Coercion (16 page)

The moment
Vasily saw Major Maximov’s face he knew something was wrong.  His Aide, though a Knyaz confidant and borderline friend, always maintained the same soldierly snap he had displayed when first reporting to Vasily four years earlier.  This morning, however, it was obvious to Vasily’s familiar eye that something had pierced Maximov’s armor.

Vasily
gave a somber nod, acknowledging the unstated.  “Out with it, Major.”  He knew that military men preferred to hide unpleasantries behind formal facades, and Vasily was giving Maximov permission to do that with what was obviously a personal matter.

“Sir, I’ve just received word that General Igor Stepashin was killed in the line of duty.”

The words hit Vasily like a blow to the stomach, but he resisted the urge to double over.  “What happened?”

“The Chief Justice
caught him just after the Peitho implant.  Apparently he woke up and saw an unfamiliar male silhouette by his bed. Being the paranoid bastard that he is he shot Igor in the back without a word.”

“In the back?
”

“Yes, Sir.  In the back
.”

Although not his intent,
Vasily’s next question came out as a whisper.  “Was anything discovered at the scene?”

“No, Sir. 
Stepashin’s Aide, Major Luchenko, saw to that.”  Markov placed an empty Peitho syringe on Karpov’s desk.

Vasily
felt a wave of relief wash over him, although he was far from relieved.   This latest twist was like being told you’ve got an inoperable tumor, and then hearing the word benign.  He knew his overriding condition was still grievous.  As a torrent of emotions whipped him to and fro, Vasily did something he hadn’t done since childhood: he surrendered to his need for release.  Speaking to the floor he said, “Igor
was
the man sending the letters.”

Maximov
relaxed his posture, his tone.  “I assumed as much.”

“
I needed him to get close to the Chief Justice.  Those letters gave the head of the Guards’ Directorate good justification to get personally involved.” 

Maximov
nodded, but remained silent.

Vasily
set aside his pride and met his aide’s gaze through teary eyes.  “Thank you.  That will be all.”

As
Maximov closed the heavy door, Vasily couldn’t help thinking of a scene from Agatha Christie: 
And then there were three
.

For the rest of the day and into the night
Vasily sat behind his desk.  Though his body remained steadfast as the Greek statues he resembled, he was a virtual maelstrom within.  There was so much to absorb, and so little time.  Everything was coming to a head now.  Years, decades of work… 

As the
sun set, Vasily broke from his trance and looked up.  The fire was back in his eyes.  Igor had died in the line of duty. He had died doing more for Mother Russia than any but the Knyaz would ever know.  And he had not died in vain.  With the Chief Justice now under their control, the Knyaz could move Russia forward toward a brighter future exactly as planned.  Well, almost.  Igor’s crowning achievement was to have been the assassination of the President.  Vasily would have to reassign that honor now.  Fortunately, he had just the boy for the job…

Ri-ri-ring … swish
.

“I’m listening.”

“Good morning, Sir.  Are we secure?”

“Good morning.  Yes, we are secure.”

“Sorry for the early call.  Alex has been captured.  He was caught inside Irkutsk Motorworks, one of the factories that supplies Tupolev with their engines.”

“There’s our first connection.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you know what he found?  Why he was there?”

“No, Sir.”

“So if we lose him now…”

“We won’t be back to square one, but we’ll be close.”

“What else do you know?”

“Yarik caught him, personally.”

“
And he’s still alive?”

“Yes, surprisingly.  Seems Yarik
wants to take him elsewhere, for interrogation I assume.  That may give us a shot.”

“Where are you calling from?”

“I’m outside Chulin Air Base, where they’re holding Alex.  It’s just east of Irkutsk.  The snow is coming down pretty heavy now, and there’s a nasty wind, so obviously they’re waiting until the weather improves to take off.”

“Do you think you stand a chance of getting him out of there first?”

“I don’t know, Sir, but I am going to try.  It will be risky.  That’s why I wanted to check in with you now, to let you know what was happening in case things don’t turn out.”

Sugurov stopped pacing and dropped into a chair as he exhaled.  “Listen Andrey, I know I don’t need to tell you how important this mission is to Russia.  I think you understand that better than anyone.  But don’t go throwing your life away either.  If it can’t be done, it can’t be done.  We will find another way.”

“Do we have time for that?”

