The Cardinal of the Kremlin

  “Good luck,” the Archer said simply. Both men embraced.

  “ ‘ “Why should we refuse to fight for the cause of Allah, when we and our children have been driven from our dwellings?” ’ ”

  “ ‘When they met Goliath and his warriors they cried: “Lord fill our hearts with steadfastness. Make us firm of foot and help us against the unbelievers.” ’ ”

  The quote was from the Koran, and neither man thought it strange that the passage actually referred to the Israelites’ battle against the Philistines. David and Saul were known to the Muslims, too, as was their cause. The Major smiled one last time before running off to join his men.

  The Archer turned and waved to his missile team. Two of them shouldered their Stingers and followed the leader as he continued his way across the mountain. One more knoll and they were looking down at the guard towers. He was surprised that he could actually see three of them from here, and a third missile was brought out. The Archer gave his instructions and left them to rejoin the main body. On the knoll, the target-acquisition units sang their deadly song to each missileer. The guard towers were heated—and the Stinger searches only for heat.

  Next the Archer ordered his mortar team in close—closer than he would have preferred, but the miserable visibility was not entirely on the side of the mudjaheddin. He watched the Major’s company slide down to the left, disappearing into the snow. They would assault the laser test facility itself, while he and his eighty men went for the place where most of the people lived. Now it was their turn. The Archer led them forward as far as he dared, just to the edge of where the floodlights penetrated the snow. He was rewarded with the sight of a sentry, bundled up for the cold, his breath left behind in a series of small white clouds that drifted in the wind. Ten more minutes. The Archer pulled out his radio. They had only four of them, and hadn’t dared to use them until now for fear of being detected by the Russians.

  We should never have gotten rid of the dogs, Bondarenko told himself. First thing I do when I get settled here, get the dogs back. He was walking around the camp, enjoying the cold and the snow and using the quiet atmosphere to order his thoughts. There were things that needed changing here. They needed a real soldier. General Pokryshkin was too confident in the security scheme, and the KGB troops were too lazy. For example, they did not have night patrols out. Too dangerous on this terrain, their commander said, our day patrols will detect anyone who tries to get close, the guard towers have low-light scanners, and the rest of the site is floodlit. But low-light devices had their effectiveness cut eighty percent by this sort of weather. What if there was a group of Afghans out there right now? he wondered. First thing, Bondarenko told himself, I’ll call Colonel Nikolayev at Spetznaz headquarters, and I’ll lead a practice assault on this place to show those KGB idiots how vulnerable they are. He looked up the hill. There was a KGB sentry, flapping his arms to keep warm, rifle slung over his shoulder—it would take him four seconds to get it unslung, aimed, and taken off safety. Four seconds, for the last three of which he’d be dead if there were anyone competent out there right now ... Well, he told himself, the assistant commander of any post is supposed to be a ruthless son of a bitch, and if those chekisti want to play at soldiers they’ll damned well have to act like soldiers. The Colonel turned to walk back to the apartment block.

  Gerasimov’s car pulled up to Lefortovo Prison’s administrative entrance. His driver stayed with the car while the bodyguard followed him in. The KGB Chairman showed his ID card to the guard and walked by without breaking stride. The KGB was careful with security, but all its members knew the face of the Chairman and knew even better the power that it represented. Gerasimov turned left and headed for the administration offices. The prison superintendent wasn’t there, of course, but one of his deputies was. Gerasimov found him filling out some forms.

  “Good evening.” The man’s eyes were saved from bugging out by the glasses he wore.

  “Comrade Chairman! I was not—”

  “You weren’t supposed to be.”

  “How may I—”

  “The prisoner Filitov. I need him immediately,” Gerasimov said gruffly. “Immediately,” he repeated for effect.

  “At once!” The second deputy prison superintendent leaped to his feet and ran to another room. He was back in under a minute. “It will take five minutes.”

  “He must be properly dressed,” Gerasimov said.

  “His uniform?” the man asked.

