A HARSH RAIN pelted the side of the FSB’s AgustaWestland AW139 helicopter as it soared over the dull gray, sopping wet streets of Moscow toward the Kremlin.
General Sokolov had received word ten minutes prior that the president had been briefed of his upcoming arrival. The general turned his attention from the window to the frightened-looking Captain Kryuchkov cowering in the large club chair across from him.
What a fool, Sokolov thought, looking at the diminutive Kryuchkov. Everyone associated with the new sharashka—the siloviki, the idiots in FSB’s Department Fifteen, the GRU intelligentsia. Fools. All of them.
The infamous sharashka—Post 866—used to be a place of legend. A crowning achievement of the Rodina and her many exploits. Now, it was an embarrassment.
Sokolov yearned for the old days of the Soviet Union as he looked back out the window while the chopper roared over the Moskva River, back over Moscow State University, where he had stood only hours before. In the distance he could see St. Basil’s Cathedral, Red Square, the Gates of the Kremlin. As his eyes flitted over the rain-soaked, multicolored rising spires, he realized he was flying near Bolshoy Deviatinsky Pereulok, Number Eight.
The United States Embassy.
For more than fifty years, Sokolov had actively fought against the lecherous Americans arrogantly residing in his beloved Moscow. Fought against them at home as a high-ranking member of the KGB and abroad as a general in the SVR. The massive compound below represented all that he hated in the world—the Western powers; their unabashed treachery, their greed. He audibly snarled down at the compound as he remembered what the Americans had taken from him.
What the man in the picture had taken from him.
Minutes later, the helicopter circled over St. Basil’s and Lenin’s Tomb before turning and zipping over Borovitskaya Tower and into the Kremlin grounds. The helicopter rotors thumped through the onslaught of rain, flew low over the green-domed Senate Building, and landed on the executive helipad.
The doors were thrown open by Kremlin guards, black umbrellas opening for the general.
Sokolov used his cane to hit Kryuchkov in the shin. “Has KODIAK contacted Yermakova with any news yet?”
Kryuchkov fumbled with the secure tablet on his lap. “Not yet, General.”
The guards escorted them into the Senate Building and past the various security checkpoints. There was no need for the metal detectors, the x-ray machines, or the bomb-sniffing dogs to pay any mind to Sokolov. The old general had not been subjected to such security measures in the Kremlin for decades.
A presidential aide met them in the great reception hall, motioning them to a side door leading to a vaulted ceiling anteroom where five men stood waiting.
Sokolov scowled as he recognized the men. The SBP, the Presidential Security Service. The president’s personal bodyguards—a secret branch within the FSO, the Federal Protective Service, a descendant branch from the Ninth Chief Directorate of the KGB. The leader of the group, a man Sokolov recognized, raised a hand to frisk the old general.
“Don’t you dare touch me, Sergei Antonov,” Sokolov snapped. “This fool can take the honors.”
Sokolov pointed his cane at Kryuchkov who had turned that deep shade of scarlet again.
“General,” the aide said in an even-toned voice, “the president would like to welcome you.” The aide bowed slightly, his arms gesturing to the massive twin doors of the president’s office.
Kryuchkov got the hint that he would not be invited into the office, at least not yet, and a look of relief swept over him as he finished being frisked and took a seat on a plush leather couch in the anteroom.
Sokolov held the leather-bound dossier in front of him as he hobbled through the double doors into the president’s office.
The narrow room was dim like it always was. Dark paneled wainscoting ran its length, interspersed by bookshelves. A diamond chandelier in the low ceiling caught the light from the small lamp sitting on the unremarkable wooden desk at the end of the room. And behind the desk, standing as still as a statue, was the president of the Russian Federation.
Sokolov walked forward and gazed into the cunning eyes of President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
“Mr. President.”
Putin smiled his notoriously rare smile and rounded the desk, taking Sokolov by the elbow and helping the old general to the cushioned seat before the desk.
