Assassin Read online

  Someone knocked at his door. He quickly looked around to make sure nothing of importance was lying in plain view, then flipped a blanket over the uniform. “Come,” he said.

  Liesel Tarankov, wearing a UCLA Sailing Squadron warmup suit, came in. She looked Chernov up and down, then glanced at the turned down blanket. “I thought you were getting ready to leave us, not go to bed.”

  “I was changing clothes. Is there something I can do for you, Madam?”

  “I want to discuss your assignment.”

  “Very well. If you’ll allow me to finish dressing, I’ll join you and your husband in the Operations Center and we can go over the detail.”

  “No. I want to talk about it here and now.” A little color had come to Liesel’s cheeks, and a strand of blonde hair was loose over her left temple. She was fifteen years younger than Tarankov and not unattractive.

  “Then I’ll call him, he can join us here.” Chernov stepped over to the desk and reached for the telephone, but Liesel intercepted him, pushing him away.

  “Just you and me.”

  Chernov smiled. “Did you come here expecting me to make love to you, madam?” he asked in a reasonable tone. “Is that how you meant to control me?”

  “I’m not ugly. I have a nice body, and I know things.”

  “What if I told you that I’m a homosexual.”

  She laughed. “I wouldn’t believe it.”

  “I think you’d rather believe that than the truth,” he said.

  It took a moment for the meaning of what she’d just heard to penetrate, and when it did a flush came to her face. “Schweinhund!” She lunged at him, her long fingernails up like claws.

  Chernov easily sidestepped her. He grabbed her arms, pinned them behind her back, and shoved her up against the bulkhead, his body against hers.

  She struggled for a moment, but then looked up into his eyes and parted her lips.

  He stepped back, opened the door, and spun her out into the passageway. “Go away before I tell your husband that you tried to seduce me.”

  “He wouldn’t believe you,” she shot back, a catch in her voice.

  “I think he would,” Chernov said disparagingly, and he closed and locked the door.

  For a few moments he thought the woman was going to make a scene, but when nothing happened he got dressed. Before it was all over, he thought, he would fuck her, and then kill her. It would be the best thing he’d ever done for Tarankov.

  The Kremlin

  Chernov arrived at the Borovitsky Tower Gate, on the opposite side of the Kremlin from Red Square, at 11:45 P.M. One guard examined his papers, which identified him as Lieutenant Colonel Boris Sazanov, while the other shined a light in the back seat, and then requested that the trunk be opened.

  He popped the lid then stuck his head out the window as the guard spotted the cases of cigarettes. “Take a couple of cartons. They won’t be missed.” His hat was pulled low, most of his features in shadow.

  “Who are they for?” the guard asked.

  “Korzhakov,” Chernov said. Lieutenant-General Alexander Korzhakov was chief of presidential security, a drinking buddy of Yeltsin’s and the number two most powerful man in the Kremlin.

  “I don’t think so,” the guard said respectfully. “I think I’ll call operations.”

  “This car was left unlocked for an hour on Arbat Street. The cigarettes will not be missed if you’re not greedy, and you keep your mouth shut.”

  The first guard handed Chernov’s papers back. “What are you doing here this evening, Colonel?”

  “Delivering cigarettes.”

  The second guard pulled two cartons of cigarettes out of one of the boxes and stuffed them inside his greatcoat. He slammed the trunk lid, and went back into the guardhouse.

  “I don’t smoke,” the first guard said.

  “Neither do I, but they’re sometimes better than gold, if you know what I mean.”

  The guard stepped back, saluted and waved Chernov through.

  Chernov returned the salute and drove up the hill past the Poteshny Palace and around the corner to the modernistic glass and aluminum Palace of Congresses. It was a Wednesday night, the Duma was not in session, nor was any state function or dinner being held, so the Kremlin was all but deserted.

  The guard at the entrance to the underground parking garage checked his papers, and waved him through.

