Nikolai was hot. He had been huddled on the roof for two hours on a sunny day in early June. If there was one thing Nikolai Primakov hated, it was heat. Cold he knew. Cold he could deal with. In seventeen years growing up in Yakutsk, and then years of service to the Soviet government, Nikolai had lived and worked in some of the most frigid, forbidding places on earth.
But here, today, the sun caused the heat to radiate off the asphalt roofing gravel, making the temperature skyrocket. He was thankful the mission would soon be complete and he could climb down off this roof and out of the damned sunshine.
Nikolai had burned a lot of nervous energy simply waiting. After killing the guard and dumping his body next to the roof’s access door, he had lugged his cart up the stairs and then hustled down to the seventh floor entrance. There he removed the belt sander he had been using to prop the door open and placed it on the stairs while he used a strip of duct tape to seal the latch open. Then he eased the door closed and retreated back up the stairs to the roof.
With the door’s one-way locking system, if the tape were to fail and the latch were to operate as designed, the door would open only from the interior and Nikolai would be trapped on the roof, unable to escape after shooting Reagan. There was a metal ladder fastened to the rear of the building to be used as a fire escape, but Nikolai fully expected that escape route to be blocked within seconds after the U.S. president fell.
After ensuring the viability of his escape route, Nikolai returned to the roof and rolled his cart toward the front of the building, struggling to pull it through the asphalt. He stopped next to a gigantic air conditioning unit that rose out of the roof like a monstrous tumor. He snugged the cart up against the west side of the unit, using the massive structure to shield him and his equipment from prying eyes in the closest buildings.
To counteract the possibility of being seen by a worker on the east side of the Minuteman Insurance Building, Nikolai dug through his cart, pulling out two signs attached to portable metal stands. He unfolded the signs and placed one six feet away from each corner of the air conditioning unit, facing the adjoining building. The signs read, CAUTION, CONSTRUCTION ZONE — HARD HATS REQUIRED!
After erecting the signs, Nikolai pulled off the heavy canvas tarpaulin he had used to conceal his guns and other equipment. A large clamp had been affixed to two of the corners, and after unfolding the tarp, he lifted one corner up to the edge of the air conditioning housing and clamped it home, as he had planned on his reconnoitering visit, then repeated the process on the other side. He pulled the remaining two edges as far away from the unit as he could manage, then anchored them to the roof with the belt sander on one side and a heavy portable jigsaw on the other.
By the time he had finished, Nikolai had transformed the east side of the air conditioning unit into a portable work area. Stamped on the side of the tarp, in bright red letters, were the words DC HVAC INC — INSTALLATION AND SERVICE — AVAILABLE 24 HRS A DAY. The KGB’s theory was that hiding in plain sight would be the most effective way to avoid detection on the roof of a Washington building. Residents of large cities were so accustomed to construction sites and repair work on infrastructure that eventually the workers became almost invisible. It was simple human nature. People saw what they wanted to see.
Once he had placed his signs and set up the tarp, Nikolai finalized his preparations and then ducked his head and disappeared out of sight under the canvas lean-to. He had stayed there ever since, munching on his candy bars and sipping on his water, not even leaving the protection of the tarp to take a leak. When nature called, he simply unzipped and pissed into one of his empty water bottles.
To pass the time once day had broken, he disassembled and reassembled the Dragunov, working methodically, then checked the magazine on his Makarov pistol and sharpened his combat knife. None of it needed to be done, but he did it anyway. Checked his watch and discovered it was barely past nine. Did everything again.
Out on Columbia Road, eight stories below in front of the Minuteman Mutual Insurance building, Nikolai could hear the city as it groaned and creaked through another late spring morning, the nonstop rumble of cars and trucks, horns and voices floating through the air, and the occasional far-off scream of a siren. Early in the morning, the sounds of the police cars and fire trucks had caused Nikolai to tense up and become instantly wary, but he quickly concluded there must be no shortage of crime in America’s capitol city because the sirens seemed at times to come almost nonstop.
