The Nuclear Option

by Allan Leverone

But after seeing how she’d handled herself against the predator he instructed his officers to place inside her cell last night, and now hearing her half of the conversation with one of the highest-ranking men in the Soviet Army—her discussion of what was clearly a bomb, and also of attacking General Gregorovich after infiltrating his home—Sasha simply could not ignore his instincts any longer.

  She was a spy, representing either America’s CIA or Great Britain’s MI6. There was no other logical possibility, and Sasha had carved out a highly successful career in law enforcement by following his instincts.

  And if she was a spy, there was something he needed to do right now.

  He hurried across his office and dropped into his worn desk chair. Thumbed through the list of contacts he kept in a ringed binder, the very same list he’d consulted just a few minutes ago to find Gregorovich’s telephone number.

  It took only a moment to find the information he was looking for, and when he did he dialed the telephone without hesitation. He had no idea how long General Gregorovich would stay on the line with the redheaded spy down on the second floor, and the general would expect Sasha to be there when he had finished speaking.

  But his current task was of the utmost importance.

  Because Lubyanka would want to know about a spy being held in the Rostov Jail, and would likely reward the man who brought that spy to their attention quite handsomely.

  The handset buzzed in Sasha’s ear as the phone rang. It was answered on the third buzz. Over the years Sasha had had occasion to call this number several times, and he’d noticed it was always picked up on the third ring.

  “Hello?” The voice was female and sounded bored. Another thing Sasha had noticed was that the calls to Lubyanka were never answered with any identifying information. If you dialed KGB Headquarters in error, you would never be aware of that fact.

  Sasha had not called in error.

  He said, “Hello, my name is Sasha Kuznetsov, and I am a detective sergeant with the Rostov Militsiya.”

  “How may I help you, detective?”

  “I would like to speak with the officer of the day, please.”

  “May I ask why you are calling?”

  “I have detained a young woman here in Rostov that I am certain is an American spy.” He didn’t bother adding the part about her possibly being British because as much as the KGB disliked Great Britain, they hated the United States, and the whole point of his call was to get the folks in Moscow to take him seriously.

  It worked. The voice no longer sounded bored. “Did you say an American spy?”

  “That is exactly what I said.”

  “Hold, please, while I transfer your call.” The woman didn’t ask for proof, didn’t question Sasha in any further fashion. That was not her job. Her job was to screen calls, and she had decided this one was worth passing along.

  This time the line was picked up on the first ring. The voice was clipped and officious, all business. “Captain Medvedev.”

  Sasha went though his introductory song and dance again, mentally cursing the time that was being wasted. But it was unavoidable, so he hurried through it and then passed along his suspicions, indeed his certainty, about the young woman who’d been involved in a serious automobile accident last night.

  Medvedev listened without interruption and then said, “What makes you think this woman is a CIA officer and not just a common criminal, detective?”

  Sasha outlined the equipment that had been found in her canvas bag, as well as the weapons that had been taken off her and the fact she’d been found with no identification, and then he outlined her complete lack of cooperation with the police.

  A short silence followed. Sasha guessed this was not a call they received every day, even at Lubyanka.

  After a moment the man said, “Where is this woman now?”

  “Here at the Rostov Administration Complex. She is currently in an interrogation room.” Technically he’d taken her to a conference room, not an interrogation room, but there was no need for the KGB to know that. He also kept to himself the information that she was speaking with General Gregorovich. It was always a good idea to hold something of value in reserve, even when speaking with government or military officials. Especially when speaking with government or military officials.

  “You did the right thing by calling,” Medvedev said.

  “Thank you, captain.”

  “I think you already know this, in fact I think it is the reason you notified us, but we would very much like to speak with this young woman. As a matter of fact, based on what you have told me, it would be best if we took possession of her here at Lubyanka, rather than interrogating her in Rostov. Would you be agreeable to that, detective?”

  Sasha clamped his jaws tightly closed to avoid laughing over the telephone line. To be a law enforcement official, or any government official, in Soviet Russia was to be entrusted with enormous influence over citizens’ everyday lives. But any power Sasha wielded was miniscule in comparison with that of the KGB. If Lubyanka wanted the redheaded spy, Lubyanka was taking the redheaded spy, and Medvedev’s asking for his concurrence was nothing more than a professional courtesy. Both men knew as much, and for some reason—perhaps lack of sleep—Sasha found that fact inordinately funny.

  Inappropriately funny, as well, because it would not be wise to allow Captain Medvedev to suspect a lowly cop was laughing at him.

  It only took a second to get himself under control, and then Sasha allowed that, yes, he would be quite agreeable to the KGB taking possession of someone who was likely working against the interests of the Soviet state.

  “That is exactly why I called you, as you said,” he added.

  “Good,” Medvedev answered. “And would you be willing to drive your prisoner to Lubyanka, so we can avoid wasting half a day’s productivity by one of our men in transporting her?”

