The Children's Game

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The Children's Game Page 28

by Max Karpov


  In the plush corner office, replete with dark woods, leather, and brass, Turov unpacked his briefcase: a cell phone, a laptop, a writing tablet and gold pen, three classical CDs, and a Makarov 9mm handgun, which he set in the upper middle drawer of the desk. He was going to keep this meeting with the American as simple as possible.

  Anton put on Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony in the house, too, and Turov sat and listened for a while, to the music and the rain, the melodrama of his mother’s beloved melodies—the first and second movements, in particular, music that had seemed to make up for the lack of drama in her own life.

  Turov needed just one more thing now: his collaborator. And the collaborator was coming right here to this room. He was scheduled to arrive by 3:30 p.m. The American, Christopher Niles. Then Turov could finish this game on his own terms.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Capitol Hill, Washington.

  Anna Carpenter was supposed to meet Jon Niles at eleven, in Starbucks again. But it was a hectic morning and she was running late. She’d attended a 9:30 intelligence briefing on Russia’s military buildup, learning that a series of cyber attacks had just crippled parts of Ukraine and Estonia, crashing military, police, and government computer systems. But this news would be overshadowed now by the so-called “smoking gun” allegations against the US.

  It’s still moving too fast, Anna thought. Much too fast. This time, though, she was going to do something about it. Anna set goals for herself each morning during her workouts. Today’s was ambitious: to disprove the story the president planned to sell to the American people.

  She was eleven minutes late to Starbucks, where she found Jon standing just inside the doors, waiting anxiously, a ten-by-twelve envelope in one hand. “Sorry,” she said. “Meeting ran long.”

  “It’s okay. Lot going on.” He flinched in that affecting way he had, then led her to a table.

  “Did David help much?”

  “David helped a lot. David’s kind of amazing, really.”

  “Yes, I’ve thought that. He’s helping me, too,” she said. They sat.

  Anna told him first about her conversation with Gregory Dial, and the revelation that Harland Strickland had been the fifth person on the so-called “assassination committee.” Surprisingly, Jon seemed unsurprised.

  “I’ll try to make this brief,” he said when she finished, “because I know you’re in a hurry. I think I understand now what’s going on. The document you gave me is accurate, I believe. You were right, we didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “Okay, good,” Anna said. “That makes two of us now who know it. All we have to do is convince the rest of the world.”

  “Which we’re going to do,” Jon said. The smile she expected didn’t appear. Anna liked his intensity this morning. He scrolled through a file on his phone and began to explain what he’d found: beginning with the car registration he’d traced to Michael Ketchler, a nonprofit attorney with the high-end D.C. firm of Carrick & Carson. Then he showed her the images David had sent of Ketchler. “This is the man I saw last night.”

  “With your 9:15 source.”

  “Yes. 9:15’s name is Natalie Larsen,” he said. “Sonya Natalie Larsen.” Jon slid through several images of her, showing Anna. It wasn’t anyone she recognized, or a name she knew. “David did a face recog search. It was this image, from a Russian embassy party, in 2015, that did it.”

  Anna looked. “And that’s her—the woman who called you anonymously? Who gave you this information about Russia.”

  “Yes,” Jon said. “She works for Ketchler. But David found something else, too,” he continued. “An interesting coincidence. I thought you might like to see. This is from the same embassy party. Do you recognize this man?”

  The man he’d enlarged in the next image resembled Harland Strickland. Anna looked again. “That’s Harland.”

  “Yes.”

  “So Harland Strickland was at the same party as your source? Does that mean anything?”

  “Probably, yes,” Jon said. “Didn’t you mention that Gregory Dial said something about Strickland’s personal life?”

  “Yes.” Her phone pinged and she looked quickly: Ming Hsu, calling her back to the office. “Harland’s what used to be called a ladies’ man,” Anna said. “‘Womanizer’ is probably a better word, considering he’s married. There were a few incidents in his past, where he went out for drinks with women a lot younger than he was. One a newspaper editor, I think. I don’t know that it’s anything more mysterious than that.” Jon was nodding, as if this confirmed something. “Why? Why does that matter?”

  “I think 9:15 may’ve been one of those younger women,” he said. “And I think it’s possible that she had something on him.”

  “Kompromat?”

  “Possible.”

  This made sense to Anna. Harland would be easy prey for an alluring Russian girl in her mid-twenties. Was he the spy in the house, then, if not Dial?

  “So tell me about this thing you figured out,” she said.

  “Well. First of all, I’m starting to see that it was Strickland who leaked the story to the media,” he said.

  “Strickland did?” Christopher’s little brother was as focused as a monk now. But he wasn’t making a lot of sense. “Wouldn’t Harland be the last person to leak that information?” Anna said. “Considering he’s been leading the cover story—about the coup?”

  “Unless he didn’t know he was leaking it.” Jon opened the ten-by-twelve envelope and pulled out several sheets of paper. “I asked David to dig into Natalie Larsen’s background. Sonya Natalie,” he said again. “Larsen is her married name. She came to D.C. a little over a year ago, we think, from England, where she also worked for a law firm. She apparently separated from her husband sometime before that, but they’re still legally married, or at least she kept his name. Her husband was an environmental attorney. The interesting thing—and this is where I began to make a little leap—is that David found out her maiden name was Fedorov. She’s Russian, not English.”

