Price of Duty

TWENTY-FOUR

With his hands behind his back and his head bowed in thought, Igor Truznyev paced around the statue of Miguel de Cervantes given by Spain to the Soviet Union in exchange for a statue of the Russian literary genius Aleksandr Pushkin. Somehow, it seemed bitterly ironic to set a memorial to the author who’d created Don Quixote in the midst of a park extolling friendly relations among nations. After all, the so-called Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance was famed for acts of folly and mad illusions. Had some long-dead Soviet bureaucrat intended a discreet bit of subversive commentary by plopping this statue down here? Or, was the juxtaposition simply the product of official ignorance?

His lips thinned in irritation. If Sergei Tarzarov’s choice of a setting for this clandestine meeting was meant as a humorous commentary on their present situation, it struck him as one in very poor taste — especially under the circumstances. He checked his watch. Where was the man, anyway? It wasn’t like him to be late for a rendezvous, even one he hadn’t sought himself.

The high-pitched noise of a yapping dog drew Truznyev’s attention to an old pensioner hobbling along a nearby path. The elderly man, stooped over and twisted by arthritis and age, was being yanked along by a tiny, long-haired terrier that seemed to want to poke its small black nose into every snowbank or mound of dead leaves.

“Podchinyat’sya, Mischa,” the old man snapped. “Obey!” He shortened the leash, tugging the little dog back to his side. Turning off the path, he shuffled closer to the Cervantes statue. “Well, Igor?” he demanded. “What is so urgent? It was not easy to slip away from the Kremlin today.”

Truznyev shook his head in disbelief. He knew that Tarzarov enjoyed practicing the art of disguise as a means of throwing potential tails off his scent, but this was a first. “A dog?” he asked. “You brought a dog with you to a secret meeting?”

The older man shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Why not? Two men talking together in the midst of a field shouts ‘conspiracy’ to the whole world. But a man walking his dog and meeting a friend? What could be more commonplace… and boring?”

“Perhaps,” Truznyev allowed, still frowning. “But make sure you keep the beast away from my shoes. They were handmade for me by Cleverley’s in London.”

“And thus astonishingly expensive, I suppose?” Tarzarov sniffed.

“Of course.”

Gryzlov’s chief of staff shook his head with a sly smile. “Some might find your spending habits excessively ostentatious, Igor.”

“At least I pay my own bills and with my own money,” Truznyev retorted. “While your lunatic protégé piles up debts that will be paid by all Russians — in blood, in prestige, and in treasure.”

“Gennadiy is not mad,” Tarzarov said. “He is undoubtedly aggressive, and perhaps more prone to rely on luck than I think wise. But that is a far cry from insanity.”

“You think so?” the bigger man said heatedly. “Hitting the Poles and their allies with cyberweapons made some sense. It offered gains at comparatively little cost.” He scowled. “But attempting to assassinate the Polish president? And murdering nearly two hundred people, many of them important Chinese businessmen, simply as a means of baiting the trap? That was pure madness! Especially since his ridiculous scheme failed so miserably.”

Tarzarov said nothing. His face showed no emotion one way or the other.

“You know that I’m right, Sergei,” Truznyev pressed. “This harebrained failure puts us all in peril — you, like the rest of those in Gryzlov’s inner circle, most of all.” He waved a hand at their surroundings. “How do you suppose the world will react when it learns Russia was responsible for this atrocity? Everything we have gained over the past few years is now at risk!”

“There is no proof we were involved,” Tarzarov said mildly.

“How so?”

“The Spetsnaz team was sanitized before it infiltrated Polish territory,” the older man explained. “Their records no longer exist.”

“Their military records, you mean?” Truznyev asked.

Tarzarov shook his head. “All of their records, Igor.” He shrugged again. “Effectively, Major Berezin and the three others who were killed at the crash site were never born. They never lived. They are nothing — not even the ghost of a memory.”

“And their families?” Truznyev shot back. “What about them? You can fiddle with paperwork and databases all you like, but their parents, siblings, wives, and children can each tell a different tale if they talk to the wrong people.”

