The Persian Gamble

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  Blinking hard, Marcus set the book aside and headed to the kitchen. As he started some coffee brewing, he peered out the windows and scanned the backyard. Seeing nothing unusual, he moved to the side window in the dining room and finally to the bay windows in the living room, looking out into the front yard and into the street. He saw nothing but snow and ice. The winds had died down. So what had woken him up?

  He headed upstairs. Oleg was sound asleep. But to Marcus’s surprise, Jenny was up. She’d already disconnected herself from the IV, changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, and was just coming out of the bedroom. And she had a 9mm pistol in one hand and two magazines in the other.

  “Hey,” Marcus said warily.

  “Hey yourself,” she replied.

  “Trouble?” he asked.

  “Habit.”

  Marcus nodded, wondering just how angry she was at him and Oleg at the moment and what she was capable of in that state of mind.

  “Sorry I kept drifting off on you guys last night,” Jenny said.

  “No problem. How’re you feeling now?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “Honestly, you’re doing a lot better than I’d expected.”

  “I don’t know. I just had my first look at my shoulder. It’s pretty bad.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “Maybe.” She sighed. “Hey, you got any coffee down there? I’m craving something stronger than tea.”

  “Yeah, just made a fresh pot,” Marcus said. “But I’ve got something else, too.”

  Jenny raised an eyebrow as she loaded a magazine, shoved the pistol in her waistband, and stuffed the second mag into her pocket.

  “What are you up to, Ryker? You’ve got a mischievous look in your eye.”

  “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  “The way to where?”

  He smiled. “Trust me.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Marcus pounded on Oleg’s door. A moment later, they heard the Russian stumbling out of bed. When the door opened, Oleg’s eyes were so bloodshot it was clear he had barely slept at all.

  “You need to pack,” Marcus said. “Jenny and I are going to make the call. If we’re not back in two hours, assume we’re dead—just take the money and run.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Marcus returned to the kitchen. Jenny followed, a little slower. He poured them each a mug of coffee. Then they went to the garage, fired up the Mercedes C 300, and headed out.

  As he pulled out of the driveway, Marcus handed Jenny his rucksack. “Open it,” he said.

  She did and found their laptop, the satphone they’d been given by Langley together with two unopened satphones Marcus had found in the safe, and a toolbox he’d found in the garage.

  “And?” Jenny asked.

  “I need you to do something for me,” he said. “You’re not going to be happy about it. But I don’t have time to argue.”

  “What exactly did you have in mind?”

  “I need you to use a little of your black magic to save our lives.”

  Forty minutes later, they pulled into the petrol station where he’d stolen the Jeep.

  Marcus grinned as he pulled around back and found five snowplows parked there, engines off, lights out, not a driver in sight. He hadn’t expected to find them. How could he have? Any car would have done for what he had in mind. But one of the snowplows would do better.

  Making sure no one was watching, Marcus got out of the Mercedes, leaving it running, and walked over to the adjacent restaurant. Peering in the window, he saw four drivers sitting at a table. Their meals had just arrived. But there was food for five. Where was the fifth driver? Marcus scanned the other diners but didn’t see him. He walked to another window to get a clearer view. Just then, a burly man wearing coveralls stepped out of the men’s room and joined the others. A waitress came by and topped off their coffees. They were going to be a while.

  Retracing his steps, Marcus returned to the Mercedes, opened the driver’s-side door, and leaned in. Jenny handed him the satellite phone they had gotten from Langley. Checking his watch, he powered it up and punched in the security code. Then he used it to smash in the driver’s-side window of the nearest snowplow—the one farthest from the restaurant—tossed the phone inside, got back in the Mercedes, and drove away.

