The Persian Gamble

by Joel C. Rosenberg

“What exactly isn’t possible?” Annie Stewart asked.

  “Tell me Marcus Ryker isn’t involved in this thing.”

  “Of course not, sir,” Stewart said, clicking a pen open and closed again and again and shaking her head.

  “You’re absolutely certain?” Dayton pressed.

  “Sir, he saved your life and mine,” Stewart said. “How can you even think that?”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “You think he’s changed?”

  “People do.”

  “Not Marcus. He saved the president’s life and the lives of so many others just a few years ago. You yourself hired him to keep us all safe on our trip to Europe. That was just last week.”

  “I know all that, Annie, but I—”

  “Sir, please, you know Marcus Ryker. We both do. We’ve known him for years. He’s not an assassin. He’s a patriot, sir. What’s more, he’s a committed Christian. I’m not sure I’ve ever met someone who loves this country more or is more committed to protecting her and her leaders. But don’t ask me. Ask Pete. He knows him best.”

  The senator turned to his new domestic policy advisor. A physician by training—and one of the most sought-after cardiologists in the country—Peter Hwang had only been on the team for a few months. Technically, he worked for Dayton’s political action committee, not the government. But he had known both the senator and Annie Stewart a long time. They’d first met in Afghanistan years before, when Hwang and Ryker were part of a security detail that had come to the rescue after the military helicopters transporting the senator and his entourage were shot down near Kandahar and came under withering fire by Taliban jihadists. Since then, Dayton had made a point of staying in touch with the Marines in that unit, calling or writing each man every year on the anniversary of the rescue to say thank you and catch up on their lives and families.

  When the senator had started planning his presidential run and needed an expert to come on board to help him develop a new health care plan, Stewart had suggested Hwang. The senator had loved the idea. So had Hwang. He was going through a nasty divorce and practically jumped at the chance to get out of his routine and change everything else about his life, even for a significant pay cut. In the short time they’d all worked together, Hwang knew, both the senator and Stewart had come to appreciate his counsel, his judgment, and his wit. It was Hwang who had brought Marcus Ryker back into their orbit, an idea Dayton had thought inspired days before.

  Now the senator took his feet off the credenza and leaned forward in his chair. His face was pale. Hwang had never seen him like this. The man looked like he was about to have a stroke.

  “Annie’s right, Pete. You’ve known him the best and the longest. Could the Marcus you know be involved in taking out not just one but three Russian leaders?”

  Hwang could see the anxiety in the senator’s eyes. He knew what the man hoped he would say. But as much as Hwang wanted to say it was impossible, he found himself hesitating.

  Marcus was not a cold-blooded murderer. That was for certain. And Annie Stewart was right when she said Marcus was a man of deep faith and strong convictions. Yes, he was willing to kill, but only to protect lives. Even after the murders of his wife and son, Marcus had let the police do their job. He’d never set out on his own to hunt down and arrest, much less kill, those responsible. Marcus Ryker was a law-and-order man, pure and simple.

  Still, Hwang couldn’t discount the bizarre chain of events that had unfolded in Moscow. It was, after all, Marcus who had suddenly made an unscheduled visit back to the U.S. Embassy early in the morning after they had met with Luganov and his son-in-law, Oleg Kraskin. In the hours that followed, Dayton, Stewart, and Hwang had learned that a senior-level Russian official had made contact with Marcus in the middle of the night. Apparently the mole had passed him highly classified information, including detailed war plans for Russia to invade the Baltics. Why Marcus? That still wasn’t clear to Hwang, but the intel had been cabled back to the CIA and the White House and had proven both accurate and timely.

  From there, Hwang remembered, things got stranger still. Senator Dayton had been asked by the U.S. ambassador to Russia to race back to D.C. to brief President Clarke on his meeting with Luganov. Marcus and the entire security detail he had assembled had been with them on the private jet as they’d flown out of Moscow. But rather than fly directly to Washington, they had made an unscheduled stop in Berlin. Why? Because Marcus said he had to get off there. Hwang had pressed his friend to explain. They didn’t need to refuel. They were racing against the clock for the meeting at the White House. Yet Marcus had been evasive. He’d apologized to the team and explained that he needed to get off and attend to urgent business in the German capital. Hwang had even asked if Marcus wanted him to stay in Germany with him, but Marcus had brushed him off, saying it was something he had to take care of alone. Twenty minutes later, they had taken off without him.

