Snow Wolf (15 page)

Branigan smiled thinly. "On a scale
of red hot to boiling, I would probably bust the fucking thermometer."

"Has this got something to do with
why I was recalled?"

Branigan shifted his heavy bulk in the
chair. "We knew you'd want to see the bodies. You and Max went way back.
heard you knew each other as kids in the streets of Little Russia. I remember
Max told me once you were kind of like brothers. But you're right, that's not
the real reason you're here There's something I want you to see. I guess it'll
explain every thing."

Branigan unlocked a drawer with a key he
kept on a ring in his pocket. He slid out a buff-colored file and placed it on
the table. Stamped along the top in red letters was "For President's Eyes
only." He looked at Massey.

"Needless to say, the classification
says it all. But it seems you're a special case."

He slipped his jacket from the back of
the chair and pulled it on, smiling thinly as a hint of aggression crept into
his voice.

,,Only get this straight. You tell nobody
about the contents of that file unless you're cleared to do so. Which I
guarantee you won't be--ever, not in a million years. I'm going to leave you
alone for say fifteen minutes. That ought to be enough time to read what's
inside and prime you for what you're going to hear later. When I come back I'm
taking you to see Wallace. He's expecting us at his place. Another thing. If
you need to use the john, use it now."

"Why?"

Branigan found another key on the ring.
"Because I'm going to lock the door after me while I go get a coffee and
let you read that in peace. No one else in this building gets to see what's in
the file except you and me. And I've given orders no one's to knock so you
won't be disturbed. You need to use the john?"

"I guess not."

Branigan stood. "OK, just two more
instructions you ought to know. One, this meeting never happened. Two, as of
today you're officially on indefinite leave on health grounds and you're about
to take it on full pay. For the records, you're depressed, and you need a break
from intelligence work."

Massey frowned. "Do you mind telling
me what the hell's going on?"

There was an edge of irritation in
Branigan's voice. "It's all in the file. And between those pages you'll
find the reason why Max Simon and his kid were murdered, and it doesn't make
pleasant reading."

When he saw Massey stare at him, Branigan
shrugged his shoulders. "The instructions ain't mine." He pointed a
finger to the ceiling. "They come from high above."

"How high?"

"The President.@'

Washington, D.C. January 22nd, 4 Pm.

The white-painted house in Georgetown
looked as imposing as any in the select neighborhood that housed Washington's
elite.

Built of wood, the clapboard three-story
colonial property sat secure in a vast walled private garden of cherry and pear
trees, and although it was winter the three men sat out on the back patio in
wrought-iron garden seats.

The Assistant Director, William G.
Wallace, was a Yale man, silver-haired and in his late fifties, and his tanned
face bore the vestiges of a recent winter vacation in Miami.

When the small talk was over the
Assistant Director looked over at Massey, smiled faintly and said, "You
read the file, Jake?"

"I read it." Massey nodded.

"Have you any questions?"

"One, who knows about this?"

"Besides you, Branigan and me? Only
the President and the Director." The Assistant Director smiled.
"There is one other I should mention, who's aware, shall we say, of our
intentions, and not what you've read, but we'll come to that later."

Branigan interrupted. "Maybe I
better fill in the gaps, sir?"

The Assistant Director nodded. "I
guess you better, Karl. I want Jake to be crystal clear about what he's
read."

Branigan ran a hand through his cropped
hair and looked at Massey.

"Jake, what you saw back in the
office was a confidential report written by Joseph Stalin's private physicians.
It was the last report we received from Max Simon a month before he was
murdered. You know the contents but I'll go over them again to clear up any
points. Number one, Stalin has had two strokes in the last six months and as a
result his speech and movement are impaired.

"Number two, his medical people all
agree that either as a result of the strokes or another medical condition, he's
become mentally unstable. He's displaying signs of paranoid schizophrenia. Put
simply, the man's going crazy."

Branigan smiled. "Now we and the
world know he's already a certifiable nut, but this report confirms it and puts
it in perspective. Something else you ought to know. The doctors in the Kremlin
who wrote the medical report were arrested on a charge of trying to poison
Stalin. Whether it's true or not we don't know, but we do know they were taken
to the Lubyanka prison. We've got no information on their fate, but I'd guess
it ain't exactly rosy. Most of the doctors were Jews. Stalin's made no secret
of the fact he hates the Jews, Purges have already started in Russia. And something
you should know about-our intelligence people have confirmed Stalin's already
building concentration camps in Siberia and the Urals. He intends to finish
what the Nazis started. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it? A buildup to
another situation like the one we had with Adolf Hitler."

Massey stared at Branigan. "What
exactly are you saying?"

The Assistant Director interrupted.
"Jake, we know Max Simon was receiving those reports from a highly placed
and reliable Russian contact in the Berne Embassy. He was a Jew. I say was
because I doubt he's still alive. But he was worried, like some of his Kremlin
friends, not all of them Jews, about the direction Moscow's going in. Jake, let
me put it simply. Stalin is a danger. And I don't mean only to America but the
whole damned world, including his own people. Everybody from Congress to the
man in the street believes there's another war on the horizon. And this one
won't be like the last-but it may well be the last. The potential for worldwide
destruction is enormous. Stalin has set his sights on completing his hydrogen
bomb program before we do and we know for sure that's going to happen. And
that's a mighty dangerous scenario.

"Hell, we're building fallout
shelters all over this country as fast as we can but that's pretty much all we
can do-we're not prepared for war. But Uncle Joe has made it pretty plain in
the past what his intentions are. He sees a war with us as inevitable. I guess
it's an obsession with him. A death wish. And a crazy old man with an obsession
is pretty likely to want that wish satisfied."

