The Persian Gamble

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  “It’s time to suit up,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?” Oleg asked.

  “Don’t worry; it’s just a precaution,” Marcus replied.

  “Forget it—no.”

  “Put on the gear and get Morris into her gear—just in case.”

  “Absolutely not,” Oleg protested, backing away. “I haven’t jumped out of a plane in my life, and I’m not about to start now.”

  “Look, it may not come to that, but we need to be—”

  Marcus never finished the sentence. The Gulfstream hit a massive patch of turbulence. He raced back to the cockpit as a series of alarms started sounding and lights began flashing. Marcus flicked a switch and a new radar display flickered to life. Gone were the weather data and the images of the massive snowstorm hitting the northwestern provinces of Russia. Now he was staring at a display showing two blips forty miles back and gaining fast.

  “What’s that?” Oleg demanded, appearing behind Marcus.

  “You need to get ready—now!” Marcus yelled with such force that Oleg said nothing more and went to do what he was told.

  The blips were Russian MiGs, and they were coming in white-hot. The Kremlin had just ordered fighter squadrons to shoot them down.

  Marcus turned the yoke, banking the plane to the north, off the flight plan and away from St. Petersburg and beyond it Helsinki. There was no way he was going to let the Russians force them to land. Under no circumstances could they let themselves or this plane and its contents be taken intact.

  The fighter jets were only thirty-two miles behind them. Yet no sooner had Marcus turned off and reset the alarms than they sounded again. Two more MiGs were coming up from a base just south of St. Petersburg. These were only twenty miles out. Again the alarms blared. This time, Marcus spotted two more MiGs on the radar, converging on them from the north, less than fifteen miles out.

  So that was that. No fewer than six fighter jets were streaking toward them with orders to keep them from reaching international airspace at all costs. Marcus picked up the intercom and ordered Oleg and Jenny to finish putting on their jumpsuits and then cinch their seat belts as tight as they could. They had two minutes—no more.

  Marcus tried to stay cool as the MiGs approached. After ninety-three seconds, he couldn’t wait any longer. He pushed the yoke forward, commencing a brutally steep dive. It took mere seconds to plunge from forty-three thousand feet to only twenty thousand feet. Marcus found his stomach in his throat. The g-forces threatened to knock him out. But he hadn’t shaken the MiGs. They were screaming in from every direction, and as he leveled out the G4—now around eighteen thousand feet—he knew they were going to be fired on at any moment.

  Marcus decreased speed and once again turned on the autopilot. Then he unbuckled himself and bolted from the cockpit. He found Oleg sitting alone, his head in his hands. He hadn’t put on his suit.

  “We jump in twenty seconds,” Marcus said. “Trust me, you’ll be happier with a parachute than without one.”

  Morris, meanwhile, was bravely trying to put on her own gear, even as she struggled to stay conscious. Marcus rushed to her side, helped her finish, and donned his own gear.

  Oleg still hadn’t moved.

  “What?” Marcus demanded.

  “I can’t do it. I can’t jump.”

  “Fine,” Marcus said, turning away and moving to strap Jenny to himself. She was in no condition to parachute on her own. Marcus was going to have to tandem jump with her. He clipped her harness to his vest, then moved to the door.

  “Last chance, Oleg,” he said, putting on his gloves and unlocking the door with one hand while steadying Morris with his other.

  The moment the door released, it was ripped off its hinges and sucked away into the darkness. A gust of frigid air surged into the cabin.

  Finally Oleg relented. Resistance morphed into terror. He was scrambling to don all the gear as fast as he could. Marcus tried to explain how to pull the rip cord, tried to show the Russian the backup chute and how to use it, and gave instructions on how to land. He was shouting at the top of his lungs over the screaming winds, but it wasn’t clear Oleg was even listening. The Russian seemed fixated on the alarms that were once again sounding from the cockpit.

  “Jump—now,” Marcus shouted as he turned on all three oxygen tanks.

