Chapter 1

Aleksander Trulsky looked at his watch. It was five past twelve. His
heart pounded in his chest, and he felt weak, shaky in the legs. His
stomach grumbled. He knew he should have stopped for a bagel on
his way to the Kremlin. He should have treated himself—After all, he
was about sure he wouldn’t make it to lunch.
He pulled his BMW into the parking garage and took a deep
breath.
Forty minutes earlier, he got the text message from Chechnikov-
his boss. It was the message that he dreaded receiving but one of
his own making. It was the one that meant that Makarov had
uncovered Chechnikov’s plan; his coup. Things were going to get
very dark, very quickly in Russia.
But like all powerful men in Russia, Chechnikov was not going to
quietly into the cool, dark night.
He had a plan, one that involved Trulsky, his assistant, and a man
who hated Makarov more than anyone else in all of Russia.
Makarov had killed Trulsky’s wife.
A man in his mid-fifties, Trulsky wasn’t old, but he wasn’t young
either. He’d lived a life full of many ups and downs. His formal title in
the
Kremlin was Assistant to the Minister of Defence—a
distinguished title that held some sway deep within the fortified walls
of the most secure building in the world.
Since his wife’s murder, he’d lived alone in a tiny Moscow
apartment. He liked it that way. He liked being alone. He couldn’t
bear the thought of remarrying. He loved Polina too much to bear
the thought of giving his heart to another woman.
Polina was a diplomat, a good one. But she’d upset Makarov
early in his career, and he wanted her out. While on assignment in
Paris, she took ill. The doctors said it was food poisoning. Trulsky
knew it was something else.
Chechnikov confirmed it years later.
After her death, Trulsky was a broken man who was just a
shadow of his former self. He focused on his work and found
passions that kept him away from people—collecting rare first edition
books,
putting
together
intricate
puzzles,
obsessing
over good coffee. He buried the memories of his wife deep in his
mind. He busied himself with his work, and he promised himself that
if he ever had the opportunity to take down Makarov, he would take
it.
For years, there was no such opportunity. Makarov’s power and
sway within the county were too great.
But things recently had changed. The oligarchs in Russia had
become agitated with Makarov. Chechnikov uncovered a plot of
Makarov’s to kill Russian troops to instigate a war in Ukraine. That
had crossed the line. The oligarchs wanted Makarov out.
It was clear that President Makarov had no interest in helping his
country join the world stage. He only had an interest in his coffers—
in power.
But like all dictators, they won’t give up power so simply.
Chechnikov’s coup had failed. The oligarchs involved were all
dead. And, Trulsky knew that Chechnikov’s name had probably been
added to that list.
After pulling to a stop in his parking spot, Trulsky looked at his
phone and read the message. He wanted to be clear that what he
had read wasn’t some illusion in his head, some trick of his
imagination.
He read over each word in the message carefully.
The message read:
‘He knows. There is a duffel bag under your desk. Get it and take it
to Prague. The CIA will be waiting for you there in three nights to
pick it up. There is a USB stick inside, fake passports with your face
on them, a set of keys to a Mercedes parked in the east lot, and
over $15,000 USD. The USB stick has everything we need to take
down Makarov. Once the contents of that drive are made clear—his
empire will fall. The people will rise against him.’
TRULSKY SHOOK HIS HEAD. It was clear as day. What wasn’t clear
was what Makarov knew. Did he know that Trulsky was in on the
coup? He had to hope that Chechnikov had kept his promise and not
spoken about him, not broken. He had to hope that Chechnikov’s
loyalty lay firmly with his country.
Closing his eyes and saying a silent prayer to himself and Polina,
Trulsky stepped out of his car. It was raining and cold. Despite it
being spring, it felt like winter. It was at least a few degrees below
freezing. He walked from his 1993 BMW coupe and made his way up
to the first checkpoint at the Kremlin’s main building. As he flashed
his card through the reader, he nodded at the guard and walked into
the building.
Everything was good so far, he thought.
All he had to do was go to his office and grab the duffel bag.
After that, he had to get out of Russia before anyone noticed.
It was simple yet seemed impossible.
He just had to look natural. If he made anyone suspicious, it
would be over.
Trulsky walked with a nervous gait. His steps were rushed but
not on purpose; he wanted to seem casual and didn’t want to attract
any negative attention. But he overthought everything, and he was
overthinking even the most basic of things; his walking. That was
another one of his traits—one that he was well aware of. He tried to
think less, which he knew wouldn’t work—but still, how could he not.
The more he tried to walk normally, the less normal he knew he
looked.
“Please be with me now, Polina,” he said to himself quietly. “I
love you. Please, help me.”
Still holding the coffee he’d made for himself in his Moscow
apartment, he checked through the various Kremlin security
checkpoints—the inner building had four.
The guard at the second point smiled at him.
“Which is it today?” The young man asked.
“Excuse me?” Trulsky asked.
“The coffee? Which is it today? A dark roast. Columbian,
maybe?”
