The Kremlin Conspiracy by Sean Flannery

Author:Sean Flannery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

IX

Tuesday Noon

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) … President Forsythe today denied Soviet charges that yesterday’s series of Strategic Air Command exercises were in reality a “thin disguise” for bringing the U.S. strike force up to alert status.

“It would be dangerous to assume such,” the president said answering the charges published today in Izvestia.

“And it would be even more dangerous to respond with any kind of countermeasures,” the president added.

First Chief Directorate territory was downstairs on the second floor of the Center. Zamyatin got off the elevator and stood to one side across the busy corridor from the executive dining room doors, his stomach rumbling not so much from hunger as from nervousness.

Very early that morning he had gotten off this very same elevator. Had hurried down the nearly deserted corridor to the Executive Action duty officer’s cubicle where he had handed the startled night man an Action Order Kill form.

He had held his breath foolishly waiting for the explosion to come, but the young first lieutenant had merely shrugged, logged Zamyatin’s time in and shoved the single page document into the Telefax machine that would distribute the order to the proper departments as well as record it downstairs in the computer.

Zamyatin had stared at the man who finally looked up.

“Will there be anything else this morning, Comrade Colonel?”

Zamyatin shook his head, turned on his heel, and went back upstairs to wait for the storm to break.

At eleven o’clock it had come when the head of the First Chief Directorate himself had called to invite Zamyatin to lunch at noon.

He was exactly on time. Zamyatin took a deep breath, crossed the corridor and entered the executive officers’ mess, which was a large room with an un-cracked plaster ceiling, warm wood-paneled walls adorned with several paintings, and soft, luxurious carpeting. The only reminder that this room was within the Center and not some exclusive restaurant was the wire mesh over the four large windows.

The head of the First Chief Directorate, General Sergei Anatolevich Ganin, was a kindly-looking old man: white hair, roly-poly cheeks, a red, smiling face, and flashing gold-capped teeth.

He was seated alone at the head table, and when he saw Zamyatin by the door he stood up and beckoned.

What worried Zamyatin was that he knew absolutely nothing about the man. Not rumor, not legend. Nothing. Merely that the man was chief of the KGB’s most powerful and feared directorate.

“Yurianovich!” General Ganin boomed. “I am pleased that you could join me.”

A number of men in the dining room glanced idly toward Zamyatin who had made his way across the room, but then they went back to their meals.

“I am honored, Comrade General, that you asked me to join you,” Zamyatin said.

General Ganin was beaming as if he was genuinely pleased to see Zamyatin, and he indicated a chair. “Sit. Please sit down. I have taken the liberty of ordering for us. I think you will be pleased.”

Zamyatin took his seat across the table from General Ganin, and a moment later two young men in long white aprons came with a wheeled serving cart laden with food and a bottle of red wine.

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