Massey looked impatiently from Branigan
to the Assistant Director. "Will someone kindly tell me just what in the
hell all this is leading to?"

"Jake, the President believes
Stalin's going to use that bomb just as soon as it's ready. We're talking
months, not years. Now we can either sit on the fence and wait for the worst to
happen or we can come up with a solution to remove the problem. A solution
that's much better for everyone in the circumstances. It calls for a pretty
special operation. And I want you to head it." Massey said, "And what
solution is that?"

It was Branigan who answered. "We
kill Stalin."

The silence went on for several long
moments. The Assistant Director looked out at the bare winter trees, then back
at Massey.

"You don't look happy, Jake. I
thought you'd be impressed."

"Whose idea was it?"

"It was a decision made at the
highest Lebel."

"Meaning?"

The Assistant Director smiled.
"Meaning the answer to that question is classified."

Massey frowned and pushed himself up from
the chair "With respect, sir, what you're suggesting is impossible. it
would be suicide for whoever goes in."

"And that's exactly why it would
work. Moscow would never expect it. Stalin is seventy-three. He's an old man in
poor health. You could say why don't we simply wait until he dies?' The
Assistant Director shook his head. "Jake, he could liv another five, ten
years. We can't take that risk. We've got to fight dirty on this one. And in a
barroom brawl you can't fight by the Marquess of Queensberry rules. Short of a
pre-emptive war, which we're not prepared for on that scale, it's the only
sensible solution we've got. We're not prepared to sit back an let another
Pearl Harbor happen. Not ever. Naturally, it's solution not without its risks.
That's why the mission will b limited to a small number of personnel operating
externally. one we would disassociate ourselves from if it went wrong. The
operation would be yours and yours alone. This is not an order to accept, Jake.
But I guess if it comes to it, I could make it one."

"Why me?"

The Assistant Director smiled. "Easy.
I can't think of anyone more qualified or experienced. Damn it, Jake, you've
sent more men across the curtain than anyone I can think of."

Massey crossed to the end of the patio
and looked back at the Assistant Director and shook his head. "It's a crazy
idea."

"Crazier ideas have worked for us
before. And if we'd done something like this some time back, someone like
Hitler would never have started a war."

Massey shook his head. "You don't
understand. Getting someone close enough to Stalin to kill him is impossible.
People have tried before and failed. Immigrant groups. The Nazis. Remember the
NTS report?"

Massey saw the Assistant Director nod, a
look like distaste on his face. "Sure I remember."

The NTS, or Narodny Trudovoy Soyuz, was a
group of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in Europe and America, controlled by
the CIA, who were devoted to the destruction of the Soviet regime. Many of its
members had volunteered to be parachuted onto Soviet soil on CIA reconnaissance
missions after the war. Many had also paid with their lives, both inside Russia
and without, victims of Stalin's murder squads, dispatched to Europe and
America to kill any prominent Soviet immigrants who actively opposed Moscow.
Two years after the war, determined to step up their campaign, NTS had set
about evaluating an assassination attempt to kill Stalin in Moscow.

Massey looked back at the Assistant
Director. "Their report speaks for itself. For one, Stalin's quarters in
the Kremlin are impregnable. Walls twenty-four feet high and five feet thick.
Even thicker and higher in places. Then there's the security measures Stalin
employs. Over five hundred guards are stationed in the Kremlin Armory, all
hand-picked, " fanatically loyal to Stalin. Less than a half-kilometer
away there's a reserve of three thousand Kremlin troops in case they're needed.
And those are only the visible deterrents.

"You both know that inside the
Kremlin there are secret entrances and exits that go back to the time of the
Tsars, ready to be used if needed. And at his villa at Kuntsevo his personal
security is impossible to breach. A twelve-foot-high fence. Guards with dogs
stationed all around the perimeter. You enter that area of forest and come
within a mile of the place without a special pass and you're dead, shot or
chewed to death.

"And it doesn't end there. Every
morsel of food Stalin takes, every sip of liquid that passes his lips, is first
tasted to prevent someone trying to poison him. He even has a woman assigned
solely to serve him tea. Each sachet is kept in a locked safe before it's
served. Once, a sachet was found not fully sealed.

You know what happened? The woman got
sent to the cellars of the Lubyanka to be shot."

Branigan interrupted. "Jake, every
suit of armor has its chink. It's a matter of finding the right chink. You know
that."

Massey shook his head firmly. "In
Stalin's case, there are no chinks. His security is airtight. Some people
thought there were chinks and tried to kill him, but they all failed. Even the
Germans failed. And if crack Nazi troops could fail, what hope have we?"

The Assistant Director sat forward.
"Jake, what if I told you we have a plan? Ways to get close enough to
Stalin to kill him. Right now, it's only a rough blueprint, if you like, but
with your experience you could fill in the details of getting our man into
Moscow and make it work."

"Then I'd like to hear it. But who's
going to carry out the plan?"

"You are."

"That wasn't what I meant, Who had
you in mind to send to Moscow?"

Branigan smiled. "We all know there's
only one man capable of pulling this off. Alex Stanski. He can play a Russian
to the hilt and he'd have no hesitation in putting a bullet in Stalin's
head."

Massey thought a moment. "You're
right about Stanski. But what makes you think he'll agree to do it?"

The Assistant stood up. "He already
has, in principle. He's the one other person I told you about who knows of our
plan, but not the details, and he hasn't seen the file you read. But we can
rectify that."

Massey sat back and shook his head.
"Sir, sending Stanski into Moscow alone would be suicide. He's an
American, born in Russia, but he hasn't been in Moscow since he was a
kid."