by Flynn Vince
“Is Mike back in town?”
“He’s on a plane now. Touches down at Dulles in an hour.”
Kennedy smiled. Mike Nash was a good-looking former Marine and bona fide national hero. Madeline Barnes—and most everyone on Capitol Hill—fell all over themselves for a photo op with the man.
“Tell him to go straight to the restaurant from Dulles and let Madeline know he’s going to sit in for me.”
Her assistant winced. “Mike’s going to read me the riot act after the ten-hour flight he’s been on.”
“Tell him I’ll pay for lunch,” she said, straightening when Grisha Azarov entered the office suite.
He had the same effortless gait as Rapp, but everything else was different. The dead eyes and expressionless face, the close shave, the tailored slacks and jacket.
She’d given him a key to her private elevator and forbidden her security people from asking him if he was armed. Not that she trusted the man—there were only a handful of people who she could say that about. But it was unlikely that he was an immediate danger to her or her people. Unless he was provoked.
The question was what would the man register as a provocation? The cool demeanor he’d been born with had been turned to ice by the events of his life. Being taken from his parents and put into the Soviet athletics mill. His unceremonious ejection from that program and time in Russia’s Special Forces. His life as an executioner trapped in the orbit of Maxim Krupin.
Now all that carefully cultivated structure had disappeared. Now, he was completely adrift—trying not only to build a life for himself but to understand what that even meant. Cara Hansen wasn’t just the woman he loved. She was the life raft he clung to.
So somewhere behind the mask, the second most dangerous killer in the world was collapsing. The potential ramifications of that were beyond even her ability to predict. What she did know, though, was that she needed to find a way to get him through it. If he lost control, there would be little choice but to eliminate him—an action that would be extremely unfortunate and incredibly difficult. Mitch was the only man in the world who could reliably perform the task and he would push back hard. Azarov had demonstrated loyalty to him and that wasn’t something he took lightly.
“Thank you for coming, Grisha. We’re in the conference room again.”
He nodded respectfully and walked beside her to the hallway. She considered asking about Cara’s condition, but there was no real point. He’d know that the Agency was being provided regular reports.
“You remember Anton,” she said as they entered the conference room. The two men shook hands before joining her at the table.
“Anton’s people have refined their analysis and I wanted you to be here for the briefing. Having so much personal history with Maxim Krupin, our hope is that you can provide some insight.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
She nodded toward McCormick and he began.
“After we decided that Krupin was probably sick, the question became how sick. It could be anything from a relatively minor illness that would tarnish his image as a Russian superman to something terminal. A secondary question was what kind of treatment would be necessary—he could need a one-time procedure like heart surgery or a longer term treatment regimen like you’d see for cancer. Each scenario has its own complexities.”
“And?” Kennedy said.
“Bad things, Irene. We still can’t find his personal doctor and believe me it isn’t for lack of trying. All his office will say is that he’s on sabbatical and we haven’t been able to get to his wife. What we’re even more worried about is that one of Russia’s top brain surgeons was called away on an unknown emergency. No one seems to be sure where.”
“He hasn’t reappeared?”
“Actually, he has. He was killed in a car accident on the way home.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “It’s compelling but still circumstantial. I was expecting more.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Irene. Because I’ve got more. A lot more.” He opened the file in front of him. “One of our analysts had the bright idea of looking at Russian chat rooms—specifically support groups for people with different serious illnesses.”
“I think it’s unlikely that Maxim Krupin would be looking for emotional support on the Internet,” Azarov interjected.
“Agreed. That’s not what we were looking for. We were interested in finding a way to corroborate the disappearance of physicians. Sick people are very attached to their doctors and would probably complain about any disappearances on a forum. As you can imagine, there are a lot of these kinds of groups—some general and some very specific as to illness. People discuss treatments, alternative therapies, their experiences . . . Whatever.”
“Based on the disappearance of that brain surgeon, can I assume that you prioritized forums dealing with those kinds of ailments?” Kennedy asked.
“You can. And we found a flurry of recent activity on a chat room relating to brain tumors. But not about missing docs. About the fact that a number of people with very serious diagnoses had been offered places in an experimental treatment study. As you can imagine, most agreed.”
“What information do we have on these studies?”
“There’s nothing to know about them. As far as the scientific community is concerned they don’t exist. And it gets worse. None of the treatments are being done at local hospitals. The patients have been transported to an unknown location, supposedly for sterility issues and radiation danger.”
“They must have contact with their families, though. I agree that sick people are attached to their doctors but they’re even more attached to spouses, children, and parents.”
“No physical contact and no phone contact. Only email.”
“Do we have those emails?”
“Some. Personal accounts with minimal security.”
“Did you find anything of interest?”
McCormick nodded. “The correspondence coming from the patients is fairly nonspecific with regard to family history. Also, when you run it through the computers, it’s pretty clear that the writing styles have changed when compared to older emails.”
