The Children's Game

by Max Karpov

  NINETEEN

  Washington.

  The announcement came just after 7:30 a.m., 2:30 in the afternoon, Moscow time. Anna held out her phone to Chris over a plate of half-eaten scrambled eggs, hash browns, buttered toast. They were at a window booth in the Pancake House on Wisconsin Avenue, the windows fogged from air conditioning. The Breaking News banner reduced it to two words: PUTIN ALIVE.

  The story began about as he had expected—“Russian President Vladimir Putin was not on board the presidential plane that was shot down Friday over Ukraine . . . The Kremlin is now calling the attack ‘a brazen but failed assassination attempt carried out by the West.’”

  “‘Brazen’ being the code word for United States?” Anna said.

  “Evidently,” Chris said, scrolling through the article. “The Kremlin has confirmed that twenty-six people died in the attack . . .” Chris skimmed through the official condolences, looking for the next part, the part he hadn’t expected so quickly: “Russian military intelligence officers have captured a missile launcher that they say was used in the attack and have detained three soldiers in eastern Ukraine near Donetsk. Two of the men are believed to be Ukrainian nationals and a third is Estonian. The Estonian was a former member of KaPo, Estonia’s Internal Security Service.

  “One of the three men has been identified as Mikhail Kolchak, an official of the SBU, Ukraine’s intelligence service.”

  Too fast, Chris thought. Just what Anna had said. This is coming too fast.

  “You see what they’ve done,” she said, taking her phone back. “They’ve just indirectly blamed Ukraine and Estonia.”

  “Not so indirectly.”

  “They’ve established justification for retaliatory strikes on those countries.”

  Chris said nothing. This was unfolding like the programmed moves in a game whose outcome had already been determined. A deception that no one in Washington had seen coming. Not because it was too big, but because it was too small. It was what Martin had warned of on Tuesday in Greece: I think they’re planning something else entirely. Something we’re not even considering.

  “This is what Turov does,” he said. “It wasn’t an attack on Putin, it was an attack on the United States.”

  “Disguised as an attack on Russia.”

  “Yes. And yesterday was just the opening salvo. The real attack is what’s happening now. This story they’re telling that the media’s unwittingly repeating.” Christopher glanced around the restaurant, thinking of his conversation with Martin yesterday. Diplomatically, Washington was going through the motions, saying the right things—offering “thoughts and prayers” for the victims, reacting almost as if Russia were a brother nation, not the country it had been punishing with sanctions for years. But at the same time, the stories that the US caused the attack were spreading faster than Washington could keep up with, making the administration’s efforts at statesmanship seem like a grand hypocrisy. This would become the official line now from Moscow, he knew: two Ukrainians and an Estonian had carried out the August 13 attack. With support from the Ukrainian military, and the US.

  If the attack on the president’s plane was the second move in a four-move game, then maybe this, the disinformation campaign, is the third. But what was the first move?

  “What are you thinking?” Anna said, reaching for his hand. “You’re a mile away.”

  “At least.”

  “I was being conservative.”

  “I have that effect on people.” He waited for her smile, which took slightly longer than expected. “Sorry,” he said.

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m just thinking: if someone from our side was involved in this, did they think the president was on board the plane? Or did they know he wasn’t?”

  “That’s a strange thought,” Anna said. “Why would you think someone from our side is involved?”

  “I don’t. I’m just speculating. Something Max Petrenko said. I’m just worried there may be another part to this I’m not seeing. Which would make our job harder.”

  “Someone from our side—meaning inside the government?”

  Christopher shrugged. “Or someone with access to the government. A spy in the house—it’s a phrase Turov uses. I’m just considering all options. And probably getting ahead of myself.”

  “More coffee?” the waitress asked.

  Chris turned and smiled. “Please,” he said.

  Anna went back to her phone as the waitress topped off his cup.

