Read Online Assassin by David Hagberg - Free Book Online

themselves to was not only dangerous—they had no idea who to trust or learn who they were—but it was foolish. No one in Russia could be trusted with such a secret. So Yemlin did the next best thing by contacting his old mentor Eduard Shevardnadze, president of Georgia, who would have as much to lose under Tarankov as they would.
    Shevardnadze had agreed only to discuss the issue, and only when Yemlin felt that there were no other options left to them, and that time was running out.
    Yemlin put out his cigarette, finished his drink and rinsed the glass in the kitchen sink. He pulled on his greatcoat and went down to a pay phone in the metro station a block away. He never used his home telephone for important calls, nor did he bother having it swept. All the old checks and balances were in place in the SVR, which meant all but the most senior officers were spot checked from time to time. The easiest and most cost effective way to do that was by monitoring telephone calls and opening mail. But Yemlin had been around for a long time, and he had a few tricks up his own sleeve.
    Sukhoruchkin answered the telephone at his home on the second ring. “ Da ?”
    â€œMeet me at the airport.”

    â€œNow?”
    â€œYes,” Yemlin said. “It’s time.”
    Yemlin called his contact at Vnukovo domestic airport. “We would like to go flying this evening, Valeri.”
    â€œIt’s a lovely night for it,” his pilot replied. “The tops are low, so once we get above all this shit you’ll be able to see the full moon.”
    â€œWe’ll be returning in the morning.”
    â€œAs you wish.”
    Yemlin’s final call was to a special number in the SVR’s communications complex. After one ring he got a dial tone for an international line that could not, by design, be monitored. In two minutes he was connected with the residential quarters of the president of Georgia.
    â€œThis is Viktor Pavlovich.”
    â€œI expected you would call this evening,” Eduard Shevardnadze said.
    â€œKonstantin and I would like to see you tonight. Will you be free?”
    â€œAre you calling from Moscow?”
    â€œ Da . But we can get down there by midnight unofficially if you will have a car and driver to meet us.”
    â€œWhat’s the tail number of your airplane?”
    Yemlin told him.
    â€œTake care, my old friend. Once a word is out of your mouth you can’t swallow it again.”
    It was an old Russian proverb which Yemlin understood well. He hung up and headed for a cab stand.
    Tbilisi, Georgia
    The aging Learjet, which Yemlin occasionally leased from a private enterprise he’d set up ten years ago for a KGB-sponsored project, touched down at Tbilisi’s international airport a few minutes before midnight. As promised the 1500-kilometer flight above the clouds had been smooth, the full moon dramatically illuminating the thick clouds below them until they broke out in the clear at the rising wall of the Caucasus Mountains.
    They were directed along a taxiway to the opposite side of the airport from the main terminal, where they were met by a Zil limousine and driver, who took them directly into the bustling city of more than a million people.
    Although Tbilisi was on a high plain in the mountains it was much warmer than Moscow. And it seemed more prosperous than the Russian capital, with cleaner, brighter streets and shops, though closed at this hour, displaying a wide variety of consumer goods. Georgia was not without its problems, but they were being addressed and slowly solved under Shevardnadze’s capable leadership. All that would change for the worse, Yemlin thought, if Tarankov was successful.
    They were brought to the rear courtyard of the presidential palace off
Rustavelli Boulevard and were immediately escorted inside to a small private study on the second floor. Heavy drapes covered the windows, and a fire burned on the grate. The