Sugurov was not one for candy coatings or wishful thinking; as Foreign Minister he could not permit himself such indulgences.  Still, knowing, loving the man he was speaking with, he dreaded the consequences of the only answer he could give.  “No, we don’t have time.”

“Then I will do everything in my power to ensure that Alex does succeed.”

“Can I send you some help?”

“No, Sir.  I doubt there’s time, and in any case it’s too risky.  Any overt help would render Alex impotent.”

“What about tracking the plane to see where they take him?”

“Won’t work, Sir.  You’d need to work with the air base here, and I don’t know if it’s been compromised.  In any case I doubt they could help.  Yarik knows his business and will surely dip below radar long enough for us to lose him.”

“Godspeed then.”

Sugurov put down the receiver and noticed that his hand was shaking.  He had not experienced that before.  Was it age, or nerves?

He slid aside one panel of the oak headboard on his bed, revealing the door to a safe
. Sugurov keyed in the long combination and was rewarded with the familiar whir and click before thick steel door swung open.  He removed a metallic briefcase, set it down on the bed, and pressed his thumbs down squarely on the two large clasps.  A microchip verified the thumbprints of the Foreign Minister, and the case popped open.

The briefcase contained a single red file, which in turn contained just two sheets of paper and a diskette. 
Andrey found that diskette behind the false back of another briefcase.  His Deputy, Leo Antsiferov, had been carrying that briefcase three months ago on the day he died.  The letters encrypted on the diskette were worse news than the helicopter crash itself.

Pavel Sugurov had been a man of action his whole life.  He was the guy who stepped up to the plate, the one who took charge and did the things nobody else knew how to do, or wanted to do.  With all the challenges he’d faced, all the transformations he’d seen, this was the first time Sugurov wished he were the other man, the man who didn’t know, the man who didn’t care, the man who left the tough jobs to someone else.  Sugurov wanted the Knyaz to be someone else’s problem.

He knew he should be counting his blessings rather than reflecting on his hardships.  Andrey could have been killed as well when their helicopter collided with a small plane.  Then nobody would know.  In fact, it was a miracle that his Chief of Staff survived with no more lasting damage than a nasty scar on his neck.  All those hours Andrey spent in the gym had finally paid off.  Sugurov had often mocked Demerko for his exercise routine, “It’s your mind you need to build, Andrey, not your muscles.”  But the ribbing had stopped when Andrey walked away from that crash.  Now Sugurov looked over at the cigarettes by the bed, then down at the frail form in his bathrobe and shook his head.

The blessings continued when Andrey mistakenly salvaged Leo’s briefcase rather than his own, survived the long trek to civilization, and eventually found the hidden diskette.  How they had puzzled over its
cryptic contents.  The diskette contained just two documents, a few kilobytes of information, yet it was packed with enough explosive to rock the world.

The first document contained the technical schematics of an aircraft engine called the UE-2000.  To a couple of diplomats, this was mundane and meaningless by itself.  The second document was not.  It had turned his blood cold.  Sugurov steadied his hand and looked down at the provocative text.

I am pleased to report that I shall deliver US projects two and three and complete my assignment as scheduled.  I would like to add that the latest figures from the parent companies estimate sales or orders of between one and two billion dollars for each project in the first year alone.  We have chosen wisely.  With the war coffers secured, I trust this means we will keep to the master schedule and launch in full force by New Year’s, assuming Gorbachev continues to be ripe for the plucking.

Here’s to the New Russia.  Long live the Knyaz, —V.

Sugurov had spent days with Andrey brainstorming over those words, turning them inside out and upside down.  It wasn’t the idea of overthrowing Gorbachev that troubled him, revolutionary sentiment was unfortunate but ordinary.  What was extraordinary was the audacity of the plan that emerged when you read between the lines.

Sugurov and Andrey had agreed on the interpretation of the letter, but their initial impressions of the men behind it and what they were doing had been polar opposites.  Sugurov remembered that conversation well.

“These Knyaz have conceived a bold and creative plan, Sir.  The idea to steal cutting-edge Western technology to reproduce in Russia is brilliant.  They make use of the few trump cards we still have left—our intelligence network and our engineering skills—to get us what we really need.  This is better than
perestroika
, it’s perestroika plus, and it could not only revive Russia, it could make us a superpower again.”

The arguments Andrey made in support of the Knyaz plan were both transparent and persuasive.  That was what made them dangerous; they would appeal to the masses.

