by Jack Mars
Nevertheless, Don softened his stance in deference to the leader of the free world. “Mr. President, the operation took place a short while ago, and in some sense is still in motion, but I’m happy to report on the broad outlines of it, as I understand them.”
“Please do,” the president said.
Don nodded. He had no PowerPoint display of the operation. He had nothing on paper. He’d given Stone a great deal of leeway to birth it or abort it on the fly, depending how the circumstances looked on the ground. He knew what Stone had pitched him, he knew that it was creative, daring, and dicey as hell. And he gave Stone the green light.
“We infiltrated Russia with four men,” Don said. “Two Special Response Team operatives led the operation, the same men who rescued your daughter six weeks ago, Mr. President. I believe those two men may be the best special operators America has in her arsenal. Certainly among the best.
“They went in separately, and were accompanied by a member of the Chechen resistance and a highly regarded Georgian commando, both men combat experienced.”
Don paused.
“As we understand it, the Chechen blew himself up with a suicide belt,” a man said. He was a thin man with sandy hair in a blue dress shirt and wire frame glasses. “He took out several Sochi policemen. Our using an Islamic extremist in an operation, who himself employs a technique so closely associated with the terrorist atrocities in Beslan and Moscow… well, you can all gauge the optics on that for yourselves.”
Don stared at the man. “Who are you, please?”
The man nodded. He didn’t look up from the papers in front of him. “Paul Neal, Associate Director, Office of Russian and European Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency.”
“Well, Paul Neal, the president asked me to report on the operation. Do you mind if I finish doing that?”
The man waved a hand at him. This was the hard part for Don. This was always going to be the hard part. He was accustomed to being treated with respect, and to his credibility and authority being unquestioned. Some of these people…
He shook his head and went on.
“The attack was two-pronged, something of a pincer movement. Agent Stone and the Chechen approached the docks by land, Agent Newsam and the Georgian in two separate speedboats. The initial attack by sea was a modified version of the October 2000 Sudanese and Al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole …”
Don shrugged and smiled just a touch. “Minus the suicide part, of course. I haven’t spoken to my operatives yet, but it appears the attack was devastatingly effective. Not only did it severely damage the Russian freighter holding the submersible, it sowed confusion and chaos among the defenders, allowing Agent Stone and his partner to storm the front gate and overwhelm the defenders there.”
Don looked around for any more challenges. None were immediately forthcoming.
“Within moments, Stone and his partner reached and freed the prisoners. Moments later, the second speedboat arrived, and under heavy fire, the prisoners were transferred to the speedboat, and the team made its escape.
“My understanding is that the freed prisoners are now in CIA custody, moving through a network of Georgian safe houses, and may in fact already be safely out of the country.”
He stared at the CIA man. “Would you agree with that assessment, Vice Deputy whatever you are?”
The man looked up. His bland eyes met Don’s. “The men are at a military hospital in Israel. We needed to get them somewhere friendly that was nearby and had top-quality medical care available. Between the three of them, they sustained nineteen gunshot wounds during the rescue. The civilian submersible pilot, Peter Bolger, appears to have suffered a heart attack of unknown severity.”
“Will they pull through?” Don said.
The man looked at his paperwork. “All three men are considered in serious but stable condition. They will be debriefed when their conditions allow it.”
Don looked at the president. “The prisoners were rescued. The high-tech submersible was scuttled. The three surviving members of the infiltration team all received gunshot injuries as well, but are expected to pull through. All of my SRT operatives are en route to the United States, on timetables and using methods that will safeguard their identities. The fact that this caused diplomatic trouble was baked in from the very beginning. If we want to avoid problems like this in the future, I’d suggest being more judicious about where we plant our submarines, and which operatives carrying sensitive information we put in the field.”
Dick Stark was still standing. His face, stern before, seemed disappointed now. He turned to one of his aides. “Roger, can you give us a rundown of the most recent intelligence assessments so that Director Morris has a clearer idea…”
“Dick,” Don began.
But the general put his hand up. “Don, you were a great soldier and you’re a great American. But you need to hear this. It’s not a rodeo out there. Frankly, this has been my concern about you from the start. And believe me when I say I’ve voiced my concerns to the FBI director, and to the president. You’re a cowboy, Don, and you always have been. But the era of cowboys and Indians is over.”
Don said nothing to that.
“Roger?”
The aide looked down at the papers in his hand. The paperwork had been passed to him from a runner who had come bustling in moments ago with a pile of printouts.
The aide cleared his throat.
“Intelligence analysts assessing the situation at the Port of Adler docks are calling the operation a bloodbath. American and allied forces appear to have taken the Russians completely by surprise and wiped out somewhere between twenty and forty Russian military, private security, police, and firefighting personnel.”
He turned over a sheet of paper.
