As soon as Valentin Sen’kov left his official residence at the Kremlin, his security and transportation network went into action. Three shell-game groups of three armored limousines departed the Kremlin, with Sen’kov’s group in the middle, taking a different route than in times past. Each limousine flew the crest of the president of Russia, so it was impossible to tell which actually carried him.
In general, government flights, especially ones taken by the president, originated from Zhukovsky Airport southeast of Moscow, which was both a military airfield and a government research facility. Two of the shell-game groups headed toward Zhukovsky, each taking a different route. This time, however, the third team broke off from the others and headed northwest, to Sheremetyevo-1 Airport. Normally used for regional and Commonwealth flights, Sheremetyevo-1 was once Moscow’s largest international airport — that honor now belonged to Sheremetyevo-2—so it could easily handle large international flights.
The president’s motorcade drove into the airport through a side entrance and was picked up by airport security police and MVA Interior Ministry and OMON special-operations troops. It continued on at high speed to a secure ramp area, where a Tupolev-204 medium-range VIP transport was waiting. Sen’kov and his staff members quickly boarded via the main port-side forward airstair. There was no sendoff, no ceremony, no pomp and circumstance. The president of the Russian Federation was greeted by the captain and the chief of the aircraft’s security staff, a female OMON officer, and shown quickly to his seat in the rear VIP cabin, along with several of his senior staff.
Once Sen’kov was seated in his plush high-backed seat and positioned for takeoff, he turned to his chief of staff. “General Gryzlov’s location?” he asked.
“As of ten minutes ago — in official quarters,” his aide replied, checking his notebook. “He made only four phone calls, all to staffers back at his office, routine calls. His computer and cellular phones have not been used. His staffers have made numerous calls, but all callers have been verified and their conversations monitored. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
If he was planning a coup, Sen’kov thought, he was doing it very, very quietly indeed. “Is he aware of this trip?”
“If he is, sir, he has not contacted anyone that might be considered unusual or suspect,” the aide said. “Minister of Defense Bukayev will contact General Gryzlov when he awakens in the morning and notify him that the president has departed for the summit meeting.”
“Everyone else in the cabinet sticking to their schedules?”
“Yes, sir.”
For the first time since he left the Kremlin, Valentin Sen’kov could relax. General Gryzlov was obviously too busy with his invasion plans to worry about planning a takeover of the government or of the president’s last-minute travel plans. Although it was probably not completely wise to leave Moscow with this showdown brewing between him and Gryzlov, Sen’kov was confident that a meeting with Thomas Thorn would give him the look of a peacemaker and enhance Gryzlov’s image as a dangerous and unpredictable berserker. If Thorn was smart and well briefed, he would treat Sen’kov as his equal; that would help keep the Duma — the Russian parliament — and the people on his side so he had a chance of weathering this crisis.
For the first time security forces showed the world that the president was on board the plane as vehicles with flashing lights escorted the Tu-204 to the runway for takeoff. Sen’kov felt vulnerable and nervous — he wished the escorts would go away so the VIP transport had a better chance of blending in with all the other airliners. But the Tu-204 was a big plane, there were only three others like it in existence, and they were the only ones with the word russia painted in big red Cyrillic letters on the side, along with the president’s crest on the tail. It made a big enough stir by itself, let alone surrounded by a dozen security vehicles. Before he knew it, though, the huge twin- fanjet transport was airborne, heading northwest on the great-circle route to Iceland.
Sen’kov was finally able to relax. He reclined his seat back, buzzed the galley, and ordered a glass of ice-cold vodka and some toast points and caviar, which were served him in just a few minutes. Sen’kov turned on his computer, checked his messages, and then called up the latest intelligence and cabinet staff briefings. Things actually seemed to be calming down. Even Gryzlov’s airpower mobilizations were slowing a bit. Everyone’s locations and activities appeared normal — no clandestine meetings, no evacuations, no runs on banks.
Gryzlov still had plenty of time to fuck things up, Sen’kov thought as he sipped his vodka, but right now the government seemed to be plodding along pretty much as usual. He could definitely feel the tension in the air, but perhaps the boiling point had not yet been reached. Iceland was a pretty good place to be right now.
Sen’kov loosened his tie, removed his shoes, turned on a Western satellite-news channel, and munched on caviar — farm-grown caviar, he hoped, not the crap they were still harvesting from the Caspian Sea. He checked the large computer flight-tracking screen on the bulkhead, which plotted out their position and showed their altitude, airspeed, world times, and estimated time en route. They were just over the Gulf of Finland, safely out of Russian airspace. He was tired, but he needed a little relief from the job before he thought about sleep. Sen’kov briefly considered inviting one of the female OMON security officers back to his private cabin for a little horseplay — she had definitely signaled some interest in some private pleasures, no doubt in exchange for some professional favors — but decided he needed the rest more than he needed—
At that moment the phone buzzed. Sen’kov looked at it strangely. His phone was set on “private” when he didn’t wish to be disturbed, and if one of his aides had something very urgent, he would simply walk in and give it to him. Sen’kov ignored the buzzing, knowing that one of his aides or someone in the communications cabin would pick it up — but no one did. Irritated, he picked it up.
“Mr. President, you didn’t tell me you were departing the capital,” General Anatoliy Gryzlov said.
Sen’kov’s blood turned cold when he heard Gryzlov, especially using that ominous tone of voice. “What is it, General? Bukayev was going to notify you at dawn. I’m trying to get some rest.”
“Try that OMON captain from the Thirty-first Rifles. She told me she was looking for a promotion and a transfer to Kaliningrad,” Gryzlov said. “She’ll give you anything you wish in exchange—
So Gryzlov
“I called to tell you, Sen’kov, that you broke faith with me and with Russia by not signing that execution order, then blabbing about me to the Americans,” Gryzlov said. “I don’t appreciate being lied to and having my name smeared to a bunch of Americans.”
“Your name is
“How generous of you, Sen’kov,” Gryzlov said. “But that won’t be necessary. I will depart the general staff this morning — and I will confine myself to the Kremlin White House.”
“What are you talking about?” There was no reply to his buzzer, and the e-mail wasn’t being transmitted. He reached under his desk and hit the “panic button,” which was supposed to send every security officer on board rushing into the cabin — but no one showed. He picked up the phone to the cockpit. It rang, but no one answered.
“It is simple, Sen’kov: You’re out, and I’m in,” Gryzlov said. “Oh, and I would recommend that you do not open the door to your VIP cabin.”
“What did you do, Gryzlov?”
“Nothing too dramatic — just a simple slow failure of your plane’s pressurization system,” Gryzlov said. “Plus, I disabled the cabin altitude-warning lights and the oxygen-generating system. When the cockpit reached four to five thousand meters altitude, your flight crew should have experienced the first symptoms of hypoxia — oxygen starvation — declared an emergency, and donned their oxygen masks. The masks won’t work, but they won’t have
