45
BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL,
Bethesda, Maryland
Robert Pope opened his eyes to see the president standing at the foot of his bed in the subdued lighting of his hospital room. His first thought was that something had gone terribly wrong in Turkey. “Has something happened to Gil, Mr. President?”
The president shook his head. “No, Gil’s fine. He and the others left Istanbul for Moscow half an hour ago. I’m here at this untimely hour because I need your counsel on a very personal matter.”
Pope adjusted himself in the bed, wiping his face with his hands to wake himself up. “You look worried, sir. What can I do for you?”
The president took the phone from his pocket and stepped around the side of the bed. “I received this . . .
message . . .
from Tim Hagen two hours ago.” He put the phone into Pope’s hand and touched the screen to start the video clip.
In the video, the president was sitting beside a young Korean woman in the back of a limousine. He was clearly drunk and quite
taken with the young woman. He was kissing the side of her face, running his hand in and out of her blouse and up and down the inside of her thigh, beneath her skirt. She was laughing and rubbing the bulge in his trousers. The voice of Tim Hagen could be heard very close to the phone, talking and chortling as if he were having a conversation with someone on the other end. After twenty seconds, the video cut to the president performing cunnilingus on the woman. Twenty seconds later, it cut again to her straddling him, and the president moaning that he was about to climax. After a full minute, the video stopped.
Pope gave the phone back to the president. “That’s obviously an edited version?”
“Yes,” the president said quietly, slipping the phone into his jacket. “I expect it probably is.”
“And you had no idea he was filming you?”
“None. We’d just won the Iowa caucuses, and I was drunker than the Lords of London. I thought he was bragging to someone about the victory.” The president massaged the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “I trusted that man with my life, and he put me in the White House. I had no idea I’d made a deal with the devil.”
Pope blessed his luck. “Why have you shared this with me, sir?”
“Hagen’s letting me know that if he goes down, he’s taking me with him. My wife is nothing like Hillary Clinton. She would divorce me immediately—and publicly.”
Pope nodded his understanding. “With respect, Mr. President, that doesn’t really answer my question.”
The president spoke to him gravely. “Can you stop this video before it goes viral?”
“Is this a frank and open conversation, sir?”
“It is.”
“In that case, I can stop it with a ninety percent certainty,” Pope replied. “But I’ll have to remove Hagen from the game board to do it. There’s a slight chance he’s arranged for the video to go viral in the event of his death, but under the circumstances, I believe that to be unlikely.”
“Under what circumstances?”
“I’m extremely close to Hagen, Mr. President. I have been since shortly after I ended up here. For all intents and purposes, I might as well be in the room with him at this very moment. If he’s arranged for that video go viral automatically, he did so a long time ago—which isn’t likely, in my opinion.”
The president let out a heavy sigh and stood away from the bed, resting his weight on the back of a chair near the window. “I can’t give you an order like that to protect my own hide.”
“You don’t have to order anything,” Pope said. “All you have to do is agree not to ask any questions about him after tonight. Hagen’s a traitor, Mr. President. Innocent people are dead because of him and his coconspirators.”
“But can you prove that?”
“In a court of law? No. But one of the CIA mainframes was accessed by an old series of codes that Hagen would have had access to during his time as chief of staff. Normally that series of codes would have been canceled after Hagen’s resignation, but the agency’s a mess, and a number of department heads have been slacking off. The day I get out of here, I plan to fire more than fifty people.”
The president felt sick to his stomach. “I know I’m a pathetic coward for asking you this, Robert, but what are the chances of it coming back to bite us if he’s removed?”
“Zero,” Pope answered. “He’ll simply vanish. The FBI will be left to assume that he’s gone on the run. He has plenty of money offshore, so it’s more than believable. He should have run already, but he’s a very foolish man.”
“Foolish how?”
“Foolish in that he’s too stubborn to admit that he’s lost. He lost the day you asked for his resignation. He’s the one who burned Gil in Paris, Mr. President. He did it to get revenge against me—and Gil—for reasons probably only he would truly understand.”
