Assassin km-6

by David Hagberg

  Pocketing his guidebook, McGarvey made his way across the square to the main entrance of the church where he bought a ticket and went inside the antechamber which housed a museum. A dozen people, some of them foreigners, studied the displays which depicted the history of the cathedral and the story of its construction. A cutaway model showed the layout of the entire structure which consisted of nine main chapels — the tall slope-roofed one in the middle, four big onion domes on the four corners and four smaller ones in between. All of the chapels were linked by an elevated gallery, and all of the chapels had exits that led either out onto Red Square or into the rest of the cathedral complex and a small garden.

  The church was built on bedrock at the south end of Red Square, its foundations driven deep underground in an area honeycombed with subterranean rivers all flowing down to the Moscow River. The lower levels held crypts which in the late seventeenth century were used to house Russia’s state treasury. Like the Kremlin, St. Basil’s had also been a fortress of sorts, with its own dark secrets and underground passageways and escape routes.

  McGarvey left the museum and walked into the main tower which was a forest of scaffolding rising one hundred and seven feet into the darkness. Directly above were the covered galleries connecting the other eight chapels, and at the rear were iron gates which led below to the crypts. Two old women stood near the front of the main chapel, their heads bowed in prayer.

  On the day Tarankov arrived in Moscow, St. Basil’s would be closed. The church had become too great a symbol of Russia’s deeply religious past for it to remain open when he was giving his message for the future. There could only be one god in Holy Russia, and the Tarantula meant to be that god.

  McGarvey climbed the stairs to the gallery on his left, and followed it around in a large circle to each of the other eight chapels, descending into each where he searched for and found the various ways outside.

  Two hours later he was back in the main tower where he studied the locks leading into the crypts. They were massive, but made out of soft iron and could easily be blown by a very small amount of plastic explosive, or cut with bolt-cutters.

  He looked up through the scaffolding. There would be no problem climbing to the top, where from one of the openings he would have a clear shot at Tarankov standing on the balcony above Lenin’s Mausoleum.

  From that point he would have a couple of minutes to make his way down out of the tower, where, depending on how organized the authorities were, he could descend into the crypts and make his escape through one of the underground passages, or make his way through one of the chapels and outside where he could lose himself in the confusion.

  He had the where. Next he needed the when.

  FOURTEEN

  Moscow

  The Kremlin

  Viktor Yemlin sat across the broad conference table from Yuri Kabatov, who’d been appointed interim president, and Yeltsin’s former chief of security Lieutenant-General Alexander Korzhakov, watching both men read copies of his overnight report He’d been summoned to the office of the director of the SVR late last night where he’d been ordered to prepare a briefing for the president on the West’s reaction to their concocted story about Yeltsin’s death.

  McGarvey was right, of course. The Americans did not believe the story. But to this point they continued to maintain the position that they did. President Lindsay was scheduled to attend the state funeral on Friday, and the western news media continued to report on Yeltsin’s life, all but ignoring any references to Tarankov and the incident at the Riga Nuclear Power Station in Dzerzhinskiy. Yemlin used to admire the honest relationship the CIA apparently had with the President and Congress, until he’d come to learn that truth was highly subjective and depended on the political mood of the government body being reported to. Presidents of the United States and of Russia were alike in that they were mere men in difficult positions who wanted to hear what they wanted to hear.

  He’d spent all night gathering the latest information from the analysts and translators in the various departments of the North American Division. By one in the morning it was 5:00 p.m. in Washington, and the first of the dailies from the Russian Embassy on 16th Street were coming in, along with the first late afternoon reports from the Russian delegation to the United Nations. As he’d learned to do, Yemlin refrained from any speculation. He merely presented the facts as they came to him, placing them in an outline that supported what Kabatov’s new government wanted to believe.

  By 6:00 a.m.” he’d finished his first rough draft report, which ran to sixty-eight pages, with another three hundred pages of translations, mostly of articles that had appeared in the early editions of the New York Times and Washington Post.

  By 8:00 a.m.” the translations of ABC’s, NEC’s, CBS’s and CNN’s 11:00 p.m. news reports came across his desk, and he included them in his final report which was finally ready at 10:00 a.m.” exactly one hour before he was scheduled to arrive at the Kremlin.

  General Korzhakov finished first, and closed the report. He stared at Yemlin, his dark eyes burning, his thick lips pursed until President Kabatov also finished and looked up.

  “The fiction seems to be holding,” Kabatov said.

  “It would appear so, Mr. President,” Yemlin said tiredly. He was too old for all-night sessions. His eyes burned, his throat was sore and he felt as if he couldn’t go on much longer before he had to get some rest.

  “In any event it’s in their best interest to go along with us so long as our problems remain internal,” Korzhakov said, his voice flat and unemotional. “Has the SVR given thought to that? Because I’m sure that the CIA is watching us closer than ever.”

  “My division’s efforts are directed toward North America, General,” Yemlin said, after a careful moment. “We have detected no outward indications that the CIA or FBI have begun to take a more active role against our diplomats in Washington or New York.” He shrugged. “As for internally, that is a matter for the FSK. General Yuryn could best address the issue.”