  The two sped north along the highway in silence. As Marcus drove, Jenny fiddled with the laptop and one of the Russian satphones, wiring them together somehow. Marcus got off at the next exit, crossed the overpass, and got back on the highway, heading south. A minute later, he pulled onto the shoulder, just a bit past the petrol station and all-night diner. From there, they had a direct view of the parking lot. He pulled the reticle from his sniper rifle out of his rucksack and looked across the highway. The five snowplows were still there. Their lights were still off. Their engines were still cold. Their drivers were still laughing and talking together and sipping their coffee.

  Jenny powered up the laptop and connected satphone and handed the phone to Marcus, who immediately dialed the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. “You know you’re out of your mind,” she said.

  “We’ll know soon enough.”

  The call did not go directly through to Nick Vinetti. Rather, at Marcus’s request, Jenny had reprogrammed the phone to bounce the call off a nearby cell tower, then route through the American satphone in the cab of the plow. It was one of the little items in her bag of tricks she’d learned at the Farm, the CIA’s training facility in southern Virginia.

  Vinetti answered on the first ring but asked Marcus to wait.

  “Standard procedure,” Jenny whispered. “They’re tracing the call.”

  Ninety seconds later, Vinetti patched the most wanted American in the world through to the Global Operations Center, deep beneath CIA headquarters back in northern Virginia.

  “You’re late,” said Director Stephens into Marcus’s ear.

  Washington was seven hours behind Moscow in the fall, making it now 12:27 in the morning.

  “Nevertheless,” Marcus replied, “you took the call.”

  “You said it was urgent.”

  “It is.”

  “It had better be,” said Stephens. “Whom exactly am I speaking with?”

  “Marcus Ryker.”

  “How do I know it’s really you?”

  “Who else knew the passcode to the phone?”

  “Any technology can be hacked.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  “You understand we’re recording this call?”

  “As am I,” Marcus replied as Jenny double-checked the levels on the laptop to make sure everything was working properly.

  There was a slight pause. Then Stephens said, “I need you to verify your identity.”

  “Ask me whatever you’d like,” Marcus said. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “Very well,” came the reply. “What was your father’s full name?”

  “Lars Pieter Ryker.”

  “When was he born?”

  “July 9, 1952.”

  “When did he die?”

  “January 16, 1991.”

  “How?”

  “He was a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force. He was shot down by a surface-to-air missile while flying a combat mission in southern Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.”

  “What kind of plane was he flying?”

  “An F-16C.”

  “What’s its nickname?”

  “The Fighting Falcon.”

  “How old were you when he died?”

  “Eleven.”

  “And your mother’s name?”

  “Marjorie Ryker.”

  “Maiden name?”

  “Carnes.”

  “When was she born?”

  “March 5, 1957.”

  “Whom did she marry after your father died?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Would you like me to repeat the question?” Stephens asked.

  “That won’t be necessary
,” Marcus said, steadying his nerves. “She married Roger DuHaime.”

  “When was he born?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I never cared.”

  “Very well,” the director said. “What day did he die?”

  “May 19, 2001.”

  “How did he die?”

  Again Marcus paused.

  “How exactly did Roger DuHaime die?” Stephens pressed.

  “I shot him.”

  43

  HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  “Anything yet on Marcus?”

  Pete Hwang opened his eyes and found Annie Stewart ducking her head in his door. He realized he had drifted off and suddenly felt embarrassed. His tie was askew. His hair was a bit ruffled. A few slices of now-cold pizza lay in their box on his desk beside a half-finished Styrofoam cup of Coke Zero in which all the ice had melted.

  “Sorry, no,” he said, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes. “I’ve been making calls all night. No one has heard a thing, or if they have, they’re not telling me.”

  “Nothing even from Nick?”

  Hwang shook his head, surprised to see the sadness in her eyes. The senator’s concerns he understood. Dayton was afraid his connection to Ryker—a connection Hwang had personally helped reestablish in recent weeks—could scuttle his bid for the Democratic nomination and ultimately the presidency. But Annie Stewart? Why was she taking this so hard?

  “How about McDermott?” she asked.

