Alexi Zhigalin looked up defiantly. “Just kill him. We can find his train and send the Air Force in to blow it off the tracks, destroying him, that East German whore he’s married to, and all of his fanatical followers. They’re traitors.”
“It could be done,” Yeltsin’s military liaison, Colonel Lykov, said. “I’ve already spoken with General Ablakin. If the FSK could help us with intelligence gathering, it could be pulled off within twenty-four hours. It would send a clear message—”
“To whom?” Kabatov interrupted. “If this were the United States and its president were assassinated, the government wouldn’t kill the assassin.”
“Jack Ruby probably worked for the CIA,” Yuryn said.
“That’s not been proven.”
“We’re not the United States,” the FSK director said.
“No, nor are we England, or France or Germany or any other civilized nation if we kill Tarankov. Such an action would play directly into the hands of his supporters. Don’t you think with a cause like that to follow, that popular support for whatever other lunatic decided to stand up to us would grow?”
“President Yeltsin maintained much the same view,”
General Mazayev said. “Look what happened to him.”
“Are you saying that one man and a handful of thugs can hold an entire country for ransom?” Kabatov shouted.
“In Tarankov’s view he is campaigning,” Yuryn said.
“Campaigning for what? Yeltsin’s vacant seat?” “Da. And yours, Mr. Prime Minister, and that of the General Secretary of the Communist Party. And that as supreme leader of a new Soviet Union, the Baltics included. As you know, he has a lot of popular support.”
“Gained by robbing people of their own money out of our banks and giving it back to them,” Kabatov said with disgust. “Apparently he handed out something less than he robbed in Kirov. Something considerably less.” He shot Yuryn a bleak look. “Campaign funds?”
“Probably,” Yuryn replied indifferently. He worked for the federal government, not for the Prime Minister, though it was unclear at the moment who, other than Kabatov, was nominally in charge of the government.
“Your suggestion then, General Yuryn, is to kill him? Do you agree with Alexi Ivanovich?”
“On the contrary, I strongly recommend that we wait. As you say, when winter comes around and there is not enough power for Moscow the mood in the city will definitely change for the worse. But the blame can be shifted away from you, and back to Tarankov.”
“How considerate of you,” Kabatov said sarcastically.
“It is the same advice I gave President Yeltsin,” Yuryn said. “General Mazayev and I happen to agree on this point. But the President insisted that Tarankov be arrested at whatever costs. I believe that order cost him his life.”
“There was a security leak somewhere,” Kabatov said.
“Presumably. Nor should you believe that there won’t be a leak from this gathering. Such things happen despite our best precautions.”
“Then it will have to come from one of you men,” Kabatov said coldly, his eyes shifting from man to man. “This room was electronically sealed once I entered. Nothing of a mechanical or an electronic nature can get out of here. The only thing that will leave here this afternoon is what’s in your heads.”
Again Yuryn shrugged indifferently. “If you mean to actually arrest Tarankov and not simply eliminate him and his followers, then our staffs will have to become involved. The leak will come from there.” The bulky intelligence service chief leaned forward in his chair and tapped the table top with a blunt finger. “If you go after him he will find out, and he will come after you.” Yuryn looked at the others around the table. “He’ll come after all of us.”
“Are we to be held hostage?” Kabatov shouted, thumping his fist on the table. “Should we shut out the lights, crawl under our beds and hand the madman the keys to the Kremlin? Stalin assassinated Lenin in order to gain power. Has that happened again? Are we going to allow our nation to sink to those levels of barbarism? Pogroms. Gulags. Wars?
“What do you think the West’s reaction will be when we pack up our tents and abandon the field? Without trade how long will Tarankov or any of us survive? Russian winters have killed more than foreigners. Russian winters have claimed plenty of Russian lives too. He must be taken alive and placed on public trial for all the world to see.”
“It will tear the nation apart,” Yuryn warned.
“We will lose the nation if we don’t do it,” Kabatov said wearily. “I didn’t call you here today to argue the point. I called because I wanted you to tell me how to proceed.” He glanced down the long table at Zhigalin. “Where is General Korzhakov?”
“He sends his apologies, Mr. Prime Minister, but he is busy with the investigation.”
Kabatov shook his head in disgust. “Has any progress been made since this morning?”
“Some,” Zhigalin said. He opened a report he’d brought with him. “I was given this just before I left. the Kremlin. Apparently a man who identified himself as Lieutenant Colonel Boris Sazanov, assigned to the presidential security detail, entered the Kremlin last night a few minutes before midnight. He said he was delivering gifts. One of the guards checked the trunk of the man’s car and found several cases of American cigarettes. He got inside the parking garage beneath the Palace of Congresses where he remained for around five minutes. He then left by a different gate.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Kabatov said. “Has this Lieutenant Colonel Sazanov been found?”
“No such officer exists. Nor do we have much of a description. It was evening, the lighting was imperfect, and the guards said the man parked in such a way that the front seat of the car was mostly in shadow. Their impression was that he was large, under fifty, possibly under forty years, old, and he spoke in a cultured, well educated voice. He was probably a professional.”
“A professional what?”
“Assassin, Mr. Prime Minister,” Zhigalin said. “He drove a new Mercedes sedan, so it’s possible he worked for the mafia.”
“Maybe it wasn’t Tarankov’s people,” Mazayev said sharply.
“Tarankov has friends among the mafia,” Zhigalin shot back. “The bastard has friends everywhere.”
“What else?” Kabatov asked.
“The guard at the Palace of Congresses got a partial license plate number, and the city is being searched for the car, as of noon without success.”
“Why wasn’t I told of this?” Militia General Mazayev demanded. The Militia were the police.
“The alert was issued routinely for a stolen vehicle,” Zhigalin replied. “General Korzhakov felt that the initial stages of the investigation should be as low key as possible so as to lull the assassin into a false sense of security.”
“Spare me,” the Militia director said. He turned to Kabatov. “I’ll put my people on it. All my people. We’ll find this car and this colonel.”
“How was the bomb detonated?” Kabatov asked. “If it was set on a timer, it would mean that the assassin knew President Yeltsin’s schedule. That in itself might give us a clue.”
“The bomb was probably fired from a radio controlled detonator,” Zhigalin said. “At least that’s the preliminary finding. It means that the assassin stationed himself someplace so that he could see the presidential motorcade show up at the Kremlin. He pushed the button, the President’s automobile exploded, and he calmly walked off.”
“Someone in Red Square?”
“There was the usual line in front of Lenin’s Tomb, some early tourists at St. Basil’s and a few people just exiting the Rossyia Hotel, plus normal pedestrian traffic. Witnesses are being rounded up and questioned.” Zhigalin glanced at Mazayev. “Again simply a routine investigation for the moment.”
“If the man was a professional, as you suggest, then he is long gone by now,” Mazayev said bitterly. “The city should have been shut up tight immediately after the bombing. We would have found the assassin.”
“He’s back aboard Tarankov’s train,” Zhigalin said. “If you want to find him you needn’t look anywhere else.”
