The Plot to Kill Putin

by Max Karpov

  “And how is NATO responding?”

  He sighed. “Frankly? NATO’s not prepared for this. I hate to say that, but it’s true. As you know, there’s great support within Russia right now for retaliation. The Russian people actually want it. And the media there is reporting that more attacks may be coming.”

  “By us?”

  “By us. By Ukraine.” He closed the folder. “You know, people use the chess analogy to describe our relationship with Russia, Anna—if I can call you Anna. But chess is the wrong game. The game we should be talking about—and I’m told this by our generals, who know—is poker. A good poker player bluffs with a weak hand. And, sometimes, he can win with a weak hand. That’s what Russia is doing. Trying to do.”

  He pushed the folder to the side and looked at her soberly, as if debating whether to say more. “There’s one other consideration, frankly, that we have to weigh. I shouldn’t be talking about it. But I’ll just mention this so you know what we’re dealing with, before you go on television. In fact, I’m going to give you kind of a scoop right now.”

  “All right.” Anna forced a smile to meet his.

  “We’ve also, frankly, been given warnings, privately,” he said, “about how this might escalate if we aren’t careful. We do have open channels with the Kremlin and are talking to them about a possible deal. But there’s one threat on the table that—well, obviously no one wants to see, and, frankly, I’m working to make sure doesn’t happen.”

  She could read in the flatness of his eyes what he was saying. “You’re talking about the use of limited-range nuclear weapons,” she said. “Is that the threat?”

  He continued looking at her, and finally nodded slightly. “It would be the first-ever use of them in warfare, I’m told. And the only wartime use of nuclear weapons since 1945. I don’t want that to happen. Nor does the Russian president. But, you understand, this is a war they have the public’s approval to launch. The Russian public. And I’m frankly not so sure it’s our business to get in the middle of that.”

  “It’s the world’s business, isn’t it?” Anna said.

  “It may be.” He frowned at her tone. “Although, frankly, we have other enemies besides Russia, as you know.”

  “Sir?”

  “I mean, Russia is not our only enemy.”

  “Okay,” Anna said. “By other enemies—you mean, ISIS? North Korea?”

  “North Korea, maybe, but I mean internally, too. Who’s to say we don’t have enemies right here at home? People don’t like to talk about that, but it’s true.” His eyes seemed momentarily distracted. Anna recalled what Chris had said about a spy in the house helping the Russians; she wondered if it was possible the president himself was that person, or one of them. But her gut told her no. She wasn’t even sure that the president really bought the coup story. It was possible that he was only backing it because his advisers had presented it to him convincingly. Anna wasn’t going to work against the president, she decided. But she was going to work against this story.

  “Anyway, it’s a sensitive time right now,” he said, closing down the conversation. They’d gone nearly twelve minutes. “And I hope we can count on you.”

  “I appreciate it, sir,” she said, reaching to shake his hand as he grabbed at hers. “I’ll do what I can to help.”

  Harland Strickland had called while Anna was with the president. The self-assured tone of his voice message touched a raw nerve in her. Strickland was the reason she had been summoned to the Oval Office, Anna suspected. He was among the most influential people in the intel community right now, and likely the driving force behind the coup story. There was a well-oiled rhythm of insincerity in his voice, which she knew well. But Anna had her own agenda now. She’d wait before calling him back.

  First she contacted her son David, who was working from home today. “I need to ask you something in confidence, honey. Remember what you said about Russia doing unto others as they think others want to do unto them?”

  “Okay.”

  “I wonder if you could put everything on hold for a couple of hours and check something for me—what Russia’s doing right now. Is that possible?”

  “Anything’s possible, Mom. You told me that,” he said.

  Anna smiled. She gave David the names of the Russian pilot and General Victor Utkin and asked if he could run deep data searches on both, looking for any connections between them. Anna talked quickly, echoing the resolve she’d heard in Strickland’s voice, wanting to get it done before she changed her mind. Wondering if she was crossing a line of loyalty by pursuing this. “I’ll stop over tonight,” she said. “We can talk then.”

  Finally, she called Harland Strickland. But, as often happened, she was sent to voice mail and left him a message. As she was signing off, Anna heard a familiar voice in her outer office. It took a moment to place it: Martin Lindgren.

  Ming was laughing with uncharacteristic abandon, charmed by Martin’s flattering manner. Martin seemed out of context here, though, almost as much as he had on the beach in Greece last Tuesday. In fact, it occurred to her that Martin had never been to her office on Capitol Hill before. Why now?

  THIRTY-NINE

  Martin Lindgren placed the new Weekly American magazine on Anna’s desk and sat. “AUGUST 13” stretched across the bottom of the cover, below ominous clouds of dark smoke. The suggestion that August 13 was a date that would live in infamy, as December 7 had for her grandparents’ generation or September 11 had for hers, was unsettling. And presumptuous.

  “Have you seen that?” Martin said.

  “No, I hadn’t.” She studied the cover momentarily and set it down. She could see from his expression that Martin hadn’t come here to show her a magazine. “What is it?”

