Assassin Read online

  McGarvey stood in front of the big department store G.U.M. and stared across the broad square at Lenin’s Tomb at the base of the Kremlin. He’d been here during his tenure at Moscow Station early in his career, and on several occasions since. He’d last been here eighteen months ago. And in that short time the city had gone sharply downhill, though traffic was worse. The entire nation was starving to death, but cars were everywhere, Russian built Ladas and Zhigulis, plus a surprisingly high number of Mercedes and BMWs. What little middle class there’d been before the breakup of the Soviet Union was almost completely gone now, leaving Russians stratified into the very poor or the very rich. There was no in between.

  The system had failed, completely and miserably, and yet this morning despite the horrible weather the line in front of Lenin’s Mausoleum was as long as it had ever been. Young people looking for something to believe in, and old people who knew what they believed in and desperately wanted to regain the old ways.

  Lenin’s Mausoleum and Red Square, free of anything but pedestrian traffic or official vehicles, seemed to be the only constants left in Moscow. The only bits of the old days that had remained, by outward appearances, the same.

  He walked across the square where he bought a bouquet of wilted flowers from an old babushka at a kiosk, and joined the line for Lenin’s tomb in front of the red brick History Museum opposite the entrance to the Alexandrovsky Garden. It took about twenty minutes until he got to the doors. Since he was obviously a foreigner, he had to show his passport. The people in line behind him stopped a respectful distance away as he approached Lenin’s embalmed body in its glass-topped coffin, studied the corpse’s surprisingly intact features, then laid his flowers with the others on the marble floor. As he turned to leave, one of the uniformed guards came over, smiled sadly, and shook his hand.

  “Merci, monsieur,” he said gently.

  “He was a great man. Many of us in Belgium admire what he stood for,” McGarvey said humbly. He glanced toward the broad marble stairs at the back. “It would be an honor to be allowed to stand on the balcony where so many great men have watched the May Day parades. Is it permitted?”

  “For you we will make an exception,” the guard replied. He led McGarvey up to the wind-swept balcony.

  When Tarankov made his triumphal entry to Moscow it would be to this place. McGarvey looked out across the square, apparently lost in a vision of what it would be like to stand in front of the soldiers and tanks and rockets parading through the square while a million people watched. Overcome with emotion, he turned away and raised his eyes to the heavens. The Kremlin’s brick walls rose above the mausoleum. McGarvey measured the firing angles and distances for a shooter placed somewhere on the wall above, and decided the shot would be an easy one. The problem would be getting away afterward. It would be difficult, perhaps even impossible.

  “Thank you,” he said turning back to the guard. “Perhaps someday you will have greatness returned to you.”

  The guard bridled, but then nodded. “We will, and sooner than those fools inside realize.”

  Back outside, McGarvey turned left and walked up the hill to the Sobakina Tower pedestrian gate at the northern corner of the Kremlin, bought a ticket for the grounds and, taking out his guide book, went in. The walls beneath the one-hundred-eighty-foot tower were twelve feet thick to hide a secret well and a passageway out of the fortress into the Neglinnaya River which flowed underground. He’d considered that a possible escape route. But access to the passageway was through a series of heavy steel gates in the tower, that on the day Tarankov made his triumphal entrance into Moscow would likely be heavily guarded. It would be possible to take out the guards and blow the gates. In the noise and confusion of Tarankov’s appearance such activities might go unnoticed. But if he became trapped in the river passage it would be a simple matter for the authorities to wait at the Moscow River outlet for him to appear, and he would be captured. It would be impossible to take the underground river upstream.

  But the Kremlin still intrigued him, because no one would expect Tarankov to be shot from behind. The problems here were threefold; getting past the heavy security, making the shot unobserved, possibly from the top of the Kremlin wall directly above and behind the speaker’s balcony atop Lenin’s mausoleum, easy if the only consideration were sight lines, and making good his escape for which he wanted several options. He didn’t think he could rely on one escape route no matter how foolproof it seemed.