“At approximately eleven forty-five p.m. local time, three forty-five our time, less than ninety minutes ago, a Predator drone controlled by the United States National Security Agency made multiple strikes on the Yuri Andropov II freighter, docked at Port of Adler. To be clear, Port of Adler is located inside Russian Federation territory. This is thought to be the only direct act of aggression against Russian soil in American history. The attack circumvented normal chains of command. It was apparently requested by Agent Mark Swann of the FBI Special Response Team, and was carried out without authorization by an unnamed NSA drone pilot. Apparently, the two men are friends.”
The aide looked up, allowing the full weight of what he had just said to sink in with his audience. Two guys, drinking buddies probably, working at different agencies, had gotten together over the phone and decided to attack Russia.
Don shook his head. Swann!
It was upsetting, of course, but at the same time, it was almost comical. He wanted his people to show initiative. But drone strikes on the Russian mainland took the initiative a little too far.
The aide went on:
“Immediately after the attack, American listening stations throughout the world began to pick up alarming Russian military chatter. Uh… the Russians appear to be treating this as an unprovoked act of war. As of four p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, Russian Strategic Command has mobilized far-reaching military assets. Infantry units have sealed the major border crossings between Russia and Georgia, and additional infantry as well as heavy tank and artillery units have begun to mass along that border. More infantry units are moving to the border between Russia and Ukraine.
“Russian Navy units have seized the Crimean port of Sebastopol, and taken Ukrainian sentries there prisoner. A Russian naval strike force is moving into the Bosporus Strait, and we believe that very soon the strait will be closed to shipping traffic, cutting off trade to two dozen ports in Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria.”
“They can’t do that,” someone said. “It’s against every—”
“The Turkish government has already lodged complaints with the Russians themselves, the United Nations, and the NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe. However, there isn’t much that can be don
e about it at this time. If the Russians want to take that strait, they’re going to. For all intents and purposes, Russian naval assets operate virtually unchallenged in the Black Sea.”
The aide turned another page over and continued.
“As of four fifteen p.m., the Russian natural gas pipelines delivering fuel supplies to the Czech Republic, Poland, and Germany have begun to shut down. Obviously, this is summer so these deliveries are not as crucial as they would be in winter. However, if this becomes a long-term standoff, each of these countries will face natural gas shortages within short timeframes. In particular, Poland has few reserves and at current usage rates will be out of gas, so to speak, in fourteen days or less.
“More concerning, Russian bombers and fighter planes have begun patrolling at the edge of American airspace in the Bering Strait, and have penetrated across the Arctic Ocean, testing British RAF response in the North Sea, and buzzing Canadian airspace over Newfoundland and Labrador. American fighter jets have made very dangerous visual contact—repeat, visual contact—with Russian fighters in the airspace between Iceland and Canada.”
The aide turned over the next page and skimmed it before reading aloud. He was a young man, perhaps in his early thirties. He was obviously concerned about the things he was reading. He cleared his throat again and breathed deeply.
Despite the aide’s deep concern, Don found himself somewhat comforted by the initial actions of the Russians. They were angry, and perhaps justifiably so. But the moves they had made were always at their fingertips. They could close the Black Sea to shipping, or turn off natural gas supplies to central Europe, any time they wanted.
Without American intervention, they should be able to run right over the Georgians and the Ukrainians. Hell, they could probably take Crimea without firing a shot. It was part of Ukraine, but most of the population was Russian.
They were rattling sabers a little bit.
And the fighter planes buzzing American airspace? That part was a dog and pony show. We knew it, and so did they. Those old Soviet MiG-29s were so much target practice for our advanced F/A-18s. The Russians weren’t going to dogfight us with their Cold War leftovers. We would turn their Air Force into Swiss cheese.
“It’s a measured response,” Don said. “They haven’t attacked anyone or anything. Not yet, anyway.”
The aide coughed. Then he spoke again.
“Perhaps most worrisome, more than two hundred missile silos across the Russian heartland and Siberia are reporting states of combat readiness. These include launch silos for nuclear-equipped intercontinental ballistic missiles targeting the United States.
“Intelligence assessments suggest that the major danger here is not that the Russians will launch a massive first strike. The danger is that Russian command and control has degraded significantly in the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Our analysts are concerned that during an extended crisis, Russian Strategic Command could either lose contact with outlying silos or installations, or that communications could become unclear or misunderstood. According to the assessments we have, there is a very real danger of Russia launching a missile or missiles by mistake.”
He took another deep breath.
“Our own missile defense system remains as robust as ever. Any nuclear missile attack launched by the Russians, whether on purpose or in error, will trigger a massive response from us. And we have to assume that such a response from us will in turn trigger a massive response from them.”
The aide turned over the paper and looked at Dick Stark.
Stark looked at Don.
“Don, your explosive little foray into Russian territory has put on the verge of World War Three.”
* * *
What do you want me to do?
David almost said it to them. He was sitting in the Oval Office with the group of them. The carpet beneath their feet had the Seal of the President. It was ringed with a quotation from Franklin Delano Roosevelt: The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself. The tall blue drapes were pulled, shutting out the natural daylight. Two big Secret Service men stood by the door.
