The Kremlin Conspiracy

  Elena had surveyed everyone’s schedules and desires. She had meticulously researched the best cruise lines, hunted for the best prices, and kept each family briefed on every detail. Now everything was set. Eight deluxe rooms had been reserved and paid for. Sixteen round-trip first-class tickets had been bought—funded, as promised, by Bill McDermott. Elena had even designed and ordered matching T-shirts for everyone declaring them part of “The Ryker Reunion Cruise” and created a special Facebook page where they could upload and share photos and journal their memories.

  Upon hearing the news that Marcus’s vacation leave had been canceled and that he was being ordered back to the White House immediately, Elena burst into tears. She didn’t want to hear about the president’s plans to head to Camp David for a crisis meeting with his national security team in less than an hour. She didn’t want to know that one of the agents on the PPD had been incapacitated with stomach flu and another had broken his ankle that afternoon in a training exercise. She wasn’t an insensitive person. She was as much a team player as any of the wives of any of the men on the detail. But there was a breaking point.

  “I don’t care that they need you,” Elena said through her tears. “I need you. Lars needs you. Call your supervisor back and tell him you can’t go.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” Marcus said calmly as he began changing into a suit and tie. “The president asked for me by name. I have to go.”

  “No, you don’t, Marcus. You asked for time off. They approved it. That’s it, end of story.”

  “Look, I know this is hard. And I’m sorry. But I took an oath.”

  At that, Elena lost it. “You made an oath to me first, Marcus Ryker.”

  She unleashed a torrent of pent-up resentment. She didn’t want to hear any more excuses or broken promises. If he loved her, he would pick up the phone, call the watch commander, insist he was taking his family on a long-planned and much-deserved vacation. If he really loved her, he would resign from the Secret Service altogether. Enough was enough. This wasn’t about the president. It was about their family. It was about their marriage, and it was time for him to choose.

  Marcus tried to hold her, but she would have none of it. When he said he’d call her in a few hours when she’d cooled down, she picked up an empty vase and heaved it at his head. It missed and smashed against the wall.

  Lars suddenly appeared in their bedroom doorway, ashen. Elena raced to his side and held him. “Lars and I are getting on that plane tomorrow,” she told Marcus, wiping her tears and trying her best to compose herself. “You’ll either be on the plane, or you won’t. It’s clearly too much to expect you to do anything to protect my feelings. But God help you, Marcus Ryker, if you won’t take your only son on a vacation you yourself promised in the first place.”

  The anger in Elena’s eyes was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. She did not wait for his reply. She scooped up Lars, took him back to his room, and slammed the door behind her. Marcus heard her turn the lock. He asked her to come back out and talk, but she refused. He waited for several minutes, but she continued to sob. Marcus couldn’t bear the thought of leaving like this. But glancing at his watch, he finally concluded he had to go. He returned to the master bedroom, opened the safe in their closet, and retrieved his badge and service weapon. Then he grabbed the suitcase he always kept packed and headed for the kitchen. There he quickly scribbled a note of apology to Elena and a separate note for Lars.

  Take care of your mom this week and have a great time, he wrote. Tell Grammie and Paw Paw and everyone else I love them, and I’m very sorry. I’ll see you soon, little man. I promise. Love, Daddy.

  Marine One lifted off from the South Lawn and headed north.

  Sitting behind the president was the SAIC—the special agent in charge—and three additional agents, including Marcus. Directly beside and across from the president sat the national security advisor and the White House chief of staff. Only then did Marcus learn just how much the crisis in Ukraine had worsened in recent hours.

  Like his fellow agents and anyone else who was watching the news, Marcus knew that in December, some eight hundred thousand Ukrainians had taken to the streets of Kiev. The protesters had surrounded key government buildings and demanded the ouster of their president as a pro-Moscow puppet. He was bankrupting the economy, selling out Ukrainian sovereignty, and increasingly putting control of the country under the thumb of the Russians. As the bitter winds and heavy snows of January arrived, the crowds were no longer content to camp outside the government buildings. They surged forward, storming barricades erected by riot police and occupying city hall, parliament, the finance ministry, and more. Initially paralyzed by indecision, the government finally launched a counteroffensive in late February. They ordered the police to fire on the protesters using live ammunition and retake all public buildings. Within hours, seventy-seven people lay dead. Hundreds were wounded. Hundreds more had been arrested. But the images of the violence electrified an already-enraged populace. As rumors spread that President Luganov of Russia had ordered the killings of the protesters, and had allegedly done so from his luxury dacha on the Black Sea, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians poured into the streets, and the country seemed to be teetering on the brink of a full-blown civil war.

  For at least two months now, Marcus had heard the American president and the secretary of state issue a series of weak statements. They had called for a restoration of calm and requested that “international law and the rights of the Ukrainian people be respected.” The president warned the Russians not to inflame the situation and called for the U.N. Security Council to pass a firm resolution. Not once, however, had they offered the Ukrainian people one bit of practical help or threatened any specific repercussions if Moscow did intervene directly.

