The Persian Gamble

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I can’t seem to recall Jesus or the apostle Paul encouraging the flock to assassinate Caesar.”

  “Maybe not. But your hands aren’t entirely clean here either.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re in this as much as we are.”

  “Wrong. I didn’t conspire to kill the president of Russia.”

  “But you lay out in a forest with a sniper rifle and popped a slew of FSB agents at Oleg’s parents’ estate without so much as batting an eyelash.”

  “That’s not the same.”

  “Of course it is—you were taking out enemies of the state, and so were we.”

  “Forget it, Ryker. I was on a state-sanctioned mission to extract a high-value asset who was trying to help us stop a nuclear war. You two are freelancing. You’re private citizens in violation of about a dozen federal laws, possibly including treason.”

  “Think about it, Morris. Oleg realized there was only one way to stop the war and that was to stop Luganov. He didn’t come to that conclusion lightly, nor did I. We didn’t tell you—I didn’t tell you—because I knew what you’d say.”

  “Because I’d already said it. What you did was not just illegal, it was wrong, Ryker.”

  “Saving tens of thousands of lives—ours and theirs—that was wrong? Forgive me, but I don’t see it that way. Look, we made our decision, and—”

  “No, you didn’t just make your decision. You made mine.”

  “What’s done is done, Morris. I didn’t ask for your permission, and I’m not asking you to like what we did. But all that’s irrelevant now. The only question left is how we turn you back over to the Agency. That’s what Oleg and I are working on.”

  40

  “What a fine weather today. Can’t choose whether to drink tea or to hang myself.”

  Marcus, in a freshly foul mood, reentered the kitchen. Oleg was clearing dishes from the meal of pasta and vodka sauce he’d made for them.

  “Chekhov?” he said. “Must not have gone well.”

  “It didn’t.” Marcus sighed as he poured them both piping-hot mugs of chai.

  “Good choice,” Oleg quipped.

  Marcus recounted his conversation with Jenny. Oleg asked a few questions. In the end they concluded they’d better both go upstairs and take their lumps. They didn’t expect Jenny to be happy with the situation they’d put her in. She certainly had every right to be angry with them. But they had to deal with it now. They would need her help to get her home, and the sooner the better.

  “Go away,” Jenny snapped.

  But the knocking continued.

  “Fine, come in,” she said, relenting. “Make yourself at home. Anything else I can do for you two international fugitives?”

  Marcus and Oleg opened the door cautiously as if prepared for her to throw something at them. When they saw the coast was clear, they entered and pulled a couple of chairs into the room. Then Marcus began explaining to the CIA’s Moscow station chief more thoroughly exactly what Oleg had done, exactly how Marcus had helped, and the events that had been set into motion as a result. Though she remained furious, her pain and fatigue somewhat dampened her capacity, and perhaps her desire, to unleash on them. She fired question after question at them but eventually concluded—however reluctantly—that Marcus was right. They couldn’t un-ring the bell.

  Next Marcus opened a laptop and began to pore over the contents of the thumb drive Oleg had smuggled out of the Kremlin. He pressed Oleg for any scrap of intelligence they could use as leverage over Langley and the White House to regain their freedom.

  Jenny listened but refused to participate. She wasn’t exactly in a position to stand in their way, but she wasn’t going to join the conspiracy.

  On the drive from Oleg’s parents’ home to the airport, Jenny had transmitted the entire contents of the thumb drive to the analysts at the Global Operations Center back in Virginia via a secure satphone connection. That was well before the gun battle on the tarmac in Moscow and their dramatic takeoff in the Gulfstream. In that sense, Marcus and Oleg were playing at a disadvantage. They had already handed over every trump card in their possession. Still, the thumb drive contained an enormous amount of information. It included detailed notes Oleg had taken from every meeting he had ever been in with President Luganov, his cabinet, his generals, and other world leaders for twenty years. It included every transcript of every phone call Oleg had ever participated in with Luganov and even voice recordings of some calls, provided by Russia’s equivalent of the National Security Agency. There were thousands of memos sent to and from the Office of the President, including copies of Luganov’s daily intelligence briefing, along with notes on his comments, the questions he had asked, and the answers he had received. There were detailed and highly classified personnel files of nearly every person who had ever worked on the president’s staff, plus their FSB vetting and clearance reports. Oleg had also saved spreadsheets providing unprecedented access to Russian military spending—line by line, department by department—as well as travel and administrative budgets for the president’s office. The list went on and on.

