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Jackboots crunched through the shards of glass and splintered masonry littering a floor once richly carpeted, now charred by blast and fire. The tapestries that had covered one wall had all been torn down, as had the gilt-framed, life-sized portraits of Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and that bastard Leonov. Filing cabinets had been overturned, their contents scattered and burned. The smell of fire and high explosive still clung to the place. An ornate desk lay half buried beneath a fallen, inner wall, while windows smashed by the concussion of multiple RPG rounds gaped open to Moscow's leaden February sky, allowing a bitter swirl of snowflakes to dance across the debris.

Marshal Valentin Grigorevich Krasilnikov surveyed the wreckage of the office for a grim moment, then holstered the Makarov pistol he'd been gripping in one black-gloved hand. The traitor had fled, but damn it, how had he known? How had he known?

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