by David Archer
The two of them turned and left the office, leaving Allison staring at her computer screen. She was scanning news websites in Russia and trying to get a sense of the mood of the people as the story of a failed coup began to spread through the media.
She was still watching the news stories twenty minutes later when her phone rang again. The switchboard told her that it was the president calling, and she took a deep breath before she pushed the button to accept the call.
“Mr. President,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“You can tell me you know what’s going on in Russia,” the president said. “I’m hearing rumors of some ‘American death squad’ running loose over there. I trust that’s your best people?”
“Would I send anybody else? It’s being handled, and from what I’m seeing in the Russian media, it’s being handled quite effectively. The Committee for Restoration of the Communist Party is catching the blame for the assassinations, because our propaganda machine is the best in the world. We’ve got people all over Russia swearing that the committee is going through a hostile takeover by a faction that hopes to see the USSR restored exactly the way it was. That’s the last thing in the world any of the old member states want, and most of the Russian people hate the idea, as well.”
“As well they should,” the president said. “The true Communist Party in Russia is actually pretty small, made up mostly of old folks who just don’t know how to live under a democratic government. Freedom isn’t something they understand, not after so many years of living under communist rule.”
“I agree. As dangerous as this situation is, we don’t dare sit back and let these people bring back the Cold War. Every analysis I’ve seen of the situation says that the new Union would end up controlling half of the freaking world. There is no way we could avoid a final nuclear conflict, and I’m just not ready to go back to the Stone Age, not yet.”
“I’ll tell you something, if you promise never to reveal I said it. There are times when I think that could be exactly what this country needs. Get rid of the Internet, get rid of nuclear weapons, get rid of everything technology has given us since about eighteen seventy-five, and we’d probably all be a lot happier.”
“Bite your tongue,” Allison said. “A lot of the advances we’ve made have been in medicine, things that make life better. Hundred and fifty years ago, most women died in childbirth before they ever reached the age of twenty-five. I’m not ready to go back to those days, thank you.”
“Hey, I never said it was perfect,” he quipped. “I just said people were happier. Do a little historical research, you’ll find out I’m right.”
“I’m perfectly happy with technology, thank you. I don’t know what I would do without my cell phone, and if it weren’t for modern medicine, I wouldn’t even be here. That attack a year and a half ago would have killed me and quite a few others.”
“Allison, if we didn’t have all this technology, that attack never would’ve taken place. Your department wouldn’t even exist, you know that.”
“Do you have to be such a downer? I suspect all of your security advisors are probably trying to get hold of you about now. Why are you tying up the line with me?”
“Because you’re the only one of them who isn’t afraid of me. If I want to know just how bad things really are, I know to call you. How bad are things, Allison? Tell me straight.”
Allison sighed. “If everything goes according to plan, the Committee will be on the run within the next few hours. They don’t dare try to reassert themselves, not when so much is hanging in the balance. The last thing in the world they need is to let the Russian people think they are still intact. If we were to publish the list of all of their top members, it wouldn’t be our people taking them out alone. An awful lot of the Russian military and even some civilians would get involved.”
“Then why haven’t we published it?”
“It isn’t time yet,” Allison said. “I want my people out of there before we get to that point.”
The president was quiet for a moment. “Allison, are you going to be able to get them out?”
“Of course. I always have a backup plan, especially when my original backup plan goes south. At the moment, I have four different options for removing them from Russia. I’m just waiting to see which one is most likely to succeed.”
“Woman, you give me headaches. Keep me posted, will you?”
“I sure will. Go talk to your advisors, and let me know if any of them want to do anything stupid.”
She disconnected the call and leaned back in her chair. If everything went according to plan for the next few hours, they might just barely manage to avoid ending up in World War III in the not-too-distant future.
If it didn’t…
* * * * *
Both Noah and Jenny had taken out two of their targets and each of them was closing in on the third. For Noah, that meant climbing a building on the outskirts of a residential area where Ivan Gritchkin made his home. Ivan was Minister of Transport and the youngest member of the Council of Ministers.
At forty-six years old, Ivan was one of the most powerful men in Russia. Noah was almost surprised that he would have anything to do with the Committee, since the Communist Party had always relied on what they referred to as “Elder Statesmen” to be in control. Under the Communist Party, Ivan would never have risen higher than a clerk in a minister’s office.
He had only been just in his teens, however, when communism came to an end in Russia and democracy was introduced. His views on the subject might not be as much his own as those he heard from his parents or grandparents. Regardless of why, he was still far too powerful to be allowed to pursue such a goal, and the fact that he was going to be at home on this particular evening put him on Noah’s target list.
The building Noah scaled was originally an office complex, but it had been purchased some years earlier by a real estate consortium. It was now divided into dozens of luxurious condos and many Russian businessmen and -women were calling it home. Noah had no issue with any of them, and the only reason he even had to come near them was because their building was the only one tall enough to allow him a line of sight into Ivan’s bedroom.
