The Plot to Kill Putin

by Max Karpov

  Anton stood in the doorway of the office, looking past Olga to Turov, waiting to be acknowledged. “I am sorry, boss,” he said, stepping in the room as soon as Turov spoke his name. “There’s been some news. I thought you should know as soon as possible.”

  His presence caused Olga to lower her eyes and dutifully withdraw. Anton could be an imposing figure, not because of his size or appearance but because of his abrupt manner. Both Anton and Olga played key roles in Turov’s life but they remained strangers to each other, like two animals who competed for an owner’s affection. If they’d had fur on their backs, it would’ve stood up when they crossed paths.

  “The president’s plane,” Anton said, once they were alone.

  “Yes?”

  Anton waited until he saw Olga walking on the sun-dappled path back to the main house before giving him the details of what had happened in eastern Ukraine.

  “It’s done, then,” Turov said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve been monitoring the reaction.”

  “The reports tying the attack to the United States are widespread and gaining credibility,” Anton said. “The Americans are responding predictably. I spoke to our man in Washington. Ketchler. I’ll have a report for you in the morning.”

  “Very good.” For Turov, the news meant that the second move in “the children’s game” had been played successfully, and the third was now under way. The game still depended on a fourth move, though; but that would be up to the Kremlin. “Thank you, Anton,” he said. “You are important to me. I will see you at ten o’clock, then?”

  “Yes.”

  They shared a formal smile before Anton turned to go. And then Turov called Olga back to his office to tell her the news, summoning the appropriate emotion in his voice.

  Olga glanced several times at Putin’s portrait on the wall behind his desk as Turov spoke. It was the same picture that hung on the walls of thousands of Russian offices throughout the country, in the Kremlin and in every town hall and municipal tax office: the steady blue eyes, the firm set of his mouth. She glanced, too, at the photo on his desk, of Turov and Putin, a decade earlier, sharing an intimate laugh.

  Tears filled Olga’s eyes, and Turov stood to hold her, feeling the warmth of her face against his neck, the gentle heaving of her chest. He thought of his old friend, the president, knowing that what had happened a thousand miles away—what Turov thought of as “The Catalyst”—would forever change the way that people thought of Putin. Turov had first met Vladimir Vladimirovitch when they were students together at Leningrad University. He knew him to be a prinicipled and moral man who understood the unique responsibilities of the “Russian soul,” as the political philosopher Ivan Ilyin had called it. The real purpose of Turov’s operation—despite the elaborate fiction he had told Ivan Delkoff—was to win for Putin the respect that the West had denied him. The West’s propaganda machine found malicious intent in nearly everything Putin did. Every action, however benign— the simple act of going to church, as Volodya had done on Sunday in Moscow—became the calculated machinations of a madman, in their view. The annexation of Crimea, rightfully seen by Russians as the reclaiming of a sacred land, the baptismal site of Saint Vladimir, who brought Christianity to Russia, was portrayed as an “illegal” land grab. The president’s motives in the Middle East, which reflected a deep concern for the persecuted Christian population there, were seen as geopolitical strong-arming.

  The Western media refused to even acknowledge the great reforms the president had brought to Russia or the remaking and reawakening of Moscow he had helped orchestrate. They had denigrated the spectacular Sochi Olympics before the Games even began and spread false rumors in 2016 about state-sponsored blood-doping in an effort to destroy Russia’s athletics programs. To many in the West, the president was unstable, a militaristic dictator, a twenty-first-century Stalin, whose ambition was to reconstitute the Soviet Union at any cost. This was the dirty game the West—and its arrogant leader, the so-called “United” States—played, against anyone who threatened them.

  “We’ll be okay,” he said, as Olga dabbed the tears from her face. She was looking out at the green meadow. Turov looked, too. Until ten days ago, his twin grandchildren had raced through the wild grasses here each evening, playing a made-up game, a hybrid of hide-and-seek and tag. Turov missed them enormously now.

  “Was it the Americans?” Olga asked, her wet brown eyes flashing anger.

  “Yes. We think so,” Turov said. “But, of course, it’s going to be hard to prove.”

  Olga crossed herself privately. “The West has removed God from their culture,” she said. “And this is the result.”

  “Yes, that is true. You have said that for many months.” Turov sighed, anxious to log on to his computer to observe the reaction himself. “I’ll see you later this evening, then. Let me finish my work now.”

  Breeze rustled the oak leaves as she walked away, carrying a subtle perfume of wild strawberries through the screen. It was ironic: Turov’s assignments for the Kremlin often involved uncovering information about other people’s weaknesses. Kompromat. But since meeting Olga, he had come to see weakness in a different light than the Kremlin did. Weaknesses were what made people such as Olga appealing.

  Turov had moved here full-time in the spring, after hiring Delkoff, so that he could monitor the operation from a safe distance. His younger daughter Svetlana jokingly called this room his “space capsule,” because of the row of computer monitors on his work table, which seemed to her incongruous with the country setting. On her last night here, before leaving for Switzerland, Svetlana had looked at Turov like a little girl and asked, in her needy voice, “Do we really have to go away again? Aren’t you coming with us?”

