Ньют Гингрич - Collusion

Petrov drew another RPO-A Shmel, this one loaded with a thermobaric warhead, which he fired at MUTT-TWO. The rocket flew wildly to its left, a mishap that accidentally had it striking the location where MUTT-TWO was repositioning itself. A flash on Kim’s computer screen confirmed its demise. With only the heavy machine gun still operational, Kim began pulling MUTT-ONE deeper back into the trees.

Petrov fired yet another rocket, causing a loud explosion and fire near where MUTT-ONE had been. To protect the mechanical killing machine, Kim did not give up its position by returning fire.

Again, Petrov ordered his mercenaries to stop firing and the ambush scene became quiet.

Petrov signaled his fighters to move from their hiding spots across the grass separating them from the forest. They walked gingerly toward the fallen limbs and still-smoking grounds that had been cleared by the rockets.

Petrov and one fighter remained behind to protect Gromyko, who emerged from the Maybach, thinking the assault had ended.

Having drawn back farther into the trees, Kim fired MUTT-ONE at the soldiers pursuing it, causing them to drop onto the forest floor. One of the mercenaries bolted toward the gunfire, heaving a grenade with all his strength.

It landed a few feet from MUTT-ONE’s track plates. It exploded, destroying the tread, grounding the machine.

Kim waited as the mercenaries slowly edged forward. Waited until they were near enough to see that they had been fighting hardware. Having never seen such a machine, they grouped around it. Their leader raised his two-way radio to report to Petrov.

Kim pushed a detonate switch and MUTT-ONE exploded into pieces of deadly shrapnel.

The blast drowned out the suppressed double tap from Garrett’s newly acquired SIG Sauer. He had fired after emerging from the forest and making his way across the grassy area behind the vehicles so that he was now less than fifteen steps from the Maybach’s driver’s side. His shots had hit their target—the mercenary who’d stayed behind with Petrov to protect Gromyko. He’d been standing at the front of the Toyota watching the woods when he was fatally wounded.

Petrov suddenly realized the retreating machine-gun fire and blast had been designed to draw his fighters away from the Maybach. He cursed for not paying attention to the woods behind him. His rear flank.

The broad-shouldered Russian tossed aside the spent rocket launcher and shoved Gromyko down toward the ground in the gap between the Maybach and the Toyota. He drew his Makarov pistol and turned to face Garrett, who was approaching from the vehicle’s driver’s side.

Garrett had removed his head covering. His head appeared out of proportion to the expansive ghillie suit that padded his frame. He could only see Petrov’s head above the Maybach as the Russian glared at him across the luxury sedan’s roof. Garrett’s target was much smaller than what Petrov could see. The Russian raised his pistol to fire across the Maybach at the same moment that Garrett aimed his SIG Sauer. Only ten feet separated them. Garrett had once seen a lieutenant empty the clip in his semi-automatic pistol at a Taliban fighter who was shooting back at him in close quarters. Both missed. Hitting a paper target was different from firing at a man trying to kill you. But Garrett and Petrov were not inexperienced marksmen subject to panic. Neither flinched. Petrov’s slug grazed the fringe on the right shoulder of Garrett’s ghillie suit near his neck. Garrett’s SIG Sauer struck the Russian in the center of his nose. He dropped.

Garrett hurried around the Maybach’s trunk. Gromyko was crouched near the car’s front tire, holding his PSM pistol.

When Gromyko had exited the car’s backseat, he had left the passenger door open. Garrett ducked behind it as Gromyko began shooting. PSMs were generally loaded with rounds designed to penetrate Kevlar vests, but they were no match for the Maybach’s armored door and bullet-resistant glass. Gromyko kept shooting until his gun was empty.

Garrett stepped from behind the passenger door and peered down at the general, who was still kneeling next to the front tire and clutching his useless weapon.

“I’m unarmed. I surrender,” Gromyko cried. He dropped his pistol. “You can arrest me now.” He held out his wrists.

In that moment, Garrett thought about Valerie Mayberry. He saw her sitting in a wheelchair, staring out at the gardens. He placed his SIG Sauer semi-auto on the top of the Maybach’s roof.

“What did you tell me at the laboratory when you poisoned Yakov Pavel?” he asked rhetorically. “That Russian saying, ‘He is brave when fighting against sheep, and when fighting against a brave man, he’s a sheep himself’?”

From a slit inside his ghillie suit, Garrett withdrew his tactical knife. Using a blade made killing much more intimate than a bullet, much more personal.

And that was exactly what Garrett wanted.

As this novel was going to press, General Colonel Igor Korobov, the Russian mastermind behind the 2018 Novichok poisonings in Salisbury, England, died under mysterious circumstances after being personally reprimanded by President Putin. According to press reports, Korobov emerged shaken and in sudden “ill health” after being admonished for mishandling the attempted murders of former Russian military officer and double agent for British intelligence Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal. As in this novel, the Kremlin deals harshly in real life when those overseeing clandestine murder plots fail.

Putin Critics

Mikhail Lesin: Found dead in her Washington, D.C., hotel room in November 2015.

Alexander Litvinenko: Former KGB agent poisoned drinking tea laced with deadly polonium-210 at a London hotel in November 2006.

Anna Politkovskaya: Crusading journalist and author of Putin’s Russia , in which she accused Putin of turning his country into a police state, shot point-blank in an elevator outside her apartment.

Natalia Estemirova: Journalist who uncovered human rights abuses by Russia in Chechnya, was abducted from her home, shot in head.

Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova: Human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov represented Putin critics, and was murdered by gunmen outside the Kremlin. Journalist Baburova, walking with him, was fatally shot when she tried to help him.

Boris Nemtsov: Former deputy prime minister of Russia under Boris Yeltsin who accused Putin of accepting bribes from oligarchs, was shot four times walking home from a restaurant.

Boris Berezovsky: Russian oligarch who fled to Britain after a bitter dispute with Putin. Was unfortunate victim of a suspicious death at home in March 2013 after threatening to “bring Putin down.”

Paul Klebnikov: Chief editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine who had exposed corruption of Putin’s friends, was murdered during a drive-by shooting.

Sergei Yushenkov: Russian politician who founded a political party critical of Putin, was fatally shot in his face.

Yuri Petrovich Shchekochikhin: Writer and liberal lawmaker in the Russian parliament, Shchekochikhin died in July 2003 from a mysterious illness a few days before his scheduled departure to meet with FBI investigators. His medical documents have been “classified” by the Russian authorities.

Journalists and Writers

2000

February 1—Vladimir Yatsina, Homicide

February 10—Ludmila Zamana, Homicide