Duel of Assassins (5 page)

A few minutes later, having entered the West Wing through
the basement and by now nearly sober, Taras was ushered into the Oval Office.

As he often did after a grueling day, President William
Ackerman was relaxing by watching a videotaped sporting event—inthis case a
hockey playoff game. But when his intercom light flashed, Ackerman hastily
switched off the gizmo, which recessed into a Federal mahogany sideboard behind
a potted palm. It was damn silly to hide an innocent pastime, Ackerman thought,
but considering the gravity of the interview ahead, with a man he’d never met,
he didn’t want to risk diluting the impression of his seriousness.

When the three men entered, he rose and came around the big,
carved-oak Rutherford Hayes desk, which had been fashioned from British ship
timbers. The President’s shirtsleeves were rolled up, his hand extended, his
smiling gaze locked on Arensky.

“Thanks for coming along. I apologize for the lateness of
the hour and, uh, shall we say, abducting you from Larry Hornaday’s little
soiree. I think you’ll see the reason for it.” With his bull neck, ruddy
complexion and bluff, engaging manner, Ackerman reminded Taras of a tough,
likable military man or sport coach, neither of which fitted the facts. This
President, Taras knew, was entirely a political creature.

The group moved, at Ackerman’s expansive gesture, across the
pale gold oval carpet to twin white sofas by the marble fireplace. Outside, in
the West Wing Reception Room, Taras had been shed of his errand boys while
being introduced to the other two men—Buck Jones, a crewcut former aerospace
executive who served as White House chief of staff; and Dr. Eugene Ledbetter, a
rotund, wheelchair-bound Vietnam vet whose subsequent career path included a
masters in physics, a doctorate in European history, a term in Congress, and a
short stint as a distinguished Defense Department analyst followed by a Defense
undersecretaryship. Now, under Ackerman, he was National Security Adviser.
Ledbetter parked his wheelchair between the facing sofas; Arensky sat beside
Jones, with the President opposite. Coffee was brought in, and they helped themselves.

“All right, let’s get right to it, shall we, gentlemen?”
Ackerman said.

Jones turned to Arensky. “Earlier Gene and I were briefing
Scotty about your work with the CIA, and he’s very impressed.”

Taras nodded. He was still, frankly, a little boggled at not
only finding himself in the White House, but seated across a coffee table from
an affable, accessible President of the United States. It took a moment to
recall that among Washington insiders, “Scotty,” for some obscure reason,
referred to Ackerman; Taras had heard Charlotte use the nickname.

Ackerman assented: “It seems, Taras—may I call you
that?—your old bosses in the KGB want to hire your services.”

“I never worked for the KGB, sir. I was in GRU, military
intelligence, and special operations,
Spetsnaz
.”

“Forgive me,” Ackerman said.

“In any case,” Jones resumed, “it’s actually the Politburo
who want to hire you. But if you accept, you’ll be working with the KGB.”

“And that’s precisely the point,” Ledbetter said, hunched in
his wheelchair and sipping coffee. “That division defines one of so many
volatile situations in the U.S.S.R., of which you are doubtless aware. The KGB
is mounting this operation against a renegade
Spetsnaz
assassin, who is
apparently directed by a conspiracy of high-ranking Red Army officers, led by—”

“Rodion Marchenko,” Taras said. “I worked with him. But he’s
been exiled, to Novosibirsk.”

“A little farther than that, I’d say,” Ackerman said.

Buck Jones turned to Arensky: “The Politburo notified us
earlier today that General Marchenko has been executed as a traitor—”

“Svolochi!”
Arensky swore in Russian. “Bastards!”

“—but not before he unleashed his best assassin.”

“To kill Rybkin?”

“That’s the general idea.”

Ledbetter sketched in the few other details that were known
of the conspiracy. The attempt, clearly, was to eliminate President Rybkin
before he could go any farther with his overtures to the West, and specifically
surrender any measure of Soviet sovereignty in order to secure his country’s
place in the new European order—things the conspirators obviously feared might
occur at the Potsdam Conference.

“But this is nothing new, gentlemen,” Arensky said. “It is a
very long-running Mussorgsky opera we are seeing over there again, an endless
Time of Troubles. Why shouldn’t everyone want to kill him?”

“You’re being facetious,” Ledbetter said.

“Perhaps a little.”

Jones chuckled. “So what do
you
think Rybkin’s game
will be at Potsdam?”