The time passed slowly, although Nikolai was well acquainted with the prospect of lying in wait for his prey. He had hunkered down much longer than this plenty of times, spending one memorable mission shivering for three days inside the hollowed-out trunk of a massive downed oak tree on the outskirts of Moscow waiting for a local party commissar who had become a little too fond of the wife of a Red Army general.
The general had commissioned Nikolai privately, paying him out of his own pocket, not that Nikolai cared. Somehow the guilty party had been tipped off that the general was gunning for him. The man had holed up inside his house like a scared rabbit, refusing to move. Eventually he had, though, peeking out the back door—who knew why?—and Nikolai had put a bullet through the center of his forehead.
After three days.
In the bitter chill of a Moscow winter.
So in many ways, to Nikolai this was a walk in the park. The only thing complicating the mission was the stature of the target, but Nikolai had eliminated high-profile men before and had always been as cold as the Siberian wind when the time came to pull the trigger. Today would be no different.
***
June 2, 1987
9:56 a.m.
Minuteman Mutual Insurance Building, Washington, D.C.
Finally it was time to assassinate the President of the United States. Nikolai wished he could have napped at some point, but hadn’t felt comfortable enough in his surroundings to do so. If someone discovered the taped latch on the roof access door and came to investigate, Nikolai knew he would have only seconds to eliminate the intruder and do it quietly enough to avoid jeopardizing the entire mission.
He stretched. Yawned. Checked the time. Nine-fifty-five. President Reagan’s remarks were to take place at ten o’clock exactly. The KGB had no way of knowing how long the speech would last, but the consensus had been that it would likely be short and to the point, given the fact that the U.S. President was not a young man and the speech was to take place outdoors in the sun and heat of June in Washington. That meant Nikolai needed to be in position and ready to go the moment Reagan stepped to the podium.
He shook out his arms, then did a quick set of deep knee bends to get his blood flowing. Nikolai crawled to the edge of his shelter and poked his head out the side, like a turtle gazing out of its shell. He looked first at the much higher structure next to the Minuteman Building. Saw nothing. Banks of windows soared overhead, but there were no faces looking down at him, at least none that he could see.
He shrugged. It didn’t matter anyway. It was time to get to work. He stepped out from under the shelter of the tarpaulin and carried his sandbags to the two-foot-high retaining wall at the edge of the roof, facing Columbia Road. He duck-walked as he approached, to avoid detection by the crowd assembling eight stories below.
After stacking the sandbags, creating a nice V-shaped notch, Nikolai retrieved his sniper rifle. Fully assembled, scope attached, full magazine. He combat-crawled to the edge of the roof. Reached the retaining wall and eased his rifle onto the sand bags. Lifted himself up and peered over the edge. The top of his head would be visible from street level but there was no way to avoid that. The Secret Service would be scanning the buildings, but from a distance of over one hundred feet and eight stories up, he would be as good as invisible.
The temporary platform from which President Reagan would deliver his remarks—the few he would live to deliver—was filled with dignitaries. There was not one empty chair behind the podium. Nikolai didn’t recogni
ze any of the people, figured they must be local politicians and businessmen. The sun was shining brightly and everyone was squinting against the glare and fanning themselves. Nikolai eased his Dragunov onto the sandbags, seating it carefully.
Behind the podium, a pair of shiny black armored limousines idled at the curb. As Nikolai watched, the rear door of the first one in line opened and out stepped the target. Ronald Reagan rose to his full height—he was taller than Nikolai would have expected—and strode briskly along the sidewalk. A group of people moved with him, like moons orbiting a planet. Nikolai assumed the moons probably represented an even split between political aides and Secret Service agents.
When he reached the platform, Reagan climbed the stairs, moving well for a man in his seventies. He stopped short of the podium, waiting to be introduced. In his hand he held a sheaf of papers, undoubtedly the notes for his remarks.
