The Russian Endgame

by Allan Topol

  He didn’t want to spoil her celebration, but he had to tell her about what he had learned from Betty this morning.

  He waited until they were sipping espresso. Then he decided to wade in, “I was thinking,” he said.

  “Here you go again about General Zhou.”

  “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “Your face gets a certain expression and your voice has an edge.”

  She was frowning. She reached across the table and put her hand on his. “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. If only…”

  Craig interrupted. “You can forget about all that. We now have a way of catching Zhou and making him pay for what he did in Spain. And to Francesca.” Craig sounded excited.

  “What happened?”

  “Betty came through. I have a precise location in Bali for Zhou and Androshka. All we have to do is build the case against him, take it to the Spanish Prime Minister, and have him seek extradition from the Indonesia government. In Spain, General Zhou will stand trial for conspiracy and murder for the death of all the Spaniards who died in Musa Ben Abdil’s war in Southern Spain.”

  Elizabeth wrinkled up her nose. He recognized that as a good sign. It meant she was willing to help him, rather than telling him to forget Zhou. She, too, must believe they now had a chance.

  “How do you intend to build your case?” she asked.

  “By using you as a witness to implicate Zhou in planning the attack on Southern Spain.”

  “But what can I testify?”

  “You overheard conversations between Zhou and Musa Ben Abdil. Didn’t you?”

  She shook her head. “It won’t fly. Nothing I heard directly involves Zhou in the attack.”

  “You were with me in Morocco when we saw Chinese instructors training Musa Ben Abdil’s troops.”

  “Correct. But we don’t have evidence General Zhou sent them.”

  Craig’s spirits sagged. “You know how to deflate a boy’s balloon.”

  “Look, I’m happy to give it a try. Just the fact that Zhou was in the house with Musa Ben Abdil and that he held me as a captive until you worked out the exchange for Androshka may be enough to build a case that he was co-conspirator.”

  “Good. Let’s do it.”

  She held up her hand. “Whoa boy, there might be another way.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s the status of General Alvarez, the former Spanish Defense Minister?”

  “Carlos called yesterday from Madrid. Carlos was formally appointed Defense Minister. He’s no longer Acting Minister. I asked him about Alvarez. He said the Argentine government approved Spain’s extradition request. Spanish agents were in Buenos Aires to fly him back to Madrid. He should be arriving later today.”

  “What are they charging him with?”

  “That he gave the order to move Spanish troops from the south to the north right before the attack. And he received a large amount of money for doing it. That makes him a co-conspirator. He could be charged with the murder of all the people who died.” Craig was warming to her suggestion. “We don’t know how directly Alvarez was involved with General Zhou. If he was, then Alvarez’s testimony could give us what we need to build the case against General Zhou.”

  “Alvarez hates you. Persuading him to tell you about General Zhou’s involvement won’t be easy.”

  Craig finished his espresso while thinking about what she had said. “I’m sure Carlos will give me the freedom I need to interrogate Alvarez. With that I’ll make him cough up enough of the story.”

  “I’m glad I’m not Alvarez.”

  Craig barely heard what she had said. He was planning logistics in his mind. “I’ll call Carlos and set it up. You want to fly to Madrid with me this afternoon?”

  “You’re damn right. I have my own score to settle with those bastards who locked me up in the dungeon in Marbella, planning to rape and kill me.”

  Madrid

  Notwithstanding General Alvarez’s arrest in Argentina and his extradition to Spain, Craig didn’t expect Alvarez to look beaten down and despondent. And Craig was right. When four Spanish soldiers led Alvarez into the interrogation room, the former powerful Defense Minister was dressed in prison blues and his wrists were cuffed behind his back. But he had the same arrogant, haughty expression Craig had seen on his face each time they had met, beginning with their initial encounter prior to the Spanish train bombing. Today, it was accompanied with a look of defiance.

  This won’t be easy, Craig thought.

