perched on the end of his nose. He looked serious. “Gentlemen, this is a meeting I’d hoped would never come about,” he said, and they shook hands.
“I agree, Mr. President. This is not our finest hour,” Sukhoruchkin replied. Unlike Yemlin and Shevardnadze, he was tall and very thin, with large round eyes under thick black eyebrows. Although he was of the same age his long hair, always in disarray, was startlingly black. He looked like the brilliant academic he was. Before he’d become director of the Human Rights Commission he’d been one of Russia’s finest writers and philosophers. He and Yemlin had known each other since boyhood, and had married sisters. Sukhoruchkin’s wife had died last year.
“You’re in accord with Viktor Pavlovich?” “I’m a man of peace, a philosophy I’ve espoused and taught all of my life. I believe to the depth of my soul in nonviolence. But now I regret to have to say that I believe just as deeply that there may be no other solution to the problem at hand.”
“A problem we all share,” Yemlin said.
Shevardnadze nodded. He put his book down, took off his glasses and motioned for them to have a seat in armchairs in front of the fire. He sat on the leather couch.
“I’m assuming that Yeltsin didn’t die of a heart attack, though my intelligence service cannot tell me anything different.”
“He was assassinated by one of Tarankov’s men who posed as a presidential security service lieutenant colonel,” Yemlin said. “He planted a radio-controlled bomb last night, and waited in Red Square this morning until Yeltsin showed up for work, and pushed the button.
“You wouldn’t be here now if he were in custody.” Yemlin shrugged. “It’s a moot point, Mr. President. Whether we had him or not — and you’re correct, we don’t — the attack on our Riga power station, and Yeltsin’s assassination are Tarankov’s doing, and we would have to go after him anyway. But now I believe he may have a plan to grab the presidency before the June elections.”
“Which Yeltsin would have lost,” Shevardnadze said. “Why is Tarankov taking such a risk?”
“Because Yeltsin ordered his arrest by whatever means of force necessary. He meant to put him on trial.”
Shevardnadze shook his head. “Tarankov would probably have been acquitted, and it would have destroyed Yeltsin’s government.”
“The Prime Minister has ordered the same thing,” Sukhoruchkin said. “He means to arrest Tarankov and place the man on public trial, which in itself should be the correct action to take.”
“If Moscow were London or Washington,” Shevardnadze said.
“It will tear the country apart,” Yemlin said.
“If he were killed by the army it would tear Russia apart as well,” Shevardnadze said. “But if he’s allowed to continue unchecked on his present course he will succeed. Is this what you believe?”
Both men nodded.
Shevardnadze looked into the fire for several long seconds as he gathered his thoughts. A weight seemed to settle on his shoulders, and he sighed as if to rid himself of an impossible burden. When he turned back his face was sad.
“I too am a man of peace, Konstantin Nikolaevich, as I know you are. I’ve long admired your writing.”
Sukhoruchkin nodded in acknowledgement. “If Tarankov comes to power he means to restore the old Soviet Union by whatever means are necessary,” Yemlin said.
“We would give him trouble, but if he had the backing of the generals we couldn’t win,” Shevardnadze admitted. “The Baltics would cause him more problems.” “As would regaining Eastern Europe, but the bastard will do it, and no one will dare to stand up to him.”
“Does he have the military behind him?”
“He will,” Yemlin said. “There’s no doubt of it.”
“What about the SVR?”
“By whatever name it’s called, it’s still the KGB.”
Again a silence fell over them as they each pondered what they were on the verge of agreeing to. It was an impossibly large step, a quantum leap, from the rule of democratic law in which they all believed, to an act of terrorism.
“Tarankov must be assassinated,” Yemlin voiced their thought.
“I agree,” Sukhoruchkin said with surprising firmness.
“As do I,” Shevardnadze said. “But I know of no one in Georgia who is capable of such a thing. Nor do I suspect you’ll find anyone in Russia whom you could trust.”
Yemlin nodded.
“You have such a man in mind? A foreigner?”
“Da.”
“Who is he?”
“An American, Mr. President. His name is Kirk McGarvey. And if he agrees to take on the job, he’ll do so for the same reasons that we want to hire him.”
SIX
Spring had come early to France. Although it wasn’t the end of March, the last two weeks had been glorious. The sky was pale blue, and each morning dawned crystal clear, as if the air above the great city had been washed and hung out to dry under a warm sun. Along the river the plane trees were budding. In sunny corners of the Tuileries some flowers had already began to bloom. And parks and boulevards and sidewalk cafes were filled with Parisians who’d been cooped up all winter, and with tourists who could scarcely believe their good luck.
Kirk Cullough McGarvey sat with Jacqueline Belleau at a window table in the Restaurant Jules Verne on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower sharing an expensive bottle of Chardonnay while they waited for their lunches to be served. Jacqueline had insisted they come here today because this was where they’d met three months ago, and she was “romantic and French.” He’d indulged her because it amused him, and he wanted to see what her next move would be. The French secret service, which was called the Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionage, or SDECE for short, was usually sophisticated in its business. But sometimes, like now, they were blatantly obvious. Jacqueline had been sent by the SDECE to seduce McGarvey to find out why he was back in Paris. The French were paranoid about former CIA agents taking up residence in their country, though not so paranoid that they would deny such men a visa. “Bein, I’argent est I’argent, nest-ce pas?”
“That’s a lascivious grin, if ever I’ve seen one,” she said, catching him in his thoughts. “How do you say it, a penny for your thoughts?”
“I was thinking that Paris isn’t like any other city. It keeps getting better.”
She smiled, her oval, pretty features lighting up as if she were a kid at Christmas. “And that from a crusty old bastard like you.”
He nodded. “That from a crusty old bastard like me.” He admired her, not only for her stunning good looks- she could easily have been a runway mannequin, though not as thin as most of them were — but for her sharp intelligence and even sharper wit. She was unlike either of his ex-wives, or any other woman he’d ever been involved with. The number wasn’t a legion, but they’d all been memorable because they’d all ended in failed relationships.
McGarvey, nearing fifty, was tall and muscularly built but with the coordination of a ballet dancer. He had thick brown hair that was turning gray at the temples, a wide, honest face, and penetrating eyes, sometimes green, at other times gray. He ran ten miles every day, rain or shine, from his apartment off the Rue La Fayette in the tenth arrondissement out the Avenue Jean Jaures along the Canal de 1”Ourcq. He swam five miles every afternoon at the Club American downtown, and as often as possible worked out at the Ecole Militaire Annexe with the French national fencing team.
Although he’d known plenty of women, he’d been a loner most of his life, partly out of choice, but mostly out of circumstance. In the parlance of the secret service, he’d been a shooter. A killer. An assassin. And every night he saw the faces of every person he’d ever killed. He saw the light fading from their eyes, the animation draining from