  Oleg’s whole body was shaking. He was paralyzed with fear. But there was no more time to argue. So Marcus drove his balled fist into Oleg’s stomach, doubling the man over, then grabbed the Russian and shoved him out the side of the plane.

  14

  RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY HEADQUARTERS, MOSCOW—29 SEPTEMBER

  NINETY MINUTES AFTER THE RUSSIAN PRESIDENT’S ASSASSINATION

  Mikhail Petrovsky sat alone in his immense corner office.

  He had only minutes. He picked up the secure phone on his desk and dialed a number from memory. “Is Grigori there?” he asked when a young woman came on the line.

  “Grigori? I’m so sorry, but there is no one here by that name,” the woman replied.

  Message sent, message received. The defense minister hung up. Then, grabbing one of the remotes on his desk, he turned on a bank of television monitors on the far side of the room. He scanned through the Russian and international news channels but found no breaking news. His secrets were holding, but not for long. Petrovsky knew he had to seize the initiative.

  Just then, three of his most senior aides rushed into the room and informed him the air force chief of staff was on line two.

  “Tell me you have good news, General,” Petrovsky demanded as he took the call.

  “We’ve got them,” said the general, the jubilance in his voice restrained only by three decades of rigorous professionalism.

  “You’re certain?” Petrovsky demanded.

  “My pilots picked up the G4 on radar south of St. Petersburg. No lights. No transponder.”

  “Did they issue a warning?”

  “Yes, sir, multiple times.”

  “And?”

  “There was no reply. The Gulfstream tried to take evasive action. It broke north, then dove for the deck from forty-three thousand feet. My men fired when they reached eighteen. The fireball, sir, was something to behold.”

  “Survivors?”

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me, commander. Were there any survivors?”

  “Sir, with respect, that would be impossible. Our air-to-air missiles travel three times the speed of sound. There’s no way that—”

  “No—that’s not good enough, General,” Petrovsky bellowed. “I want a massive search operation. I want every helicopter in the region in the air immediately. Deploy every police and army unit. And I want your best man heading up the search.”

  “Minister, with respect, the wreckage is strewn over dozens of square miles across the Karelian Isthmus. The same storm system battering Moscow is blanketing the entire region. It’s not safe for helicopters. And as I say, it would have been impossible for—”

  But Petrovsky, seething, cut him off again. “General, there were three people on board that aircraft,” he snapped. “Each one of them is guilty of capital crimes against the Russian state. They are high-value targets, and I expect you to bring them—or their bodies—to me with all haste. That is an order. Do I make myself clear?”

  There was a slight hesitation at the other end of the line, but only slight. “Yes, sir. You can count on me and my—”

  Petrovsky didn’t wait for the rest. His motorcade was ready. The cabinet was waiting at the Kremlin. He slammed down the phone and bolted out the door.

  Deputy National Security Advisor Bill McDermott’s secure phone rang.

  He instantly recognized the number. It was Nick Vinetti, the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. McDermott answered in a hushed tone so as not to distract the president, who was tracking the unfolding events in Russia on the other side of the White House Situation Room.

  “Are you with the pr
esident?” Vinetti asked.

  “Yeah,” McDermott confirmed. “You calling about Marcus?”

  “No.” Vinetti’s tone was strained in a way McDermott had never heard in even their worst moments together in Afghanistan. “Listen, Bill—something’s about to break here, and you need to let the president know before he hears it from anyone else.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s President Luganov.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s been assassinated.”

  “What?”

  “And not just him—Dmitri Nimkov, too,” Vinetti explained, referring to the head of the FSB, Russia’s main intelligence service.

  “That’s not possible.”

  “It’s true, and there’s more. The guy you just put on that G4 to whisk out of Moscow—the Raven—that’s the guy the Russians say pulled the trigger.”

  15

  SOMEWHERE IN NORTHWESTERN RUSSIA

  Rushing just above the treetops, their feet could nearly brush the pines.

