Assassin km-6

by David Hagberg

  Chernov relatched the seat bottom in position, softly closed the door, and as the freight elevator began to descend, ducked under the barrier, hurried back to his car and drove away.

  “That was quick,” the guard at the ground level said.

  “I just had to deliver something,” Chernov said.

  “Well, have a good evening, sir,” the guard said. He raised the barrier.

  Chernov headed past the Presidium to the Spassky Tower where the guard languidly raised the gate and waved him through. Threats came from outside, and besides no one of any importance was inside the Kremlin tonight. Anyway, all colonels were damned fools.

  After clearing Red Square, Chernov drove out to Krasnaya Presnya past the dumpy American Embassy on Tchaikovsky Street to a block of old, but well maintained apartments near the zoo and planetarium.

  Traffic downtown was heavy, but out here the shops were all closed and the neighborhood streets were quiet, though lights shone in many windows. Russians loved to stay up late talking. In the old days they fitted blackout curtains on their windows. These days they weren’t worried.

  All that would change, Chernov thought as he drove around back and parked the Mercedes in a garage. Tarankov truly believed he had the answers for Russia. Likely as not, his revolution would bring them to war. But by then, Chernov intended on being long gone.

  He waited for a couple of minutes in the darkness to make sure that he hadn’t been followed, then climbed the stairs to the third floor, his tread noiseless. He produced a key and opened the door of the front apartment, and let himself in.

  The apartment was dark, only a dim light came from outside. It smelled faintly of expensive western perfumes and soap. Feminine smells. Music came softly from the bedroom.

  Chernov took off his uniform blouse, loosened his tie and went into the kitchen where he poured a glass of white wine. Removing his shoes, he walked back to the bedroom, and pushed open the door.

  “Can you stay long this time, Ivan,” Raya Dubanova asked softly in the darkness. She’d been a ballet dancer with the Bolshoi. Now she was an assistant choreographer of the corps de ballet. Her body was still compact and well muscled. She knew him only as Ivan.

  “No,” Chernov said sitting beside her on the bed. He put the wine glass aside and took her in his arms. She was naked.

  “Can you stay at least until morning?” she whispered in his ear.

  “I can stay with you tonight if you promise to wake me at six sharp,” he teased. “But if you snore I’ll have to go to a hotel.”

  “I don’t know if you’ll be capable of getting out of bed when I’m finished with you,” she said wickedly. “Now take off your clothes, and come to me.”

  She’d been forced to be the escort of a Strategic Rocket Force general who Chernov was contracted to kill three years ago. He’d shot the man in his bed while Raya hid in the bathroom. When it was over she came out, looked at the general’s body, took the gun from Chernov and pumped three bullets into it, then spit in the general’s face.

  She wouldn’t stay in the apartment so Chernov brought her to this one. He came to her as often as possible, sometimes able to stay for only an hour or two, other times staying an entire evening.

  She knew what he was, but she never asked who he worked for, or if he’d killed again. She was simply grateful that he’d saved her from the old man. And each time he came to her bed she showed her appreciation.

  Tarankov didn’t know about then-relationship. No one did.

  He undressed and joined her in bed. “I need a couple of hours of sleep,” he said.

  “We’ll see,” she said, straddling him. She raked her fingernails across his chest almost, but not quite with enough force to draw blood, and he immediately responded.

  Maybe he wouldn’t need so much sleep as all that, he thought, a soft groan escaping from his lips as Raya began to bite the tender skin on the insides of his thighs.

  Red Square

  At 8:00 a.m. the line in front of Lenin’s Mausoleum was already long even though visitors were not allowed inside until 10:00. Chernov, wearing a worn overcoat, black fur hat and shabby boots, stood near the end of the line, his hands stuffed deeply in his pockets. The morning was bitterly cold, made worse by a sharp wind blowing from the Moscow River. Most of the people in line were old women, but there were a few foreign tourists and several men not ashamed to show remorse for the father of Russian socialism. Rain or snow it was a rare day that there wasn’t a line in front of the mausoleum. It was the most anonymous spot in Red Square.

