THIRTY-EIGHT
Krasnodar Krai, Russia
In the grand palace of the Russian Federation overlooking the Black Sea, Andrea Portleva, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., was walking down the marble steps to greet Caesar Demas. He had met her before. The long-legged beauty had always caught his eye. As she greeted Demas and led him to their meeting room, he toyed in his mind with the idea of beginning an affair with her, especially now that they would be doing business together. Of course, he was still married to his wheelchair-bound wife who, when she wasn’t wheeling herself endlessly around their villa outside of Rome, would have the servants drive her to their vineyards in the north. But such a marriage had never slowed his appetite for sexual trysts over the years, including a long parade of expensive call girls. The billionaire’s wallet could pay for anything he wanted, whenever he wanted it.
When they were settled in the small sitting room full of black oak chairs upholstered in leather, she ordered drinks. She was drinking vodka. He wanted gin.
After some pleasantries, Caesar Demas asked directly, “When?”
She replied, “A week. Maybe less.”
Demas wanted assurances. “Since I will have Russia’s backing, I need your guarantee that when it happens, it can’t be traced back to Moscow. That would taint everything I have been trying to do.”
“We have been playing this game with the United States in some form for almost a hundred years. We’ve perfected discretion and subterfuge. Be assured, we have an even greater need to keep our hands clean than you do.”
Demas smiled and gazed into her face. “On the other hand, I can also appreciate a beautiful woman who has … well, less than clean hands.”
Portleva laughed. A good sign, Demas thought. He didn’t want to negotiate with a prude.
He redirected the conversation. “And the new international coalition, the one I have been building …”
“Yes, we still want you at the head. You’ve earned that, and you have shown a particular ability to forge a solid front made out of divergent nation groups. The European Union, well that didn’t surprise me, but bringing the Islamic nations, the Arab League along with the Asians … and key nations in the African continent and South America. Good work. You’ve been a busy boy …”
She sipped her drink, and he laughed.
He wanted to know more about the United States. “Jessica Tulrude. We still need her …”
“Of course …”
“I have pledged many millions to her presidential campaign.”
“She will be an important component, but we are concerned about President Corland.”
“His health is failing,” Demas said, dismissing Corland with a wave of his hand. “He’s a dead man walking. I don’t know why he hangs on. There is some conversation about his having a change of heart. In any case, it’s good that he won’t last. We can’t do business with Corland, now that he’s gotten religion. But Jessica Tulrude we can deal with. She still thinks she is going to have a dominant role in the coming global coalition. I have been working her from my end. She’s salivating to expand her power, not satisfied to be just the American president. She wants to be historic … the first U.S. head of a world government. Behind the scenes, I’ve promised her that.”
Portleva wondered, “After the great unpleasantness happens in the United States — irradiated populations, leveled cities — won’t she be forced by her own political party and her own people to fight back, clawing and scratching like a caged animal against the aggressors?”
“By then, the United States will be so weakened, so declawed, that it will be worried about survival, not dominance. Tulrude will be at our mercy. I can play her, believe me. Besides, I think you have done a good job of hiding the identity of their true enemies. The only ones the Americans will be able to identify will be a handful of dead Islamic martyrs.”
“And the American media? What will happen there?”
Demas had already calculated that. “Remember 9/11. The American press bent over backward not to be condemning. Editors told their staffs not to use the phrase Islamic terrorist. There’s a sizable connection between Russia and the United States. Many folks from Russia and the Baltic republics live in America. The U.S. would not want to be politically incorrect toward Russians, now would they? The same 9/11 media backlash will happen again, but perhaps even more so now. Why, some of the media people may even intimate that it was American foreign policy that caused the attacks against them.”
That was a wonderful thought, and Portleva laughed. She reached over to grip his hand. “I think we are going to work well together.”
Then she raised her glass. He followed suit. She said, “Here’s to what is coming … the setting of the sun for America’s arrogance. And the bright sunrise for the new world order.”
Gallagher convinced Ken Leary, which was a major task in itself. What had finally turned Leary’s head is when Gallagher mentioned one name that, as it turned out, they both knew in common: Pack McHenry. “He’s the source,” Gallagher explained, “of all my information.”
They knew that McHenry was doing “way out there” surveillance for the CIA, along with his Patriot group, strictly as a black-ops subcontractor. Much of their work had tendrils into the American homeland, but always with international implications and usually because they had located a foreign source of aggression that directly threatened American citizens. Was it legal? Not if Jessica Tulrude and her ilk had their way. But the FBI had been gutted by politics and hog-tied by insane regulations, many of them now the result of international treaties that the United States had been roped into.
Leary was now so concerned that he even violated one of the big commandments: he took his CIA laptop home. He knew he could be fired for that, but what did that matter in the face of this threat?
Gallagher and Leary ordered Chinese food and worked late into the night in Leary’s apartment along the James River on the Shockoe Slip.
Leary said, “Look, all I have is the suspicious names on inbound and outbound flights at Richmond International Airport. That’s all, John. They won’t grant me even a look-see at any of the bigger airports. I’ve been cordoned off from the rest of the Agency.”
They ran down the thousands of names on Leary’s computer. About 3:00 in the morning, they had narrowed the list to three names that fit Gallagher’s profile of Russian, North Korea, or Iranian involvement. One was a South Korean journalist with possible sympathies to China. He had flown into the U.S. three months before to cover some political news in Washington. But he had left the country for Venezuela.
The second was an Iranian diplomat suspected of spying for Tehran, but it couldn’t be proven. He had an apartment near Embassy Row in Washington.
Gallagher squinted at the last name. He stuck his finger on the laptop screen. “Who’s that?”
“Russian engineer. Taught at a technical institute over there. Now he’s a visiting professor here. Supposedly.”
“Is that his last name?”
“Right,” Leary said.
Gallagher said the name slowly. “K-o-r-s-t-i-k-o-f-f …” Then he asked, “What kind of engineering?”
Leary typed a search into his computer, then another. After about forty minutes, he started nodding his head. Then he nodded more vigorously.
“Okay, what’s the scoop?” Gallagher asked.
“It says here he also spent time disarming old Soviet nuclear missiles so they could comply with the nonproliferation treaties.”
Gallagher stood up straight. “I say we start working this guy Korstikoff — and I mean right now.”
Leary was tired. “How about a few hours of shut-eye?”
“You go ahead. I saw an all-night coffee shop down the street. I’ll grab a triple espresso. No time for sleep. I got work to do.” “Like what?”
“Superhero type stuff … you wouldn’t understand …”