  The few people wandering around the Kremlin paid him little attention as he sauntered past the Arsenal to the Senate Building, which backed the wall directly behind Lenin’s tomb, to his left. From time to time he stopped, read from his tour book then looked up, as if he were trying to orient himself, while he studied the top floors of the building. The Senate was one of the few buildings in the Kremlin that were closed to the public. But with the proper credentials it would be possible to gain entrance to the building. He might be able to make his way to the roof from where a shot at Tarankov’s back would be possible. Assuming that guards would not be placed on the roof against just such a possibility, he would still be faced with his escape after the kill.

  Once Tarankov was down and the direction of the shot established, which might only take seconds, the Kremlin would be sealed. His only hope at that point would be blending in until the confusion subsided and the gates were once again open. It would mean he’d have to come up with foolproof documents and a rock-solid disguise—a shaky proposition at best. It left him no options, unless he had a set of papers and a disguise other than the one he used to gain entrance, or an alternate route over or beneath the walls.

  There was something about this place that struck him more like a prison than the seat of government. It was a fortress which protected itself not only from without, but from within.

  He looked at the problem from another direction as he continued past the Supreme Soviet building and headed toward the Spassky Tower gate which opened onto Red Square. If his objective was to get inside the Kremlin to assassinate someone, he would face the same problem: that of breaching the heavily guarded walls. He would have to come up with several alternatives to get inside, and then more options for getting out.

  Stopping a moment to consult his guide book again, he studied the area between the Supreme Soviet and Senate buildings and the wall from which the Senate Tower rose. Lenin’s Tomb was just on the other side. He made his decision. The Kremlin’s walls, since they’d seen the last of Napoleon in 1812, had withstood every assault except those of a political nature. As intriguing as the possibility was taking Tarankov by surprise from behind, he dismissed it. He would kill Tarankov while the man made his speech atop Lenin’s Mausoleum, but it would have to be done from outside, somewhere around Red Square, somewhere within a range that would give him a reasonable shot. Say two to three hundred yards.

  McGarvey walked through Spassky Tower Gate back out to Red Square, snow now falling in earnest. The wind had picked up so that visibility was restricted. But rising out of the swirling snowstorm less than three hundred meters away were the fantastical shapes and colors of the domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral. The building was to Russia what the Eiffel Tower was to France, a symbol of the nation’s ties with the past. Turning, he studied the line in front of Lenin’s Tomb and the speaker’s balcony above. Tarankov would come here not only to face the million people who would crowd into Red Square, but also to face Russia’s past. St. Basil’s.

  Pocketing his guidebook, McGarvey made his way across the square to the main entrance of the church where he bought a ticket and went inside the antechamber which housed a museum. A dozen people, some of them foreigners, studied the displays which depicted the history of the cathedral and the story of its construction. A cutaway model showed the layout of the entire structure which consisted of nine main chapels—the tall slope-roofed one in the middle, four big onion domes on the four corners and four smaller ones in between. All of the chapels were linked by a elevated g
allery, and all of the chapels had exits that led either out onto Red Square or into the rest of the cathedral complex and a small garden.

  The church was built on bedrock at the south end of Red Square, its foundations driven deep underground in an area honeycombed with subterranean rivers all flowing down to the Moscow River. The lower levels held crypts which in the late seventeenth century were used to house Russia’s state treasury. Like the Kremlin, St. Basil’s had also been a fortress of sorts, with its own dark secrets and underground passageways and escape routes.

  McGarvey left the museum and walked into the main tower which was a forest of scaffolding rising one hundred and seven feet into the darkness. Directly above were the covered galleries connecting the other eight chapels, and at the rear were iron gates which led below to the crypts. Two old women stood near the front of the main chapel, their heads bowed in prayer.