  “You’re both still the KGB,” Korzhakov burst out, angrily. “You communicate with each other.”

  “To this point, on this issue, my division has been given nothing. I assume that the service has managed to place an agent aboard Tarankov’s train. But no one has said anything to us.”

  Korzhakov and Kabatov exchanged a glance, and the Russian president sat back, content to let his chief of security continue.

  “Apparently there have been difficulties. The man they sent was. found last night — what was left of him-in a taxi parked in front of the Lubyanka.” Korzhakov ran his fingers through his thick black hair. There is a leak at high levels.”

  “It was expected.”

  “General Yuryn suspects that you may know something about it.”

  “My division—?”

  “You personally,” Korzhakov said bluntly. He opened a file folder. “On the evening of 23 March you and Konstantin Sukhoruchkin took off aboard an Air Federation passenger jet on a flight plan to Volgograd. In fact it is believed that you flew to Tbilisi.” Korzhakov looked up. “Can you tell us the nature of your trip?”

  Yemlin was stunned, but he was professional enough not to let it show. In this business you always planned for the worst for which a partial truth was sometimes more effective than a well-crafted lie. “We went to see Eduard Shevardnadze.”

  “You admit it?” President Kabatov demanded, rousing himself. “Da. President Shevardnadze is an old friend, whose opinion I value highly. I was troubled after President Yeltsin’s assassination, as was Konstantin. We wanted some advice.”

  “In regards to what?” Korzhakov asked.

  “Tarankov’s chances for becoming President of Russia and starting us back to the old ways,” Yemlin said. “It would destroy us.”

  “I agree with that much at least,” President Kabatov said. “But Shevardnadze is no friend of Russia’s.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. President, but he is not our enemy. Georgia has ju
st as much to fear from Tarankov as we do.”

  “What was his advice?” Korzhakov asked coolly.

  “He gave none,” Yemlin said heavily, letting his eyes slide to the damnable file folder.

  “Did you tell him the truth about Yeltsin’s murder?”

  “Yes,” Yemlin said looking up defiantly.

  “Traitor—”

  “Nyet,” Yemlin interrupted sharply. “I love Russia no less than you, Comrade General.”

  “What were you doing in Helsinki yesterday?”

  Yemlin was glad that he was seated. He didn’t think his legs would support his weight. “Shopping,” he replied. “I’m no traitor, but I’m no idealist either.”

  “Were you shopping in Paris last week as well?” Korzhakov asked after a moment.

  Yemlin forced himself to remain calm. If they knew anything substantive they would have arrested him by now. This was General Yuryn’s doing. He was caught in the middle of a factional fight that had been brewing since the KGB had been split into the internal intelligence service and the external service. Yeltsin’s murder was a catalyst that the SVR had planned using against General Yuryn. The wily old fox was simply fighting back.

  “Among other things,” he said.

  “What things?”

  “As you probably know I own a small apartment in Paris.” “Do you have a mistress there as well, whom you’re supporting?”

  Yemlin refused to answer.

  “A bank account, perhaps?” Korzhakov suggested. “You crafty old bastard, have you been salting away money in foreign banks all along?”

  “No. Nor is that why you called me here today,” Yemlin said looking into President Kabatov’s eyes. Sudden understanding dawned on him. They were frightened, and they were clutching at straws. “I will not accept blame for the failures of the FSK or the Militia not only to protect President Yeltsin, but to arrest Tarankov.”

  Korzhakov flared but said nothing.

  “Mr. President, if our government is divided, if we fight amongst ourselves, Tarankov will win,” Yemlin said trying one last time to convince them that nothing less than the nation was at stake. “We’re trying to become a nation of laws. That means laws for everyone, from kulaks to presidents.”

  “You’ve spent a lot of time in the West, Viktor Pavlovich. Is that what you learned?” Korzhakov asked. “Because if it is, then you are a naive man.”

  “I’m an old man who has given his life in service to his country. I would like peace now.”

  “Thank you for your report,” Korzhakov said abruptly. “We’ll expect to be updated should anything significant occur.”

  “Very well,” Yemlin said. He rose and went to the door.

  “Viktor Pavlovich,” President Kabatov said. “We are not the enemy. Nor do we believe you are. But you have an enemy in General Yuryn. A powerful enemy. Take care of yourself.”

  “Thank you, Mr. President. I will.”

  Yemlin paused at the head of the broad granite stairs in front of the Senate Building, letting the sharp wind and harsh snow beating against his body clear his head. He was so mentally and physically tired that he felt detached, as if his skin didn’t fit, and his feet weren’t his own.

  Russians loved intrigue. It was in the national spirit, as chess and poetry were, and he was just as guilty as the rest of them for deriving pleasure from playing the game. But in this instance they weren’t talking about a mere intelligence coup. This time the future of Russia was at stake, and for one frightening moment he wished that he could recall McGarvey, or more accurately he wished that he could justify such a move to himself. But he could not.

  Someone touched his elbow and he looked up, startled, into the sharply defined features of Moscow Mayor Vadim Cheremukhin.

  “Viktor Pavlovich, you look like a man who could use some cheering up,” Cheremukhin said. His face was flushed and even in the wind Yemlin could smell vodka on the man’s breath.

