Pipeline

  She was still awake when she hit the floor of the hay-strewn horse transport, but her auditory perception was almost gone. The world was going nearly silent. Just as Blaise felt her body going under, she made one final effort against her waning consciousness to identify the language.

  It was Russian.

  DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  SEPTEMBER 5, 6:25 A.M.

  A PARKING LOT

  Lying on her side on the trailer floor, Blaise came to slowly. A strip of weak sunlight was streaking in from the left-hand window. As her mind struggled to reconstruct what had happened, she felt a searing pain deep in her nostrils.

  She tried to make the profound mental fog dissipate. But she had trouble beating back the double strain of the chloroform’s aftereffects and the stabbing hurt deep inside her nose. The acute pain seemed like a dagger into her sinuses. Overcome with terror that the men were subjecting her to some type of torture, Blaise jerked her head backward in a violent panic.

  The movement of Blaise’s face against the trailer floor matted her eyes with dry grass. The dusty, broken hay encrusted every millimeter of her eyelid, blinding her momentarily. As painful as that was, it made her realize that the sharp object stabbing her nostril was nothing other than a large stem of hay. She slowly moved her hands to remove the sticklike grass from her nose and was surprised to find them free.

  Gathering her wits about her, she swiveled her head imperceptibly from side to side to inspect the inside of the trailer. This time she ignored the rough scratching of the hay on her face and eyes. There was nobody in sight.

  She now strained to listen for any sounds and heard nothing. Still, Blaise decided not to move. The men might be just outside. She was lying there for a moment considering what she should do when she heard the loud, mechanical noise. The roar of the machine gathered and accumulated into a deafening pitch. She inadvertently closed her eyes, bracing herself for some type of impact.

  But as the noise passed overhead, it converted into the recognizable whine of a jet engine. The realization that she was at an airport filled her with a trembling terror. There was only one possible conclusion. Her kidnappers were taking her to Russia.

  Jumping to her feet, she heard the telltale sound of the jet’s wheels skidding onto the ground. Blaise moved to the sunlit window and saw a long runway behind a chain-link fence. Two planes were at the top of the runway, awaiting takeoff clearance. She couldn’t see a single human being.

  Blaise was now fully awake. Wiping more grass from her eyes, she ducked across the trailer’s separation barrier and looked out the other window. Peering out the left side of the trailer, all she could see was a large parking lot full of cars, still awash in darkness.

  She didn’t hesitate. She had to escape. Pushing on the trailer’s rear gates, she could tell the doors were locked from the outside. Blaise looked at the narrow windows, calculating whether her body would fit through the small, rectangular opening. Not a chance.

  She suddenly remembered that horse trailers usually had an opening at the front where owners could provide hay for the animal at mouth height. Scrambling forward, she saw a door handle and pulled slowly. It opened. There was no way to avoid the loud noise of heavy metal parts scraping against each other. To Blaise’s jumpy ears, the noise seemed almost as loud as the passing airplane.

  She slipped out. Keeping as low as she could, she crouched for a moment to get her bearings. Now she could see the airport buildings. She knew where she was instantaneously. The prizewinning architecture of Washington’s Dulles International Airport’s undulating roof was unmistakable.

  Questions started to pop up in Blaise’s head, but she shook them away. She had only one mission. She had to get to the passenger terminal. Watching the sun slowly rise in the eastern sky, she knew that the airport would be packed. Dawn brought an early morning rush hour to Dulles. And those crowds meant safety.

  Swinging around the trailer, she began moving—still crouched, slowly at first and then gathering speed—among the rows of parked cars. This couldn’t be one of the airport’s main parking lots because there were no travelers getting in or out of their vehicles. Blaise figured it must be an employee parking area.

  Reaching a grassy knoll, Blaise crawled up the side of the hill and, at the top, saw the expanse of the passenger lot below her. People were everywhere, snaking their way to the terminal’s check-in counters. She began to descend, still bent over. By the time she’d reached the concrete of the parking area, Blaise had broken into a full-scale run.