  On the day Tarankov arrived in Moscow, St. Basil’s would be closed. The church had become too great a symbol of Russia’s deeply religious past for it to remain open when he was giving his message for the future. There could only be one god in Holy Russia, and the Tarantula meant to be that god.

  McGarvey climbed the stairs to the gallery on his left, and followed it around in a large circle to each of the other eight chapels, descending into each where he searched for and found the various ways outside.

  Two hours later he was back in the main tower where he studied the locks leading into the crypts. They were massive, but made out of soft iron and could easily be blown by a very small amount of plastic explosive, or cut with bolt-cutters.

  He looked up through the scaffolding. There would be no problem climbing to the top, where from one of the openings he would have a clear shot at Tarankov standing on the balcony above Lenin’s Mausoleum.

  From that point he would have a couple of minutes to make his way down out of the tower, where, depending on how organized the authorities were, he could descend into the crypts and make his escape through one of the underground passages, or make his way through one of the chapels and outside where he could lose himself in the confusion.

  He had the where. Next he needed the when.

  FOURTEEN

  Moscow, The Kremlin

  Viktor Yemlin sat across the broad conference table from Yuri Kabatov, who’d been appointed interim president, and Yeltsin’s former chief of security Lieutenant-General Alexander Korzhakov, watching both men read copies of his overnight report. He’d been summoned to the office of the director of the SVR late last night where he’d been ordered to prepare a briefing for the president on the West’s reaction to their concocted story about Yeltsin’s death.

  McGarvey was right, of course. The Americans did not believe the story. But to this point they continued to maintain the position that they did. President Lindsay was scheduled to attend the state funeral on Friday, and the western news media continued to report on Yeltsin’s life, all but ignoring any references to Tarankov and the incident at the Riga Nuclear Power Station in Dzerzhinskiy. Yemlin used to admire the honest relationship the CIA apparently had with the President and Congress, until he’d come to learn that truth was highly subjective and depended on the political mood of the government body being reported to. Presidents of the United States and of Russia were alike in that they were mere men in difficult positions who wanted to hear what they wanted to hear.

  He’d spent all night gathering the latest information from the analysts and translators in the various departments of the North American Division. By one in the morning it was 5:00 P.M. in Washington, and the first of the dailies from the Russian Embassy on 16th Street were coming in, along with the first late afternoon reports from the Russian delegation to the United Nations. As he’d learned to do, Yemlin refrained from any speculation. He merely presented the facts as they came to him, placing them in an outline that supported what Kabatov’s new government wanted to believe.

  By 6:00 A.M., he’d finished his first rough draft report, which ran to sixty-eight pages, with another three hundred pages of translations, mostly of articles that had appeared in the early editions of the New York Times and Washington Post.

  By 8:00 A.M., the translations of ABC’s, NBC’s, CBS’s and CNN’s 11:00 P.M. news reports came across his desk, and he included them in his final report which was finally ready at 10:00 A.M., exactly one hour before he was scheduled to arrive at the Kremlin.

  General Korzhakov finished first, and closed the report. He stared at Yemlin, his dark eyes burning, his thick lips pursed until President Kabatov also finished and looked up.

  “The fiction seems to be holding,” Kabatov said.

  “It would appear so, Mr. President,” Yemlin said tiredly. He was too old for all-night sessions. His eyes burned, his throat was sore and he felt as if he couldn’t go on much longer before he had to get some rest.

  “In any event it’s in their best interest to go along with us so long as our problems remain internal,” Korzhakov said, his voice flat and unemotional. “Has the SVR given thought to that? Because I’m sure that the CIA is watching us closer than ever.”

  “My division’s efforts are directed toward North America, General,” Yemlin said, after a careful moment. “We have detected no outward indications that the CIA or FBI have begun to take a more active role against our diplomats in Washington or New York.” He shrugged. “As for internally, that is a matter for the FSK. General Yuryn could best address the issue.”

  “You’re both still the KGB,” Korzhakov burst out, angrily. “You communicate with each other.”