  Hwang remembered Stewart coming to sit next to him once they were over the Atlantic. She’d asked him what kind of business Marcus had in Germany. Hwang hadn’t been able to give her an answer. Why wasn’t Marcus flying back to Washington to brief CIA director Stephens, the president, and the National Security Council himself? she’d pressed. Wouldn’t they want to talk to him, of all people, directly? How else could they adequately assess the reliability of the source?

  Again, Hwang had no answers.

  29

  Hwang didn’t want to believe it.

  Every fiber of his being tried to resist the notion that Marcus could somehow be mixed up in this whole affair in Moscow. It went against everything Hwang thought he knew about his friend. Nevertheless, the idea was difficult to dismiss. He could imagine himself under oath before a federal grand jury or testifying before a congressional hearing.

  Did Marcus Ryker have the capacity to sneak back into Russia and make his way to Moscow? he might be asked. Unless he planned to perjure himself, Hwang would have to answer yes. The two of them had trained together and served side by side in the Marines. The man was well acquainted with infiltration, escape, and evasion.

  Did Marcus Ryker have the skills to kill President Luganov, Prime Minister Grigarin, and FSB chief Nimkov, or the skills to advise an accomplice to do so? Again, if Hwang were honest, the answer was yes. He had seen Marcus’s skills under fire in Afghanistan. None of the guys in their unit had been a more accurate shot, not even Nick Vinetti, their sniper.

  Did Marcus Ryker have an expert working knowledge of the security protocols of foreign governments—including the Russian government—that might enable him to obtain access to a world leader for the purpose of assassinating him? Yet again, if Hwang were under oath, he’d have to say yes. He knew how high Marcus had risen in the ranks of the Secret Service. The man hadn’t just busted counterfeiters in Atlanta. He’d served on the Presidential Protective Detail, the most elite VIP protection unit on the planet. In Hwang’s eyes, there was no one in the American government who was better trained than Ryker in the art and science of countering the threat of an assassin. Didn’t that mean, by definition, that Ryker also knew as well as anyone in the world how best to circumvent such countermeasures?

  The last question would be the most difficult of all, and perhaps the most damning. In your expert opinion, Dr. Hwang, and from close observation of Mr. Ryker after the murders of his wife and son in a convenience store robbery in southeast D.C., did the defendant ever exhibit signs of clinical depression or other psychological or mental ailments that could have caused him to engage in behavior—including violent behavior—outside his typical character and usual behavior?

  How, Hwang thought, could he answer anything other than yes? The very night of the murders, Marcus’s supervisor had required him to surrender both his service weapon and personal weapon. Hwang and Vinetti had personally stayed with Marcus in his apartment for weeks to make sure he didn’t harm himself or others. Hwang had been there when his friend had to resign from the Secret Service, a job he
loved, because he had fallen so deeply into depression.

  Had things improved over time? To be sure, and a big part of that Hwang attributed to Marcus’s faith. The man was in church every Sunday morning and every Wednesday night. He volunteered at the church, doing all kinds of odd jobs, even helping put on a new roof. Along the way Marcus had developed quite a friendship with the pastor, Carter Emerson, an African American fellow in his seventies who’d battled his own demons from years in Vietnam. It was a friendship Hwang couldn’t help but notice and admire and perhaps even envy.

  Still, Hwang had also seen firsthand the tremendous loneliness and the lack of purpose that had continued to dog his Marine buddy. Aside from the pastor, Marcus wasn’t making new friends. He wasn’t keeping up with old friends. He wasn’t dating. He wasn’t even in regular contact with his mother or his sisters.

