Glavpivtorg Restaurant and Bar
Bolshaya Lubyanka Street, House #5
Moscow, Russia
2131 local time
Colonel General Nikolai Ilyin was fuming.
The failure of the Belgorod operation was a tragic blow—as was the loss of Captain Gorov—but that was not the only thing that had him agitated tonight. The fact that he had been summoned had gotten under his skin. It was not the place of Admiral Boldyrev to summon him, no matter the source. The message from the commander of the Russian Northern Fleet had been cryptic, simply implying he had news that must be shared with the entire group face-to-face. Boldyrev was a friend, but in this New Russia they were building, he was also a subordinate. It was simply not the way things were done. And on top of all that, he was irritated at being late. Colonel General Nikolai Ilyin was never, ever late. But the delay from the detour caused by the closure of Ulitsa Kuznetsky had been compounded by a traffic accident on Ulitsa Bol’shaya Lubyanka and would most certainly make him the last to arrive.
Upon reaching the front door, he paused, his hand literally frozen in midair as he stretched for the handle. Was it possible he was being betrayed? Might Boldyrev, shaken by the loss of Gorov and the Belgorod, have confessed their true plans to Yermilov?
No—impossible.
I am being paranoid.
He pushed open the door and shrugged out of his overcoat.
A figure appeared, an unexpected figure, and he started—but quickly recovered and summoned a placating smile.
“I am sorry, Nadia,” he said to the wife of his lifelong KGB friend. “I didn’t see you there. Where is Anatoly?”
She smiled back at him, but her smile seemed that of stone. She’d always been cold to him, but he’d written it off as her default state. Many women of her generation were cold and bitter. Nevertheless, she was loyal to her husband and indulged Anatoly’s whims—such as closing the restaurant for secret meetings of the old guard club.
“He is in the kitchen,” she said, but her voice sounded flat. Perhaps the others’ negative emotions had set a dour mood. Perhaps she sensed that all was not well and wished her husband to no longer be a part of it. “He is preparing your usual meal. Our cook is ill, so he is doing it himself.”
“Of course he is. Anatoly is a good man and a good friend.”
“Yes,” she said simply. “And sometimes a good husband.” She turned and headed to the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “You’re the last to arrive. The others are upstairs waiting.”
He nodded and then ascended the stairs, the creak of the old wood comforting. It was a sound of the old Russia and, he had to believe, a Russia that could still be brought back to life.
Darkness seemed to hang thick and suffocating on the second-story balcony. Bathed in shadow, his colleagues sat around their usual table, watching him expectantly as he approached.
“I know that this has been a disappointment . . .” he began, but his voice trailed off.
Something was wrong.
A lone figure emerged from the dark corner of the room, still in shadow, but the weapon in the killer’s hand clearly visible in the smoky streams of light from below.
“Anatoly? What is this . . . ?” Ilyin said.
But the figure wasn’t Anatoly. This man was too thin. Too fit.
Then everything became clear to him. The motionless bodies at the table came into focus as his eyes adapted to the dark. They were slumped in their seats, heads tilted back. They had been staged for him to see as he arrived, but they were all quite dead. He could see a rivulet of blood on Rodionov’s face, black in the poor light, running from a hole above his left eye, along his nose, and ending in a clotting drop on his chin.
He turned to the thin man, recognizing the pistol leveled at him as an SR-1 Vektor—a favorite of both the FSB and GRU.
“Prezident Yermilov bol’she ne nuzhdayetsya v vashikh uslugakh,” the man growled.
“Impossible,” he replied in Russian, though he was certain this man was not Russian. He switched to English on a hunch. “President Yermilov has neither the courage nor the audacity to send you here. Let us talk and come to an arrangement—one that will benefit us both.”
Ilyin took a step forward, but the man raised the Vektor higher, aiming now at his face.
“In that case,” the man said, “President Ryan sends his regards.”
At those words, Ilyin’s heart skipped a beat.
He tried to think of something clever to say, something that might buy him time while he contemplated a proposal to save his life, but the pistol flashed fire.
For a millisecond his head erupted with pain, and then he felt nothing as the world went completely and unforgivingly black.