At the podium, a youngish man, hair slicked back, glasses perched on his nose, was speaking into a microphone. The air was clear and Nikolai could hear every word. “And now, please join me in welcoming the man responsible for the resurgence of our economy, and of the United States in general, President Ronald Reagan!”
The people behind the podium stood and clapped, the crowd cheered, and Reagan stepped to the podium, pausing to shake the hand of the man who had introduced him. He smiled easily, waiting for the applause to die down so he could begin.
Nikolai leaned onto the top of the retaining wall, bracing himself with his elbows, holding the Dragunov loosely in his hands. He peered through the scope and after a quick adjustment, Reagan’s face filled the viewfinder, his teeth white and straight and his smile perfect. It was as if he was standing directly in front of Nikolai, no more than a few feet away.
Nikolai centered the crosshairs on Reagan’s forehead and prepared to change history.
48
June 2, 1987
9:57 a.m.
Minuteman Mutual Insurance Building, Washington, D.C.
Tracie raced to the roof access door, glancing at her watch as she did. Nearly ten. She was out of time.
She reached the door and skidded to a stop, hyper-aware of the need for speed but knowing her only chance for success was in not alerting the assassin to her presence. She knelt and examined the space at doorknob height between the door and the metal jamb. The KGB operative had forced the latch back with duct tape.
Tracie opened the door slowly and stepped through, then eased the door closed. Turned and started up the concrete steps and then pulled up suddenly, squinting as she bent down to look at the steps. A trail of fresh-looking blood meandered up them.
She hurried up the steps and in seconds had arrived on the roof. The front of the building and Columbia Road were to her right, obscured by the rusting metal bulkhead. That was where the assassin would be stationed, with President Reagan scheduled to begin speaking any second now. For all she knew, the president was at the podium already.
She glanced left and saw a pair of shoes, black and heavy, attached to legs in uniform pants. They weren’t moving. The murdered security guard.
She took a deep breath and turned her attention away from the body. She eased her eyes around the bulkhead, using the metal structure for cover, and her pulse quickened. At the far end of the roof, sighting through a sniper scope, rifle angled down and toward the platform where the president would soon speak, was the KGB assassin. She prayed Reagan had not yet reached the podium.
The man was dressed in what looked like a janitor’s uniform. A dark ball cap covered his head, and he appeared calm and collected, the rifle held steady.
Tracie drew her weapon and stepped clear of the bulkhead. The assassin’s attention was focused completely on Reagan as he peered through his scope. He would never know what hit him.
But there was a problem. She wouldn’t be able to hit him. She was aiming at a target at least forty feet away with a handgun after running up eight flights of stairs, her hands shaking from exertion and adrenaline.
She sighted down the barrel, holding her Beretta in a two-handed shooter’s grip, and swore to herself, frustrated. There was no way. If she fired now, she would almost certainly miss, and the advantage of surprise would be gone. The assassin would still have time to shoot Reagan before turning to defend his position against Tracie.
She stepped left and then forward, moving away from the bulkhead, hoping he wouldn’t sense her in his peripheral vision.
Still too far. She needed to get closer.
Another step left. Two more forward.
Better, but not good enough.
She continued moving, knowing the president had to be on the platform by now, maybe even behind the podium, so she likely had just seconds left. But her odds of hitting the Russian were still no better than fifty-fifty. She had to get closer.
Through the warm air Tracie could hear President Reagan as he began to speak. “Good afternoon, Washington,” he said. “Thank you for joining me as we celebrate the continued revitalization of a neighborhood that is quickly becoming a model for what can be achieved when government gets out of the way and allows its citizens to take charge.”
The crowd cheered and Tracie tuned out the president’s voice.
She took another step forward, her attention entirely on the assassin. Another step, and then she felt a tug of resistance above her ankle and lost her balance, toppling to the roof, crashing down in a spray of gravel.
She thrust her hands out reflexively and her weapon skittered away. She hit the surface and rolled, feeling pain in both palms as the gravel bit into her skin. She knew immediately what had happened, knew she had just condemned the president of the United States to death by her own stupidity and lack of awareness.