  They were almost there—almost in the clear—when they were hit with a sudden downdraft. The back edge of the chute caught the top of one of the pines, puncturing it like a balloon. The three of them, bound together, dropped like a stone. Marcus braced for impact. But they never hit the ground. At the last moment, they were yanked back up, then dropped again, and found themselves dangling in the howling wind.

  Marcus craned his neck to see what had just happened. His view was partially obstructed, but the answer was clear enough. While their canopy had been pierced, it had not been completely ripped in two. Instead, his chute and lines had gotten entangled in branches on the way down, cutting short their fall.

  Now, hanging less than five feet off the ground, Marcus pulled a hunting knife from the pouch at his side and cut through the straps on his vest, freeing the carabiner supporting Oleg’s weight. The Russian dropped to the ground, landing in the foot-high snow with a thud. Marcus cut away the chute lines. He, too, landed hard but absorbed Jenny’s fall as best he could. Looking around, he realized they had another problem. They had not landed on the edge of an empty field or park. They had come down on the side of a two-lane road snaking through whatever forest this was. He saw no one coming from either direction. In fact, the road was covered in a fresh blanket of white powder, like everything else. It had not yet been plowed, nor might it be for hours—perhaps even days. But Marcus wasn’t about to take a chance. An army patrol or a search helicopter could approach their position at any moment. They had to move.

  At present, Marcus wasn’t even certain that Oleg Kraskin and Jenny Morris were still alive. But checking on them or providing medical attention wasn’t his highest priority. Not yet. Getting them off that road was. Marcus grabbed Jenny’s harness first and dragged her a good thirty yards into the forest. Only then did he rip off his helmet, turn off his oxygen supply, and double back to do the same with Oleg before returning to the landing site again and making sure he hadn’t left anything behind.

  Satisfied, he backtracked to the woods, smoothing out the snow in hopes of covering their tracks. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do. And if no one came driving through in the next twenty to thirty minutes, new snow would erase all evidence of their arrival—all, that is, except their ripped parachute whipping like a flag of surrender from the top of the pines.

  Marcus next turned his attention to his two wounded colleagues. Jenny was still alive, still breathing, though her pulse was weak. Oleg was beginning to come to. Marcus removed Oleg’s helmet and turned off his oxygen. He checked the man for broken bones and sprains but found nothing. Though somewhat dizzy, Oleg insisted he would be all right. Marcus nodded but said nothing, turning back to Jenny.

  Unzipping her jumpsuit down to her waist, Marcus found the towels Oleg had used on the plane to apply pressure to her gunshot wounds. Both were soaked through with blood, as was her sweater. Removing the towels, he replaced them with the only thing he had—snow, and lots of it. He packed as much snow as he could on the entrance wound near the top of her right shoulder and more around the exit wound on her back.

  Oleg looked confused by the tactic. He offered his sweatshirt and T-shirt as replacements for the towels. Marcus just shook his head. There was no time to explain. There was too much else to do. Saying nothing, he zipped up the jumpsuit again to keep the snow in place and not further expose her to the elements. He left Jenny’s helmet in place and kept her oxygen flowing, though he dialed it down slightly to conserve what he could.

  Next Marcus pulled the sniper rifle and the Kalashnikov out of his rucksack. He loaded a magazine into each, made sure the safeties were on, and set them aside. He did the same with both of the pistols. Then he handed the GPS unit to Oleg and told him to figure out where they were.

  Marcus glanced at his watch. It was almost seven thirty. Sunrise was nearly an hour ago. Yet the storm was so intense, the cloud cover was so thick, it still felt like the dead of night. For now, the blizzard was working to their advantage, giving them the cover they needed and making it difficult for helicopters and other search aircraft to operate until the storm began to subside. Still, they had a severely wounded colleague, no transportation, and no plan of escape.

  As Oleg fumbled in the darkness with the GPS unit, Marcus stripped off his own jumpsuit, exposing the black jeans, black fisherman knit sweater, and the combat boots he’d changed into on the plane. He rolled up the jumpsuit and stuffed it into the rucksack. Then he pulled out and donned a black leather jacket, balaclava, and a black knit wool cap.