“Dyadya,” Putin said. “If you told me earlier you were coming, I’d have your favorite dishes prepared in the kitchens.”
Sokolov coughed and tried to catch his breath, ever aware of the cool, calculating eyes of his protégé, of the man he considered his kin, the man who saw everything and never missed a beat.
“Never mind that, something pressing has happened.”
Putin’s lips pursed. He went behind the desk and sat down.
“I am aware.”
Sokolov blanched; had Yermakova notified the Kremlin about the happenings at the sharashka? Had she gotten a direct line to the Kremlin without going through Kryuchkov?
“How did you find out?”
“Because I spoke to your doctor at the university.”
Sokolov shook his head in disgust. “Never you mind that, that’s not important—it’s something else entirely.”
“He said you are refusing treatment.”
“I’m refusing to let them poison me. I’m refusing to let them shrivel me up like a prune with their radiation. If I am going to die, I will go on my terms. That is my decision. Not yours, and not some doctor at the university. It’s inconsequential.” Sokolov let out a series of violent coughs, more blood spotting his handkerchief.
“Then why have you come, Viktor?”
“You know what day it is, do you not?”
“Of course I know what day it is.”
“Then you did not forget?”
“How could I have forgotten, dyadya?” Putin said, delicately. “Your son was like a brother to me. I could never forget Evgeny.”
“He would have been fifty-eight today, Vladimir Vladimirovich.”
“That is why you have come all this way, to reminisce?”
“No. Something miraculous has happened, something serendipitous.” Sokolov threw the leather dossier on the desk, opened it, and tore out the photocopied image of the man holding the dog next to Cassandra Gale. He pointed to the man’s face and then turned the photograph so it faced the president. “Do you recognize him?”
Sokolov licked his lips in anticipation, watching as Putin’s cold eyes squinted in concentration.
“I do not.”
Sokolov was taken aback. His protégé was not only one of the top political minds in the world, but he was primally so—instinctive and brutal, strong and complex—but he also had the gift of a photographic mind.
“Take another look.”
Putin did, then his eyes snapped open in recognition. “Impossible.”
Suddenly, there was a sharp knock at the door and Sergei Antonov, the head of Putin’s security, opened the door and Kryuchkov entered.
“Mr. President—General. Captain Yermakova has sent her report.”
Putin stood, confused, an emotion not usually shown on his stern face.
“Bring it to me,” Sokolov snapped, indicating Kryuchkov’s tablet.
Kryuchkov moved forward and handed the tablet to Sokolov before the old general ordered him back out of the room.
When the door shut, Putin said, “What the hell is going on, Viktor?”
Sokolov wasn’t listening; his eyes grew wider and wider as he read.
“Viktor!”
Sokolov looked up with a devilish expression on his face. “We’ve found him, Vladimir Vladimirovich. A GRU asset team has located him; he’s in Alaska looking for his daughter.”
“What are you talking about, dyadya?”
“We have his daughter. We have Robert Gaines’s daughter, and now we can have him.”
Chapter 30
MOSCOW, RUSSIA
PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE
GENERAL SOKOLOV TURNED the tablet and showed a perplexed Putin the new picture of Robert Gaines, his features older, his face unshaven and lit by a brilliant light.
“Tell me what is going on, Viktor.”
General Sokolov explained the dealings in the Cave earlier that day. How he had seen the photograph in the dossier and how the trial had been stopped.
Putin snatched the tablet and read Yermakova’s report twice through. After he was done, he put the tablet down and didn’t speak.
Sokolov grew impatient.
“Vladimir Vladimirovich—”
“Robert Gaines died in that river thirty years ago. I saw the shot myself. We scoured the whole river bottom for days. The surrounding woods.”
“The body was never found.”
“Nobody could have survived that fall, not with that kind of bullet wound.”
“He’s alive—”
Putin got to his feet and walked to the small single window that overlooked the Senate Square.
