“And what about when he’s traveling between the Kremlin and Novo-Ogaryovo. He must be vulnerable then.”

Lance listened to them beat around the bush and he couldn’t stand it. This shit with Roth, the plastic surgery, the manipulation, was precisely the kind of thing that caused him to leave the agency in the first place. Now they were letting political considerations cloud their judgement, and were trying to talk Laurel out of a perfectly planned military operation.

He got in front of the screen.

“Mr. President,” he said, “it’s like this. We thought about taking Davidov while he traveled between locations. He moved by armored cavalcade. It was heavily guarded, but there were certain spots, such as along Tverskaya, where it was vulnerable to attack.”

“But that plan’s changed?”

“The Russians are spooked, sir. Laurel took out Timokhin. Tatyana killed Mansfield. The Russians are feeling the heat, and Davidov’s taken to traveling strictly by helicopter. He flies directly from Novo-Ogaryovo to the Kremlin and back. We can’t shoot him down. There’s too high a likelihood he’d be killed and we want to talk to him if possible. So, either we grab him at Novo-Ogaryovo, or we take him at the Kremlin.”

“And you prefer the Kremlin?”

“If you’re worried about the optics, the political fallout, maybe attacking Novo-Ogaryovo is preferable. But operationally, given the security upgrades that have been performed on that compound over the last decade, taking him at the Kremlin is our preferred option.”

“I see,” the president said.

“We’ll be in and out in a matter of minutes,” Lance said, “and sir, if I may be frank, regardless of what happens once we break in, I highly doubt the Russians will ever admit that we’d successfully broken into the Kremlin.”

“You think they’d be afraid of losing face.”

“Wouldn’t you, sir? That fortress has symbolized their military power for the best part of a millennium.”

The president looked at some of the generals and advisors who were seated around him.

“Gentlemen,” he said to them, “what do you think?”

“This Davidov,” one of the generals said, “has the last remaining sample of the virus?”

Roth answered. “That we know of, general. The lab that isolated the virus in Yekaterinburg has been destroyed. The lead researcher from the institute has confirmed all the experimental strains were destroyed in that attack. Other than those, we know of only two vials that ever left the institute. One was given to Tatyana Aleksandrova.”

“Which was given to us,” the president said.

“Yes, sir,” Roth said, “and the second was given to Major General Anton Yevchenko, who we believe passed it on to Davidov in Moscow.”

“So if we take Davidov, we take out the virus?”

“That’s the hope, general,” Roth said.

The general nodded. Roth looked at the president and he seemed satisfied also. Everyone in the Pentagon turned to face Lance and Laurel.