  “To this point, on this issue, my division has been given nothing. I assume that the service has managed to place an agent aboard Tarankov’s train. But no one has said anything to us.”

  Korzhakov and Kabatov exchanged a glance, and the Russian president sat back, content to let his chief of security continue.

  “Apparently there have been difficulties. The man they sent was found last night—what was left of him—in a taxi parked in front of the Lubyanka.” Korzhakov ran his fingers through his thick black hair. “There is a leak at high levels.”

  “It was expected.”

  “General Yuryn suspects that you may know something about it.”

  “My division—?”

  “You personally,” Korzhakov said bluntly. He opened a file folder. “On the evening of 23 March you and Konstantin Sukhoruchkin took off aboard an Air Federation passenger jet on a flight plan to Volgograd. In fact it is believed that you flew to Tbilisi.” Korzhakov looked up. “Can you tell us the nature of your trip?”

  Yemlin was stunned, but he was professional enough not to let it show. In this business you always planned for the worst for which a partial truth was sometimes more effective than a well-crafted lie. “We went to see Eduard Shevardnadze.”

  “You admit it?” President Kabatov demanded, rousing himself.

  “Da. President Shevardnadze is an old friend, whose opinion I value highly. I was troubled after President Yeltsin’s assassination, as was Konstantin. We wanted some advice.”

  “In regards to what?” Korzhakov asked.

  “Tarankov’s chances for becoming President of Russia and starting us back to the old ways,” Yemlin said. “It would destroy us.”

  “I agree with that much at least,” President Kabatov said. “But Shevardnadze is no friend of Russia’s.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. President, but he is not our enemy. Georgia has just as much to fear from Tarankov as we do.”

  “What was his advice?” Korzhakov asked coolly.

  “He gave none,” Yemlin said heavily, letting his eyes slide to the damnable file folder.

  “Did you tell him the truth about Yeltsin’s murder?”

  “Yes,” Yemlin said looking up defiantly.

  “Traitor—”

  “Nyet,” Yemlin interrupted sharply. “I love Russia no less than you, Comrade General.”

  “What were you doing in Helsinki yesterday?”

 
; Yemlin was glad that he was seated. He didn’t think his legs would support his weight. “Shopping,” he replied. “I’m no traitor, but I’m no idealist either.”

  “Were you shopping in Paris last week as well?” Korzhakov asked after a moment.

  Yemlin forced himself to remain calm. If they knew anything substantive they would have arrested him by now. This was General Yuryn’s doing. He was caught in the middle of a factional fight that had been brewing since the KGB had been split into the internal intelligence service and the external service. Yeltsin’s murder was a catalyst that the SVR had planned using against General Yuryn. The wily old fox was simply fighting back.

  “Among other things,” he said.

  “What things?”

  “As you probably know I own a small apartment in Paris.”

  “Do you have a mistress there as well, whom you’re supporting?”

  Yemlin refused to answer.

  “A bank account, perhaps?” Korzhakov suggested. “You crafty old bastard, have you been salting away money in foreign banks all along?”

  “No. Nor is that why you called me here today,” Yemlin said looking into President Kabatov’s eyes. Sudden understanding dawned on him. They were frightened, and they were clutching at straws. “I will not accept blame for the failures of the FSK or the Militia not only to protect President Yeltsin, but to arrest Tarankov.”

  Korzhakov flared but said nothing.

  “Mr. President, if our government is divided, if we fight amongst ourselves, Tarankov will win,” Yemlin said trying one last time to convince them that nothing less than the nation was at stake. “We’re trying to become a nation of laws. That means laws for everyone, from kulaks to presidents.”

  “You’ve spent a lot of time in the West, Viktor Pavlovich. Is that what you learned?” Korzhakov asked. “Because if it is, then you are a naive man.”

  “I’m an old man who has given his life in service to his country. I would like peace now.”