  “I am coming,” he said. “Of course, I am. But I have meetings first.”

  Svetlana, watching him with her stark, still-innocent eyes, had suddenly broken into a sob, as if the unknown were too much for her to bear. At times like that, he sensed, she just wanted to be hugged by her father. Svetlana’s fear of abandonment had grown worse over the past three years, particularly since her older sister Sonya had moved away. What a strange, clinging companion memory was. The set of Svetlana’s mouth retained traces of her childhood pucker, a look that most little girls lost as they became teenagers. It still reminded Turov of a particular moment: an afternoon in the country, high summer, cottonwood seeds swimming in the air, when as a still-young man Turov had looked into his infant daughter’s eyes and they’d had a stare-off, Turov with an adult’s sense of wonder, recognizing that this little creature possessed her own consciousness, that she would grow into a woman with political opinions, prejudices, and a sense of morality. And he’d felt a great responsibility at that moment to keep her from the world’s corruptions. It was a responsibility he still felt today. Svetlana did not remember that, of course. The memory was only his.

  Both of Turov’s daughters had been enticed by the West’s empty promises, for no other reason than that they were young and controlled by their passions, by adrenaline and pheromones. But Svetlana had come back to him and Sonya had left. Putin was right, of course: American culture was poisoning the world with its poshlost, its action movie values and immoral youth culture. The decadence of Moscow was very much an imported Western decadence, shamelessly preying on human vulnerability. Svetlana’s older sister had been spoiled by it, embarrassing him as a teenager before going off to live in England with her mother, whose life had ended tragically. Svetlana had been spoiled, too, but not permanently. She’d become pregnant, out of wedlock, but she’d been responsible enough to acknowledge her mistakes and come back to her father. And he had taken care of her, and the twins, as he always would.

  Alone now, Turov allowed himself to savor a private glow of victory, watching the sky darkening through the trees. He took half an hour to monitor the reaction online, seeing that Anton was right: the news was all good, better even than he’d expected.

  He si
pped a glass of Russian red wine, as he did each evening before closing his office; and he felt even better, preparing for the pleasant walk back by the lake to the main house, where Olga would come to visit him later.

  But as he shut down his computers, Turov was startled to see a figure walking along the trail through the mist, moving like a figment from a ghost story. The man’s small, sturdy stature made him think for a moment that it was Putin himself, or his ghost, coming here for a reckoning. Then he realized that it was only Anton, returning for another unscheduled meeting.

  Anton waited silently outside as Turov finished shutting down and locking up his office. Then they walked together toward the lake through the night shadows.

  “There’s been a problem, boss,” Anton said. “A problem at the checkpoints. Everything did not go to plan.”

  “A problem with the Ukrainians, you mean?”

  “No. The Ukrainians were fine. Everything with the Ukrainians went smoothly. The problem was the other side,” Anton said. “The other team missed the checkpoints. The men are unaccounted for.”

  “Zelenko?”

  “Unaccounted for.”

  Andrei Turov stopped walking. How was this even possible? They’d spent weeks training Zelenko and Pletner, and hired backup security at the checkpoints as insurance. He studied Anton’s whiskered face, and looked past him, to the dark houses, the familiar wooden roofs, the moon seemingly perched in the pine branches.

  “Delkoff?”

  “Unaccounted for. I have men on the way there now. I assure you we’ll get him.”

  Turov had no doubt about that; but would they get him in time?

  So, Turov thought, my instinct about Delkoff was correct after all. Although he hadn’t expected such an elaborate betrayal. Turov had taken a chance with Ivan Delkoff, a man he didn’t really know, despite their extensive vetting. Delkoff had connections in the murky Donbas. He knew the officers and soldiers who could be bought and sold and trusted not to talk. He had the skills to mobilize a small group of men to take Russia’s war to a “new front.” But Delkoff was also primitive, hungry, and impulsive. Who knew what he’d do if allowed to survive?

  “We need to stop him, Anton, wherever he is.”

  “I know. Apparently, there was a fire at the launch site. One or two men were killed there. He may already be dead. I’m waiting on details.” He said this as if it were somehow reassuring. But it only made Andrei Turov more concerned.

  “Wake me with news, Anton,” he said, trying to remain calm. “Wake me any time of the night. We need to put everything we can into this.”

  “We will. We are.”

  But Anton did not return to him with any more news. And Turov endured a long, very difficult night, listening to the tree frogs and the wind scraping branches on the side of the house. At daybreak, Olga’s goodbye was tender but weighted down by his own uncertainty.

  And, then, later that morning, Anton made another unscheduled visit to Turov’s office. It was not to deliver the news Turov hoped to hear. It was again something unexpected: Andrei Turov was being summoned by the Kremlin, for a meeting at noon on Tuesday.

  FOURTEEN

  Capitol Hill, Washington.

  When Anna Carpenter returned to her office at the Hart Senate building, she found five printouts spread across her desk. Ming Hsu, her chief of staff, was good at keeping Anna apprised of whatever was trending in official Washington. The reports from the Russian media sites were now trumpeting a new allegation: not only had a “secret CIA committee” met to discuss a possible strike on Russia, but they had devised a plan that would leave “no US fingerprints,” according to “sources.”

