57
Alexsandr Kurakin studied his suit in the full-length mirror, examining the way his cuffs fell, adjusting and readjusting his tie. Then he leaned forward, making sure that his thick hair was precisely in place. If he was vain about anything connected to his appearance, it was his hair, still admirably thick at fifty-eight. He found a few errant strands and worked them into place with his fingers.
As a young man, Kurakin had been fairly handsome. Now he was perhaps “more distinguished than pretty”— to use the words of an Italian magazine that had profiled him recently — but he could still cut a charismatic figure on television.
He would prove so once again this evening. By then, this suit would be stained, most likely with blood. His hair would be disheveled. But everything would be accomplished.
Not everything, not nearly. The Americans would be angry about losing their spy satellites, even though Perovskaya and his aborted coup would be blamed. Kurakin would face reprisals, even after persuading the American president that it was Perovskaya’s plan all along. There would be a storm, certainly; the only question was how severe.
The Russian congress — well, they would rage furiously, but they were already impotent, and in assuming martial law he would depose them anyway. The military would fall behind him, following the initial confusion. The units that had been moved on Perovskaya’s authority would, unfortunately, suffer some consequences — but then, their leaders were not particularly loyal to begin with, which was why he had chosen them. Another storm, but only a brief one.
And then, the deluge. But under his control. Martial law would sweep away the obstacles. First, the rebels in the south would be dealt with. The Chinese would stand aside or be punished severely. They would see this and probably not even have to be threatened.
He needed a military victory to seal his position, and so defeating the rebels — or at least plausibly claiming to — was critical. And then, quickly, perhaps even simultaneously, the next step. The forces that had made Russia a chaotic asylum for thieves, gangsters, and lunatics would be crushed without mercy. The criminals would be dealt with summarily. Russian society would be restored.
After that? Democracy? Too far in the future to tell.
He had hopes. He was still an optimist at heart, an old believer.
Kurakin stepped back from the mirror. There was a knock on the door — his bodyguards. It was time.
58
Johnny Bib kept twenty-three voices in his head. Exactly twenty-three. Twenty-three was a beautiful number, a prime with mystical qualities and associations. There were twenty-three ages of man, twenty-three major rules of life, twenty-three important places in the world. Eleven was a good number, and seventeen, and as far as his personal preferences went, Johnny had always felt something for 103. But twenty-three was sublime.
One of the voices told him now that he was wrong about the coup. He heard it quite clearly as Rubens and the CIA people on the conference call debated whether the movements they had observed meant the coup was under way or still in its preparatory stages. Clearly, as Rubens argued, it was the latter; the intercepts made that clear. Johnny was about to cite the statistics to back up his superior when the voice broke into his thoughts and told him he was wrong.
He was shocked. Rarely did he get anything wrong. He sat silently in his seat and waited for an explanation, but the voice did not offer one.
Where was the error?
The voice didn’t say.
“Where was it?” Johnny asked.
Realizing he’d spoken out loud, he glanced up immediately, looking to see if anyone had noticed. He could not tell anyone about the voices, since they would not understand, Rubens especially; they would think him more than usually eccentric, even for the NSA.
Every pore in Johnny’s body opened. Sweat flooded into his clothes. His shirt was so wet he glanced down to make sure the pinstripes weren’t bleeding into his skin.
But no one seemed to have noticed.
“Latest, Johnny?” asked Rubens.
“I—”
“You mentioned a possible time window for the attempt on Kurakin, based on the driving distances and one of the intercepted schedules.”
Rubens was prompting him. Johnny liked Rubens; he was one of his few intellectual equals at the agency and obviously was trying to help him now.
He couldn’t let Rubens make a mistake.
“It’s wrong,” said Johnny finally.
“What?” said Rubens.
“Wrong.”
“Perovskaya, the defense minister — you had new information about him?” asked Rubens.
Johnny nodded his head, though he wasn’t covered by a video camera and no one could see him. The intercepts seemed to point to Perovskaya. He was in contact with three of the obviously rebelling military units. There was additional traffic, not yet decrypted, between his secretary and two other units, as well as an order from his office to a key Moscow infantry unit allowing extra leave. Johnny had told Rubens all of this before the secure conference call.
Wrong, said the voice again.
The voice wouldn’t respond.
“Johnny, are you with us?” asked Rubens.
Johnny began to nod.
“OK,” said Rubens. “Keep at it. Brott, any updates on the Air Force?”
Johnny listened for a few seconds to the force analysis, then abruptly took off his headset and left the Art Room. He had to find his error, with or without the voice’s help.
59
The first thing Dean noticed about the CIA officers was that they smelled like they hadn’t taken showers in about a month. They were dressed almost identically in dark blue suits. Creases checkered the clothes like bizarre spiderwebs. Both seemed to have tried shaving a day or so ago, with mixed results.
Using an apartment several blocks from the Kremlin as a command post, the two men were coordinating eight surveillance teams trying to find an assassin believed to be targeting Russian president Alexsandr Kurakin. Two of the teams were currently inside the Kremlin.
Dean shared the common Western misperception that the Kremlin was a single building; in fact, it was a complex of roughly ninety acres that included a number of Russian government buildings as well as old cathedrals and ancient palaces, many of which were open to tourists. The president’s office, formerly in the Senate, had been moved the year before to the Arsenal, displacing the Kremlin guards; it was off-limits and equipped with a variety of devices to disrupt surveillance and eavesdropping, including a copper skin inside the president’s suite that made it almost impossible to place a conventional bug or fly there.
Nonetheless, the CIA could track Kurakin’s position to within a few feet, even within his office suite, by using a variety of sensors, both preplaced and handheld. (“Handheld” simply meant that the devices were mobile and placed into position for a specific task; in this case it included a van’s worth of equipment that homed in on
