Conspiracy in Kiev (21 page)

FORTY-THREE

S
he looked in every direction, but saw no Federov. Mentally, she beat herself up. How could he have slipped away so easily? How could she have been so foolish as to take her eyes off him, even for an instant?

But he was gone. Completely gone.

The president was already in the limo. Alex’s driver signalled to her. The motorcade needed to move quickly. Still turning her head, looking everywhere, searching the crowds, she tried to find Federov.

No luck. She ducked into her van. The door slammed shut behind her. An instant later the van moved forward with a lurch. Far up ahead, Alex could see the president’s limousine as it moved slowly away from the cathedral. It inched across the square while the president waved to cheering Ukrainians, and then it pulled to a halt at Mihaylavski Place. There, surrounded by flowers and candles, was the gray granite monument to the great famine of the 1930s.

Alex’s vehicle stopped, which meant that the president’s vehicle had stopped. She climbed out quickly and moved forward on foot, trying to draw as close to the memorial and the president as possible. She was within a moderate security area and from a distance of about twenty yards, she could see the president.

Security people gathered around him, including Robert. The president moved with slow dignified steps to the monument with the US ambassador, Jerome Drake. Alex positioned herself with a good view of what would follow.

The monument was a gray slab about six feet high, breathtaking and moving in its stark simplicity. The center had been cut away in the general shape of a cross with gentle contours. In the center of the cutout, there was the carved figure of a man, creating a silhouette. Within the cutout, another figure, presumably that of God, and within that a child’s figure, the infant Jesus.

Alex moved slightly. She found a position just beyond the dignitaries. The crowd was quiet now as one of the president’s assistants handed over a large floral wreath. The president stepped away from Ambassador Drake and closer to the monument. Alex’s gaze followed the president. For the first time, the great famine that she had heard so much about was a reality.

Several seconds passed in silence. Everyone around her was still. A strange series of emotions filled Alex. No matter what one thought of this president, at least the American leader was here to mark the significance of this monument. She felt a deep sorrow for the victims of the famine, the humans who had perished from starvation seventy years earlier in the bitter Ukrainian winter. She bit her lip.

Then, after another moment passed, jets roared low overhead, Mirage fighters, purchased from the French, followed by a quartet of aircraft from the United States. Everyone’s eyes moved skyward, and there was a surge of talking in the crowd.

A second wave of planes passed overhead and again distracted the crowd.

The president was at the monument now, head bowed, Ambassador Drake a few feet behind. Robert and Reynolds Martin and several other Secret Service agents were only a few feet away, watching the crowd, nervous, eyes intent, poised for trouble.

The wreath was enormous, and carried by two US marines from the embassy. They laid the wreath at the base of the monument. The president leaned over and twitched the ribbons on them, thus symbolically “laying” them.

The president’s head lowered itself for a moment in prayer, or whatever heads of state think about when they can’t wait to get a photo-op done and start home.

Standing thirty yards away, Alex felt a vibration in her pocket. It was her cell phone. An incoming call. She pulled the phone from her pocket and she looked at the incoming number.

Federov!
What the—?

Cupping her hand over it to keep her voice low, she answered.

“Move,” he said in English.

“What?”

“Move from where you are!”

“Where are you?” she demanded.

“Doesn’t matter. I can see you. Move!”

“To where?”

“Anywhere! Now!”

The line went dead, the call over. Perplexed, but alarmed, she took several steps from where she was, searching any windows she could see. The marksmen were on the rooftops and the helicopters were overhead. Security near the president was as thick as a Crimean blizzard.

Everything seemed fine. Tense but fine. The president was still at the monument, head bowed, making sure the world press got ample coverage.

And yet, and yet …

Beneath the freezing cold, Alex felt herself sweating.

What was wrong with this? What was wrong with this picture? It wasn’t just that her guts were in a turmoil; every part of her was.

Her hand went to her weapon and rested upon it. She moved cautiously away from where she had stood, looking for hints as to what might be imminent, trying to figure what Federov might have known that she didn’t. Had he been warning her or jerking her chain?

Then there was an ominous noise. A bang in the distance. Then another. She saw all the security people stiffen to alert. For a moment, everyone froze.

Then she realized.

More airplanes? No! Something from beyond the perimeter. Something that defied the most zealous of plans of protection.

More loud blasts in the distance, followed by another round, then quickly a third. She saw the members of the president’s Secret Service escort cringe. Then there was a whistling in the air above.

Incoming projectiles!

Some of the security people quickly went for their own weapons. Then there were a series of explosions across the square. One, two, three, moving toward the presidential target with incredible precision.

Then all hell broke loose.

A few yards away, Alex saw a woman’s throat burst open with a horrible gash. The woman staggered and blood flooded from her wound. She never knew what had hit her. Smiling one second, dead the next.

Then someone else was hit by something. Chaos everywhere. Bodies were falling and people were running. Explosives were coming into the square from what seemed like every direction. The entire entourage, the entire ceremony, was under attack from far beyond the square.

She heard someone yell in English.
“RPGs! RPGs!”

Rocket propelled grenades. Instinctively, Alex tightened her own security pass around her neck so everyone could see it. She ran toward her van and her presumed means of escape. But it was like running through a riot because everyone was fleeing in a different direction. She was knocked over twice and had to fight her way back to her feet.

An older Ukrainian man with an American flag ran across Alex’s path. Before Alex’s eyes, a piece of shrapnel hit the man in the face and blew his head open. Blood gushed from the wound, hot and wet, splattering everyone within a few feet. He reeled and went down.

Then another RPG landed and then another. Then she couldn’t count any more because the rounds were on top of each other and coming in on top of the entourage.

Everything that happened seemed to happen simultaneously. The whole moment of terror was frozen into one frame of time.