  “Of course,” Sasha answered without hesitation. It annoyed him a bit that this KGB officer was implying his men’s time was more valuable than Sasha’s. Hell, he was more than implying it, he was stating it straight out. On the other hand, it was turning into a beautiful morning, weather-wise, and taking some time to drive to Moscow didn’t sound so bad, particularly when he could drop the woman off and then stop for lunch at a much nicer restaurant than anything available locally.

  “Thank you, detective. I will expect you later this morning. Please ask for me personally when you bring your prisoner to the front lobby.”

  “Will do,” Sasha said.

  “And detective?”

  “Yes?”

  “Excellent work.”

  33

  June 14, 1988

  8:00 a.m.

  Rostov City Jail

  Rostov, Russia, USSR

  Tracie became instantly suspicious when Kuznetsov scurried out of the interview room like a man on a mission after she took the phone to talk to Gregorovich. But she pushed it from her mind for the time being and said, “Good morning, General. Again, please accept my apologies for hitti—”

  “Never mind that,” Gregorovich said, his voice crisp and agitated. “What is this business you were telling Detective Kuznetsov about being in possession of something I lost? Tell me more about what that item might be, and if you are playing games you will be very, very sorry.”

  “I assure you I am not playing games, General. In fact it is just the opposite. I need to be released from custody in Rostov immediately, before the item of which we speak goes boom and kills thousands of Russians, if not tens of thousands.”

  “Are you trying to threaten me?”

  “It is not a threat, it is a statement of fact. I cannot threaten you with the item because I do not have it in my possession. What I do have is an approximate location where it might be. Or at least I had an approximate location last night, before getting run over by an eighteen-wheel truck.”

  “Where is it?” General Gregorovich said firmly. “Or to be more precise, where was it last night? Tell me right now,
and you might have a chance to win your freedom. Or at least to survive beyond the next few days.”

  “Well, the tenor of this conversation changed in a hurry, didn’t it?” Tracie said. “You don’t want me threatening you but you have no problem doing exactly the same thing to me.”

  “That is called a power disparity,” Gregorovich said angrily. “I have the power and you do not. And besides, I do not care what you think. You came into my home, disrupted my daughter’s party and attacked me and one of my men, injuring us both. To make matters much worse, you stole classified documents right out of my locked desk. Yes I am threatening you. Of course I am threatening you. I am surprised you would expect anything else.”

  Tracie let him rant and then answered calmly. “Well, see, here’s the thing,” she said. “I didn’t expect anything else, but you should be thanking me, not threatening me. My reason for being in your office had nothing to do with the item you so carelessly lost, but in the three days since, I managed to do something neither you nor, apparently, anyone else in the Soviet armed forces and intelligence services has been able to do. And that is locate it.”

  “You are going to tell me everything you know about that missing ‘item,’ as you are calling it. Every last thing. And you are going to do so right now.”

  “I don’t think so. If I do that I lose all value to you. Twenty minutes after I lose all value to you I’ll find myself chained up in a cell inside Lubyanka or worse, face down in the dirt with two Makarov slugs buried in the back of my skull.”

  “If you are not going to give me the information I require, then what was the point in calling and disrupting my day?”

  “The point is I need your help. Pay attention, General, I don’t have time to explain everything twice.”

  Tracie assumed he was paying attention because he sputtered incoherently on the other end of the line.

  She continued. “Here is what’s going to happen. You will instruct Detective Kuznetsov to release me immediately. And in return I will complete the mission I was so close to completing last night, which is to find that tactical nuke and save innocent civilians from being vaporized. Everybody wins.”

  “You expect me to just let you go? After what you just said to me?”

  “That is exactly what I expect,” Tracie said. “And the sooner the better. The clock is ticking, General, and when the timer gets to zero, well, I wouldn’t want to be the man in charge of weapons acquisition who lost the nuclear bomb that wiped out an entire Russian city.”

  Kuznetsov had just returned to the interrogation room, and at the words, “nuclear bomb,” his jaw dropped and he stared at her, his eyes wide.

  She ignored him, focusing her attention on Gregorovich. He represented her only hope of getting out of here, and given all that Kuznetsov had heard it was a virtual certainty he would call the KGB if Gregorovich didn’t order her release.

  “I did not lose any nuclear bombs,” Gregorovich said angrily. “I am in charge of acquisitions, the device’s disappearance has nothing to do with me.”

  “You want to stake your career on that, General? If that thing explodes, everyone who had anything to do with it is going down, and you know it. Even the Soviet Union won’t be able to cover up an entire city being wiped out, and party leadership will be looking for scapegoats if only to save their own asses.”

  Gregorovich was silent for a moment. Presumably he was digesting Tracie’s words. Everything she’d said would have been true in a democracy; it was especially true in the Soviet Union.

  The general sighed softly. “Even if I accept your analysis, you are but one person. I can mobilize thousands with a single telephone call to search for the device and then disarm it once it has been located. If you give me all the information you have, there will be a much greater chance of stopping this madness before the device is detonated.”

