Chapter 1
The Target
Image by Dreamstime
The talking heads on RT News were gushing about the upcoming speech which was meant to be just a few minutes away. The speech was by “Our glorious President Vladimir Putin!” But there were concerns for Putin’s safety at this May Day event.
It was the first May Day parade since the end of the Soviet era, he had foreign governments as well as Russian free thinkers extremely perturbed by his return to aggressive militarism.
Russian security services were very concerned about a potential assassination attempt on Putin. Bomb detection dogs with their handlers were checking and rechecking everybody and everything within 300 metres of the dias and bomb disposal teams were close by. Eight anti-sniper teams were positioned on the roofs of several tall buildings within a 2 kilometre radius of the Red Square dias. There were even several men who carried Geiger Counters through the crowds, these agents were on the lookout for a possible “dirty bomb” attack.
But the arse kisses at RT News thought Putin’s parade was the greatest thing since teleprompters “We’re back ladies and gentlemen… Comrades… back at this wonderful event, the first May Day March in Moscow in over two decades” said the overly animated RT News apparatchik “there is talk that President Putin won’t give us his speech today due to security concerns” he turns to his co-host “What do you think Nadia?” “He must speak Gregory!” She says, more like a cult devotee than a journalist “Putin must speak!”
Almost a kilometre away a pair of ancient, ex, KGB men sat silently in the cabin of a truck which was parked at an odd angle in a High School car park. They were wearing paper overalls with the hoods up, they were also wearing rubber gloves, paper booties and face masks. On the dashboard they had a four inch TV and were watching the May Day Military Parade live. “Putin must speak!” Yuri mimicked the co-host, “No no no, Nadia my darling, Putin must die!”
Now, the two old spies were actually just 968 metres from the podium which was almost due south of their position 18²⁰¹⁶’48" and their elevation was 2.6 metres below the podium’s base. Yuri had memorised these coordinates and measurements and he had practised this shot over 20 times on a deserted Soviet era firing range in Tajikistan. He was ready! There are no tall buildings in this part of Moscow and therefore as Yuri had predicted, no anti-sniper teams.
Yuri pulled a hip flask from the trucks’ glove box. Mikhail pulled down his face mask, “What have you got for me, comrade?”
“Patron!” replied Yuri. Now you would think old KGB agents like these two would be Vodka drinkers but not this pair. They had expensive tastes, developed way back in the 70’s when they both worked on the Friendship Train, a luxury train for officials and top military brass from all over The Eastern Bloc. Both Yuri and Mikhail had developed a love for Tequila and now that Yuri was worth millions, he could afford some top shelf Tequila. (Since his street urchin days in Leningrad Yuri had always worked some kind of black market side hustle.) “Only the best for my brother” said Yuri, followed by “Za zda-ró-vye”
Mikhail laughed “To your health? Are you serious, Yuri? No, no, no, I say, here’s to your quick and painless death “
“It’s the best we can hope for” replied Yuri and then he roared with laughter. They clicked glasses and slammed down their shots.
These two Comrades could not have been any different.
Yuri was (back in his day) 6'5" and 220 lbs
Mikhail was 5'1" and 120 lbs soaking wet.
Yuri had been a violent man all his life.
Mikhail was genteel.
Yuri was a soldier.
Mikhail was a spy.
Yuri was a bodyguard.
Mikhail was a pimp.
Yuri was straight.
Mikhail was Gay.
Yuri had a bonafide French identity.
Mikhail had a bonafide US identity.
They both had bonafide Hungarian identities.
Yuri lived off the grid, all over the former Soviet Union.
Mikhail lived a normal life as a retiree in Phoenix, Arizona (under a false identity of course)
Yuri paid big money to hide.
Mikhail was in the FBI protection program for former agents.
Mikhail has only killed three people in his career and they were all back in the 70’s.
Yuri stopped counting corpses on Christmas Day 1979 when he hit double figures somewhere in the Hindu Kush Mountains.
Yuri had killed men with guns, bombs, rockets, air strikes and his bare hands.
Mikhail had only ever used a 25 calibre pistol to the head.
Since their time together working on the Friendship Train Yuri had worked the blackest of KGB Black Ops from Vietnam to Afghanistan. In the mid 70’s and again in the mid 80’s he did two stints with the Foreign Legion and then with his Legionnaire associates he’d worked as a mercenary, body guard, smuggler, gun runner and black marketeer all over the world.
Meanwhile Mikhail had infiltrated the FBI, he’d lived & worked in Washington DC for over 30 years.
Yuri loved a woman he never married
Mikhail married a woman he never loved. Both women had been murdered by the FSB.
The pair had been on the run from the Stasi since 1975, after the unexplained shooting death of a East German Union Leader who’d been travelling to Moscow on the Friendship Train. They had done a pretty good job of hiding from the Stasi for over a decade, then the Berlin Wall came down and the Stasi evaporated. Yuri lived openly for a few years but then in 1992 it all went tits up when Yuri stopped the wrong cab on a snowy St Petersburg day. That chance meeting, that accidental encounter between Yuri and Putin, meant that Yuri had to go off the grid again.