  Hwang had talked to his friend about his depression repeatedly and encouraged him to get professional help. They’d talked about it as recently as two weeks ago. It was one of the reasons he’d urged Ryker to lead Senator Dayton’s security detail on their trip to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia—he was worried about him, wanted to get him out of the house and doing something with purpose. Was it possible the pressure had been too much, that Ryker had simply snapped? Hwang couldn’t say. He didn’t have enough evidence one way or the other. As a friend, he wanted to say, “No, absolutely not.” But as a medical professional—even though not a psychiatrist or psychologist—he couldn’t rule it out.

  The whole situation was horrifying on many levels, but clearly the one that worried the senator most was the possibility, however remote, that he could be directly linked to the man who had murdered or conspired to murder Russia’s top three leaders. The implications were devastating. If the press caught wind of the story, there would be a media firestorm. The pressure for the Ethics Committee to hold hearings would be enormous, and the scandal could very well crash and burn the senator’s fledgling bid to take down Andrew Clarke and replace him as the next president of the United States.

  Though it felt much longer, Hwang’s entire analysis took just a matter of seconds. But in the end, all he could manage to say was “I don’t know, sir. But I’ll find out.”

  30

  OZERKI, RUSSIA

  Oleg decided he could wait to tell Marcus about Petrovsky’s appointment as acting president.

  With Marcus still in the shower, Oleg continued scanning the Russian news sites. Condolences were starting to pour in from Russian allies around the world. The president of Cuba was the first to put out a statement. This was followed by press releases from the leaders of Iran, Venezuela, China, and Syria. When Oleg saw a statement from the Dear Leader in Pyongyang, he couldn’t help but think of his friend and comrade General Yoon.

  Wondering whether Yoon had been trying to contact him in the three days since they’d seen each other in Pyongyang, Oleg logged in to Google mail, then kept typing until he entered a back door into a secure account used only by his North Korean counterpart. Marcus had warned him not to send an email, but he thought it was okay to check his secure account.

  Waiting for him were more than a dozen urgent messages.

  Complications with the Iranians, read the first. Need to discuss immediately.

  My friend—Dear Leader is committed to keeping his word to President Luganov, but Tehran doesn’t want our warheads, read the second. They want yours, the new ones you just delivered to us. Not sure how they even know we have them, but they are putting heavy pressure on us to sell them at least five. We are not comfortable with this for reasons discussed during your recent visit. Please contact me immediately.

  Then, a few hours later, the tone and content of the next message was entirely different.

  Hearing disturbing rumors out of Moscow—please advise, read one.

  Reports of a coup—what can you tell me? read another.

  Each message grew more frantic than the one before.

  Is His Excellency the president safe? Are you? We are hearing terrible reports. Please contact me immediately.

  Six minutes later: Our ambassador in Moscow has been told President Luganov has been attacked. Foreign Ministry won’t comment. Nor will our contacts in the FSB. Are you safe?

  Twenty minutes later: Now we’re hearing FSB chief Nimkov has been shot, severely wounded. Is this true?

  Sixteen minutes later: Radio Moscow reporting Nimkov dead. They say President Luganov has been injured, but no other details. My wife is sobbing. We are all in shock. Where are you?

  Forty-three minutes later: Dear Leader just called me personally, asking for the latest information. I told him I have four sources who confirm President Luganov is dead. Radio Moscow silent. All other Russian media refusing to confirm. DL does not want to issue statement until he is 100 percent convinced. Has ordered all our forces on high alert.

  Several hours later had come a new burst of messages from the general that made the hair on the back of Oleg’s neck stand erect.

  Just spoke to Nikolay Kropatkin—he says you were the shooter. They haven’t told the media yet, but a manhunt is under way for you. Please, my friend, tell me you had nothing to do with this.

  Nine minutes later: Minister Petrovsky just called me, wanting to set up a call with DL. Says the evidence is conclusive that you shot both President Luganov and Nimkov. I don’t know what to say. Why would you have done such a thing?

  Four minutes later: Now hearing you stole a plane and are trying to escape out of Moscow to the West. What in the world is going on?

  Thirty-one minutes later: Just spoke to a source in your Defense Ministry who says they found your plane and shot it out of the sky. My head is spinning. Don’t know what to believe.