“His ‘Greater Europe’ initiative? Personally I think it is a
desperate PR measure. The man is running out of cards to play.”

“Exactly,” said Ledbetter. “One would have thought, for
instance, that more could have been gotten in exchange for all of Eastern
Europe.”

“But my opinion is meaningless. There are many varieties of
anti-Rybkinism in the Soviet Union. Some, like Marchenko, think the President
is simply a traitor, eager to trade the Russian birthright for a mess of
European pottage. Others think he is a megalomaniac, intent on restoring
Russian greatness, and pos-sibly even with Napoleonic designs on being the
emperor of this supposed new order from the Atlantic to the Urals. Members of
Pamyat
,
on the other hand, are convinced he is contaminated with Jewish blood and is a
tool of an international Zionist conspiracy. And there are Orthodox fanatics
who are equally convinced Alois Rybkin is the Antichrist, who will turn the
Eurasian continent into a Beast with Ten Horns and Ten Crowns. Take your pick.”

“I agree with you,” Ledbetter said. “Rybkin is not Ivan the
Terrible, Rasputin, Napoleon or the Beast from the Apocalypse. He’s really
coming to Potsdam with his hand out. Their energy crisis is endemic, and
without oil and gas to offer Europe, what have they got?”

“Weaponry,” said Jones. “That’s his hole card to buy into
Europe, and everybody knows it.”

“Amen to that,” Ledbetter said. “The trouble is—”

“The trouble is,” Ackerman overrode, banging down his coffee
cup, “whatever Rybkin’s play, we’re committed to going along with it—to a
point. He can stretch his ‘Greater Europe’ to the Urals and all the way east to
Siberia if it makes him happy, so long as it also stretches west across the
Atlantic to include us. But Christ, the man knows this. I went cross-country
skiing with him in Finland, for God’s sake. Alois Rybkin is one tough, shrewd
bastard.”

“What Scotty’s saying,” Ledbetter began—

“I think I can speak for myself, Gene, without you
inter-preting. What I’m saying is, we didn’t bring Taras here for a pointless
debate on geopolitics. We’re going forward as full partners with Rybkin on
Potsdam. Our technical team is already sitting down with their side in Vienna
to work out a draft agreement, and, so far as I’ve heard, there’s nothing
that’s come up yet that looks like the end of civilization as we know it—”

“That depends, Scotty.”

“For Christ sake, Buck, it depends on what?”

“On whether you keep the keys to the ammo dump.”

“Gene, make a note of that.”

“Right. Keep-keys-ammo-dump. Got it.”

“Satisfied now, Buck?”

“I feel much better.”

“So where the hell was I? Okay, what scares me—one hell of a
lot more than Russian participation in a new European security arrangement—is
what happens if we lose Rybkin to an assassin’s bullet, and have to deal with a
bunch of neo-Stalinists again—trigger-happy generals like this old bastard
Marchenko.”

“I think that’s where you come in,” Buck Jones said.

Arensky looked surprised. “Oh? I’m supposed to save the
world from the Kremlin hard-liners? Why me?”

“Because the KGB picked you.”

“To do what? Protect Rybkin from assassins?”

“Partly.”

“Look, I don’t know how many Secret Service and White House
Police you have here, on Pennsylvania Avenue and around the grounds and so
forth. I’m sure it’s more than adequate. But Rybkin has an entire
regiment
of KGB guards, right in the Kremlin, in their own four-story barracks. Why do
they ask for me?”

“Simple. They want you to assassinate this assassin—before
he can get to Rybkin.” Jones pointed his finger at Arensky’s chest.

“Wait, Mr. Jones. Let’s get something straight here. I’m not
an assassin, I never was, I never will be—no matter what the KGB tells you.
Yes, I did special operations for the GRU, but there are things which I refused
to do for my country. And, gentlemen, that is why I left it. They are the same
things I will refuse to do for my new country.”

“Okay, calm down, Taras. I apologize for the... uh,
unfortunate implication. Anyway, that’s not the issue here. Really, all the KGB
is saying is that you were very close to this guy, and the only one,
apparently, who ever outscored him in
Spetsnaz
training exercises and
outperformed him in Afghanistan on special ops.”

Taras asked quietly: “Marcus Jolly?”

“Yeah. Funny name for a Russian killer.”

“He was born in America,” Arensky said.