  Two police cars, their blue lights flashing, came around the corner past the History Museum at a high rate of speed. They were immediately followed by four Zil limousines, and two final police cars.

  Chernov waited for them to pass then slow down as they turned toward the Spassky gate. The first two police cars entered the Kremlin, and he pressed the button on the tiny transmitter in his pocket.

  The third limousine erupted in a huge geyser of flame and debris. A second later the sound of the blast hammered off the Kremlin walls and boomed across Red Square.

  Everybody in line instinctively fell back, raising their arms to shield themselves from falling debris. Even before the first siren began to sound, everyone scattered as fast as their legs could carry them.

  Chernov allowed himself to be swept away, until he ducked around the corner on October 25th Street where he entered the metro station. He did not look back. He didn’t have to, because he knew for certain that if Boris Yeltsin had been in that limousine, he was now dead.

  FOUR

  The Russian White House Moscow

  Russian Prime Minister Yuri Kabatov entered the Crisis Management Center deep beneath the White House. The chamber and its communications center had been hacked out of the bedrock shortly after the Kremlin Coup in which Gorbachev had been ousted, but nobody this afternoon felt comforted knowing sixty meters of granite separated them from the real world above because all the security in Russia hadn’t been able to save the life of Boris Yeltsin. “I don’t think there can be any doubt who was behind this latest act of violence or why,” Kabatov said, taking his seat at the head of the long conference table. He was satisfied to see that nobody disagreed with him.

  In addition to his own staff those around the table who had responded to his summons included Moscow Mayor Vadim Cheremukhin and St. Petersburg Mayor Dmitri Didyatev, both democratic reform moderates like himself. The meeting had been delayed so that both men, whom Kabatov considered crucial to Russia’s future, could be notified and make their way into the city; Cheremukhin from his dacha on the Istra River, and Didyatev from St. Petersburg.

  Farther down the table were Militia Director General Mazayev and FSK Director General Yuryn. Yuryn sat erect, his thick hands folded in front of him on the table, a scowl on his gross features.

  Some of Yeltsin’s shaken staff had also arrived, among them the President’s Chief of Staff Zhigalin, and his Chief Military Liaison Colonel Lykov.

  Seventeen men in all, most of them moderates, had gathered to make what, Kabatov felt, would be the most important decision that had been made since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

  “Without proof, Mr. Prime Minister, there’s very little we can do if we are to continue as you wish under rule of law,” General Mazayev said thickly. He had dark circles under his red eyes. He looked like he’d just sobered up.

  “We’re not going to have to worry about proof because the bastard won’t deny it,” Kabatov shot back. He was a terrier of a man, with a sharp, abrasive personality that matched his looks. “He’ll say that his actions are for the best of the nation. He destroyed Riga Power Station so effectively that my engineers tell me it will be at least a year before it’s back on line, maybe longer if there’s other damage beyond what we already know. And the stupid kulaks up there. cheered him. They actually cheered him. But this winter when they begin to freeze their asses off they won’t blame him, they’ll blame us.

  �
��I’m also told that Yeltsin ordered his arrest in Nizhny Novgorod, and that Tarankov was tipped off. So he retaliated by having the president assassinated. This time if there are any leaks they will have to come from this room.”

  Kabatov was ranting, he could hear himself but he couldn’t stop because he was deeply frightened. Yeltsin had been a drunken buffoon, but his security detail was simply the best in the entire world. They figured the explosive device had been placed’ beneath the back seat of the limousine. Supposedly no one outside the security detail, not even Yeltsin himself, knew which car that would be. And there were no early reports of any suspicious activity in or around the secured parking level beneath the Kremlin. Yet they were still cleaning his blood off the streets outside Spassky Tower with toothbrushes. “The monster has to be arrested and brought to trial. It’s as simple and as necessary as that if we’re going to survive as a democracy. Now, I want your ideas on how to do it.”

