The meeting did not go well.
For starters, President Clarke was not interested in being briefed by a man actively planning to run against him in the next national election. Twice he interrupted the senator to ask if this wasn’t all a ploy for big ratings and fifteen minutes in the spotlight.
Dayton told the president it was his “moral and constitutional duty” to rapidly deploy tens of thousands of American and NATO forces to the Baltics and to supply the Ukrainians with arms, ammunition, and intelligence. “The only thing standing in the way is your own inexperience and hubris!” he shouted. When Clarke accused Dayton of using the crisis for political gain, the senator responded, “Mr. President, if you refuse or even hesitate to come to the aid of vulnerable NATO allies in a moment of peril, you will undermine the greatest military and political alliance in the history of freedom.”
As McDermott would later relay to Nick Vinetti, the heated voices could be heard throughout the West Wing. Both men either were unable to control themselves or believed that when the high-profile dustup in the Oval Office inevitably leaked to the press, it would help them with their bases.
There was just one problem with such calculations, McDermott would tell his old friend. “Both men seem to have forgotten a nuclear war might bode poorly for either of their political fortunes.”
MOSCOW—26 SEPTEMBER
Marcus knew Jenny Morris would be no help in taking out Luganov.
She’d humored him for a moment, but only because she believed he was kidding or yanking her chain. Pressed, however, she’d thrown Executive Order 12333 in his face, notably Part 2.11, which read, “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.”
Marcus was not only familiar with the order, he’d studied it quite carefully, as had all special agents, and he knew it wasn’t quite as clear-cut as it might seem. Signed by Ronald Reagan back in 1981, the order never actually defined the term assassination, creating a significant gray area. Several later presidents and their attorneys general had, in fact, concluded that “targeted killings” of terrorist leaders—such as Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda leadership—were not just legal but morally justified. The order had never been tested in the courts, and over the past few days Marcus had been asking himself whether an order inhibiting the nation’s ability to act in self-defense was even constitutional.
It wasn’t that Marcus supported killing foreign leaders in general. Still, he kept thinking of what might have happened if someone had taken out Hitler before he invaded Poland, before he set the Final Solution into motion. At least twenty-five attempts were made against the führer’s life. Weren’t men like Claus von Stauffenberg and his colleagues—who initiated the much-heralded, if unsuccessful, Operation Valkyrie—heroes for at least having tried to stop a madman from murdering millions?
What about Dietrich Bonhoeffer? His story cut closer to home. He was a German Christian, a Protestant pastor and theologian. When Hitler outlawed the preaching of the gospel and the teaching of the Bible and moved to take over the state church, Bonhoeffer first started an underground seminary, training young men to remain faithful to the teachings of Jesus instead of selling out to the Nazis. In the end, however, after much prayer and study, Bonhoeffer joined a conspiracy to assassinate the führer to prevent him from destroying the Germany he loved. Was something similar needed now?
Marcus wasn’t entirely certain, but he was determined to have a plan, should an opportunity present itself. Of course, such a plan would hinge on his knowing exactly where Luganov was going to be at any given moment. Perhaps Oleg could get him the president’s schedule. Right now he was probably in the air, on the way home from North Korea. And once he was back in Moscow, why would Luganov go anywhere public if he was counting down the hours to a full-on invasion of three NATO countries? More likely he would be holed up for the next few days in the Kremlin, huddling with his generals. Still, Marcus needed to be ready.
He got up and went into the kitchen. Morris was still sitting at the table, now sending an encrypted cable back to Langley, a pot of tea at her side.
“I need a weapon,” Marcus said.
“No, you don’t,” she said, not bothering to look up from her work. “You’re never going to get near him.”
“You don’t know that,” he said. “But even if you’re right, we still need an extraction plan for the Raven, don’t we?”
Now she looked up. “Yes, but—”
“I think I may have one.”
“You already have a weapon,” she said, glancing at the Glock.
“You’re telling me that if something goes down, you really want me defending myself with an American sidearm? No, I need something Russian, something untraceable. A Vul and a Vintorez would do nicely.”
“A silent pistol and a sniper rifle?”
The MSS Vul had been the standard-issue pistol for the KGB, Spetsnaz, and other Russian and Eastern Bloc assassins and spies since the early 1980s. It could fire a 7.62mm round with impressive accuracy and make no more sound than a nearly inaudible metallic click. Even better, it emitted no smoke or flash.
The VSS Vintorez—“thread cutter” in English—was a highly effective Soviet-era sniper rifle used by Special Forces. Traditionally equipped with a high-end telescopic sight, when it was fitted with a night-vision scope, it became even deadlier.
For the next ten minutes, Marcus walked Morris through his idea to get the Raven out of the country. It was incredibly risky and somewhat complicated. It would require not just Morris’s green light but her active cooperation. And there was one big problem: Russians were almost certainly going to have to die. Four of them, to be exact. Marcus didn’t like it, and he said as much. But those were the facts. The Raven had a four-man security detail with him at all times, Marcus told her. He had given them the slip once, on the night he came to the Hotel National to meet with Marcus. It was too much to hope that the Raven would be alone again, especially in the lead-up to a major military operation. If Langley truly wanted this source in their hands, back in the U.S. or some place where they could debrief him to their hearts’ content, to learn every secret they possibly could about Luganov and the inner workings of his regime, then this was the only way.
Morris was quiet. She asked a few questions, and he provided what he thought were reasonable answers. Then the two just looked at each other.
Finally Morris excused herself.
“Where are you going?” Marcus asked. “I need an answer.”
“So do I,” she said. “And this is above my pay grade.”
71
NOVO-OGARYOVO, RUSSIA—28 SEPTEMBER
“Mr. President, we have a problem.”
The tense voice on the other end of the phone belonged to FSB Chief Dmitri Nimkov.
“It had better be an emergency, Dmitri Dmitrovich—I’ve only recently returned from North Korea, and it’s the middle of the night!” Luganov shouted into the receiver by his bed. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Clarke, sir.”
“What about him?”
“He just mobilized the Eighty-Second and the 101st Airborne Divisions.”
One hour later, Luganov’s chopper landed at the Kremlin.
He strode into the cabinet room with Oleg and Special Agent Kovalev right behind him and found his senior military and intelligence officials nervously waiting to give him a more-detailed briefing.