Kazyanov nodded. Every request they’d made to the Americans for more technical data on the CIDs had been shunted aside with a welter of unconvincing excuses, delays, and outright lies.
“So the answer is obvious,” Gryzlov said. He tapped his desk. “We lure one of these machines out into the open again, this time for a closer look. Even at the cost of lives.” Seeing the confusion on his spymaster’s face, he sighed. “Think of chess, Viktor. This match is just beginning. And if we have to sacrifice a pawn or two to gain the advantage we seek, then so be it.”
Baffled, Kazyanov decided to fall back on simple, unquestioning obedience. It was a habit that had served him well all his adult life. “What are your orders, Mr. President?” he asked.
And then, listening closely while Gryzlov outlined the gambit he had in mind, he began to understand. Outwardly simple in its details, the younger man’s stratagem possessed a certain brutal elegance.
SIX
Ramshackle houses and huts dotted the steep, snow-covered hillsides above Ahmad Usmaev’s walled compound. Rifle-armed guards, bulky in heavy sheepskin coats, patrolled the walls. Their breath steamed in the frigid air. Winter came early this high up in the Caucasus.
Inside the compound, Colonel Yevgeny Perminov held his arms out from his sides, hiding his disgust while one of the Chechen warlord’s slovenly bodyguards frisked him for concealed weapons. Service in Russia’s military intelligence arm, the GRU, often required dealing with unsavory characters. Seen in that light, the self-styled sheikh Ahmad Usmaev was not so different, although his coarseness, paranoia, and almost mindless brutality might be said to plumb new depths of depravity.
Usmaev was one of the cold-blooded killers Russia relied on to hold down its restive Chechen Republic. He and his kinsmen ruled over a large stretch of mountainous territory outside the capital city of Grozny. In return for generous subsidies from Moscow, Usmaev stayed loyal to President Khuchiev, another warlord put in power by Russia. In exchange, the Russians turned a blind eye to the methods he employed to terrorize the villages and towns in his grip — an orgy of murder, mutilation, rape, extortion, and hostage taking.
The bodyguard stepped back and nodded to Usmaev. “He is unarmed.”
The warlord, a short, portly man wearing an intricately embroidered vest and a green velvet Muslim skullcap waddled forward to greet Perminov. “My friend, welcome again to my simple home! You honor me with your presence.”
With an effort, the GRU colonel kept a straight face. Usmaev’s “simple” home was a villa stuffed full of ornate, expensive furniture, priceless tapestries and carpets, and high-priced consumer electronics — all paid for by Moscow’s largesse and the profits from his own reign of terror. He followed the Chechen into a palatial sitting area.
Usmaev plopped down on a plush, overstuffed couch and waved Perminov into a high-backed chair trimmed in gold leaf. Another of the warlord’s guards deferentially returned the colonel’s still-locked briefcase. It had been taken away from him at the gate and then run through an X-ray machine as a precaution against explosive devices or other hidden weapons.
After several minutes wasted enduring the customary round of utterly insincere compliments and platitudes, Perminov finally felt able to come to the point of his visit. “You have received my government’s request, Sheikh?” he asked.
Sagely, Usmaev nodded. “I spoke to your superiors, yes.”
“And you can provide the men we need? With the necessary weapons training?”
“As easily as I do this!” the warlord said, snapping his fingers. He lowered his voice. “Though I understand the risks involved are, shall we say, significant?”
Perminov nodded. “So I believe.”
Usmaev smiled coldly. “I have a number of followers who are bored by the peace I have established here. They grow restless. And such restless men can cause a lot of trouble if they are not given the chance to act on a wider stage.”
“That is true,” Perminov agreed cautiously. “In this instance, the audience may prove unforgiving. Perhaps lethally so.”
“That is in Allah’s hands,” Usmaev said with a shrug. His eyes glinted. “Who knows? Perhaps he will be merciful.”
The colonel got the distinct impression the other man would be happier if the god he worshiped decided matters the other way. And perhaps that was just as well. “You understand that we are in some haste?” he asked. “I have an aircraft standing by to ferry your men to Moscow for further briefing.”
“Of course,” Usmaev said. He raised an eyebrow. “Assuming our other arrangements proceed smoothly, they can join you at the airport within the hour.”
Perminov unlocked his briefcase and flipped it open so that the Chechen could see the contents. The case contained fifteen million rubles in cash, worth about two hundred thousand American dollars. “Please, Sheikh, accept this small token of our appreciation for your assistance in this matter,” he said.
Usmaev’s smile grew even wider. He nodded to one of his bodyguards, who stepped forward to take the briefcase from Perminov. “Your visits are always a joyous occasion, Colonel. I look forward to our next meeting.”
“As do I,” the GRU colonel said stoically. Much as he personally loathed Usmaev, there was no getting around the fact that the other man had one great virtue. Like many in this brutal, war-torn region, he would sell his own sister if the price were right. But unlike so many of his rivals, once bought, Ahmad Usmaev stayed bought.
And that, in the end, was what truly mattered to Perminov’s masters in the Kremlin.
Two men, both bundled up against the cold, strolled casually together along a winding, wooded trail. They were alone.
Izmailovsky Park, once the childhood home of the czar Peter the Great, was a favorite haunt of Muscovites in the summer and winter. During the summer, crowds sought its forest glades and ponds as a refuge from the city’s heat and humidity. And in the snowy depths of winter, they poured in with their sleds, ice skates, and cross-country skis. But few people found the park’s damp gravel paths and stands of barren, leafless trees very inviting on the dreary, gray days so common in the late fall.
All of which made it the ideal spot for a discreet rendezvous.
Igor Truznyev, former president of the Russian Federation, glanced down at his shorter, thinner companion. “You’re sure you were not followed?”
The other man’s world-weary brown eyes crinkled in wry amusement. “Should I ask the same question of you, Igor?” He nodded toward the desolate stretches of woodland lining both sides of the trail. “Shall we waste our time prowling about to see if anyone is lurking behind one of those birch trees? Or hiding beneath the fallen leaves?”
The taller man laughed softly. “A fair hit, Sergei.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “I only worry that your protégé might find these occasional discussions behind his back somewhat disconcerting.”
“Gennadiy may be more… confident… than you assume,” Sergei Tarzarov, Gryzlov’s chief of staff replied softly.
“He sees himself as invincible, you mean?” Truznyev asked pointedly. “As so powerful now that he is immune to betrayal from his own closest subordinates and associates?”
“Perhaps,” the older man said. “And why not?” He turned his gaze more directly on the former president. “Some of us know how narrowly we averted disaster in our war with Poland last year, but the masses do not. They idolize Gennadiy as the leader who retook eastern Ukraine for Mother Russia and humiliated NATO in the process.”