  “Something happened in France last night,” he said. “Big setback.” Anna felt her heart lift in her chest. “Christopher?”

  “No. Briggs.”

  “What happened?”

  “Ivan Delkoff,” he said. “He was gunned down on the coast of France overnight.”

  “Gunned down.” Anna didn’t know all the details of Christopher’s operation, but she knew that Delkoff was at the heart of it.

  “Broad daylight in France,” Martin said. “He’d just met with Jake Briggs. Evidently, they were about to strike a deal. Two other men were also killed—a security guard and Delkoff’s cousin Dmitri Porchak.”

  “What happened? Who was—?”

  “Freelancers working with the SVR, probably,” he said. “We don’t know a lot. It’s being handled by French secret services right now. The house where he was staying was ransacked, computers and phones taken. Russia wants the body back. Naturally, they’re accusing us, saying we did it as a cover-up, although nothing’s out publicly yet, thank God. Christopher knows. I communicated with him earlier.”

  Anna was speechless. She was also stunned that Martin would be telling her about it. “And Briggs—?”

  “I spoke with Jacob Briggs, too,” Martin said. “He’s all right. Physically. Although he’s stuck on the idea that his mission was somehow compromised. Or sabotaged.”

  “Well, obviously,” Anna said.

  “No. He means by us.” Martin drew in a deep breath. “He thinks it was someone internally, in the intel community, who led him there and then set him up.”

  “Tell me he’s wrong,” she said.

  “He’s wrong. Of course, he’s wrong. This was nothing more than what Chris said it was: an operation to find and talk with two Russians. Unfortunately, it’s suddenly become much more complicated. Briggs is on a flight to Moscow now. At Chris’s request. But there may be a saving grace in all this,” he added. “That’s why I came to see you.”

  He opened his case and took out a document. “Delkoff left something behind,” he said. “It was on a flash drive that he gave to Briggs. It’s been translated. There’s another encrypted file we haven’t been able to break. But this one’s pretty telling. Have a look.”

  Anna reached f
or it. “August 13. A Declaration. By Ivan Delkoff.” She began to read. The writing was slightly garbled in places because of the translation, but the message was clear. The document succinctly detailed the lead-up to August 13, beginning with a spring meeting in a residential neighborhood of Moscow, at which Turov hired GRU Colonel Ivan Delkoff to carry out the assassination. Over the summer, it went on, Delkoff trained a small team—men named Zelenko, Pletner, Kolchak, Kravchenko, Tamm—and negotiated with an agent of businessman Dmitro Hordiyenko to purchase a Buk surface-to-air missile battalion. His “Declaration” gave specifics about when the missiles had been transferred and where they had been stored. It ended with a dramatic two-page first-person account of the attack itself. I felt enormous pride that the mission to reclaim the Motherland had been achieved, Delkoff wrote. I did not know yet that I had been a victim of a grand deception. A deception not only by Andrei Turov. But also by our president. I am writing this so the World will know the crime this regime has perpetrated.

  Incredible, Anna thought. The document felt both selfless and self-serving, the parting shot of a patriot defending Russia with all he had left, hoping that his words could do what the missiles had failed to do. This verified Christopher’s suspicions about Turov, then. Suspicions the IC had rejected years earlier. This would also blow Russia’s story apart. And the White House’s version, as well, Anna mused.

  She looked up at Martin Lindgren. “This is our proof, then?”

  “Well, yes,” he said. “With one obvious problem.”

  “Delkoff’s credibility.”

  “That’s right. As I say, we’re hoping there’ll be more. But that’s what we have to work with. Unfortunately, the idea that we did this is escalating faster than expected. There are protests planned for the weekend that are going to make the Occupy movement look like child’s play.”

  “And make it easier for Russia to justify retaliation.”

  Martin nodded. “Obviously, they’ll say we fabricated this. Our own credibility is becoming a problem now.”

  Anna read through the document again, imagining how it would play in the world media. How it might change the narrative about Friday’s attack, the stories portraying the United States as a lawless kleptocracy. But would the public believe it? “Who else has seen this?” Anna asked.

  “Right now, just Briggs and Chris. That’s all. You, me, Briggs, Chris.”

  Anna stared at him in disbelief. “The president hasn’t seen it?”

  “Not yet, no.” Martin’s expression took on a detached indifference. “Christopher asked me to wait another twenty hours. I’m going to honor that. This is still Chris’s op. I can’t jeopardize that until I know he’s safe.”

  “Okay.”

  “The other reason,” he added, “is that the White House has its own theory about what happened. I don’t think I could change their minds if I wanted to.”

  “The idea that this was internal, a coup attempt,” Anna said, thinking of her Oval Office meeting.

  “Yes,” he said. “They’re trying hard to inflate that. And there’s a story about the plane’s pilot now, too.” Anna nodded. “You’ve heard it. So. I’m going to keep this dark until we hear back from Chris. Until we know he’s out of harm’s way. Then I’ll take it to the president.”

  Anna felt her heart clutch. Harm’s way.

  But then she sensed what Martin was really telling her. “You’re saying he’s made contact with Turov, then?”