“That doesn’t seem surprising,” Azarov said. “Certainly a severe illness—particularly relating to the brain—could explain that.”
“If the writing got worse, yes. But one guy jumped up three grade levels based on our software.”
“So someone else is writing their correspondence,” Kennedy said.
“We’re one hundred percent sure of that.”
“It’s possible that they’re so sick from the therapy that they’re having someone else type. Or even using voice recognition that could produce stylistic changes.”
“Sure, but all of them? From day one? And finally, one of the patients has been returned to her family dead. Her body was accompanied by a nice letter that the docs had done everything they could and no one seemed inclined to ask questions beyond that.”
“I appreciate what you’ve done here,” Kennedy said. “But where does it lead?”
“We’re working on that. The connections are kind of tenuous and we—”
“You Americans are so blinded by your sense of morality,” Azarov said, causing McCormick to fall silent. “Your passion for individual rights, your democracy. Even here at the Central Intelligence Agency, there are dark places you can’t see into.”
“But as a Russian you can?” Kennedy asked.
“There are many therapies for terminal patients, some well supported, some untested or experimental, and some completely rejected by mainstream science. Each has its own risks and each can leave a patient incapacitated for different lengths of time and to different degrees.”
“He’s experimenting on them,” Kennedy said.
“Of course. It would be completely natural for him. And even more so for Sokolov. They’re men who leave nothing to chance and are completely devoid of any sense of compassion. Women, children. It wouldn’t matter to them.
They’d want to test the effectiveness and side effects of every possible therapy.”
Kennedy leaned back in her chair and turned her attention to McCormick. “What was the condition of the woman who died and was sent back to her family?”
“A more or less inoperable brain tumor.”
“And now not only is she gone, but so is one of Russia’s top brain surgeons. This suggests to me that Krupin has a similar tumor and that the surgeon attempted to remove it. Perhaps using some technique that’s still experimental. When he failed, he became nothing more than a security risk.”
“If that’s true, then we’ve just rearranged the European chessboard in a big way,” McCormick said. “We’ve been working under the assumption that Krupin’s just saber rattling in Ukraine. But if he’s facing serious health issues with long-term ramifications, he’s going to need a diversion. If I were him, I’d order my army to invade tomorrow.”
“I strongly agree,” Azarov said. “Krupin won’t care about the human toll or the long-term cost to Russia. His only concern will be creating a nationalist wave through the country and ensuring that everyone is too distracted to notice his decline.”
Kennedy turned her attention to a blank section of wall near the door, trying to sort through what she’d just heard.
“So war,” she said finally.
“And not just war,” McCormick said. “Victory. The Ukrainian military isn’t going to be able to stand against Russian forces and NATO isn’t going to get involved to protect a nonmember country.”
“Then I’m afraid we’re back to the question Mitch asked in our last meeting. Can we find him?”
“Unlikely,” Azarov said. “Krupin is very much the master of Russia. If he wants to hide, I doubt either you or his enemies in the Kremlin will ever find him.”
“Anton?” Kennedy said.
“I hate to admit it, but Grisha’s right. Krupin doesn’t just know how to operate the Russian machine, he designed and built it.”
“Then we’ll shift our focus. Anton, you said that only most of the people contacted about taking part in Krupin’s fake medical trials agreed. Right?”
“Yeah. Some are terminal and have had it with treatments. Some are responding to other therapies. Others don’t want to leave their homes and families. What are you thinking?”
“We need to set up surveillance on them. If Krupin’s already killed one of his guinea pigs, he’s likely to kill more. Eventually he may need to replenish his supply.”
“I like it,” McCormick said, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “If we can’t track Krupin, we track the people he’s victimizing. It plays right into his psychology. They’re meaningless. Why would he be as thorough obscuring their movements as he is his own?”
“There’s no guarantee they’re experimenting on these people in the same place as they’re treating Krupin,” Azarov said.
“No guarantee, but a good bet,” Kennedy countered. “The simpler a situation is, the easier it is to control. There’d be no reason to spread facilities and medical personnel across the country. All right. We have a plan. Keep me apprised of your progress.”
Understanding he’d been dismissed, McCormick rose. “We’ll be able to prioritize the patients within a few hours. Getting physical surveillance on them will be a lot harder. I’ll let you know where we’re at before you leave tonight.”
They watched him go and Azarov spoke just as the door clicked shut.
“He has to die, Dr. Kennedy.”
“I understand your position, but—”
“This isn’t just about what he did to Cara. The level of destruction he’ll be willing to unleash in order to maintain his power has no limit. I know him as well as anyone, and I can tell you that he won’t think twice about firing nuclear missiles at Europe or even the United States if he believes that it could help him maintain power for one more day.”
Kennedy examined the man, but there was nothing to see that she didn’t already know. In the context of his home country, he was the best operator in the world. Was that enough to risk directly involving him?
“Would you be willing to go to Russia for me, Grisha?”