“The Americans changed his name to James Gale,” Sokolov said. “Hid him and his daughters in the middle of nowhere. KODIAK is with him as we speak.”
“Yes, Viktor, I read the report!”
“On the day of Evgeny’s birthday. It’s beyond poetic.”
“It’s a disaster,” Putin said, turning from the window.
The smile on Sokolov’s face faded.
“A disaster? It’s a miracle. A coincidence beyond rationality. The same sharashka that Robert Gaines tried to expose—the same very one he tried to infiltrate—now his own daughter is there! And we know where he is—”
“What do you want, Viktor?” Putin said, angrily.
Sokolov sat back and studied the president. He hadn’t seen his protégé this upset in years. The usually cool, calm, collected Putin was now turning red in the face. Sokolov knew a nerve had been prodded, a chord struck. Sokolov understood that if he was going to get what he wanted he needed to be tactful. He needed to play with the one weakness the president had. He needed to manipulate that weakness.
“You know what I want, plemyannik. This is as much of an embarrassment for you as it is for me.” Sokolov enunciated the word embarrassment. The president’s greatest fear: embarrassing himself and in turn embarrassing the Motherland.
Sokolov continued: “A large part of your meteoric rise in the KGB was due to that operation targeting Robert Gaines—the operation against the Americans. You think if it wasn’t for me that you’d be sitting here today? Who plucked you out of your East German post?”
Putin remained silent, his eyes giving away nothing.
“Your success that night—the hunt for Robert Gaines—was what got you through the necessary doors to propel yourself to the top. You know I opened those doors, don’t you?”
“I know, dyadya,” Putin whispered.
“So, tell me, Vladimir Vladimirovich. How does it feel to know you failed? That you failed me? That you’ve failed Evgeny? What will the intelligence communities say if they find out that Robert Gaines is alive and well? How will that make you look?”
Putin’s eyes finally opened wide. “Careful how you speak to me, dyadya.”
Sokolov smiled to himself; he had the president exactly where he wanted him. Sokolov patted the photocopied image of Robert Gaines with his family. “Then let us make this right. Nobody outside of our little circle needs to know about this—we can keep that under lock and key. We will deal with this internally. Quietly. You know the embarrassment Robert Gaines has caused you. The pain he has inflicted on me and my family. I am dying, Vladimir Vladimirovich. My days are numbered. Let me seek my revenge, let me avenge my son’s death!”
“And what do you plan on doing, dyadya? Go to the United States by yourself? You are an old man!”
“No. I am going to bring him here. I am going to bring Robert Gaines here and return the favor—I will make him watch just like he made me watch!”
Putin slapped his desk with such force the lamp nearly teetered to the floor.
“Listen to yourself. You are not making sense!”
“No, you are not making sense!”
“You should be thinking about finding your replacement for Line S, retiring to your dacha—dying in peace, not worrying about something that happened three decades ago!”
“There is only one way I can die in peace.”
“You are going to let this KODIAK extract Robert Gaines?” Putin was yelling now. “Who is KODIAK anyway?”
“GRU-run assets. Captain Yermakova’s. Husband and wife team. Sold Canadian PACOM intelligence to us since the eighties. A walk-in at the rezidentura in Ottawa. Yermakova has handled them since. The husband was a lieutenant for the Royal Canadian Navy who wasn’t getting the promotions he wanted so he decided to spy for us.”
“And now KODIAK works extraction for GRU sharashkas?”
“In their retirement, yes. Yermakova pays well, as you know.”
“Yermakova and her games,” Putin said, shaking his head.
“You allowed those games.”
“For morale, for entertainment for the siloviki!”
“She has made a mockery of the great post. That sharashka was our Mauthausen. Our best were there. Our training grounds. Our place of scientific advancement. Now it is an embarrassment!”
“So you want me to allow KODIAK to go after one of the most effective CIA operators in the world to settle your score?”