  “Not that, you idiot!” the Chairman snarled. “Civilian clothes. He must be presentable. You have all his personal effects here, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Comrade Chairman, but—”

  “I do not have all night,” he said quietly. There was nothing more dangerous than a quiet KGB Chairman. The second deputy superintendent fairly flew from the room. Gerasimov turned to his bodyguard, who smiled in amusement. Nobody liked jailers. “How long do you think?”

  “Less than ten minutes, Comrade Chairman, even though they have to find his clothes. After all, that pipsqueak knows what a wonderful place this is to live in. I know him.”

  “Oh?”

  “He was originally a ‘One’ man, but he performed poorly on his first assignment and has been a jailer ever since.” The bodyguard checked his watch.

  It took eight minutes. Filitov appeared with his suit most of the way on, though his shirt was not buttoned, and his tie merely draped around his neck. The second deputy superintendent was holding a threadbare topcoat. Filitov never had been one to buy a lot of civilian clothes. He was a Colonel of the Red Army, and was never comfortable out of his uniform. The old man’s eyes were confused at first, then he saw Gerasimov.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  “You are coming with me, Filitov. Button your shirt. At least try to look like a man!”

  Misha nearly said something, but bit it off. The look he gave the Chairman was enough to make the bodyguard move his hand a centimeter. He buttoned his shirt and tied his tie. It ended up crooked in his collar because he didn’t have a mirror.

  “Now, Comrade Chairman, if you will sign this—”

  “You give me custody of a criminal like this?”

  “What—”

  “Handcuffs, man!” Gerasimov boomed.

  Unsurprisingly, the second deputy superintendent had a pair in his desk. He got them, put them on Filitov, and nearly pocketed the key before he saw Gerasimov’s outstretched hand.

  “Very good. I’ll have him back to you tomorrow night.”

  “But I need you to sign—” The second deputy superintendent found that he was talking to a receding back.

  “Well, with all the people under me,” Gerasimov observed to his bodyguard, “there have to be a few ...”

  “Indeed, Comrade Chairman.” The bodyguard was an immensely fit man of forty-two, a former field officer who was an expert in all forms of armed and unarmed combat. His firm grip on the prisoner told Misha all of these things.

  “Filitov,” the Chairman observed over his shoulder, “we are taking a brief trip, a flight that is. You will not be harmed. If you behave yourself, we might even allow you a decent meal or two. If you do not behave, Vasiliy here will make you wish you did. Is that clear?”

  “Clear, Comrade Chekist.”

  The guard snapped to attention, then pushed open the door. The outside guards saluted and were rewarded with nods. The driver held open the back door. Gerasimov stopped and turned.

  “Put him in back with me, Vasiliy. You should be able to cover things from the front seat.”

  “As you wish, Comrade.”

  “Sheremetyevo,” Gerasimov told the driver. “The cargo terminal on the south side.”

  There was the airport, Ryan thought. He stifled a belch that tasted of wine and sardines. The motorcade entered the airport grounds, then curved to the right, bypassing the regular entrance to the terminal and heading out onto the aircraft parking area. Security, he noted, was tight. You could always depend on the Rus
sians for that. Everywhere he looked were rifle-toting soldiers in KGB uniforms. The car drove right past the main terminal, then past a recent addition. It was unused, but looked like the alien spaceship in Spielberg’s Close Encounters. He’d meant to ask somebody why it had been built, but wasn’t yet in use. Maybe next time, Ryan thought.

  The formal goodbyes had been made at the Foreign Ministry. A few junior officials stood at the bottom of the stairs to shake hands, and nobody was in a hurry to leave the heated comfort of the limousines. Progress was correspondingly slow. His car lurched forward and stopped, and the man to Ryan’s right opened the door as the driver popped the trunk open. He didn’t want to go outside either. It had taken most of the drive to get the car warm. Jack got his bag and his briefcase and headed for the stairs.

  “I hope you enjoyed your visit,” the Soviet official said.

