They followed her to a room where Anton McCormick was connecting his laptop to a projector. He nodded a casual greeting as they entered but froze when Azarov appeared. As the head of the Agency’s Russia team he would be familiar with Azarov’s history, but knew nothing about his relationship with Rapp. That was on a purely need-to-know basis and the names of the people who needed to know could fit on the back of a postage stamp.
“Grisha, I’d like you to meet Anton,” Kennedy said. They exchanged a brief greeting in Russian and then McCormick switched back to English to get started.
“Thanks for coming out so early. My people have been working ’round the clock and we just struck on this a few hours ago. For now, details are sketchy, but we’ll be filling them in as fast as we can.”
He clicked to a slide of a shirtless Maxim Krupin drinking vodka by a lake. “Despite everything going on in Russia, Ukraine, and NATO, Krupin’s been unusually quiet. One interview and no personal appearances have been logged in weeks. And more than that, he has the state run media focusing very much on the growing corruption scandal surrounding his prime minister.”
“So he decided to go camping?” Rapp said. “Maxim Krupin handed his country over to a bunch of flunkies so he could go get promo shots of him fighting grizzlies with a pocketknife? I don’t think so.”
“I’m not sure our bears are technically grizzlies,” Azarov corrected.
“Point’s valid, though.”
“Agreed.”
“Are you two finished?” Kennedy said. “Anton, please continue.”
“Thank you. The Russians eat up this kind of testosterone-fueled propaganda. But Mitch is right. The timing and sheer amount of footage is something we haven’t seen before.”
“Like you say, though, it plays well with his base,” Kennedy said. “So unusual, but not shocking.”
“There’s more. We have detailed maps of Russia and we’ve tracked down all the locations where those videos were made. All were done within a twenty-four hour period inside an area that spans about a hundred miles. He basically spent an entire day being ferried around for photo ops.”
“Again, this doesn’t seem that unusual,” Kennedy said, playing the role of devil’s advocate. “He wanted to get all the propaganda out of the way so he could spend the rest of the time hunting in peace.”
“No,” Azarov said. “Maxim doesn’t actually like the outdoors. He does it entirely for the cameras. He wouldn’t spend valuable time away from the Kremlin if there was no filming being done.”
“Exactly,” McCormick agreed. “And that leaves a lot of time unaccounted for. If Krupin wasn’t wandering around in the woods with a film crew in tow, where was he?”
“Mistress?” Rapp said.
“No,” Azarov said. “He has many, but it’s an open secret. And they all live in or around Moscow as far as I know. Krupin doesn’t like leaving the city. Security arrangements are complicated and he’s afraid of people plotting against him while he’s away.”
McCormick advanced to a video of Krupin on a Russian news program. “This is from a year ago. The audio isn’t important—it’s just another kiss-ass state media interview. What’s interesting, though, is comparing it to the one he did just yesterday.” McCormick clicked forward again. “Notice anything different?”
“He’s wearing tinted glasses,” Azarov said immediately.
“The interview’s being done outside and it’s sunny,” Kennedy pointed out.
“One of Krupin’s greatest weapons is his stare,” Azarov countered. “I know this as well as anyone. The idea that he would choose to wear glasses like that in an interview is hard to imagine.”
“In fact, we have over a hundred examples of Krupin speaking outdoors and he’s not wearing sunglasses in a single one,” McCormick confirmed. “Do you notice anything else?”
“He’s pretty tan for a guy who you say was just outside for a day,” Rapp said.
“I admire what you must have gone through to get a quantitative analysis of his tan,” Kennedy said, “but are we perhaps getting into the weeds here?”
“I wish I had a smoking gun for you, Irene, but what I’m working with is more of an accumulation of circumstantial evidence.”
“Leading somewhere, I hope.”
“Bear with me just a little longer and look how many cuts there are during this interview,” McCormick said, fast-forwarding through it. “This is a five minute piece and there are three. Normally, Krupin would do that in one push. And then there’s the sun again. If you look at the angle, this interview took a half an hour to shoot.”
“I agree with Anton that this is unusual to the point of being suspicious,” Azarov said. “Maxim is very jealous with his time and has a powerful disdain for the press. Even his own.”
The Russian stood and approached the frozen image, examining the beginnings of a beard on Krupin’s chin and then his obscured eyes. “He’s ill.”
McCormick didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “That’s exactly the conclusion we came to. It fits everything we’ve seen: the absence, the marginalizing and imprisoning of his political opponents, killing Tarben Chkalov who had an uncanny way of figuring out what was happening in Russia. And most of all, risking bringing back Andrei Sokolov, the man he trusts more than anyone else in the world.”
“When you say ill,” Rapp said. “What are we talking about?”
“Still working on that.”
“He must have a personal physician,” Kennedy offered.
“Eduard Fedkin. A man who’s normally pretty easy to find—he has a family and a well established practice. Interestingly, he dropped off the radar recently.”
“Can you locate him?” Rapp said.
“If Krupin’s behind it? Probably not. He’s pretty much all powerful inside the borders of Russia and he knows how to keep secrets. Particularly ones like this. So we’re casting a wider net. If he really is ill, he’s going to need a medical team specializing in whatever his problem is. And he’s going to go for top people.”