The Persian Gamble

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  Marcus searched carefully through the cabinets. Finally, taped to the back wall of the last drawer, Marcus found what he was looking for—the override key for the safe. Fifteen seconds later, the tumblers had been bypassed. The safe door swung open, and both men smiled. They weren’t going to need to worry about money anymore. And there was more in the safe than just stacks of cash. There were passports and driver’s licenses of all kinds. There were diamond necklaces and bracelets and earrings. There were Rolex watches, a half-dozen boxes of Cuban cigars, two unopened boxes of brand-new satellite phones, and a dozen handguns with plenty of ammunition.

  Maya Emerson was surprised at the name displayed on her caller ID.

  She had just gotten home from an early choir practice and warmed up some of her homemade oatmeal. It was an unusually chilly and windy morning in Washington, and she and Carter, her husband of fifty-odd years, lived in a drafty town house in southeast D.C., just a few blocks from the Capitol in one direction and Lincoln Park Baptist Church in another. Carter was still there in a men’s Bible study, and Maya didn’t expect him home until afternoon. So, after finishing her oatmeal and washing her dishes, she’d begun ironing some of Carter’s shirts and watching coverage of the crisis in Moscow when her cell phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Emerson, this is Marjorie Ryker—Marcus’s mother,” came the familiar voice. “I do hope I’m not bothering you.”

  “Not at all, Marge. And how many times must I insist you call me Maya?”

  “Well, I appreciate that. I saw that you’d called and I’m so sorry I missed you.”

  “That’s all right, dear. Yes, I tried to reach you, kept getting your voice mail. Just wanted to see how you are and whether you’d heard from Marcus. Carter keeps calling but can’t get ahold of him. We hoped you’d heard something.”

  There was a long silence before Marjorie answered.

  “I’m in the valley of the shadow, Maya.” Her voice began to crack.

  “I’m sure you are, honey, but fear no evil,” Maya replied. “Fear no evil—none whatsoever. Just keep calling on Jesus—your sweet, strong Jesus. You hear?”

  “I’m trying.”

  “I know, and don’t you give up now. He is with you, sweetheart. His rod and his staff will comfort you.”

  Maya heard no reply, just the sounds of a woman who had already suffered so much losing her battle to fight back another avalanche of tears.

  “You’ve heard nothing from him?” Maya finally asked.

  “Not yet, no,” Marjorie managed to say, her voice trembling.

  “Then come on, honey, let’s pray right now—you and me. Let’s kneel before the throne of grace.”

  34

  By nightfall, Marcus and Oleg had cleaned up most of the downstairs.

  They found nothing indicating why Boris Zakharov’s brother had broken his normal pattern and remained at the dacha this late in the season. Marcus suspected he’d been conducting illegal business deals, but it didn’t really matter now. The point was the neighbors had to know he had stayed behind and had likely seen him coming and going from time to time. Marcus concluded that anyone who passed by would expect lights to be on and smoke to be coming from the fireplace, and given that everyone on the isthmus was still being warned by authorities to stay inside due to the blizzard, they likely didn’t have to worry about guests stopping by unexpectedly.

  Thus, the broken furniture became firewood, and the blood-soaked Persian rugs turned out to be flammable as well. Indeed, anything that would burn and could not be meticulously scrubbed and cleansed of all DNA evidence was tossed into the roaring fire. When all the evidence was consumed, Marcus and Oleg brought in a few stacks of firewood from the garage.

  Zakharov’s body was another matter. They couldn’t burn it. They couldn’t dig a grave amid so much ice and snow. But they didn’t want it in the dacha with them. So they wrapped it in the shower curtain from the upstairs bathroom, then buried him in the snow in the backyard. Almost two feet had fallen, and more was coming down every hour. Oleg was a dutiful worker. He did everything Marcus asked of him without pushing back. But when they’d finished covering the body, Oleg vomited until there was nothing left in his system.

  The conversation between the two men during all those hours had little to do with cleaning and everything to do with evaluating their situation and plotting a solution. Oleg had not found any mentions of either Marcus or Jenny in any Russian media reports or in any international news stories. But they had kept the TV in the living room on at all times. Acting FSB director Nikolay Kropatkin had held a news conference in Moscow that was broadcast live. He’d spent a good deal of time on the manhunt under way, not just for Oleg but for “two additional accomplices,” both of whom he considered “armed and extremely dangerous.” When a reporter asked why authorities were not satisfied that the three bodies already found proved Oleg and his coconspirators were dead, the answer was both cryptic and ominous.

  “I’m afraid I cannot get into the details at this hour. Suffice it to say we have reason to believe the conspirators may still be at large, and until we can prove otherwise, the manhunt—the largest in our nation’s history, involving some five thousand soldiers and police officers—will continue.”

  At a few minutes after 9 p.m., Petrovsky, the acting president, addressed the nation. He began by taking a moment of silence for the three murdered leaders and vowed both to care for their families and to bring their killers to justice. Petrovsky announced that the Kremlin was offering a reward of one billion rubles—equivalent to roughly sixteen million American dollars—to any Russian citizen who could provide information leading to the arrests and convictions of the conspirators. He also provided a phone number the public could use to call in tips to the police.

