Alex Berenson - The Silent Man

“You’re not going to blow them up?”

“How could we? We don’t have the codes. But this way they’ll be under extra pressure to make a deal.” Yusuf laid a hand on Grigory’s shoulder, and despite himself Grigory flinched. “Come on, Grigory. Don’t make me frighten you. Don’t think too much about it. Just say what’s on the sheet.”

“If you say so.” Grigory tried to ignore the tightness in his belly that told him he was a greater fool than ever. He memorized the words and spoke to the camera. He needed a few takes, but finally Yusuf pronounced himself satisfied.

“We’ll make a star of you yet, Grigory.”

BEFORE BED, Yusuf and Tajid prayed. They hadn’t kept to the usual schedule, five times daily. Grigory supposed they were allowed to break the rules on this mission so as not to attract attention. Grigory kneeled with them, listening to the words but not reciting them.

Then they sacked out on the floor of the living room. Grigory didn’t think he would sleep, but he did. He dreamed he was swimming in a pool filled with cologne and slept straight through until 5 a.m., when Yusuf kicked him awake. “Let’s go.”

“Can’t we hang around, watch TV?”

Yusuf squeezed his hands together. “A joke, right?”

“Very good.” Grigory knew he was making a mistake inciting the devil this way, but he didn’t much care. Yusuf would kill him or not, and a joke or two wouldn’t much matter either way.

“You’re lucky for my orders,” Yusuf said.

THEY HEADED SOUTH toward Volgograd, the former Stalingrad, site of some of the fiercest fighting in all of World War II. The Nazis and Soviets had battled for eleven long months for the city that bore Stalin’s name, both sides ordered never to surrender. By the time the fighting was done, almost a million men on each side were dead and the city was ash. And yet the cargo in their trunk could do just as much damage as all those men, Grigory thought. Secret armies, these bombs were.

By late afternoon the land turned hilly, and to the southeast Grigory could see the mountains of the Caucasus, big gray slabs of rock that disappeared in the haze. It was night when they reached Novorossiysk, on the coast. A day and a half had passed since Grigory drove out of Mayak with the bombs in his trunk. Grigory hoped they would leave Russia tonight. They didn’t have much time left. In another day or two, someone would be assigned to make sure that the weapons were present. Of course no one would think that a bomb was really missing, but with him and Tajid gone, they’d check anyway, just to be sure. And what a surprise they’d have.

Novorossiysk was a gray industrial city, the biggest Russian port on the Black Sea. Apartment buildings crawled up the hills that rose from the coast. The air stank of oil from the storage tanks on the harbor, round white behemoths a hundred feet high. They passed along its edge and turned southeast along the narrow coast road. The hills jutted up to their east and the sea lay to their west. The road was dark and slick and Yusuf drove carefully, both hands on the wheel.

“You know, even if we get in an accident, they won’t go off,” Grigory said.

“Are you ever quiet? You’re worse than a woman.”

Half an hour later, outside Gelendzhik, Yusuf pulled onto the grounds of a deserted hotel closed for the winter. A rutted road rose up a hill toward the hotel, a concrete building with a few ugly frills. Behind the hotel, a dozen cottages sat among leafless trees. Beside the cottage farthest from the hotel, Yusuf cut the engine and they sat in the dark. The rain had stopped, but the air was cold and damp. They waited in silence, listening to the cars on the coast road, and to their breathing.

They passed an hour that way. The car grew cold, but Yusuf didn’t seem to mind. He closed his eyes and dozed lightly. Grigory tried to do the same, but he couldn’t. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw everything that had happened since Friday, the convoy arriving, the masterful way he’d played Major Akilev, the way Boris had checked the trunk. It was as if he’d been born two days ago, and everything before that hardly existed.

“Tajid,” he said. “When Boris checked the car, were you nervous? Was your heart pounding?”

“I suppose.”

“That’s all you can say? You suppose. These bombs in our trunk, our lives facing us, and what did you think? Wasn’t your heart pounding?”

“You know what,” Yusuf said abruptly. “I never knew before. But two days with you have shown me. There’re only two kinds of people in the world.”

Grigory waited for Yusuf to explain, but he said nothing. “Shall I guess? The fat and the thin?” Silence. “Men and women?” Silence. “The strong and the weak?” Silence. “The tall and the short.” Silence. “Come, Yusuf, give us your wisdom.”

“Those who can keep their thoughts to themselves,” Yusuf said. “And those who can’t. Sometimes I could cut your throat for a few minutes of peace.”

“Only sometimes?”

Grigory never got to hear Yusuf’s reply, because at that moment a car scraped up the hotel driveway. It was the same Toyota that had stopped beside them at the petrol station the day before. The Toyota parked next to them and a man stepped out, an Arab by the look of him, darker than Yusuf. He wore a cap and a heavy jacket. The man was in charge, Grigory saw immediately. Yusuf treated him with a deference he wouldn’t have given Grigory even if Grigory had put a gun to his head.

Yusuf and the man walked behind the Nissan, and Yusuf flipped up the trunk lid. A minute or so later, the trunk lid was lowered. The man sat in back beside Tajid and pulled off his cap, revealing a nearly bald head — unusual for an Arab. He was in his thirties, medium height, with a neatly trimmed goatee, wide dark eyes, a handsome round face. He looked gentle, though Grigory was certain he wasn’t.

They drove down the hill, leaving the Toyota behind. At the coast road, Yusuf swung left, to the southeast. “I won’t ask you how you did it, but it’s a great accomplishment,” the bald man said.

“At last,” Grigory said. “Someone understands.”

THEY MADE GOOD TIME for a while, but then the road became a true coastal serpentine, rising and falling along the swooping contours of the hills. Yusuf drove slowly, and after two hours they’d traveled barely seventy kilometers — forty miles. But neither Yusuf nor the man in the back showed any impatience. Grigory figured they must have driven the route before and knew how long it would take.

Russians called this strip of the coast their Riviera, and during the summer, this road was jammed with vacationers. Now the houses and hotels scattered through the hills were mostly dark, closed for the winter.

Just past midnight, Yusuf swung off the road, to the right, down a narrow track that hugged a steep cliff down to the sea. When they reached the base of the cliff, they were in a campsite beside a narrow, heavily forested cove. The main road stretched high above them on a concrete bridge supported by a dozen pillars. With trees all around them and thick gray clouds blocking the moon, they were invisible from the road.

“I hope you’ve arranged a boat,” Grigory said. “Otherwise it’s a long way to swim.”

No one bothered to answer.

“Hard to believe the Olympics will be in Sochi in 2014, isn’t it? Though I don’t suppose any of us will be there.” Silence. Grigory sighed. “All right, then. Tell me this, Yusuf, since you’re such a philosopher, dividing the world into categories. What’s the harm in a bit of chatter?”

“Nothing.”

“At least he speaks! Go on, then.”

“As long as you’ve got something to say. Which you don’t.”

“And who made you emperor?”