The older man’s eyes were hooded, impossible to read. “Their families have been… cautioned,” he said. “Besides, they are under constant observation.”

“Meaning what?” Truznyev snapped.

“Should any of them forget their duty to the state… well, accidents happen,” Tarzarov replied smoothly. Seeing the slightly appalled look on the other man’s face, he offered a crooked smile. “As you yourself pointed out, Igor, the stakes are high. And extraordinary dangers require extraordinary responses, do they not?”

With an effort, Truznyev recovered his poise. There were moments when he forgot how cold-blooded and vicious the old Kremlin insider could be if he thought it necessary. It was a useful reminder that he was not the only ruthless player in this game. “It is easy enough, I suppose, to contemplate killing defenseless old men and women and children,” he said cuttingly. “But there is still evidence outside your control. Evidence that will enrage Beijing and the rest of the world when it is analyzed and published.”

“You refer to the black boxes from the jetliner?” Tarzarov asked.

Truznyev nodded.

“I have been assured they will show only a series of unexplained faults in various systems aboard the aircraft,” the older man said, though he sounded a bit less certain now. “Nothing that can be linked conclusively to us.”

“Nothing except for the remarkable coincidence that these random ‘faults’ caused the 777 to crash precisely where a team of trained assassins lay in wait,” Truznyev said with heavy sarcasm.

Tarzarov eyed him narrowly. “Supposition is not proof, Igor. As you, of all people, should know.”

For a moment, Truznyev felt cold. What did the other man mean by that? Was he growing suspicious about the true causes of last year’s war with Poland? If so, he was in more danger than he had realized. Or was it just a stab in the dark by a man who knew full well that secrets, many of them deadly and disreputable, were Truznyev’s stock-in-trade?

“For now, Beijing is turning most of its diplomatic wrath on Warsaw,” Tarzarov went on. “After all, it is clear that Wilk’s government was fully willing to shoot down the Kalmar Airlines flight with so many of its nationals aboard — even though it was unclear whether they were still alive or not.”

“That won’t last,” Truznyev said tightly. “President Zhou and his government are not fools.”

“Probably not,” the older man agreed. “But I cannot say the prospect of Beijing’s anger greatly dismays Gennadiy. After all, according to the evidence you provided, the Chinese were responsible for luring us into war with Poland in the first place. When set next to the losses we suffered in men and matériel, the deaths of a few score of their business executives are nothing.”

Truznyev fell silent for a moment. This was dangerous ground. He was the one who had ordered faked evidence of the PRC’s involvement planted to hide his own role in the terrorist campaign Gryzlov had originally blamed on Warsaw. Perhaps he should back off and pretend to accept the defenses Tarzarov offered for his protégé’s reckless actions. Then he reconsidered. You’re riding on the tiger’s back, Igor, he thought. Keep a firm grip, or you’ll be eaten.

Gryzlov had blundered badly by trying to kill Piotr Wilk so clumsily and with so much collateral damage. And for all of Tarzarov’s bluster, he could tell the older man knew it too. Maybe this was the moment to demonstrate that their most precious secrets were not as safe as they dreamed. And, at the same time, to continue the process of sowing discord between Gryzlov and his long-suffering adviser. Three years ago, Tarzarov had allied himself with the younger man. This was another opportunity to make the old Kremlin power broker wonder if he’d tied himself to a loser after all.

“You dance past the true state of affairs with remarkable grace, Sergei,” he said caustically. “I congratulate you.”

Tarzarov flushed angrily.

“But we are old comrades, you and I,” Truznyev went on. “So I feel compelled to ask what the president plans to do next. Now that his impatience and carelessness have made such a mess, will Gennadiy cut his losses like any sensible man and call off this covert war? Before it escalates out of control? Or will he push on obsessively, demanding still more wondrous cyberweapons from Koshkin’s army of komp’yutershchiks locked away in the Urals? In that secret mountain complex he’s dubbed ‘Perun’s Aerie’?”