  “Bill’s furious,” Hwang said. “I spoke to him about an hour ago. I’ve seen him mad before, plenty of times. But wow, nothing like this.”

  “He thinks Marcus is guilty.”

  “Treasonous is the word he used.”

  “I don’t buy it, Pete. Do you?”

  Hwang hesitated and then said, “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Pete, come on, Marcus isn’t a murderer.”

  “No, of course not,” Hwang said. “But it’s not that simple, Annie.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning Marcus is a man driven by what he believes is right and wrong.”

  “How exactly would assassinating two world leaders be right?”

  “Well, let’s change the names. Forget Luganov and Nimkov. If you lived in the forties and thought there was an opportunity to prevent or stop the Holocaust by taking out Hitler and Himmler, or Eichmann or Mengele, would you have taken it?”

  Stewart thought about that for a moment.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think I could kill anyone.”

  “Even Hitler?”

  “I’m just saying, I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to do it.”

  “But Marcus does,” Hwang said. “Last summer, I invited myself down from Manhattan to stay with him for the weekend. I flew in late Friday night. We went out running on Saturday morning, then hiking Old Rag. Then I wanted to take him to a Nationals game, but he wanted to rent Valkyrie instead. Ever see it?”

  “The Tom Cruise movie? No.”

  “It’s about a group of German military officers who plot the assassination of the Führer to end World War II.”

  Annie Stewart was quiet.

  “And guess what was sitting on his coffee table,” Hwang said.

  Stewart shrugged.

  “A half-read biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”

  “The German pastor who was executed for being involved in a plot to kill Hitler. So what are you saying, that Marcus was planning this for a year?”

  “No, no, of course not.” Hwang stood. “Marcus didn’t even want to go on the trip, and he wouldn’t have if I hadn’t goaded him into it. He didn’t have a plan to take out Luganov or anyone else. But the senator asked me if I thought Marcus was capable of doing it. And I’m telling you yes, if he thought it was the morally right thing to do, he’d absolutely be capable of it.”

  Stewart looked away for a moment, then asked, “So what do we do now?”

  “It’s simple,” he said. “We’ve got to find him before . . .”

  “Before what?”

  “Before they find him first and kill him.”

  For almost a minute, Richard Stephens didn’t seem to know what to say.

  Marcus briefly wondered if the connection had been cut. But then the CIA director cleared his throat and asked, “How did it come to that?”

  “Look, you have my file; you know what I did and why,” Marcus replied, fighting to maintain his cool. “It was self-defense. The DA cleared me of all charges. So did the Marine Corps and the U.S. Secret Service. So let’s get on with it. We’re wasting time.”

  There was another long pause.

  “Fine,” Stephens finally said. “Just one more question: there was something your mother used to say to you—often, I understand—while you were growing up. What was it?”

  Marcus resented Stephens’s prying into his family’s private affairs, but he answered anyway.

  “Don’t die, and don’t get arrested.”

  “Very well. I’m satisfied you are Marcus Johannes Ryker,” Stephens said, no doubt reading from a script prepared for him by his senior staff, all of whom were surely listening in along with most if not all of the National Security Council.

  Marcus was grateful Stephens hadn’t asked him anything about his wife or his son, how they had lived, or how they had died. The memories of Elena and little Lars were with him constantly. Not a day went by when he didn’t think of them or mourn their loss. But he had no interest in discussing such personal matters with anyone in Washington, certainly not the director of Central Intelligence.

  “Ryker? Mr. Ryker, are you still on the line?”

  Jenny elbowed him, and Marcus suddenly realized that he had zoned out.

  “I’m here.”

  “Is Jennifer Morris with you?”

  Marcus turned to Jenny. They’d discussed this on the drive. She nodded.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And her condition?”

