CHAPTER 7

Basel, Switzerland

November

FEW MEN ADDRESSED VASILI ANDRENOV by his given name. Almost everyone addressed him as “Colonel, ” the highest rank he’d achieved before the Soviet Union collapsed. To the intelligence services who were aware of his existence, he was known as Кyкoльньій мacTep, “Puppet Master. ” This apt description was the result of his years of service in Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, better known as the GRU. If there was a Soviet-backed revolution, insurrection, assassination, or coup in the 1970s or ’80s, chances were that Puppet Master was the one pulling the strings. Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Angola, and Mozambique all carried his fingerprints and those of his team of “advisors. ”

Unfortunately for Andrenov, he was not in the good graces of the current Russian regime and was forced to live as an expat due to unproven suspicions concerning his involvement in the assassination of a former defense minister. Basel had been Andrenov’s home for the past decade, ideally located to maximize access to the power centers of Western Europe while taking advantage of the privacy and nonextradition practices of the Swiss Federation.

Andrenov also liked to be close to his considerable wealth, all of which was tucked into the world’s most secure banking system, just down the road. His line of work had left him with numerous enemies, both state and nonstate, so he kept travel to an absolute minimum. When someone as wealthy as the Colonel needed to see a physician, banker, or prostitute, they came to him.

However, despite a lifetime of sin, depravity, and merciless violence, Andrenov saw himself as a devout Orthodox Christian, and the traditions of his faith did not make house calls. When he left his embassy-like walled compound in the Dalbe neighborhood, it was to visit St. Nicolas Orthodox Church on Amerbachstrasse, something he did like clockwork the one Sunday each month when services were held there.

The Colonel’s devotion to the church had not prevented him from masterminding the assassination of Catholic archbishop Ó scar Romero in 1980 or the subsequent massacre at his funeral; those events served the greater good of delegitimizing the government of El Salvador, which in turn served Mother Russia. Andrenov’s religious dedication was more nationalistic than spiritual in nature. He saw the Russian Orthodox Church as the core of Russian culture, without which the nation would still be factions of warring tribes riding the steppe. Who else could have defeated the mongrels to the east, the Nazis to the west, the Japanese on the seas, and the mighty United States in the third-world battlefields of the Cold War? Inept government, rampant corruption, and an ethnic death spiral of low birth rates and short life expectancies had brought the tide of Russia’s greatness to an ebb. Andrenov’s calling was to see that greatness wash back over its banks from Istanbul to Paris.

Andrenov folded his coat collar upward to protect him from the bitter cold and nodded to Yuri Vatutin to open the door. Another man, part of the very capable security detail comprised of former members of the FSB’s Alpha Group that Yuri led, opened the back door of the armored Mercedes S600 Guard idling its 530-horsepower V-12 in the gated circular driveway. Andrenov lowered himself into the heated leather seat as the door closed behind him. Yuri took his spot in the passenger seat, his suppressed AK-9 between his knees, and spoke into the microphone at his wrist to alert the men in the lead and chase vehicles that it was time to move. The wrought-iron gates opened, the vehicle barrier was lowered, and the well-armed and armored motorcade sped toward Sunday mass.

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