  She didn’t slow down until reaching the walking passengers. Only when she was strategically placed between a family of four with a trolley full of vacation-bound suitcases and a businessman pulling a rolling bag, did she dare ask herself the only question now forming over and over in her mind.

  It was clear to Blaise that the two men who had taken and drugged her last night were professionals. They had probably stolen the trailer from the streets of downtown Culpeper. People like this did not make mistakes. She hadn’t escaped. Not at all.

  Instead, something had clearly caused them to abandon their plans. They had just walked away.

  The question was, why?

  RUSSIA

  MOSCOW

  SEPTEMBER 4, 10:45 P.M.

  OUTSIDE THE CDL RESTAURANT

  Piotr Rudzhin walked out of the Central House of Writers and zigzagged his way among the jumble of expensive Jaguars, Porsches, Mercedeses, and Ferraris parked haphazardly around the restaurant’s entrance. He called his driver with his cell phone.

  Once in the Saab 9000, Rudzhin told the chauffeur to just move. For the moment, his destination didn’t matter; he just needed sufficient distance from the restaurant to think. Rudzhin lit a cigarette and inhaled from the Saab’s backseat.

  Taking out his cellular phone, he pondered his choices. There were two calls he could make. One was to the police’s covert-operations unit. The half-Chechen half-Russian former KGB interrogator in command of the unit was accustomed to urgent middle-of-the-night telephone calls. Rudzhin had required his help twice before and the service had been impeccable. These people were used to taking quick action and asking no questions of senior ministry officials.

  The other call was vastly different. Infinitely riskier.

  Rudzhin hesitated for a moment, weighing the options. Smiling inwardly, he told himself not to bother rehashing his debate with Zhironovsky. There was really no choice.

  Rudzhin pulled up his phone’s contacts list and pressed Dial. Waiting for the line to connect, it occurred to him that his request was not a matter for the telephone. He would have to go and explain personally.

  “Yes?”

  “Good evening. This is Deputy Minister Piotr Rudzhin.” He had met the personal secretary only once before.

  “Deputy Minister Rudzhin, this is a rather late phone call.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. And I’m sorry about the hour. I need to see him. There is a serious problem that needs attention.”

  “When?”

  “Now. I know he doesn’t go to bed early.”

  “Now is impossible. He has guests.”

  “I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t urgent.”

  “Hold the line please.”

  Rudzhin waited thirty seconds. The voice came back.

  “All right, fine. You can come. He will see you for five minutes. I will advise the personnel of your arrival.”

  Rudzhin barked the destination to the driver and settled back into the dark blue leather. He didn’t give his mission further thought. He was committed. There was no turning back.

  The car slowed as it drove by the first guard dressed in a sharp green uniform. Rudzhin was quickly waved through the gates. They drove farther, along the neoclassical walls, as other guards, flashlights in hand, motioned him forward. The illuminated majesty of Nikolas’s Winter Palace appeared and passed on the left side. The driver slowly applied brake pressure as the car rounded the expanse of the Cathedral of Christ th
e Savior.

  Just ahead, another guard was signaling the car to a parking place in front of the opulent old Senate residence, constructed by Catherine the Great in 1773. Once the Bolsheviks had taken over in the early 1900s, Lenin decided to convert the building into the office of Russia’s president. The spacious and luxurious Senate residence had been the workplace of Russia’s head of state ever since.

  He slowly curled his body out of his car. Looking at the building, he could see the personal secretary descending the stairs to meet him. Most people visiting this place would have felt at least a touch of nervousness. He felt none. What he was about to do was the right choice for Russia. And it was the right choice for Piotr Rudzhin too.

  He had arrived at the Kremlin.

  MOSCOW

  SEPTEMBER 5, 12:44 A.M.

  THE KREMLIN

  It was past midnight. The requested five-minute meeting with Russian president Oskar Tuzhbin had gone on for over an hour. And he was walking out of the meeting more apprehensive than he had been going in. Descending the Senate residence’s steps, toward his car, Rudzhin anxiously lit another cigarette. He hadn’t been able to smoke inside the building.

