The Kremlin Conspiracy

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  The heavy, thick, steel-reinforced door opened into a short, carpeted, empty hallway—an additional security measure to make absolutely certain that no unauthorized person could approach the president. Nimkov, knowing his place, let Oleg enter first. When Oleg limped to the door at the other end of the hallway, he knocked twice. Only when he heard his father-in-law bid him enter did he open the door.

  The president was sitting beside his desk in an overstuffed chair, gazing vacantly at walls lined with books of every kind, from esteemed Russian literature to military histories and biographies of great leaders to Western novels, especially political thrillers, for which Luganov had a weakness. He was dressed casually in blue jeans, a navy-blue V-neck sweater over a white T-shirt, and boots, and he was smoking a cigar. There was a roaring fire in the stone fireplace. There was also an open bottle of Stolichnaya and a half-empty glass. That didn’t bode well so early in the morning, Oleg thought.

  “Oleg Stefanovich, it’s you—finally—you live and breathe,” said Luganov, his speech slightly slurred, though that could have been as much from lack of sleep as an abundance of alcohol.

  Oleg nodded but then turned on the FSB chief without warning. “I’m alive, but no thanks to the imbeciles this man assigned to me, Father. Dmitri Dmitrovich, how is it that you have such incompetents on my security detail? How is it that you have allowed my life to be put in such danger?”

  Nimkov was completely caught off guard, and Oleg stayed on the attack. It was his father-in-law, after all, who had taught him the best defense was a good offense.

  “Dmitri Dmitrovich, tell us, have you hunted down the filthy pigs who tried to kill me? Have you captured any of them? Have you killed any of them? Or is this too much for you and the sniveling, pathetic morons working for you?”

  Nimkov tried to respond, but Luganov intervened. “Come, come; sit down, Oleg Stefanovich,” the president said. “Set aside your coat and your briefcase and have a seat. You have been through a terrible ordeal. I know you are angry. I am as well. But there is no need to take out your frustrations on the FSB or its esteemed director. We are on the same team, are we not?”

  Luganov motioned to an unoccupied chair to his left. Oleg reluctantly took it. Nimkov sat in the chair to the president’s right. Then Luganov pushed a buzzer on his desk, and seconds later a steward entered.

  “Bring some tea for my son and breakfast for us all,” Luganov ordered. “It has been a long night. I think we all need some sustenance.”

  Luganov looked around the room. Neither Oleg nor Nimkov said a word.

  “Yes, Your Excellency. Right away, sir.”

  When the steward stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him, Luganov gave the FSB director the floor.

  “I deeply apologize, Oleg Stefanovich,” Nimkov began. “This was a terrible breach in our security. I’m afraid we do not have any of the perpetrators in custody. But my men are thoroughly scouring the crime scene, and I guarantee we will make arrests sooner than you might think.”

  The way Nimkov uttered this last sentence worried Oleg. Was this a threat, delivered right here in the presence of the president himself? Oleg wondered what mistakes Marcus and his team had committed, what incriminating evidence they had left behind, and how quickly—if at all—it could be linked to him. Even more, however, Oleg wondered how long Nimkov was going to stay. The plan Marcus had given him hadn’t factored in a second man in the room, least of all the head of Russia’s security services.

  “Dmitri Dmitrovich, what do you know so far?” Luganov asked.

  “For starters, Your Excellency, we have recovered one of the getaway cars the attackers used,” Nimkov explained. “Well, recovered probably isn’t the correct term. Located is more like it. A Mercedes. An SUV. My men found it six miles away from the Kraskin estate.”

  “Where exactly?”

  “At a Lukoil gas station the terrorists blew up to cover their tracks.”

  “Blew up?” the president asked.

  “Completely demolished, and the fire’s still raging,” Nimkov confirmed. “It will take some time to sort out the damage. One of my agents was found dead at the scene. Shell casings everywhere. Seems there was quite a shoot-out. It all went down just as our hostage rescue team was arriving to get you, Oleg Stefanovich. As best we can tell at the moment, our man was in hot pursuit of the Mercedes. The two vehicles may have crashed into the gas station. It’s not yet clear, but the roads were slippery in the snow.”

