“Can I get you a bottle of water, sir? You look white as a ghost.”
“Tonya, what is this? Is this related to what we spoke about before?”
Pasternak didn’t say anything, but just gave him a solemn half nod.
“So, how do the options break down?”
She took a deep breath. “We have to consider the right thing to do given the political situation and our opposition. If we accommodate the terrorists, we look weak to our constituents and the opposition. And to the world.”
“But if I give the order to rush those criminals, it could result in all twenty of the hostages being killed,” Vostov said.
“Correct, sir.”
“I want the ages of every one of the hostages,” Vostov said. “I want to know if children are inside.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Pasternak hurried forward to consult with the FSB officers. While he waited, Vostov unmuted the news channel. There was not much new coming from RT. They were approaching the time when the first hostage would be executed, failing word on the prisoner release, the money, the helicopter and the private jet. Pasternak hurried back in, brushing her hair out of her face.
“Sir, of the sixteen people who aren’t staff, fifteen of them are women between the ages of twenty-one and forty-seven. There is one male, a nineteen-year-old who is the son of the older woman. FSB thinks he will be the first hostage to be executed.”
Vostov leaned back for a moment. “Call for the flight attendant to bring back a bottle of vodka and glasses. Get Sevastyan and Ozols back here. Then put me in touch with the man in tactical command at the scene.”
It took a moment for Pasternak to set up the call. The FSB chairman and his deputy stepped back in and took seats at the conference table. Vostov stood from his desk and joined them at the table.
“The tactical commander is on the speaker phone, sir,” Pasternak said.
“This is the president,” Vostov said to the speaker on the center of the table. “Who am I speaking with?”
“Sir, this Colonel Vanya Nika, GRU, assigned on duty to FSB.”
The hostess arrived with the vodka and half a dozen glasses. Vostov motioned for her to pour four glasses. He grabbed one and downed it in one go. Pasternak refilled his glass.
“Colonel, what’s your assessment of the scene? What are the chances you can get these hostages out? With minimal loss of innocent lives?”
“Sir, we have a good tactical plan,” Nika said, his voice clipped and tough sounding. “We’ll breach the ventilation system and deploy concentrated carfentanil gas. It’s similar to the one we used in the Moscow Theater attack, but improved. It might cause one or two deaths of the twenty, but we believe within a minute, the terrorists will be unconscious. Then we’ll use explosives on the plate glass and go in with a full platoon. We’ll put a bullet in the heads of every terrorist. It will be over in five minutes. But sir?”
“Yes, Colonel?”
“Sir, I can’t guarantee we won’t have casualties or collateral damage. Mr. President, I can’t guarantee your wife’s safety.”
“Colonel, give me two minutes. Stay on the line. I will mute my end.”
Pasternak clicked the mute button and looked over at him.
“Well, Gennadi, what do you think?” Vostov asked.
“Sir, I say we go in,” the FSB chairman said.
“And you, Avdey?”
The FSB deputy glanced at the vodka glass in front of him, then at Vostov. “I agree with General Sevastyan, sir. We can’t give in to these people or else this will happen a dozen more times.”
“We could promise to release the prisoners they want, or even release them,” Vostov suggested. “That would buy time.”
“Time is our enemy, Mr. President. The longer we wait, the more hostages they will execute. Perhaps one of them, your wife,” Ozols said.
“No,” Sevastyan said. “They’d save Larisa for last. She’s their biggest bargaining chip.”
“That assumes they know one of the women they hold is Larisa Vostov,” Pasternak said.
“Of course they know,” Sevastyan replied. “That’s why they targeted this shop. And even if they didn’t know, they know now.” Sevastyan pointed to the RT news screen.
“Where the hell is her SBP detail?” Vostov asked sharply.
Sevastyan looked down at the table. “She’s shaken off her detail twice before, Mr. President, intentionally. She doesn’t like being followed around by men in suits holding guns. I sincerely apologize for the failure of my men on this, sir.”
Vostov waved his apology away. “Recriminations are for later, people. Let’s just get through this and do the right thing. The right thing, not just for me, but for Russia. So I’ll ask again, do we storm the store or buy time? Sevastyan?”
“Breach the store, sir. It’s our best option.”
“Ozols? What do you say?”
“Rush the store, sir.”
“Tonya?”
“I agree with the chairman and deputy, sir. Rush the store.”
Vostov downed the second vodka and unmuted the speaker phone.
“Colonel? You there?”
“Yes, sir,” Colonel Nika’s voice said from the speaker.
“Colonel, I am ordering you to storm the store,” Vostov said. “Keep this circuit open. I want a status report as soon as you have it.”
“Understood, sir. We will commence the operation forthwith.”
Vostov muted the phone and noticed that the other three finally drank their own vodkas. Vostov unmuted the news.
“…something is happening here,” the announcer said. A tremendous explosion happened behind her and she fell to the floor, the camera shaking, the view tumbling. “The police have — there seems to be — the police have breached the store and are running into—“ Vostov muted the news. There was nothing but confusion on the screen.
The next minutes seemed to last an hour. Finally the speaker phone squawked.
“Mr. President, we’ve secured the scene. The terrorists are dead, all except one from our bullets. One shot himself before we could get to him.”
“The hostages?”
“None of them took any rounds from us or the terrorists, but they’re all unconscious from the gas, sir. We’re getting emergency medical teams in here immediately and evacuating the civilians.”
“My wife?”
“Can’t tell yet, Mr. President. It’s in the hands of the medevac team now.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” Vostov said. “And good job.” He clicked off the speaker phone.
“I guess now we wait, sir,” Pasternak said.
7
Lieutenant Anthony Pacino climbed out of his car service’s sleek, new electric sedan, missing his Corvette. He looked up at the huge building, a few blocks from State Pier, New London, Connecticut. It was called “The Power House,” a refurbished power plant from 1897 that had been abandoned in 1955, then reclaimed in 2012 to be a brewery, pub, and pasta and steak joint. He half-smiled to himself — it might seem an odd business plan to reclaim an old power plant for this, but he liked the atmosphere already.
As he entered the antique wood entrance doors, he had a sense of stepping a hundred years into the past. The lighting looked exactly like old gas lamps — done with modern and safe LEDs, of course — but everything else within view was antique, with nineteenth century furnishings, even large ceiling fans turned by belts and pulleys. He saw the wrap-around bar, formed of timbers taken from upper floor supports when they’d been removed to allow a high ceiling and space for the brewery vessels. The bar was huge, tended by a half dozen bartenders and had multiple tap setups and a tall set of glass shelves displaying what seemed every alcoholic drink known to modern man. For a moment, Pacino regretted that Commander Bullfrog Quinnivan—Vermont’s exec — couldn’t see this, as it would have put him in heaven. Over the shelves of bottles were huge flatpanel television screens displaying every sports game happening at that moment, except for the one screen tuned to a news channel. On the far side of the bar, Pacino could see Squirt Gun Vevera and U-Boat Dankleff waving him over.