  It would take weeks, if not months, for the Russian speakers at the CIA to simply read through everything, much less make sense of it all and turn it into actionable intelligence. Besides, most of it was interesting but no longer relevant. Luganov was dead. So was Nimkov, his most trusted deputy. What they’d done, what they’d thought, and whom they’d talked to and why would give officials in Washington a much richer understanding of how the Kremlin worked. But everything was changing—fast. With Petrovsky, there was a new sheriff in town. What did he believe? What would he want to accomplish? Who were his most trusted friends and advisors? Would any of Oleg’s intel answer those questions? Jenny had no idea.

  Yet with every hour that passed, the value Oleg could provide was diminishing.

  It was just after 5 a.m. when Nick Vinetti was jarred out of sleep by a call.

  When he finally managed to find his mobile phone and pick up, to his astonishment it was the unexpected voice of an old friend on the other end.

  It wasn’t exactly in Vinetti’s written job description as a senior State Department official to be involved in highly classified missions to extract high-level Russian moles out of the country. His job was not even primarily diplomatic in the classic sense—meeting with foreign leaders, attending black-tie dinners and glitzy diplomatic galas, and the like. Most of his days were spent managing the sprawling bureaucracy of hundreds of U.S. Foreign Service officers and other American government liaisons operating at the embassy compound and in various consulates and other diplomatic facilities spread across Russia’s vast territory and eleven time zones.

  But it was Vinetti to whom Marcus had come first to say he had made contact with a senior Russian official—a source, a mole—who was offering explosive inside information they needed to get to Langley and the president immediately. It was Vinetti who had instantly grasped the quality and implications of the intel Marcus had received from his source. It was Vinetti who had immediately brought the CIA’s Moscow station chief Jenny Morris—and later, Tyler Reed, the American ambassador to Russia—into the loop. So perhaps he should not have been surprised that Marcus was reaching out to him now. But he was. The thought of Marcus being a coconspirator with the likes of Oleg Kraskin was more than Vinetti could bear.

  “Nick, it’s me. Can you talk?”

  “Marcus, is that really you? I thought—”

  “Are you alone?” Marcus pressed. “Can we talk safely?”

  “Yeah, of course. Yes,” Vinetti said, now wide-awake and scrambling out of bed and into the kitchen so as not to disturb his wife, Claire. “What in the world happened? Where are you?”

  “We bailed just before the missiles hit. We’re safe, but I don’t have much time.”

  “And Jenny? How is she?”

  “She was hit, but she’s improving
.”

  “Thank God,” Vinetti said. “I really thought—”

  “I know, but look—I’m serious; we need to move quickly, and I need you to do something for me,” said Marcus, his voice calm but insistent.

  “Marcus, man, you’re completely radioactive—you know that, right?”

  Marcus ignored the comment and plunged ahead. “You need to set up a call with me and the DCI,” he said.

  “Director Stephens? Have you lost your mind?”

  “Just call Langley and set it up. I’m going to call you back in two hours—midnight Washington time, 7 a.m. Moscow time. And let me be crystal clear, Nick. When I call, I need you to patch me straight through to the director, or I’m gone—in the wind—with Oleg Kraskin and everything he knows.”

  “Oleg Kraskin—you mean the Raven? Marcus, what you’re asking is impossible,” Vinetti said. “Stephens can’t talk to you, and you know it. He can’t come within a million miles of you right now. You’re about to be charged with being an accessory to murder. Perhaps with treason. And as your friend, I’m telling you, the best thing you, Jenny, and the Raven can do is turn yourselves in. Let us pick you up immediately so no one else gets hurt.”

