His name was Sergei Shvets and he was chairman of the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor to the much vaunted and feared KGB. Seated in the copilot’s seat of the Kamov helicopter, he watched with impatience as the calm waters of the Black Sea whisked below him. He was a sturdy man with dark, sunken eyes, a bulldog’s jowls, and a spray of silver hair. He was fifty years old. In Russia, he looked his age. In Paris, New York, or London, people thought him sixty. Though it was cool inside the cockpit, beads of sweat dotted his forehead and upper lip.

“How much longer?” he asked the pilot.

“Five minutes.”

“Good,” said Shvets, checking his watch. For some meetings, it was wise not to arrive late.

Ahead, sprawled across a 150-kilometer crescent of shoreline, lay the city of Sochi, and behind it, rising out of a pink mist, the snowcapped spine of the Caucasus Mountains. Sochi had long been the chosen summer resort of Russia ’s Communist leaders. Like those leaders, the town was staid and orthodox, almost ashamed of its bourgeois subtropical climate. In the past few years, however, the city had undergone a spate of development. The country’s newly minted elite arrived in loud, bejeweled masses to revel in Sochi ’s abundant sunshine and outdoor cafés. Luxury villas had sprung up along the seafront, each more grandiose than the next. Roads meant for ZILs and Ladas were clogged with Mercedeses and Range Rovers. Sochi was christened Russia ’s Saint-Tropez.

But of late the president had given his countrymen a new reason to flock to Sochi. In 2014 the Black Sea resort would host the XXII Winter Olympic Games.

Shvets counted the number of cranes on the skyline and stopped at fourteen. It was the same number as the last time he had visited. As the helicopter swooped low over the city, he observed that several of the building sites appeared deserted, or in some cases abandoned altogether. Sochi, like the Rodina, lived and died according to the price of oil. He had little time to consider this. By then he’d spotted his destination and was pulling himself upright in his seat, wiping his brow, and tightening his necktie.

Bocharov Ruchei, the president’s summer palace built in the 1950s, was situated on a wide swatch of lakefront several kilometers south of the city. The helicopter landed in a grass field adjacent to the palace’s office wing. A waiting shuttle delivered Shvets to the rear of the president’s quarters. As he walked toward the entrance, he noticed a shadow above him. He glanced up. Snipers from the Interior Ministry were positioned on every rooftop of the complex. The president was frightened. This was a new development.

Once inside, Shvets was led to an elevator and ushered two floors belowground to the president’s shooting range. An aide offered him noise suppressors. Shvets placed them over his ears before passing through the glass doors that led into the range itself. Back to the wall, he watched the president fire round after round into the blackened silhouette of a United States Marine.

Finally the president turned and motioned for Shvets to approach. “Well?” asked the president.

“Ivanov is alive, but in intensive care. I have no word yet about his prognosis. Ambassador Orlov is dead, along with several of his staff. The police have no one in custody. Details are still sketchy, but it’s clear that this was no homegrown operation. The attack required expert planning, execution, and intelligence.”

The president struggled with the pistol’s safety. He possessed none of his predecessor’s facility with weapons, nor his love of violence. By nature he was weak but cunning. A weasel, with a weasel’s razor-sharp teeth. He was also smart. He knew that Russia demanded its leader to be a strong man and he was determined not to disappoint.

“Orlov was a good man,” he said. “I know his family. We will make sure he receives a state funeral.” He finally snapped the safety into place and gazed up at his visitor. “Did we not have any indication that something was in the air?”

“None,” responded Shvets. “Given Ivanov’s history, it’s difficult to know the motive. If ever there was a man with an abundance of enemies, it is Igor Ivanovich.”

“True, but I am certain this is not about Igor Ivanov.”

“Oh?”

“If Ivanov’s enemies wished to kill him, they could find a way to do it in Moscow with far less trouble.” The president dropped the clip from his pistol, and Shvets saw that it was the antique 1911 Tokarev custom built for Czar Nicholas II, rumored to be the very weapon that had killed him and his family. Even from several steps away, he could see the jeweled Romanov eagle embedded in the pistol’s pearl handle.

“No, this was not an attack on Ivanov,” the president went on. “This was an attack on our country. An attempt to strike while we are weak.”

Shvets thought of the abandoned worksites he’d viewed flying in, the buildings left half finished. He did not refute the comment. The country was in a lamentable condition, and everyone knew it.

For the past ten years the Russian economy had expanded at an average annual rate of 7 percent. Growth was due entirely to the exploitation of its vast natural resources: timber, gold, diamonds, natural gas, and most of all oil. Proven reserves stood at 80 billion barrels-seventh largest in the world-with experts certain that another 100 billion barrels remained to be discovered. Production had increased from 6 million barrels a day in 2001 to 10 million barrels a day in the past year. This increase, along with the stratospheric rise in oil prices over the same time, had resulted in a bonanza of cash. At its peak, Russia was earning well over $1 billion a day from oil exports alone, or over 65 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

Since then the price of oil had utterly collapsed, and it showed no signs of rebounding. The stock market had shed 80 percent of its value, and foreign direct investment had dried up entirely. Worse still, the ruble was down by half against the dollar in the past three months alone.

The country was in free fall.

“Do you know why I sent Igor Ivanovich to London?” the president asked.

Shvets admitted that he did not.

“I sent him to meet with a consortium of European petroleum companies in the hopes of winning back their confidence so that they might consider investing with us once again. In the past we were arrogant. We did not keep our promises to our business partners. Our demeanor was predatory. We wanted everything for ourselves. It’s no wonder that they fled. I’ll admit it was my fault, but what’s done is done. It was Ivanov who showed me that I was wrong. Without help from the West, we will never be able to bring back oil production to its former level, let alone increase it. With my blessing, he extended an olive branch to the major petroleum producers. It was not a popular decision.”

“Oh?”

“The men who run our domestic oil operations aren’t anxious to cede even one ruble to others. They’ve grown fat and lazy. They’ve lost the ability to separate their own well-being from that of the motherland’s.”

Shvets knew them well.

Before moving into the private sector, all had spent their careers with the KGB. One had served an assignment as station chief in Mozambique. Another had been second secretary at the United Nations. A third had acted as a double agent nestled inside the Russian embassy in Madrid, pretending to be America ’s greatest source. And Shvets had headed Directorate S of the KGB, in charge of clandestine operations, everything from running covert agents abroad to conducting industrial espionage on Russia ’s behalf to planning and executing acts of terror on foreign soil.

They were a brotherhood of spies.

And as such, none was to be trusted.