by Jack Mars
“So we just keep hitting them, over and over, upping the ante each time, demonstrating our superiority and tearing at their morale. We’ll seize assets as we see fit. And eventually, after discussion with you of course, we’ll go for a knockout punch, something that will leave them reeling and humiliated in the eyes of the world. When it comes time for that, we have a list of attractive options to present.”
Baylor smiled. He liked it. He liked the way Stark put it on the table. It was concise and to the point. It was long on punch, short on bullet points. Mark Baylor didn’t like it when people loaded him up with too much detail.
“Given the circumstances,” he said, “I think the American people could use a victory right now. And maybe a little bit of revenge.”
Stark nodded. “Yes sir. I agree. A sense of revenge is what’s needed, and I’m confident we can deliver that.”
Baylor looked around the room again. All eyes were on him.
“Do it,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
10:01 p.m. Crimean Daylight Time (3:01 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time)
Tuzla Island
Strait of Kerch
Crimea, Ukraine
“This place is kind of a disgrace, isn’t it?” Zimmerman said.
The men moved quickly along the wet sand of the beach, staying low. It was a dark night, and they wore night vision goggles. The goggles cast everything in an eerie green light.
“Shut up,” Gruen said. This wasn’t a time for talking. But he could see Zimmerman’s point. T he currents had turned the beach into a garbage dump.
All along the water’s edge, there was the detritus of a throwaway seafaring culture—empty bottles, rusty beer cans, ripped plastic bags, broken plastic bait buckets, copper wiring and rubber tubing of all kinds, a steel-belted radial tire, various pieces of clothing and shoes, a metal weathervane, the entire fiberglass bow of a sailboat violently sundered from the rest of itself, and countless other bits of flotsam and jetsam.
The tiny strip of sand and grass was like a net, catching whatever happened to be floating by on the current. Walk ten yards and here was another ugly conglomeration of garbage—nets and ropes and bottles, cracked plastic toys, a bright reflector.
A line of scrub grasses and dunes bordered the beach. Right here, the island was about fifty yards across. Just to their left, not very far at all, it opened up to water again on the other side.
Further up, where they were last night, the island widened out into a broad triangle. That’s where the Russians were, on the grounds of an old hotel or resort that looked like it had been out of business a long time. There were cinderblock bungalows falling to seed along the waterfront, and the Russian tank crews had taken up residence.
The lights of Kerch were directly across the strait from there. If you wanted to bombard the city, you probably couldn’t find a better spot.
The tanks themselves were covered with sand-colored tarps, making them hard to see from the air. They were armored amphibious assault vehicles, with heavy weaponry and tracks underneath, making them able to move through shallow water and across sand and mud. He and Zimmerman had counted six of them last night.
Just before they reached the hotel compound, Gruen and Zimmerman got down on their stomachs and crawled like snakes the rest of the way. They came to the top of a dune, the tall sea grass all around them. The Russians were three hundred meters away.
Zimmerman broke out his night vision binoculars. He pulled down his goggles and put the binoculars to his eyes.
“What do you see?” Gruen said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“We’ve got movement. A few personnel around the tanks. No evidence of anything added since last night. Same as before. I’d say six tanks, plus crews, plus maybe a half dozen support personnel.”
“Same location?” Gruen said.
“Same location. Nothing has moved.”
Gruen pulled out his satellite phone. This would have to happen quickly. He pressed a button and waited. The phone shook hands with a satellite, the signal bounced around, and then:
“Little darlings, do you read?”
Gruen smiled at the code name. “Affirmative. Valhalla, this is little darlings.”
“Little darlings, we are green light. Repeat, we are green light.”
An electric thrill shot through Gruen’s body. It was a sudden, unexpected surge of adrenaline, and it almost made him sick to his stomach. He and Zimmerman had dropped in here late last night, then hid in the weeds and the muck all day, and he figured it would all be for nothing. Usually, these things were exercises.
But not this time.
“Little darlings?”
“Copy, Valhalla. In that case, drop the hammer. Repeat, drop the hammer.”
“Coordinates?” the voice said.
“Same as before. No change. Erase that triangle, and you’ll get it all.”
“Copy, little darlings. Fly away home now. Godspeed.”
Gruen clicked off. He looked at Zimmerman. “It’s real. It’s a go.”
Zimmerman took his binoculars down. He looked at Gruen with wide eyes as the realization came to him: this place was going to be an inferno a few minutes from now.
“Uh-oh,” he said. Then he smiled.
The two men crouched low and ran down the beach the way they had just come.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
3:25 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
Headquarters of the Special Response Team
McLean, Virginia
“It’s on the TV right now,” Becca said.
“I understand,” Luke said. And he did understand. He had called her to tamp down her fears about war with the Russians. Only he had the poor timing of calling five minutes after they started showing footage of an air strike somewhere in Crimea. Becca didn’t seem to grasp the details of it.
“Someone took a video of it with their own camera, then put it on the internet. Then the TV stations picked it up. They’re saying it happened in the past half an hour.”
“What does it look like?” Luke said.
