Galushka walked through the open door. He’d not been here before, but he came to recognize the White House library, remembering it vaguely from some photograph he’d seen years before. It was a small space, perhaps twenty feet by thirty, decorated in the style of the late Federal period, with soft gray and rose tones coloring the wall panels. It was dimly lit at the moment, the fire in the hearth illuminating the room as much as the gilded wood chandelier above the round table in its center. Galushka was sure that the many books on the shelves were American classics, if any tome written by Western authors ever could be called such. He’d never cared enough to read any of them. Russia’s own literary tradition was too rich and deep for him to waste his time on the scribblings produced by so young a country.
The Secret Service escort closed the door behind Galushka and took up a position in the corner to watch the husky diplomat. The Russian waited for his eyes to adjust to the low light. He wasn’t a young man anymore and they didn’t make the change as quickly as they once had.
“Do you know what this room was used for, originally?” Galushka finally saw President Daniel Rostow standing before the east wall, looking up at a row of books on one of the shelves.
“Mr. President,” Galushka acknowledged, “I do not. I have never been in this room.”
“It was the White House laundry,” Rostow explained. “For almost exactly a hundred years, this is where the staff cleaned up dirty clothes.”
Galushka looked around at his surroundings. “It is a more useful space now, I think.”
“Oh, yes,” Rostow agreed. “Though occasionally it still serves its old purpose.”
Galushka frowned, unsure what the young president meant by that. Rostow turned around, made his way to one of two facing chairs before the fireplace, and directed the Russian ambassador to the other. “I’m sure you know why I asked you to come tonight, Igor Nikolayevich.”
“You wish to respond to our expulsion of your cadre of spies in Moscow,” Galushka replied. He wanted to smile but it would not have been diplomatic, and he was out of practice anyway.
“That’s right, Igor, I do,” Rostow concurred. The president of the United States reached over to the table, picked up a large manila envelope, and offered it to the Russian ambassador. “In response to your unprecedented expulsion of so many U.S. diplomats and their families from your soil without provocation, the United States government hereby requires the Russian Federation to withdraw the following individuals and their families from our soil within the next five days. The secretary of state will deliver the formal paperwork to your embassy in the morning, but I wanted to personally give you the advance notice so the people on the list could start packing up tonight.”
Galushka opened the envelope and withdrew the contents, surprised to find two pieces of folded paper inside. He straightened them and his eyes widened. Both papers were filled with names, top to bottom, split into two columns on each. He tried to estimate the full total. “There are over two hundred names here,” the ambassador protested.
“Two hundred twenty if you’d like to count,” Rostow said. “Most work at your embassy here on Wisconsin Avenue, but some are stationed at your consulates in New York, Houston, San Francisco, and Seattle.”
Galushka scanned the list. Several names he recognized as GRU and SVR officers under official cover, but he couldn’t identify most of them. “This will damage relations between our two countries most severely, Mr. President. It is a shame that you chose this course in an effort to divert the world’s attention from the scale of your own intelligence activities and failure. A better course would have been to resolve this matter through private channels and special contacts,” he said. “Unfortunately, as you have chosen another way, this step cannot be regarded as anything but a political one.”
Rostow smiled. “Well, Ambassador, for the record, you can tell your government that I truly do look forward to finding a way to smooth this matter over and rebuild a productive relationship with the Russian Federation. But unlike some of the previous presidents from my party, I’m a realist. And right now, after your country’s unprovoked diplomatic slap, allowing an enormous Russian diplomatic presence on U.S. soil just isn’t a good signal to the rest of the world about the kind of relations I want to have with your country. We are equals, after all. It wouldn’t do to have your delegation outnumber ours, and asking the Kremlin to approve a lengthy list of replacements for ours would just make me look weak to the rest of the world. Cutting yours down to size is easier and makes me look stronger. So I get to insult you, look stronger for it, get our countries back on equal terms all at once, and boost my poll numbers at home. We Americans call that ‘multitasking.’ ”
The president leaned forward and looked Galushka in the eyes. “Off the record, you can inform your government that the United States of America is not done ‘resolving this matter,’ ” he advised. “And I regret that I must say farewell to you, Igor.”
“I am prepared to leave the White House at any time,” the Russian replied, offended.
“Not just the White House, Mr. Ambassador,” Rostow told him. “Your name is on the list, too. I realize it will cause the Russian Federation some inconvenience to replace its ambassador here, but if the Kremlin wants to make a fresh start with me, they can begin by putting forward a fresh face. But do let your president know that I can expel people just as fast as he can. So you might want to ask him just how far he wants to take this.”
Galushka stared down at the papers again, reading the names and finding his own on at the top of the second page. Rostow stood and walked to the door, opened it, and a pair of Secret Service agents stepped inside. “Good-bye, Igor. Do have a safe flight home. I look forward to reading your memoirs.” He looked at the senior security officer. “Please see Ambassador Galushka to his car.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Russian ambassador watched the president of the United States walk out into the central hall and turn left, heading for the West Wing. The Secret Service officer extended his arm, showing Galushka the door, his expression clear that he was not going to be patient with him. The overweight Russian grunted and shuffled out of the library. He knew he wouldn’t see the inside of the White House again.
Major Elizaveta Igoryevna Puchkov pulled around the wrecked cars blocking the leftmost lane of the Leningradskoye Highway and mashed the gas pedal to the floor, determined to recover the speed and time she’d lost to the snarl of traffic she’d just escaped. She seen the now-wrecked car pass her a minute before it had sideswiped a delivery truck. The driver had been drunk, she figured, judging by the lack of control. Not that she minded a bit of inebriation, but the moron should have waited until he got home to chase his stupor. It was early in the evening yet, and the drunk had reaped what his stupidity had sown.
Angry though she was, she could hardly condemn the man. Puchkov had been tempted to pass the evening with a pub crawl of her own, a bad habit she’d picked up during a tour at her country’s embassy in London. It had been too long since she’d killed time on a stool at the Bar Strelka by the old Krasny Oktyabr chocolate factory on the man-made island of Bolotny Ostrov. To see the Moskva River at night, lit up by the lights of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior with a bottle of twelve-year-old Green Mark in her hands would be a fine way to forget this ugly day. She was not a Christian, but she could still appreciate the beauty of the buildings the believers erected as an act of worship.