  The final message read, I know you are not dead. I must speak with you immediately. Much to discuss, too much to convey in this format. Call me.

  Thinking hard, Oleg logged off and slowly backed away from the screen. He wondered why Yoon seemed so certain he was still alive. Was it just a hunch? Wishful thinking? Or did he somehow have actual evidence? Oleg couldn’t be sure. And what was it Yoon needed to tell him so urgently? One thing was certain: he had to alert Marcus to this new development. He stepped out into the hallway.

  Marcus was checking on Jenny. Oleg told him about Petrovsky’s appointment and Yoon’s messages, then went into the steam-filled bathroom and locked the door behind him. He removed his gloves, stripped down, and stepped into the shower. As hot water streamed down his face, he tried to regain his bearings. He wondered again why Yoon was so desperate to contact him. If he had intel about the Russian nukes, Oleg and Marcus needed to craft a response right away.

  A few minutes later, Oleg turned off the water, toweled off, and got dressed again. As he reemerged from the bathroom, Marcus read him the latest breaking news story from the Associated Press. First responders sifting through the wreckage of the Gulfstream business jet had recovered the remains of three bodies.

  Oleg stepped into the master bedroom as Marcus kept reading.

  Each body was burned beyond recognition, the AP reported. A high-ranking Russian police source said that one of the bodies had been decapitated in the crash. Another was merely a torso. The third was missing both arms and a leg. It would take several days to do DNA analysis to identify the remains, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. But, the AP noted, “investigators feel they are making progress more quickly than they had expected, given the extent of the wreckage.”

  Oleg leaned over Marcus’s shoulder and read the story silently for himself.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “All of us are present and accounted for in this house. What three bodies have they found?”

  31

  CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  The director was furious.

  Richard Stephens arrived back at Langley from his disastrous meeting at the White House and unleashed on his senior staff, who had gathered in the secure conference room a
djacent to his seventh-floor office suite.

  “How is it possible that a mere staffer on the National Security Council—a deputy, mind you—has more up-to-the-minute intelligence for the president of the United States than the director of the Central Intelligence Agency?” Stephens fumed. “Then, as if this weren’t bad enough, on the drive back here to Langley I learn from NPR—not from any of you—that not only have Luganov and Nimkov been knocked off, so has the Russian prime minister. This is amateur hour, people. We look like fools—uninformed and unprepared. It stops now. You either start acting like the world’s premier intelligence agency, or heads are going to roll. Now, tell me something I don’t already know.”

  Martha Dell, the agency’s fifty-six-year-old deputy director of intelligence—fluent in Russian, Mandarin, and Arabic with a master’s degree from Oxford and two PhDs from Stanford—had anticipated both the emotion and the question, and she was ready with her reply. “Sir, we do have several new developments for you,” Dell began.

  “Let me hear them.”

  “Well, sir, first off, Mikhail Petrovsky has been named acting president, at least for the next two months until the Russian cabinet can assess his performance.”

  “Petrovsky? Interesting. What do you make of that?”

  “Historically, we’ve seen him as a hard-liner. But my team and I are beginning to consider the possibility that Petrovsky is actually more moderate than Luganov.”

  “Why?” Stephens asked.

  “Two reasons,” said the DDI. “First, you’ll recall what the Raven told us about Petrovsky’s confrontation with Luganov in a recent cabinet meeting, warning Luganov that a move against NATO would be a mistake.”

  “Maybe,” Stephens said. “But at this point, can we trust anything the Raven has told us? Maybe he’s in league with Petrovsky in engineering a coup.”

  “It’s possible,” the DDI admitted. “But Petrovsky was elected unanimously by the cabinet, which means he’s the consensus candidate in that room. And get this: we’re just getting new reports in the last fifteen minutes that all Russian forces massing near the borders of Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have received new orders from the Kremlin. They’re being told to withdraw immediately to positions at least one hundred miles from the border. NSA confirms what our HUMINT sources are telling us. They’ve intercepted messages from Russian central command to their generals in the field, ordering them to pull back.”