The Children's Game

by Max Karpov

  Martin Lindgren placed the new Weekly American magazine on Anna’s desk and sat. “AUGUST 13” stretched across the bottom of the cover, below ominous clouds of dark smoke. The suggestion that August 13 was a date that would live in infamy, as December 7 had for her grandparents’ generation or September 11 had for hers, was unsettling. And presumptuous.

  “Have you seen that?” Martin said.

  “No, I hadn’t.” She studied the cover momentarily and set it down. She could see from his expression that Martin hadn’t come here to show her a magazine. “What is it?”

  “Something happened in France last night,” he said. “Big setback.”

  Anna felt her heart lift in her chest. “Christopher?”

  “No. Briggs.”

  “What happened?”

  “Ivan Delkoff,” he said. “He was gunned down on the coast of France overnight.”

  “Gunned down.” Anna didn’t know all the details of Christopher’s operation, but she knew that Delkoff was at the heart of it.

  “Broad daylight in France,” Martin said. “He’d just met with Jake Briggs. Evidently, they were about to strike a deal. Two other men were also killed—a security guard and Delkoff’s cousin Dmitri Porchak.”

  “What happened? Who was—?”

  “Freelancers working with the SVR, probably,” he said. “We don’t know a lot. It’s being handled by French secret services right now. The house where he was staying was ransacked, computers and phones taken. Russia wants the body back. Naturally, they’re accusing us, saying we did it as a cover-up, although nothing’s out publicly yet, thank God. Christopher knows. I communicated with him earlier.”

  Anna was speechless. She was also stunned that Martin would be telling her about it. “And Briggs—?”

  “I spoke with Jacob Briggs, too,” Martin said. “He’s all right. Physically. Although he’s stuck on the idea that his mission was somehow compromised. Or sabotaged.”

  “Well, obviously,” Anna said.

  “No. He means by us.” Martin drew in a deep breath. “He thinks it was someone internally, in the intel community, who led him there and then set him up.”

  “Tell me he’s wrong,” she said.

  “He’s wrong. Of course, he’s wrong. This was nothing more than what Chris said it was: an operation to find and talk with two Russians. Unfortunately, it’s suddenly become much more complicated. Briggs is on a flight to Moscow now. At Chris’s request. But there may be a saving grace in all this,” he added. “That’s why I came to see you.”

  He opened his case and took out a document. “Delkoff left something behind,” he said. “It was on a flash drive that he gave to Briggs. It’s been translated. There’s another encrypted file we haven’t been able to break. But this one’s pretty telling. Have a look.”

  Anna reached for it. “August 13. A Declaration. By Ivan Delkoff.” She began to read. The writing was slightly garbled in places because of the translation, but the message was clear. The document succinctly detailed the lead-up to August 13, beginning with a spring meeting in a residential neighborhood of Moscow, at which Turov hired GRU Colonel Ivan Delkoff to carry out the assassination. Over the summer, it went on, Delkoff trained a small team—men named Zelenko, Pletner, Kolchak, Kravchenko, Tamm—and negotiated with an agent of businessman Dmitro Hordiyenko to purchase a Buk surface-to-air missile battalion. His “Declaration” gave specifics about when the missiles had been transferred and where they had been stored. It ended with a dramatic two-page first-person account of the attack itself. I felt enormous pride that the mission to reclaim the Motherland had been achieved, Delkoff wrote. I did not know yet that I had been a victim of a grand deception. A deception not only by Andrei Turov. But also by our president. I am writing this so the World will know the crime this regime has perpetrated.

  Incredible, Anna thought. The document felt both selfless and self-serving, the parting shot of a patriot defending Russia with all he had left, hoping that his words could do what the missiles had failed to do. This verified Christopher’s suspicions about Turov, then. Suspicions the IC had rejected years earlier. This would also blow Russia’s story apart. And the White House’s version, as well, Anna mused.

  She looked up at Martin Lindgren. “This is our proof, then?”

