“Under what circumstances?”
“I’m extremely close to Hagen, Mr. President. I have been since shortly after I ended up here. For all intents and purposes, I might as well be in the room with him at this very moment. If he’s arranged for that video go viral automatically, he did so a long time ago — which isn’t likely, in my opinion.”
The president let out a heavy sigh and stood away from the bed, resting his weight on the back of a chair near the window. “I can’t give you an order like that to protect my own hide.”
“You don’t have to order anything,” Pope said. “All you have to do is agree not to ask any questions about him after tonight. Hagen’s a traitor, Mr. President. Innocent people are dead because of him and his coconspirators.”
“But can you prove that?”
“In a court of law? No. But one of the CIA mainframes was accessed by an old series of codes that Hagen would have had access to during his time as chief of staff. Normally that series of codes would have been canceled after Hagen’s resignation, but the agency’s a mess, and a number of department heads have been slacking off. The day I get out of here, I plan to fire more than fifty people.”
The president felt sick to his stomach. “I know I’m a pathetic coward for asking you this, Robert, but what are the chances of it coming back to bite us if he’s removed?”
“Zero,” Pope answered. “He’ll simply vanish. The FBI will be left to assume that he’s gone on the run. He has plenty of money offshore, so it’s more than believable. He should have run already, but he’s a very foolish man.”
“Foolish how?”
“Foolish in that he’s too stubborn to admit that he’s lost. He lost the day you asked for his resignation. He’s the one who burned Gil in Paris, Mr. President. He did it to get revenge against me — and Gil — for reasons probably only he would truly understand.”
The president stared. “You said you’re in the room with him right now. That means you’d already planned on his disappearance, doesn’t it?”
Pope smiled. “Maybe not quite this soon…”
“So I’ve unnecessarily shown you my ass this evening.”
“I wouldn’t say so, sir. A man like Hagen could do a lot of damage with that video in a very short period of time. The sooner he takes a little vacation, the better.”
“A vacation…” The president thought it over at length, at last deciding that Hagen had asked for whatever Pope had in mind for him. “Okay. I won’t ask about him again. Now, what about the CIA? Can you save it, or will I have to dissolve it?”
“If I’m given a free hand, sir, you won’t even recognize the CIA nine months from now.”
The president touched Pope on the shoulder. “Heal up, Robert. I’ll look forward to seeing you at the White House for dinner the day you’re released. We have a lot to talk about.”
“I appreciate the invitation. Thank you.”
The president went to the door and was about to step into the hall when he turned on his heel. “Will Putin let Shannon out of Russia, or will he hold on to him?”
Pope grinned. “Do not fear, sir. Everything is going according to plan.”
The president shook his head as he slipped out of the room.
46
More than half of the young Russian women rescued from the brothel in Istanbul had family waiting for them at the Domodedovo Airport southeast of Moscow when the plane landed shortly after sunrise. The women cheered the moment the wheels touched down and smothered both Gil and Dragunov with kisses upon deplaning.
The rescuers were not afforded the opportunity to see the women reunited with their loved ones, however. The Russian media had been invited to film the tearful reunions for propaganda purposes, and the Kremlin had given express orders for Gil and Dragunov to be kept away from the cameras. They were ushered immediately from the plane to a waiting blue and white Mi-8 helicopter, which lifted off the moment the door was closed.
The Mi-8 was a large military model, but there was nothing military about the luxurious interior. Gil sat across a table from Dragunov, facing forward as they were served coffee and orange juice. “Something tells me this isn’t standard treatment,” he said dryly.
Dragunov sat looking pensively out the window. “This is Putin’s personal helicopter.”
Gil glanced around. “You’re kidding me.”
The Russian looked at him. “I would never joke about Putin.”
“Well, you don’t have much of a sense of humor, anyhow. Where are we going?”
Dragunov asked the Russian sergeant who had served their coffee. “We’re going to the Kremlin.”
“What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know, but what it does not mean is that they intend to pin medals to our chests, I can assure you of that. Your people must have contacted Moscow before we boarded the plane in Istanbul. They were too well prepared for us at the airport.”
Gil grinned. “Washington likes to keep things tidy with you guys. You’re too touchy.”
Dragunov was agitated by Gil’s lightheartedness. “You still don’t understand, do you? This is Russia.”
“I understand that, Ivan, but what do you want me to do about it? Sit over here pissing myself? What’s gonna happen is gonna happen.”
“That’s an easy attitude for you to take,” Dragunov said irritably, looking out the window again.
Gil realized for the first time that Dragunov was legitimately spooked. “What are you so worried about? You weren’t this rattled when we had people shooting at us.”
Dragunov turned toward him again. “Do you think Putin would send his personal helicopter for a lowly major returning from a failed mission?” He shook his head. “This helicopter is for you. It has nothing to do with me. You’re probably going to be treated like a celebrity. I’m going to be demoted and tossed into an infantry brigade. I’ll probably be in Ukraine before tomorrow night. My career is ruined because of this!” He swore foully in Russian and asked the sergeant if there was any vodka aboard.
The sergeant produced a bottle of Russian Standard vodka from a small refrigerator and poured the major a drink.
A short time later, Gil saw looming in the distance the five gold onion domes of the Dormition Cathedral located within the walls of the Kremlin. “It’s an awesome sight, Ivan.”
For a moment, Dragunov seemed to forget his concerns, moving around to Gil’s side of the table and pointing out the window to the northwest. “There near the horizon is the town of Khimki, where we stopped the Nazis in December of ’41 — barely eight kilometers outside of Moscow.”
Gil converted the distance in his head to just shy of five miles.
Within a minute, they buzzed past the multicolored onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral located just outside of the Kremlin near Red Square. Seconds later, they were over the landing threshold of the Kremlin helipad, constructed two years earlier in the southeast corner of the Kremlin compound. Russian presidential motorcades were infamous for causing traffic jams, and President Putin had ditched his Mercedes limousine in 2013 in favor of faster, less obtrusive transportation.
The Kremlin — meaning “fortress” — had been constructed over a period of thirteen years from 1482 to 1495 and covered almost twenty-eight acres in the heart of the city. It was surrounded by a defensive brick wall more than a mile in circumference, ranging in height from sixteen to sixty-two feet, and in thickness from eleven to twenty-one feet.