  Martin’s eyes closed affirmatively, the way other people would nod. “They’re meeting tomorrow. For obvious reasons, he doesn’t want any of this out before then. He’s afraid that if the White House has it, the NSC will have it, and the press will have it. I’m honoring that.”

  “But I don’t get it—why share this with me, then?”

  “Because Chris asked me to. And he wants you to share it with his brother, too. Not for publication. Not until we hear back, anyway. But he wants his brother to know about this.”

  Anna reread the opening of Delkoff’s statement, feeling touched that Christopher would want to share it with Jon. “Obviously, I can’t go on television tonight, then, and talk about it.”

  “Not about this, no. But you can go on television. We need to keep a conversation going, Anna, to do everything we can to slow down this Russia story.”

  “All right.” Anna felt a surge of apprehension, recalling what the president had shared with her, the “threat” of a nuclear strike in the Baltics. “I was tempted to ask the president about Turov,” she said. “I’m glad now that I didn’t.”

  “Let’s wait and see what happens tomorrow.” He stood then, not letting it get any more personal. But Anna felt the ties of their team tightening a little.

  Once Martin left, she stared out the window at the atrium, sorting through what he’d told her. Still believing in the quaint idea that the truth counted for something, she swiveled around and pushed the number for Jonathan Niles’s cell phone. He was at his office, he told her.

  “I have something for you,” she said. “Can I come over and drop it off?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Anything new?” she asked. He sounded different, more abrupt, or maybe just distracted.

  “A couple of things. I met Strickland and—I’m just thinking about numbers,” Jon said.

  “Oh?”

  “Can’t really talk about it . . . Have you read my blog, by any chance?”

  “Not yet. Why?”

  “You should read it.”

  “I will.”

  FORTY

  Anna called up Jon Niles’s blog on her phone and read it on the way to the CNN studios in northeast D.C.

  The news today can be told in numbers. Over 75 percent of Russians now believe the US had a hand in shooting down the president’s plane on August 13, according to a new poll by Levada-Center, Russia’s largest independent polling organization. In Germany and France, it’s just over 45 percent, with 20 percent of those surveyed saying they don’t know. In the United States, 31 percent of respondents to a Gallup survey say they believe their country was either involved or had prior knowledge, with 30 percent saying they don’t know.

  And if that’s not worrisome enough, consider this: 67 percent of Russians say that their country would be justified in taking military action against NATO over the attack.

  But in Washington, the most troublesome number on Tuesday morning was three—as in, three more days. That’s the number some military officials were giving for how long it will be before Russia takes retaliatory action against Estonia and/or Ukraine. Three days is also how long military analysts say it could take for Russia to capture Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, one of the countries the Kremlin has accused of conspiring to assassinate Russia’s president. This isn’t just Russian saber-rattling, but a very real possibility, warns one US military official.

  But is it really? Other sources note that the Kremlin appears to be negotiating quietly with both Ukraine and Estonia, and even the United States, for what it really wants: a non-military solution to the standoff. What does that mean? The Kremlin is reportedly seeking a complicated agreement with the Estonian government that would include a “referendum clause.” Some analysts see this as Russian hocus-pocus, a first step in turning Estonia (and perhaps eastern Ukraine) into a Russian satellite.

  Could the future of Eastern Europe really be determined by what happens in the standoff over Estonia, a nation whose population is comparable to that of San Diego—and which most Americans couldn’t find on a map? How did we get to this point?

  By some accounts, it goes back to June, when a group of five US intelligence and military planners met to discuss strategies for dealing with Russia. The group was convened in response to intelligence showing that Russia was planning “a significant action” aimed at the United States, according to sources. In the course of the meeting, and several follow-ups, the possibility of a “preemptive” move against Russia was discussed. These talks were only “theo
retical,” said one source. But Russian intelligence services have apparently made them the basis for a successful disinformation campaign accusing the United States . . .

  Anna looked up as they arrived at the CNN building on First Street. There were dozens of protestors outside, holding signs reading MURDERERS! and USA KILLS! which had become rallying cries of the August 13 “movement.” How did the protests escalate so quickly?

  She finished Jon’s blog upstairs, waiting to go on air, pondering again what he had asked her earlier, at the Starbucks: If the story isn’t true, why hasn’t the administration come out and directly refuted it?

  “Senator Carpenter, thank you for joining us,” the interviewer, a youthful, intelligent-mannered blonde woman she’d never seen before, began. “This story about the August 13 attack continues to take some incredible new turns. There are reports now of a, quote, assassination committee and of a meeting in Kiev between a CIA official and a Ukrainian arms trader—”

  “Actually, there are no credible reports of either one,” Anna said. “I don’t believe the meeting you refer to in Kiev actually happened.”

  “You’re saying the meeting with this Ukrainian arms dealer never happened?”

  “That’s right. I think we have to be very careful what we call ‘reports’ and what’s simply Russian propaganda magnified—”

  “But with all due respect, Senator—you call this propaganda, but opinion polls around the world, including here in the United States, show that the public simply doesn’t believe that.”