  Alexi Zhigalin looked up defiantly. “Just kill him. We can find his train and send the Air Force in to blow it off the tracks, destroying him, that East German whore he’s married to, and all of his fanatical followers. They’re traitors.”

  “It could be done,” Yeltsin’s military liaison, Colonel Lykov, said. “I’ve already spoken with General Ablakin. If the FSK could help us with intelligence gathering, it could be pulled off within twenty-four hours. It would send a clear message—”

  “To whom?” Kabatov interrupted. “If this were the United States and its president were assassinated, the government wouldn’t kill the assassin.”

  “Jack Ruby probably worked for the CIA,” Yuryn said.

  “That’s not been proven.”

  “We’re not the United States,” the FSK director said.

  “No, nor are we England, or France or Germany or any other civilized nation if we kill Tarankov. Such an action would play directly into the hands of his supporters. Don’t you think with a cause like that to follow, that popular support for whatever other lunatic decided to stand up to us would grow?”

  “President Yeltsin maintained much the same view,”

  General Mazayev said. “Look what happened to him.”

  “Are you saying that one man and a handful of thugs can hold an entire country for ransom?” Kabatov shouted.

  “In Tarankov’s view he is campaigning,” Yuryn said.

  “Campaigning for what? Yeltsin’s vacant seat?” “Da. And yours, Mr. Prime Minister, and that of the General Secretary of the Communist Party. And that as supreme leader of a new Soviet Union, the Baltics included. As you know, he has a lot of popular support.”

  “Gained by robbing people of their own money out of our banks and giving it back to them,” Kabatov said with disgust. “Apparently he handed out something less than he robbed in Kirov. Something considerably less.” He shot Yuryn a bleak look. “Campaign funds?”

  “Probably,” Yuryn replied indifferently. He worked for the federal government, not for the Prime Minister, though it was unclear at the moment who, other than Kabatov, was nominally in charge of the government.

  “Your suggestion then, General Yuryn, is to kill him? Do you agree with Alexi Ivanovich?”

  “On the contrary, I strongly recommend that we wait. As you say, when winter comes around and there is not enough power for Moscow the mood in the city will definitely change for the worse. But the blame can be shifted away from you, and back to Tarankov.”

  “How considerate of you,” Kabatov said sarcastically.

  “It is the same advice I gave President Yeltsin,” Yuryn said. “General Mazayev and I happen to agree on this point. But the President insisted that Tarankov be arrested at whatever costs. I believe that order cost him his life.”

  “There was a security leak somewhere,” Kabatov said.

  “Presumably. Nor should you believe that there won’t be a leak from this gathering. Such things happen despite our best precautions.”

  “Then it will have to come from one of you men,” Kabatov said coldly, his eyes shifting from man to man. “This room was electronically sealed once I entered. Nothing of a mechanical or an electronic nature can get out of here. The only thing that will leave here this afternoon is what’s in your heads.”

  Again Yuryn shrugged indifferently. “If you mean to actually arrest Tarankov and not simply eliminate him and his followers, then our staffs will have to become involved. The leak will come from there.” The bulky intelligence service chief leaned forward in his chair and tapped the table top with a blunt finger. “If you go after him he will find out, and he will come after you.” Yuryn looked at the others around the table. “He’ll come after all of us.”

  “Are we to be held hostage?” Kabatov shouted, thumping his fist on the table. “Should we shut out the lights, crawl under our beds and hand the madman the keys to the Kremlin? Stalin assassinated Lenin in order to gain power. Has that happened again? Are we going to allow our nation to sink to those levels of barbarism? Pogroms. Gulags. Wars?

  “What do you think the West’s reaction will be when we pack up our tents and abandon the field? Without trade how long will Tarankov or any of us survive? Russian winters have killed more than foreigners. Russian winters have claimed plenty of Russian lives too. He must be taken alive and placed on public trial for all the world to see.”

  “It will tear the nation apart,” Yuryn warned.