The president stared. “You said you’re in the room with him right now. That means you’d already planned on his
disappearance
, doesn’t it?”
Pope smiled. “Maybe not quite this soon . . .”
“So I’ve unnecessarily shown you my ass this evening.”
“I wouldn’t say so, sir. A man like Hagen could do a lot of damage with that video in a very short period of time. The sooner he takes a little vacation, the better.”
“A vacation . . .” The president thought it over at length, at last deciding that Hagen had asked for whatever Pope had in mind for him. “Okay. I won’t ask about him again. Now, what about the CIA? Can you save it, or will I have to dissolve it?”
“If I’m given a free hand, sir, you won’t even recognize the CIA nine months from now.”
The president touched Pope on the shoulder. “Heal up, Robert. I’ll look forward to seeing you at the White House for dinner the day you’re released. We have a lot to talk about.”
“I appreciate the invitation. Thank you.”
The president went to the door and was about to step into the hall when he turned on his heel. “Will Putin let Shannon out of Russia, or will he hold on to him?”
Pope grinned. “Do not fear, sir. Everything is going according to plan.”
The president shook his head as he slipped out of the room.
46
MOSCOW,
Russia
More than half of the young Russian women rescued from the brothel in Istanbul had family waiting for them at the Domodedovo Airport southeast of Moscow when the plane landed shortly after sunrise. The women cheered the moment the wheels touched down and smothered both Gil and Dragunov with kisses upon deplaning.
The rescuers were not afforded the opportunity to see the women reunited with their loved ones, however. The Russian media had been invited to film the tearful reunions for propaganda purposes, and the Kremlin had given express orders for Gil and Dragunov to be kept away from the cameras. They were ushered immediately from the plane to a waiting blue and white Mi-8 helicopter, which lifted off the moment the door was closed.
The Mi-8 was a large military model, but there was nothing military about the luxurious interior. Gil sat across a table from Dra
gunov, facing forward as they were served coffee and orange juice. “Something tells me this isn’t standard treatment,” he said dryly.
Dragunov sat looking pensively out the window. “This is Putin’s personal helicopter.”
Gil glanced around. “You’re kidding me.”
The Russian looked at him. “I would never joke about Putin.”
“Well, you don’t have much of a sense of humor, anyhow. Where are we going?”
Dragunov asked the Russian sergeant who had served their coffee. “We’re going to the Kremlin.”
“What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know, but what it does
not
mean is that they intend to pin medals to our chests, I can assure you of that. Your people must have contacted Moscow before we boarded the plane in Istanbul. They were too well prepared for us at the airport.”
Gil grinned. “Washington likes to keep things tidy with you guys. You’re too touchy.”
Dragunov was agitated by Gil’s lightheartedness. “You still don’t understand, do you? This is Russia.”
“I understand that, Ivan, but what do you want me to do about it? Sit over here pissing myself? What’s gonna happen is gonna happen.”
“That’s an easy attitude for you to take,” Dragunov said irritably, looking out the window again.
Gil realized for the first time that Dragunov was legitimately spooked. “What are you so worried about? You weren’t this rattled when we had people shooting at us.”
Dragunov turned toward him again. “Do you think Putin would send his personal helicopter for a lowly major returning from a failed mission?” He shook his head. “This helicopter is for you. It has nothing to do with me. You’re probably going to be treated like a celebrity. I’m going to be demoted and tossed into an infantry brigade. I’ll probably be in Ukraine before tomorrow night. My career is ruined because of this!” He swore foully in Russian and asked the sergeant if there was any vodka aboard.
The sergeant produced a bottle of Russian Standard vodka from a small refrigerator and poured the major a drink.
A short time later, Gil saw looming in the distance the five gold onion domes of the Dormition Cathedral located within the walls of the Kremlin. “It’s an awesome sight, Ivan.”