  Now Marcus was stunned to overhear the national security advisor say the Ukrainian president was missing. Unconfirmed reports suggested he had actually fled the capital with a small group of loyalists and was racing for the Russian border, hoping for asylum in Moscow. Yet what truly chilled Special Agent Ryker was hearing that just at the moment the Ukrainians might have driven the pro-Luganov puppet from office, Luganov appeared to have ordered the Russian military to invade the sovereign territory of yet another Russian neighbor. If this were true, how far would Luganov go? Was he just sending a message, or was he planning to go all the way to Kiev? To Marcus, the situation had the feel of the Russian invasion of Georgia all over again.

  The presidential retreat center deep in the heart of Maryland’s Catoctin Mountain, some sixty miles north of Washington, was on full lockdown.

  With the commander in chief and most of his war cabinet on hand, the Secret Service was taking no chances. No one was getting in or out of Camp David without the highest possible clearance. Every ID of every person trying to enter the outer perimeter of the camp was carefully scrutinized. Every license plate of every vehicle was double-checked to make sure it was authorized to be on the grounds. Everyone aside from the president and members of his family passed through magnetometers. Every possession of every cabinet secretary, advisor, and staff member passed through X-ray machines and through sophisticated sniffers capable of detecting nuclear, chemical, and biological agents.

  Surveillance helicopters crisscrossed the skies along with drones equipped with state-of-the-art cameras and thermal imagery equipment, keeping a close watch on the 180-acre camp for possible intruders. Sharpshooters and their spotters took up positions on the rooftops. Agents operating shoulder-mounted missile launchers capable of shooting down any unauthorized aircraft were in place, and K-9 units constantly roamed the grounds.

  At exactly 3 p.m., the president gathered his entire national security team—most in person, though some by secure video feed—in a Laurel Lodge conference room to assess the latest developments and formulate an official response and action plan. The SAIC stood post in the corner of the room, directly to the president’s right. Another agent guarded the door to the p
resident’s left. Marcus was assigned to the only other door in the room.

  The director of national intelligence, fresh back from NATO headquarters in Brussels, was the first to brief the president. He reported that thousands of Russian soldiers and commandos were moving throughout southern Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula. They were crushing any and all armed resistance they encountered and had seized government buildings, banks, TV and radio stations, and the airports. What was odd, however, was that none of the olive-drab uniforms of the offensive forces bore the Russian flag or Russian military insignias. They actually bore no flags or military insignias at all. The DNI asserted unequivocally that there was no question the “little green men” were operating at the behest of President Luganov. But he conceded that by wearing different uniforms, these enemy forces were able to do their dirty work without definitively implicating Moscow.

  “Luganov is doing his best to deceive foreign governments and the international media, but the evidence supports only one conclusion, Mr. President,” the SecDef added. “The Russians have launched an invasion of Ukraine, and they will likely have full control of Crimea within the next few days.”

  “Are the Ukrainians fighting back?” the president asked.

  The national security advisor took that one. “Initially, and bravely,” he said. “But now we’re seeing signs they are pulling back and regrouping.”

  “Why?”

  “Keep in mind that the population of Crimea is largely ethnic Russians. Many—most, perhaps—would actually like to be back under the control of Moscow, not Kiev. That means they are far more loyal to Russia than to Ukraine. So we’re not seeing significant resistance inside the major cities in Crimea. And with Kiev engulfed in chaos—the Ukrainian president missing and nearly a million Ukrainians in the streets—it’s not clear exactly who’s calling the shots.”

  “What’s going on with Russian regular forces?” the president asked.

  This time it was the chairman of the joint chiefs who responded, speaking via a secure feed from the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon. “Sir, President Luganov has ordered some thirty thousand combat troops to the Ukrainian border. We’re seeing upwards of a thousand tanks, thousands of artillery batteries, and SAM batteries.”

  “And in the air?”

  “Russian fighter jets have been penetrating Ukrainian airspace for weeks,” the SecDef reported. “Today, however, oddly enough the skies are quiet.”

  “What do you make of that?”

  “It seems consistent with President Luganov’s deception campaign, sir. He’s going to say Ukrainians loyal to Mother Russia are fighting, not regular Russian forces. He’s going to say he had nothing to do with any of this. I wouldn’t be surprised if he calls for a cease-fire and a snap referendum asking Crimeans if they want to be under Russian sovereignty or that of Ukraine. If that happens, believe me, anyone who voted against Moscow and for Kiev won’t be long for this world.”

  “What are our military options?” the president asked.

  “We really don’t have any, Mr. President,” said the chairman of the joint chiefs. “As you know, sir, Ukraine is not a NATO ally. We don’t have a formal treaty with Kiev. Even if we were inclined to get involved, it would take us several weeks to spool up enough forces to get into the theater and retake Crimea. But that would effectively put us into a head-to-head war with Russia. That could get very ugly, very fast, sir. As was just stated, Luganov has positioned some thirty thousand combat troops backed up by a whole lot of airpower and heavy mechanized divisions just a few miles across the border. We’d be lucky to get twenty-five hundred U.S. forces there within two weeks. It would take quite a bit longer to get any significant number of tanks and APCs on the ground. We’d be outgunned from the first shot. And keep in mind, sir, that even if we did begin to establish air dominance, and even if we were to link up with Ukrainian ground forces and actually started to take back significant swaths of territory—and those are mighty big ifs at the moment—who is to say the Russians wouldn’t escalate the situation?”

