Oleg kept his mouth shut, but no, Marina had never said any such thing. Then again, he had only proposed to her two nights before at their favorite restaurant overlooking the Moskva River. When she saw Oleg on one knee, the exquisite diamond ring in his hand, and learned that Oleg had already asked her father and been given his blessing, Marina had jumped into his arms and kissed him wildly.
“So that’s a yes?” he had asked when they came up for air.
“Da!” she’d gushed as she began kissing him again.
They had talked about many things. They had called her parents. They had called his parents. But the specifics of the ceremony? That the wedding would be a state affair, run not by them but by political operatives at the Kremlin? No, that had not come up.
“The Russian people won’t have experienced a wedding like this since 1894,” Zakharov exclaimed as he buzzed his secretary and asked her to bring him “the Wedding File.”
“1894?” Oleg asked, drawing a blank.
“The wedding of the czar,” Zakharov replied, lighting up a cigarette and sinking into the chair behind his desk. He beckoned Oleg to take the seat across from him.
Oleg’s recall of the history of Russian royalty was, perhaps, a tad rusty. But every Russian knew the basics. Czar Nicholas II had married Princess Alix of Hesse, who had gone on to be known as the Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna, the last czarina before the revolution, when she was summarily executed by the Bolsheviks. The wedding had been held at the Grand Church of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. The entire Romanov dynasty had attended, as had royalty from all over Europe.
“Your nuptials will be no less grand—maybe even more so,” Zakharov explained. “But of course, unlike Nicholas and Alix, we live in the age of television. So this one will be broadcast live—the entire planet will have the chance to see Russia in all her splendor.”
Oleg blanched. Televised? Broadcast to the entire planet? All he wanted was a simple, private affair. Immediate families. Close friends. A Russian Orthodox priest. And a honeymoon someplace sunny and warm and very, very private.
Zakharov either didn’t notice Oleg’s less-than-enthusiastic reaction, or he didn’t care.
There was a knock at the door, and Zakharov’s secretary entered with two three-ring binders. She gave both to Zakharov, who promptly handed one to Oleg and told him to keep it safe and show it only to Marina and his parents. He pointed to the first six pages of critical questions that needed to be answered immediately and asked that Oleg return the completed forms to him by the end of the week. At that point, Oleg would meet with the Protocol Office. But first there were more pressing matters to consider.
Zakharov handed Oleg his permanent hard pass, an elite biometric card that would provide him access to almost every building and room in the Kremlin other than the most secure military facilities. Then he walked Oleg down the hall to the tiny work space that would now be his.
To call it an office would be to somewhat overstate the situation. It appeared, rather, to be a converted custodian’s closet into which a small, narrow desk, a creaky office chair, and one dusty file cabinet had somehow been shoehorned. The room had no windows and little ventilation, but it was twenty paces from Luganov’s office, and Oleg had no complaints.
Zakharov gave him the combination to the cipher lock on the door, the password for his brand-new desktop computer, and a classified directory of phone numbers for the offices of everyone who was anyone in the Luganov administration. Then he gave Oleg his own personal mobile number and home number and told him to memorize them and share them with no one.
As the chief of staff began to introduce Oleg to key people who worked on the third floor, there was suddenly a commotion by the elevators. A phalanx of security officers got off first, followed by two men Oleg recognized immediately. The first was Mikhail Petrovsky, the defense minister. The second was Dmitri Nimkov, the head of the FSB. Just then Zakharov’s beeper began going off, as did those of a half-dozen senior staff up and down the hallway. Phones started ringing in every office.
“Another bombing,” Zakharov said, his demeanor changing instantly. “Stay close to me, Oleg Stefanovich. Take detailed notes of everything that is said, and keep your mouth shut.”
7
The previous week, Oleg had been reviewing contracts and billing statements.
Now he found himself at the vortex of the most serious national crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Empire itself.
As he followed the chief of staff into a conference room adjoining the prime minister’s office, Oleg vividly remembered the day the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time. Every Russian did. December 25, 1991. Oleg was still a teenager at the time. But he remembered being huddled around his parents’ television, watching the momentous events unfolding hour by hour. He would never forget his mother’s tears or his father’s dumbfounded silence. His parents hadn’t been elated like some of their neighbors were, as if the nation were somehow going to be free. Rather, they’d feared their country was going to unravel.
For the first time, Oleg understood their emotions.
A door opened. Prime Minister Luganov entered, flanked by bodyguards. Once the door was closed, the cabinet took their seats around the conference table. Luganov, of course, sat at the head. The bodyguards took up posts at each of the doors, in the four corners of the room, and directly behind him. Several advisors accompanying Defense Minister Petrovsky and FSB Chief Nimkov sat in a row of chairs against the side walls, behind their principals. Oleg joined them, sitting just behind Zakharov, notebook and pen at the ready.
“Mr. Prime Minister, I regret to inform you that there has been another attack,” said the defense minister as he handed Luganov a leather dossier.
“Where?” the prime minister asked, opening the file and sifting through its contents.
“In the south, sir—Volgodonsk,” Petrovsky replied.
Oleg looked up from his note taking. He knew Volgodonsk. It was near the Black Sea, not far from the border of Ukraine. His maternal grandmother lived there, as did several of his cousins. As a boy, Oleg had gone fishing along the Don River with his grandfather.
“The initial evidence suggests this was a truck bomb,” Petrovsky continued. “It went off in front of yet another apartment building—sheared off the entire face of the building, nine stories. If you’ll permit, Mr. Prime Minister, the FSB has video taken on the scene.”
Luganov nodded, and the video began to roll. Oleg gasped as unedited images flickered onto three large televisions mounted on the far wall. The devastation was beyond anything he had ever witnessed. Certainly images this graphic were not going to be broadcast on nationwide TV. What was visible was mostly rubble, but there was also a severed torso that the cameras kept focusing on. Ash-covered mothers clutched their crying children in their arms.
“How many?” asked Luganov, stoic and dark.
The FSB chief took that one. “We know of seventeen dead so far,” Nimkov replied. “But it’s early.”