For a moment, Dragunov seemed to forget his concerns, moving around to Gil’s side of the table and pointing out the window to the northwest. “There near the horizon is the town of Khimki, where we stopped the Nazis in December of ’41—barely eight kilometers outside of Moscow.”
Gil converted the distance in his head to just shy of five miles.
Within a minute, they buzzed past the multicolored onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral located just outside of the Kremlin near Red Square. Seconds later, they were over the landing threshold of the Kremlin helipad, constructed two years earlier in the southeast corner of the Kremlin compound. Russian presidential motorcades were infamous for causing traffic jams, and President Putin had ditched his Mercedes limousine in 2013 in favor of faster, less obtrusive transportation.
The Kremlin—meaning “fortress”—had been constructed over a period of thirteen years from 1482 to 1495 and covered almost twenty-eight acres in the heart of the city. It was surrounded by a defensive brick wall more than a mile in circumference, ranging in height from sixteen to sixty-two feet, and in thickness from eleven to twenty-one feet.
The sergeant opened the helo door, and they stepped down the short staircase to the pad, where they were received by a large contingent of Russian military personnel. Winter had not yet relinquished its grip on the city, and though there was no snow on the ground, it was still cold enough to see everyone’s breath.
“Major Dragunov,” said a stern-looking Spetsnaz colonel, “you will come with me.”
Dragunov saluted, responding, “Yes, sir!” He turned to offer Gil his hand. “In case we never see each other again.”
Gil matched his grip. “It’s been a privilege, Major. I’m sorry we missed our man.”
Dragunov smiled a melancholy smile. “Perhaps next time, eh?”
Gil watched as he was led away toward the western part of the fortress, accompanied by eight armed Spetsnaz soldiers.
“Master Chief Shannon?” said another Russian colonel in nearly perfect-sounding English. “I am Colonel Savcenko. I will be your interpreter during your stay here at the Kremlin.”
Gil saluted the colonel at once. “I am at your orders, sir.”
The colonel returned the salute. “If you will follow me, please?”
“Of course, sir.”
They were escorted northward by no fewer than a dozen armed soldiers toward a large building referred to as the State Kremlin Palace.
“How was your flight from Istanbul, Master Chief?”
“A little tense at times,” Gil replied, his hands in his pockets against the cold. “The girls have all been severely traumatized. I don’t think they believed they were really coming home until the wheels were on the ground.”
“They’ll be well taken care of,” the colonel said. “May I ask you for the passport you were issued in Paris?”
“Yes, sir.” Gil took the passport from his coat pocket and gave it to the colonel, who passed it off to a major, who tucked it away inside his own coat. “Is my government aware of my arrival, sir?”
“I believe so,” the colonel said. “I’m told someone from your embassy will call on you this evening. Before that, the president would like a private word with you over an early lunch—if you’re feeling up to it.”
Gil cleared his throat. “President Putin, sir?”
The colonel met his gaze. “Will that be all right with you, Master Chief?”
“Absolutely, sir. I’m just a little shocked the president of Russia would bother meeting with a virtual nobody such as myself.”
The colonel smiled and continued walking. “You give yourself
too little credit, Master Chief. You’re a very accomplished soldier. We have been following your career rather closely here in Moscow over the past eighteen months—ever since your mission into Iran last year.”
Gil went on alert. “I’ve never been to Iran, Colonel. I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else.”
The colonel laughed. “Perhaps we do.”
They walked along in silence the final few yards to the Kremlin Palace, where Gil was led inside and shown to a small suite. The room was much like a hotel room, but instead of a bed, there was a black leather sofa.
“I assume you would like an opportunity to shower and change your clothes before your meeting with the president.”
“Very much so,” Gil said. “Thank you, Colonel.”
“There is a change of clothes in the closet. I’ll return for you in half an hour.”