  “Maybe so,” Tracie said. “But saving all those civilian lives is just one of my goals, remember? I like the smell of fresh air.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I prefer not to spend the rest of my life inside an eight-by-eight meter cell. And at this point, the only way I can be reasonably certain of maintaining my freedom and enjoying that fresh air is by keeping the bomb’s location to myself for now. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Gregorovich sighed again, the sound this time an explosion of anger and frustration.

  Tracie waited, doing her best to control her nerves. There was nothing else to say to the general. He would either acquiesce to her demands or he would not.

  At this point, she wasn’t wild about her chances.

  The delay stretched on but eventually Gregorovich spoke. “You are an American CIA officer, aren’t you?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Your Russian is outstanding, but your diction is not quite right. Most people would not notice, but I have spent much of my career working among Russian-speaking Americans thanks to diplomacy I have conducted as part of my position in the Soviet Armed Forces.”

  “Well, right now, General, I am just a person. And that person is doing her best to save a lot of Russian lives. But I need your help if I’m going to make that happen.”

  Another silence, this one even longer than the last. Tracie still couldn’t guess what the outcome of this call was going to be, and it was clearly almost over.

  “Fine,” Gregorovich said. “I will instruct Detective Kuznetsov to release you immediately. I will order him to provide you with a vehicle, and not to have you followed when you leave the jail. Will that suit your purposes?”

  “It will suit them just fine.”

  “Good. But you had better justify my leap of faith, and you had better disappear once you have done so. Because if our paths ever cross again, you will be very sorry.”

  “General, you would be surprised how often I hear that.”

  Gregorovich ignored her and said, “Put Detective Kuznetsov back on the line.”

  34

  June 14, 1988

  8:10 a.m.

  Rostov City Jail

  Rostov, Russia, USSR

  Tracie handed the phone back to Kuznetsov and returned to her chair at the small conference table. General Gregorovich had told her exactly what he was going to say to the detective, but still she watched and listened closely.

  Time seemed to be moving much too quickly. She’d lost almost twelve hours to the damned car accident, and she could almost taste how badly she wanted to get the hell out of Rostov and back on the trail of the three Navsegda members and the tactical nuke. She’d been so close last night as she watched the men in their meeting with Dimitri Kozlov.

  Now she’d fallen behind again, but by how much? If Navsegda was transporting the bomb across Russia they could be five hundred or more miles away by now. She fidgeted in her seat, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor and tracing indentations on the scarred wooden tabletop with her index finger.

  At last Kuznetsov hung up the phone and turned to face her. “Well, I must give you credit,” he said grudgingly. “I did not think it could be done, but you have managed to arrange your release from my custody.”

  She shrugged, feigning indifference. “I told you.”

  “Yes, you did,” he agreed. “General Gregorovich has instructed me to drive you to Moscow and release you upon our arrival in the city. I am sure you will not object to leaving immediately.”

  Tracie forced herself not to react outwardly to Kuznetsov’s words, but she knew something was wrong. That was most certainly not what Gregorovich had told Tracie was going to happen.

  Someone was double-crossing her. Whether it was the general or Kuznetsov, she had no way of knowing for sure, but her money was on the big cop standing in front of her, suddenly speaking in an almost friendly tone of voice. He’d already detained her without charges and then sent a sexual predator into her cell to soften up her resistance by raping her.

  She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. And he wa
s a large man.

  “What is the matter?” Kuznetsov prompted. “Did you suddenly decide our hospitality here in Rostov is not quite as bad as you indicated earlier? Or perhaps you would like a little time to pack up all your things before we leave.”

  “No,” Tracie said, standing up from the table. “You are absolutely right, I don’t object to leaving immediately. The sooner you drop me off in Moscow, the sooner I can get back to work.”

  Kuznetsov pulled the door open and gestured for Tracie to exit the interview room. As she passed him, she said, “It’s very generous of General Gregorovich to ask you to transport me. That will save me quite a bit of time.”

  “Yes,” Kuznetsov agreed. “Generous.” He closed the door and said, “Please follow me. My car is parked behind the complex.”

  ***

  Tracie thought Kuznetsov would cuff her wrists behind her back for the drive, but he surprised her by not restraining her in any way. He surprised her again by allowing her to sit up front in the passenger seat. He was acting as though they were suddenly colleagues or even friends.

  Or maybe he felt invulnerable, confident in the fact that he was armed and she was not.

  Or maybe he was just a damned fool.

  He started the car and drove around the building. Accelerated along the access road and then turned south toward Moscow. In a matter of a minute or two they had left the jail/administrative building behind and were alone on a narrow country road, the same road Tracie had traveled in the opposite direction last night.

  She began to suspect she knew what was happening. Kuznetsov had as much as told her he believed she was conducting espionage. And if he were convinced she was a spy, he would have a hard time swallowing Gregorovich’s order to release her, despite the fact that order was coming from a high-ranking military officer.

  This wasn’t the United States, where a military official had no authority over a civilian law enforcement officer. In the Soviet Union, if an army general instructed a lowly police officer—even if that officer was a detective—to release a suspect, that suspect would be released.