Rapp nodded. “You should probably talk to your security people about that.”
He dismissed the thought with a wave of an arthritic hand. “If it had been just the Colonel, I’d have defended myself. But both of you? Why sacrifice men who’ve been loyal to me when the outcome is inevitable?”
Azarov was right. The guy was impossible not to like.
Chkalov pointed to the slight bulge in Rapp’s jacket. “May I?”
Rapp pulled the weapon from its holster and handed it to the man.
“Is this the one you’ve always had? I mean, since you switched from the Beretta?”
Chkalov wasn’t kidding. He really was a fan. “No. A few have gotten away from me over the years.”
“I’m surprised it’s stock. I was expecting something more exotic—like the one the Colonel carries.”
Rapp just shrugged.
“Of course it’s stock,” Chkalov said after a few seconds. “Why wouldn’t it be? It’s not the gun. It’s the man behind the gun!”
He aimed at a marble bust near the wall and sighted along it, smiling broadly. “Did you know that I once met your mentor, Stan Hurley? Is it true that before he died, he used his teeth to rip out Louis Gould’s throat?”
“Yeah. It’s true.”
Chkalov returned the Glock and limped back to his desk to sit. “A fitting death for a warrior. But you didn’t come to talk about that. You came to talk about Maxim.”
“He’s run off the rails,” Rapp said. “Why?”
“I have no idea.”
“I didn’t come here to play games, Tarben.”
“I think it’s clear that I know who you are and what you’re capable of. I haven’t lived this long by misunderstanding the situations I find myself in.”
“Then tell me what I want to know and we’ll walk out of here.”
The man’s brow furrowed and he fixed his blue eyes on Rapp. “Maxim Krupin is a destructive sociopath. But I and the others tolerate him because he shares our passion for political stability. But now that stability has disappeared. Why? Clearly he feels threatened—by NATO’s overtures to Ukraine, by younger politicians, by the performance of the Russian economy. Even by Grisha here.”
“But how’s that any different than his situation a month ago?”
“Exactly! I don’t know. All these situations are controllable. I see no evidence that he’s losing his grip on power.”
“So there’s nothing you can tell me that I can use.”
“I didn’t say that. Something you probably don’t know is that Maxim recently tapped Andrei Sokolov to lead the military.”
“The war criminal?”
Chkalov nodded. “Andrei is a dangerous man prone to fevered visions of Russia’s past glory. He’s the only man Maxim trusts, though I’ve often wondered if that trust is well placed.”
“What about you? Would he see you as a threat?”
The dull thud of chopper blades became audible, still distant enough to be more a vibration in Rapp’s chest than a sound. Chkalov’s hearing aids apparently picked it up, too. “That may be your answer, Mitch.”
Rapp moved to the window as Azarov took a position next to the partially open door.
The view was onto the expansive back lawn which dead ended into trees after about two hundred yards. The sky had turned a deep blue but appeared to be empty. “I don’t see anything. It must be coming in from another direction.”
“The hall’s clear,” Azarov said.
“Is this common?” Rapp asked turning back to the old man.
“Uninvited helicopters flying over my property? No.”
Chkalov pulled a cigar from his desk drawer and lit it. “I’ve been saving this for a long time. Cuban. I was told that they’re rolled between the thighs of young girls. A lie, of course, but it conjures a wonderful image. Sun, sand—”
His voice was drowned out by an explosion that rocked the entire house. Rapp and Azarov crouched when the automatic fire started, but Chkalov just kept puffing.
“If the two of you would be so kind as to kill Maxim Krupin and that son of a whore Andrei Sokolov, I’d be forever grateful.”
Rapp grabbed the man by the shirt and dragged him out from behind the desk. “Time to go.”
“I’m not as fast as I once was. I think I’ll just stay here.”
Rapp shook his head. “You might not know much about what’s happening but you know more than we do. Irene Kennedy’s going to want to talk to you.”
The name of the CIA director seemed to pique his interest. “I’ve always wanted to meet her.”
“Here’s your chance,” Rapp said, pulling him toward the door. Azarov was already moving down the hallway, disappearing into the thickening smoke. The sprinkler system went off a few seconds later, drenching them as they approached the stairs.
It turned out to be a bad call. Both staircases leading to the entry had men coming up them, two on the right and one on the left. None were clad in the heavy armor their colleagues in Costa Rica had worn, which was a positive since Rapp’s magazine was full of standard ammo. On the downside, the lack of weight was allowing them to move with impressive speed.
Azarov spotted them and retreated, going for the thicker smoke behind him. Rapp took a corridor that split off the main hallway, keeping Chkalov in front of him.
“I saw three. Are there any more?” Rapp asked.
“Not that I could make out,” he responded as they backed along the corridor, getting out of the worst of the smoke. Not great for their cover, but it had been getting hard to breathe and Rapp’s eyes were starting to water. Chkalov was still puffing on the cigar, unperturbed. He seemed to think he was just a spectator in all this.
“That’s a hell of a lot of guns shooting outside,” Rapp said. “More than I can differentiate. What kind of team would Krupin send?”
“Nikita Pushkin with at least fifteen,” Azarov calculated. “Particularly after what happened in Costa Rica.”
Rapp pointed to a bulky chest of drawers behind them and then at Chkalov. “Get behind that.”
“Are you sure? I’d be happy to help.”
“Go!”
The old man looked a little disappointed as he wandered toward it. Rapp spotted a disturbance in the smoke and both he and Azarov froze. A moment later that disturbance had become the outline of a man wearing goggles and a gas mask. His assault rifle was sweeping smoothly back and forth but he hadn’t yet picked up his targets.
Rapp took careful aim and put a single round through one of the lenses covering his eyes. He hadn’t had time to screw on his suppressor and the noise would be sure to bring the dead man’s comrades running.
Before he could even turn, they appeared, guns on full automatic. The muzzle flashes reflected off the falling water and haze, creating enough visual chaos to make it impossible to aim.
Rapp spun and sprinted in the opposite direction, diving to the soggy carpet near the chest of drawers where Chkalov had taken refuge. When he finally managed to get behind the piece of furniture, he saw that Chkalov was down. The bullet had been enough to kill him but not enough to dislodge the cigar or smile.
The piece of furniture was holding up surprisingly well to the fire it was taking, but it wouldn’t last. He suspected that not much of the other side was still intact and that he was being saved by whatever had been packed into the drawers.
For a moment, he thought Azarov had abandoned him, but then he saw a muzzle flash from the far end of the hallway. One of the automatics firing at the chest of drawers went silent while the stream of bullets from the other arced toward the Russian’s position. Rapp rolled from cover and fired a shot that hit the remaining man in the throat, putting him down.
Instead of retreating, Rapp ran forward, stripping two of the bodies of their AKS-74U carbines and spare magazines. The man he’d hit in the throat wasn’t dead yet, but he was definitely on his way out. Rapp pulled a grenade off his vest as he choked on what had once been his Adam’s apple.