"This is a letter of resignation," he said. "Do you really expect me to sign it?"
"Leonid, it is the best way."
Orlov's voice was calm, persuasive, the voice he used when he wanted to convince someone to do what he wanted.
"You have lost the confidence of the military and of the oligarchs. Your caution is beginning to look like fear and fear is not something we can afford to show to our enemies."
"My caution is only prudence. We are not ready for another military adventure at this time. We need two more years at least."
"No one is willing to wait two more years," Krupin said. "In two years the Americans will have strengthened NATO to a point where it will no longer be easy to defeat them. They will become a serious threat. Washington is negotiating missile sites in the Balkans as we speak. They cannot be allowed to ring the Rodina with their weapons."
Gorovsky shook his head, like a teacher correcting a wayward student.
"You are fools if you believe we can take on the Americans. Remember your history. Japan had the same idea for almost the same reasons. They saw the U.S. as weak, divided, unwilling to wage war. Look what happened."
"We are not Japan and this is not 1941," Orlov said. "It would be best to sign the paper and retire gracefully to the countryside. Go, Leonid. Enjoy your Dacha on the Black Sea."
"Or what?"
Gorovsky felt the cold metal of the Makarov in his hand.
"Or you will resign involuntarily. Perhaps for reasons of ill health. It's really too bad about your heart condition."
"My heart is fine," Gorovsky said, "but yours soon won't be."
He drew the pistol from the drawer. Krupin had been watching Gorovsky's hands. His own pistol was out of the holster in a blur. He fired as Gorovsky raised the Makarov. The bullet took the president in the shoulder. Gorovsky's gun fired as he fell back in his chair and Kuznetsov shouted in pain. Orlov took a pistol from under his coat and fired three quick shots into Gorovsky before he could recover.
Blood poured out of Gorovsky's mouth and he fell forward onto the carpet. He twitched and lay still. A faint odor of spent powder drifted through the room.
Kuznetsov was holding his upper arm. Dark blood seeped between his fingers.
"How bad?" Krupin said.
"It's nothing. A superficial wound."
There was a noise outside. Four hard looking men in civilian clothes came into the office. Their clothes couldn't hide their cropped hair and military look. They were Zaslon, the secretive Spetsnaz unit commanded by General Alexei Vysotsky, one of the deputy directors of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, Russia's foreign intelligence service. Vysotsky had served with Orlov in the days of the KGB.
The leader of the four men looked down at the body of the Russian president, then at Orlov. With Gorovsky's death, Orlov was now the acting President of the Russian Federation and Supreme Commander of Russia's military forces. He saluted.
"Captain Ilya Yezhov, sir. What are your orders?"
"President Gorovsky has had a sudden hemorrhage and heart attack."
Orlov gave Yezhov a calculating look. "This unfortunate death requires discretion. You understand?"
"Of course, sir."
"You are now promoted to Major, effective immediately. Please arrange for our late president's body to be prepared for a state funeral. Someone will need to replace this carpet."
"Sir."
Yezhov saluted again and barked out a few short commands. The other three men cut away the bloodstained carpet and wrapped Gorovsky's body in it.
Orlov watched them carry the former president out the door and smiled.
The game had begun.
CHAPTER 2
The sun was setting on the island of Kauai. Radiant streams of orange and gold lit towering dark cumulus clouds on the far horizon. Two people sat on the veranda of the hotel they'd picked for their honeymoon, watching the ocean and sipping piña coladas.
The man was muscular, in shape. He had black hair cropped short and gray eyes that seemed to take in everything around him. His body was marked by ripples and puckers of scar tissue, the aftermath of wounds he'd taken in foreign and hostile places.
The woman was almost stunning. Selena Connor wore a skimpy bikini in a lavender color that picked up the violet of her eyes and revealed the taut musculature hiding under the outward curves that usually caught people's attention.
"This is the life," Nick Carter said. "We have to do this more often."
"We could buy a condo and come out whenever we wanted."
"But then we'd have to make these ourselves. I'd rather have someone do it for us. Speaking of which…"
He held up two fingers toward the waiter. Two more.
Selena took a bottle of lotion from her beach bag and began applying it to her arms and face.
"I got a little too much sun today."
"It looks good on you. Brings out the red in your hair."
"You like redheads?"
"That sounds like a trick question," Nick said. "Only on you."
"Good answer."
The drinks came. Nick took a slice of pineapple off the edge of the glass and bit into it.
"One thing I love about the islands. The fruit is always fresh and the booze is good."
"We've been here four days and I'm just beginning to relax," Selena said.
"We've got another ten days before we're due back. I can't remember when I had this much time off."
"Don't say that. You'll jinx it."
"Superstitious?"
"I don't like to tempt the fates."
"You think there's such a thing as fate?"
"I don't know, maybe. If there is, it must have something in store for us or we would've been sitting in that car when it blew up."
Selena was talking about the white Rolls-Royce that was supposed to whisk them away from the church after the ceremony. It had vanished in an explosion that turned the gleaming limousine into scrap metal, filled the oak doors of the church with shrapnel and blew out the stained-glass windows. Nick's intuition had saved them.
"I'd like to get my hands on whoever did it," she said. Her voice betrayed her anger.
Nick took a long sip of his drink. "So far there isn't anything we can use to identify the bomber. Forensics is still working on it."
"There was that note on the package."
Nick nodded. "All I could make out was two words. 'For my…' The rest was hidden under the bow."
"For my what? Someone wanted us to read it."
"Sure, right before they blew us up. We'll never know what it said unless we discover who sent that package."
Nick's secure phone was lying on the glass tabletop. It vibrated, short steady bursts that walked the phone across the glass. He picked it up and looked at it.
"It's Harker."
"Don't answer."
"You know I have to."
The phone vibrated again.
"I told you you'd jinx it.
Nick activated the call. "Director."
Six thousand miles away in Virginia, Elizabeth Harker sat in her office at Project Headquarters watching a CNN special on the state funeral for the late leader of the Russian Federation.
"Nick, I hate to do this. I need you and Selena to come back."
"We still have ten days here. Unless somebody's about to start World War III I'm not in any hurry to leave. What's so urgent?"
"Have you been paying attention to the news?"
"Not at all. That's kind of the point of taking a vacation. Besides, it's our honeymoon. I've got better things to do."
He winked at Selena. She smothered a laugh.
"Gorovsky is dead."
"The Russian president? Good riddance. He caused a lot of trouble. Maybe now the Russians will wise up."
"There's no chance of that," Harker said. "His death puts Vladimir Orlov in the president's chair."