PART 1 – THE

BETRAYAL

ONE

Three months earlier

Andrei Zadorov was dying of brain cancer. His own body had turned
on him. According to the doctor, it was inoperable. Andrei would
have to live with it, suffer through it, and ultimately die from it. A
former spy, he thought it a fitting way to go out: an invisible enemy
cutting him down from within, only making itself known when it was
too late. How many men had he killed the same way?
Born in the late seventies in Sochi, Russia, he came from
immense wealth and power. Up until the diagnosis, he’d believed the
world was his oyster. His father was a wealthy oligarch with
connections to the Russian president and the military. A proud man,
Andrei’s father wanted nothing more than to see Russia return to its
former glory. He would tell Andrei tales of Russian heroes and the
great military triumphs of the nation’s past. His mother was a
celebrated painter—educated and intelligent; she was as loyal to the
motherland as his father.
Because of his father’s influence and his mother’s international
art connections, Andrei entered the Foreign Intelligence Service of
the Russian Federation, or SVR, in his early twenties. The SVR was
the heir to the KGB after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The SVR, Russia’s equivalent to the CIA, was brutal, efficient,
and, above all else, dedicated to upholding Russian hegemony.
Espionage, assassinations, disinformation—the SVR delved deep into
the mud of international conflict and never shied away from taking
off the gloves.

The top brass at the SVR figured Andrei was an ideal candidate
for undercover operations. So he was sent to Washington, D.C., in
the early 2000s, where he worked as a spy under the false identity
of Dimitri Nabakov, an art dealer.
He spent years in America as Dimitri. He found allies, uncovered
secrets, and grew close to those with power. He was good at his job;
no one in Washington suspected a thing. But then he collapsed
during a morning jog along the Potomac River. His head smacked
against the pavement. Blood spurted from the cut on his forehead.
He felt nauseous; his hands shook with a violent tremor. The doctor
found the tumor. Andrei returned to Russia for treatment.
His days as a spy were over.
As he lay on the hospital bed in Moscow, holding his mother’s
hand, the doctor told him he had three to five years at best. His
father, a stout man with a mustache like Stalin’s, was shaken. Andrei
was his only heir.
“My boy,” his father said. “This world is so cruel and unfair. I hate
it.”

“I thought I was going to change the world,” Andrei replied. “I
thought I was going to make Russia proud of our name.”
“If things were different… if life were different, if this sickness
hadn’t burrowed into your head, you would have returned Russia to
its former glory,” his father said.
Shortly after the prognosis, his father began to drink, and his
mother grew frail. They were both dead by winter, taken by their
sadness and perhaps their unwillingness to see their son buried
before them.
Andrei inherited his father’s wealth.
He could have spent the last few years of his life living in luxury,
but he didn’t see the point. He wanted to honor his father. He made
it his life’s mission.
Russia was all that mattered.
He met with generals who had been friends with his father and
some of the Russian president’s advisors. They agreed to visit the
dying, rich former spy out of respect. Andrei told them that Russia
couldn’t idly sit by if it wanted to be great again. It needed to stop
meddling in foreign wars. For too long, Russia and the United States
had been fighting proxy battles—wars of attrition where nothing was
lost or gained, abstract conflicts that benefited only the military
industrial complex.

It was time to make America pay for its ignorance.
It was time to take the fight to them directly.
The generals and advisors laughed at him. Andrei didn’t see what
was so funny, and he left the Kremlin more determined than ever.
If the Kremlin wasn’t going to do what needed to be done, then
he would.
He used his father’s money and traveled the world. He put a plan
in motion, knowing he might not live to see its fruition, recruiting
people as desperate, as distraught, and as fatalistic as he was.
That was why he was back in Washington, D.C.—where it all
started, where it all would end. He had reassumed the identity of
Dimitri Nabakov and once again ingratiated himself within the world
of the Washington elite. He began making plans to put on an art
exhibit in honor of his mother, naming it after her, Natalya’s Wish.
Of course, Andrei wasn’t hosting an art exhibit.
He was going to force the Kremlin’s hand.
He was going to start a war.
One he knew they didn’t want.
But that didn’t matter.
Not now.
The newly risen sun was bright. Andrei was dressed in an
expensive but minimalist blue suit. He stepped out of his 2020 BMW
sedan and adjusted his tie. He looked up at the brick warehouse
he’d rented for Natalya’s Wish. It was two miles northeast of the
White House. He’d hosted art events there in the past, although not
one quite like this.