Marco had gone ahead while Noah took care of Yuri Moskovich, Minister of Education and Science. Yuri had met his end while riding in his limousine on the way home, via the M7. The FSB, together with the local police officers, were trying to figure out just how the accident had happened. Since the limousine had crashed head-on into a massive concrete pillar at more than one hundred and fifty KPH, it would take their combined forensics departments a week to determine that the driver had been shot through the head before the accident occurred. Ironically, the bullet that killed him had not caused the car to slow. Somehow, it had gone faster and faster until it finally was brought to a sudden halt as it struck the pillar under the E115 overpass.
It was actually Sarah who had pushed the car to such speeds. Once Noah had taken out the driver, she had put the Toyota behind the limo and let the bumpers kiss, then she eased into the throttle and let the powerful V-6 do its job. It only took about half a minute to get it up to crash speed, and then she fanned the brakes to help her stay on the road as the limousine shot into the median and headed for the pillar. It worked out even better than they had planned, and the big limousine was completely destroyed.
Meanwhile, Marco had gone to the top of the condo building in the guise of a repairman, carrying a big toolbox. Once he was there, he set up the sniper rifle Carson had provided and waited for Noah while keeping binoculars trained on Ivan’s house. The young minister was at home and Marco could see him through the living room window. He seemed to be watching television and his beautiful wife Irina was curled up beside him.
A hand touched Marco on the shoulder and he barely managed to keep from dropping the binoculars as he spun his head around. Noah was there, looking at the way the rifle was set up and nodding. “Looks good,” he said. “What about the target?�
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“He’s watching TV,” Marco said. “His wife is sitting beside him on a loveseat, and at least one of his kids is there. Looks like a boy, probably around ten or eleven.”
“That would be Roman,” Noah said. “You were close, he’s twelve.”
Noah sat down on the toolbox and hefted the stock of the rifle to his shoulder. The bipod that held the barrel was braced on a block set on the edge of the building, which kept it perfectly positioned for the shot. Noah looked through the powerful scope and saw Ivan clearly, then lowered the stock again as he began calculating the various factors required to make a shot over a distance of twelve hundred meters. This was not the longest shot he had ever made, but it was necessary to figure in the wind, the elevation, the amount the bullet would drop as it traveled through the air, and other factors in order to determine precisely where to aim if he wanted the bullet to strike Ivan perfectly.
Eight minutes later, Noah picked up the stock again and embraced it against his shoulder. He made minor adjustments to the scope, then placed its crosshairs directly on Ivan’s face through the window. He started to squeeze the trigger, but then hesitated.
Irina’s face was very close to her husband’s as she leaned sideways to rest her head on his shoulder. Noah adjusted his aim, putting the crosshairs over the center of Ivan’s chest. The big, fifty caliber round would do sufficient damage to ensure that he would die, even if Noah were to miss striking the heart directly. He checked his aim, slowly released his breath and then held it, and squeezed the trigger.
The big gun roared and bucked, but Noah kept his eye against the scope. As soon as the gun dropped back down, Noah saw that his shot had been true. Ivan was almost cut into two pieces and Irina was running away from him.
“Let’s go,” Noah said. He dropped the stock, peeled off the gloves he had been wearing, and the two of them hooked their carabiners onto the ropes Marco had hung down the back of the building. Less than thirty seconds later, both of them were on the ground and walking calmly away, their rapelling harnesses dropped into the bushes. They walked less than two hundred yards before a Toyota Camry pulled up beside them, then they got into the car as Sarah drove away.
“All done,” Noah said.
* * * * *
Jenny’s second target had been Alexei Piotrovich, the Minister of Industry and Trade. She didn’t anticipate a lot of difficulty with that one. Alexei would be having dinner at the Old Tower restaurant, not far from Red Square, a fairly common place for tourists to visit. Jenny changed into a pair of jeans and a western shirt, added a wig that was blonde with brown streaks, and then she and Randy took a taxi to the restaurant. They walked in like any other tourists and Jenny spotted Alexei sitting with a beautiful younger woman.
She pointed to a window near where he was seated. “Oh, can we sit over there? I love to look out at the city, it’s so beautiful.”
The maître d’ smiled and escorted them to a table beside the window. They were less than ten feet from Alexei’s table and they both made a show of playing the tourist. Jenny kept looking around, and when she finally caught Alexei’s eye, she gave him a smile and a flirtatious wink.
While he was already with a beautiful woman, Alexei was not the kind of man to ignore any woman who seemed to think he was attractive. He knew that he was not a bad-looking man for his fifty years, but his taste had always run to women in their teens or early twenties. The girl with him at the moment looked to be around twenty-five, but that pretty blonde American was obviously younger. Alexi wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to find out who she was.
One of the perks of being a minister was that you could get away with things the average citizen could not. Alexei had discovered this early on and had cultivated friendships that would help him to achieve certain goals that might not be heartily approved by the public. More than one young American woman had been brought to him for his personal enjoyment and then been listed as simply missing. This one, married though she might be if the man with her was any indication, looked like she could be a lot of fun in such a situation. All he needed to do was get her name and hotel. His friends would take care of the rest, including that husband.