  “Look at this,” Anna said, after she’d walked away. It was a clip of Russia’s assistant foreign minister, saying, in English: “America has finally crossed the line. These are very desperate people. They’ve been trying to destroy Russia for twenty-five years. Remember, Hitler wanted to destroy Russia. Napoleon: the same. We shouldn’t forget what happened to them.”

  “I recognize the Hitler line,” Anna said.

  Yes. They were the words Putin had used in his War Day speech several years ago, comparing the West to Nazi Germany. Tough words, but considered irrelevant bluster at the time.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, handing back her phone.

  “I’m thinking what I told you yesterday,” Anna said. “That despite everything, they’ve given us an opportunity. It’s up to us what we do about it.”

  Chris liked that, as he did the intensity and openness in Anna’s face. Before she could explain, though, his phone buzzed. It was Jake Briggs.

  He took the call as he walked outside. It was warm on the sidewalk, a scent of auto exhaust in the air, sharp glares of sunlight among the buildings and windshields. He had a tender feeling turning and seeing Anna through the glass, looking down at her phone attentively as Briggs talked; Briggs so pumped up about Putin and Delkoff that it didn’t seem to matter if anyone was on the other end.

  Anna had eaten maybe a quarter piece of toast while he was gone. “Briggs,” he said. “He’s at the airport already, an hour and a half early. He wants to see me ASAP.”

  “Why?”

  “He just heard the news. He wouldn’t say anything else. Just that he needs to talk before Martin Lindgren arrives. You want to drive me?”

  “Let’s go.”

  TWENTY

  Dulles International Airport. Northern Virginia.

  Jake Briggs was pacing the conference room in that stiff, slightly side-to-side way he had, as if his legs were wooden poles. He wore a black T-shirt, cargo pants, and work boots, and held a Starbucks cup in his left hand. Briggs had been a wrestling champ in school and still carried himself like one. A muscled five foot six, he’d been state high school champion at 170 pounds and wrestled 174 in college. Before he’d found wrestling, he once told Chris, people used to pick on him. It was hard to imagine.

  His dark eyes turned as Chris entered the room and his faintly pockmarked face creased into a familiar smile. His skin had a natural dirty tint, as if he’d been working in a field.

  “Professor.”

  “Jacob.”

  Briggs gave him a hard handshake and quick man-hug. “Like the specs,” he said.

  “Thanks.” They sat at one end of the conference table. Martin Lindgren had rented the room for their ten o’clock, but Briggs was already at work, his laptop opened, papers spread out. Meeting Briggs could be like encountering an old obsession, Chris thought: realizing that he hadn’t really gotten past the obsession, he’d just set it aside.

  Anna, who’d come to see him off, went for coffee while they talked. Briggs didn’t particularly like Anna, and she was okay with that. It wasn’t just the obvious differences—Briggs was a soldier, Anna a politician and diplomat; Anna had been raised Catholic, Briggs was an atheist. There was also something that caught in their personalities—his, mostly—that prevented them from meeting halfway.

  Briggs nodded at his PC: the video clip of the Russian minister making his Hitler comparison. “They’re hammering us, aren’t they?” he said. “War bait.”

  “Maybe.”

&
nbsp; “I see they’re reporting an Estonian and two Ukrainians. No mention of Delkoff, though.”

  “Not yet.”

  “It means he’s still alive.”

  Christopher nodded. He’d been thinking the same: Delkoff could only be a part of the story Russia was circulating if he was dead.

  Briggs was looking at him pointedly, as if Chris knew what he was thinking.

  “What.”

  “You knew, didn’t you? When you called me yesterday, you already knew. You knew Putin wasn’t on that plane.”

  Christopher shrugged and nodded. “Speculation.”

  “How?”

  “Because. I know who did this,” Chris said. “I don’t know all the specifics yet or where it’s going exactly. But I know who did this.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I need you to help me get to him. I think we can do that through Ivan Delkoff. He’s going to be our point of entry. That’s why I need you.”

