Vince Flynn - Order to Kill

Azarov traversed the sidewalk and entered the lobby he’d driven past. As always, the front desk was empty and he went directly to the lone elevator at the rear. It opened automatically at his approach and he stepped in. There were no buttons, so he just stood there, moving a hand subtly toward his gun as he began to descend.

The elevator had been designed as a death trap. It could be dropped, filled with gas, or simply fired upon when the doors opened. Unfortunately, he had no choice but to hope that none of those options were currently on the table.

When he came to a stop and the doors slid back, the spec ops unit he half expected to find was absent. Instead, he saw nothing but the familiar gray corridor broken by a single door on the right. He listened to the sound of his footsteps and the hum of the cameras tracking his progress as he approached the door. It, too, slid open and he entered, but then stopped short before fully crossing the threshold.

The large conference table that normally dominated the room was gone and a massive desk had been placed near the rear wall. Sitting behind it was Maxim Krupin.

“Mr. President,” Azarov said, not bothering to hide his surprise at the man’s presence. “I wasn’t expecting you to conduct this meeting personally.”

Azarov studied the room as he spoke, looking for any hint that this was a trap. But there was nothing. In light of that and the fact that he hadn’t been relieved of his firearm, it seemed that no attack was imminent. Whether this would be a positive development in the long run remained to be seen.

The Russian president’s physical presence suggested that the situation was even more dangerous than Azarov’s worst-case projection. The fact that Krupin would agree to leave the security of the Moscow and resurface in a forgotten FSB outpost was extremely telling. Not only was he unwilling to include his most trusted advisors in this meeting, he didn’t even want to give Azarov his orders inside the walls of the Kremlin.

“Sit,” Krupin said simply.

Azarov took a chair in front of the desk and the president turned a laptop toward him.

“Do you know what this is?”

The image on screen was immediately recognizable. “A map of Saudi Arabia.”

“And the highlighted area?”

“The country’s most significant oil-producing region. The majority of Saudi Arabia’s oil comes from there.”

“Historically, the Saudis have acted as swing producers,” Krupin said, lecturing Azarov on matters he was fully aware of from his cover as an energy consultant. “But they’ve ceased acting responsibly in that role. They insist on producing at full capacity, depressing energy prices worldwide.”

“They’re committed to keeping renewables economically nonviable and American production unprofitable.”

Krupin tapped a key, switching to a photo of a room with a floor covered in bomb-making equipment. “And this?”

Along one wall were six medium-size wooden crates. It wasn’t hard to guess what was in them, and Azarov felt his mouth go dry. “I assume that your operations in Pakistan were successful and that the boxes contain fissile material from Pakistani nuclear warheads. It appears that the material is being used to build dirty bombs.”

It could have been much worse, Azarov tried to remind himself. At least these weren’t the sophisticated nuclear bombs he had feared Krupin was building. “Beyond that, I can only speculate.”

“Please do.”

“You’ll place them at strategic points in the Saudi oil fields and detonate them. It will completely shut down extraction and refining in the area for the foreseeable future.”

“Very good, Grisha. But you make one mistake. It won’t be me placing the bombs, it will be you. Our military forecasters say a front is coming in that will create ideal wind conditions.”

“Of course,” Azarov said numbly.

“With the exception of your failure to kill Mitch Rapp, you’ve served me well. This will be your final task. When you return, I’ll give you a position of power in my administration. Or, if you prefer, I will make you an oligarch. Dmitry Utkin’s assets are still under my control. Since you were the one who killed him, it would be fitting for you to be the one to inherit his empire.”

“I’m not sure I’m the wisest choice for this operation, Mr. President. After my confrontation with Scott Coleman, it’s possible that the CIA knows my identity. Surely you have access to skilled men that the Americans are unaware of.”

Krupin nodded thoughtfully. “It’s possible that they know who you are. But it’s also possible that Irene Kennedy’s suspicions go well beyond the matter of your identity. Russia’s future turns on this single event, Grisha. Will we be great again or will we rot and fade into irrelevance? I can’t trust something this important to anyone else.”

“But if the Americans have suspicions, they may be able to trace this back to you. Certainly the fact that spiking oil prices will benefit Mother Russia won’t be lost on the rest of the world.”

“And what will they do, Grisha? With Saudi Arabia’s reserves largely inaccessible, our production capacity will become even more critical to the world economy. And our nuclear arsenal precludes any military action against us. With the money that comes flooding in, I’ll be able to retake the breakaway states that were stolen from us. I’ll restore Russia to its rightful place in the world order.”

“Mr. President, I must-”

“Do you know what the people want?” Krupin said, cutting him off. “Not full bellies. Not warm beds. They want glory. They want power and respect. They want to be part of something great so that they can tell themselves that their pathetic little lives matter.”

The bizarre truth was that Krupin was probably right. The Russian people hated the breakaway states-their perceived indifference to Mother Russia, their halting steps toward the West. But most of all, the Russian people hated their success. The loss of the superiority they’d once felt as they gazed out over their empire.

Even if Krupin’s actions were at some point discovered, it was possible that the Russian people would see them less as a crime against humanity and more as a bold move on the international chessboard. Decisive action against a terrorist-sponsoring Saudi regime bent on keeping Russia weak.

And he was most definitely correct about Russia’s oil and gas production becoming critical. Without the flood of money that propped up the corrupt and hopelessly incompetent Saudi government, the royal family would collapse. ISIS would overrun not just Saudi Arabia but also Kuwait and the UAE, to name just a few. Energy prices would skyrocket and Russia would go from being a decaying nation with an economy smaller than Italy’s to a world power with the ability to break its enemies by simply turning off the spigot.

Azarov suddenly regretted the understanding of economics and politics that he’d gained over the years. It was impossible not to see a future of millions dead in the Middle East. Of a world held hostage by a megalomaniac with a nuclear arsenal and natural resources that he used not for the greater good-or even for profit-but as a tool to maintain his own position.

The gun hanging beneath Azarov’s arm started to make its weight felt. He had the power to end this. To put a neat hole between Krupin’s eyes and to save the world from the horrors he would inflict.

It was an interesting thought but, in the end, a fleeting one. Saving the world wasn’t his responsibility. And even if it was, what would be the point? If not Krupin, then it would be someone else. The human race’s fate was to sow the seeds of its own destruction. Let deluded patriots like Mitch Rapp risk their lives to save a world that neither wanted nor deserved saving. Azarov’s only responsibility was to himself.