  Chernov took the ramp four levels to the most secured floor where Yeltsin’s limousines were kept and serviced. He parked in the shadows at the end of a long row of Mercedes, Cadillacs and Zil limousines. The entrance to Yeltsin’s parking area and private elevators fifty meters away was guarded by a lone man seated in a glass enclosure. Chernov checked his watch. He was exactly on time.

  Two minutes later, the guard got up, stretched his back, left the guard box and took the service elevator up one level.

  Chernov took a block of eight cigarette cartons from the bottom of one of the cases, and walked to the end of the parking row, ducked under the steel barrier and went back to the Zil limousine with the SSP 7 license plate. It was the car that would be used to pick up Yeltsin in the morning and bring him here to his office.

  It was a piece of information that Tarankov got. Chernov trusted its reliability.

  The freight elevator was still on sub level three, and would remain there for three minutes. No more.

  Chernov climbed into the back compartment of the limo and popped the two orange tabs that released the seat bottom. Next he peeled the back from a corner of the bottom of the brick of cigarettes and stuck a radio-controlled detonator into the soft gray mass of Semtex plastic explosive. This he stuffed under the seat, molding it against a box beam member. The bottom of the car was armored to protect from explosions from outside. The steel plates would focus most of the force of the blast upward through the leather upholstered seat. No one in the rear compartment could possibly survive, nor was it likely that anyone in the car would escape critical burns and injuries The amount of Semtex was five times more than necessary for the job.

  Chernov relatched the seat bottom in position, softly closed the door, and as the freight elevator began to descend, ducked under the barrier, hurried back to his car and drove away.

  “That was quick,” the guard at the ground level said.

  “I just had to deliver something,” Chernov said.

  “Well, have a good evening, sir,” the guard said. He raised the barrier.

  Chernov headed past the Presidium to the Spassky Tower where the guard languidly raised the gate and waved him through. Threats came from outside, and besides no one of any importance was inside the Kremlin tonight. Anyway, all colonels were damned fools.

  After clearing Red Square, Chernov drove out to Krasnaya Presnya past the dumpy American Embassy on Tchaikovsky Street to a block of old, but well-maintained apartments near the zoo and planetarium.

  Traffic downtown was heavy, but out here the shops were all closed and the neighborhood streets were quiet, though lights shone in many windows. Russians loved to stay up late talking. In the old days they fitted blackout curtains on their windows. These days they weren’t worried.

  All that would change, Chernov thought as he drove around back and parked the Mercedes in a garage. Tarankov truly believed he had the answers for Russia. Likely as not, his revolution would bring them to war. But by then, Chernov intended on being long gone.

  He waited for a couple of minutes in the darkness to make sure that he hadn’t been followed, then climbed the stairs to the third floor, his tread noiseless. He produced a key and opened the door of the front apartment, and let himself in.

  The apartment was dark, only a dim light came from outside. It smelled faintly of expensive western perfumes and soap. Feminine smells. Music came softly from the bedroom.

  Chernov took off his uniform blouse, loosened his tie and went into the kitchen where he poured a glass of white wine. Removing his shoes, he walked back to the bedroom, and pushed open th
e door.

  “Can you stay long this time, Ivan,” Raya Dubanova asked softly in the darkness. She’d been a ballet dancer with the Bolshoi. Now she was an assistant choreographer of the corps de ballet. Her body was still compact and well muscled. She knew him only as Ivan.

  “No,” Chernov said sitting beside her on the bed. He put the wine glass aside and took her in his arms. She was naked.

  “Can you stay at least until morning?” she whispered in his ear.

  “I can stay with you tonight if you promise to wake me at six sharp,” he teased. “But if you snore I’ll have to go to a hotel.”

  “I don’t know if you’ll be capable of getting out of bed when I’m finished with you,” she said wickedly. “Now take off your clothes, and come to me.”

  She’d been forced to be the escort of a Strategic Rocket Force general who Chernov was contracted to kill three years ago. He’d shot the man in his bed while Raya hid in the bathroom. When it was over she came out, looked at the general’s body, took the gun from Chernov and pumped three bullets into it, then spit in the general’s face.