  “How so?”

  “It’s possible Luganov could order the use of tactical battlefield nukes.”

  “You can’t be serious,” said an incredulous president.

  “I’m afraid I am, sir. Tactical nukes are a key part of Russian military doctrine, and I don’t believe we can rule out their use.”

  “You really think Luganov wants to start a nuclear war with the United States of America?” asked the president, quickly growing angrier than Marcus had ever seen him.

  The chairman didn’t respond. No one did. It was quiet for several moments. Marcus looked at the president, then around the room at his aides and military and foreign policy advisors at the table and on the screens. No one seemed to have a good answer to the question, and that fact was as unnerving as anything Marcus had ever heard since joining the Secret Service.

  The president issued a milquetoast statement.

  He denounced the Russian aggression and urged an immediate cease-fire and withdrawal to recognized international borders. Luganov couldn’t have cared less. While not admitting that any of the “little green men” were active Russian forces, Luganov went on national television from the Kremlin and announced that he was fully prepared to use military force to protect all the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine, and particularly Crimea, against “crimes of any kind.” Within hours, the Duma—the Russian parliament—passed a resolution affirming Luganov’s “right and responsibility” to use such force in Ukraine, as he deemed necessary.

  Over the course of the next forty-eight hours, the American president took three separate calls from the leader of the Ukrainian opposition, who was clearly terrified that Luganov was poised to drive all the way to Kiev. She pleaded for U.S. military assistance—arms, ammunition, communications equipment, and targeting information, as well as medical supplies and tactical air support. She expressed more distress with each successive conversation, yet no one at Camp David or in the White House thought it wise to intervene to help the Ukrainians, lest it put Washington in a worst-case-scenario showdown.

  “We have to be honest, Mr. President. Ukraine is squarely in the Russian sphere,” the secretary of state insisted.

  “They’re not a member of NATO,” noted the national security advisor.

  “They wanted to be,” the SecDef said.

  “But they’re not,” SecState pushed back. “Look, I’m as sympathetic to their plight as anyone, but, Mr. President, we can’t get into a shooting war with the Russians over Ukraine—we just can’t.”

  She didn’t need to finish the thought. Everyone knew what she meant, and everyone in the room agreed. A war with Russia, a nuclear power, could quickly get out of hand. The U.S. had already fought two major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over the previous decade and a half, neither of which had been fully resolved, and both of which had drained trillions of dollars from the federal treasury and soured the American people on any further foreign interventions. The last thing the average American could imagine was sending soldiers or Marines to fight and die in another country to which the U.S. had no treaty obligations.

  In the end, the president decided to meet with Luganov face-to-face. Most of his advisors were dead set against the idea and said so. But the president refused to be dissuaded. He ordered preparations to be made for an emergency summit, then called the chancellor of Germany and asked if she would host it. She immediately agreed.

  Three days later, Marcus touched down in Berlin just after 6 a.m. local time.

  The advance team’s first stop was the U.S. Embassy. They briefed the ambassador and the deputy chief of mission on the president’s itinerary, secured assistance from all the relevant department heads, and met privately with the CIA station chief and legal attaché, a special agent on loan from the FBI. Next they headed to the Hotel Adlon Kempinski, located within sight of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, where they checked in and began working through a detailed checklist of
preparations. They did a walk-through with the hotel manager and head of security, reviewing the presidential suite and every room on three full floors that would be needed for the entire U.S. delegation. They walked through the kitchen and explained that they’d be bringing their own food, their own beverages, and their own chefs. They examined arrival points and the garage, where dozens of U.S. government vehicles would need to be parked and secured. They went up to the roof to see where the White House Communications Agency equipment would be set up and where sharpshooters and spotters would be positioned.

  The following day they met with German intelligence officials and senior representatives of the local police force to gather everything they could on current security threats and an updated list of persons of interest. They drove dozens of possible routes from the airport to the hotel, from the hotel to the U.S. Embassy, and from the hotel to the German Chancellery, where the summit would be held. They also drove routes from the hotel to three different local hospitals and made sure each hospital was stocked with plenty of the president’s blood type. Then they used a U.S. Army helicopter to examine the motorcade routes by air, identifying possible choke points or other areas of vulnerability and discussing ways to counter such threats.

  On the morning of the third day, the White House deputy chief of staff, the deputy secretary of state, and the rest of the political advance team landed in Berlin. They were greeted at the airport by the U.S. ambassador and the DCM. Marcus and his colleagues drove them to the German Chancellery, where they met with their political and diplomatic counterparts in the German government. Finally, after a working lunch to discuss additional logistical issues, it was time for a high-stakes meeting with their counterparts from Moscow.

  It was precisely 5 p.m. local time when they all entered the grand conference room where the summit would be held—if it was held. The Germans and Americans entered from the left. The Russian delegation entered from the right. They convened around an enormous circular conference table.