  It didn’t make him feel any better knowing that the result of the meeting had been inevitable. It could not have gone any other way. He had met President Oskar Tuzhbin only twice before. In those meetings, the president had never changed or modified his demeanor. Tonight, Tuzhbin had been a caricature of himself. Cold and calculating. Distant.

  Rudzhin had entered Tuzhbin’s ornate office with one simple argument in his head. Logging the details and filling in the blanks for the president had taken some effort. But throughout the conversation, Rudzhin had always come back to a single, consistent premise.

  Zhironovsky was out of control. His actions could imperil the president himself. He had to be stopped.

  He had repeated those words again and again throughout his time with Tuzhbin. But during their hour together, discerning the president’s reaction had been impossible. Nobody ever knew what Tuzhbin was thinking; his lips had remained pursed, except for the occasional request for clarification. His pale eyes had been empty of all emotion.

  Until the end. That was when Tuzhbin had revealed his cards.

  “It took considerable courage for you to come here. Yes?” the president had asked toward the end, his face impassive. He was smoking but had not offered his guest a cigarette.

  “Yes, sir. It did. I believe in loyalty. Chairman Zhironovsky has been a mentor to me. Like a father. I did not take the decision to come here lightly.”

  “And?”

  “And I will always be grateful to him. But even if you decide to take no action, I will also always feel that I have done the right thing tonight. I’m a Russian patriot, Mr. President. Ultimately, my duty is to you as Russia’s leader. We have many mentors. Teachers. Patrons and bosses. While we must be faithful, our devotion to the important people in our lives cannot be blind. In my mind, sir, loyalty should not come at the expense of my ultimate allegiance to my country and my president.”

  “That is wise thinking for a relatively young man.”

  “No, sir, it is just practical. I was convinced that you would have to pay the price for the erroneous actions I was asked to undertake this evening.”

  “Thank you for that concern. I will handle this from here on. We will take care of your problems. Let me tell you how we will deal with this.”

  It had taken Oskar Tuzhbin only three dispassionate minutes to deliver his verdict. The president’s words had come out slowly. Clearly. With enormous calm. Once he had begun speaking, there had been no opportunity for Rudzhin to argue, cajole, or correct.

  Tuzhbin had issued an edict. Once that was done, the forward motion of his decision was unstoppable. Its direction could not be changed.

  MOSCOW

  SEPTEMBER 5, 1:00 A.M.

  VIKTOR ZHIRONOVSKY’S HOME

  Daniel Uggin was two steps behind Viktor Zhironovsky as they walked into the chairman’s sumptuous apartment. Uggin had tried during the fifteen-minute car ride to engage the old man in a dialogue. Nothing had worked. Zhironovsky was in an impenetrable, self-combusting cloud of darkness. There was only one thing he wanted. To hear from Piotr Rudzhin.

  After pacing in silent circles for five minutes, Zhironovsky ordered Daniel to take a seat and announced he was going to his room to change. Uggin was left alone in the library of his boss’s penthouse in Moscow’s Rublevka district.

  In Moscow, the neighborhood was known, with good reason, as the “Golden Mile.” Rublevka was so coveted an address that Russia’s NTV channel produced a weekly reality show about its rich residents. Apartments in the Rublevka district were the highest priced in the city, but few owners lived there permanently. The rest of the time, owners were in their various country dachas and Italian beach homes.

  Zhironovsky’s library was a breathtaking room. The ceiling was made of sequential square-framed dark walnut with recessed halogen lights in the woodwork. The floor was of light pine, laid in a diagonal pattern along the length of the room. Art books and sculptures filled dark-wood library shelves.

  Uggin fidgeted in the chair. He was alone for the first time in hours. He tried not to think but couldn’t keep his jumpy mind under control. Every second thought came back to the same fearful question. How would Zhironovsky extract revenge for his wife’s betrayal?

