'Go home, Alex.'
Michaels stared at his car, at the bodyguard and chauffeur who stood watching and waiting. He had a little over six hours to put together a presentation for the President of the United States and his hard-nosed security advisors — not to mention Alex's own boss at the FBI — and supposedly get some rest, too. That last part sure wasn't going to happen.
He shook his head. About the time you thought you were in control, life sure had a way of setting you straight.
'Like shit,' Michaels said aloud.
A traffic cop nearby said, 'Excuse me?'
'Nothing,' Michaels said.
He headed for his car.
'Home, Commander?' his driver said.
The driver already knew about the promotion. Well. One thing was certain. Michaels was damn sure going to use that promotion to take care of this business. Steve Day was his friend.
Wrong. Day had
'No. To the office.'
3
Vladimir Plekhanov wiped some of the ever-present dust from the inside of his window and looked down upon the city. Despite the installation of air conditioners and weekly visits from a cleaning woman, there seemed always to be a layer of powder everywhere, fine as talcum, but much darker. Of course, the dust was just dirt now. He remembered a time when much of it had been soot from the crematoriums, the remains of soldiers, civilians and invading Russians. That was a long time ago, almost twenty years, but as he grew older he spent perhaps more time in his room of old memories than he should. Well. Even though he had much to live for yet, and a most rewarding future in mind, he was sixty and should be allowed a glance backward from time to time, yes?
From his vantage point in the corner office on the sixth floor of the Computer Wing of the Science Building — formerly, and briefly, the Military Headquarters Building — he had a good view. Here was the new downtown bridge over the Sunzha River; way over there, the massive Makhachkala Pipelines, delivering their ever-more-precious black fluid to the waiting tankers on the Caspian Sea. Just there, the remains of the barracks where Tolstoy had served as a young soldier. And there, in the distance, the Sunzha Range of the mighty Caucasus.
As cities went, this one was not bad. It was hardly a village — nearly half the population of the entire country lived here — but even so, at less than three quarters of a million people, it was not an overly large city. And in a beautiful country it was.
Oil was still the lubricant that ran Grozny's economy, though it was running out, bleeding away faster than it could have been replaced by ten thousand dinosaurs dying and instantly rotting each day — a thing even Steven Spielberg and all his movie magic could not provide. The flare stacks at the refinery ran day and night, spewing fire and smoke into the skies, but in the not-too-distant future those fiery towers would go dark. Chechnya needed a new base for its economy. A base that he, Vladimir Plekhanov, was going to provide. For even though he had been born a Russian, he was as much Chechen as any man…
The sound of his computer's telephonic program interrupted Plekhanov's musings upon his Grand Plan. He turned away from the window, walked to the door of his office and smiled at his secretary, Sasha. He then closed the door quietly but firmly before turning to his state-of-the-art workstation. 'Computer, sound dampers on.'
The machine hummed and obeyed the vox command. 'Dampers on,' it said.
Plekhanov nodded at the machine, as if it could see and understand his gesture. It could not — but he could have programmed it to do so had he wished.
'Yes?' he said in English. There was no visual mode on this line, nor would he have wished for one. Of course, the communication was secure — as secure as the best Russian military encryption program could make it. Plekhanov knew this because he himself had written the program under contract to the Russian Army, and there was no one likely to hear this communication remotely capable of breaking it. Perhaps some of the Net Force operatives might, but they would be… otherwise occupied just at the moment. He smiled. Still, he spoke English because Sasha had not two words of that language; nor did anybody likely to be passing by.
'The job is done,' said the voice from thousands of kilometers away. It was Mikhayl, amusing himself by using the name Ruzhyo — thus, Mikhayl the Rifle. A violent man, but loyal, and most adept. The proper tool for the mission.
'Good. I expected no less. Any problems?'
'Nicholas unexpectedly decided to retire.'
'How unfortunate,' Plekhanov said. 'He was a good employee.'
'Yes.'
'Very well. You are moving into the new quarters?'
'Yes.'
Even though the link was encrypted, old habits died hard. Their
'Well. Continue as planned. I will contact you when further work is required.' He hesitated a moment, then realized one more thing needed to be said. Communism was dead and rightfully so, but the workers still needed approbation to feel a sense of accomplishment. A good manager knew this. 'You did well,' Plekhanov said. 'I am pleased.'
'Thank you.'
That ended the conversation.
Plekhanov leaned back in his chair. The Grand Plan was progressing exactly as he had intended. Like a snowball rolling down a hill, it had begun small, but by the time it was done, it would be vast and unstoppable.
He pushed the intercom buzzer on his desk. A few seconds passed, and nothing happened. He pushed the button again. Still no response. He sighed. The intercom was broken again. If he wanted tea, he would have to go and tell Sasha. He was on the way to being the most powerful man in the world and he had to work in an office wherein the simplest devices were in need of repair. He shook his head. That was going to change.
And that would be but the smallest of changes…
Alexander Michaels had felt better. As his chauffeur maneuvered the car toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he shuffled through the hardcopy printouts yet again, ordering his thoughts as best he could. The town car was bracketed fore and aft by bodyguard vehicles, governmental-gray cars whose drivers and passengers carried enough hardware to sustain a small war. The protocols were pretty clear about what must be done in the event of a high- level federal assassination. The genesis of these protective measures went all the way back to Lincoln. Most people didn't realize that the murdered President had not been the sole target of Booth and his fellow plotters.
Michaels had been to the White House several times, although always as a backup to Steve Day, never on the hot seat himself. And he had every scrap of information the FBI had on the assassination on tap, all duplicated on a small disk capable of holding gigabytes of material, nestled inside a coded plastic case, ready to load into the White House's Secure System. Should something happen to him, anybody who tried to break open the disk's case