He walked up to the shipping doors, entered a passcode into the
keypad, and waited.
The eighteen-wheeler truck that had followed him from New
Jersey backed up into the warehouse’s shipping bay. The truck
beeped as it reversed. Once inside, the driver turned off the engine
and hopped out.
Andrei lit a cigarette and watched as the driver got to work.
“Those things will kill you,” the driver said in a jovial manner. He
had a thick New York accent, and his white T-shirt had mustard
stains on it.
Andrei shook his head and sighed. He didn’t respond to the man,
who he knew was below him in almost every way.
“Where do you want the boxes?” the driver asked.
“With the others, along the wall,” Andrei replied. “I’ll have my
men take it all to the basement tomorrow.”
The driver grabbed a pallet jack and began moving the massive
six-by-six wooden crates out of the truck’s trailer. There were thirty
in total. They were nailed shut, and each one was marked with a
black stamp that read “FRAGILE.”
Andrei didn’t lift a finger while the driver unloaded the crates. He
didn’t want his manicured nails scratched or his suit dirty, but he also
didn’t have the physical strength. Each day was becoming a
struggle. The cancer was winning. The war inside him would soon
be over.

It took twenty minutes for the driver to unload everything from
the truck. His shirt was damp with sweat when he was done. His
thinning hair stuck to his plump face. “What the hell is in those
things?” he asked. “They’re all as heavy as a damn piano!”
“Artwork,” Andrei said.
“That’s some heavy art you got there.”
“They’re sculptures from Russia. I’m celebrating history.”
The driver shook his head and said, “Whatever, man. Well, have
a good day, Mr. Nabakov. Nice doing business with you.”
Andrei nodded and waved the driver away. But as the driver
closed the door to his truck, a panel on one of the crates fell loose.
The contents inside were exposed and rolled out onto the floor. The
driver saw what had fallen out from his truck’s side-view mirror. He
stepped out of the truck and walked back into the warehouse.
Approaching Andrei, he said, “I knew it. I knew there was something
else in those boxes.”
Andrei rubbed his brow and sighed. How many times had he told
his people to use more than two nails per panel? Those boxes
needed to be treated with more respect. He gritted his teeth, walked
up to the driver, and said, “How much will it cost me to keep you
quiet?”

“Ten thousand.”
“Of course, of course.”
“No, wait… twenty!”
Andrei smiled. “Greedy man. Just wait here.”
He walked to his sedan, opened the passenger-side door, and
accessed the glove box. He grabbed what he needed, walked back
to the warehouse, and found the truck driver kneeling on the
ground, inspecting the contents that had fallen out. “What is this?”
the driver asked.
Andrei smiled. “It’s like I said. It’s a celebration of Russian
history.”
He walked up to the driver and pulled out a 9mm Makarov pistol.
The driver froze. Andrei pulled the trigger. A spray of blood and brain
matter splattered out from the exit wound and mixed with the dirt
and dust on the warehouse floor. The barrel of the Makarov still
smoking, Andrei grabbed his cell phone with his free hand and dialed
his assistant. He’d need someone to come and clean up the mess.
After making the arrangements, he walked back to the box that
had opened up and pushed the contents back inside. When he was
done, he left the warehouse and drove back to Dulles International
Airport. He had to fly back to Sochi that evening. He had a
chemotherapy appointment that he couldn’t miss, and he had to pick
up the final piece of his puzzle.

TWO

The ocean was dark and calm. Thunderclouds hung low in the sky,
and the wind howled. Even inside the Goat’s Grin pub, there was a
chill. The windows rattled with the heavy rain.
“I bloody hate this country,” Clyde Colt said.
He looked out the pub’s window and grimaced. He’d thought
Brighton might offer peace. He should’ve gone somewhere warm,
with palm trees and girls in bikinis, not gray skies and bloated
drunkards.
The Goat’s Grin was mostly empty, save for the bartender and
two overweight blokes who had round tummies, no chins, and
exposed ass cracks.
I’m an idiot, Colt thought.
He finished his pint and turned his attention back to the soccer
match. Manchester United were losing, and so was Colt. Everything
these days felt like a slow defeat.
“Bollocks,” Colt muttered under his breath. He tapped his fingers
on the bar to get the bartender’s attention. “Another pilsner,” he
barked