  The line was silent for a moment.

  Then Vinetti asked, “He is with you, right—the Raven?”

  “He is,” Marcus said, “and he’s talking.”

  “What do you mean he’s talking?”

  “He has critical intelligence that Stephens and the president need to see—but it’s time sensitive, and we need to move fast.”

  And with that, the line went dead.

  41

  OZERKI, RUSSIA

  They had only two hours to wait.

  But Marcus suggested Oleg go upstairs and crash.

  Oleg, visibly spent, agreed. Marcus heard the water in the shower turn on, but for only a few minutes. Soon, he heard the bathroom door open and Oleg trudge to the only other unused bedroom, the one with the now-open safe. He could hear the springs of an old bed creak as Oleg flopped down on it. Then all was quiet.

  Marcus powered down the computer and tucked his own pistol into his belt at the small of his back. He washed their coffee mugs and the plates and pots they’d used for their modest pasta dinner. He double-checked the doors and windows to make sure they were still locked, then went upstairs to check on Jenny again. She was breathing peacefully. Color was returning to her face. Her pulse was steady, almost normal. And there was no sign of an infection. She still needed to gain strength, but she was definitely on the mend. It was a miracle, and Marcus said a silent prayer of thanks.

  Stepping into the bathroom, he locked the door and brushed his teeth. Staring at himself in the mirror, he finally realized just how much of a beating he’d taken. His arms, chest, and neck were turning black-and-blue. His left eye had quite a shiner, too, but his mangled nose looked worse. Wincing, he removed the blood-soaked tissues from each nostril, tossed them into the toilet, and flushed. Then he replaced them with fresh wadding and scrubbed his hands with hot water and lots of soap. He was grateful his mother couldn’t see him just now, but so far at least, he hadn’t died or been arrested, and given all that had happened, that was a win.

  Vinetti immediately called Langley.

  He explained to the watch commander in the Global Operations Center that he’d just received a call and a demand from Marcus Ryker.

  “Did the NSA trace the call?” Vinetti asked when he was finished. “Can they locate him?”

  “I’ll check,” the commander said. “Call you back.”

  Marcus stepped into the master bedroom.

  He dug through his rucksack, fished out a fresh pair of jeans, a clean white T-shirt, and an old black crew-neck sweater, and put them all on. Then he grabbed the AK-47, turned off the hallway lights, and headed back down to the living room.

  The house was all dark now, and Marcus used his night vision goggles to peer out the curtains into the backyard. He saw nothing moving but the icy waves lapping onto a snow-packed shoreline. He moved to the window on the north side of the dacha, next to the damaged hutch that no longer contained any china. He lingered there, peering out for several minutes, but saw nothing except another darkened beach house a half kilometer away.

  When he moved to the front windows, he scanned the front yard and the main road, his trigger finger stroking the wooden stock on the automatic weapon. He smiled slightly as a convoy of five snowplows drove by. He was sure the driver of the sixth had been found by now and prayed the man was okay.

  There was now well over two feet of snow on the ground, and even more piled up at the end of the driveway due to the repeated plowing. The storm was subsiding. Very little more precipitation was accumulating, and even the harsh winds were slowing down. Yet Marcus knew their biggest test was coming. He couldn’t abide the idea that the snow could block them in or at least slow down their getaway when they were ready to move. So he went to the garage, found a shovel, and headed outside before the sun rose.

  Thirty minutes later, the group converged on the Oval Office.

  “It’s an enormous risk,” the president said after hearing the summary of the call. “I don’t like it—any of it.”

  CIA director Stephens sat directly across the Resolute desk. Joining them were retired Lieutenant General Barry Evans, the president’s national security advisor—fresh back from Seoul, South Korea—and Bill McDermott, the deputy NSA.

  “I don’t disagree with that, sir,” Stephens replied. “But in the current environment, can we really take the risk that Mr. Kraskin does not actually possess critical intelligence we need?”

