The Children's Game

by Max Karpov

  “I’m a little surprised it’s not getting more play here, though,” Chris said.

  “It will. Unfortunately, as you may have seen, some influential people on our side have been pushing a different story over the past few days. That set us back a little.”

  “The story that the attack was a coup attempt, you mean?” Chris said. Martin nodded subtly. “I’ve caught pieces of it. It’s mostly an old story, isn’t it?”

  “It is. One of our top counterterrorism men, Harland Strickland, had been standing in the way of Delkoff’s story. I’m not sure why. Mostly for personal reasons, evidently. Anna sort of called him out.”

  This surprised Chris, but only a little. He knew Strickland, a national security veteran of several administrations. He was a smart man, charismatic on first impression, but with a tendency toward self-aggrandizement and a weakness for young women. “Does the president know about me?”

  “Not yet. How do you feel about that?”

  Chris shrugged. “I don’t want to be any more a part of this story than I have to be.”

  “I figured.” Martin opened the file folder. “You were right, by the way, about Turov. He evidently pulled this off with fewer than a dozen people—”

  “Almost pulled it off,” Chris corrected him. “I counted ten, not including those already working in the States.”

  Martin nodded. He named them, reading from the list in his folder: Delkoff, Zelenko, Pletner, Kolchak, Kravchenko, Tamm, Hordiyenko, Hordiyenko’s agent Petrofsky, Turov, Anton Konkin. “Ten men: they thought that’s all it would take to bring us down.”

  “They were expecting we’d do most of the heavy lifting.”

  “Yes.”

  Christopher watched Martin’s squarely cut nails on the cup handle, the coffee still steaming. “You gave me a puzzle on the airplane,” he said. “About the ‘carrier.’ I have an idea what the answer might be.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “When you came to see us in Greece last week, you mentioned that you had an asset in Moscow. You said she’d confirmed some of what Turov said, including the use of this phrase ‘the children’s game’ in a telephone call.”

  Martin winced slightly. “I didn’t mean to say she.”

  “I know you didn’t.” Chris smiled. “Turov told me that the carrier wasn’t in Russia anymore. Because his daughter Svetlana had recently left the country, I thought of her. But Turov also has a girlfriend, who cares for the daughter. Her name is Olga Sheversky, I believe.”

  Martin was silent.

  “I’m speculating a little now, but here goes: because your asset had gotten close enough to hear Turov’s phone conversation, I’m thinking the carrier and your asset might be the same person. And I’m thinking that person might be Olga Sheversky.”

  “Okay.” Martin reached for his coffee. “You always bring me back to the same question, Christopher,” he said, showing his reluctant smile. “Why do I ever underestimate you?”

  “Where are Olga and the daughter now?”

  “I wish I could tell you.”

  Chris nodded, understanding what Martin was doing: they’d come to the border where their business relationship ended. There were things Martin couldn’t share. That was fine.

  “Before you leave,” Martin said, “I wanted to show you what we got from the flash drive Turov gave her. Supposedly containing the confidential documents he told you about. It was concealed inside a Swiss clock he had shipped to Switzerland, she said.” He pushed the stack of paper on the desk toward Christopher.

  “All this?”

  “All that.” Chris began to read, from the top of the first page: “Well, Prince, Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Bonaparte family. But I warn you that if you do not admit we are at war, if you still defend all the infamies and atrocities of this Antichrist . . .”

  He stopped and looked at Martin. “This sounds like the opening of War and Peace.”

  “Yes. Actually, it is the opening of War and Peace. That’s Turov’s ‘Data,’ as the files were labeled. The whole novel, in nine separate files. There was nothing else on the drive.”

  “Nothing about the August 13 operation.”

  Martin shook his head, his face betraying disappointment.

  “So Turov was a loyal man,” Chris said.

  “More likely, his girlfriend remains a loyal woman. Loyal to President Putin and to Russia, anyway, despite everything. Loyalty goes a long way in Russia.”

  “Olga substituted this flash drive for the one he gave her about August 13 to protect him, you’re saying?” Chris said. “To protect Putin?”

  “It’s a theory. To quote you: I’m speculating. We don’t have the full picture yet.”

  Chris pushed the pile of paper toward Martin and sat back. “Which would mean the trail ends with Turov, then. Or with Ivan Delkoff’s version of events, anyway.”

  “For now, yes,” Martin said. “I’m not convinced Turov ever really intended to undermine the president. But there may be more coming. There are still several files that we haven’t broken the encryption on. The ones you brought back. The important thing is that world opinion is starting to turn a little. Not quickly enough—and some of that’s our own fault—but we’re hoping the president’s speech to the country this morning will change that.

  “Thanks to your brother, by the way,” Martin added, “Turov’s older daughter—Sonya—is in a safe house this morning. With some stories to tell about her father. And this shady character she worked for in Washington, Ketchler. I think she’s going to wind up in witness protection.”

  Christopher smiled inwardly, wondering if Anna had played a role in getting to Sonya Turov. He looked out at the sun-bleached morning, the traffic five stories below, soundless motion beyond the glass. He felt ready to go.

  “So, what else can I do?” he said.