  “I would like to come back and see the city sometime,” Jack replied as he shook the man’s hand.

  “We would be delighted.”

  Sure you would, Jack thought as he went up the stairs. Once in the aircraft, he looked forward. A Russian officer was in the cockpit jump seat to assist with traffic control. His eyes were on the curtained-off communications console. Ryan nodded at the pilot through the door and got a wink.

  “The political dimension scares the hell out of me,” Vatutin said. At 2 Dzerzhinskiy Square, he and Golovko were comparing their written notes.

  “This isn’t the old days. They can’t shoot us for following our training and procedures.”

  “Really? What if Filitov was being run with the knowledge of the Chairman?”

  “Ridiculous,” Golovko observed.

  “Oh? What if his early work on the dissidents put him in contact with the West? We know that he personally intervened in some cases—mainly from the Baltic region, but some others, too.”

  “You’re really thinking like a ‘Two’ man now!”

  “Think for a minute. We arrest Filitov and immediately thereafter the Chairman meets personally with a CIA man. Has that ever happened before?”

  “I’ve heard stories about Philby, but—no, that was only after he came over.”

  “It’s one hell of a coincidence,” Vatutin said as he rubbed his eyes. “They do not train us to believe in coincidences, and—”

  “Tvoyu mat’!” Golovko said. Vatutin looked up in annoyance to see the other man roll his eyes. “The last time the Americans were over—how could I forget this! Ryan spoke with Filitov—they collided as though by accident, and—”

  Vatutin lifted his phone and dialed. “Give me the night superintendent ... This is Colonel Vatutin. Wake up the prisoner Filitov. I want to see him within the hour ... What was that? Who? Very well. Thank you.” The Colonel of the Second Chief Directorate stood. “Chairman Gerasimov just took Filitov out of Lefortovo fifteen minutes ago. He said that they were taking a special trip.”

  “Where’s your car?”

  “I can order—”

  “No,” Golovko said. “Your personal car.”

  26.

  Black Operations

  THERE was no hurry, yet. While the cabin crew got everybody settled in, Colonel von Eich ran down the pre-flight checklist. The VC-137 was taking electrical power from a generator truck that would also allow them to start their engines more easily than internal systems allowed. He checked his watch and hoped everything would go as planned.

  Aft, Ryan walked past his normal place, just forward of Ernie Allen’s midships cabin, and took a seat in the back row of the after part of the aircraft. It looked much like part of a real airliner, though the seating was five-across, and this space handled the overflow from the “distinguished visitor” areas forward. Jack picked one on the left side, where the seats were in pairs, while ten or so others entered the cabin and kept as far forward as possible for the smoother ride, as advised by another crew member. The aircraft’s crew chief would be across the aisle to his right instead of in the crew quarters forward. Ryan wished for another man to help, but they couldn’t be too obvious. They had a Soviet officer aboard. That was part of the regular routine, and diverging from it would attract attention. The whole point of this was that everyone would be comfortably secure in the knowledge that everything was exactly as it should be.

  Forward, the pilot got to the end of the checklist page.

  “Everybody aboard?”

  “Yes, sir. Ready to close the doors.”

  “Keep an eye on the indicator light for the crew door. It’s been acting funny,” von Eich told the flight engineer.

  “A problem?” the Soviet pilot asked from the jump seat. Sudden depressurization is something every flyer takes seriously.

  “Every time we check the door it looks fine. Probably a bad relay in the panel, but we haven’t found the sucker yet. I’ve checked the goddamned door-seal myself,” he assured the Russian. “It has to be an electrical fault.”

  “Ready to start,” the flight engineer told him next.

  “Okay.” The pilot looked to make sure the stairs were away while the flight crew donned their headsets. “All clear left.”

  “All clear right,” the copilot said.

  “Turning one.” Buttons were pushed, switches were toggled, and the left-outboard engine began to rotate its turbine blades. The needles on several indicator dials started moving and were soon in normal idling range. The generator truck withdrew now that the plane could supply its own electric power.