  Briggs rubbed his hands together, watching Chris appraisingly. “Okay, professor,” he said. “And so why aren’t you in the Oval Office right now, telling the president all this?”

  “Because the White House has their own idea about who did it. Russia Ops has three names now and a theory, tying it to Ukrainian intelligence. They’ve already made up their minds. They’re not particularly interested in contradictory facts. And, besides,” he added, “even if I told them, and they believed me, I suspect they’d handle it wrong.”

  This drew Briggs’s second smile of the morning, a huge one.

  Christopher gave him a cursory biography of Andrei Turov as they waited for Martin: how he’d come up through the FSB and earned a prominent place early in the president’s inner circle, then built a private security business in Moscow while continuing to work in the shadows for the Kremlin.

  Briggs watched him intently, drawing it all in, saving his questions. When Christopher finished, Briggs shared what he’d learned about Delkoff. Like Anna’s son, Briggs worked with offline and dark-web databases, sources Christopher couldn’t access. He also had a unique ability to hack into the thought processes of the people he was pursuing. Chris was amazed by how much he’d already learned about Delkoff in a few hours. But then Briggs was one of those people who would wrestle with an assignment if you gave him two months, but transform into a superhero if he only had a couple days.

  “So, assuming Delkoff’s alive,” Chris said. “Where is he?”

  “Lindgren is going to tell us Belarus. I’m fairly certain of that. Gomel, Belarus, is where his trail will lead. He has family there, an ex-girlfriend. Maybe an estranged daughter. He knows some ex-military there. Russian patriots, who’d hide him if he asked.”

  “But Belarus isn’t where he is.”

  “No,” Briggs said with that certainty of tone that rubbed some people wrong. He moved several papers on the table. “He also has a cousin who used to live in Gomel. Dmitri Porchak. Former Belarus state security. Retired now, living in northern France. He may be—or may have been—involved in drug trafficking. Little Dmitri, he was called. He was fairly close with Delkoff at one time. Dmitri’s ex-wife’s family has relatives scattered along the French coast. It’s a region Delkoff has probably visited a few times, too. That’s where he’s going to be.”

  “France.”

  “Yes.”

  Chris studied him. “Has there been some recent contact, then, between Delkoff and this cousin?”

  “No,” Briggs said. “None that I can find.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s why I think his cousin’s helping him. I think they set this up some months ago, and he’s deliberately distancing himself so no one will look at that. He probably left a false trail back to Gomel.”

  “All right.” Briggs liked to place his chips on a single number, Chris knew, and he wasn’t always correct; but he gambled with such certainty that people tended not to question him. He had a good feeling about Briggs on this one, though. And he also liked the fact that Briggs spoke French. “So, northern France?”

  Briggs opened a folder and pulled out a black-and-white map. “In here is where Dmitri’s wife’s family lives. The Opal Coast. They have several properties here. I kind of have it narrowed down to three or four spots—probabilities. I’m still working it.”

  “You don’t think the Kremlin will know this?”

  “They might. But first they’re going to look at Gomel and the Moscow suburbs. Of course, the sooner we get started, the better chance we have of beating them.”

  “And what if we’re wrong?”

  Briggs shifted his eyes to the corridor. He didn’t look at Christopher again right away. “Then we keep monitoring the intel,” he said. “I’m just saying, that’s where I’d go. We’re doing this as a drug deal, right?” Chris nodded, recalling Briggs’s term for a small-scale black op. “I mean, I’d like to do it as an extraction, as I told you. But you’re not going there.”

  “We’re not, no,” Chris said. An extraction would mean approvals and knowledge up the chain of command, involving NSC, DNI, and the White House. It wasn’t that type of operation.

  “The sixty billion boys won’t go for that, I know,” Briggs said, an edge in his voice; sixty billion being an approximation of what the government spent each year on intelligence.

  “No, and Martin won’t, either. It’s got to be cleaner than that,” Chris said.

