The sergeant opened the helo door, and they stepped down the short staircase to the pad, where they were received by a large contingent of Russian military personnel. Winter had not yet relinquished its grip on the city, and though there was no snow on the ground, it was still cold enough to see everyone’s breath.
“Major Dragunov,” said a stern-looking Spetsnaz colonel, “you will come with me.”
Dragunov saluted, responding, “Yes, sir!” He turned to offer Gil his hand. “In case we never see each other again.”
Gil matched his grip. “It’s been a privilege, Major. I’m sorry we missed our man.”
Dragunov smiled a melancholy smile. “Perhaps next time, eh?”
Gil watched as he was led away toward the western part of the fortress, accompanied by eight armed Spetsnaz soldiers.
“Master Chief Shannon?” said another Russian colonel in nearly perfect-sounding English. “I am Colonel Savcenko. I will be your interpreter during your stay here at the Kremlin.”
Gil saluted the colonel at once. “I am at your orders, sir.”
The colonel returned the salute. “If you will follow me, please?”
“Of course, sir.”
They were escorted northward by no fewer than a dozen armed soldiers toward a large building referred to as the State Kremlin Palace.
“How was your flight from Istanbul, Master Chief?”
“A little tense at times,” Gil replied, his hands in his pockets against the cold. “The girls have all been severely traumatized. I don’t think they believed they were really coming home until the wheels were on the ground.”
“They’ll be well taken care of,” the colonel said. “May I ask you for the passport you were issued in Paris?”
“Yes, sir.” Gil took the passport from his coat pocket and gave it to the colonel, who passed it off to a major, who tucked it away inside his own coat. “Is my government aware of my arrival, sir?”
“I believe so,” the colonel said. “I’m told someone from your embassy will call on you this evening. Before that, the president would like a private word with you over an early lunch — if you’re feeling up to it.”
Gil cleared his throat. “President Putin, sir?”
The colonel met his gaze. “Will that be all right with you, Master Chief?”
“Absolutely, sir. I’m just a little shocked the president of Russia would bother meeting with a virtual nobody such as myself.”
The colonel smiled and continued walking. “You give yourself too little credit, Master Chief. You’re a very accomplished soldier. We have been following your career rather closely here in Moscow over the past eighteen months — ever since your mission into Iran last year.”
Gil went on alert. “I’ve never been to Iran, Colonel. I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else.”
The colonel laughed. “Perhaps we do.”
They walked along in silence the final few yards to the Kremlin Palace, where Gil was led inside and shown to a small suite. The room was much like a hotel room, but instead of a bed, there was a black leather sofa.
“I assume you would like an opportunity to shower and change your clothes before your meeting with the president.”
“Very much so,” Gil said. “Thank you, Colonel.”
“There is a change of clothes in the closet. I’ll return for you in half an hour.”
Savcenko stepped out, pulling the door to, and Gil dropped down on the sofa, stretching his arms across the back of it and extending his legs. “Holy shit,” he muttered. “Six hours ago, I was in a Turkish whorehouse, and now here I sit in the fucking Kremlin getting ready to break bread with Stalin Junior. My wife would never believe this.”
47
Tim Hagen sat on his hotel bed dressed in his pajamas, drinking Dos Equis beer and wondering how the president of the United States had responded to the video clip. He laughed drunkenly, thinking of how shocked the big, bad commander in chief must have been the moment he realized that his tryst with the Korean girl had been recorded for posterity. Hagen knew the CIA might soon move to take him out, but that wasn’t going to do the president any good. In the morning, he would set up a delayed upload that would require him to enter a password every twelve hours. After one missed entry, the video would upload automatically to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Ustream, and a half dozen other websites. Within twenty-four hours, the video would go viral, and the president would go down in flames as the most humiliated world leader in history.
Hagen went into the bathroom to take a leak, and when he came back out, he found both of his Mexican bodyguards standing in the bedroom doorway waiting for him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, fear surging through him.
“Nothing,” said the head bodyguard, taking a silenced .380 Walther pistol from beneath his shirt. “Sit down on the bed.”
“What? What the fuck is going on?” Hagen asked in dismay.
The other bodyguard stepped forward and took him by the arm. “Have a seat, señor.”
“You guys can’t do this,” Hagen said, beginning to cry as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “You work for me. Whatever they’re paying, I’ll quadruple it! We can go to the bank in—”
“Be quiet.” The head bodyguard called into the other room in Spanish, and two beautiful, young Mexican women with long, raven hair came in wearing nurses’ uniforms. One of them was pushing a wheelchair.
“What the hell is going on?” Hagen demanded, swallowing hard. “You guys are supposed to protect me!”
“The señoritas are going to get you ready to leave,” the bodyguard told him. “Don’t give them any trouble, and we won’t give you any trouble. Okay?”
One of the women rolled up the sleeve of Hagen’s pajamas and tied off the arm with a rubber hose while the other prepared a hypodermic needle.
“Don’t do this,” Hagen said, tears welling in his eyes. “Please, don’t do this.”
The young woman smiled at him as she sat down beside him and poked the syringe into his vein, injecting him with 10 cc of Thorazine. Hagen’s eyes rolled back in his head a few seconds later, and he flopped over on the sheet mumbling.
Next they took a pair of clippers from their medical bag and buzzed off all of his hair, sweeping it carefully from the sheet and flushing it down the toilet. The bodyguards then lifted Hagen into the wheelchair, and the women lathered his head with shaving cream, giving him a skillful straight-razor shave that left him completely bald and without a single nick. Then they shaved off his eyebrows and plucked out his eyelashes. After applying a little bit of movie makeup to give him a pallid complexion, he looked exactly like a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy.
Hagen was vaguely aware of what was happening to him, but it was difficult to move his arms and legs, and he could hardly keep the saliva in his mouth, much less form any words.
His “nurses” gently put his slippers on his feet, folded a blanket neatly over his legs, and hooked him up to an IV tube. Then they twisted their hair up beneath their nurses’ caps and wheeled him down the hall to the elevator.
There weren’t many people in the hotel still awake at that hour, but those who were saw only a rich American dying of cancer as he was rolled through the lobby to the main exit. One tourist paused on his way in to hold the door as the women wheeled Hagen out to a waiting handicapped van.
Hagen had no idea how much time had passed by the time he began to come around, but when his vision finally began to clear, he found himself strapped to the wheelchair facing a bright blue swimming pool beneath the hot Mexican sun.
“How are you feeling, Señor Hagen?” asked a Mexican man with bulging dark eyes. “The girls gave you a shot of adrenaline to help bring you around.”