Page 72 of The Collector
The photograph showed a chair and ottoman, a standing lamp, a drop leaf side table, and a government-issue safe.
“Combination?” asked Gabriel.
“Twenty-seven, eleven, fifty-five. Or thereabouts,” added Carter.
“What’s in the safe?”
“On any given day, it contains numerous Security Council policy documents, some sensitive, others quite mundane. At present, however, the safe in Nikolai Petrov’s mansion in Rublyovka contains the only copy of Security Council directive 37-23\VZ.”
“Subject matter?”
“In short, it is Russia’s plan to use nuclear weapons to win the war in Ukraine.”
“Says who?” asked Gabriel.
Adrian Carter opened the second file.
Komarovsky was not his real name. It was a code name, borrowed from the pages of Boris Pasternak’s epic 1957 novelDoctor Zhivago. Viktor Ippolitovich Komarovsky, a lecherous Moscow lawyer, was the novel’s antagonist. The man behind the code name, however, was the CIA’s most important Russian asset—so important that even the American president, who eagerly awaited Komarovsky’s latest intelligence, did not know his identity.
In the lexicon of the intelligence trade, he was a walk-in, meaning it was Komarovsky who had made the initial approach. Carter did not say where or how the Russian made contact with the Agency, only that it had not been in Moscow. Indeed, the CIA’s Moscow station chief did not know of Komarovsky’s existence. A total of four people at Langley knew his identity, and the distribution list for his intelligence had just twelve names on it. Gabriel, for reasons he did not yet understand, had just been admitted to a very exclusive club.
The club to which Komarovsky belonged was the Russian president’s inner circle of oligarchs and senior Kremlin officials. He claimed to be the leader of a network of Russian elites who were opposed to the war and the continued rule of the Russian president. He asked for nothing from the United States other than steadfastness. It was essential, he said, for the US and NATO to arm the Ukrainians with the advanced weaponry required to liberate every inch of Ukrainian soil, including the Crimean Peninsula. A Russian defeat on the battlefield, he predicted, would lead to widespread unrest and leave the Russian president no choice but to step down.
Carter was skeptical of Komarovsky’s predictions, but he was impressed by the asset’s intelligence, which gave Langley a window into the workings of the Russian president and the members of his inner circle. As the war dragged on, and the number of Russian casualties in Ukraine soared to unimaginable levels, Komarovsky grew alarmed by the prospect that the Russian leader and the hard-liners around him were considering the use of tactical nuclear weapons to turn the tide. The attack, Komarovsky told his case officer, would not be surprise in nature. It would be preceded by a crisis of the Kremlin’s making, a crisis that would provide Russia with the pretext to use nuclear weapons for the first time since the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
“A false-flag attack?” asked Gabriel.
Carter nodded. “At first Komarovsky thought it would be something small. Something that would give the Russians an excuse to fire a couple of nuclear-tipped artillery shells and force the Ukrainians to come to their senses. He changed his mind, however, when he heard about Security Council directive 37-23\VZ.”
It was a member of the council’s staff who told Komarovsky of the document’s existence. The source had not been allowed to read the directive—Secretary Petrov maintained constant control of the only copy—but he was familiar with its contents. It was the blueprint for an operation code-named Aurora, the name of the Russian warship that fired the opening shot of the November 1917 attack on the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. The directive contained multiple scenarios for how the manufactured nuclear crisis might escalate—and how Russia would respond, step by step, if attacked by the United States. The package of retaliatory measures included a preemptive nuclear strike on the American homeland.
“It was at this point,” said Carter, “that Komarovsky made his first request of the CIA.”
“Steal the only existing copy of Security Council directive 37-23\VZ.”
Carter nodded. “He even offered to assist us.”
“How?”
“By helping us gain access to Nikolai Petrov’s home. As you might imagine, I gave the matter serious consideration. After all, what CIA director wouldn’t want to know exactly how the Russians would respond if, say, we obliterated their forces in Ukraine with an overwhelming conventional attack?”
“And?”
“Komarovsky said he needed an operational team that wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb in Rublyovka. He was also quite insistent that we not send Americans who look like actual Americans.”
“Not an unreasonable request given the fact that you’re helping the Ukrainians kill every last soldier in the Russian army.”
“But a difficult obstacle to overcome nonetheless.” Carter paused. “Until you walked through the door with the perfect operational team in your back pocket.”
“A pro-Russian Danish oil executive and a professional thief?”
Carter smiled. “One strives to avoid hyperbole in this line of work, but they might be the only two people in the world who could pull it off. With you looking over their shoulders, of course.”
“It was my intention to drop this in your lap and go home to my wife and children.”
“And now I’m dropping it in yours.”
“Komarovsky is your asset. That means it’s your operation to run.”