“If history has taught us anything, Andrey, it is that she will not be rushed and that she does not take kindly to those who try.  You cannot build a solid nation on a flawed foundation and expect it not to crumble.

“The US enjoys enduring economic dominance because it is built on a rock-solid foundation.  Simply put, Andrey, America’s founding documents represent the best political strategy ever devised.  Russia can’t possibly expect to put itself on par, much less take the lead, through a
single subversive act.”

Sugurov knew this was a shocking admission for a member of the Russian cabinet to make, and he knew Andrey would find it all the more meaningful as a result.

“But Sir, it’s not just money; it’s jobs, prestige, know-how…”

“Look, Andrey, the Middle East got a similar economic miracle when it found its oil
reserves, and look at them.  Look at the average Middle Easterner.  Not only do they have a social mess, but they’ll be nomads again as soon as the wells run dry.  I assure you, Andrey, that when we unmask these Knyaz you won’t find faces you would be proud to see on the new Russian currency.”

Andrey took a minute, but he came around.  “Well, at least for their plan to succeed they will have to step forward and be recognized.  Then we will have them.”

“On the contrary, Andrey, then they will have us.  The people will believe what they want to believe.  They will convince themselves that they deserve what the Knyaz offer and they will love the Knyaz for offering it.  They won’t think forward to the price that their children will have to pay for growing up in a house of sin.  And don’t believe for a second that the Knyaz will suddenly become honest once they walk through the Kremlin’s door.  To the contrary, power will only feed the roots of their duplicity and some new evil will begin to grow.  They will gain a taste for conquest and look for more.  It happens every time.

“No, Andrey, i
t’s up to a wiser government to implement the restraints that will protect its citizens from themselves, like a father childproofing his house.  We cannot give these men a shot at power.  Gorbachev has the intelligence, the integrity, and the courage to lead our great nation properly through these formative years.  We must give
him
the chance.  Not these people” 

Once Sugurov got Andrey’s buy-in, he shifted their attention to the crucial task of determining if the Knyaz threat was credible: Could they really pluck Gorbachev?  To answer that question,
they had to pull the mask off Zorro, and to do that, they had to find him.  The million-ruble question was
how
.  The winning answer was
delicately
.

The precariousness of the current political and economic situation in the Soviet Union made it imperative that they conduct the search in absolute secrecy.  If the Knyaz got wind of their investigation, they might
choose to take radical action.  You never want to corner a lion.

So Andrey and Sugurov’s first tactical problem boiled down to figuring out how to investigate the Knyaz without getting caught looking.  Their eventual solution was to get an American to do it. 

With their fundamental approach determined, they faced the question of where to start.  The word Knyaz, the initial V, and the reference to a project at United Electronics was not much to go on.  The break came from a fingerprint on the diskette, a fingerprint which they determined to be that of a deep-cover mole in the US, one Victor Titov.  They had found “—V.”

“It’s my turn for a question, Andrey.  As a Russian writing to Russians, why would Victor be writing in English?”

Andrey had been quick to answer.  “I think he’s just meticulous.  He can’t write by hand, because handwriting analysis could identify him, and he doesn’t want to install Cyrillic fonts on his computer, because they might incriminate him.”

With that insightful answer, Sugurov had confidently turned the operation over to his Chief of Staff for execution.

Sugurov had watched from Moscow as Andrey followed Victor to Elaine Evans.  Once he understood what was going on there, he investigated the backgrounds of her colleagues and found Frank Ferris, or more to the point, his brother Alex.  Then Andrey began composing his symphony of subterfuge.

The first movement began with a scheme to trick Victor into murdering Alex’s brother.  This brought about the second movement, Alex’s wholehearted involvement, after which Andrey stopped conducting and stepped back into the shadows to
listen while making sure that Victor didn’t sour the tune.  It was a brilliant plan, and it had gone smoothly enough, until now.

Despite all the progress they had made, Sugurov knew that it would end there, today, if Andrey did not find a way to free Alex from captivity.  A standard rescue operation would be a challenge, but not a daunting one for the likes of Andrey.  The real rub was the need to free Alex in such a way that
the Knyaz would not know that he had been helped.  Rescuing Alex was pointless if he could not be put back on course.

It was a long shot with the highest stakes.  If Andrey failed, Gorbachev
might falter, and then Russia itself could fall to the Knyaz.  After nearly seventy years of atheism, Sugurov said a prayer.