  Craig, Carlos, and Elizabeth were seated along one side of the battered wooden table. According to the prearranged plan, the soldiers forced Alvarez into a chair on the other side.

  “Take off the handcuffs,” Alvarez barked to one of the soldiers.

  He didn’t respond. Instead the four soldiers left the room. “What is the purpose of this gathering?” Alvarez asked.

  Carlos said, “We want to question you about your role in the events leading to the attack in Southern Spain.”

  Alvarez was sneering. “I understand you managed to get my job, you despicable little worm.”

  Carlos showed no emotion. Craig, who wanted to smack Alvarez, admired Carlos’ self-control. Carlos reached into his briefcase, removed a recorder, and placed it on the table. He didn’t press the start button. “Craig will begin the questioning,” Carlos said.

  “I don’t care who begins it. I have nothing to say.”

  “Are you certain of that?” Carlos asked.

  “Yes. Very certain.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Carlos replied. He nodded to Elizabeth. She and Carlos stood and exited the room.

  “Where are you going?” Alvarez called after them.

  Neither responded.

  For the next two minutes, neither Craig nor Alvarez said a word. The former Defense Minister was shooting poison darts at Craig with his eyes.

  Then the door opened. A man wearing a suit and tie and carrying a black leather doctor’s bag entered. He was Philippe, the Director of the Science and Medical Section of Craig’s counterterrorism agency.

  Philippe put the bag down on the table. Calmly, with quiet efficiency, he removed a syringe with a long needle at the end, then a liter bottle with a clear liquid. In an instant, Alvarez’s expression changed. The swagger was gone. He now looked worried. “What is this?” he demanded.

  Craig replied, “We can do this interrogation the easy way or the hard. Either you answer my questions voluntarily or…”

  Craig paused for a minute, letting his words sink in, while watching Alvarez squirm in his chair. “Or my associate will inject you with increasingly larger doses of a substance which will work on the nerve junctions in your body. Do you know what nerve junctions are?”

  Alvarez shook his head.

  “That’s where bundles of nerves come together. You’ll feel excruciating pain. More pain than you’ve ever experienced. And I will tell my colleague to increase the dose until you answer my questions. Traces of the chemical will disappear rapidly from your body. If you die, and you may hope for that, even a skilled medical examiner will conclude it was due to a spontaneous heart attack.”

  Alvarez pulled back in his chair, a terrified expression on his face. He let out a blood curdling scream. “Help… help… help!”

  “No point dong that,” Craig said. “No one can hear you. I asked Carlos to select a soundproof room.”

  Alvarez sprang out of his chair, to a standing position. Craig immediately pushed him back down.

  “You won’t get away with this,” Alvarez shouted.

  Craig laughed. “Do you really believe that? You are now hated by the entire Spanish nation. Your powerful friends will have nothing to do with you.” Craig turned to Philippe. “Full body restraints.”

  Philippe reached into his bag and pulled out two rubber straps. He hooked one around Alvarez’s chest, tying him to the chair, and the other around his legs. Alvarez was now locked in place.

  “Skip the lowest dosage,” C
raig said to Philippe. “Begin at the mid level.”

  “The pain may be too much for him to bear.”

  “I don’t care. He’s scum. If his heart gives out, it means nothing to me.”

  “No,” Alvarez pleaded. “No. Don’t do this.”

  Philippe rolled up the sleeve on the right arm of Alvarez’s blue shirt. He poured liquid into the syringe, picked up the needle, and approached Alvarez.

  “No,” Alvarez cried out.

  Perspiration was dotting his forehead, running down the sides of his face, wetting his mustache. Craig saw that his shirt was wet under the arms.

  “No. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  “Hold up.” Craig said to Philippe. “We’ll give him a chance. Personally, I doubt if he’ll answer my questions so be ready to shoot him up.”

  Philippe moved away and sat down. Craig pressed the record button on Carlos’s machine. Then Craig gave today’s date and the place, Madrid, Spain. He continued. “This is an interrogation of former Defense Minister General Alvarez being conducted by Craig Page. General Alvarez has voluntarily agreed to answer my questions. Is that correct, General Alvarez?”

