Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [59]
This time, however, neither Arch Carroll nor Caitlin Dillon was invited to travel down to Washington.
“What did I do?” Caitlin angrily complained to Carroll when she found out.
“You’ve got the wrong friends,” Carroll said. “You’re traveling in bad company.”
“You?” she asked.
“Yeah. Me.”
Chapter 41
AT 4:30 THAT MORNING, three sets of headlights lanced a dense gray wall of fog. The lights stopped suddenly, making circles on a twelve-foot-high electrified gate dripping snow and ice.
The oppressive gate was meant to help protect the Russian version of Camp David, a heavily fortified hunting lodge called Zavidavo.
“Prajol!” Two militiamen from the Internal Security Division waddled out into the bracing cold. They were carrying machine guns, dressed in bulky coats. It was their job to check the identification of all visitors.
In a matter of seconds, a Cheka and two hand-tooled Zil limousines were cleared to proceed up the icy lanes winding to the main hunting lodge.
The automobiles, side-blinds drawn, carried six of the most important decision makers in Soviet Russia. The military guards hurried back into their gatehouse and immediately called for emergency security for the resort compound.
Inside the main dacha, Major General Radomir Raskov of the GRU Secret Police was feeling apprehensive as well; but he was also heady with excitement. Raskov had commissioned an elegant country breakfast to be served in a sun parlor, which was heated by a blazing log fire.
Right after breakfast, General Raskov would drop his private bombshell on the six visiting leaders.
At a little past 5:00 A.M., the Politburo steering group sat down to steaming platters heaped with duck eggs, country sausage and freshly caught fish.
The breakfast table group included Yori Ilich Belov, the Russian Premier; a Cossack, Red Army General named Yuri Sergeivitch Iranov; the First Secretary of the Communist Party; General Vasily Kalin; the heads of both the KGB and GRU.
General Radomir Raskov spoke informally over the clacking noise of forks and knives. His smile, which was usually a small tight fist of teeth, was surprisingly warm. “In addition to the main business of our meeting, I am delighted to report the wood pheasant are back on the north ridge.”
Premier Yori Belov clapped his huge hands. A stiffly formal man wearing thick bifocals, he raised his dark, fuzzy eyebrows and smiled for the first time since he’d arrived. Premier Belov was an obsessive hunter and fisherman.
General Raskov continued in a more serious tone. “On December sixth, as you all know, I spoke with our Mend Francois Monserrat about the dangerous and now potentially uncontrollable economic situation developing in the United States …
“At that time, he informed me he had been contacted by persons claiming responsibility for the Wall Street attack…. During the past two days, Monserrat’s representatives have met with representatives from the so-called Green Band faction. In London …”
Premier Belov tamed sharply to Yuri Demurin, director of the KGB. “Comrade Director, has your department been successful in discovering anything further about the provocateur group? How, for example, were they able to originally contact Monserrat?”
“We have been working very closely with General Raskov of course,” General Demurin lied with unctuous sincerity. “Unfortunately, at this time, we have been able to come up with nothing definitive.”
General Raskov clapped his hands harshly for a servant.
Demurin was his only rival in the Russian police world. Demurin was also a capital shit, a petty bureaucrat without a single redeeming characteristic. Whenever he was in a staff meeting with Demurin, General Raskov’s blood boiled.
A blond maid appeared, hovering nervously. The maid’s name was Margarita Kupchuck, and she had served at Zavi-davo since the early 1970s. Margarita Kupchuck’s quiet humor had made her a personal favorite with the important Soviets.
“We’re ready for more coffee and tea, my dear Margarita. Some preserves