Some Russians liked to pretend that had changed with the fall of the Soviet Union, that the excesses of the past were over, never to be repeated. See, they said in hushed voices, the old KGB was gone, replaced by a newer and more professional intelligence and police organization, the Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, the Federal Security Service. Unlike its forerunners, the FSB was supposedly hedged in by law — answerable to both the Duma—the parliament — and the nation’s elected president.
Looking up at the Lubyanka through the tinted windows of his black Cortege limousine, Colonel General Mikhail Leonov snorted in sour amusement. Too many of his countrymen preferred living among glittering illusions — of expanding national power and prosperity and reform — even though they still knew the darker truths in their own hearts. For Russia, the past was never another country. The Duma was currently nothing more than a rubber stamp for President Gennadiy Gryzlov’s rule by decree. And while the old means of state terror and repression were now and then papered over with a veneer of civilized legality, they never fully disappeared.
True, the FSB’s current head, Minister of State Security Viktor Kazyanov, was a weakling, more mouse than man. But Gryzlov was clever. He understood that he didn’t need a stony-eyed killer like Lenin’s Felix Dzerzhinsky or Stalin’s Lavrentiy Beria to keep dissenters and potential rivals in line. So long as Kazyanov slavishly followed orders, the president’s grip on power was secure. Gulags and mass executions were no longer necessary… not in an age in which social media could spread fear at the speed of light. All one needed were carefully planted rumors, a few stage-managed public arrests and show trials, and the occasional “mysterious” disappearance.
His driver pulled into the curb at the Lubyanka’s main entrance.
Leonov leaned forward. “Find a parking spot around the back once I’m inside, Anatoly. I’ll text you when I’m finished here.”
Without waiting for a reply, he popped the rear passenger door open and climbed out. A few pedestrians scurrying past the infamous building glanced at him and then as quickly looked away, obviously seeing nothing of any interest. And why should they, after all? Who would waste time staring at yet another dull-looking Russian bureaucrat in a plain dark suit and subdued blue tie? Such men were as thick as fleas on Moscow’s streets this close to the end of the workday.
Leonov knew he would have made more of a splash in his service uniform, shoulder boards, and high, peaked general’s cap. But FSB officers, though nominally members of the military, preferred wearing civilian clothes while at work. Anonymity was a useful trait for spies and secret policemen. Imitating them suited his own purposes this afternoon.
Inside the Lubyanka, he was greeted by a younger officer whose own jacket and tie were considerably more stylish and expensive-looking. “My name is Popov, sir. If you will follow me? General Koshkin is waiting for you in his personal office.”
Leonov raised an eyebrow at the other man’s air of studied elegance. “Tell me you’re not really one of Koshkin’s komp’utershchiks.”
Smiling, Popov shook his head. “One of the tech geeks? Not me. I bathe more than once a week.” He shrugged his perfectly tailored shoulders. “No, sir, I’m merely an errand boy for the general.”
Which translates to bodyguard, Leonov thought dryly, noting the slight bulge of a concealed pistol beneath the younger man’s suit. Major General Arkady Koshkin was evidently a careful man these days. That was wise. Few officers reached the higher echelons of Russia’s spy services. Fewer still could say they had survived Gryzlov’s fury when a crucial operation went sour. Fortunately for Koshkin, it appeared that even the president realized how difficult it would be to replace him. Men with the eclectic mix of arcane technical skills, leadership ability, and cyberwar operations experience needed to manage the FSB’s Q Directorate were a rare breed.
Originally, the directorate’s skilled programmers had been tasked with organizing and conducting Russia’s covert cyberwar and computer-hacking operations. Now, by direct presidential order, they were also expected to protect critical defense industries and computer systems against foreign intrusion and sabotage. Gryzlov’s decree left no doubt that this new cybersecurity role was their primary mission.
It was a change in focus Leonov wholeheartedly welcomed.
He had witnessed the terrible damage an enemy could inflict by hacking into computer programs used to control sophisticated weapons. Three years ago, Scion agents in Polish pay had somehow corrupted software upgrades for Russia’s S-300 and S-400 surface-to-air missiles — causing their target identification and acquisition subroutines to go haywire. The ensuing catastrophe had cost Russia many of its best Su-27, Su-30, and Su-35 fighter jets, shot down by their own air defenses. It had also cost Colonel General Valentin Maksimov, the former commander of the aerospace forces, his job… and, in the end, his life.
As the man who’d stepped into Maksimov’s shoes, Leonov knew only too well how much depended on Q Directorate’s competence. Besides the new Thunderbolt plasma rail gun, the other cutting-edge weapons, compact power-generation systems, and heavy-lift rockets needed to launch the Mars Project were nearing operational status. Gryzlov had invested a substantial portion of the nation’s defense budget — and much of his political prestige — in these advanced technologies. He was convinced they would ensure Russia’s dominion over the world for generations to come. With so much at stake, the president would never forgive even the slightest failure. And nothing short of complete success would satisfy him.
Leonov pondered these unpleasant truths while he followed Popov deeper into the massive building. Within five minutes, he felt lost in a maze of identical corridors with the same elegant parquet floors, pale green walls, and door after door marked only with cryptic numbers and letters. Obviously, the spies who worked here put a high value on their own secrets and privacy. Without a human guide or a map, a stranger entering the deeper recesses of the Lubyanka wouldn’t have the slightest idea of which directorate was where or whose office was behind any given door.
Set in the dead center of the complex, Q Directorate was an exception to the sea of sameness.
Beyond a manned checkpoint, the parquet floors ended, replaced by sound-deadening mats. All the interior walls and ceilings were thicker, with interwoven layers of metal paneling, gypsum wallboard, wire mesh, and acoustic fill. Windows that had once looked out onto inner courtyards were gone — closed off behind new walls. In effect, the directorate’s section had been converted into a highly secure facility that was virtually sealed off from the rest of the FSB headquarters.
That much at least was reassuring.
So was his first look at Arkady Koshkin himself. The head of Q Directorate was short and slight, with a high, wrinkled forehead. Eyes bright with intelligence and ambition gleamed behind thick spectacles. On the other hand, those same eyes were also wary, full of caution. They were the eyes of a man who understood that those close to Gennadiy Gryzlov necessarily danced along a razor’s edge — poised between power and oblivion.
Politely, Koshkin ushered him to a chair in front of his desk and then nodded toward a small silver samovar on a sideboard. “Tea?”