  Craig was staring at Alvarez.

  “Yes,” Alvarez said softly.

  “Please speak louder. I want to make sure the recorder picks up your words.”

  “Yes,” Alvarez replied in a louder voice.

  “When did you first meet General Zhou?”

  “Saturday, March 21. This year.”

  “And the occasion?”

  “General Zhou invited me to his house in Cap d’Antibes in the south of France.”

  “What did you discuss?”

  “He offered to make a payment to me of ten million euros if I agreed to provide China with an opportunity to compete for a Spanish Air Force order of planes.”

  “And did you accept his offer?”

  Alvarez hesitated. Didn’t respond.

  Craig pressed the off button on the recorder and pointed to Philippe who picked up the needle.

  “Give him an injection,” Craig said, sounding exasperated.

  Alvarez looked ready to cry. Craig noticed his pants were wet in front, liquid dripping from his chair onto the floor.

  “No. I’ll answer,” Alvarez stammered.

  Craig pressed the play button and repeated the question.

  “Yes,” Alvarez answered in a soft voice.

  “Louder,” Craig said. “The recorder has to get it.”

  “Yes,” Alvarez repeated in a louder voice.

  “Did you receive the payment?”

  “It was deposited into a Singapore bank account in my name.”

  “What else happened at that meeting?”

  “General Zhou’s girlfriend, Androshka, had a friend named Masha in the house. Masha and I spent time together.”

  “So General Zhou provided a woman for you for sex in addition to paying you money?”

  “Correct,” he mumbled.

  “Speak up,” Craig said.

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “When was the next time you saw or spoke with General Zhou?”

  “The following day, Sunday. I was in Paris for a meeting of EU Defense Ministers. Afterwards, I went to his apartment. I had dinner with him and Androshka. And Masha.”

  Craig was confident he knew what meeting Alvarez was talking about. But he had to nail it down. “That was the meeting at which I urged the EU Defense Ministers to take action against Musa Ben Abdil in Morocco. And you argued successfully against it. Am I correct?”

  “Others were against it as well.” Alvarez’s tone was hostile.

  “Did you report to General Zhou what happened at that meeting?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you tell him that I named a young French woman, Lila, as a witness who identified the voice of the perpetrator of the Spanish train bombing?”

  “Yes,” he muttered.

  “Are you aware that Lila was savagely murdered shortly after that meeting?”

  “I read something about it.”

  “Then you realize that you are responsible for her murder?”

  Craig had never expected to establish responsibility for Lila’s murder today, but it was now perfectly clear.

  “I deny that,” Alvarez said.

  “But you told General Zhou. And he told Musa Ben Abdil.”

  “I don’t know who General Zhou told.”

  Craig didn’t take issue with that. He moved on. “When was your next meeting with General Zhou?”

  “Saturday, March 27th. He summoned me to a meeting at Parque de Retiro in Madrid at seven in the morning.”

  “What happened there?”

  “He threatened to disclose that I took a bribe in connection with the airplane purchase order unless I—bastard had made a secret tape at Cap d’Antibes…” Alvarez was growing red in the face.

  “Unless you what?”

  “Unless I agreed to move troops from Southern Spain to the north.”

  “Why did he want you to do that?”

  “He told me to say I had learned of a Basque threat in the north.”

  “Had you?”

  Alvarez looked away. “No.”

  “What did you understand to be his real motive?

  “I didn’t know.”

  “But you ran away from Spain to Argentina. So you must have known he was involved in a plan to launch an attack on Southern Spain.”

  “I went on vacation.”

  “The Defense Ministry travel office has told us you didn’t make your plans until that morning. My advice is that you don’t use the vacation lie in front of a judge. He’ll never believe you.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Let me ask you this. In hindsight, do you believe that General Zhou wanted you to move the troops to the north to facilitate Musa Ben Abdil’s attack in the south?”