  “Where did this start?” Anna asked.

  “The German newspaper SZ had it just as you were going in to the meeting,” Ming said, looking on with her knowing eyes. “It’s gone whirly in the last hour. It’s just starting to get into the mainstream media. The Post has it with a breaking news banner.”

  She pushed one of the stories closer, from USAToday.com. Anna read: “In the weeks before today’s attack on the Russian president’s plane, US intelligence and military officials met secretly to discuss plans for a ‘preemptive’ strike against Russia, according to a German newspaper report. The talks included high-level negotiations between US military intelligence officials and an anti-Putin Ukrainian oligarch named Dmitro Hordiyenko, a supporter of right-wing paramilitary forces, according to unnamed sources.”

  “Geez,” Anna said. “This can’t be happening.”

  “I know,” Ming said. “But it is. People are repeating it. They’re saying you can’t make this stuff up.”

  Yes you can, Anna thought. Of course you can. She turned her eyes to the atrium. This is coming too fast. Way too fast. Even assuming none of it was true, it would take a major PR counteroffensive to refute these claims. “Can you get Harland Strickland on the phone?”

  Her mind kept flashing to Harland’s visit to her office the day before, and their brief conversation. But Harland was not available. Anna sat at her desk and tried several other colleagues without success. Even her son was suddenly out of reach. She tried Christopher again, feeling the same uneasiness she had coming off the plane on Wednesday evening. But his phone went to voice mail.

  “Turn on CNN!” Ming shouted from the outer office. Something new was coming across—a video clip posted to YouTube showing the moment of impact: the missile’s trail of smoke, the Russian president’s plane exploding, the image freezing just as the debris began to rain down.

  Anna watched the footage loop, spellbound and horrified, reminded of the 9/11 video of the airliners crashing into the World Trade Center towers; that, too, had played repeatedly on cable news before the networks finally realized it was in bad taste to keep showing it.

  She took an elevator to the ground floor and slipped out of the building onto Constitution Avenue. She wanted to breathe some real air for a few minutes, to get out among the trees and people and clear her head. Others seemed to be doing the same. A lot of them. She walked toward the National Mall, thinking of times she’d come out here to marvel at the man-made grandeur, the symmetry of the monuments and neoclassical buildings, the remarkable stories they told about her country.

  She stood on a corner and looked through the trees at the Capitol dome, remembering that she was two blocks from what had most likely been the fourth target of the September 11 attacks. She thought about her father and the “divided nature” he used to tell her we all carry around in us—a capacity for greatness and a capacity for destruction. Anna wondered, as everyone had back in September of 2001, what else was coming.

  When Christopher finally called, it surprised her how relieved she was just to hear his voice. “Where are you?”

  “GW Parkway. I’m headed back over to see Martin,” he said. “I wonder if you could join me. I’m taking an idea in to him. Can you get away?”

  “If you want me, sure. I just sat in on an NSC meeting,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not entirely certain. But I think things are only going to get worse.”

  “Yes, I’m sure they are,” Anna said. “This is coming too quickly.”

  She listened to the outline of his idea, impressed that he’d already fit so much together. There was an edge of certainty in Chris’s voice, and an urgency. Anna understood that. She didn’t know exactly what had happened. But she knew enough to know that her country was under attack. “Thoughts?” Christopher finished.

  “My thought is that they may actually be giving us an opportunity,” Anna said. “I’d like to be involved if I can.”

  “Good. I was hoping you’d say that,” Christopher said. “See you there.”

  FIFTEEN

  Western Virginia.

  Jake Briggs had been running hills that afternoon. Briggs was between jobs, trying to enjoy some quality downtime with his wife and children. But he was starting to “grow rust,” as an old CO used to call it, feeling a restlessness in everythi
ng he did. He’d woken that morning knowing that he had too much time on his hands, and his thoughts kept getting stuck in the same places—regrets, anger, guilt, all the negative garbage that comes with not having a driving purpose to your day.

  He’d finally gone out running, knowing that if he pushed himself hard enough, or long enough, he might be able to sweat away some of those thoughts. For a while, running intervals in the foothills, pumped up on Metallica and AC/DC, it had worked. And now, earbuds out, soaking with sweat in the warm, insect-filled air, Briggs felt revived.

  There was a bright fog over the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west as he came through the thick brush back to their house, feeling grateful again for what he had. Jake Briggs’s children were always the yank at the end of the line, wherever he went, whatever he did. Freedom was an idea with many meanings, like the national flag, but Briggs always defined it in terms of his kids, and what he was leaving for them. No one should be denied the security to raise a family safely, but in many countries, particularly in the Middle East, where Briggs had spent three years of his career, that security didn’t always exist. It was something that bothered him every day.

  He walked in the house dripping sweat. Grabbed a bottle of water from the kitchen, and a towel from the linen closet. He passed the kids watching a video in the living room and stood in the doorway to his wife’s office, sponging his face with the towel. Today was payroll, Donna’s busiest day. But the TV was on in her office. Which was strange: Donna never watched television during the day.