  “Well, yes,” he said. “With one obvious problem.”

  “Delkoff’s credibility.”

  “That’s right. As I say, we’re hoping there’ll be more. But that’s what we have to work with. Unfortunately, the idea that we did this is escalating faster than expected. There are protests planned for the weekend that are going to make the Occupy movement look like child’s play.”

  “And make it easier for Russia to justify retaliation.”

  Martin nodded. “Obviously, they’ll say we fabricated this. Our own credibility is becoming a problem now.”

  Anna read through the document again, imagining how it would play in the world media. How it might change the narrative about Friday’s attack, the stories portraying the United States as a lawless kleptocracy. But would the public believe it? “Who else has seen this?” Anna asked.

  “Right now, just Briggs and Chris. That’s all. You, me, Briggs, Chris.”

  Anna stared at him in disbelief. “The president hasn’t seen it?”

  “Not yet, no.” Martin’s expression took on a detached indifference. “Christopher asked me to wait another twenty hours. I’m going to honor that. This is still Chris’s op. I can’t jeopardize that until I know he’s safe.”

  “Okay.”

  “The other reason,” he added, “is that the White House has its own theory about what happened. I don’t think I could change their minds if I wanted to.”

  “The idea that this was internal, a coup attempt,” Anna said, thinking of her Oval Office meeting.

  “Yes,” he said. “They’re trying hard to inflate that. And there’s a story about the plane’s pilot now, too.” Anna nodded. “You’ve heard it. So. I’m going to keep this dark until we hear back from Chris. Until we know he’s out of harm’s way. Then I’ll take it to the president.”

  Anna felt her heart clutch. Harm’s way.

  But then she sensed what Martin was really telling her. “You’re saying he’s made contact with Turov, then?”

  Martin’s eyes closed affirmatively, the way other people would nod. “They’re meeting tomorrow. For obvious reasons, he doesn’t want any of this out before then. He’s afraid that if the White House has it, the NSC will have it, and the press will have it. I’m honoring that.”

  “But I don’t get it—why share this with me, then?”

  “Because Chris asked me to. And he wants you to share it with his brother, too. Not for publication. Not until we hear back, anyway. But he wants his brother to know about this.”

  Anna reread the opening of Delkoff’s statement, feeling touched that Christopher would want to share it with Jon. “Obviously, I can’t go on television tonight, then, and talk about it.”

  “Not about this, no. But you can go on television. We need to keep a conversation going, Anna, to do everything we can to slow down this Russia story.”

  “All right.” Anna felt a surge of apprehension, recalling what the president had shared with her, the “threat” of a nuclear strike in the Baltics. “I was tempted to ask the president about Turov,” she said. “I’m glad now that I didn’t.”

  “Let’s wait and see what happens tomorrow.” He stood then, not letting it get any more personal. But Anna felt the ties of their team tightening a little.

  Once Martin left, she stared out the window at the atrium, sorting through what he’d told her. Still believing in the quaint idea that the truth counted for something, she swiveled around and pushed the number for Jonathan Niles’s cell phone. He was at his office, he told her.

  “I have something for you,” she said. “Can I come over and drop it off?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Anything new?” she as
ked. He sounded different, more abrupt, or maybe just distracted.

  “A couple of things. I met Strickland and—I’m just thinking about numbers,” Jon said.

  “Oh?”

  “Can’t really talk about it . . . Have you read my blog, by any chance?”

  “Not yet. Why?”

  “You should read it.”

  “I will.”

  FORTY

  Anna called up Jon Niles’s blog on her phone and read it on the way to the CNN studios in northeast D.C.

  The news today can be told in numbers. Over 75 percent of Russians now believe the US had a hand in shooting down the president’s plane on August 13, according to a new poll by Levada-Center, Russia’s largest independent polling organization. In Germany and France, it’s just over 45 percent, with 20 percent of those surveyed saying they don’t know. In the United States, 31 percent of respondents to a Gallup survey say they believe their country was either involved or had prior knowledge, with 30 percent saying they don’t know.