Visibly shocked, Tarzarov stared back at him. “Where did you hear that name?”

Ah, so Akulov and Ivchenko were right, Truznyev thought. The look on the older man’s face was confirmation enough. He smiled. “You forget who you are dealing with, Sergei, as does your new master. Remember, I ran our nation’s intelligence services for years. Did you really believe the movement of so much sophisticated equipment, including a supercomputer and a nuclear reactor, would not leave behind traces my people and I could uncover?”

The little dog at Tarzarov’s feet chose that moment to begin whimpering and whining, either bored from doing nothing while the humans talked and talked… or frightened by something in the tone of their voices. Or perhaps spooked by some movement neither of the two men noticed.

“Tikho! Quiet!” the older man snapped at the dog. Then he looked up at Truznyev. “But I could say the same to you, Igor,” he said coldly. “This private espionage of yours comes dangerously close to treason. I warned you earlier about prying into state secrets that were no longer your province. It appears you did not take me seriously enough. I will not warn you again.”

The old man is bluffing, Truznyev thought. He must be. “I am no traitor,” he retorted. “If I were, I’d have sold what I know to the Americans. Or to the Chinese, for that matter.” He shook his head in disgust. “Nor am I the madman whose vendetta against the Poles now threatens our vital national interests.”

Angrily, Tarzarov glared back at him. “So now I suppose you expect me to pay you — either for your silence, or for the details of how you learned so much that was top secret?”

Absorbed in their fierce argument, both men again failed to spot the small birdlike shape circling overhead, picking up and retransmitting their conversation.

National Security Adviser Edward Rauch sat slumped in his chair while the president skimmed through his preliminary report on the Kalmar Airlines crash and the apparent attempt to kill Piotr Wilk. He felt drained. The first news from Poland hit the Internet around the dinner hour, East Coast time. And those early, confused reports had triggered a frantic scramble by the interagency working group he’d taken over from Luke Cohen. Analysts from the CIA, NSA, the Pentagon, the State Department, and Cyber Command had worked through the night, assembling and evaluating every scrap of reliable information.

President Stacy Anne Barbeau closed the folder with a decisive gesture. She looked across her desk at Rauch. “How sure of this are you?”

For a second, he thought about running through the usual litany of caveats and cautions appropriate to any intelligence assessment, but then he saw the look in the president’s eyes. She was definitely operating in “no bureaucratic BS” mode. He sat up straighter. “As close to certain as I can get, Madam President.”

“Hell,” Barbeau muttered. She tapped the folder with one finger. “You really believe the Russians somehow hacked the airliner, killed everyone aboard, and then deliberately crashed it outside Warsaw — just so they could take a shot at Wilk?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rauch said. He shook his head. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the only scenario that comes close to fitting the known facts.”

“Yeah, well, crazy seems to be what Gennadiy Gryzlov does best.” Barbeau pursed her lips. “Do the folks at Cyber Command have any idea of how the Russians could have pulled this off?”

“Not yet,” he admitted. “They’re subjecting the computer and flight-control systems Kalmar Airlines uses to intensive analysis, checking for vulnerabilities and possible back doors — but that’s going to take more time.”

“So we can’t prove any of this?” Barbeau asked.

“Probably not to the standards of any criminal court of law,” Rauch said carefully. “But the circumstantial evidence is so strong that we could certainly make a solid case for diplomatic purposes. If we took this to the UN or to the NATO Council, we’d pick up a lot of support.”

For a moment, he thought the president would go for it. She leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed. She was obviously deep in thought — probably running through possible scenarios of how going to the UN or NATO might play out, both domestically and overseas. But then she shook her head. “And what would that get us, Ed? All we’d end up doing is pissing off the Russians for no real purpose. That game’s not worth the candle.”

