“I am under orders from President Gryzlov himself, Excellency,” the man in the backseat, Bruno Ilianov, said. Ilianov was a Russian Air Force colonel and, officially, deputy air attaché assigned to the Russian embassy in Washington. Beside him sat a woman with jet-black hair, high cheekbones, and an athletic body, her sunglasses hiding dark eyes. “But I am happy to follow those orders. These Americans, especially the ones from his home city, treat McLanahan like a god. It is an insult to all Russians. The man who deliberately murdered President Gryzlov’s father and bombed our capital city does not deserve to be lauded.”
“You are—or shall I say, were, before you touched those bags—an official military representative of the Russian Federation, Ilianov,” Chirkov said. “And you”—he turned to address the woman—”are a high-ranking security officer with diplomatic privileges, Korchkov. You both will lose your diplomatic credentials and be forced to exit this country forever, as well as being banned from entering all North Atlantic Treaty Organization and NATO-aligned countries. Less than six months in the United States, on your first major Kremlin posting overseas, and now you are nothing more than a common thief and vandal. Does your career mean so little to you?”
“The president has assured me that my future will be secure, sir,” Ilianov said. “Even if I am arrested, all the Americans can do is deport me, which I will gladly see happen just to get away from this corrupt and decrepit country.”
Ilianov was an idiot, Chirkov thought—Gennadiy Gryzlov discarded human beings like used tissues, and had done so for decades. But the world geopolitical situation was far more serious than Ilianov’s brainless actions. This could completely destroy American-Russian relations, Chirkov thought—although, truth be told, those relations were already pretty bad right now. He knew Gennadiy Gryzlov’s father, Anatoliy Gryzlov, had issued orders that killed tens of thousands of Americans and even hundreds of fellow Russians on Russian soil, and he had no doubt that his son was capable of similar unspeakable acts. Although Chirkov was the fourth-highest-ranking member of the Russian diplomatic delegation to the United States of America, Gryzlov’s family was far wealthier and vastly more politically powerful than his own. Whatever Gryzlov had in mind beyond grave robbing, Chirkov probably couldn’t stop him. But he had to try to dissuade him somehow.
Chirkov half turned in his seat. “What else is President Gryzlov planning, Ilianov?” he asked. “Defiling and looting a crypt is bad enough.”
“When that crypt held the remains of Mother Russia’s most murderous aggressor since Adolf Hitler, I am happy to participate,” Ilianov said. “McLanahan is a criminal that murdered the president of my country. He does not deserve to be honored.”
“That attack was a long time ago, and it was during a time of war.”
“A war of McLanahan’s making, sir, completely unauthorized and illegal,” Ilianov said. Chirkov sat motionless, suppressing a shake of his head. Former Russian president Anatoliy Gryzlov had retaliated against an attack led by Patrick McLanahan by unleashing waves of nuclear-tipped supersonic cruise missiles and nearly wiped out America’s entire land-based nuclear deterrent—along with several thousand Americans—in what became known as the “American Holocaust.” McLanahan’s subsequent nonnuclear attack on Russia with America’s last remaining long-range bombers was the response, which left both nations with near parity in the numbers of nuclear warheads. The final attack, led by Patrick McLanahan himself, was against Gryzlov’s alternate underground command post at Ryazan, a pinpoint strike that had killed the Russian president.
Whoever was responsible for starting the bomber war that led to the American Holocaust and the attack on Ryazan, McLanahan or Gryzlov, was debatable and probably pointless, but Gryzlov was definitely not an innocent bystander. A former commanding general of Russian long-range bomber forces, he had responded to an almost insignificant attack on Russian air defense sites by unleashing nuclear warheads and killing thousands of Americans in a sneak attack. These were not the actions of a sane man. When McLanahan captured a Russian air base in Siberia and used it to stage attacks on Russian mobile ballistic-missile sites, Gryzlov ordered another nuclear cruise-missile attack . . . but this time targeting his own Russian air base! His obsession with killing McLanahan resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Russians at Yakutsk, but McLanahan escaped and killed Gryzlov several hours later by bombing Gryzlov’s alternate and supposedly secret command post.
“Give me the urn and the other items, Colonel,” Chirkov insisted. “I will return them at the appropriate time, and I will explain that you acted out of extreme emotion and have been sent back to Moscow for grief counseling or something that will hopefully arouse a little bit of sympathy.”
“With respects, sir, I will not,” Ilianov said in a toneless voice.
Chirkov closed his eyes and shook his head. Ilianov was a brainless stooge of Gennadiy Gryzlov and would probably die before handing over the things he had stolen. “What will the president do with them, Colonel?” he asked wearily.