  Seeing Oleg wasn’t having much success with the American-made electronic device he’d never used or even seen before, Marcus took back the GPS unit and motioned for Oleg to change his clothes. The balaclava was going to be especially critical for his Russian friend, Marcus knew. It would shield Oleg against the bitter winds and blowing snow. More importantly, it would mask his identity if and when they came across other Russians. Oleg’s face, after all, was known by every man and woman in the country. He had been one of President Luganov’s most senior advisors. What’s more, he had married Luganov’s only daughter. Their wedding had been televised across the country and around the world. Yet even if the nation had somehow forgotten what Oleg Kraskin looked like, Marcus suspected the man’s picture would soon be on every screen in Russia with a label describing him as the criminal who had just murdered the country’s godfather.

  The GPS unit told a disturbing story. They had landed at sixty degrees, nine minutes, twenty seconds north; thirty degrees, thirty-one minutes, thirty seconds east. That put them a lot closer to Lake Ladoga than Marcus cared to be. They were now on the edge of a national park just outside Toksovo, a ski resort town of no more than six thousand residents. Under other circumstances, it might be an ideal place to find a dacha that wasn’t yet being used for the season—it was only September, after all—and hunker down for a day or two until they could figure out their next move.

  But as Marcus studied the digital map, he realized that Toksovo was less than fifteen miles north of St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, home to five million inhabitants and a first-rate police force, and proximate to numerous elite military bases. The map showed that the snow-covered road to which they were now adjacent was the main thoroughfare connecting the people of St. Pete to their closest ski lifts. True, it was only Monday morning, not the start of a weekend. Most people would be heading to work or school, not the slopes. But given the intense search operation Marcus knew was coming their way, there was no question this road was going to be plowed. The only question was, how soon?

  Marcus motioned to Oleg to sit tight and keep an eye on their wounded colleague. Grabbing the weapons and the hatchet from his rucksack, he returned to the edge of the forest. There he saw the shredded remains of his parachute whipping wildly in the frigid winds high in a Siberian pine. Given the storm, there was no way he was going to be able to climb the tree. His only option was to cut the tree down.
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  Nearly half an hour later, the crash brought Oleg running.

  “Are you mad?” the Russian began to shout as he approached but caught himself and lowered his voice, glancing all around.

  Marcus didn’t answer him. Instead, he raced across the road, cut loose the remains of the parachute, gathered it in his arms, and dashed back to the cover of the forest’s edge.

  Oleg was beside himself. “Why in the world would you drop the tree into the road, rather than back into the forest?” he said as much in astonishment as in anger.

  “Listen to me very carefully,” Marcus said calmly. “You did your job. Now I’m doing mine. I promised to protect you and get you out of this country alive. But you need to understand one thing—we are in a race against time. So you need to do everything I say without question, without complaint, without delay. Understood?”

  “Look,” Oleg protested, “I appreciate everything you’re doing for me, but I—”

  “No, you’re not getting it,” Marcus interrupted. “We have one mission right now: survival. Period. Now, take this chute back to Jenny and wrap her up in it in a way that she’ll be easy to pull through the snow when I give you the word. Got it?”

  Oleg’s eyes again flashed with defiance. But just then they heard the rumbling of a vehicle coming from the south. When headlights approached around the bend, Oleg nodded and moved quickly through the shadows.

  16

  It wasn’t just one set of headlights approaching.

  It was a convoy.

  Marcus backtracked, moving deeper into the protective darkness of the forest. Slinging the Kalashnikov over his back, he hoisted the sniper rifle and peered through the scope. He counted four sets of headlights, then a fifth, and finally a sixth. It was not a column of military vehicles. Rather, these were heavyweight trucks, each painted orange, mounted with large plow blades on the front and industrial salt spreaders on the back. A bar of rotating yellowish-orange lights flashed from atop each cab, and the vehicles slowed to a halt as they approached the downed tree.