  Oleg was aghast at the news, suddenly wondering if Marcus was even still alive.

  “What else have you found?” he asked, convinced it was in his best interest to stay on the offensive. “How many attacked the house, and who were they? Chechens?”

  “I’m glad you asked, Oleg Stefanovich, because that’s one of the strangest things about the attack,” said Nimkov. “We haven’t found the bodies of any of the terrorists in or around your family home.”

  “None?”

  “Strange, isn’t it? Twelve of my men are dead. Not a single perpetrator. Yet ballistics confirms all of them were firing their weapons.”

  “More evidence of their incompetence, if you ask me,” Oleg fumed. He was trying to put on a good show, but he worried where this was going. He had no idea how many men Marcus had brought with him. He hadn’t asked ahead of time because he didn’t want to know. He hadn’t asked afterward because there hadn’t been time. But given the magnitude of the gun battle and the destruction caused to the house, surely there had been at least six or eight. That’s what Oleg had assumed, anyway, and it was inconceivable the FSB agents hadn’t taken out at least a few of them.

  “Perhaps it was incompetence,” said Nimkov, rising to his feet. “Or perhaps there’s another explanation.”

  “Like what?” Oleg asked. He noticed that his father-in-law was being unusually quiet during the conversation.

  “Perhaps they were set up.”

  “Set up? How?”

  “Perhaps someone tipped them off, someone on the inside, someone trying to cover up a crime.”

  “Only your men knew where I was going to be tonight,” Oleg shot back. “My own parents didn’t know. Nor did Marina. Is there a mole inside the FSB?”

  “There’s a mole somewhere—that much seems clear,” Nimkov said. The FSB chief turned to the president. “May I?”

  Luganov assented, so Nimkov walked over to a television console that Oleg noticed was hooked up to a laptop computer.

  “I have some surveillance video footage I brought for the president to see. Now that you’re here, I’d like to show you as well, Oleg Stefanovich. And then, with the president’s permission, I may have a few questions.”

  “Heard anything?” Morris asked.

  “Not yet.”

  Five minutes from Domodedovo International Airport, Marcus pulled off the highway and turned onto Ilyushina Street. He parked the Lada in the rear lot of the Ramada. Morris checked the laptop. The files were done uploading. She pulled out the thumb drive and handed it back to Marcus. Then they quickly stuffed their weapons, ammo, radios, flak jackets, balaclavas, and other supplies into large duffel bags, shoved those in the trunk, locked the doors, and slipped into the building through a side door using a key card Morris had brought with her, per the extraction plan they’d jointly designed days earlier.

  Once inside, the two headed directly for the restrooms off the lobby. There, each found a bag pre-positioned for them at the bottom of the trash bins. Each bag contained a change of clothes, a winter hat, coat, gloves, boots, a wig, glasses, a fake passport, and an airport ID, and in Marcus’s case, a fake mustache and goatee. Marcus washed the blood and sweat from his face and hands, then rewrapped his knee with fresh gauze and tape. He changed into the dark-blue coveralls and work boots, put on the rest of the disguise, and went back outside, where a Ramada shuttle bus, driven by one of Morris’s men, pulled up.

  The shuttle drove them directly to the private aviation terminal on the far side of the
field, opposite the commercial passenger terminals. Once there, the two disembarked and proceeded through security as if they were members of the ground crew arriving for their morning shift. A bleary-eyed security guard paid scant attention to either of them as they passed through the metal detectors. They weren’t carrying any weapons or explosives. They had no bags or other personal items to inspect. So they were waved through in fairly short order.

  Heading to the flight line, they spotted the Gulfstream IV with the tail number they’d been given in advance, and climbed aboard, nodding to the actual ground crew members finishing their preflight preparations. Neither Marcus nor Morris drew any attention. As the early winter storm intensified, the crew was freezing and exhausted and eager to finish their shift and get home to their families.