The assassin had strung fishing line across the roof, maybe a foot above its surface. A tripwire. In the sunshine, with her attention wrapped up in the shooter, Tracie had never seen it. She knew all this in the half-second it took to hit the roof.
She rolled once and rose to a crouch, scanning desperately for her gun. A slug struck the gravel no more than an inch from her left leg and she dived to the surface again, rolled again. The assassin had missed her once, probably due to surprise, but he would not likely miss a second time.
One desperate lunge, her feet scrabbling for purchase, and Tracie reached the cover of the air conditioning unit. She was safe, but only for a moment. Her weapon lay eight feet to her right, tantalizingly close, but directly in the shooter’s line of fire.
She risked a quick look around the corner of the air conditioner, and heard the ping of a shot ricocheting off the sheet metal. She drew back instinctively.
The shooter was walking slowly toward Tracie, firing with a silenced pistol, likely a Makarov PB, a favorite of the KGB. As soon as Tracie fell, he’d dropped his sniper rifle and drawn the Makarov. That slight delay in changing weapons had probably saved her life—for a few seconds, at least—allowing her to reach the safety of the air conditioning unit.
But he was approaching fast, which meant two things:
One, no one on the ground eight stories below would hear a thing. The silenced weapon would allow the Russian to kill Tracie and then return to his previous position without missing a beat. No one below would even be aware of his presence. He would still be able to complete his mission.
Two, she was almost out of time. He would round the corner of the air conditioning unit in seconds and put a bullet in her head. He would not miss again.
Her brain processed all of the information in an instant and she knew she was out of options. Without any further conscious thought, she dived for her gun, unable to see the assassin behind her, wondering if she would feel the impact of the bullet that would end her life or if consciousness would simply disappear like a light bulb being switched off.
But there was no slug.
She slid across the gravel-covered rooftop like a baseball player diving into second base and was amazed when she reached her weapon still breathing. She
wrapped both hands around the grip and rolled onto her back, looked up and saw the Russian approaching quickly, eyes sharp, gun raised, taking his time.
She rolled instinctively as he fired and she felt a searing pain in her right shoulder, the impact of the bullet driving the right side of her body into the surface of the roof. She felt the gravel pellets digging into her back with a clarity unlike anything she had ever experienced.
She returned fire, squeezing off a shot as the nerves in her arm went dead and she lost all feeling in her hand. The gun slipped out of her hand and clattered once again onto the roof. She knew immediately she had missed, the Russian’s shot causing her shoulder to dip and her body to lurch to the right. Should have compensated. Dammit!
The Russian continued moving forward.
Tracie stared into the gun barrel, suddenly as big as a cannon, and prepared to die.
49
June 2, 1987
10:00 a.m.
Minuteman Mutual Building, Washington, D.C.
Ronald Reagan’s forehead was nestled squarely in the crosshairs of Nikolai’s scope. The magnification was perfect, and so were the conditions. Clear. No wind. Nothing to disrupt the trajectory of the bullet he was about to fire, killing the U.S. president and accomplishing his mission.
He breathed in and out slowly, through his half-open mouth, perfectly calm. Focused. He took one last breath. Paused. Began to squeeze the trigger, a steady, constant increase in pressure—
—and recoiled at the sound of gravel spraying as a body crashed to the rooftop. The noise came from behind him, to his left, in the direction of the bulkhead covering the access stairs from the seventh floor.
Nikolai understood instantly what had happened. Someone was here, and that someone had just fallen over the tripwire he had strung across the rooftop, a precaution he hadn’t thought he’d need. Someone was stalking him.
Nikolai reacted with a skill born of training and years of experience. He placed the Dragunov carefully along the retaining wall while at the same time pivoting his head to gauge the threat. Near the air conditioning unit his attacker sprawled face-first on the roof. He lifted his silenced Makarov—he had placed it between his feet for easy access—and as the attacker rolled and began to rise, Nikolai turned in a crouch and squeezed off a shot.
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