  “Nothing. You can go home,” Martin said. “Watch the president’s speech. Get some sleep. You’ve done your part.”

  Christopher felt like a man emerging from prison as he strode into the first-floor lobby and saw Anna Carpenter across the room, waiting with his travel bag. They held each other and shared a long, gentle kiss. Then walked into the parking lot holding hands. There was something about the air and the light that signaled he was home, back to his life as a university lecturer. But more importantly, to his life with Anna. This time, he knew, he’d be here for a while.

  Jake Briggs caught up on the news as his wife Donna drove them toward the mountains of western Virginia. Briggs was more than ready to disappear again, knowing he’d helped eliminate a terrorist threat named Andrei Turov. Whether the world ever found out about it didn’t matter to him.

  “Thanks for your service,” Martin Lindgren had said, as they shook hands in his CIA satellite office. The words were a cliché, so routine they didn’t mean much. But they’d meant something to Briggs. No one had said that to him in a while. He was grateful to have served, grateful that Chris Niles had chosen him, and grateful now to be going home.

  As Briggs saw it, he had been recruited to fight a small war; and small wars were sometimes the way you prevented bigger ones, the kind that Russia was preparing to fight. Russia wanted to fight bigger wars because it wanted to be a bigger nation; because it had become a second-rate country, burdened with unsolvable economic problems and historic expectations it could never realize. Russia was busy inventing new weapons systems for those wars: the weapons of disinformation and mass deception. Briggs expected the international community would get wise and outlaw those weapons, as they had banned biological and chemical warfare. He just hoped they didn’t wait too long. Already, he’d seen Russia’s political influence spread to places it shouldn’t be: throughout Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.

  To Briggs, the wars Russia was preparing for were nothing more than a sophisticated form of terrorism. Terrorism came in many guises. A terrorist could be a poor Middle Eastern kid who lived in a one-room apartment or he could be the
wealthy leader of a giant country who lived in palaces. Both operated out of the same need. The kind of wars that Russia was planning for always came to the same end, Briggs knew: in the long run, civilization won. That was the natural order. Not everyone bought into that notion; the idea had faced some formidable opponents over time, dictators who’d tried to replace the natural order with an artificial one.

  Briggs believed in his country the way some people believed in God, even if he had little use for government institutions. Still, for right now, he was okay leaving the wars to other people. Right now, more than anything else, he just wanted to see his children again.

  SIXTY

  Good morning,” the president said, standing behind a podium in the hallway by the East Room. “Today we can report with certainty to the American people—and the world—that last week’s tragic attack on the Russian president’s plane was carried out by forces from within Russia.

  “Our intelligence agencies, working with the governments of several nations in the region, have now conclusively identified the planner of the attack and the men who carried it out.

  “We have also determined that, despite news accounts to the contrary, the United States did not play a role in or have any prior knowledge of the August 13 attack. Nor were the governments of Ukraine or Estonia involved in any way.”

  Christopher glanced at Anna and felt a tiny stir of redemption. This was the work their team had done. The evidence that Jake Briggs had brought home from northern France. And it was exactly the story the United States needed to be telling. He liked the optics, too, the president’s steady, unapologetic tone, giving Americans what they’d wanted to hear since August 13: their president resetting the national agenda, reassuring the electorate, giving hope to the people who’d hired him—and to some of those who hadn’t.

  “We have irrefutable evidence this morning that the August 13 operation was planned by a Russian businessman and former FSB officer named Andrei Turov and commandeered by Ivan Delkoff, a Russian military intelligence colonel. Both men have now been killed, apparently by agents of their own country.”

  Chris was reminded of Turov’s eerie final impression: seated in the desk chair, his strange blue eyes open, as if watching the man who had killed him. But he wondered where the president got that line about Turov and Delkoff being killed “by agents of their own country.”

  “. . . and while there is no longer any question about who planned and carried out the August 13 attack, there are still unanswered questions about why it occurred and whether or not the Kremlin had any direct involvement. I expect these questions will be answered by our intelligence agencies in the coming days and weeks.

  “In the meantime, we will continue to work diligently to make sure the people of the United States, and the world, are kept fully informed. Because the tragedy in Ukraine last Friday was not only an attack on twenty-six innocent people. It was also an attack on democracy, and on the freedom we enjoy as Americans. Which is something that we will continue to defend with all of our resources. This morning I call on every citizen of our country, and everyone who loves freedom throughout the world, to stand with us in this fight. Thank you.”

  “Nice,” Anna said.

  “Wonder how Russia’s responding.”

  Minutes later, they saw: Moscow quickly issued an outraged rebuttal to the president’s speech, calling the Delkoff document “an obvious fabrication.” The United States is desperate to cover its crimes, said the Kremlin’s official statement, and further attack the Russian Federation.

  “It’s a reversal of roles,” Chris said. “Russia’s suddenly in the position of having to defend itself. Which we’d been doing since Friday. We’ve just changed the game. That’s the only way we win.”

  “Meaning, advantage USA?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Although it’s dangerous to think that. Particularly with Russia.”

