Deeper Than Red (Red Returning Trilogy) (3 page)

“We just received an alert from one of our field agents that President Dimitri Gorev has been assassinated.”

Travis Noland felt as if the floor beneath him had just shifted. He leaned hard against his desk and placed both hands flat on top of it. “Go on,” he said tightly, his eyes riveted on the director.

“It’s unconfirmed, though my team is working to pin it down. There’s been no official announcement.”

“This source is reliable?”

“Yes, sir. Our agent has a contact inside FSB.”

“When did this happen?”

“About an hour and a half ago, sir. About five
PM
Moscow time, on a country road near his family farm. He was going home for the weekend.”

“Do we have specifics?”

“Gunmen were waiting for him in the woods. They surrounded the motorcade and opened fire. We’re not sure of much else.”

“And your best guess who these gunmen were?”

Bragg drew a long sigh. “Indulge me, sir.” Noland nodded a go-ahead. The director brought a hand to his chin and started to pace in front of the desk. “Six months ago, Volynski and his closest aides vaporize over the East River. Only a handful of us know that Evgeny Kozlov planted the bomb. He’d seen Volynski for the madman he was. So Kozlov decides to save Russia from the guy and, acting completely on his own, plans and carries out the hit.

“The media goes ape, digs up everything they can on Volynski and the terrorist on the tug who tried to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge at the same time the chopper exploded. They can’t find too much on Volynski and we, of course, aren’t talking. But then the TV-network contributors—the retired crew-cut generals and other Beltway pundits who are paid to wax authoritative with insider knowledge they don’t always have—suggest Gorev might have ordered the hit, though we know he didn’t.”

“Keep going, Don.”

“What our people are sure of, though, is that Volynski had a sophisticated network of followers in Russia, dug in along the halls of power from government to the military. And in the youth population, where a growing number of subversive coalitions were beginning to clamor for Volynski to come back from self-exile and make Russia the powerhouse it used to be.”

Noland eyed him with certainty at what was coming. “Draw your conclusion, though I see it already.”

Bragg nodded. “In my opinion, sir, Volynski’s loyals didn’t need our press to suggest that Gorev ordered the assassination. They were sure of it. So they killed him. Though the death isn’t confirmed yet.”

Noland stared down at his desk. “God help us,” he said aloud, then walked to a window. He stared into the garden beyond, at the faces of roses tilted up in innocence. But hidden beneath their fine costumes were the thorns that would mercilessly pierce a man’s flesh. He returned to the desk. “I’ll get your confirmation.” He pushed a button on his phone and summoned his secretary.

“Yes, sir,” she answered instantly.

“Rona, get Arkady Glinka on the phone for me, please.”

“The Russian prime minister, sir,” she clarified, a note of surprise in her voice.

“As quickly as possible. Thank you.” He looked up at Bragg and saw the apprehension on the veteran spy’s face.

“Sir, I’m not sure that’s what you want to do,” Bragg said tactfully.

“I assure you it is. I have my reasons.”

“Forgive my asking, but would you mind sharing them with me?”

“At this moment, I would. Now, please, make yourself comfortable.” He motioned to one of the chairs opposite his desk, and Bragg complied.

Noland settled into his chair and carefully regarded the venerable CIA director. “I know what you’re thinking, Don, and yes, I ignored your warning not to announce to the nation that Ivan Volynski was my half brother. Here I go again. Right?” Bragg started to respond, but Noland raised a polite hand and continued. “But there are things I know that you don’t. You couldn’t.” Noland gauged the man’s bearing, his guarded expression, yet his transparent devotion to his role as keeper of the nation’s darkest secrets. Such a trust could gut a man in time. The president hoped his old colleague would retreat before that happened. He liked Don Bragg for the wounds he already bore from his own tours as an undercover field agent, but mostly from the weapons fired at him by senate subcommittees aghast at the things he sometimes allowed his agency to do to protect the country. Sometimes they were the right things, sometimes not, Noland knew. But always, Bragg was a patriot.

Noland cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair, choosing now to bring the director closer to the truth. “Arkady Glinka is more than just second in line to the Russian presidency and a long-time figurehead in Russian politics.” Noland caught a glint of anticipation in Bragg’s eyes. “You seem sure of what I’m about to tell you.”