  And if that’s not worrisome enough, consider this: 67 percent of Russians say that their country would be justified in taking military action against NATO over the attack.

  But in Washington, the most troublesome number on Tuesday morning was three—as in, three more days. That’s the number some military officials were giving for how long it will be before Russia takes retaliatory action against Estonia and/or Ukraine. Three days is also how long military analysts say it could take for Russia to capture Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, one of the countries the Kremlin has accused of conspiring to assassinate Russia’s president. This isn’t just Russian saber-rattling, but a very real possibility, warns one US military official.

  But is it really? Other sources note that the Kremlin appears to be negotiating quietly with both Ukraine and Estonia, and even the United States, for what it really wants: a non-military solution to the standoff. What does that mean? The Kremlin is reportedly seeking a complicated agreement with the Estonian government that would include a “referendum clause.” Some analysts see this as Russian hocus-pocus, a first step in turning Estonia (and perhaps eastern Ukraine) into a Russian satellite.

  Could the future of Eastern Europe really be determined by what happens in the standoff over Estonia, a nation whose population is comparable to that of San Diego—and which most Americans couldn’t find on a map? How did we get to this point?

  By some accounts, it goes back to June, when a group of five US intelligence and military planners met to discuss strategies for dealing with Russia. The group was convened in response to intelligence showing that Russia was planning “a significant action” aimed at the United States, according to sources. In the course of the meeting, and several follow-ups, the possibility of a “preemptive” move against Russia was discussed. These talks were only “theoretical,” said one source. But Russian intelligence services have apparently made them the basis for a successful disinformation campaign accusing the United States . . .

  Anna looked up as they arrived at the CNN building on First Street. There were dozens of protestors outside, holding signs reading Murderers! and USA Kills! which had become rallying cries of the August 13 “movement.” How did the protests escalate so quickly?

  She finished Jon’s blog upstairs, waiting to go on air, pondering again what he had asked her earlier, at the Starbucks: If the story isn’t true, why hasn’t the administration come out and directly refuted it?

  “Senator Carpenter, thank you for joining us,” the interviewer, a youthful, intelligent-mannered blonde woman she’d never seen before, began. “This story about the August 13 attack continues to take some incredible new turns. There are reports now of a, quote, assassination committee and of a meeting in Kiev between a CIA official and a Ukrainian arms trader—”

  “Actually, there are no credible reports of either one,” Anna said. “I don’t believe the meeting you refer to in Kiev actually happened.”

  “You’re saying the meeting with this Ukrainian arms dealer never happened?”

  “That’s right. I think we have to be very careful what we call ‘reports’ and what’s simply Russian propaganda magnified—”

  “But with all due respect, Senator—you call this propaganda, but opinion polls around the world, including here in the United States, show that the public simply doesn’t believe that.”

  “I think those polls are measuring response to media coverage more than what’s actually happening,” Anna said, feeling an old twinge of frustration. “I think it’s up to us to pay close attention, and learn to differentiate between the stories Russia is spreading and the truth, which sometimes isn’t known. Particularly considering what’s at stake in the Baltic region right now.”

  “And who determines that?”

  “Who determines what—the truth?”

  “Yes.” It was a surprisingly good question, Anna thought; but rather than let her answer, the interviewer fumbled: “I mean—what is the truth, then, would you say, regarding August 13?”

  “Based on the intelligence we have? The truth is that this attack was planned in Russia and carried out by Russian and Ukrainian soldiers.”

  “With no US involvement or knowledge.”

  “That’s right.”

  This seemed to momentarily derail her train of questions. “And so. But why isn’t the president saying this directly?”

  “I don’t know. The president, as I understand it, is preparing to make a statement,” Anna said. “I believe he will say it directly. But right now, I’m saying it.”

  “And are you aware of the comment from the Secretary of State earlier today? That this may’ve been a Russian military coup? Is that what you meant, that it was planned in Russia?”