  “Wounded but improving.” Marcus decided it was time to seize control of the conversation. “Oleg Kraskin is with me as well. I have no doubt it’s clear to you and your team by now that Mr. Kraskin is the mole who came to me at the Hotel National. Kraskin is the one Ms. Morris code-named the Raven. It is he who turned over some of the most sensitive and valuable secrets in the Russian government, including the plan to invade the Baltics. And yes, it is he who killed Aleksandr Luganov, the president of Russia, and Dmitri Nimkov, the head of the FSB.”

  Stephens again fell silent.

  “Mr. Kraskin carried out these assassinations of his own accord,” Marcus continued. “He did so to prevent President Luganov from ordering the invasion of NATO countries and triggering a nuclear war. He did so, in my professional assessment, in his right mind and with a clear conscience. He did not, however, kill Prime Minister Grigarin, nor to my knowledge did he ask anyone to do so or assist in any way. I was with him when he heard the news, and he was as stunned as I was.”

  Marcus paused for a moment, but Stephens still said nothing. He pressed forward.

  “As for my own involvement, I learned of Mr. Kraskin’s plans to take out President Luganov less than six hours before the hit took place. At his request, I provided Mr. Kraskin with the weapon and a detailed strategy to be successful. I did it with a sound mind and a clear conscience, and I would do it again. Mr. Kraskin’s actions—and by extension, my own—have thus far proven effective. The latest reports indicate that Russian forces have been ordered back from the borders of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—and away from the Ukrainian border.”

  Marcus checked his side and rearview mirrors. Jenny scanned the sky through the sunroof, but there was nothing yet.

  “To be clear, no one—not a single person employed by the American government—knew what Mr. Kraskin was planning to do, because I chose not to tell any of you,” he continued. “I did not inform Ms. Morris of the plan. She had no ide
a whatsoever what we were planning. Nor did I inform DCM Vinetti or Ambassador Reed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow of the plan. From the time I was informed by Mr. Kraskin of his intentions, I communicated these plans with no one. It was an act Mr. Kraskin and I engaged in by ourselves. Period.”

  Marcus looked through the reticle. The drivers were talking to the waitress again—ordering more coffee, he hoped.

  “That said, I not only gave Mr. Kraskin counsel on how best to carry out his plan, I also gave him instructions on how best to escape. As you know, Ms. Morris and I worked out in great detail a plan to extract Mr. Kraskin out of Russia and get him to a secure location. The purpose of the plan was to safely extract a high-level Russian mole who had given the United States invaluable intelligence on plans by President Luganov to attack, invade, and seize control of three NATO countries. At no time did anyone employed by the American government know that this mole had taken the lives of Mr. Luganov and Mr. Nimkov. I knew you’d never let him get on the plane if you had any inkling of what he and I had done. I knew Ms. Morris especially would go ballistic if she found out. So I kept her and you in the dark. This is my statement, on the record, and I’m willing to sign an affidavit with a precise transcript of what I have just told you.”

  And then Marcus added the kicker.

  “However . . .”

  44

  “I think I’ve heard quite enough,” the director interrupted.

  “Actually, you haven’t,” Marcus shot back.

  “Mr. Ryker, you have just admitted to me on the record—and to all my colleagues listening in—that you and Mr. Kraskin are murderers. You’ve confirmed that the two of you concocted and executed this plan entirely on your own, without either the knowledge or assistance of the American government or any of our employees. I should not have to remind a former federal law enforcement officer that in so doing, you have confessed to violating multiple U.S. and international laws. Your actions are tantamount to treason. It is therefore my duty to recommend that you surrender yourself to U.S. authorities immediately. You will be taken into custody and given a fair and speedy trial. Failure to give us your precise location and to surrender peaceably will require us to hunt you and Mr. Kraskin down, or turn the entire matter over to Russian authorities. Either option would put you both in danger of the gravest kind. I don’t recommend running, Mr. Ryker. We will find you. I guarantee you that. Whether you live or die in the process—well, that is another matter altogether.”