  “I know.” Anna reached for Christopher’s hand. She stood and led him to the bedroom. There were still a couple of hours before she had to leave for downtown. They lay on the bed for a while and held each other, enjoying the silence and the slow, late-morning breeze rustling through the woods and through the open windows. Together, for a few minutes, they managed to shut out the story and enjoy some intimate time. It was a nice interlude.

  “Good luck,” he said when she went out, headed downtown for her interviews. “I’ll be watching.”

  But Christopher had his own plans for that evening.

  SIXTY-ONE

  Jon Niles felt slightly hungover as he watched the president from his apartment in Northwest Washington. It was a strong, well-delivered speech, one of the best he’d seen this president give. But would it change anything? Would it counteract Russia’s version of events, or just be seen as a self-serving cover-up? And—either way—would it have any effect on what Russia was planning in the Baltics?

  Jon didn’t know. His thoughts were still with Sonya Larsen. He had stayed up late, talking with Roger Yorke and then trying to reconstruct his long, strange conversation with her, drinking beer, slightly dazzled by the spell she had cast over him. The whole experience seemed even more dream-like in the morning.

  One comment Sonya had made nagged at Jon, though. And the president’s speech had just accentuated it.

  Had Andrei Turov really been killed by “agents” of his own country?

  Jon thought several times about calling Anna Carpenter to ask for clarification, but then he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know how Anna would respond, because his question involved Christopher.

  He finally left her a text message and drove downtown to the Weekly American offices to ask Roger. When Jon arrived, Roger was on the phone, his long legs propped on a corner of the desk, one arm crooked behind his neck, patting the top of his head as he talked. It was hard to imagine him looking any more comfortable. He waved at Jon and pointed at the guest chair.

  “Anything new?” he asked when Roger hung up.

  “We’re still on alert, evidently,” he said, his eyes turning to Jon. “Russia’s doubling down. Of course, they don’t really want to attack. They’d rather negotiate. But they see the president’s speech as provocation.”

  Roger’s brow furrowed. He looked at Jon in that perceptive way he had. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to talk with you.”

  Roger sighed, pointing to something on his desk. “Is it about that?”

  Jon reached for it. It was a printout of a brief news story. Something he’d missed. Jon felt his chest seize up as he read the headline. “Russian Attorney Found Dead in Motel Room.”

  He read the lede paragraph: “Prominent Russian attorney Michael Ketchler was reportedly found dead in a motel room in the Virginia suburbs this morning. Police are investigating. A police source said Ketchler may have died of a heart attack.”

  “You hadn’t seen it?”

  “No. I haven’t.” He remembered watching Michael Ketchler on the street, arguing with Sonya, and heard the echo of Sonya’s words to him: To tell you the truth, I think I’m in trouble . . . I’m afraid someone’s going to be hurt.

  “KC made a few inquiries with the police,” Roger said. “The motel room was rented by a woman believed to be a prostitute. Ketchler’s physician and his family attorney say it appears to be a heart attack. But according to the responding police officer, he had several broken bones, including two broken fingers, and severe bruising on the back of his neck.”

  “A Russian heart attack, in other words,” Jon said.

  “Yes.”

  Jon read through the brief news item again.

  “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

  Jon leaned forward, feeling deflated. “It was something the president said in his speech this morning. Something Sonya told me last night, too. About how her father died.”

  “That he was killed by ‘agents of his own country.’”

  “Yeah. Sonya Larsen called it a betrayal. Putin sending the FSB to kill her father
after all his years of loyalty. The White House seems comfortable putting that story out there. That he was killed by agents of his own country.”

  “You don’t think it’s true.”

  “I don’t.” He glanced at the glare of afternoon light on the windows across the street and took a deep breath. And then he explained why: Jon didn’t believe it was true because he knew that Christopher had been in Moscow on Wednesday when Andrei Turov died. He’d gone there to find him, probably as a CIA black op. Whatever happened to Turov, Chris had been part of it; not the FSB. Jon wasn’t supposed to know that. But he did. He’d picked it up on his visit to Langley with Anna Carpenter. He couldn’t unknow it.

  “And if the US was involved in killing Turov,” he told Roger, “then the story isn’t quite as clean as it appears. We’d have an obligation to report that, right?”

  “Possibly.”

  Possibly. “I keep thinking about what you told us the other day,” Jon said, “about fighting disinformation with disinformation. I’m sure other reporters will figure it out eventually.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Roger continued to frown. “It’s a good question,” he said. “Although I think it’s also important to weigh proportions.”

  “Okay,” Jon said. “And what does that mean?”

  “In other words, I’m not sure that how Turov died is the most important part of his story, is it?” Jon tilted his head to one side, conceding the point. “Or—to take it another way: you told me you went out to Langley the other day, right? You saw the memorial stars on the wall there.”

  “Okay.”

  “Some of the stars on the wall are anonymous. One of them, I believe, is your father, correct?” Jon felt his face color briefly. He’d never talked about this with Roger. “My point,” he went on, “is that there are some stories that shouldn’t be publicized. It wouldn’t serve any purpose, and might even compromise future intelligence operations. That’s why the stars are anonymous.”

  “And you’re saying how Andrei Turov died is one of those stories that shouldn’t be told.”