The meeting was David Barrett, Vice President Mark Baylor, Richard Stark, and Stark’s aide Roger. David had dismissed Don Morris back to his agency, and that made him sad. He would prefer if Don were here. He would prefer if this meeting was just him and Don, maybe having a light meal. He liked Don Morris, he liked his straight talking ways, his fearlessness, his leadership, and his tougher than leather exterior. If life had been different, he imagined that he and Don could have been friends.
“I know domestic issues are not my department,” Richard Stark said. “But you should be aware that protests have cropped up in Russian expatriate communities in Brooklyn, in New Jersey, in Cleveland and Los Angeles. Also London. The ones in Brooklyn and London have turned violent, and our assessments suggest that the violence is being instigated by Russian intelligence assets embedded within those communities. This may call for a response from us.”
He turned and looked at his aide. “Roger?”
The aide gazed down at the paperwork in his hand. “American naval strike forces are reporting high states of readiness across all theaters. Should it become necessary, we have nuclear-armed submarines operating in the Bering Sea, the North Sea, the Pacific, and the Arctic Ocean ready to deliver retaliatory strikes on our go. We have a dozen bomber wings currently flying with fighter escorts at the limits of international airspace. They are prepared to leave their holding patterns and make deep runs into Soviet, uh, Russian territory upon receiving the order from Strategic Command. American missile defense is reporting four hundred silos at combat readiness. Three hundred more will be brought to readiness within an hour.”
Roger flipped the page over. The man was a master at recounting the statistics of mass murder with a complete lack of emotion.
“We’ve been in touch with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. At this time, the Pentagon leadership wants to elevate worldwide readiness, including Strategic Air Command, NORAD, and all branches of the military from DEFCON level 4, where we have been for the past eight months, to DEFCON level 3. This will mean the Air Force is ready to mobilize in fifteen minutes. Other critical assets will be combat ready within six to twenty-four hours. Naturally, the Russians will intercept these communications, and will understand we mean business. There is broad consensus that making the change is necessary and prudent in the current environment. We just await your orders, or the orders of the secretary of defense, to do so.”
David Barrett was one just person, and these were gigantic, impersonal forces at work. If fully unleashed, they could destroy everyone and everything on earth. It was too much for one person to digest, never mind come to any meaningful decisions about.
Couldn’t they see that?
“Mr. President?”
There were billions of people on earth. So many that no one really knew the actual number. There were hedge fund managers living in fifty-million-dollar penthouse apartments in Manhattan, private chefs cooking them dinner. There were Stone Age tribes living in thatched huts deep in the Amazon jungle, hunting their food with poison blow darts. The … diversity … There was almost something surreal about it.
There were hundreds of millions of people in the United States and Russia alone. They had massive armies and thousands of nuclear missiles. Tanks, airplanes, submarines, spy satellites. Secret agents silently stabbing each other to death in alleyways. What the hell was it all for?
“Mr. President,” General Stark said. “I understand that your family is currently vacationing at your family’s ranch in Texas. May I recommend that for the duration of the crisis, they immediately be evacuated to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado? By plane, Cheyenne is very close to their location, and is the most secure nuclear bunker we have. It can withstand a nearly direct hit by a thirty-megaton warhead. The valve system there is the most advanced in terms of filtering radiological contaminants from the outside air. In the e
vent of…”
The general paused, apparently looking for a word that might describe what he had in mind. Armageddon? The Apocalypse?
This was stupid talk, frankly. Plain stupid. It was better to have a barbecue with friends and family in the backyard than to talk about these things.
His daughter Elizabeth was alive . It was amazing to realize that. First she was gone and everyone was sure she was dead. Then she was alive, and home. But not well. After everything that had happened, she might never be well again. She was seeing a therapist twice a week. She wasn’t going to school this fall.
He sighed. He felt like he might begin crying any minute. He felt like his mind was coming apart.
He wanted to tell these men that, he really did. “I’m the president here, and my mind is coming apart.” But you couldn’t say that.
Instead, he kept his mouth shut, and let General Richard Stark of the Joint Chiefs of Staff prattle on importantly from across the sitting area, with his aide preening in the chair next to him. It had taken David this long to grasp what the man reminded him of. This aide in dress greens, this Lieutenant Colonel Roger, whoever he was, looked an awful lot like a praying mantis.
To David’s right, Vice President Mark Baylor sat upright with one leg crossed over the other. Baylor hadn’t been at the briefing, and so far he hadn’t said a word in this meeting, but it didn’t matter. He was never far away these days. All of a sudden, he was David Barrett’s right-hand man.
He was like a vulture sitting over a hospital bed, waiting for the patient to die. Baylor was a carnivore, and he had the instincts of a hyena. Late one night they would find him crouched on David Barrett’s body, feasting on his flesh.
Baylor was tall, like David Barrett himself was. But he was also broad, getting broader and thicker all the time. The man liked donuts, that was well known. And he liked fried chicken. He was going to give himself a stroke if he wasn’t careful.
Fact was, Baylor was a mess. He was growing fat. His teeth were too large. His hair was already white, and he did nothing to remedy that situation. David guessed that Baylor thought the white hair gave him gravitas.
