“Tonight? But what about you?”
“I told you, sweetheart, I am swamped with work,” Oleg said. “Your father needs me at his side. But I will feel better—and so will he—if you and Vasily are safe with your mother, comforting her and letting her know everything will be all right.”
The next call Oleg made was to his parents. He told them the exact opposite. The crisis with NATO could spin out of control at any moment, he told them. It might be best not to be in Moscow for the next few weeks.
“Are things really that bad?” his father asked.
“Let me put it this way,” Oleg replied. “I just got off the phone with Marina and told her to book tickets to leave the country immediately. She was beside herself, but what else can I do? I just want you all to be safe.”
Oleg’s mother began to cry. “Should I call Marina?” she asked.
“No—I told her not to take any calls right now from anyone but me. I told her to keep the lines open. I expect her and Vasily to be heading to the airport in the next few hours. I really think you should do the same.”
“And go where?” asked his father.
“What about Hong Kong?” Oleg replied. “I’d join you myself if I could. Look, I’ve got to go. Things are very tense around here and moving fast. Please don’t tell anyone I called. And definitely don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Just head to the airport and book your flight on the way. Don’t worry about the house. I’ll send someone over to keep an eye on things. In fact, if I get a chance, I’ll go over there myself.”
“You’re a good son, Oleg Stefanovich,” his father said, his voice trembling. “You’ll let us know when it’s safe to return?”
“Of course,” Oleg replied. “Hopefully, it will not be long.”
He told them he loved them and hung up. Then he opened the contact files on his computer and pulled up the personal mobile number of the German foreign minister.
74
MOSCOW—28 SEPTEMBER
It was almost noon when Dmitri Nimkov got back to Lubyanka.
The massive nine-story building once served as the headquarters for the KGB. Now it was home to the FSB. Waiting for him was his deputy, Nikolay Kropatkin.
“Sir, we may have a problem,” Kropatkin said as he followed his boss into his spacious office in the northwest corner of the third floor.
“What kind of problem?” Nimkov asked as he dropped his briefcase on a small round conference table and then moved behind his desk, where he immediately unlocked his computer and began sifting through dozens of new emails.
“Dmitri Dmitrovich, please, I need your full attention,” Kropatkin said a bit too loudly.
He hadn’t meant to shout, but it worked. Nimkov looked up, startled. “Why?”
“Trust me.”
“I trust no one,” Nimkov said. “That’s how I got this job.”
“Very well,” Kropatkin said. “I will tell it to you straight. We have a suspect, someone we believe very likely leaked President Luganov’s war plan to the Americans.”
“Who?” asked Nimkov.
“It will not be easy for you—or the president—to hear.”
“Just tell me.”
“Yes, sir—the person of interest is none other than Oleg Kraskin.”
Nimkov blanched, then dropped into his chair. “That’s not possible.”
“I hope you’re right,” Kropatkin agreed. “But here’s what we know.”
For the next few minutes, the deputy chief of the FSB walked his boss through the evidence his team had gathered. First was a notation in the log kept by the head of Oleg’s four-man protective detail. On Wednesday night, September 24, the log noted that Oleg had entered his bedroom for the night at 8:42 p.m. However, at 9:17 the following morning, Oleg had arrived at the front door, “looking rumpled and disheveled.”
“How did he slip past his detail?” Nimkov asked.
“We don’t know,” Kropatkin said. “It was a serious breach of security and had never happened before. The supervisor told my investigators he thought the discrepancy was inconsequential since Oleg was uninjured. So he entered it into the log but did not report it to his superiors.”
“Where did Oleg Stefanovich go?”
Kropatkin pulled a laptop out of his briefcase and placed it on Nimkov’s desk. “It’s taken us some time to figure that out, but this is what we’ve found.”
A moment later Nimkov was watching excerpts of security camera footage.
“Oleg Stefanovich appears right there,” the deputy noted.
“He’s checking into the Hotel National,” Nimkov said.
“Exactly. The clerk gives him a key. Here we see him getting into the elevator. There’s a shot of him getting off the elevator and another of the hallway where he’s letting himself into a room on the third floor, at the very end.”
“And?”
“That room is right beside that of Marcus Ryker.”
“Who is Marcus Ryker?”
“A member of Senator Dayton’s delegation.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I wish I were,” Kropatkin said.
“You’re saying Oleg Stefanovich gave the slip to his own security team, then checked into a hotel room directly next to a member of Senator Dayton’s delegation—someone he would have met during the senator’s meeting with the president earlier in the evening?”
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
“Did Oleg communicate with Ryker after entering the room?”
“We can’t say for certain. There’s no video footage showing Oleg entering Ryker’s room. But one of my men checked, and there’s an internal door between the two rooms. And several hours later, there’s this.” Kropatkin played a video of Marcus Ryker emerging from his room and rushing for the elevators.
“In a bit of a hurry, I’d say,” Nimkov observed.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is he going?”
“To the U.S. Embassy.”
“Why?”
“Unscheduled meeting.”
“How do you know?”
“A member of our surveillance team drove the cab that took him there,” Kropatkin said. “Twenty minutes later, Oleg Stefanovich exits his room, leaves the hotel, drives his own car around the streets of Moscow for several hours, then returns to his apartment and walks through the front door to the astonishment of his detail.”
“And then?”
“Showers, changes, and heads to the Kremlin for work.”
Nimkov leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “What do we know about this Ryker fellow?”
“Former Marine, served in Afghanistan and Iraq, worked in law enforcement, then joined the American Secret Service. Decorated numerous times for bravery.”
“And now he’s working for Senator Dayton?”
“Not exactly. He’s no longer in the Secret Service. His wife and son were shot dead a few years ago. Quit the Service soon after. Dayton hired him as a security consultant, but he’s not a regular staff member.”
“Could he have been recruited by the CIA?”
“It’s possible,” Kropatkin said. “He certainly fits the profile of someone the Agency would recruit.”
Nimkov shook his head. “You can’t really believe the president’s son-in-law is a mole for the Americans, can you? Can I?”
“I’m not drawing any conclusions, sir. I’m just giving you the facts as we’ve ascertained them.”
“And I concede they look bad.” Nimkov got to his feet. “Could there be another explanation for him being at that hotel, in that room, at that time?”
“Perhaps.” Kropatkin fast-forwarded the string of clips his investigators had assembled. “About ninety minutes after Oleg Stefanovich enters the hotel room, an unidentified woman comes to the same room,” the deputy said, narrating the footage as it played. “That’s her, with her face obscured by the headscarf. We have footage from several angles, but from none of them can we make a positive ID.”