His tone was guarded. “To do what?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “The goal of the United States is to act in a way that minimizes chaos around the world. That may mean taking extreme action or it may mean taking none at all.”
“It occurs to me that if you decide Krupin has to die, I would be a convenient instrument. A Russian with no real connection to America and a clear reason to want him dead.”
She smiled. “I’d be lying if I said that hadn’t crossed my mind. But something else that’s crossed my mind is the possibility that with Krupin gone Sokolov could take over. And that wouldn’t serve my purposes. So my second question is can I trust you to wait for a green light that may never come?”
“Yes.”
The chance that he was telling the truth was probably less than fifty percent, but with Rapp in Ukraine, Azarov was the best weapon she had.
CHAPTER 28
SOUTHERN UKRAINE
RAPP felt something nudge him in the ass and he swung a hand back, smacking his horse on the nose. It finally wandered off in search of something to graze on.
His guide, Nazar, was lying next to him in the trees ten feet from the edge of an empty road. His expression suggested he might cut and run at any second, but so far he was staying put. The man wasn’t former military or even Ukrainian intelligence. He was just a slightly puffy farmer who had grown up in the region and had the bad luck of being Danya Bondar’s cousin.
While ops weren’t his thing, there was no denying his informal skills on the intel gathering front. He’d built an impressive network out of like-minded rural neighbors, tracking Russian movements, taking surreptitious photographs, and keeping logs of men and equipment. Not pros, but motivated as hell not to have the Russians roll over them and their families.
“It’s been three hours,” Nazar said in passable English. “Our information must be bad. We should go.”
So far all they’d seen were a couple of deer and the shortening of the shadows thrown by the trees. The intel that had been passed to them from the locals suggested that a contingent of Russian troops had split off from a larger force just after crossing the border. Even at a crawl, they should have been there an hour and a half ago. But Rapp wasn’t ready to give up yet. This was a perfect location—remote, with dense foliage that made it easy to get close to the road and would cover their retreat if things got out of hand.
He glanced over at the Ukrainian, examining his weathered face, wool coat and cap, and passed down hunting rifle. He likely owned better gear but wanted to reinforce his image as a simple farmer—a station in life that he’d mentioned on at least ten occasions already.
“Could they have turned off, Nazar? Taken another route?”
“No,” the man admitted. “There’s nowhere to do this. Maybe they went back?”
Rapp doubted it. Military commanders tended not to change their minds on simple matters like moving troops in noncombat environments. A more likely explanation was that one of the local informants had ratted them out and the Russians were now creeping up on them from every direction. No reason to tell Nazar that, though. He already seemed stretched to his limit.
Another ten minutes passed before Rapp’s satphone began to vibrate.
“Yeah,” he said quietly into it.
“I’ve got eyes on them.”
Coleman was in a similar position across the road and about a hundred yards to the south.
“How many?”
“One Ural-4320 transport truck riding high on its suspension. I’d swear it’s empty. Fourteen men walking behind it.”
The situation in Ukraine seemed to get more bizarre every minute. If the Russians were in the process of supplying an invasion, why send an empty truck up a shitty mountain road to nowhere? And why soldiers on foot? They’d all fit in the back of t
he Ural. Was it part of a plan to capture the locals recording their movements? Maybe. But using resources to run down a bunch of farmers playing spy didn’t seem all that rational.
The sound of a rough-running motor started to separate itself from the quiet scraping of Nazar scooting back toward the horses. Rapp grabbed him by the jacket.
“The human eye picks up movement. If you’re still, they’ll go right by.”
Predictably, the man froze. He wasn’t a coward—just a family man well outside the world he normally inhabited.
“All armed with AKs,” Coleman said quietly over Rapp’s earpiece. “But some look like they’re surplus from the Taliban.”
The truck came into view and Rapp studied it, examining the hazy image of the lone man in the truck’s cab and then turning his attention to the soldiers shuffling along behind. Most of them were overweight—some significantly so—and a few actually had gray hair. There was no formation, just men trying to find the easiest path along the dirt road and struggling to maintain what looked to be barely a two-mile-an-hour pace.
One thing was made clear by their appearance: this wasn’t a spec ops group in search of insurgents. As near as Rapp could tell, it was a group of long-retired reservists in desperate need of basic physical training.
The truck crept past, allowing Rapp to pick out more detail. They weren’t just ragtag, they were ragtag to the point of not making sense. A symphony of exhaustion, ill-fitting uniforms, and round shoulders slung with poorly maintained rifles. Beyond that, they had no gear beyond small hydration packs. Clearly their commander was smart enough to know that they’d collapse under anything heavier.
“Are you seeing this?” Coleman said over Rapp’s earpiece. “What the fuck? Are these the assholes we’ve been worried about all these years?”
The soldiers were too close for him to respond verbally, so he tapped in a text.
Something wrong. Need closer look.
“What the hell does that mean?” came Coleman’s immediate reply.
Rapp waited for the last of the stragglers to go by before speaking. “I’ll come in from the front while you flank them.”