  “A good night’s sleep.” “Time enough for that for both’ of us soon, hey?” Cheremukhin said. He was of the old school like Yemlin, but less of a moderate, although behind Kabatov he was among the most important men in Russia today. “Come on, we’ll dismiss your driver and take my car over to the club. What you need is a steam bath, a rubdown, some good champagne and caviar, and then maybe a girl. You can sleep afterward.”

  Cheremukhin’s private club, the Magesterium, had been constructed for his predecessor Yuri Luzhkov who’d complained that he had no place to go after hours. The Mafia had built it, along with a lot of other clubs throughout the country, for the new elite after the Soviet Union had disintegrated. Gangsters, movie stars, businessmen and politicians all had their own private sanctuaries that stressed physical security along with booze, women, casinos, and rat-races through neon-lit mazes. Anything went at the clubs; from drugs to little boys and from S&M to any other kind of kinky sex imaginable, and some that wasn’t imaginable. The Magesterium provided all of that, plus good food, quiet rooms, subservient service, mostly from black African students recruited from Patrice Lumumba University, an excellent library and oak-lined conference rooms, reading nooks, a movie theater and a computer learning center.

  “I think not,” Yemlin protested. He’d been to some of the clubs, the Magesterium included. He found them to be too frantic for his own tastes. A symbol of some of what was wrong with Russia.

  “Nonsense,” Cheremukhin said. He waved Yemlin’s driver off, and his Zil limousine slid in behind it. He took Yemlin by the arm and guided him down the stairs and into the back seat for the short ride over to the club.

  Yemlin was too weary to fight him. A glass of champagne, a steam bath and a rubdown would be nice. Afterward he would make his own way home. He knew a number of men who’d succumbed to the club scene, their lives centered around their evenings like a drug addict’s around his needle. He wasn’t one of them.

  “The center holds,” Cheremukhin said, as they passed through Spassky gate into red square, and turned right down toward the river past St. Basil’s.

  Yemlin wasn’t sure he’d heard Cheremukhin correctly, and was about to ask what he said, when out of the corner of his eye he spotted a familiar figure, and his blood froze. It was McGarvey crossing Red Square. He fought the overwhelming urge to turn around and look back, or let slip an outward sign that he’d just been shaken to the core. McGarvey here in Moscow. Already. It didn’t seem possible.

  “It’s guys like you who’ve keeping everything together,” Cheremukhin said. “Kabatov doesn’t have a clue, and Korzhakov is almost as bad a prospect as Tar ankov. But at least we’ve gotten rid of Yeltsin.”

  Yemlin focused on the Mayor. “What do you mean?”

  “Haven’t you heard?”

  Yemlin shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I thought that’s why you were in the Kremlin. Didn’t Kabatov send for you to ask your opinion? He’s worried about the Americans, he doesn’t know how they’re going ta take it.”

  “Take what?”

  “Kabatov has been appointed chairman of the Communist Party. The center holds. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but this time I think he’s stumbled onto something. If we take over the Communist Party, Tar ankov will have nowhere to go. It’s what the Americans call an end run.”

  Yemlin’s head was spinning. If McGarvey killed Tar ankov the problem wouldn’t be so acute. In the confusion and panic that would follow no one would take notice of Kabatov’s stupid move. But he did not have the luxury of that assurance, nor could he let on even if he did. “Kabatov is a fool,” he stammered.

  “Agreed, but he can be controlled.”

  “By whom?” Yemlin responded angrily. “Tarankov will use it as further proof that democracy has failed. It might even force him to make his move sooner than the June elections.”

  Cheremukhin eyed Yemlin critically. “I see what you mean, but I don’t agree with you. The Party is” winning elections again because it’s what the
people want. But it’s not the old Party.”

  “Kabatov is now President and Prime Minister of Russia as well as Party Chairman. Tarankov only has to topple one man to control everything. We’ve done his ground work for him. I’m sure he’s quite pleased.”

  “He’ll be arrested.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Yemlin shot back before he could stop himself.

  Cheremukhin’s eyebrow rose. “Do you know something that we don’t, Viktor Pavlovich?”

  “No,” Yemlin said. “But trying to arrest the Tarantula cost Yeltsin his life, and I don’t think that Kabatov fully understands what he’s up against.”

  “Some of us do, believe me,” Cheremukhin said darkly.

  “I hope so,” Yemlin replied, distantly.

  It was before noon, and the snowstorm had intensified, snarling traffic in the ordinary lanes. Cheremukhin’s limousine sped across the river on the Great Stone Bridge in front of the Rossiya Hotel, the official lane empty in both directions. Yemlin had to fight the urge to turn and look over his shoulder at Red Square which in any event had already disappeared. It had begun. McGarvey was in the field. In the heart of Moscow staking out his killing field. Yemlin had & fair idea what McGarvey might be planning. But if Tarankov managed to get this far they might have already lost.

  “We would like your help with this,” Cheremukhin said. “You know a lot of people. I’m sure that you even know some of Tarankov’s supporters in the SVR and FSK. There has to be a way.”