Assassin by David Hagberg

Author:David Hagberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2012-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FIVE

Moscow

Viktor Yemlin left the SVR Headquarters building on Moscow’s ring road shortly after seven, finally ready to take action. The weekend had been horrible for him. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours. He hadn’t eaten much, he hadn’t looked at the newspapers or watched television. Most of the time he’d sat in his favorite chair in the living room of his apartment smoking Marlboros and drinking vodka, as he watched the sun rise and set twice.

He hadn’t forced himself to come to any immediate conclusions about what had happened to him because he did not have all the facts. Nor did he allow his guilt to completely consume him, although at first his shame was so overwhelming he’d been in danger of sinking into deep depression. Instead he’d gone over what he’d done at the Magesterium, what had been done to him, and the reasons behind the attack—because that’s how he viewed the experience. He’d been lured to the club by Cheremukhin which in retrospect was the first troubling aspect he struggled with. The entire affair had been planned and orchestrated, possibly on Yuryn’s orders. But Cheremukhin was one of the moderates who had just as much to gain by Tarankov’s death as Kabatov and the rest of them. It was hard to imagine Cheremukhin working for the FSK, but if he wasn’t then his appearance on the steps of the Senate at just that moment, and his insistence on taking Yemlin to his club had to have been a tremendous coincidence.

Yemlin had turned that thought over in his mind, worrying at it like a dog with a bone. Yuryn knew about his trips to Tbilisi, Paris and Helsinki, and he was suspicious. Part of that was driven by the intense inter-service rivalry between the two divisions of the old KGB. And part of it was Yuryn’s surprise and discomfort in front of Kabatov when Yemlin had come up with the plan to hide the facts behind Yeltsin’s death. Still there was no logical connection between Yuryn’s suspicions and the setup at the Magesterium.

But the job of the FSK was internal security, which meant it not only watched the borders, the train stations and airports, but it also monitored places where high ranking Russians gathered to play. The Magesterium and all the other political clubs like it would naturally be watched. At the handful of clubs that catered to high ranking politicians, journalists and intelligence officers, security would be especially tight. As soon as Yemlin had walked in the front door whoever was controlling the FSK surveillance operation would have reported the fact, and the honey trap had been set up.

It was cunning of them to use not only the young woman, but a young man as well. They might expect that Yemlin would have little compunction about bragging about screwing a girl, but he might keep to himself the fact that he’d had a homosexual experience. No doubt the entire affair was on videotape. And from what memories he could dredge up from his foggy recollections, he’d enjoyed the experience.

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