  “Secretary Foster tells me Russian forces on the borders of the Baltics and Ukraine are beginning to stand down,” the president said.

  “Our information indicates those forces have been ordered to retreat from the borders, but we have no confirmation that they have actually begun to do it, Mr. President,” Stephens clarified. “Nor does the Pentagon. They’re relying on intel we provided.”

  “You’re saying this could be a head fake, that the Russians might still attack?”

  “I’m afraid it’s too early to draw any conclusions as of yet, sir. We’re watching the situation closely. But as uncomfortable as I am with talking to Mr. Ryker at all, no one has given us more accurate or important intelligence on Russian motives or plans than Kraskin and Ryker.”

  “Richard, come on—they’re stone-cold assassins,” the president countered. “If it leaks out that you actually took a call from one of them, it would look to the Kremlin and the rest of the world like we knew what they were going to do, or even authorized it, which we most certainly did not.”

  “That’s part of the risk; I readily concede that, Mr. President. But we’ll record the entire conversation. I’ll make our position crystal clear. If Ryker or Kraskin go to the press, so will we, and release the tape. What’s more, we need to get my officer—Jennifer Morris—out of harm’s way.”

  The president turned to his national security advisor. “Barry, how do you see it?”

  “I don’t like it either, Mr. President,” said Evans, a thirty-two-year Army veteran who had at one time served as the supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe. “Still, I’d have to concur with Director Stephens. Let’s hear Ryker out and tape it all. I suggest you authorize the director to make almost any deal necessary to get Morris back along with whatever intel they’re dangling. But I also respectfully recommend that you be prepared to renege the moment we have what we want.”

  “And what about this Kraskin guy, the so-called Raven?” the president asked. “What do we do with him?”

  “We certainly can’t take the risk of bringing him onto American soil,” the national security advisor insisted. “I’m not sure we can let Ryker back into the country either, unless it’s to put him in a supermax prison. Personally, I’d recommend stripping him of his American citizenship and treating him as an enemy combatant. But obviously that’s your call, not min
e.”

  “Noted,” said the president, giving no evidence he necessarily disagreed. “What about the call? Did the NSA trace it? Do we know where these guys are?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Director Stephens.

  “Why not?” Clarke demanded.

  “Sir, Ryker wasn’t using the satphone we provided him,” Stephens explained. “We can guess why—he doesn’t want to be found. What we don’t know is how he got another satphone up there in the tundra wastelands of northern Russia. Either way, he was also smart enough not to call in to the embassy. He waited until the wee hours and called his friend Nicholas Vinetti—his old Marine buddy—on Vinetti’s private cell phone. No one was expecting that. The NSA wasn’t monitoring Vinetti’s private calls. But don’t worry, Mr. President. We won’t make the same mistake twice.”

  The look on Clarke’s face said it all. But despite his fury, he held his tongue for the moment and turned to Bill McDermott. “Bill, you’ve known Ryker the longest and best. What say you?”

  “Mr. President, I say you tell Ryker and Kraskin whatever you have to to bring them in. Then immediately arrest them both. Turn the Raven over to the Russians, and try Ryker for murder and treason.”

  The president was taken aback.

  “You’d do that to a friend?” he asked.

  “He’s not my friend anymore, sir. He crossed the line. Now he needs to pay.”

  42

  OZERKI, RUSSIA

  Marcus suddenly sat bolt upright in the overstuffed chair.

  He clenched the rifle and listened intently. In the end, he heard nothing but the grandfather clock. It was now 5:52 in the morning. He had a little more than an hour before his call to Langley.

  He berated himself for falling asleep. On his lap sat his personal Bible, open to Proverbs. His habit since college had been to read a chapter of this particular book of wisdom—which happened to have thirty-one chapters—every day of each month, adjusting when needed for the months that had fewer than thirty-one days. The tactic obviously hadn’t worked this month, though; he hadn’t cracked the Good Book for several weeks, and he could barely remember finding, much less opening, his Bible before conking out cold.