“Pretty sure,” Bragg replied. “That Glinka was once Volynski’s childhood friend and later, KGB boss. That Glinka mysteriously disappeared from Russia about ten years ago, then resurfaced as a converted conservative. A believer in and passionate supporter of all things Gorev, at least on the outside. In fact, Glinka so enamored himself with Gorev, the rising president tapped him as his prime minister. We know everything about his career, his family, and his appetite for fast Italian cars and even faster women.”

A half smile creased Noland’s weary face. “Go on. There’s more.”

Bragg’s confidence stumbled. “I’m not sure what you’re referring to, sir.”

Noland straightened in his chair. He hadn’t meant to parlay his privileged information into a one-up game with Bragg. “I’m sorry. Your team would have uncovered this soon enough. So I’ll tell you what I know.” He shifted again in his seat, hastily assembling in his mind what he would and would not reveal. “A few months ago, a young Israeli intelligence agent started tracking the rise of Arkady Glinka to prime minister. You might call it an excavation. The agent was particularly interested in Glinka’s possible connection to Volynski’s earlier scheme to assassinate Gorev and the Syrian president, and he produced forged documents to prove that Israel had pulled the trigger on both. A plot laid bare by the code Liesl Bower found in her music, as you well recall.” Noland smiled. “I wonder if Volynski ever faced a more comely and threatening adversary than Liesl, who surfaced yet again to help dismantle his terror campaign inside the U.S.”

Bragg nodded acknowledgment of the pianist’s unlikely role in that, but kept pressing for more information. “And did this young Israeli discover a connection between Glinka and Volynski’s ongoing conspiracy?” Bragg didn’t seem to mind not knowing.

“More like an umbilical cord, but one that was invisible to Gorev and most of the Kremlin.”

“But not enough evidence to arrest Glinka?”

“Not yet. Maybe never.”

“Who is this Israeli agent, sir?”

Noland eyed the man cautiously. Something told him it wasn’t the time to identify the one whose exhaustive work now promised a straighter shot to the matrix of Russian power. The one whose own DNA was as inextricably linked to a murdering anarchist as Noland’s was. When Maxum Morozov fled Israel after Liesl Bower’s code exposed him as a Russian mole inside the Israeli Defense Department, he left behind a son reeling from that discovery. Now, the son hunted the father. Young Max had temporarily laid down his violin and picked up his father’s trail. Along the way, operating as an unofficial agent of Israel’s legendary Mossad, Max had uncovered the secret life of Arkady Glinka.

“What’s more important is what he discovered,” Noland said with the conviction that protecting young Max Morozov’s deep-cover quest was more crucial to American security than sending the CIA alongside. At least for now. “By the time Mr. Glinka dropped from Russian radar a decade ago, he had plunged headlong into the occult.”

Bragg was clearly stunned.

“It started out as a mere dalliance,” the president continued. “A séance here and there, psychic readings by practitioners, from a young blind woman in the Ural Mountains to a set of male twins in Istanbul. Our young Israeli even tracked Glinka to a hut in Bali where he’d once lived on the beach for almost a year, floundering around in some cosmic haze possibly induced by a bit of substance sampling.”

“How long did Glinka’s, uh, spiritual quest last?”

“Four or five years. But only a couple of those were spent hopping from blacked-out parlor to parlor, crystal ball to who knows what. Then something changed. He fell under the spell, so to speak, of a colony of mediums in Germany, who later moved en mass to a remote mountain range in Montana.” Bragg arched one eyebrow. “You know something about that?” Noland asked.

“About four years ago, the FBI backtracked a shipment of meth leaving Montana for points unknown. It came from a mountain commune that had a strict code against substance abuse among its so-called family. They’d just turned the meth-maker in to the nearest sheriff’s office when the feds busted into their camp.”

“Glinka wouldn’t have been there. He returned to Russia six years ago.”

“From Montana?” Bragg asked.

“No. He left Montana a few months after he arrived. And that’s where the trail goes cold, except for one little blip on the screen. Two years ago, a sheriff’s deputy stopped a speeder in the Florida Keys. The violator’s name was Arkady Durov, who produced a legitimate Ukraine passport and claimed to be a tourist.”