“But, Madam President—”

“No buts, Ed,” Barbeau said flatly. “There’s no goddamned point in openly accusing Moscow of mass murder and attempted assassination. It would just make us look weak. You don’t make those kinds of claims unless you’re ready to go to the mat over them. And since we are most definitely not going to support the Poles or go to war for them, it would be really stupid to ratchet up tensions with Russia, wouldn’t it?”

Rauch nodded, though unwillingly. Privately, he suspected she was more concerned about appearing foolish in front of American voters than she was about seeming weak abroad. From the moment she’d been sworn into office, Stacy Anne Barbeau had argued that the United States should focus more attention and resources on its own interests here at home. Her political rhetoric and most of her defense and foreign policy revolved around a determination to avoid being dragged into conflicts overseas. Standing up now to accuse Gennadiy Gryzlov of being responsible for crashing the Kalmar Airlines flight and trying to kill another national leader would require conceding that her long-held beliefs and policies were either inadequate or mistaken. Admitting error was not a course she could easily embrace.

“So we do nothing?” he asked, trying hard not to reveal his dismay. If the Russians committed an atrocity like this and got away scot-free, where would it end? Looking the other way might work in the short term, but it could lead to a catastrophe if Moscow kept pushing the envelope — taking bigger and bigger risks in the belief the United States would stay passive in the face of any provocation.

“That is not what I said,” Barbeau told him. “I said we weren’t going to commit ourselves openly, that’s all.”

Seeing the confusion on his face, she sighed. “Look, Ed, it’s pretty clear that Gryzlov is nuts, right?”

He cleared his throat. “His behavior is certainly erratic, amazingly arrogant, and belligerent, Madam President. Whether it rises to the level of actual madness is beyond my ability to judge.”

Barbeau raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, yes. He’s nuts,” Rauch agreed. “Or as close to it as makes no real difference.”

“Exactly,” the president said in satisfaction. “Which is why we’re not going to do anything overt — at least not right now. Opposing a lunatic like Gryzlov without the means of finishing him off would be like poking a tiger in the eye with a padded stick. All you do is make the tiger mad. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rauch agreed quickly, still not entirely sure what she was driving at.

“So when we’re done here, I’m going to put in a call to Sara Murchison over at the Hoover Building,” Barbeau said, with a thin smile. “You with me so far?”

Rauch nodded. Murchison was a former federal prosecutor and the current director of the FBI.

“And I’m going to tell her to call off all the agents she’s got riding herd on Sky Masters and the other companies affiliated with that asshole Martindale,” Barbeau finished.

“You’re lifting the restrictions on arms sales to Poland?” Rauch asked, not quite sure what she meant.

The president looked disgusted. “Oh, hell, no, Ed. The restrictions stay. At least on paper. That way the Russians can’t bitch about us supporting Poland or any of the other AFN countries.” She looked smug. “From our perspective, it’ll be the best of both worlds.”

Now he saw what she intended. While it would still be technically illegal for anyone to sell weapons or arms technology to the Poles and their allies, without active enforcement those restrictions were a dead letter. If Sky Masters or some other corporation wanted to deal with Wilk, they could… though at the risk of exposing themselves to serious legal jeopardy if the Barbeau administration reversed course again later. In effect, Piotr Wilk and his American mercenaries could buy the arms they needed, but only if they were willing to pay wildly inflated prices.

Rauch kept a tight rein on his own expression. He understood why this convoluted course of Machiavellian inaction appealed to Barbeau. It let her poke a finger in Gryzlov’s eye, though in a totally deniable way. And, at the same time, it still inflicted significant financial pain on the Poles, Martindale, and the others she despised and distrusted.

But from a real-world perspective, the president’s proposal was too cute by half. Whatever Gennadiy Gryzlov planned to get out of this cyberwar of his, the Russian leader sure as hell wasn’t playing for small stakes. He certainly wasn’t going to be deterred by subtle hints and unserious threats left hanging unsaid. Every day the United States sat on the sidelines was another day this crisis would only intensify.

For the first time since being named as Stacy Anne Barbeau’s national security adviser, Ed Rauch began seriously considering the need to update his résumé.