“I don’t know. Just darkness and then massive explosions. A whole series of them, again and again. And it sounds like thunder in the distance. I can’t tell what I’m looking at. But then it’s burning. It’s still burning now. It’s a giant fire on the horizon.”
“Are they saying who did the bombing?” Luke said.
“They don’t seem to know. It’s an island in Crimea that was bombed, or maybe the island of Crimea. Which side would bomb Crimea? What is Crimea anyway? Are we really going to have a war because of Crimea?”
“Ours is not to reason why, ” Luke almost said, but didn’t.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t think so.”
He would like to tell her to take Gunner, go back out to the cabin, and keep the television off. He’d like to tell her she and the baby would be safer there, away from the city. But he couldn’t tell her that. It wasn’t true, for one thing. If the Russians launched nukes, all bets were off. She’d be no safer on the Eastern Shore than she was here.
Also, he had awakened at the cabin yesterday morning to find Kent Philby and two Russians in his living room.
He looked up and Trudy was in his doorway. He cupped the mouthpiece of the phone.
“Don’s calling a meeting right now. You, me, Swann, and Ed. He said it’s important.”
Luke stared at her. “Ed is back?”
“He just walked in half an hour ago. Well, walked is a strong word.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in two minutes.”
“Luke?” Becca said inside his ear.
“Yeah, sweetheart. Look, I gotta run. I have a meeting. There’s a lot going on here. I just suggest that for the time being, you turn the TV off, and don’t worry about it. Okay? It’s a nice day. Take Gunner outside in the backyard and get a little sun.”
“Gunner is asleep. I don’t want to wake him.”
“Well, that’s good news, anyway.”
“Luke…”
Luke put up a hand. She couldn’t see a hand, though. “Babe, I understand you’re worried. But we’ve never had a nuclear war before, so…”
“Is that really what you believe?” she said.
Luke stopped. He didn’t know what he believed at this point. He was beyond belief. The president was dead, and he had found the body. A couple of Russian spies and an old Cold War traitor had told him where to find it. And the world’s two major nuclear powers were playing a dangerous game of chicken.
He shook his head.
“Becca, I love you. I have to go.”
* * *
“Man, you look terrible,” Ed said.
Luke had just walked into the SRT conference room. He sat down. Two young guys in dress shirts were taking the light fixtures apart, sweeping for listening devices. Another young guy was under the conference table.
Luke looked at Ed. He wore jeans with one leg cut off at the thigh because of the swelling. That leg was wrapped in heavy bandaging. His left arm was also dressed and wrapped. He wore a bright and colorful short-sleeve button-up shirt, as though he were on vacation in Hawaii. The left sleeve of the shirt was also cut off to make it easier to get the dressing in and out of it.
A metallic silver cane rested against the table where he sat. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days and his beard was coming in uneven. His eyes were bloodshot and tired.
“But you look beautiful,” Luke said.
“Guys, come to order,” Don said.
He and Trudy were already in here. A second later, Swann came darting in and slid into a chair.
“Mr. Swann, glad you could join us,” Don said. He looked at the guys picking through the internal workings of the lamps.
“How does it look, fellas?”
“Clean,” one of them said. His eyes never wavered from what he was doing. “I don’t see evidence that anyone has touched this place since we last swept it three days ago.”
Don nodded. “Okay, let’s call it good then.”
The young guys started packing up their equipment. It occurred to Luke that Don was becoming increasingly paranoid. How many times did they really need to sweep the conference room? The bug sweepers shut the door as they left the room.
Don looked at Luke. “Where’s Murphy?”
Luke shrugged. “I don’t know. He, uh…”
“He took a tour of the facility,” Trudy said. “He ran into a former Naval Intelligence analyst he knew from somewhere, Michaels, so he was chatting with him for a bit. Now he’s up in human resources with Helen filling out some paperwork. She drafted a month-long contract for him.”
Don nodded. “Thank you.” He turned to Luke again. “Do you trust him? Is he as good as you say?”
Luke nodded. “He’s good. Right away he’ll be among the best we have. That doesn’t mean he’s not a jerk. But he’s good. He’s tough. He’s good in a firefight. He bides his time. He doesn’t lose his head. He’s calculating.”
Luke thought back to that cold morning on the hillside in eastern Afghanistan. Murphy sat on an outcropping of rock, put an empty pistol to his own head, and pulled the trigger half a dozen times.
“Out,” he said, and tossed the gun down the hill.
“And you’ve worked well with him before?”
“I’ve been in combat with him a dozen times,” Luke said. “He can be a pain in the ass and damn near insubordinate. But he goes at the bad guys like a pit bull. Why?”
“We might need him,” Don said now. “Tonight.”
“What’s going on?” Ed said.
“I got a call a little while ago,” Don said. He lowered his voice, as if the room hadn’t just been swept. “Lawrence Keller was David Barrett’s chief of staff until two months ago. He remained friends with Barrett, or something. He told me that he met with Barrett at the Lincoln Memorial two nights ago. Barrett was out in public on his own. He had ditched his security detail.