  On board, Morris stepped to the cockpit, knocked four times, and whispered a code word. A moment later the cockpit door opened, and two CIA officers dressed as pilots emerged and greeted them. Morris and the woman pilot headed to the two washrooms. Marcus and the man headed to the back of the plane, where they swapped clothes in the galley. Then the officer gave him a key to an airport security car parked near the door to the terminal.

  “Is it covered in snow?” Marcus asked.

  “Shouldn’t be too bad,” the officer replied. “We’ve brushed it down every fifteen minutes and turned over the engine twice. You should be good to go.”

  “And the weapons?”

  The officer handed over a Russian-made pistol. It was a newer and larger model than the one Marcus had given to Oleg, and it was, as he’d insisted, equipped with a silencer. The officer said there was also a submachine gun in a canvas bag on the floor of the vehicle he’d set aside for them and two other automatic rifles and plenty of ammunition under the seats in the cockpit, just in case.

  The swap was soon complete. The CIA officers were now dressed as members of the ground crew. Morris was dressed as the lead pilot, as she was the only one of the two actually licensed and rated to fly a Gulfstream, particularly in weather like this. Marcus was dressed as her copilot. He’d earned his private pilot license when he was younger, but on single-engine prop planes, not jets, and certainly not a G4. Morris thanked her colleagues, as did Marcus, and they deplaned. Marcus raised the steps and locked the cabin door while Morris went to the cockpit to review their preflight checklist.

  There was still no word from Oleg, and Marcus was getting worried. He’d expected something by now. Unspoken between him and Morris—but very much up in the air—was the question for which Marcus didn’t have an answer: How long would they wait before they had to cut Oleg loose and leave without him?

  Oleg stared at the TV screen, his face pale and his hands trembling slightly.

  He was no longer on offense.

  Before Dmitri Nimkov could resume his questioning, the chief steward knocked twice. Luganov said he could enter, and soon they were being served cheese omelets, sweet rolls, fresh fruit, and steaming chai. The steward poured each man a cup. Luganov quickly grew impatient and waved him away, and he slipped out.

  “Who was the girl?” Nimkov asked, standing over him.

  At first Oleg was too shocked to respond.

  “We’re going to find out soon enough,” Nimkov continued. “Don’t presume to waste the president’s patience or his goodwill.”

  Still, Oleg could not find the words, so shocked was he by the tape he’d just seen.

  “Did you find her on your own?” the FSB chief went on. “Or did Marcus Ryker provide her for you?”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Dmitri Dmitrovich,” Oleg finally responded.

  “Surely you cannot deny you gave the slip to your security detail last Wednesday night,” Nimkov noted. “Surely you cannot deny you checked into the Hotel National. Or that you paid cash for your room and asked for a room that just happened to be next to a member of Senator Dayton’s delegation, can you?”

  Oleg couldn’t bear to look at his father-in-law, but the contempt he had for Nimkov was reaching the boiling point.

  “I believe you are actually acquainted with Special Agent Ryker, are you not?” Nimkov pressed, clearly relishing his role as interrogator. “You met him before, in Berlin.”

  Oleg said nothing. The plan was falling apart before his eyes.

  “Surely you do not deny this, do you, Oleg Stefanovich?”

  Oleg began to panic.

  “How can you?” the FSB chief continued, his confidence increasing, his voice growing angrier. “You sit there next to your leader, so smug, with such hubris and contempt, refusing to answer my questions. But I already know the answers. I have sworn affidavits from no fewer than five witnesses that you interrupted a meeting in the German Chancellery to introduce yourself to Mr. Ryker when he was working for the U.S. Secret Service. What conclusion should the president draw from this?”

  Oleg could feel the pistol, warm against his flesh. But he could not reach for it. Not yet.

  “My staff retrieved your written report from that trip. You make no mention of unauthorized, personal contact with a member of the American government. Yet this just so happens to be the very same person whom you allowed into a meeting with President Luganov in the hours leading up to a war. And it just so happens to be the person in the room next to yours at the Hotel National. Is the president to conclude this is merely happenstance?”