  Alvarez didn’t respond.

  “What’s the point of covering for General Zhou? When it all turned to shit, he let you swing. Made no effort to protect you. Hung you out there alone in Argentina while he escaped.”

  Craig sensed that Alvarez was close to turning on General Zhou, but he wasn’t quite there.

  Time for the carrot, Craig decided. He turned off the machine.

  “If you give me what I want, what I need to nail General Zhou, I will tell the prosecutor that you cooperated. I’m certain he’ll take that into account in deciding how aggressive to be in proposing your punishment.”

  Alvarez blinked his eyes. “Okay. Repeat the question.”

  Craig did. And then he turned back on the recorder.

  Alvarez took a deep breath and said, “I believe that scheming bastard General Zhou concocted the bribery for the airplane purchase to get me hooked so he could later use that to blackmail me and secure the troop movement. He had this whole thing orchestrated from the get go. I fell right into his trap.” Alvarez paused for a moment, then added, “Truth is, General Zhou is as guilty in all of this as Musa Ben Abdil. By getting me to move our troops from the south to the north, he was facilitating the attack.”

  Craig had gotten exactly what he hoped for. He wanted to shout, “Yes!” but he remained still. Amazing what can be accomplished with water in a syringe.

  Craig followed Elizabeth and Carlos into the office of Spanish Prime Minister Zahara. Standing next to the Prime Minister’s desk was a tall, thin, baldheaded man with wire frame glasses who Craig recognized as Justice Minister Garcia.

  Zahara immediately took charge. He walked over to his desk and picked up one of three burgundy boxes. With a dramatic gesture, he opened it and removed a gold medal suspended by a purple ribbon. Zahara held it in front of Craig so he could read the inscription: “With gratitude from the Spanish people.” Zahara hung it around Craig’s neck then kissed him on each cheek.

  Craig was deeply touched. He recalled a similar ceremony in the Oval Office when President Brewster presented him with the Medal of Freedom for stopping a terror
ist attack in Madison Square Garden when it was filled to capacity for a Knicks game. At that ceremony, Craig was accompanied by his beautiful and talented daughter Francesca. Then a second time when Brewster presented the Medal to him as well as Elizabeth and Francesca, posthumously, she wasn’t there because General Zhou was responsible for her murder. Thinking about her intensified Craig’s hatred for Zhou.

  Zahara returned to his desk, picked up a second box, and repeated the presentation to Elizabeth, who had worked with Craig in exposing and defeating the plot by Musa Ben Abdil and the general against the Spanish nation. Craig saw tears in her eyes. Zahara’s presentation was sincere and unexpected. He was confident Elizabeth was as startled as he was.

  Zahara then presented the third metal to Carlos.

  Afterwards, the Spanish Prime Minister said, “If it weren’t for the three of you, I believe that we would have lost control of the southern portion of our country to the man calling himself Musa Ben Abdil and his co-conspirators.”

  Craig said, “I’m rarely speechless, Mr. Prime Minister, but I cannot think of adequate words to express my appreciation.”

  After Elizabeth and Carlos added their own thanks, Zahara pointed to the conference table in the corner of the large office. While the others settled in, Zahara returned to his desk and picked up what Craig recognized as the transcript of Craig’s interrogation of Alvarez.

  Clutching it tightly, Zahara took a seat at the head of the table. Craig recalled the first time he had been seated at this table. Hard to believe it was only seven months ago when he and Elizabeth had been summoned from Paris by Zahara to provide advice to the Spanish Prime Minister about how to deal with the threat of a train bombing planned by Musa Ben Abdil. That had been the opening salvo in Musa’s effort to reestablish Muslim control over a portion of Southern Spain.

  While Justice Minister Garcia pulled the transcript out of his

  briefcase, Zahara slammed his copy down on the table. He looked squarely at Garcia. “I’m so furious at Alvarez. I want him to get the maximum punishment. The death penalty.”