One week later
The death of Congressman Bryce Ridgeway assumed the proportions of a national tragedy. By consensus opinion, he was twice a hero: first for having bled for his country, and more recently for giving it hope. Virtually overnight, Ridgeway had ascended to the Beltway’s version of a saint … JFK without the inauguration.
While the details remained vague, an account of the congressman’s death on a West Virginia hiking trail was given by no less than President Connolly himself. By consensus opinion, it was one of the president’s better moments. There were no political overtones whatsoever, the incumbent granting the high road to a warrior and statesman who had departed before his time.
The memorial service could not be held anywhere but Arlington. In those gentle hills beside the Pentagon, where so many American presidents and heroes lay, Ridgeway was put to rest with all the accordant honors. On an unusually clear winter morning, an escort platoon with horse-drawn limber and caisson delivered the casket, trailed by a riderless horse. A nineteen-gun artillery salute highlighted the affair, two short of what might have been—twenty-one guns, artillery, was reserved for duly-elected presidents. In attendance were dignitaries, ambassadors, Ridgeway’s brothers from the Army, and a good percentage of his more shaded brethren from Capitol Hill. Two former presidents paid their homage, as did nine foreign heads of state. The spectacle was carried live on every news network and many overseas.
Like those around her, the widow was dressed in black, and, in a throwback style that would set a seasonal trend in mourning, she went to the trouble of wearing a full black veil. Everyone understood, in light of her grief, just as they made allowances for the absence of Bryce Ridgeway’s distraught daughter. The tears for her father, undoubtedly, had proved incapacitating.
The ceremony went through its rigid paces, culminating with the widow being given a folded American flag. After the final note of taps was played, mourners of sufficient social rank paid their respects to the widow, many of them adding condolences for the sudden, and nearly concurrent, loss of her father-in-law. The death of Walter Ridgeway, at least, had been a foreseeable event in light of his long decline.
When the receiving line finally finished, a hard day reached its end.
Or nearly so.
The most telling moment of the entire affair was in fact noticed by no one, nor recorded by any cameras. With the crowd dispersing and news networks going back to studio coverage, the widow discreetly went graveside for a final moment with the earthly remains of her husband. In that moment, the veil played an uncharacteristically critical role when, as the widow leaned solemnly toward the grave, it obscured her face as she spat on the polished silver casket.
The end of Arkady Radanov, compared to the official fate of Bryce Ridgeway, could not have been more different in either method or ritual.
Following the twin debacles in Zubovka and Washington, Radanov had gone into the professional equivalent of a fighter’s crouch. He was summoned immediately to Moscow, yet instead of the expected basement grilling at the hands of his younger SVR colleagues, many of whom would have relished the opportunity, he was installed in a posh suite at the Kadashevskaya Hotel. There he remained for two days. Fine meals were brought to his room, which he enjoyed in the imperious company of an ice-clad Moscow River.
The summons came on the third day: an invitation to meet with the president and provide his version of recent events. In truth, Radanov couldn’t imagine there was much to be said. He had briefed the president on Operation Zerkalo a number of times over the years, most recently three weeks ago, and had always sensed enthusiastic support. The prospect of installing a mole as president of the United States would be a coup unsurpassed in the annals of espionage, and beyond that, it played straight to the Russian president’s black and scheming heart. Now however, Zerkalo was at an end: the mission had failed, and the Americans damned well knew it.
Radanov, like the man across the river, he was sure, had been watching Western news reports for any signal, any shred of evidence to answer the trillion-dollar question: How would the Americans respond to such a grievous breach of sovereignty? He suspected—as it turned out, rightly—that Russia’s military, including its strategic nuclear forces, had been placed on high alert. Yet now, finally, the president wanted to see him, and for the first time in days Radanov was buoyed. The fact that he was being called to the Kremlin’s ornate red carpet this morning implied that decisions had been made in both hemispheres. Decisions that might, conceivably, work in his favor after all.
After a sumptuous breakfast, he dressed in his best suit for the meeting across the river. It was a rare sunny day in January, bitter cold but with little wind. He left the hotel and walked directly to the Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge, the nearest crossing to reach the Kremlin.
Radanov kept a leisurely pace across the bridge, the warmth of the sun penetrating his heavy overcoat. He never saw the man in the black jacket behind him, or the gun he lifted from his pocket. The bullet traveled less than three feet before entering Radanov’s head, and he was dead before he hit the ground—a presumption the assassin did not allow. He issued two more rounds, just to be sure, then walked calmly away and disappeared into a subway entrance two blocks distant.
Because the murder took place in broad daylight, and virtually in the shadow of the Kremlin, there was no shortage of witnesses. The president that night expressed mild outrage that a high-ranking official could be gunned down in the heart of Moscow. He promised an investigation, yet in the weeks that followed no suspects were mentioned by the police. Nor was any usable CCTV footage ever produced—this despite the fact that the crime had occurred in the most closely monitored square mile in all of Russia.
In the end, the investigation came to naught.
For Arkady Radanov there were no military honors, no sounding artillery. His body was cremated in the basement of a nearby prison, long ago configured for such tasks, and his ashes flushed ingloriously down a toilet.