Page 112 of The Collector
“Find anything else interesting?”
“Numerous safety violations on your drilling platforms and several unreported spills.”
“These things happen when one is extracting oil from beneath the North Sea.” He stared straight ahead. The wipers were working at full speed. The defroster was roaring. “What are you going to do when this is over?”
“I thought we were getting married.”
“Actually, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“Cad,” she whispered.
“Guilty as charged. But I have to try to repair my marriage before it’s too late.”
“Do you think she’ll have you back?”
“When I tell her what you and I did here in Russia, I have a feeling she just might.”
Ingrid removed the ring from her finger.
“Keep it,” said Magnus. “It will give you something to remember me by.”
The weather was growing worse by the minute. Ingrid switched on the radio. The hosts of the program sounded apoplectic. “What are they talking about?” she asked.
“The Ukrainians just fired several missiles into a Russian village near the border.”
“Did they?” Ingrid slid the diamond ring onto her finger. “What a shame.”
56
The Kremlin
The news of a Ukrainian missile strike on the Russian border village of Maksimov surprised no one more than the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolai Petrov. At first he assumed that the reports were mistaken. His opinion changed, however, when he saw the cell phone video on NTV. It was clear that the damage was the result of conventional weapons and not a low-yield nuclear device assembled from decades-old South African highly enriched uranium.
Most alarming to Petrov was the apparent target of the attack, a Lukoil station about a thousand meters from the Ukrainian border, the exact spot where Plan Aurora was to commence that morning. It suggested to Petrov that operational security had been breached, that there had been a leak. But how? Aurora had been closely held—so closely held, in fact, that only a handful of seniorsilovikiknew of the plan’s existence. Petrov himself had maintained personal control of the only copy of the directive authorizing the operation.
It was in his attaché case, which was lying open on his desk. Heunzipped the internal compartment where he stored sensitive documents and looked inside.
Security Council of Russia directive 37-23\VZ was gone.
The Royal Danish Air Force maintained a fleet of four Bombardier Challenger jets for the use of the prime minister and other senior government officials, but Lars Mortensen arranged for a chartered Dassault Falcon business jet instead. It departed Copenhagen Airport at 6:30 a.m., and ninety minutes later it was on the ground in Helsinki. Mikhail and Eli Lavon entered Finland as citizens of Poland, Gabriel as a Canadian. Had the Finnish immigration officials subjected him to a search, which they did not, they would have discovered that he was carrying a loaded Beretta 92FS and two extra magazines of ammunition. Mikhail had the .45-caliber Jericho.
A CIA officer named Tom McNeil met them in the lounge of the FBO. McNeil looked more Finnish than the Finns and spoke the language like a native. He addressed Gabriel in English, with the accent of a native New Yorker.
“We put three HIMARS missiles directly on the target. There was no secondary detonation of the fissile material and only limited collateral casualties.”
“Any Russian reaction?”
“Not yet.”
The FBO had arranged for a car, an Audi Q5 crossover SUV. Mikhail slid behind the wheel; Tom McNeil, into the passenger seat. Gabriel climbed into the backseat next to Eli Lavon. Five minutes later they were headed east on the E18. Mikhail’s speed was entirely ill suited to the conditions.
Tom McNeil checked his seat belt. “Do you have much experience driving in snow?” he asked.
“I was born in Moscow.”
“Now ask him if his parents owned a car,” said Gabriel.
“Did they?” inquired McNeil, but Mikhail made no reply.
