Second Strike

EPILOGUE

All things considered, matters could hardly be better. Perhaps not for Russia. The event had been a disaster, and the subsequent sanctions, recriminations, and retributions were severe.

But for Aleksandr Stetchkin, life was good and the future promising. After all, ruthlessness and treachery were irreplaceable assets.

Within days of the debacle, many of those associated with it had disappeared. The more fortunate were merely fired or demoted.

Stetchkin personally supervised the unceremonious execution of Major Volkov. A single shot to the back of the head. The idiot had guaranteed the success of the event. He deserved the appropriate consequences for its failure.

Stetchkin had, understandably, been anxious after the event had failed. More accurately, he had been petrified. Mikhailov had excoriated him for eliminating Piotr Egorshin, and Stetchkin was afraid the Russian president would, therefore, hold him responsible for the failure of the entire plan.

But as the days passed, it became clear that Mikhailov needed him. A man with Stetchkin’s talents was invaluable, especially given Yuri Mikhailov’s grand ambitions. Besides, he and Mikhailov were longtime friends, former KGB colleagues. Those who had disappeared were cyphers.

Stetchkin—as well as everyone else associated with the event for that matter—remained mystified as to what had gone wrong. Stetchkin was convinced, however, that Piotr Egorshin had somehow sabotaged it. The supposed genius had done or failed to do something to make the computers go awry. The other imbeciles didn’t believe it. They thought Egorshin a patriot. Besides, he was already dead by the time of the calamity.

But the devious are difficult to deceive. Stetchkin was convinced that Egorshin’s uncle, the SVR man Morosov, was somehow involved.

No one could find any evidence that the computers had been tampered with. They’d devoted several teams of the best and brightest to the endeavor, only to find nothing whatsoever. The failure was inexplicable.

But Stetchkin knew better. Nothing is inexplicable, and if it appears inexplicable, it’s the result of human intervention. So Stetchkin had ordered surveillance videos of the operations room from the time of the last simulation to the time the event was to have been initiated. Over and over he reviewed the videos for any peculiarities or anomalies, but nothing seemed amiss or unusual.

At one point in the video Morosov appeared. He spoke briefly to two supervisors and then entered Egorshin’s office to retrieve personal effects. He hadn’t lingered and it didn’t appear as if he had disturbed anything or taken anything he shouldn’t have taken. Throughout, he was under the close scrutiny of a number of security officers.

Nonetheless, Stetchkin persisted. He slowed the video to a crawl and viewed it second by second. He studied still images and scanned from every angle available. Everything Morosov did, every move he made, appeared innocuous. At another point he’d left, only to return to collect a photo of Tatiana Palinieva.

Frustrated, Stetchkin only became more suspicious. He decided, admittedly without evidence, that Morosov must be the culprit. Accordingly, he decided Morosov must be eliminated. And Stetchkin planned to have Morosov eliminated later tonight.

He sat comfortably in the rear of his armored Kortezh SUV, his driver and a bodyguard in front. It was a beautiful evening. There was a slight chill in the air, but otherwise it was still. A short distance ahead he could see the carriage lights atop the posts flanking the wrought iron gate leading to his residence, which gates swung open upon the SUV’s approach. An armed guard emerged from a kiosk just inside the gate and waved in deferential acknowledgment.

Palinieva. She was afraid of him, naturally. She was smart enough to surmise that he may have had something to do with Egorshin’s death. And that was a good thing. Fear was a good thing. It would make her compliant, if not willing. With time she might even grow to like him. A man with his power and wealth could do wonders for her career. Either way, it didn’t matter. He would have his way.

In the darkness of the back seat Stetchkin smiled. He decided he’d pay a visit to Palinieva a bit later this evening. It was still relatively early, after all. He’d grab a quick shower and then have his driver drop him off. He smiled again, more broadly.

The vehicle stopped at the front door, which was opened from the inside by a large bodyguard, who retreated to a small room containing an array of surveillance cameras. Stetchkin stepped inside. There wasn’t a single inch of the grounds that wasn’t under observation at all times. In addition to his driver and bodyguard, a dozen other armed security officers were stationed about the grounds and residence.

Stetchkin approached the steps to the upstairs bedrooms and bath before changing his mind and proceeding down the long, broad hallway to his study. A quick drink before showering.

The stately wall lamps along the corridor shone a soft yellow glow upon the photographs of Stetchkin that hung as reminders of his journey toward extraordinary power and importance. There he was as a young KGB lieutenant standing behind Yuri Andropov. Then standing next to a desk pointing to a document in front of a hunched Mikhail Gorbachev. Yet another clasping hands and laughing with Boris Yeltsin.

He paused for a moment in front of the Yeltsin photo. The entire corridor was a chronology of his inexorable advancement, his accumulation of wealth and prestige. But the Yeltsin photo was his favorite. It made them appear as two historical figures, as equals.

He swelled with satisfaction. He was indomitable, in control.

He strode to the entrance of his study, the door locked because it sometimes contained sensitive documents. He withdrew the key from his pocket, unlocked the heavy oak door, and flipped the light switch just inside, illuminating a small desk lamp in the far corner of the room.

A second later his chest seized with terror, for in the dim light of the desk lamp was the most ominous sight he could imagine: a J-shaped scar along the right jawline of a face otherwise cast in shadow.