  “Okay, gotcha.” Briggs kept his eyes down, trying to show some humility, which came across as slightly comical. In fact, Chris wanted to bypass the IC as much as possible. He’d been handed a budget and an objective, but beyond that, the details were up to him. Both he and Briggs were independent contractors. Meaning that if they went to France, they wouldn’t bring in the French intelligence service, the DGSE. It wasn’t that kind of mission.

  “And if you do find him, you think Delkoff will talk with you?” Chris said.

  “Sure. Because he has a motive now. Yesterday, Delkoff thought he’d killed the president of Russia and gotten away with it, right? Today he realizes the president is alive and he’s been set up. There’s a lot of motivation in that picture, I’d say.” Briggs scratched his shoulder and nodded at something in the corridor. “Is that him?”

  Chris saw where he was looking: Martin Lindgren’s clipped, urgent walk, a thin leather briefcase flapping off his leg.

  “Just don’t say anything that’s going to get under his skin,” Christopher said.

  Briggs showed a pained look that contained a trace of amusement. “Me?”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Martin Lindgren’s assessment was much as Briggs had predicted: Ivan Delkoff had probably gone to ground in Gomel or Minsk, Belarus, where he had family and friends. “The intel shows that’s where he is, although we don’t know precisely where.”

  It was more than informed speculation. There were also surveillance images: grainy printouts of a man standing on a train platform with a duffel bag. “That’s Delkoff,” Martin said. “ID’d by facial recog at the Minsk railway station.”

  Martin spoke mostly to Christopher as he described the intel findings, glancing several times at Briggs. Briggs sat expressionless, listening, palms flat on the table. Chris handed him the photos and he examined them quickly and gave them back.

  “We need to check face recog through de Gaulle, as well,” Briggs said to Chris when Martin had finished. “That would be a tremendous help.”

  Martin looked to Christopher for clarification.

  “We don’t think he’s in Belarus any longer,” Chris said.

  “Although this would seem to be pretty good evidence that he was.”

  “Right. Was,” Briggs said.

  “We think he’s probably in France,” Chris said. “Although naturally we wouldn’t want that to leave this room.”

  Chris nodded to Briggs and Briggs began to explain his theory to Martin, keeping his eyes on the table. He repeated the scenario he’d given Chris, except his tone was a little different,
a mix of detachment and irritability. It wasn’t because of Martin, it was because of what Martin represented; it was as if he were talking to the Agency itself.

  He’ll go along with this, Chris sensed as Briggs wrapped up. He could feel his former boss warming slowly to the former Navy SEAL.

  “It all turns on motivation,” Briggs said. “Delkoff wouldn’t have done this for money or recognition. He did it for history. His dislike of the United States was never personal. But his vendetta against Turov now probably is.”

  “Still, we’re going to have to offer him something,” Chris said.

  Martin glanced at Briggs. “Figure out what he wants. We’ll build a supplementary budget.”

  “And arrange for a flight to bring him in?” Briggs said.

  Martin closed and opened his eyes. They’d already budgeted for it, Chris could see. “But how exactly does this relate to what you’re doing?” he asked Chris.

  “Ideally, the parts fit together. What Delkoff gives us I then take to Turov and use as leverage. It creates incentive for us to deal. That’s our Plan A, anyway.”

  “What’s B?”

  “We don’t have one yet.”

  Briggs lifted his chin in assent, about an inch too high. Lindgren cleared his throat. Christopher knew he shouldn’t have let the conversation go this way. “And if he doesn’t cooperate,” Briggs said, “if he refuses to talk, we take him out.”

  Martin glanced at Christopher, the frown deepening.

  “He’s just messing with us,” Chris said and smiled, figuring the “us” might soften Briggs’s offense. He didn’t want them to seem like a pair of cowboys, although that was probably how they appeared. “Anyway,” he added, “it won’t come to that.”