The tower blocks around them were full of their enemies. In a few more seconds the American was going to start yelling for help. And that would bring people out onto the street, some with guns, who might help. The American would get away and the whole plan would be blown.

Without hesitation or remorse, Major Anatoly Nikolayevich Vronsky of the 45th Guards Spetsnaz Regiment reached under his jacket and, with the practiced coolness of a Special Forces soldier, pulled out a PSS silenced pistol, issued only to Russian Special Forces, KGB, FSB and MVD. He took careful aim at the center of the sprinting Trapnell’s back and fired two successive bursts of two rounds in quick succession at twenty-five meters.

Trapnell was bowled forward and over like a shot rabbit. He twitched a couple of times and then lay still.

Vronsky turned, no emotion on his face. There would be ample time for blame and punishment once they were safely across the border. “You two, fetch the body.” He indicated behind him with his thumb. “Clear up any blood.”

“Praporshchik Volochka.” He pointed to the woman who had called herself Anna Brezhneva. “We are moving straight to extraction. Get the vans here now.”

0800 hours, Wednesday, May 10, 2017

The President’s weekly defense and foreign policy meeting, The Kremlin, Moscow

FYODOR FYODOROVICH KOMAROV, the President’s Chief of Staff and regular judo partner, was below average height, stocky with the pale blue eyes and fair hair of a northern Russian. He was usually the most unruffled of men but he was troubled that morning. In line with his KGB training he was systematic, paid careful attention to detail, and took nothing for granted. He was also utterly single-minded, whether in his service to the President, or as a key player in the group of St. Petersburg-based former KGB officers—known as siloviki—who had effectively taken over Russia from the reformers after Boris Yeltsin’s demise; men who bitterly regretted and resented what had happened to their beloved country ever since.

Komarov knew only one way: ruthless control. That was the old Soviet way. He also knew that the price of failure was high and that morning he had to manage the President’s reaction to yesterday’s kidnap of the Americans in Kharkov and the unanticipated death of Master Sergeant Trapnell.

Clutching his briefing papers and notebook to his chest, he knocked twice on the ornate, gilded double doors of the President’s office.

The doors were opened soundlessly by two soldiers in the ceremonial uniform of the Kremlin honor guard; tall, imposing and specially selected for their impeccable Slavonic looks, they were the men of the 154th Preobrazhensky Independent Commandant’s Regiment, the men who protected the President.