  She wouldn’t stay in the apartment so Chernov brought her to this one. He came to her as often as possible, sometimes able to stay for only an hour or two, other times staying an entire evening.

  She knew what he was, but she never asked who he worked for, or if he’d killed again. She was simply grateful that he’d saved her from the old man. And each time he came to her bed she showed her appreciation.

  Tarankov didn’t know about their relationship. No one did.

  He undressed and joined her in bed. “I need a couple of hours of sleep,” he said.

  “We’ll see,” she said, straddling him. She raked her fingernails across his chest almost, but not quite with enough force to draw blood, and he immediately responded.

  Maybe he wouldn’t need so much sleep as all that, he thought, a soft groan escaping from his lips as Raya began to bite the tender skin on the insides of his thighs.

  Red Square

  At 8:00 A.M. the line in front of Lenin’s Mausoleum was already long even though visitors were not allowed inside until 10:00. Chernov, wearing a worn overcoat, black fur hat and shabby boots, stood near the end of the line, his hands stuffed deeply in his pockets. The morning was bitterly cold, made worse by a sharp wind blowing from the Moscow River. Most of the people in line were old women, but there were a few foreign tourists and several men not ashamed to show remorse for the father of Russian socialism. Rain or snow it was a rare day that there wasn’t a line in front of the mausoleum. It was the most anonymous spot in Red Square.

  Two police cars, their blue lights flashing, came around the corner past the History Museum at a high rate of speed. They were immediately followed by four Zil limousines, and two final police cars.

  Chernov waited for them to pass then slow down as they turned toward the Spassky gate. The first two police cars entered the Kremlin, and he pressed the button on the tiny transmitter in his pocket.

  The third limousine erupted in a huge geyser of flame and debris. A second later the sound of the blast hammered off the Kremlin walls and boomed across Red Square.

  Everybody in line instinctively fell back, raising their arms to shield themselves from falling debris. Even before the first siren began to sound, everyone scattered as fast as their legs could carry them.

  Chernov allowed himself to be swept away, until he ducked around the corner on October 25th Street where he entered the metro station. He did not look back. He didn’t have to, because he knew for certain that if Boris Yeltsin had been in that limousine, he was now dead.

  FOUR

  The Russian White House, Moscow

  Russian Prime Minister Yuri Kabatov entered the Crisis Management Center deep beneath the White House. The chamber and its communications center had been hacked out of the bedrock shortly after the Kremlin Coup in which Gorbachev had been ousted, but nobody this afternoon felt comforted knowing sixty meters of granite separated them from the real world above because all the security in Russia hadn’t been able to save the life of Boris Yeltsin.

  “I don’t think there can be any doubt who was behind this latest act of violence or why,” Kabatov said, taking his seat at the head of the long conference table. He was satisfied to see that nobody disagreed with him.

  In addition to his own staff those around the table who had responded to his summons included Moscow Mayor Vadim Cheremukhin and St. Petersburg Mayor Dmitri Didyatev, both democratic reform moderates like himself. The meeting had been delayed so that both men, whom Kabatov considered crucial to Russia’s future, could be notified and make their way into the city; Cheremukhin from his dacha on the Istra River, and Didyatev from St. Petersburg.

  Farther down the table were Militia Director General Mazayev and FSK Director General Yuryn. Yuryn sat erect, his thick hands folded in front of him on the table, a scowl on his gross features.

  Some of Yeltsin’s shaken staff had also arrived, among them the President’s Chief of Staff Zhigalin, and his Chief Military Liaison Colonel Lykov.

  Seventeen men in all, most of them moderates, had gathered to make what, Kabatov felt, would be the most important decision that had been made since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

  “Without proof, Mr. Prime Minister, there’s very little we can do if we are to continue as you wish under rule of law,” General Mazayev said thickly. He had dark circles under his red eyes. He looked like he’d just sobered up.