“Yeah, that’s about all we do know about him. A teenaged
defector back in 1977. I understand even the Agency’s file on him is pretty
sparse. They’re hoping you can add to it.”

Taras sat back, absorbing the blow. Marcus, as the hit man
in an attempt on Rybkin. It was lunacy. Yet, if anyone could pull it off, it
would be Marcus.

“You did know him?”

“He was my best friend for almost ten years. I begged him to
defect with me, in Afghanistan. He said once was enough. Besides, he did not
object to the same things I objected to.”

“Destroying villages?”

“Among other things.”

“Is he as good as they say?” Jones asked.

“At killing? It’s been five years since we worked together.
Certainly he was very good with weapons, in combat situations, clandestine
operations, survival techniques, taking risks. At certain things perhaps he was
the best. It’s hard to imagine anyone getting close to Rybkin in Moscow,
though.”

“What about one of his own people? Didn’t some Russian
officer almost get Brezhnev?”

“Fairly close. A young Army lieutenant pulled out two
pistols and shot up his motorcade near one of the Kremlin gates. He killed a driver
and wounded a cosmonaut. Brezhnev was in another car, and the man was captured
at once. Even Lenin was nearly killed in 1918. So yes, under certain
circumstances, it could be done. And Marcus is very good at impersonations. But
he is a professional, not a lunatic or kamikaze; he would wish to escape
after.”

“That attempt on Brezhnev would make a hell of a chase
scene, wouldn’t it?” Jones said. “Fleeing Red Square with a few thousand KGB on
your tail?”

“Let’s move along, Buck,” the President said. “It’s getting
damn late, and Taras may have a long night ahead of him.”

Jones nodded. “Taras, here’s the deal. They want you to fly
to Moscow immediately, to work with their people on the security details for
the Potsdam trip, and then basically to follow your own hunches in tracking
down Jolly. They’ll provide manpower —whatever resources you want.” The chief
of staff paused. “I don’t have to tell you, this is a big one. Your cooperation
here would mean a lot.”

Arensky smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry. I can’t accept the
assignment.”

There was sudden silence in the room, broken by Jones:

“We understand your reluctance to return to Moscow. But your
freedom has been absolutely guaranteed.”

Taras chuckled.

“You find that amusing?”

“You could say that. When the KGB found out I was working
for the CIA, they had a military tribunal sentence me to death in absentia.
Despite all the reforms, that sentence has never been lifted.” Taras poured
himself more coffee. “Anyway, I have other reasons for saying no.”

“Tell us what they are,” Ackerman prompted.

“Several things, Mr. President. I still dare not trust the
Soviets as far as my safety or their promises. And that includes Rybkin.
Obviously I am in sympathy with continuing reforms. And I admire his skill as a
diplomat, but I don’t trust the man or his visions. As someone said about
Andropov, he’s not exactly a product of a lady’s finishing school.”

“We take your point,” Ledbetter said. “Go on.”

“There’s also a personal reason. I’m engaged to be married.”

“I didn’t know that,” Ackerman said. “Congratulations. We’re
all admirers of Charlotte. She’s the one, I take it?”

“If she forgives me for disappearing tonight without telling
her. She’s got a temper.”

Buck Jones grinned. “Maybe Scotty can write you an excuse.”

“That won’t help—if I accept your assignment. Then it’s all
over between us. I promised Charlotte I’d turn in my cloak and dagger, as she
says. My current CIA assignment will finish early this summer. Starting next
fall I’ve accepted a post in Soviet studies with the Chalmers Institute.”

“Is that what you really want to do?” Jones asked. “Retire
to a think tank, at your age?”

“I’m thirty-four. Time to slow down, I think. But, okay,
maybe it’s more what she wants. It is, for her, a necessary condition of our
marriage.”

“A forceful lady,” Ackerman said. “And after all, I’m only
the President.”

 “She wishes children, Mr. President, and a husband who
doesn’t carry a gun and disappear from time to time. And at her age—I’m being
indiscreet, and I must apologize—there’s a certain urgency in these matters.”

Ackerman nodded. “The ticking clock, yes, I think we all
know what you’re up against.” He looked around. “Anybody have any brilliant
ideas for reassuring Charlie?”

“Wait. There is one last reason.”

“By all means.”

“The last reason is also the first one I gave you. I am not
an assassin.”

“Hold on, Taras,” Buck Jones said. “I thought we pretty much
defused that one. This is just semantics. Why not just call it ‘chief of
security’?”