  “Interesting because—?”

  “Fedorov also happened to be the maiden name of Andrei Turov’s wife. Ex-wife.”

  “So—you’re saying she’s related to Turov.”

  “Yes. I think it’s his daughter, in fact,” he said. “That’s what David and I figured out. Turov has two daughters. One lives with him in Moscow. Her name’s Svetlana. Sonya is the older daughter. She’s more of a free spirit, kind of a thorn in her father’s side for years. After the divorce, she went to live with her mother in England, took her mother’s last name, and became a citizen of the U.K. After that, she seems to have dropped off the map.”

  Anna was amazed by this turn and that he’d come to it so quickly. But she wondered how it pertained to what was going on in Russia. “What happened to the mother?”

  “She died in 2014. An alcohol-related traffic accident in England. There are some accounts online saying that both mother and daughter died. But David thinks she may have planted those herself.”

  Anna nodded for him to continue. She’d seen this same keenness in other journalists, once they’d gotten the scent of a story. But Jon seemed to have more than just the scent. He seemed to know exactly where this was leading. “And how does Harland figure?”

  “So I called David back,” he said. “Asked him to run searches on Sonya Turov. And we hit a few bingos. Including Harland Strickland. It doesn’t mean she’s some kind of high-level spy or anything. She might just be a smart, self-sufficient woman who was able to get Strickland to talk—”

  “But you’re thinking Strickland told Turov’s daughter—your 9:15 source—about the preemptive strike, and the ‘no fingerprints’ talk, in the course of a fling? Pillow talk? That he inadvertently leaked details about those meetings through her?”

  “Or that she managed to pry it out of him,” Jon said.

  “And now Strickland’s pushing this story about the Russian coup because he’s trying to cover, to change th
e subject? To divert attention from the fact that he may’ve been talking about classified information? Or that there may be some sort of tape or other compromising evidence against him.”

  Jon nodded. “With a woman who happens to be the daughter of the organizer of the attack.”

  “Do you think he knew that?”

  “He probably didn’t at first. But I suspect he’s figured it out by now. Obviously, the truth could be very personally damaging to Strickland. He’s in damage control mode and he’s pulling a lot of people—maybe the country—down with him.”

  It was sort of stunning, Anna thought, and said a lot about our times: that a sexual imbroglio could lead to war or threaten the fall of a great nation. “How’d you get all this? How did you figure the connection between Strickland and this woman?”

  “After we got 9:15’s maiden name, I made the Turov connection. I’d always thought 9:15 was someone older, who had some link, however tangentially, with the administration. But when I saw her on the street, and I saw how young she was, I realized I needed to rethink that.”

  “How did you connect her with Strickland, though? Just through the photo?”

  “No. There was one other thing,” Jon said. “A number. Something Strickland told me about national security meetings: he said eighty-five percent of national security meetings in the past year have been about the Middle East, not Russia.”

  “So?”

  “So, those were the exact same words that my 9:15 source used when we talked last Thursday. And it’s not a number anyone else seems to be using. So when Strickland told me the same thing—almost word for word—I realized she had been talking with him.”

  Anna remembered something, then: Martin Lindgren mentioning to Christopher that he had a Russian “asset.” Was it possible this Natalie Larsen could be the asset?

  “And why was she calling you, in the first place?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Jon said. “I don’t think I was the only journalist getting calls. Maybe she was doing this for her father, or more likely for this Michael Ketchler. That’s still to be determined,” he added. “I think we have to go full-court press now. We can’t let what is essentially a sideshow derail our country.”

  “Sideshow.”

  “David’s word. I think he’s right. Our country has become good at turning sideshows into main events. Sacrificing big things that matter for little ones that don’t.” Jon clicked his pen anxiously.

  “So what are you going to do with this?” she said. “What’s your plan?”

  Jon shrugged. “Talk with Sonya. I have a call in to her. I think I’m going to just go find her if I don’t hear back. But I wanted to know what you think,” he said. “Since we’re working on this together.”

  Anna sighed. “What I think,” she said, “is that you should talk with her. But I also think you should wait.”

  “Why wait?” Jon said.

  “You asked me the first time we spoke if this had anything to do with your brother,” she said. “It does. Christopher has put together a very small team of people who are looking at Russia in a slightly unorthodox fashion. Without going into all of the specifics, I sort of recruited you for that team.” Jon’s face went blank, as if this didn’t surprise him. “I took it upon myself to do that. I just never got around to telling you.” She smiled. “But, as your brother sometimes says, the weakest point in the intelligence community is information-sharing. Or lack of it. I wonder if you could share what you just told me with someone else.”

  “I could. I guess,” Jon said.

  Anna called Ming as they walked out together. “Will you cancel all my appointments this afternoon?” she said.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  CIA headquarters. Langley, Virginia.