  “We’re not going to have to worry about proof because the bastard won’t deny it,” Kabatov shot back. He was a terrier of a man, with a sharp, abrasive personality that matched his looks. “He’ll say that his actions are for the best of the nation. He destroyed Riga Power Station so effectively that my engineers tell me it will be at least a year before it’s back on line, maybe longer if there’s other damage beyond what we already know. And the stupid kulaks up there cheered him. They actually cheered him. But this winter when they begin to freeze their asses off they won’t blame him, they’ll blame us.

  “I’m also told that Yeltsin ordered his arrest in Nizhny Novgorod, and that Tarankov was tipped off. So he retaliated by having the president assassinated. This time if there are any leaks they will have to come from this room.”

  Kabatov was ranting, he could hear himself but he couldn’t stop because he was deeply frightened. Yeltsin had been a drunken buffoon, but his security detail was simply the best in the entire world. They figured the explosive device had been placed beneath the back seat of the limousine. Supposedly no one outside the security detail, not even Yeltsin himself, knew which car that would be. And there were no early reports of any suspicious activity in or around the secured parking level beneath the Kremlin. Yet they were still cleaning his blood off the streets outside Spassky Tower with toothbrushes.

  “The monster has to be arrested and brought to trial. It’s as simple and as necessary as that if we’re going to survive as a democracy. Now, I want your ideas on how to do it.”

  Alexi Zhigalin looked up defiantly. “Just kill him. We can find his train and send the Air Force in to blow it off the tracks, destroying him, that East German whore he’s married to, and all of his fanatical followers. They’re traitors.”

  “It could be done,” Yeltsin’s military liaison, Colonel Lykov, said. “I’ve already spoken with General Ablakin. If the FSK could help us with intelligence gathering, it could be pulled off within twenty-four hours. It would send a clear message—”

  “To whom?” Kabatov interrupted. “If this were the United States and its president were assassinated, the government wouldn’t kill the assassin.”

  “Jack Ruby probably worked for the CIA,” Yuryn said.

  “That’s not been proven.”

  “We’re not the United States,” the FSK director said.

  “No, nor are we England, or France or Germany or any other civilized nation if we kill Tarankov. Such an action would play directly into the hands of
his supporters. Don’t you think with a cause like that to follow, that popular support for whatever other lunatic decided to stand up to us would grow?”

  “President Yeltsin maintained much the same view,” General Mazayev said. “Look what happened to him.”

  “Are you saying that one man and a handful of thugs can hold an entire country for ransom?” Kabatov shouted.

  “In Tarankov’s view he is campaigning,” Yuryn said.

  “Campaigning for what? Yeltsin’s vacant seat?”

  “Da. And yours, Mr. Prime Minister, and that of the General Secretary of the Communist Party. And that as supreme leader of a new Soviet Union, the Baltics included. As you know, he has a lot of popular support.”

  “Gained by robbing people of their own money out of our banks and giving it back to them,” Kabatov said with disgust. “Apparently he handed out something less than he robbed in Kirov. Something considerably less.” He shot Yuryn a bleak look. “Campaign funds?”

  “Probably,” Yuryn replied indifferently. He worked for the federal government, not for the Prime Minister, though it was unclear at the moment who, other than Kabatov, was nominally in charge of the government.

  “Your suggestion then, General Yuryn, is to kill him? Do you agree with Alexi Ivanovich?”

  “On the contrary, I strongly recommend that we wait. As you say, when winter comes around and there is not enough power for Moscow the mood in the city will definitely change for the worse. But the blame can be shifted away from you, and back to Tarankov.”

  “How considerate of you,” Kabatov said sarcastically.

  “It is the same advice I gave President Yeltsin,” Yuryn said. “General Mazayev and I happen to agree on this point. But the President insisted that Tarankov be arrested at whatever costs. I believe that order cost him his life.”

  “There was a security leak somewhere,” Kabatov said.