  Oleg felt physically ill.

  “And the woman? Tell us who she is,” Nimkov demanded. “It’s all on video, Oleg Stefanovich. Enough of your silence and stonewalling. Are you really going to sit there and tell us you’re not cheating on the daughter of His Excellency?”

  Oleg was ready to respond, but Luganov—livid—cut him off. “Oleg Stefanovich, give me the little tart’s name and be done with it!” the president demanded, rising to his feet, his face beet red.

  Just then Nimkov’s mobile phone rang. The FSB chief glanced at the president. The timing was terrible, but they were less than forty-eight hours from launching a war. Luganov nodded, and Nimkov answered it.

  “Not now,” he replied to the voice at the other end. “Of course I understand, but he’s busy with a matter of national security. No, I will call you when I can.”

  “Who is it?” Luganov snapped.

  “It’s Agent Kovalev, sir,” Nimkov replied. “Miss Slatsky needs to see you. She says it’s urgent. What would you have him do?”

  “She will wait,” Luganov said, as angry as Oleg had ever seen him. “And tell Pavel I will not be interrupted again. I will let him know when I am finished. Until then, I am not to be disturbed. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Perfectly, Your Excellency,” Nimkov replied, and he passed the message on.

  Both men were now towering over Oleg, and Oleg could bear it no longer. He would answer their questions. He would tell them what they wanted to know. He had to. What other choice did he have?

  “Yes, Dmitri Dmitrovich, I deny it—I deny it all!”

  Oleg, still sitting, leveled his icy gaze at the FSB chief. “I’m not having an affair, nor would I ever. How dare you imply that I would.”

  He shifted to the president and lowered his voice to be—or at least to appear to be—respectful of a father and a leader.

  “Her name?” he said. “Her name is Marina Aleksandrovna Luganova. I have loved her from the day we met in college, and I have never been unfaithful. Not once. Not ever.”

  Now it was Luganov and Nimkov who were taken aback both by Oleg’s defense and the ferocity and deep sense of conviction with which he made it.

  “I’d been working too long,” he said, his voice more subdued, regret thick in his voice. “I was never home. I missed Vasily, and I missed Marina even more. So I called her that evening from my office. Check the phone logs. I asked her to come down to the hotel and stay the night with me. I asked her to be discreet, to enter through a side door, to wear a scarf so no one could recognize her. The last thing I wanted to do was attract any attention to he
r or to you, Father.”

  Luganov was so stunned that he physically backed up several steps. Nimkov was clearly caught off guard as well. He followed the president’s lead and stepped back from Oleg, though not quite as far.

  “Is this true?” Luganov asked.

  “It is,” Oleg said. “All of it. Call Marina. Ask her yourself. She will tell you. I’m not a traitor, and I’m certainly not an adulterer. I love this country and I love your daughter more than life itself, and I would do anything to protect them.”

  The room was silent. The food and tea sat there cold and untouched. Nimkov picked up the phone on the desk, but Luganov grabbed the receiver from him. “I will do it myself. Sit down, Dmitri Dmitrovich. We will clear this up right now.”

  Nimkov sat as Luganov asked the palace operator to connect him to his ex-wife’s home and get his daughter on the line.

  Oleg winced and held his stomach. “Father, may I go to the restroom?”

  Irritated, perhaps at the question, perhaps that Marina wasn’t already on the line, Luganov grunted his approval. Oleg stood and limped for the door. There was a bathroom down the hall. But Nimkov put out his hand and blocked his path.

  “Use this one,” he said, pointing to the washroom connected to the study.

  “It’s reserved for the president,” Oleg replied.

  “Under the circumstances, I am sure he won’t mind. We wouldn’t want you to wander off.”

  Oleg looked to his father-in-law, who again grunted his assent after cursing the operators and demanding things move faster.

  “Don’t take too long,” Nimkov instructed. “We’re not finished.”