Savcenko stepped out, pulling the door to, and Gil dropped down on the sofa, stretching his arms across the back of it and extending his legs. “Holy shit,” he muttered. “Six hours ago, I was in a Turkish whorehouse, and now here I sit in the fucking Kremlin getting ready to break bread with Stalin Junior. My wife would never believe this.”
47
MEXICO CITY,
Mexico
Tim Hagen sat on his hotel bed dressed in his pajamas, drinking Dos Equis beer and wondering how the president of the United States had responded to the video clip. He laughed drunkenly, thinking of how shocked the big, bad commander in chief must have been the moment he realized that his tryst with the Korean girl had been recorded for posterity. Hagen knew the CIA might soon move to take him out, but that wasn’t going to do the president any good. In the morning, he would set up a delayed upload that would require him to enter a password every twelve hours. After one missed entry, the video would upload automatically to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Ustream, and a half dozen other websites. Within twenty-four hours, the video would go viral, and the president would go down in flames as the most humiliated world leader in history.
Hagen went into the bathroom to take a leak, and when he came
back out, he found both of his Mexican bodyguards standing in the bedroom doorway waiting for him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, fear surging through him.
“Nothing,” said the head bodyguard, taking a silenced .380 Walther pistol from beneath his shirt. “Sit down on the bed.”
“What? What the fuck is going on?” Hagen asked in dismay.
The other bodyguard stepped forward and took him by the arm. “Have a seat, señor.”
“You guys can’t do this,” Hagen said, beginning to cry as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “You work for me. Whatever they’re paying, I’ll quadruple it! We can go to the bank in—”
“Be quiet.” The head bodyguard called into the other room in Spanish, and two beautiful, young Mexican women with long, raven hair came in wearing nurses’ uniforms. One of them was pushing a wheelchair.
“What the hell is going on?” Hagen demanded, swallowing hard. “You guys are supposed to protect me!”
“The señoritas are going to get you ready to leave,” the bodyguard told him. “Don’t give them any trouble, and we won’t give you any trouble. Okay?”
One of the women rolled up the sleeve of Hagen’s pajamas and tied off the arm with a rubber hose while the other prepared a hypodermic needle.
“Don’t do this,” Hagen said, tears welling in his eyes. “Please, don’t do this.”
The young woman smiled at him as she sat down beside him and poked the syringe into his vein, injecting him with 10 cc of Thorazine. Hagen’s eyes rolled back in his head a few seconds later, and he flopped over on the sheet mumbling.
Next they took a pair of clippers from their medical bag and buzzed off all of his hair, sweeping it carefully from the sheet and flushing it down the toilet. The bodyguards then lifted Hagen into the wheelchair, and the women lathered his head with shaving cream, giving him a skillful straight-razor shave that left him completely
bald and without a single nick. Then they shaved off his eyebrows and plucked out his eyelashes. After applying a little bit of movie makeup to give him a pallid complexion, he looked exactly like a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy.
Hagen was vaguely aware of what was happening to him, but it was difficult to move his arms and legs, and he could hardly keep the saliva in his mouth, much less form any words.
His “nurses” gently put his slippers on his feet, folded a blanket neatly over his legs, and hooked him up to an IV tube. Then they twisted their hair up beneath their nurses’ caps and wheeled him down the hall to the elevator.
There weren’t many people in the hotel still awake at that hour, but those who were saw only a rich American dying of cancer as he was rolled through the lobby to the main exit. One tourist paused on his way in to hold the door as the women wheeled Hagen out to a waiting handicapped van.
Hagen had no idea how much time had passed by the time he began to come around, but when his vision finally began to clear, he found himself strapped to the wheelchair facing a bright blue swimming pool beneath the hot Mexican sun.
“How are you feeling, Señor Hagen?” asked a Mexican man with bulging dark eyes. “The girls gave you a shot of adrenaline to help bring you around.”
Hagen recognized the man as Antonio Castañeda. “What are you going to do me?”