  “We will lose the nation if we don’t do it,” Kabatov said wearily. “I didn’t call you here today to argue the point. I called because I wanted you to tell me how to proceed.” He glanced down the long table at Zhigalin. “Where is General Korzhakov?”

  “He sends his apologies, Mr. Prime Minister, but he is busy with the investigation.”

  Kabatov shook his head in disgust. “Has any progress been made since this morning?”

  “Some,” Zhigalin said. He opened a report he’d brought with him. “I was given this just before I left. the Kremlin. Apparently a man who identified himself as Lieutenant Colonel Boris Sazanov, assigned to the presidential security detail, entered the Kremlin last night a few minutes before midnight. He said he was delivering gifts. One of the guards checked the trunk of the man’s car and found several cases of American cigarettes. He got inside the parking garage beneath the Palace of Congresses where he remained for around five minutes. He then left by a different gate.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Kabatov said. “Has this Lieutenant Colonel Sazanov been found?”

  “No such officer exists. Nor do we have much of a description. It was evening, the lighting was imperfect, and the guards said the man parked in such a way that the front seat of the car was mostly in shadow. Their impression was that he was large, under fifty, possibly under forty years, old, and he spoke in a cultured, well educated voice. He was probably a professional.”

  “A professional what?”

  “Assassin, Mr. Prime Minister,” Zhigalin said. “He drove a new Mercedes sedan, so it’s possible he worked for the mafia.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t Tarankov’s people,” Mazayev said sharply.

  “Tarankov has friends among the mafia,” Zhigalin shot back. “The bastard has friends everywhere.”

  “What else?” Kabatov asked.

  “The guard at the Palace of Congresses got a partial license plate number, and the city is being searched for the car, as of noon without success.”

  “Why wasn’t I told of this?” Militia General Mazayev demanded. The Militia were the police.

  “The alert was issued routinely for a stolen vehicle,” Zhigalin replied. “General Korzhakov felt that the initial stages of the investigation should be as low key as possible so as to lull the assassin into a false sense of security.”

  “Spare me,” the Militia director said. He turned to Kabatov. “I’ll put my people on it. All my people. We’ll find this car and this colonel.”

  “How was the bomb detonated?” Kabatov asked. “If it was set on a timer, it would mean that the as
sassin knew President Yeltsin’s schedule. That in itself might give us a clue.”

  “The bomb was probably fired from a radio controlled detonator,” Zhigalin said. “At least that’s the preliminary finding. It means that the assassin stationed himself someplace so that he could see the presidential motorcade show up at the Kremlin. He pushed the button, the President’s automobile exploded, and he calmly walked off.”

  “Someone in Red Square?”

  “There was the usual line in front of Lenin’s Tomb, some early tourists at St. Basil’s and a few people just exiting the Rossyia Hotel, plus normal pedestrian traffic. Witnesses are being rounded up and questioned.” Zhigalin glanced at Mazayev. “Again simply a routine investigation for the moment.”

  “If the man was a professional, as you suggest, then he is long gone by now,” Mazayev said bitterly. “The city should have been shut up tight immediately after the bombing. We would have found the assassin.”

  “He’s back aboard Tarankov’s train,” Zhigalin said. “If you want to find him you needn’t look anywhere else.”

  “Whoever this assassin is, there is little doubt that his action was directed by TarankOv,” Kabatov said. “On that there can be no argument. Which brings us back to arresting the sonofabitch. Are there any more suggestions as to how we should proceed?”

  “President Yeltsin wanted him arrested when he showed up in Nizhny Novgorod,” Zhigalin said. “We can go ahead with that plan.”

  “He won’t show up there,” Yuryn said.

  “Why not?” Kabatov asked.

  “Tarankov found out that preparations were being made in Nizhny Novgorod for his arrest, so he retaliated by staging the raid on the Riga facility, and then assassinating President Yeltsin.”

  “Do you know this for a fact?” Zhigalin demanded.

  Yuryn shook his head. “If, as the Prime Minister suggests, Tarankov did order President Yeltsin’s assassination, that would be the reason. He knew about Nizhny Novgorod.”