“Our score! Don’t forget, Vladimir Vladimirovich, it was the men you led who were supposed to kill him. And no, I would never let some GRU team do SVR’s work. Let me send in my elite SVR Spetsnaz Vympel Group. Let me and my son’s creation bring back Robert Gaines!”
“Enough with your poetic justice!” Putin roared. “I loved Evgeny like a brother, dyadya, you know that. But what you are asking is too much.”
“My Vympels can intercept within—”
“No, Viktor! You have the daughter. She is yours. You are not to do anything with Robert Gaines. I don’t want to hear any more on the subject.” Putin walked past Sokolov and headed for the door. “You can choose the dacha of your liking. You will receive the best medical staff the Federation can provide to make you comfortable in your final days. But you will leave Robert Gaines alone.”
Sokolov stood, fury building in his chest. He grabbed the dossier and the tablet from Putin’s desk and limped to the door, stopping before him.
Putin said, “You have a month to find your replacement. I want your resignation on my desk by then.”
“Da, Mr. President. Very well.”
Sokolov walked out of the presidential office, past Kryuchkov, past the body guards and into the cream-colored hallway of the Senate Building.
Da, Mr. President. But this isn’t your call. It is mine.
* * *
Sokolov sat in his home study overlooking the rain-soaked skyline of Moscow to the south. The sun had just fallen under the horizon and made the city look like it had been painted in streaks of differing shades of charcoal.
The old general was still fuming over his contemptuous treatment by the president. Ice clinked against the crystal tumbler of vodka as he brought it to his lips.
Vladimir Putin didn’t understand the pain Sokolov had to endure over the last thirty years. The pain brought upon him by Robert Gaines.
He set the crystal tumbler on the table next to his most cherished picture of his son.
His dear Evgeny.
The last of the Sokolov bloodline.
The picture had been taken when Evgeny was twenty-one, the day he was indoctrinated into the KGB Intelligence Services.
Viktor remembered that day like it was yesterday.
He looked at the young handsome face of his son wearing his KGB garb; the boy would have been fifty-eight today. He would have probably been married, had children, maybe even grandchildren.
Instead, Sokolov’s dear Evgeny was just an attractive face encompassed
by an ornate gold picture frame.
“General, we’ve received word.”
Sokolov returned to reality and waved Dmitry, his special assistant, into his study.
“All three Vympel teams have landed in Vladivostok”—Vladivostok, the Federation’s southeasternmost naval base. “They can intercept the target within forty-eight hours.”
“I want two teams on the primary target. Team Three will extract the second daughter, the other one in the picture.”
“General?”
Sokolov smiled. KODIAK’s report stated that Robert Gaines was with his eldest daughter searching for Cassandra. Sokolov remembered the young girls that night in Paris when he’d had the Gaines family within his grasp.
“I want the pair. Gaines and both his daughters.”
“Do you want KODIAK made aware of the Vympel’s presence, General?”
Sokolov paused, running his tongue around the front of his stained teeth. “Alert Yermakova that KODIAK may assist in the extractions, but then they must be dealt with. There are to be no loose ends.”
“Sir?”
Sokolov turned to face Dmitry. “KODIAK is to be eliminated once the Vympels have secured the targets.”
“Da, General. Of course.”
“And what have you told Yasenevo?”
“We have alerted the directorship and told them you will be taking a week off while you recover from an illness. They understand, of course.”
Sokolov growled. Showing weakness of any kind to his comrades was strictly forbidden in Sokolov’s mind. He shuddered to think what they were saying about his failing health behind his back. He wondered what plans those power-hungry bureaucrats had in store for him once they learned he would be surrendering his position.
“And the Kremlin?”
“We have sent them word that you would be flying to your dacha tonight for some much needed rest. A plane and a decoy with a security entourage have already been sent. When we receive word that the targets have been secured, we will get you out of the city and to the sharashka. We have a jet on standby.”
Sokolov nodded and sent the man from the study. Forty-eight hours until his men made the intercept. How would he spend his time in the interim? Certainly he would be too excited to keep his mind at ease.
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