“Keller says he was concerned about Barrett’s welfare and handed him over to intelligence operatives. One of those operatives was a CIA agent named Wallace Speck. He works for SAC, inside the Directorate of Operations. Black ops. Keller thinks Speck had Barrett killed. He also thinks NSA operatives were involved, and possibly some others. Maybe some Secret Service.”
There was a long moment of silence. Trudy broke it.
“Some friend,” she said. “Handing him over to Special Activities.”
“He says he has a digital recording of the hand-off,” Don said. “His own voice, Barrett’s, and Speck’s are all clearly audible and identifiable. Also, he calls both Barrett and Speck by name.”
“Have you heard it?” Luke said.
Don shook his head. “No. He won’t send it to me. He wants to hand deliver it. He wants to make an announcement of it, with media attention, so it can’t be swept under the rug. He wants to testify in a court of law, and he wants immunity from prosecution. Then he wants to go into the Witness Protection Program.”
“Can we give him all that?” Swann said.
“We can’t give him anything until we hear that tape,” Don said. “We can’t even consider it until then.”
“Does he realize the absurdity of trying to hide from CIA operatives in the Witness Protection Program?” Trudy said.
“He’s upset,” Don said. “It was a brief conversation. I’m not sure he realizes anything. I think we need to bring him in, hear his story, listen to the tape, and make about a hundred copies of it. We can worry about the details of his survival later. Frankly, if he really did hand the president over to rogue black ops agents, the man’s survival after all this is over is the least of my worries.”
“Where is he?” Luke said.
In his mind, he thought: Please don’t say Bangladesh.
“He’s in Montreal.” Don looked at Luke and Ed. “I want to fly you guys up there tonight, maybe with Murphy doing a ride-along. You both look like the walking wounded right now, so you might need a little added muscle. You go up late, take a ride into the city after the traffic is gone, and pick him up at his flat. Night is best. Swann can watch you from the sky, and he’ll spot anything that might roll up on you. Once you have Keller, we fly him back down here. No one knows we have him, so we hold him for a few days and do a debrief. We’ll see what’s what.”
“Where do we hold him?” Ed said. “We don’t even have a—”
“I’ve acquired an old fallow tobacco farm northwest of Richmond,” Don said. “It’s the first SRT safe house. About two hundred acres. Couple of old storage barns on there where you can hide cars from prying eyes. The main house is in okay shape. Could use a paint job and some updates, but it’s comfortable enough. It’s a good spot.”
Ed smiled. “Coming up in the world. I didn’t know we had that.”
“It’s need to know,” Swann said.
Ed glared at him. “You knew?”
Swann shrugged.
“Look,” Luke said. “I’ll be honest, Don. I’m tired. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since before we hit the port in Russia. I don’t know if I can do this and be sharp. I need to get at least a couple of hours in. Then, after that, maybe a Dexie and—”
“Why don’t you take a nap in your office?” Don said.
“Where? On my desk?”
Don shook his head. “Son, where is your brain at? You don’t keep a fold-out cot in your office? There’s no better napping surface on this planet than a standard United States Army–issue cot. I’ve had one in my office, no matter where I’ve been stationed, for the past two decades.”
Luke just looked at him. “I’ve never had an office before.”
Don grunted, then laughed.
“You can borrow mine.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
3:40 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
The Oval Office
The White House
Washington, DC
Wallace Speck stood away from the group. He glanced around the Ov
al Office.
In front of him, three tall windows, with drapes pulled back, looked out on the Rose Garden. Outside, it was a sunny day.
There were a dozen people in the room, men in suits, men in military dress greens, Secret Service agents. Mark Baylor sat in a high-backed chair in the sitting area. Beneath his feet was the Seal of the President of the United States. All of the people were in Baylor’s orbit.
A large flat-screen TV was mounted on the far wall. Everyone stared at it. On the screen, Speaker of the House Clement Dixon stood at a sturdy wooden podium on the steps of the Capitol Building. There was a bank of microphones in front of him, and bulletproof plastic shields all around him.
He was older than dirt now, but in his prime Dixon had been known as a fiery speaker. White hair and wrinkles aside, he was doing his best to maintain that reputation.
He pounded on the podium.
“What evidence have we been shown that the Russians murdered our president?”
A large group of people flanked Dixon on either side. To Wallace Speck, they were the usual suspects, the loony left, the liberal wing of the party currently in power. Who was among them? He spotted a few he recognized.
Thomas Hayes, the current governor of Pennsylvania, had come down from Harrisburg for the festivities. No surprise there. Everyone knew Hayes had designs on the presidency. You couldn’t miss his beak from a mile away. Susan Hopkins, the silly supermodel turned senator from California, stood next to Hayes. She barely came up to his waist. Two dozen others, ready to hold hands up there and sing a campfire song.
The group murmured something in answer to Dixon’s question.
“Here we go, call and response,” someone here in the office said.
“No evidence!” Dixon said. “What reason have we been given to risk war with the world’s other nuclear power?”
Dixon’s cheerleaders were catching on. “No reason!” they said.