“It’s …” Trulsky stumbled. His lips felt heavy, slow. He couldn’t
mouth the words he wanted to speak, let alone give them air.
“Are you okay?” The young officer asked. “You look sick?”
“I … I …”
A slap hammered Trulsky on the back. It was hard, direct, and
made him momentarily lose his balance and breath. He dropped his
coffee, and it spilled over the floor, splattering like blood, staining
the granite tiles of the inner Kremlin.
“I’ve been trying to call you, comrade.”
Trulsky, still trying to calibrate himself from the slap and the inner
panic, turned around to see who’d hit him.
The man who’d hit him on the back burst out in laughter, “You’re
requested in the grand hall. Everyone’s being called there, everyone
in the inner circle. Whatever it is, it’s important. Makarov wants to
update us on a big summit he is organizing with the US President.”
“Yes, I …” Trulsky caught his tongue before speaking anything
more. “Oh, really?” Playing dumb was always the better choice. That
was one of the things he’d learned in the Kremlin. The more he
played dumb, the more people would tell him.
The man who hit him in the back was Dimitri Tosenko—the
assistant of Makarov. A young man with a wry smile and who was as
trustworthy as an ambulance-chasing lawyer—he was vicious and
cruel.
Trulsky hated the man with as much passion as he loved coffee.
“Are you okay, Aleksander?”
“I’m okay,” Trulsky said. “Long night.”
Tosenko laughed with childish gee. Was he already coked up?
Trulsky wasn’t sure. He couldn’t tell. He didn’t want to stare at the
man who was close to his sworn enemy. Nervously, he responded
with laughter, trying to match the strangeness and pitch of
Tosenko’s.
“Come, come,” Tosenko said. “We need to go there now.”
“I … I just need to head to my office first,” Trulsky said. “I …” He
paused himself and thought. He wanted to appear like his typical
self. “I just want to get another pot of coffee brewing. I’ll make you
one. This coffee is good. I’ll make you one, too. How does that
sound?”
Tosenko gave him a stern look. “I’m your superior. You know
that, right? You need to come with me now. That is an order.”
“Yes … I …” Knowing that the only way to puncture Tosenko’s
authority was to stroke his ego, Trulsky did what he had to do.
“You’re right, and now I feel awful. I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
“The beans used in that coffee… the one I just spilled. They’re
rare. Super unique. They come from a small corner of the jungle
that rests at the base of a mountain. Their special taste is derived
from the local fauna and flora in the region. Let me at least grab you
a bag of beans from my office. It will take two seconds.”
“You and your coffee,” Tosenko said.
“It’s the least I can do.”
“You can grab it after the meeting.”
“Don’t be silly,” Trulsky said. “You’ll be pulled into another
meeting. You won’t see me again for a week. Let me get them for
you now. I guarantee that if you share these with President Makarov,
he will want to know where you got them from. They’re that good.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
Tosenko burst out laughing at the prospect. “Now, now that is
something I want to see.”
“What would you have me do?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Just, please, let me get you some coffee. Makarov will thank you
for it.”
“Go,” Tosenko said. “I’ll see you in the grand hall. I’ll see you in
ten minutes.”
“Thank you.”
Trulsky walked through the final security gate and walked down a
hall opposite the one that Tosenko had taken.
After navigating the serpentine halls of the Kremlin, he made his
way to his office, stayed down, and took a deep breath as soon as
he exhaled.
He had no special beans from Columbia.
He had nothing of the sort.
He looked under his desk and saw the duffel bag. Chechnikov
must have had one of his aides leave it there earlier in the morning.
It was all real.
Trulsky grabbed it, stood up, and walked out of the Kremlin.
He had everything now, everything he’d need to take down
Makarov. All he had to do now was get out of Russia alive.
Chapter 2
“The last day of the Cold War,” NSA Eli Chambers said to President
Roy Clarkson. He said it with the kind of grandiosity a statement like
that deserved. He held his head high and had a smug, assured
smile. He reclined back in his seat across from Clarkson and waited
for the President’s response.
The two men were in the Oval Office. It was a bright, sunny
spring afternoon. The light from the noon-day sun bled into the
ornate room and made everything glow. Chambers’ broad, toothy
smile was especially vivid.
Clarkson looked at the document Chambers had handed him
moments earlier. It’d come straight from the Russian President.
Makarov’s signature at the bottom of the page was interesting.
Makarov’s signature was rigid, sharp, and large. It was aggressive,
angry. Clarkson’s signature was very different. His was flowy,
confident, cavalier.
“Is everything okay, Mr. President?” Chambers asked, noticing the
contemplative look on Clarkson’s face. “This is everything we could
have hoped for. When we meet with the Russian President at the
summit and sign the declaration of peace, Makarov has pledged to
end his hostilities in Eastern Europe. His aggression in the region has
been unprecedented, and while others in DC want to escalate, you
and I both know that will only lead to a long, drawn-out war,