  It had been close to two years since Piotr had first brought him into the rarified air of Moscow’s power centers. Zhironovsky and Rudzhin had given him a chance. He had struggled hard to demonstrate the wisdom of their gamble. Yes, he was still an outsider. But he had proved his worth. Again and again.

  Now it was all about to end. Sitting in Zhironovsky’s library, Daniel Uggin knew he could not escape the inevitable consequences that would pour down on his head. No matter what happened with the two Americans, there was no shirking the hard truth. The detonator for the implosion of Zhironovsky’s dreams was none other than his wife. He would pay for her sabotage. He had no doubt about it.

  He felt his fingertips tingling from the rabid anger rising in his soul. His mouth trembled with the taste of sour resentment. How could Anne-Sophie have done this to him? Without thinking, he flipped out his cellular phone and dialed his home in Kursk. He heard a sleepy voice answer the line.

  “It’s me,” he snapped.

  “Daniel, it’s past one in the morning. Where are you?”

  “In Moscow. In Zhironovsky’s apartment. Waiting to know what will happen to me.”

  “What are you talking about? What’s happening to you?”

  “I know what you’ve done. Damnit, they all know what you’ve done. Now, because of your deceit, I’m here waiting to hear what will happen to me.”

  Anne-Sophie said nothing. Her silence was like a slap in the face. She had become the enemy.

  “I don’t care why you decided to throw me to the wolves by telling Ryan everything about my life. I don’t give a damn anymore about you or your stupid worries about our marriage. All I want to know is how you did it. How did you find out? About my involvement in Latin America. About Anfang.”

  He expected more silence. Instead, Anne-Sophie began to talk.

  “I no longer recognized the man I was married to, Daniel. Suddenly, I was living with a stranger. My husband had become an outsider. My best friend had disappeared. You became just like Russia—paranoid, mysterious, inscrutable. I didn’t have a choice; I set out to find out who my husband had become.”

  “This is nothing but psycho-garbage, Anne-Sophie. Who are you to—”

  She cut him off.

  “Daniel, I no longer want to be married to you. I’ve known it for months, even though I tried my best to reach out to you. Your own daughter told me about your travels to Bolivia. I then had you followed in Frankfurt. All the way to Anfang’s offices and back. After that, Blaise and I figured out Volga Gaz’s ruse in Latin America. The moment I was forced to spy on my husband was
the day I knew we had no future.”

  “You had me followed? I can’t believe it.” Uggin felt an uncontrolled rage. “I want you to go. Leave Russia. Leave us.”

  “Don’t worry, Daniel. We’ll leave. I won’t make it hard; I just want to go. You have my promise that you can see the kids as often as possible.”

  He chuckled into the phone.

  “Did you say we’ll leave? No, no. You can go back to Germany. To your silly causes and your stupid friends. The children will never go, Anne-Sophie. Ever. Listen carefully to that word again. ‘Ever.’ They are staying here. With me. In Russia, where they belong.”

  He heard her choke.

  “Daniel, don’t do this. Don’t punish Giorgi and Katarina because you are angry with me.” Anne-Sophie was sobbing now. “Please. Think about it. You’re never home. You are obsessed with your job. With your country. There is no room for children in Daniel Uggin’s life. Let them have at least one parent!”

  Her tears had a calming effect. They only increased his self-assurance.

  “Since you think you understand so much about Russia, you must know that I will use every means, every law, every friend I have to stop you from taking them. They are going nowhere.”

  A thought suddenly occurred to him. Smiling into the phone, he delivered his last blow.

  “Of course, there is another option. You can stay in Kursk with them. I want nothing to do with you, but you can have them. But only here. In Russia…the country you hate so much.”

  He clicked the Off button on his phone.

  MOSCOW

  SEPTEMBER 5, 1:10 A.M.

  VIKTOR ZHIRONOVSKY’S HOME

  Five minutes later, Viktor Zhironovsky walked back into the library and resumed pacing. Other than having taken off his tie, Daniel could not identify any other change in the chairman’s clothes.