Marcus found himself at once impressed and as tense as he’d ever been in a meeting between world leaders. He hadn’t been certain this Iowan known for his “Midwestern nice” had the wherewithal to speak so directly to arguably the most dangerous man on the planet, and in his own office, no less. Only time would tell whether Dayton could prove to be a Churchill, but he certainly was no Chamberlain. Not today.
Marcus could see the anxiety in the translator’s eyes, and at that moment he doubted she had ever been required to communicate such a statement to her boss before now. Marcus glanced at Oleg. The man’s hand had stopped writing. An icy chill fell over the room as the senator looked the president directly in the eye. Marcus could see the man’s jaw clenched as he waited for the translation.
“I did not invite you here to be lectured in my own home, Senator,” Luganov began, eyes narrowing, when the translation was complete. “That said, I will give you credit for your candor. Believe me, I have heard you rage against me and against my government’s decisions over the years from the safe confines of the Senate floor and the Senate Press Gallery and the Washington studios of CNN. I agreed to your request for a meeting because I wanted to see if you had the courage to say to my face what you routinely spout to the American people. Now I see you do, and I congratulate you, sir.”
“Mr. President, with respect, I did not come here to lecture you,” the senator replied. “And I most certainly did not come to be patronized by you. There is one purpose, and one purpose only, in my visit—to urge you to back your forces away from the borders of the Baltics and Ukraine and to warn you, if I may put it so indelicately, not to risk making a miscalculation that could plunge your country, mine, and the whole of Europe into a war that would surely spin rapidly out of control.”
The senator paused, either for effect or for the translator to catch up. The Americans in the room braced for Luganov’s reaction. But when the president spoke, he threw a curveball none of them had war-gamed.
“Message received, Senator,” Luganov replied, his countenance softening and his body language relaxing. “I intend nothing threatening in these exercises. We conduct them all the time. We will continue to do so. Your country conducts such exercises. So does the rest of NATO. After all, I believe you attended a series of live-fire exercises in Estonia a few days ago. So I say again, these are nothing out of the ordinary, nor should they be construed as menacing in the slightest. Indeed, while they were scheduled to last through the month of October, my generals and I are so pleased with how they are going that I have decided to conclude them early.”
Dayton was visibly astonished. “How early?” he asked, trying to regain his composure.
“They should be wrapped up in ten days’ time, give or take a day.”
“The exercises near the Baltics as well as those close to Ukraine?”
“Yes.”
“I have your word on that.”
“Don’t be impertinent, Senator. I’m agreeing with you that we don’t want anyone to miscalculate here. I’m agreeing to stand down my forces for the time being.”
“Mr. President, please understand my country’s hesitancy to count upon the word coming out of the Kremlin. How does the Russian proverb go? Trust, but verify.”
“Doveryai, no proveryai,” Annie said almost under her breath.
At this, Luganov smiled. “Miss Stewart, you speak Russian?” he said in Russian.
“Da,” she replied.
Luganov asked, again in Russian, how much of his side of the conversation she had understood.
“All of it,” she replied instantly, but in English.
Luganov looked impressed.
“And how precisely is my young translator here communicating my meaning?” he asked. It struck Marcus as an odd thing to say since the translator was almost certainly at or near the age of fifty, while Annie, Pete, and himself were in their late thirties.
“She is doing an excellent job,” Annie said, looking at the woman in the corner and smiling warmly.
The woman looked simultaneously grateful and mortified. The thought of being a topic of the president’s conversation had to be anathema to her. But Luganov abruptly changed the subject.
“There is more I will tell you, Senator,” he said.
“By all means.”
“I have not made this public yet, but I will tell you all because it will be news very soon,” Luganov continued. “Tomorrow I am flying to Pyongyang to announce the conclusion of several months of secret negotiations.”
“Regarding what?”
“The North Korean leader and I will sign a treaty,” Luganov said. “The signing will be broadcast live around the world. I am creating a military alliance with Pyongyang. I will pledge to come to North Korea’s defense should it ever be attacked by the South or by the U.S. or by any other force. In return, Pyongyang will completely abandon its nuclear program and turn all of its nuclear weapons, uranium, and additional nuclear materials over to me. Their nuclear reactors and laboratories will be dismantled or destroyed. What’s more, I will invite international inspectors to observe and monitor the process.”
Luganov stopped speaking, but the senator did not respond immediately. When he did, he congratulated the president on what he hoped would be a “significant move toward true peace on the Korean Peninsula.”
Marcus’s defenses were on full alert. He was certain Dayton was being played by the world’s master manipulator, but even a blind man could see that Luganov’s charms were casting their spell as intended. As surprised and impressed as Marcus had been with the senator when the meeting began, he now felt just as surprised and equally dispirited. If one of the leading Russia hawks in Washington could be so easily beguiled, then the people of the West were sitting ducks indeed.
Marcus brooded over his worries for the rest of the evening. Even the catered dinner with Ambassador Tyler Reed and DCM Nick Vinetti couldn’t shake Marcus’s genuine fear for the people of Europe and the fate of the NATO alliance. He was all but certain Luganov was preparing to strike hard and strike soon. At which target—Ukraine or the Baltics—he could not say. Luganov’s plan for a treaty with North Korea was almost certainly sheer disinformation and sleight of hand. Yet in the absence of proof, who would listen to an ex–Secret Service agent whose closest friends had diagnosed him as depressed?
59
THE HOTEL NATIONAL, MOSCOW—25 SEPTEMBER
The phone startled Marcus awake.
It was not his mobile ringing, nor the secure satellite phone he’d rented for the trip. This was the hotel phone on the nightstand beside the bed. Marcus was instantly awake and on his feet, the muscle memory reaction of years of training. He picked up the receiver even as he read the LED display on the clock radio. It was 3:37 in the morning.
“Hello?”
“Is this Agent Ryker?” asked a man’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Who’s asking?”
“Is this Special Agent Marcus Ryker?” the man asked again, stressing each word.