The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel полностью

Then Alexander Bortnikov with the surprising cerulean halo, strong and constant, suggesting ratiocination and regard. The FSB Director was sixty-five years old, slight, and shorter than Dominika. He had a high, broad forehead and startling gray-blue eyes that crinkled at the corners whenever he smiled. He had a large mole on his left cheek and a fleshy nose, a hint of the raptor in him. Dominika knew he was an engineer by training, and it was whispered that it was he who had directed the FSB operation in London to spike dissident former KGB officer Litvinenko’s afternoon tea with enough lethal Polonium-210 to heat an apartment block in Voronezh for a month. Dominika knew Bortnikov would be wise, sly, cautious, and cunning—he also would be her security service counterpart for internal domestic security if Dominika was handed the Directorship and SVR’s foreign intelligence portfolio. She resolved to establish good relations with him.

Finally there was Igor Korobov, an air force lieutenant general and Chief of the GRU, crisply uniformed, with a shaven head, steel-blue eyes, and the green aura of career trepidation from being head of military intelligence in a club of former KGB cohorts. Major Shlykov hovered behind Korobov, doubtless currying favor by kneading his chief’s buttocks periodically. Korobov nodded stiffly at Dominika, but Shlykov ignored her. You tried to torpedo me in New York, you bastard, she thought. Worse, you sicced Blokhin on me—he would have left me in some alley after eliminating Repina, if he’d had the chance. She measured the inches from his smirking face.

Gorelikov stepped between them before Dominika could put her thumbnail in Shlykov’s eye and whispered for her to take a seat against the wall behind him, as Putin gaveled the Council to order. For the next utterly unreal two hours, the Council discussed Operation OBVAL (Landslide), which was conceived, refined, planned, and proposed by Shlykov, who guaranteed success and stunning results. The covert action, whereby Russian weapons and explosives would be smuggled to Kurdish guerilla separatists to be used in terror attacks in Istanbul to destabilize Turkey, was a massive active measure on the extreme end of the scale. Gorelikov and Bortnikov opposed the plan, both pointing out that the military aspect was exceptionally risky and that such a supply-the-rebels-with-guns operation was laughably 1960s Soviet primitive. Bortnikov called it a reckless misadventure—all the more so in Turkey with its vigilant and aggressive police and security services. Lieutenant General Korobov disagreed, saying this insurgency would destabilize the southern flank of NATO, a theme he knew, all of them knew, would gain the president’s favor. Which way would it go?

Dominika saw Putin looking at her down the length of the chamber table. What was she going to do if the Pale Moth (one of the president’s old KGB nicknames) tried to hoist a leg over her one night in her luxury dacha?

Then it happened. Gorelikov leaned back toward her and whispered, “What do you think?”

“Yes, Colonel,” said Putin from head of the table. “What do you think of OBVAL?” Twenty faces turned to look at her. Bozhe moy, mother of God, she thought.

She looked around the table, then directly at Shlykov, sitting behind his chief. “Strich porosenk,” she said. “Like shearing a pig—lots of screaming but very little wool. A fool’s errand, and one countered easily by Turkey and the United States.” Especially when I alert Benford. There were guffaws around the table, and wily Bortnikov of the FSB appraised her anew. Gorelikov was delighted. The GRU contingent sat sullenly. Putin sat with his hands folded, his Stonehenge face impassive.

Dominika realized she was being drawn into her first Kremlin intrigue. Gorelikov intended to usurp the MAGNIT case, and Shlykov had to be brushed aside. Discrediting his paramilitary scheme in Istanbul was a start. Dominika studied the patrician Anton, saw his blue halo pulse, and read his mind. Why bring her into this? Because as counterintelligence Chief of Line KR, Dominika could credibly criticize Shlykov’s tradecraft, operational planning, and judgment if there was a flap. Gorelikov knew Dominika would line up on his side: He knew Shlykov’s boorish and dismissive attitude had made him an opponent—oh, this was how quickly sides were drawn up in these jeweled hallways. Allies, competitors, self-interest, personal grudges, career traps, and blood feuds; these were the swirling mosaic politics of the Kremlin.