A blizzard of bone, brains, and blood. Screams.

Cries of pain and terror.

Barked orders from the various security services.

Shots were fired from many directions. Alex couldn’t tell if they were friendly or hostile.

Alex wanted to vomit. Her insides wanted to explode. Instead, she kept moving. She had lost sight of Robert. Americans were calling out, running. Ducking and darting. There was no logic except survival.

Alex continued toward the vehicle that had brought her. She searched the crowd madly for Robert but still couldn’t find him. She thought she saw Reynolds on the ground with a wound, but when she altered her course and ran ten feet in that direction, the man rose and staggered with the help of another man. She was no longer sure what she had seen.

Someone gave a command for all American security people to show badges and ready weapons. She drew her handgun. She moved toward her car.

Then Alex saw that the presidential limousine had taken a direct hit. The driver writhed in the front seat. His face was covered in blood. She knew she couldn’t do anything for him. Half his head was missing. He was still moving, but she knew he would die. She could do nothing.

She ran toward her own vehicle. Bullets were hitting everywhere. She spun around; the wreath lay under a body that looked Ukrainian. She turned in another direction and the complete lack of reality slammed home. Two agents whom she didn’t know had the president between them. They had automatic weapons drawn and were looking for a car to use to escape. The president’s own car had taken a devastating hit. So had the backup limo. They were within ten feet of her, then five, then ran smack into her.

“Here!” she screamed. “FBI!” she shouted, identifying herself. “Here! Here!”

They looked. There was the number-two armored Mercedes, abandoned by the Ukrainians. She threw open the door. The keys were in the ignition. She threw open the backdoor.

The Secret Service agents looked at her and understood. They abandoned their prearranged emergency routines. They just wanted the president out of there. They pushed the president in and covered the president’s body with their bodies.

For a brief moment, Alex surmised that Ukrainian security had been infiltrated by traitors. The RPGs must have been the first line of attack. Gunmen on the ground would probably be the second.

American English: a man’s voice. “Out of the way, lady! Out of the way!” A marine major in uniform—the driver for the Benz—blindsided her, grabbing her shoulder and yanking her out of the way. She hit the ground hard.

Just then, Alex discovered she was right. Combat between forces on the ground. Two men with automatic handguns and ski masks made a move toward the driver’s side of the Benz, confronting the driver.

The marine whirled with his sidearm, but he wasn’t fast enough. The gunmen fired. The marine’s eyes went wide in disbelief as the bullets threw him against the side of the car. The gunmen were only a few feet from the president.

Alex stared at the enemy for less than half a second, understanding the moment perfectly. She raised her Walther. They didn’t expect that from a woman. They turned on her, but turned too late.

She was younger, faster, and smarter, and somehow God seemed to guide her hand. It was Colosimo’s all over again, but this time for keeps.

She fired six shots, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

What happened would replay itself in her mind for the rest of her life, every surreal moment. Before either assassin could fire a shot at her, Alex saw her bullets shatter the front of the one man’s face and rip a hole in his neck. His weapon flew from his hands and he sprawled backward.

She hit the second man in the sternum. He was heavier and stockier, but no match for a .9 mm round, even from her old Walther. He managed to squeeze the trigger of his weapon, but the shots flew into the sky.

Crimson pools burst from his chest as he fell.

She lurched quickly to her feet. The marine was dead on the ground beside her, the left side of his neck and face shot to pulp.

In every direction, everyone was running through a hornets’ nest of automatic weapons fire and rockets. Remaining Secret Service agents closed in on the limousine. From behind her, in the backseat, two Secret Service agents huddled against the president, their weapons up.

One of them yelled, “Driver down! You! Get in!”

She knew this part of the drill too. Service procedure was to get Einstein out of the Red Zone as fast as possible. She turned and looked. The Service people meant her. She should drive.

For a split second, Alex could see the face of the president, as dazed and terrified as the guards. Like any battle, everything had gone exactly to plan until the first shot was fired.

She holstered her weapon and slid into the front seat of the vehicle. The front window was cracked but not shattered. It had been hit hard twice and showed the points of impact. But it had held. God bless Stuttgart engineering.

“I’m FBI!” she said to the agents in back.

“Get us moving!” one of them barked back. “
Drive!
”

Alex gunned the engine and found it responsive. “Hang on!” she ordered.

She remembered the route from the airport. She put the vehicle in gear. There was a crunching impact under the tires and she knew she was driving over the fallen bodies of the two men she had shot. In the backseat, radios crackled as the agents gave their location as well as Einstein’s.

She sped out of the square. Other security vehicles fell in stride with her. She got out of the square and hit the main roads. There was still a mass of confusion, people dazed and gawking, others fleeing, some sitting by the highway in tears.

From somewhere there was a final explosion, and the car shuddered as if it had been hit again with fragments of metal. A new crack appeared on a rear window.

The vehicle now had a slight wobble to it, which told her that the wheels had been hit. She wrestled with the shuddering steering wheel. The car went into a skid at about fifty miles an hour, but she turned into it and pulled the vehicle out.

She hit a straight section on the motorway. The president started to sit up and look around, immensely shaken and surprised to be alive.

In the rearview mirror, other American vehicles were not far behind. Coming up on them, however, a brigade of four motorcycle riders. Friendly or enemy? No one knew.

“I got four outriders,” she said to the agents behind her. “I don’t know who they are!” She was doing seventy miles an hour and the riders were rapidly overtaking them. Four of them!

She heard the window go open directly behind her. The sound of the wind was deafening. Sirens blared everywhere. One of the Secret Service agents leaned out the vehicle from the chest up, brandishing his machine gun, looking for more trouble, waiting to see if there was the slightest hostile sign from the riders.

They were in Ukrainian military uniforms and were easily doing a hundred miles an hour. The radio in the car crackled.