Years earlier Putin, the KGB and the Stasi had been told Yuri and Mikhail were dead, eliminated on the orders of their superior, but it was all lies, they were alive and well. Yuri and Mikhail have always been the biggest threat to Putin’s career.
So Putin has been looking for Yuri and Mikhail for over 20 years now, ever since St Petersburg. These two knew Putin’s past, they knew his dirty secret. They saw Putin botch a mission and then kill 3 of his comrades. They had even helped Putin dump the bodies in the Danube River. If they ever told anyone what they knew or what they saw, Putin would be unpalatable as a world leader, the Americans, Italians and Germans would definitely denounce him. The UN would sanction him and every day Russians would see him as a traitor & his old Comrades from the KGB & the Stasi would slit his traitors throat!
The little TV announced the parade was finished and Putin was making his way up to the Podium. The President would give a long and boring speech followed by fireworks.
“It’s time Mikhail…good luck comrade” “May you have a quick and painless death Yuri!” They both took another shot of tequila and jumped out of the truck, both men were carrying a tool bag, the tool bags had larger canvas sports bags stuffed inside them as well as a few tools to make them look legit.
The doors of the truck had signage that read “24/7 Emergency Sewer Repairs” The pair figured that sign alone would be enough to keep anyone at a distance, but just in case they also put out a few “Danger-Biohazard” signs and a few orange cones.
The back of the truck was canvas stretched over a metal frame.
Several sewerage pipes hung out the back, resting on the tailgate pointing upwards at about a 45' angle. There were even more pipes in a rack above the tailgate, but if you looked closely at the pipe in the middle of the tailgate it was different from the rest. The middle pipe was actually the barrel of a mortar. Not just any mortar but a stolen prototype of an 82mm silenced mortar, the 2b25 Gull. The manufacturers claimed it would be no louder than a silenced 9mm pistol.
Pixabay
Yuri climbed into the back of the truck with his tool bag and then pulled out a mobile phone.
Mikhail cut the padlock on the school doors then made his way up to the third floor. He too pulled out a mobile phone as well as a pair of binoculars. After an hour or so he called Yuri, put his phone on speaker and placed it on the windowsill in front of him.
“Putin is winding up his speech, the sun is setting, the fireworks are about to begin & I’m ready”
Yuri had three mortar rounds ready to go. He knew he could have blindly fired six rounds in one minute but with a spotter, he had hoped for one aimed shot, and then two corrected shots, in a little less than two minutes. There would be less casualties this way (although the KGB had conditioned them both not to worry about such things) but most importantly, they had a better chance of getting Putin.
“Ok Mikhail, here goes number one”
Yuri dropped in his first round, the mortar made a ‘Pumm’ sound, no louder than a slamming door.
He counted “24, 25, 26”
“Too short by 20 metres” Mikhail calmly tells him and then ‘Boom’ Yuri hears the first explosion as he dials in the range for his second shot.
‘Pumm’ off goes his second round, they wait, 24, 25, 26. “Direct hit comrade!” Says Mikhail as he waits for the smoke to clear …’boom’ Yuri hears the second explosion. “It’s chaos over there” reports Mikhail, his eyes glued to the binoculars.
“It’s time brother, I’ll drop in my third round and let’s go” Yuri urges him.
“Hang on, I see the bodyguards preparing to carry somebody, they are pointing to the their left, that’s YOUR right, aim 30 metres to your right…wait, wait, wait…ok they’re moving, shoot now”
Yuri drops in his last round ‘Pumm’
Yuri packs the mortar into his larger sports bag & throws it over his shoulder. Using a cigarette lighter he ignites a slow burning fuse hanging over the tailgate. He calmly walks away from the truck and meets up with Mikhail behind a dumpster in an alley. They both strip off their paper overalls, masks, gloves and booties, it all goes into Mikhail’s sports bag as well as the mortar’s aluminium base plate. They calmly walk over to a very ordinary looking Subaru Forester, there’s siren’s sounding all over Moscow but none seem to be close to them.
As the night sets in, they make their way to Tsvetnoy Boulevard, they park the Subaru and walk away with the sports bags. The pair get to the edge of the Neglinnaya river. Under the cover of night they drop the bags in the river.
They split up and walk 3 kilometres to their safe house. Both men were trained in counter surveillance by the best in the world…nobody had followed them.
Inside the safe house they had guns, ammo, food, police radio’s, everything! Everything they’d need to hole up for months if necessary, they also had a larger TV which Mikhail turned on.
“BREAKING NEWS” said the RTS anchor. “The President of The Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin has been rushed to Hospital after an assassination attempt this afternoon…we do not know his condition or the extent of his injuries, if any at this stage, meanwhile Chechen separatist have taken responsibility for the bombing”
Mikhail turns to Yuri, “What now comrade?”
Before I tell you the end of this story, perhaps I should tell you how it all began, over 80 years ago. There’s a plethora of characters and moving parts in this sordid history, so I think telling the story chronologically is the easiest way to go.
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