“Roger that.” Gil put the smokes back into his pocket.
Dragunov smirked. “There will be plenty of smoking in prison.”
Gil looked at him. “That meant to be a double entendre?”
“What the hell is that?”
The door opened, and one of the Turkish airport officials stepped into the room, their passports in his hand. Everyone gawked in silence as he walked through the room handing them out. Gil’s was the last to be returned.
“Let’s go,” the official said in accented English. “The plane is now boarding.”
Katarina translated what he said, and the women all popped out of their chairs, making for the door.
Gil tucked the passport away with the cigarettes, exchanging suspicious glances with Dragunov. “The plane to where?” he asked the official.
“Moscow! Where else? Now, follow me.”
Dragunov shouldered past Gil on his way to the front of the line. “Bring up the rear and keep your eyes open,” he said in a low voice. “It’s possible they’re giving us back to the mafia.”
The official led them down a long white corridor. They emerged from a doorway just beyond the security checkpoint where late-night travelers were busy taking off their shoes and stepping through metal detectors.
“Wait here,” the official told Dragunov. “I have to get your boarding passes.”
The women huddled together, talking guardedly among themselves.
“What do you think?” Gil said.
Dragunov grunted, putting a hand on his shoulder and pointing beyond the bank of metal detectors. “It looks like our friends have come to see us off.”
Gil looked over to see a pair of angry-looking Russians in black leather jackets staring back at them. He gave them the finger and formed the words Fuck you with his lips.
The Russians stared a few moments more. Then they turned and left.
“Adios, assholes.”
“You think we’ve won,” Dragunov said. “But we’ve made very dangerous enemies tonight. They will hunt us forever.”
“Well, I don’t speak Russian,” Gil said. “So when you get the chance, do me a favor and tell ’em to get in line behind Al Qaeda, the RSMB, the ACLU, and every other motherfucker who wants a piece of me.”
The Spetsnaz man chuckled. “I’m going to catch hell for not shooting you. Because of this, the GRU will never be able to work with them in Turkey again.”
“Too bad.” Gil pointed to where the women were joyfully receiving their boarding passes from the airport official. “Don’t tell me that doesn’t make you feel good.”
Dragunov nodded. “Yes, but it wasn’t our mission — and you know that.”
They boarded the plane a short time later, and the captain of the plane joined them in the back. “Are you Major Ivan Dragunov?” he asked in Russian.
“Yes.”
The captain gestured at Gil. “And this is the American?”
“Yes. Ugly, isn’t he?”
The captain grinned. “Major, I need for you to collect the passports from these women and send them forward to the cockpit. Moscow wants a complete list of names so they can begin to notify the families.”
The women immediately began to object.
Gil reached across the aisle, putting his hand on Katarina’s arm. “What’s going on now?” She told him what the captain had said, and he shook his head. “Tell them not to give up their passports again until we arrive at Moscow customs.”
Katarina quickly told the others, and they all defiantly jammed their hands into their coat pockets.
Dragunov elbowed him in the ribs. “What the hell are you doing?”
“They can write their names down on a sheet of paper. These girls are traumatized as hell, and you wanna take their fuckin’ passports again?”
The captain stared at Gil. “Mr. Shannon, no one is going to steal their passports aboard my aircraft.”
“You can call me Master Chief Shannon, Captain.”
The captain smiled dryly. “Very well, Master Chief. If you would ask these young ladies to write their names down for me and pass the list to the cockpit? Then perhaps my government can get on with its work.”
“Hear that?” Gil asked Katarina.
She nodded, saying “Thank you” to the captain in English.
The captain nodded. “I’ll have the attendant bring paper and something to write with.” He then returned to the cockpit and closed the door.
Dragunov looked at Gil and smirked.
“You’re doin’ a lotta smirkin’ tonight, Major.”
“You seem to have no idea where you’re going,” Dragunov said, putting his seat back and making himself comfortable. “You will, though, soon enough.”
“Don’t get too comfy over there. You’re gonna have to return that seat to its upright position before we take off.”
Dragunov closed his eyes. “Leave me alone, Master Chief. A crazy American has been trying to get me killed for days, and I’m very tired.”
45
Robert Pope opened his eyes to see the president standing at the foot of his bed in the subdued lighting of his hospital room. His first thought was that something had gone terribly wrong in Turkey. “Has something happened to Gil, Mr. President?”
The president shook his head. “No, Gil’s fine. He and the others left Istanbul for Moscow half an hour ago. I’m here at this untimely hour because I need your counsel on a very personal matter.”
Pope adjusted himself in the bed, wiping his face with his hands to wake himself up. “You look worried, sir. What can I do for you?”
The president took the phone from his pocket and stepped around the side of the bed. “I received this… message… from Tim Hagen two hours ago.” He put the phone into Pope’s hand and touched the screen to start the video clip.
In the video, the president was sitting beside a young Korean woman in the back of a limousine. He was clearly drunk and quite taken with the young woman. He was kissing the side of her face, running his hand in and out of her blouse and up and down the inside of her thigh, beneath her skirt. She was laughing and rubbing the bulge in his trousers. The voice of Tim Hagen could be heard very close to the phone, talking and chortling as if he were having a conversation with someone on the other end. After twenty seconds, the video cut to the president performing cunnilingus on the woman. Twenty seconds later, it cut again to her straddling him, and the president moaning that he was about to climax. After a full minute, the video stopped.
Pope gave the phone back to the president. “That’s obviously an edited version?”
“Yes,” the president said quietly, slipping the phone into his jacket. “I expect it probably is.”
“And you had no idea he was filming you?”
“None. We’d just won the Iowa caucuses, and I was drunker than the Lords of London. I thought he was bragging to someone about the victory.” The president massaged the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “I trusted that man with my life, and he put me in the White House. I had no idea I’d made a deal with the devil.”
Pope blessed his luck. “Why have you shared this with me, sir?”
“Hagen’s letting me know that if he goes down, he’s taking me with him. My wife is nothing like Hillary Clinton. She would divorce me immediately — and publicly.”
Pope nodded his understanding. “With respect, Mr. President, that doesn’t really answer my question.”
The president spoke to him gravely. “Can you stop this video before it goes viral?”
“Is this a frank and open conversation, sir?”
“It is.”
“In that case, I can stop it with a ninety percent certainty,” Pope replied. “But I’ll have to remove Hagen from the game board to do it. There’s a slight chance he’s arranged for the video to go viral in the event of his death, but under the circumstances, I believe that to be unlikely.”