Bragg listened expectantly as the president added, “Durov was Glinka’s mother’s maiden name.”

“No other documents were produced?” Bragg asked.

“It was a one-light-town officer with no apparent inclination to do more than issue a warning and send the man on his way. End of trail. We don’t know where he’d been or was going, or how long he was there. But we do know that when Glinka—if that was him—was stopped, there was a man in the car with him.”

“How do you know that?”

“Our Israeli friend hunted down the officer, who is now retired and still living in the area. He happens to remember that particular traffic stop because the two men spoke Russian to each other. The officer knew this because his grandmother was Russian. So he engaged them in conversation about the motherland and the one summer he’d spent there as a boy. Evidently, the exchange made a lasting impression on the officer, who described the driver as dark complected, not so handsome, and heavyset, which certainly fits Glinka. He remembers the passenger as nice looking, slim, and less interested in conversation.”

“Could he identify either man from a photograph?”

“Photos of Glinka are being sent now,” Noland said. “But even if he is positively identified, it tells us nothing at this point.”

“And the other man?”

“The agent is sending a photo of Volynski as well.”

Bragg cocked his head. “An excellent move. But what makes this agent suspect Volynski was the other man?”

Noland smiled. “Just a hunch, I’m told.”

“A hunch can be a powerful thing. Let’s hope it leads to something more substantial than fortune-telling and … wait a minute.” Bragg paused and squinted as if searching some distant mental file. “I once heard about a place down there that’s known for that clairvoyant, hocus-pocus stuff.” He thought a minute more, then snapped his fingers. “Anhinga Bay. An Army buddy who lived in Miami told me about the place.”

Bragg seemed to pull himself up a little straighter, his expression shifting to official bearing. “Sir, there’s no need to pretend I don’t know who this Israeli intelligence agent is. You of all people shouldn’t underestimate our reach. We’ve had young Max Morozov in our sights ever since his father went into hiding. And we’ve worked too many tandem ops with Mossad not to know their personnel.”

Noland nodded his head in concession. He’d drawn too close to the young virtuoso violinist and his American friend Liesl Bower. He’d helped shield them from their enemies during and after their perilous hunt for the code and those who plotted disaster. Why had he thought they were his personal domain and not of continuing interest to national security forces?

“Then you must know how critical it is for him to work alone,” Noland said, “without interference and added risk to him. He has a vested interest unlike any of your agents. Let him navigate the turns by himself. I know he’s searching for someone of great interest to you. But the fact that you haven’t found Maxum Morozov the father, or even determined if he’s alive, justifies his son’s own efforts, however unconventional they may be.”

“And if he finds his father before we do?”

Before Noland could answer, the phone on his desk buzzed.

“I have Prime Minister Glinka on the line, sir,” his secretary said. “I was told he isn’t in Moscow. I was patched through to a mobile number.” Noland dragged in a breath. Did Glinka know of the assassination or not? Was he guilty or not? What diplomatic furor might this call ignite?

Noland nodded toward Bragg, who then leaned forward in his chair, his eyes bearing down on the phone.

“Put him on, Rona.” The president pressed the speaker button and began his performance.

“Prime minister. It’s good of you to return my call.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. President?” The clipped straight-to-business tone sent a signal Noland couldn’t yet interpret. He would have to fire his opening round.

“On behalf of the American people, I wish to express our shock and deepest regrets for the loss of your president.”

The silence on the other end spoke volumes to Noland. If the report of Gorev’s death was false, Glinka would promptly have asked what Noland was talking about. If the Russian president had, indeed, been killed, surely the second-in-command would have been notified by this point and would acknowledge condolences with no hesitation. Why was Glinka so taken aback? Noland’s mind whirled through too many unsavory reasons.

“Prime minister, are you there?” Noland asked, his eyes on Bragg.

“Of course,” Glinka finally rallied. “So, you have already heard of our president’s death. I am impressed by the speed of your spy craft inside our country. It is even too soon for our own people to know of this tragedy.” Noland’s condolences had been met with accusation. Why?

“Too soon?” the president questioned. Too soon for what? For the hit teams to escape the vicinity of the crime? For the mechanics of a cover-up to engage? Noland wished it not to be true.