“Nothing,” Castañeda said, sipping from a glass of tequila. “It was only my job to get you here. My associate Mariana is going to come over and ask you some questions now. I expect they’ll be rather pointed questions, and I expect you to answer them to the very best of your ability. Is that understood, señor?”
Hagen nodded, remembering from somewhere in his foggy memory banks that Castañeda was known for toying with his victims before he killed them. “I understand.”
“Good.” Castañeda looked across the patio and made a come-here gesture with his hand.
Agent Mariana Mederos appeared, and Castañeda got up to give her his chair. “The gentleman is all yours,
hermosa
.”
“Thank you,” Mariana said dryly.
Hagen looked at her. “Who are you?”
“I’m with the CIA,” she said. “That’s really all that matters. I have some questions for you to answer.”
“And then what?” Hagen said. “I get a bullet in the head?”
“Mr. Hagen, I wasn’t sent here to kill you. I’m not an assassin. It’s my guess you’ll eventually end up back in the US, where you’ll be prosecuted for treason.”
“You can’t use this interrogation as evidence against—” He chuckled sardonically. “It doesn’t matter. Pope sent you.”
Mariana took her sunglasses from the top of her head and put them on. “I need the names of everyone involved in the attempt to take over the CIA, as well as those who had any hand in exposing the Paris operation.”
Hagen cast a glance across the patio, where Castañeda sat talking with an American man he recognized vaguely. His two former nurses were sunbathing naked on the far side of the pool.
“And if I refuse to give you the names?”
Mariana frowned. “I thought Señor Castañeda already covered that with you.”
Hagen looked down at the water. “He didn’t go into specifics . . . but that doesn’t matter, either. The names you want are Ken Peterson, Senator Steve Grieves, Ben Walton, Max Steiner, and Paul Miller. Steiner and Miller are already dead, but Pope knows that.” He looked at her inquisitively. “Do you even know why the Green Beret is here with you?”
She ignored the question, thinking the Thorazine must still be tweaking his thoughts.
“Who sent Jason Ryder to kill Pope?”
“Ryder worked for Peterson.”
“How much of the plot does Grieves have personal knowledge of?”
“You’d have to ask Peterson about that. Grieves and I never spoke of it. There was no need. Our personal business was strictly political.”
Mariana questioned him for a couple more minutes. Then she stood up and walked back across the patio.
Daniel Crosswhite stood up from where he’d been talking with Castañeda. “Got everything you need?”
“Yeah. He’s confirmed our intel.” Crosswhite walked off, and she turned to Castañeda. “Your help in this matter has been valuable. Thank you. I expect someone to be in touch soon with instructions on where to deliver him.”
Castañeda smiled at her. “Can I get you something to drink, Mariana?”
“No, thank you,” she said, glancing across the patio, where Crosswhite was crouched in front of Hagen’s wheelchair. “What’s he doing?”
“I believe he’s carrying out the rest of Señor Pope’s instructions.”
“What? He doesn’t have any instructions from—”
Crosswhite looked into Hagen’s eyes. “You tried to kill my best friend, you fuckin’ cocksucker.”
Hagen stared back at him, smirking. “There’s no need to make this personal, is there, Danny?”
“The fuck there isn’t,” Crosswhite said. “If you had time, I’d tell you a story about a young girl who got her throat cut.”
Hagen shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“Who hired Ryder?”
“I already told Pope’s bitch.” Hagen saw Mariana coming back in their direction. “Why don’t you just get it over with?”
Crosswhite reached out to flip the break levers on the wheelchair. “Adios,
puto.
”
“Don’t!” Mariana shouted.
Crosswhite stepped behind the wheelchair and pushed it over
the edge at the deep end of the pool. There was a mild splash, and Hagen went straight to the bottom.
Mariana froze in place, utterly aghast. “What the
fuck
do you call that?”
“Swimming lesson.” Crosswhite looked into the water at Hagen’s shimmering image twelve feet down. “Doesn’t look like he’s doin’ too good, does it?”