  “Turning four,” the pilot said next. He toggled his microphone to the cabin setting. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Colonel von Eich. We’re getting the engines started, and we should be moving in about five minutes. Please buckle your seat belts. Those of you who smoke, try to hang in there another few minutes.”

  At his seat in the back row, Ryan would have killed for a smoke. The crew chief glanced over to him and smiled. He certainly seemed tough enough to handle it, Jack thought. The chief master sergeant looked to be pushing fifty, but he also looked like a man who could teach manners to an NFL linebacker. He was wearing leather work gloves with the adjustment straps pulled in tight.

  “All ready?” Jack asked. There was no danger of being heard. The engine noise was hideous back here.

  “Whenever you say, sir.”

  “You’ll know when.”

  “Hmph,” Gerasimov noted. “Not here yet.” The cargo terminal was closed, and dark except for the security floodlights.

  “Should I make a call?” the driver asked.

  “No hurry. What—” A uniformed guard waved for them to stop. They’d already come through one checkpoint. “Oh, that’s right. The Americans are getting ready to leave. That must be screwing things up.”

  The guard came to the driver’s window and asked for passes. The driver just waved to the back.

  “Good evening, Corporal,” Gerasimov said. He held up his identification card. The youngster snapped to attention. “A plane will be here in a few minutes for me. The Americans must be holding things up. Is the security force out?”

  “Yes, Comrade Chairman! A full company.”

  “While we’re here, why don’t we do a fast inspection? Who is your commander?”

  “Major Zarudin, Com—”

  “What the hell is—” A lieutenant came over. He got as far as the corporal before he saw who was in the car.

  “Lieutenant, where is Major Zarudin?”

  “In the control tower, Comrade Chairman. That is the best place to—”

  “I’m sure. Get him on your radio and tell him that I am going to inspect the guard perimeter, then I will come to see him and tell him what I think. Drive on,” he told the driver. “Go right.”

  “Sheremetyevo Tower, this is niner-seven-one requesting permission to taxi to runway two-five-right,” von Eich said into his microphone.

  “Nine-seven-one, permission granted. Turn left onto main taxiway one. Wind is two-eight-one at forty kilometers.”

  “Roger, out,” the pilot said. “Ok
ay, let’s get this bird moving.” The copilot advanced the throttles and the aircraft started to roll. On the ground in front of them, a man with two lighted wands gave them unneeded directions to the taxiway—but the Russians always assumed that everyone needed to be told what to do. Von Eich left the parking pad and headed south on taxiway nine, then turned left. The small wheel that controlled the steerable nose-gear was stiff, as always, and the aircraft came around slowly, pushed by the outboard engine. He always took things easy here. The taxiways were so rough that there was always the worry of damaging something. He didn’t want that to happen tonight. It was the best part of a mile to the end of the number-one main taxiway, and the bumps and rolls were enough to make one motion-sick. He finally turned right onto taxiway five.

  “The men seem alert,” Vasiliy observed as they crossed runway twenty-five-left. The driver had his lights off and kept to the edge. There was an airplane coming, and both driver and bodyguard were keeping their eyes on that hazard. They didn’t see Gerasimov take the key from his pocket and unlock the handcuffs of an amazed prisoner Filitov. Next the Chairman pulled an automatic pistol from inside his coat.

  “Shit—there’s a car there,” Colonel von Eich said. “What the hell is a car doing here?”

  “We’ll clear it easy,” the copilot said. “He’s way over on the edge.”

  “Great.” The pilot turned right again to the end of the runway. “Fucking Sunday drivers.”

  “You’re not going to like this either, Colonel,” the flight engineer said. “I got a light on the rear door again.”

  “God damn it!” von Eich swore over the intercom. He flipped his mike to the cabin setting again, but had to adjust his voice before speaking. “Crew chief, check the rear door.”

  “Here we go,” the sergeant said. Ryan flipped off his seat belt and moved a few feet as he watched the sergeant work the door handle.