won’t have to send an assassin if you keep that up.”
Tarankov grunted. “You sound like Liesel.” He smiled. “One nag is enough.”
“She’s right.”
“Good of you to say so,” Tarankov said. “We’ll wait for you at Kostroma. But if you get into trouble you will have to rely on the usual contacts in Moscow, we won’t be able to come for you. Not until after Nizhny Novgorod.”
“I’ll be there,” Chernov said. “Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get a few things before I leave. I want to be in Moscow before midnight.” He abruptly went back to the train and boarded the second car from the rear, not seeing the intense look of anger and hatred that flashed across Tarankov’s heavy features.
Chernov’s car contained the officers’ wardroom and kitchen, as well as quarters for him, Colonel Drankov and the four unit commanders. The colonel and two of his officers were smoking and drinking tea in the wardroom when Chernov passed. They did not look up, nor did he acknowledge them. Their relationship was exactly as he wished it to be: one of business, not friendship.
In his compartment, which consisted of a wide bunk, a built-in desk and two chairs, a closet and a well equipped bathroom, Chernov laid out the uniform of a lieutenant colonel in the Kremlin Presidential Security Service, then pulled off his boots and combat fatigues.
Someone knocked at his door. He quickly looked around to make sure nothing of importance was lying in plain view, then flipped a blanket over the uniform. “Come,” he said.
Liesel Tarankov, wearing a UCLA Sailing Squadron warmup suit, came in. She looked Chernov up and down, then glanced at the turned down blanket. “I thought you were getting ready to leave us, not go to bed.” “I was changing clothes. Is there something I can do for you, Madam?”
“I want to discuss your assignment.”
“Very well. If you’ll allow me to finish dressing, I’ll join you and your husband in the Operations Center and we can go over the detail.”
“No. I want to talk about it here and now.” A little color had come to Liesel’s cheeks, and a strand of blonde hair was loose over her left temple. She was fifteen years younger than Tarankov and not unattractive.
“Then I’ll call him, he can join us here.” Chernov stepped over to the desk and reached for the telephone, but Liesel intercepted him, pushing him away.
“Just you and me.”
Chernov smiled. “Did you come here expecting me to make love to you, madam?” he asked in a reasonable tone. “Is that how you meant to control me?”
“I’m not ugly. I have a nice body, and I know things.”
“What if I told you that I’m a homosexual.”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t believe it.” “I think you’d rather believe that than the truth,” he said.
It took a moment for the meaning of what she’d just heard to penetrate, and when it did a flush came to her face. “Schweinhund!” She lunged at him, her long fingernails up like claws.
Chernov easily sidestepped her. He grabbed her arms, pinned them behind her back, and shoved her up against the bulkhead, his body against hers.
She struggled for a moment, but then looked up into his eyes and parted her lips.
He stepped back, opened the door, and spun her out into the passageway. “Go away before I tell your husband that you tried to seduce me.”
“He wouldn’t believe you,” she shot back, a catch in her voice.
“I think he would,” Chernov said disparagingly, and he closed and locked the door.
For a few moments he thought the woman was going to make a scene, but when nothing happened he got dressed. Before it was all over, he thought, he would fuck her, and then kill her. It would be the best thing he’d ever done for Tarankov.
The Kremlin
Chernov arrived at the Borovitsky Tower Gate, on the opposite side of the Kremlin from Red Square, at 11:45 p.m. One guard examined his papers, which identified him as Lieutenant Colonel Boris Sazanov, while the other stoned a light in the back seat, and then requested that the trunk be opened.
He popped the lid then stuck his head out the window as the guard spotted the cases of cigarettes. “Take a couple of cartons. They won’t be missed.” His hat was pulled low, most of his features in shadow.
“Who are they for?” the guard asked.
“Korzhakov,” Chernov said. Lieutenant-General Alexander Korzhakov was chief of presidential security, a drinking buddy of Yeltsin’s and the number two most powerful man in the Kremlin.
“I don’t think so,” the guard said respectfully. “I think I’ll call operations.”
“This car was left unlocked for an hour on Arbat Street. The cigarettes will not be missed if you’re not greedy, and you keep your mouth shut.”
The first guard handed Chernov’s papers back. “What are you doing here this evening, Colonel?” “Delivering cigarettes.”
The second guard pulled two cartons of cigarettes out of one of the boxes and stuffed them inside his greatcoat. He slammed the trunk lid, and went back into the guardhouse.
“I don’t smoke,” the first guard said.
“Neither do I, but they’re sometimes better than gold, if you know what I mean.”
The guard stepped back, saluted and waved Chernov through.
Chernov returned the salute and drove up the hill past the Poteshny Palace and around the corner to the modernistic glass and aluminum Palace of Congresses. It was a Wednesday night, the Duma was not in session, nor was any state function or dinner being held, so the Kremlin was all but deserted.
The guard at the entrance, to the underground parking garage checked his papers, and waved him through.
Chernov took the ramp four levels to the most secured floor where Yeltsin’s limousines were kept and serviced. He parked in the shadows at the end of a long row of Mercedes, Cadillacs and Zil limousines. The entrance to Yeltsin’s parking area and private elevators fifty meters away was guarded by a lone man seated in a glass enclosure. Chernov checked his watch. He was exactly on time.
Two minutes later, the guard got up, stretched his back, left the guard box and took the service elevator up one level.
Chernov took a block of eight cigarette cartons from the bottom of one of the cases, and walked to the end of the parking row, ducked under the steel barrier and went back to the Zil limousine with the SSP 7 license plate. It was the car that would be used to pick up Yeltsin in the morning and bring him here to his office.
It was a piece of information that Tarankov got. Chernov trusted its reliability.
The freight elevator was still on sub level three, and would remain there for three minutes. No more.
Chernov climbed into the back compartment of the limo and popped the two orange tabs dial released the seat bottom. Next he peeled the back from a corner of the bottom of the brick of cigarettes and stuck a radio controlled detonator into the soft gray mass of Semtex plastic explosive. This he stuffed under the seat, molding it against a box beam member. The bottom of the car was armored to protect from explosions from outside. The steel plates would focus most of the force of the blast upward through the leather upholstered seat. No one in the rear compartment could possibly survive, nor was it likely that anyone in the car would escape critical burns and injuries. The amount of Semtex was five times more than necessary for the job.
Chernov relatched the seat bottom in position, softly closed the door, and as the freight elevator began to descend, ducked under the barrier, hurried back to his car and drove away.
“That was quick,” the guard at the ground level said.
“I just had to deliver something,” Chernov said.
“Well, have a good evening, sir,” the guard said. He raised the barrier.
Chernov headed past the Presidium to the Spassky Tower where the guard languidly raised the gate and waved him through. Threats came from outside, and besides no one of any importance was inside the Kremlin tonight. Anyway, all colonels were damned fools.
After clearing Red Square, Chernov drove out to Krasnaya Presnya past the dumpy American Embassy on Tchaikovsky Street to a block of old, but well maintained apartments near the zoo and planetarium.
Traffic downtown was heavy, but out here the shops were all closed and the neighborhood streets were