  He then announced that he was ending Russia’s military exercises along NATO’s border, claiming he was doing exactly what President Luganov had promised to do. It was a bald-faced lie. Before his death, Luganov had publicly promised to pull Russian forces away from the borders but in reality had intended just the opposite—to order the surprise invasion of the Baltic states. Petrovsky knew it. The cabinet knew it too. Oleg had been there for the discussion, heated as it was. Still, Petrovsky made it sound like he was simply carrying out Luganov’s final wishes and blamed the Americans and Europeans—not Luganov—for the soaring tensions between East and West.

  Petrovsky prattled on for another few minutes about the need for global peace. He praised Luganov for the “historic agreement” he had recently signed with Pyongyang to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. That, too, was a lie. Luganov had no intention of disarming the Dear Leader. Once again, Oleg knew, the opposite was true. He wondered if Petrovsky knew about the deal Luganov had actually cut with the Dear Leader.

  The biggest takeaway for the two fugitives was that the stakes had just gone up significantly. Talk of a reward would deputize every Russian in the northwest of the country to be on the alert for anything suspicious.

  Oleg was growing antsy. “We can’t stay here,” he insisted. “We have to get to Finland. Every hour that goes by increases the chances of us getting caught. So tell me—what’s your plan?”

  “Well, for one thing, we’re not going to Finland,” said Marcus, on his hands and knees and wearing rubber gloves as he scrubbed blood off the dining room walls.

  “Why not?” Oleg asked. “We’re less than two hours from the Finnish border.”

  “A border now guarded by thousands of soldiers on hair-trigger alert, ready to shoot us on sight,” Marcus retorted. “No one in Moscow plans to ‘arrest and convict’ us, much less pay out such a big reward. If they find us, they’ll kill us. Period. End of story.”

  “Then tell me we can fly out,” Oleg pressed, the tension thick in his voice.

  “In what?” Marcus asked. “We have no access to a plane or helicopter, and even if we did, anyone trying to penetrate Finnish airspace without a flight plan would be shot down either by
the Russians or the Finns.”

  “Then by sea,” Oleg said as he scrubbed a few drops of blood off the kitchen floor. “You saw the boathouse. We’re on the Gulf of Finland. Surely we can find plenty of fuel, life preservers, everything we would need.”

  “You want to outrun the Russian fleet in a fishing boat?” Marcus asked, not bothering to look up. “Forget it. Your navy has dozens of combat ships and planes moving in and out of the gulf every day. The Finns have their own coast guard patrolling their waters with heightened vigilance. We’d never make it.”

  “Then what?” Oleg demanded, getting to his feet. “We can’t just hunker down here. We have to move—and not just for our sake, but for Jenny’s.”

  “I agree,” Marcus said, stopping his work and looking into Oleg’s eyes. “Look, I told you I’d get you out of Russia safely, and I will. But you’ve got to trust me.”

  “Trust you?” Oleg erupted. “What am I doing if not trusting you? I eluded my own security detail to come to you in the dead of night, at the risk of my life, to warn you of my father-in-law’s plot against your country and all of NATO. I gave you our war plans. I gave you thousands of my country’s most highly classified secrets. I left my wife and son to save my country. I even jumped out of a plane—all right, you pushed me out, but still—because you said it was the only way. Don’t talk to me about trust unless you’re willing to show me some by telling me your plan to get me out of this country before it’s all too late.”

  Marcus was taken aback by the outburst. He stood slowly.

  “All right, Oleg, calm down. I got it—and I’m sorry,” Marcus said. “I’ll tell you what I can, but you have to promise me you’ll keep it together.”

  Oleg was trembling. His bloodshot eyes were watering. But he nodded as Marcus got him a glass of water from the tap. Oleg gulped it down, trying to catch his breath.

  “Have a seat,” Marcus said calmly. “I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Oleg peeled off the medical gloves he was using to avoid contact with all the blood. He set them in the sink, went into the living room, and sat on the couch. Marcus also removed his gloves, then followed Oleg and took a seat in the overstuffed chair directly across from his Russian friend.

  “The first thing you have to understand is this,” Marcus began. “We’re not only being hunted by the Russians. The Americans are hunting for us too.”

  35

  Oleg, apoplectic, was back on his feet.

  “Sit down,” Marcus ordered.

  “No,” the Russian said, pacing the living room. “I don’t understand. I did everything you asked, and now—”

  “Sit,” Marcus repeated, more firmly this time.

  Oleg hesitated, staring at Marcus, but finally retook his seat.

  “Let’s be honest with each other, Oleg,” Marcus began. “The United States government did not ask you to kill President Luganov. Nor did they ask you to kill Dmitri Nimkov. You did that on your own.”

  “With your help,” Oleg protested. “I wanted to, but you gave me the gun. You told me how to do it. You’re as much in on this as I am.”

  “All true,” Marcus said. “I believed you to be a patriot, not a traitor to your country, and I believed this was the only way to stop the war. But start looking at things from Washington’s perspective. This isn’t what they signed up for, is it?”