  “I can’t really respond to that,” she said, feeling a flicker of resentment toward Harland Strickland again and the president’s advisers who were pushing this agenda. “Except to say this: personally, I don’t believe it was a coup attempt.”

  “You don’t.” The interviewer’s eyes clouded over with confusion. “And what does that mean, exactly?” she said. “You don’t believe it was a military coup?”

  “It means I believe the attack was planned in Russia, as I say, with the sole intention of damaging US credibility, of making us look like what they are: an autocracy with no respect for the rule of law. But that doesn’t mean it was planned by the Russian military. I can’t say anything more specific right now. But the key point is we didn’t do this. End of story.”

  “And so, what can the United States do, Senator, as a member of NATO, to prevent this from escalating into war? And—a related question—wouldn’t an attack on a NATO country be considered an attack on us, according to the NATO charter?”

  “Yes.” Anna took a breath. “Obviously,” she said, “we’re concerned about Russia’s military ambitions in the region. But I think the evidence will clearly show that the governments of Ukraine and Estonia had nothing to do with the attack. And I would call on our partners in the world community to demand a truthful accounting. And to prevent any form of aggression there.”

  Anna wanted to say more. She wanted to say exactly what she now believed had happened: that a man named Andrei Turov had planned the attack, with the knowledge of the president of Russia. But she knew she couldn’t go public with that. She had to wait on Christopher. Already, she’d said too much. “Let me add this,” she said. “You ask about war. I think Russia already has launched a war. An asymmetric war on the truth. And that’s something we need to defend vigorously. All of us. The truth matters. And I think what we most need to do right now is mobilize an international army to defend it.”

  The interviewer seemed to like this and let it be her wrap-up before going to a commercial.

  Anna monitored the response online as she rode back to her Capitol Hill office. Most of it was positive. People liked that someone was finally speaking up and defending the country. “We Didn’t Do This—End of story!” read one headline. “The
Truth Matters,” read another; it struck Anna as sad that the US had come to a point where this argument had to be made.

  But the people within the administration who mattered the most weren’t so pleased. The president’s chief of staff left a message asking her to call ASAP. The CIA director called himself several minutes later, sounding terse in his message: “Would like to hear from you.” Anna understood: she’d been expected to repeat the administration’s talking point that the attack was a Russian coup attempt. And she’d done the opposite. She’d said she didn’t believe it.

  When she reached her office, Anna was surprised to find that her mother was among those who’d left messages. Before dealing with the CIA director or the White House, she decided to check in with her mom.

  “Honey, your father wants to talk with you,” Anna’s mother said, in her rich, reassuring voice. “He wants to congratulate you.”

  Anna didn’t believe her at first. Alzheimer’s disease had stolen her father’s ability to express himself. Anna braced herself as she glanced at the faded photo of him on her mantel, dressed in his general’s uniform twenty-some years earlier.

  “Annie?”

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  “You did a good job. We were watching you. Your mother and me. I’m proud of you.” His voice sounded a little distant but his diction was surprisingly sharp. “You said it just right. About the truth. I was watching with your mother. You defended your country nicely.”

  “Oh. Well, thank you, I didn’t expect you’d be watching.”

  “Of course, we were. Don’t give up. Keep doing what you’re doing, only more so.”

  “My gosh, thank you, Daddy.” Moments later, Anna’s father began to repeat himself and sound confused. She could hear her mother talking to him, trying to take the phone away. They’d spoken for less than three minutes, but the opening exchange had felt miraculous, like her father had reached back in time to pull out one of his old pep talks: Keep doing what you’re doing, only more so. Anna stood in front of her office window after saying goodbye, her eyes full of tears, recalling how her dad could make her day with a compliment, or send her into a deep funk with a criticism. As an only child, Anna had sometimes been the buffer between her father, a lifelong military man who had little patience with popular culture, and her sociable, homemaker mother, who seemed to have patience with everything. That was how she had first learned the art of diplomacy.