Ironically, this was not something that the American intelligence community had stumbled across. Jenny had no idea that she was being sized up as a potential victim for rape and murder, and if she had known, she probably would’ve encouraged him. It would have made killing the bastard so much more fulfilling.
She waited until the woman with Alexei got up to go to the ladies’ room and then gently kicked Randy under the table. He excused himself and wandered off toward the men’s room, and Jenny carefully watched until he was out of sight before looking at Alexei again. He was staring directly at her, and she pretended to be shy for a second, then looked up and winked again.
Seconds later, Alexei stepped over to her table and sat down in Randy’s chair. “Please forgive me for being so bold,” he said, “but you remind me so much of a lady I met about a year ago. Would you happen to be named Janet?”
“Oh, no,” Jenny said shyly. “I’m—my name is Krista, Krista Borden.”
“Ah, that’s too bad. However, I must say that Krista is a beautiful name for such a beautiful woman. You are visiting our city?”
Jenny nodded, smiling brightly. “Yes, it’s my first time. My husband brought me over here because he wanted to check out the architecture, that’s what he does, he’s an architect.” She leaned toward him and lowered her voice to a whisper. “He’s a very boring architect, to be honest. If he wasn’t loaded, I would’ve dumped him already.”
Alexei smiled. “I see you have a sense of adventure,” he said. “May I ask where you’re staying?”
“Oh, yes, we’re at the Marriott. It’s just a few blocks away from here, a beautiful hotel.”
“Oh, really? I have friends who stay there quite often. Perhaps I will see you there. I am coming by tomorrow, in fact. I must bring some papers to someone who is staying there at about ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
Jenny looked at him for a moment, then gave him a sultry smile. “My husband has some business to take care of tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll be all alone.”
“Well—if you would perhaps like some company?”
Jenny looked at him for a moment, licking her lips. “Are you a good kisser?” she asked.
“I’ve been told that I am very good,” Alexei said. “Perhaps tomorrow you can find out.”
Jenny looked around quickly. “How about if I find out right now? Would you go outside with me for just a minute?”
Alexei laughed heartily. “You are truly adventurous,” he said. “Certainly, let’s go.” He rose quickly to his feet and Jenny did likewise, hurrying past him so that he had to follow her outside. She went out the door and turned to the right, hurrying into the shadows cast by the lights of the city. There was one place that was almost invisible, right behind the outdoor dining area that was closed at the moment. It was dark and deserted, and exactly what Jenny was looking for.
Alexei had followed her with delight, and when she turned to face him, he hurried toward her. She held out her arms with a smile on her face, and he quickly stepped up and reached for her, and that’s when the blade slipped through his solar plexus and found his heart. Before he realized what had happened, she gave it a twist and shook it from side to side, effectively shredding his heart muscle in less than three seconds.
Jenny stepped back quickly, out of his reach as his face registered shock, and then instantly stepped in again to punch him in the throat. He made a choking sound, then looked down at himself and saw the grip of the knife protruding from his chest. Some part of him must have known he was dying, then, because he only looked up at her and stared. He made no attempt to cry out, no effort to turn and run, but simply stood there and stared at her as blood poured down his body.
It took slightly more than a minute for him to lose consciousness, but that was enough. There was absolutely no hope h
e could be saved, even if he were found at that moment by best paramedics in the world. Jenny carefully stepped around the blood and walked off toward Revolution Square. Randy, who had been waiting behind the Burgermeister building next door, stepped out and joined her.
Dave pulled up as they approached Revolution Square and they got into the car. He followed the road around until he came to Ulitsa Olhotnyy Ryad, then turned left to go west into the city.
“Without a hitch,” Jenny said. “How long before we get to the last one?”
“Probably about ten minutes,” Dave said. “Neil and Jim have the police running wild goose chases all over the place, so we shouldn’t have any problems.”
“Well, time is getting short, so I’m not going to be able to play with this one. He should be arriving at his mistress’ place in about twenty-five minutes, so let’s get me close so I can get everything set up.”
“You got it, boss lady,” Dave said. He drove sedately, carefully not drawing attention to the car that was barely noticed anyway.
Just over ten minutes later, Dave stopped the car at the intersection, five houses down from the one Jenny wanted. It was the home of the young woman who happily fulfilled the desires of Serge Chernov, Minister of Defense for the Russian Federation, in return for the comfortable house and generous allowance he gave her.
Ironically, Chernov was the only one of the Ministers who was automatically entitled to protection by the FSB, and yet he insisted on leaving his security behind when he visited her. Svetlana, he explained to his security team, preferred to live in the fantasy that they were a genuine couple. If the armed security agents accompanied him, it ruined the effect for her.
Even more stupidly, he allowed his visits to her home to be listed on the itinerary that was given to his security team. Neil had managed to get a copy of it from the FSB computers, and Jenny had all but begged Noah to let her have Chernov as one of her three targets.