  Oleg said nothing, but his right knee bobbed up and down with nervous energy.

  “You offered the CIA information—good information, extraordinary information—and they said yes because they couldn’t say no,” Marcus continued. “In exchange, they offered you a boatload of money, safe passage out of your country, a new identity, and a new life, a safe life, far from the reach of the FSB, correct?”

  “It was never about the money,” Oleg insisted.

  “Nevertheless,” Marcus said. “They offered. You accepted. And they transferred $10 million into a Swiss bank in a numbered account—no name, just a number—and there it waits for you to come claim it or transfer it. Am I wrong?”

  Oleg said nothing.

  “Now, it’s important for you to know that I never told Washington what you were going to do,” Marcus continued. “For that matter, I never told Jenny, either.”

  Oleg’s face betrayed how taken aback he was.

  “I told no one,” Marcus repeated. “I helped you because you asked me to. I helped you because I believed taking out Luganov was, in fact, the only way to stop Russia from invading the Baltics and taking NATO and the rest of the world to the brink of nuclear war. And frankly, I helped you because I could. I spent the best years of my life protecting my president. That gave me a little insight into taking out yours. But I never told Jenny, and I never told the higher-ups in D.C. They would have said no and cut us off completely. No plane. No supplies. We would have been cut loose to survive—or not—on our own. Love it, hate it, I don’t really care—that’s the choice I made. But now Washington is making their own choices. They cannot afford to be implicated in the assassination of two, much less three, Russian leaders.”

  “You know full well I had nothing to do with Grigarin’s murder,” Oleg shot back.

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” Marcus responded. “It only matters what the senior officers at the CIA think, what the folks on the National Security Council think, what the president of the United States thinks—and right now, they think you’re an assassin and that Jenny and I are your accomplices. Worse, they know it’s going to look like the U.S. government just paid a Russian national $10 million not simply to spy for them but to kill for them. And they’re right. That’s exactly how it looks. Let’s just say the chances of them helping us are pretty much zero. Follow?”

  Oleg contemplated the gravity of that thought. “But just because Washington knows we weren’t in the crash, that doesn’t necessarily mean they know we survived, right?” Oleg asked, his desperation growing more evident.

  Marcus shook his head.

  “Why?” Oleg demanded. “It’s possible we all could have died from the jump, right? I mean, they already know Jenny was seriously wounded back at the airport.”

  “They know we’re alive,” Marcus said calmly.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I signaled them,” Marcus said.

  “When?” Oleg demanded.

  “Earlier today, back in the forest. They know we’re alive. They don’t know where. But you can be sure they’re looking—hard.”

  “But why would you do that?”

  “Two reasons. First, Jenny needs professional medical attention. We’ve stabilized her. She’s improving. But she still needs a doctor and probably surgery. We’re certainly not taking her to a Russian hospital, which means we need to put her in the hands of the American government.”

  Oleg was quiet.

  “Second, we need to get you out of Russia, or the FSB is going to find you and kill you, though they will probably torture you first. You’re the most wanted man in this country. The longer we stay on Russian soil, the greater the chance we have of being tracked down. Our best chance—frankly, our only chance—is to persuade Langley to help us.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I know what I said,” Marcus replied. “You needed to hear it, because that’s exactly how the Agency sees us. But we’re going to change that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re going to get them to look at you and me as assets, not liabilities.”

  “How?”

  “We’re going to make them an offer they can’t refuse.”

  36

  RESIDENCE OF THE SUPREME LEADER, TEHRAN, IRAN

  Alireza al-Zanjani was late.

  Bolting out of the armor-plated sedan that had whisked him from his office across the Iranian capital, the deputy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and his senior intelligence advisor cleared through security and rushed up the marble staircase. They were greeted at the top by the chief of protocol and
led down multiple corridors and through numerous checkpoints until they reached the private office of Iran’s octogenarian spiritual guide.

  “Principals only,” the protocol czar whispered.

  The intel officer didn’t object. He knew his place. He had never entered the office before, nor would he today. He handed his boss a briefing book and took a seat in a lounge area where a half-dozen other aides were already milling about, drinking coffee, and talking in hushed tones about the political earthquake under way in Moscow.

  Al-Zanjani was no longer wearing one of his expensive European suits. Rather, he was dressed in his standard attire of green combat fatigues and combat boots. He took a deep breath, then nodded to the security guards, who proceeded to open a massive vault door. Stepping forward into a spacious vestibule, he waited for the door to shut and lock behind him. Two well-built bodyguards—part of the ayatollah’s personal detail—double-checked his credentials, though they both knew him well. A moment later, they unlocked and opened a steel door vaguely reminiscent of a submarine hatch and signaled for their guest to enter.

  While al-Zanjani had met or briefed the Supreme Leader a number of times in his career, this was his first time to the cleric’s inner sanctum. It was not a traditional office by any Western sensibility. There were no desks or chairs, nor any radios or televisions. Rather, the concave walls were lined with exquisite blue-and-green tile work. The floor was covered with a thick Persian carpet. A few small lamps provided only dim light. There were several lit candles on a low wooden table in the center of the room and a swirling fan hanging from the ceiling.