‘What the hell kind of “action” are they talking about?’ Marshall asked.
Jensen shrugged. ‘Intervention,’ he said simply.
The room stirred all at once. ‘Intervention?’ Marshall exclaimed. ‘In a Russian civil war?’
Jensen held his hands up as if to fend off the President’s verbal blows. ‘I’m totally opposed to it, Tom. Totally opposed. But there has been some talk about the feasibility of a peacekeeping mission if the U.N. can garner the support of the local Russian army commanders in Siberia where the gas fields are. The violence out there has been limited, mainly directed against those pipelines. There’s been very little civil or military disorder in the east.’
‘They’re too worried about China,’ the Secretary of Defense suggested.
Marshall leaned back and rubbed his pounding temples. ‘Who lost Russia?’ Marshall could already hear the Republicans asking. ‘What do we know about this Kartsev?’
The CIA Director pulled open a file.
‘Kartsev, Valentin Konstantinovich. Born 1949 in Novgorod. Educated at the pedagogical institute in Moscow. Believed to be KGB informant on faculty of Moscow State University Marxism/Leninism Department until assuming rank of lieutenant colonel in the KGB at their Dzerzhinsky Square headquarters in 1984.’
‘Lieutenant colonel at age, what, thirty-five?’ the Director of the FBI asked. ‘That’s a pretty fast track, especially for someone who’d just been informing on a bunch of professors.’
‘He was one of Andropov’s proteges,’ the CIA Director replied. ‘Andropov was an intellectual. Widely read. Bookish sort. Before he died, he collected a coterie of similarly cerebral types with whom he’d spend hours spinning ideas. Kartsev, in his later years at the University, was among that inner circle.’
‘What about since 1984?’ Marshall asked.
The CIA Director again read from his file. ‘Liaison to the GRU — military intelligence. During the worst of the Afghanistan war — when intelligence about Russian atrocities, booby-trapped toys, torture, assassination and the like were being picked up by the press — we got a “walk-in.” A Russian army officer assigned to their embassy in Karachi approached our station chief and fed us reports of “excessive measures” by a renegade KGB unit that was responsible for all those operations. It was pretty clear to us at the time that he was simply feeding us straight from the Russian Army’s High Command, and so we took it all with a grain of salt.’
‘What do you mean?’
The Director shrugged. ‘We figured it was just the army trying to keep its skirts clean by blaming the KGB. But some of the intelligence did prove up. Kartsev’s liaison unit — and their Afghan proxies — were operational in Afghanistan.’
‘What happened to the officer who fed us the information?’ Marshall asked. ‘Maybe we can talk to him.’
‘He was recalled to Moscow for a briefing. He was shot in KGB prison three months later.’
Marshall arched his eyebrows. ‘Nice people. What else does your file say about Kartsev?’
‘He fled to Kirgizia when Gorbachev returned after the failed August Coup of 1991. Severed his relations with the KGB… we think. He disappeared for a few years until his name started showing up on DEA and ATF intelligence reports for trafficking in drugs and weapons out of the former Soviet Union. The only other cross-references to Kartsev we’ve got in our database come from a variety of western businessmen who have been offered partnerships — some of them lucrative — in deals with Kartsev or his affiliates. A couple did their deals, made a fair amount of money and then were cut out by Kartsev. They just let it drop. One — a Dutch gentleman in the business of giving seminars on western management techniques — apparently spumed Kartsev and went it alone in Moscow. He was found dead in his Moscow apartment with thirteen bullet wounds to the back of the head. Small caliber weapon. Neighbors heard nothing. No suspects.’
‘Okay,’ Marshall said, glancing at his watch. He had a campaign finance meeting. ‘So Kartsev’s a bad guy. He’s behind the Anarchists. The Anarchists are fanatical terrorists who’re spreading violence around the world. The Europeans are inclined to go in there and root ’em out,’ Marshall rose. ‘I say more power to them. Good luck, and God speed.’
‘The Chinese aren’t going to like it,’ Jensen said. ‘A U.N. force that doesn’t include Asian troops being deployed on their border?’
‘We’re sitting this one out,’ Marshall said — ending the meeting. ‘Let the Europeans worry about the Chinese. I can’t see how it concerns us.’
The mid-afternoon sun streamed through the windows. The South Korean President raised the large spoon to his lips. The soup was hot, and he blew on it as his mouth salivated at the faint aroma of garlic. He had stolen away to his private dining room from all-day meetings on the Chinese mobilization, and his stomach was growling noisily.
He touched the soup gently to his lips, testing its temperature. A 12.7-mm projectile traveling at the speed of sound punched cleanly through the window. Before the force it imparted could rip the entire pane of glass from its frame, the bullet cleaved the President’s head off above the line of his ears. It was thirty minutes before the President’s aides discovered the effects of the single shot.
LAPD officer Paul Maxwell returned the steely gaze of the black Muslim bodyguards. Maxwell was assigned to the security detail of the minister — a fiery civil rights leader scheduled to speak inside the old movie theater at Maxwell’s back. But from the hard stares that the uniformed policemen attracted from the black men in the bow ties, Maxwell had no doubt who their enemy was.
A large crowd had gathered across the street. It began to roar with cheers when a limousine carrying the Muslim minister pulled swiftly up to the kerb. Maxwell carefully scanned the cameramen, who began to lean out over the yellow tape for a better shot. The bright lights of the mini-cams bathed the car door. The brilliant strobes from the still photographers lit the night like silent gunfire.
‘Behind the tape!’ Maxwell ordered — his voice lost amid the noise of the throng. He pushed several members of the local media back from the red-carpeted walk to the theater’s entrance.
The limo door opened. A bodyguard wearing dark sunglasses emerged from the car. Behind him came the stern-faced reverend, attired in a dark, conservative business suit.
A loud blast from overhead caused Maxwell to nearly jump out of his skin. He distinctly heard whirring and popping sounds as the car was riddled with holes. Maxwell dropped to one knee and pulled his 9-mm — his heart racing as he looked all around.
A surreal quiet fell over the crowd, but it quickly gave way to rising cries of pain and fear. Great swaths of people lay on the pavement all around. They were bloody and writhing and beginning to moan. Smoke billowed from atop the marquee under which Maxwell knelt safe and sound.
Maxwell’s radio was filled with reports of an anti-personnel mine going off at the theater. Maxwell rose and rushed toward the popular firebrand, who lay slumped in the car door — a pulpy red mess. Holes riddled the doors, roof, and side panels. The windows were completely shattered.
A bodyguard shoved Maxwell in the chest with both hands. The bodyguards dragged the minister back into the car, pulled the dead driver to the street beside it, and tore off — running over the legs of one of the fallen supporters.