  On the thirty-five-minute drive from Capitol Hill to Langley, they filled gaps in each other’s understandings about what had happened on August 13. Jon explained to Anna the rest of his theory about Sonya Turov and Harland Strickland. Anna told him more of what she’d learned from Gregory Dial; and they traded what they knew about General Utkin and the supposed “coup” plot.

  By the time they checked in and were issued orange V visitor badges, it felt as if they were operating in sync. Which was what Anna wanted. In a sense, Christopher had accepted Jon as a member of the team, too, when he’d asked her to share Delkoff’s “Declaration” with him. Now she just needed to put him together with Martin.

  Lindgren met them in the lobby, coming out with his clipped walk, wearing a slightly rumpled gray suit and fashionably loosened tie. His face lit up as they made eye contact.

  “So good to see you, Anna,” he said, taking her hands and kissing her on each cheek.

  “This is Jon Niles. Christopher’s brother.”

  “Oh, yes. Pleased to meet you,” he said, surprisingly formal with Jon.

  Jon had been to CIA headquarters only once before, he’d told her, and just to the “new” building. He’d always wanted to see the Memorial Wall in the lobby of the Original Headquarters. So once they passed through the white marbled lobby with its iconic CIA seal, Martin took him to the north lobby wall and let him look. Unlike most memorials in D.C., this one was not open to the public.

  Anna felt a sense of reverence standing before the wall, which honored members of the Central Intelligence Agency who had died serving their country. There were 125 stars on the wall right now: eighty-eight named CIA employees, and thirty-seven others, whose identities remained a secret even in death. This was also where every CIA officer swore the oath to serve his or her country their first Monday on the job. The wall was flanked by a US flag on one side, a CIA flag on the other. Jon’s father, Anna knew, was one of the anonymous stars.

  While Jon read though the names in the Book of Honor, she wandered with Martin to the main lobby, stopping in front of the engraved quote that had become CIA’s unofficial motto: “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free,” from John 8:32. It always struck Anna a little peculiar that CIA had adopted this quote—of Jesus speaking to his disciples—and engraved it in the lobby, along with the citation of chapter and verse.

  “The quote was Allen Dulles’s idea,” Martin explained to Jon, as they walked to the visitors’ cafeteria, his unruly eyebrows lifting. “His father was a Presbyterian minister.”

  “The fourth director of the CIA?” Jon said.

  “Fifth, uh-huh.”

  “But of course, the quote was taken out of context,” Anna said. “When Jesus said it, he was asking the disciples to follow his word. ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’”

  “And here?” Jon said.

  “Here, in the context of the CIA, truth means information,” she said. “The CIA pursues information in the service of liberty. Liberty being one of our rights.”

  “God-given rights. Doesn’t it say?” Jon said.

  “More or less, it does.” Anna smiled. “It’s hard to get far from God in this country, isn’t it?”

  They bought coffees in the cafeteria. Anna chose a table in a corner. She had explained only vaguely to Martin why they were coming, just that Jon had something to share with him. Martin still seemed slightly perplexed.

  “Well, we’re up against it, aren’t we?” he said, stirring cream into his coffee. “You’ve seen the smoking gun stories, no doubt.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “And the latest polls. Sixty-seven percent of Russians support military action now against Ukraine or Estonia.” Anna grimaced a nod. “Which is roughly the same percentage that favored Russia going to war with Chechnya after the apartment bombings. Did you know that?”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “And it didn’t take long for them to take advantage of that, as I recall.”

  “No, that’s right,” Martin said. “The day after the explosives were found in Ryazan, Putin ordered the bombing.” It wasn’t hard to draw parallels, Anna knew: The four Russian apartment bombings in 1999, blamed on Chechen rebels, killed 293 people and crea
ted a wave of fear in Moscow and other Russian cities. Several days after the fourth bombing, a fifth attack was thwarted when an unexploded device was found in the city of Ryazan. Putin, who was then prime minister, praised the vigilance of the Ryazan people; the next day Russia ordered the bombing of Chechnya, launching the Second Chechen War. This was also the event that established Putin’s reputation as a leader with the Russian people. But the Ryazan device was later traced to Russia’s own intelligence services, and some Russia observers still believed the apartment bombings were a false flag carried out by the FSB at Putin’s direction.

  “I talked with the president,” Martin said. “The NSC is putting its full weight behind this coup story. Saying the copilot supposedly has a connection with one of the generals. The CIA is being asked to support it.”

  “Colonel General Utkin,” Anna said.

  “Utkin, yes.”

  “That story worries me a little,” she said.

  “It worries me a lot,” Martin replied. “The public is starting to believe Russia’s version of events now, particularly with these new revelations about the Kiev meeting. If we come out backing this coup story, and the media tears it apart—which they will—we’re going to have a tough time recovering. Our country, I mean. I don’t know that we will. And I have to think that Russia knows that. They’re counting on it. Which is particularly worrisome now, as Russia prepares for war.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Anna said, surprised at Martin’s pessimistic tone. “I think the war’s already started. But Jon has a theory you need to hear.” His eyes swung to Jon, then back. “If nothing else, we need to make sure we’re not crossing signals.”

 

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