The Russian people seemed divided on the subject. Some wanted the new protections, but others — those who realized their country was being given away by the bushel and they would have no futures to give to their children — were happy and embraced Nevsky’s tough love of the country and its people.
Cherkshan believed in what Nevsky was doing and in how he was doing it. He just wasn’t certain why the president would send for him or what the coming discussion could possibly be about. He wondered if Anna had done something again, and Cherkshan’s heart went cold. His daughter was a grown woman and no longer under his immediate care and protection. He told himself that Anna had done nothing, that his friends would have told him if she had. He made himself breathe.
After a moment, the general knocked on the open door.
Nevsky turned to face Cherkshan. The Russian president wore his suit well, but it was not an expensive outfit. It was plain and gray, a common suit that fit him well only because he was in shape. He stood a little taller than six feet, and had dirty brown hair that fell over his high forehead. His hazel eyes were so dark they were almost black. In his late forties, he had creases at the corners of his eyes and a pinched mouth.
He rarely smiled. Some of the Western reporters had mentioned the fact that they wouldn’t have wanted to play poker with Nevsky because the Russian president could not be read. His thoughts and intentions and actions were only revealed when he chose to reveal them.
“Good morning, General Cherkshan.”
Cherkshan bowed slightly. “Good morning, Mr. President.”
“Please come in.”
The room was a small reading room. Volumes of Russian law and history filled shelves on two walls. A small table, not a desk, occupied the center of the room. There were two chairs. The third wall held a large monitor and various pieces of electronic equipment.
“You may leave your hat on the table.” Nevsky pointed. “And your jacket as well. I’d like for you to be comfortable.”
Reluctantly, Cherkshan removed his jacket and left it with his hat on the table.
“Would you like some tea?” Nevsky stood at another table that held a tea service that included a ceramic and silver samovar. The hot water container looked rustic and well used.
The smell of the strong brew tickled Cherkshan’s nostrils as he sat. “If it is no trouble.”
“No trouble at all, and I would hate to drink alone.”
“Then of course.”
Nevsky poured tea from the pot atop the samovar into two cups and brought them to the table where Cherkshan sat. The liquid in the half-full cup was dark as coal and had a smoky aroma that had gone missing in new Russia as well.
Cherkshan’s grandmother had made black tea like that, flavored it with oolong as a delicacy and kept the pot brewing all day so it became thick and strong.
Nevsky gazed at the tea with satisfaction. “I like my tea potent.”
“As do I.”
“Good.” Nevsky returned to the table and brought back a carafe of hot water. He finished filling his cup with the water, then added milk and sugar.
Cherkshan did the same. When he picked up the cup, he blew on the tea and sipped the nearly scalding liquid. Then he folded his hands, placed them on the table, and waited.
“I am very familiar with your work, General. You are a punctual man, and you see a job through to the bitterest end.”
Cherkshan didn’t say anything.
“I understand that you had to kill your mentor fourteen years ago.”
The floor seemed like it had opened up and drank Cherkshan down. He was in freefall, looking for something to grab on to. No one had known what he’d done to Viktor Kudrin fourteen years ago. He made himself continue breathing.
Viktor Kudrin had been Cherkshan’s mentor in the FSB. The intelligence service had taken him from the Russian army when he was twenty-nine and made him an agent. In that position, under Kudrin, Cherkshan had hunted Chechen terrorists with grim efficiency. He had also gone after black marketeers.
It was the latter operations that ultimately led to Kudrin’s downfall. Too much money had been in play, and Kudrin had embraced the West’s penchant for gambling. On his vacations, he would travel to the satellite countries that had turned their backs on Russia. There, he would gamble and womanize.
Cherkshan had seen the hounds getting close, although he hadn’t known what Kudrin was doing. Cherkshan had stalked the stalkers and ambushed one of them, ultimately getting the truth of the investigation without revealing himself.
Even then, even knowing what the agency suspected, Cherkshan hadn’t wanted to believe. Then, three weeks later, Cherkshan caught his mentor taking a bribe from a British opium trafficker to look the other way while he made his escape. The man had been on several international lists as a wanted fugitive.
Cherkshan had caught the man and forced him to the ground. The whole time, the trafficker had bellowed at Kudrin to help him, that he had paid him to help him. Kudrin had first ordered, then had begged Cherkshan to let the man go, but he refused. In the end, Kudrin had pulled his service pistol and shot Cherkshan in the thigh, narrowly missing the femoral artery. In return, Cherkshan had shot Kudrin between the eyes, then shot the trafficker when he had grabbed for the gun. With the death of an FSB agent involved in the crime, the man would have been executed anyway, no matter what his nationality. Cherkshan had only saved the courts the time and cost of a trial.
He’d saved more than that though. He’d saved the investigation into Kudrin that would have ruined the lives of his wife and three daughters.
Nevsky watched Cherkshan in silence for a moment. “No denials, General?”
“I would not argue with you, Mr. President.”
“Do you know how I knew about Viktor Kudrin?”
“No, Mr. President.”
“Because I was the FSB agent who was in charge of the resulting investigation into his death. I knew what you had done then, and I knew why you did it.” Nevsky sipped his tea thoughtfully. “I had my eye on the presidency even then. Perhaps it surprises you that I was so ambitious or so certain of myself.”
That was a dangerous statement to respond to, so Cherkshan merely sipped his own tea.
“I knew that once I got into this position, I would want someone I could trust to work with me on special projects. Someone who, like me, was very Russian. You, General, are a true Russian.”
“Thank you.”
“You made mistakes with Kudrin, you know. Other than trusting the man.”
Cherkshan sipped more tea and waited, not knowing where the conversation was going.
“He shot you in the leg, and you covered that well enough by saying that the trafficker had taken you prisoner and Kudrin had shot to kill him. But you had trouble explaining how Kudrin and the trafficker were both shot with the same weapon. You didn’t think the situation through.”
Cherkshan knew that. He had known that the very minute after he’d pulled the trigger and killed the trafficker.
“You claimed that the trafficker had taken your weapon, killed Kudrin, then you’d managed to take the weapon from him and shoot him.”
The story had been thin, but it had been the only one Cherkshan could come up with as the other FSB agents had closed in on him. Questions had come at him like machine-gun fire.
“Of course, there was no time to think, General. Not then. Still, you recovered quickly, thinking on your feet while still reeling from your partner’s betrayal and death at your hands. I applaud you.”
Cherkshan said nothing, but for a moment, he was back in that tunnel in Little Odessa, and the gunpowder stink and scent of blood filled his nose. Under the table, he squeezed his hand into a fist and relaxed it. He would play whatever game the president wanted, but he would get out of the room with a whole skin, if that was still possible.