“‘And he loses all respect for himself and for others—and having no respect he ceases to love,’” Oleg added with a sigh.
“It’s good to hear your voice,” Marcus said at last.
“It’s good to hear yours,” Oleg said. “We can speak freely? You’re certain this is secure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Where are you right now?”
“Closer than you might imagine.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m in Moscow.”
“You’re here? How? I thought—”
“I know. I did, but I came back. Don’t ask me how. Suffice it to say your security services don’t know I’m here, and for now I’d like to keep it that way.”
“Of course. Do you have access to a car?”
“I do.”
“Good—that’s very good.” Oleg quickly recalculated his options. “Listen carefully. I’ve got a gift for you.”
“A gift?”
“Files.”
“What kind of files?”
“Everything off my office hard drive.”
“Everything?”
“War plans. Strategic memos. Transcripts of every conversation the…”
Oleg hesitated. He didn’t want to use Luganov’s name or title even though Marcus had assured him nothing they said could be intercepted. But he realized there was no reason to hold back now. If the FSB were on to him, if they could hear what he was saying, he was a dead man. Omitting a few key words here or there wasn’t going to make any difference at all.
“…the president has had with other world leaders and members of his cabinet,” he continued. “Emails, voice messages, my private notes. I’m ready to give it all to you. I was calling to ask you how to do that, but maybe we can just meet.”
Now it was Marcus who hesitated. Finally he said, “Of course, but I… I don’t know what to say, except thank you.”
“Don’t thank me too soon,” Oleg countered. “It’s not going to be enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m giving you the mother lode, and it will give your people tremendous insights into everything Luganov is doing, thinking, ordering,” Oleg said. “But it won’t stop this thing. It can’t. Events are unfolding too fast. He’s going to war even faster than I’d thought, faster than he said.” Oleg briefed Marcus on how accelerated the timetable had become.
“You’re telling me the invasion is now set to begin in just forty-eight hours?” Marcus asked.
“Correct.”
“Then we need to get you out now, before it’s too late,” Marcus said.
“No, that won’t solve anything,” Oleg replied.
“It’s okay,” Marcus responded. “I have a plan. We can get you out of the country and someplace safe, somewhere they’ll never find you.”
“No, please, that’s not what I want,” Oleg protested. “You don’t understand. There’s only one way to stop this war from happening, and it’s not by me running.”
“Then what?” Marcus asked.
Oleg paused, took a deep breath, and then said, “I need to kill the president.”
76
MOSCOW—29 SEPTEMBER
“I’m sorry. What did you just say?”
It was a few minutes after midnight. Marcus had been out for a run—trying to burn off his anxieties—when his phone buzzed. Though the streets were empty, he’d ducked into the shadows of a bridge before answering.
“You heard me,” Oleg shot back. “Someone needs to take him out. If NATO fights back, he’s setting into motion a nuclear holocaust. If they don’t, he’ll have broken the back of the alliance, and then it will be open season on the West. With no one willing to stop him, he’ll become the most powerful man in the world and the most ruthless. No one will be safe. He has to be stopped before he strikes. I don’t see any other way. I wish I did. I’ve spent all day trying to come up with another scenario—any other—but this is it. I’ve concluded this is what I need to do. But I need your help.”
Marcus swallowed hard. The logic was unassailable. It was the same conclusion he himself had come to. He’d just never considered Oleg might put himself forward to do the deed.
“What do you need?” Marcus asked.
“A plan,” Oleg said. “I’m willing to do whatever’s necessary, but I don’t have a clue how to pull this thing off, and I’m running out of time.”
“You’re absolutely sure you want to do this?”
“Want to? No. But I must. There is no other option.”
Marcus knew he was about to go where Jenny Morris never would, not in a million years. But he wasn’t an employee of the U.S. government. Not anymore. Nor was he operating on the government’s behalf. Not exactly. That’s why Morris and the higher-ups above her could never know what he was about to say or do.
“Fair enough,” he said, taking a deep breath. “There are three components in any successful assassination—the plan, the execution, and the escape. If you really want me to, I can walk you through each part, step-by-step. I’m going to have to ask you a lot of questions, and of course I’ll answer all of yours that I can. But when we’re done, I’m going to ask you one more time: do you really want to do this? Because if you pull this off, there’s a very real chance you won’t come out of it alive. You understand that, right?”
“I do.”
“If you do beat the odds and survive and escape—and I’ll do everything I possibly can to help you—you have to understand that you’re going to be a marked man for the rest of your life. You’ll have to disappear forever. Off the grid. No contact with family or friends. A new name. A new identity. Nothing will ever be the same. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“Okay, first things first,” Marcus said, pacing under the bridge and trying to gather his thoughts. “Where is the president going to be today? At the Kremlin?”
“No, he’ll be at the residence.”
“In Novo-Ogaryovo?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes. He’ll be there all day.”
“Who else will be with him?”
“What do you mean? He’ll have bodyguards and servants and—”
“I mean, will he be meeting with generals, the war council, key advisors?”
“Unlikely. Most of that will be done by secure phone calls and videoconferencing.”
“Even forty-eight hours before a war?”
“Especially so,” Oleg said. “The generals he needs to interact with are mostly at the Defense Ministry or on the front. There’s nobody at the Kremlin he needs to see face-to-face. He prefers to think and strategize at the palace, not in his office. And of course, she’ll be there as well.”
“She who?”
“Katya Slatsky.”
“I didn’t realize she was still in the picture,” Marcus said.
“Very much so, I’m afraid.”
“Does she sleep there?”
“Sometimes, not always.”
“Is she there right now?”
“I’d be surprised if she wasn’t.”
“Okay, that’s good to know,” Marcus said, processing it all. “Are you scheduled to be there today?”
“No, not that I know of.”
“Can you get yourself invited, say for breakfast?”
“Well, maybe not for breakfast, given that it’s already the middle of the night. But if I need to go, to bring him critical documents to sign, or whatever, then yes, I can certainly do that.”
“Is that normal?”
“Fairly.”
“How do you get there? Drive?”
“Usually they take me by helicopter.”
“With your whole security detail?”