“Understood,” said the general. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Of course.”
“I think we need to strongly consider eliminating Senator Filmore and his daughter,” said the general. “Put all of their bodies on a private jet and crash it.”
“Was the daughter at the camp?” asked Pichugin.
“Yes. She survived.”
He didn’t see any way to salvage the situation with Senator Filmore at this point. If Farrington’s people started circulating pictures of the wife and son, the media and federal law enforcement would start asking questions that nobody could adequately answer. They needed to get ahead of that. A tidy plane crash with all four of them on board would snuff out the fire generated by the pictures.
“Make it happen. Quickly,” said Pichugin. “And have Alexei prepare a list of the entire network. I want the sleepers broken down into three categories: critical, essential, and nonessential to FIREBIRD. Then break each of those categories down into public sector or private sector. Any operative that can be easily identified represents a risk to FIREBIRD and an opportunity for Farrington and Berg. I expect them to sharpen their sleeper-hunting skills in the upcoming days. The fewer liabilities we have out there—the better.”
“As in permanently retire?” said the general.
“I mean recall them. Give them twenty-four hours to get on a plane and leave the United States behind,” said Pichugin. “Why? What did you think I meant?”
“I was just making sure,” said the general.
“Don’t get me wrong, Grigory,” said Pichugin. “If we activate a recall of noncritical sleepers, anyone that doesn’t comply with the order will experience the other type of recall.”
“Understood,” said the general.
“I’ll need to speak with the big man regarding a recall. He may not want to dismantle that much of FIREBIRD yet,” said Pichugin.
“Will you be coming to Moscow, then?” asked the general.
“No. He’s in Saint Petersburg. I’ll arrange a meeting this afternoon,” said Pichugin. “And Grigory? A few more things.”
“Yes?”
“First. Have we made any progress toward finding Gray, Berg, or any of their suspected associates?” asked Pichugin.
“Kazakhstan filed a Red Notice for Karl Berg and Richard Farrington yesterday. Russia will file one today, citing the same charges related to their alleged involvement in terrorist attacks against state facilities. Both of them are actually suspected to have been involved with the attack on the Vector Institute in Novosibirsk and the downing of two Russian helicopters in Kazakhstan,” said the general.
“They like blowing up helicopters,” grumbled Pichugin.
“Apparently so. The Red Notices will give our people in US law enforcement an excuse to put some more robust surveillance and detection measures into action. We’re still looking at a few days before that gets rolling. We can expand the list of names to other known associates of General Terrence Sanderson—Farrington’s mentor—and Farrington himself. Once we get a bunch of names in there, our people inside US law enforcement can start looking at Devin Gray and Marnie Young.”
“Very well,” said Pichugin. “And what about DEVTEK? Are we making any progress on that front? Without a back door to their infrastructure-security software, we’ll have to do things the hard way—which represents a significant delay. Not to mention the risk.”
“We’re working on it. As you can imagine, a company that provides state-of-the-art cybersecurity solutions isn’t easy to hack,” said the general. “We’re exploring more direct options, but their guard is up after the honey-trap debacle. Kind of ironic that Gray may have been involved in the DEVTEK operation.”
“More like annoying,” said Pichugin. “Keep a close eye on MINERVA. If Gray makes the same connection, he could complicate our efforts to breach DEVTEK.”
“We’re doing what we can to monitor MINERVA without alerting them to our presence. Not the easiest task, given their specialty,” said the general. “Was there anything else?”
“Yes. Give Felix Orlov whatever he needs to make sure the job gets done next time,” said Pichugin.
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“I know it wasn’t his fault,” said Pichugin, on the verge of screaming at Kuznetzov for underutilizing Orlov. “Which is why I don’t want him restrained in any way. We’re licking our wounds this time. Next time we’ll be mopping our blood off the floor. We can’t afford another setback. Not this close to the finish line. The final dominoes should fall within the next few weeks, driving a permanent wedge between the Americans and their European allies—reopening doors long shut to Russia.”