Understrike

by James Barrington

  ‘Lucky for us that he turned out to be a treacherous little bastard,’ Simpson said. ‘So what did he hear?’

  ‘Not a lot, to be honest,’ Richter replied, almost repeating himself. ‘But he did learn that the whole operation was called the Kotel Proyekt, the Kotel Project – that Russian word translates as a ‘boiler’ or a ‘cauldron’. Obviously most operational codewords are chosen entirely at random and are then checked to ensure that they don’t bear any resemblance to what the operation actually consists of, just in case the name of the operation is leaked. But in this case, he overheard somebody saying that it would be much easier if the Russians had officially named the project, rather than the participants themselves having to think of something to call it.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ somebody said. ‘That’s really bad news.’

  ‘Spot on,’ Richter commented. ‘Like whoever spoke just then, that worries me for two reasons. First, it suggests that whatever the Russians are planning, it will be like a cauldron, which implies heat and flames and boiling liquid, and might be a reference to what they were describing as an ‘oceanic system’. That expression came up a few times in the recordings, but without any clarification. And the second reason is that we do know that the Russians like everything to be properly named and dated and filed because they seem to enjoy the bureaucratic aspects of stuff like this.

  ‘If this project doesn’t have a name or a code number or whatever, then that suggests that it’s off the books, that it’s an entirely covert project, possibly being run without the knowledge of the Russian government. Or, because the defector – his name is Dmitri Pavlov, by the way – is pretty certain he recognized two of the civilians attending these meetings as government officials, one of them a minister, then it’s a lot more likely that it’s being run with the full knowledge of the Moscow government, but the participants have been ordered to keep nothing in writing. That way, they can ensure complete deniability if there’s ever any suspicion that the Russians actually were behind whatever it is that they’re planning on doing. We know they always deny everything anyway despite inconvenient facts staring them in the face.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Simpson butted in. ‘Just look at the MH17 shoot-down. The weapon used was a Russian Buk SAM, what NATO calls a Gadfly, and we know for certain that it was a part of the inventory of the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade of the Russian Federation, and parts of it bearing serial numbers were recovered from the crash site. And still bloody Moscow denied having anything to do with it.’

  ‘But in this case,’ Richter added, ‘if there are no records they could even allow inspection of their files by the West. No records means no guilty parties. And that really worries me.’

  ‘You’re not the only one,’ Simpson said. ‘I’ve got one specific question before you carry on. What do you think they mean when they talk about a "megaton multiplier?" Are they talking about some kind of calculation method or have they come up with some cunning device that will increase the yield of one of their nukes?’

  ‘They could mean a tamper,’ another voice said.

  ‘A what?’ Simpson asked. ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Richardson at Cheltenham. I’m part of one of the communication sections here—’ a statement that was largely meaningless, because about all that went on at GCHQ out at Cheltenham was the decryption and analysis of signals, signals intelligence or SIGINT, and of most other types of communications ‘—but when I had a proper job I was a nuclear physicist working at Aldermaston. A tamper is a shell of dense material, usually uranium-238, which is non-fissile, that’s constructed around the plutonium core of a nuclear weapon. During the detonation process, the tamper reflects neutrons back into the core, and that greatly increases the yield.’

  ‘By how much?’ Simpson asked.

  ‘Typically by doubling it. That could be what they mean, but I’m not convinced, because almost all modern nuclear weapons incorporate a tamper, so it’s not exactly new technology, and isn’t really a multiplier. At best, and as I said, a tamper will roughly double the yield of a nuclear weapon, so if that is what they were referring to, I would have expected them to say a "megaton doubler" rather than a "megaton multiplier", though I suppose you could argue that’s just me being pedantic.’

  ‘Quite,’ Simpson said. ‘Anyone else got any ideas that don’t involve semantics?’ Nobody responded. ‘OK, Richter. What more have you got?’

  ‘The other thing that isn’t on any of the recordings, because nobody apparently said it during the meetings in the library, is that the Russians are expecting whatever this Kotel Project comprises to basically write off America. Dmitri heard the same kind of comments on two or three occasions, the belief that afterwards the United States would cease to exist as a world power, leaving Russia and China as the only two remaining super states.’

  Somebody laughed, briefly, and then there was silence for a few seconds. Then another voice spoke up.

  ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

  ‘Whether I’m serious or not doesn’t matter a toss,’ Richter replied. ‘But Dmitri is absolutely convinced that the people he overheard were serious, yes. In fact, he was so certain they were serious that that was the main reason he defected when he did. That, and the fact that one of his colleagues found him setting up his digital recorder in the library in the dacha, with predictable consequences. He shot him and ran.’

  ‘Those reasons could be the other way round,’ somebody said.

  ‘I do know that, and if all we had was what Dmitri claims to have heard and captured on the recordings, I’d be a whole lot less convinced about him. But for a second and independent source to come up with details that corroborate what he said, that seems to me to be unarguable.’

  There was a sudden snort of disbelief.

  ‘In my opinion, the whole idea is nonsense, and the probability is that this man Dmitri is nothing more than a Russian plant sent to the West specifically as part of a disinformation campaign.’ Richter immediately recognized the pedantic language and somewhat nasal tones of the Intelligence Director at Hammersmith. ‘I think we should simply disregard everything he has told us, and assume that the recordings are completely scripted and have no intelligence value whatsoever.’

  ‘I’m not going to name my source on an open line,’ Richter said, ‘but does that mean you also want to disregard the other information we received yesterday?’

  ‘Your source could well be the originator of the campaign,’ the ID replied, ‘so the answer’s yes. After all, both he and Dmitri work for the same organization.’

  ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t agree with you,’ Richter said, ‘because I think you’re talking total bollocks. For starters, three men died up on Svalbard, one of ours and two of theirs, and we now have essentially the same information from two separate sources. As far as I’m concerned this is real. And I’ll continue to believe that until someone with more than a double digit IQ can convince me that I’m wrong.’

  ‘Bickering isn’t going to help here,’ Simpson said.

  ‘Paul Fitzroy, at Vauxhall Cross,’ another voice chimed in. ‘Unless I’ve missed the point in a fairly big way, if this is a real threat then whatever this Russian operation comprises, some kind of attack on America will be carried out, and presumably this will be a nuclear attack, based upon some of the statements made. Taking that as a given, there are two points that really don’t make sense. First, none of our sources have reported any kind of military build-up in Russia or any of its satellite states, and I cannot envisage a scenario where an attack is launched on America without the Russian military machine being fully prepared to follow it up with secondary strikes or even an invasion. Secondly, if a Russian attack were to be launched, the first thing America would do, particularly under the command of the current president in office, would be to strike back at Russia with overwhelming force. So America might be decimated, but Russia would be destroyed, and I cannot imagine anyone in the Kremlin or the higher echelons of the R
ussian government agreeing to what would actually amount to unavoidable and inevitable national suicide.’

  ‘That is exactly my point,’ the Intelligence Director responded quickly. ‘A plot of this sort makes no sense on any level.’

  ‘That’s a very valid argument,’ Simpson responded, ‘but we do know that something’s going on, so we’ll keep following the leads. Right. Anything else from anyone?’

  The only reply came from Richter.

  ‘Nothing right now, but I’m just going to go and talk to Dmitri again and see if I can get anything else out of him. If I do, I’ll tell you. What about other actions, state of readiness and the like? Are the Yanks going to hike the DEFCON state?’

  ‘According to my counterpart across the pond at Langley,’ Simpson said, ‘the DNI – the Director of National Intelligence – will be including a summary of what we think we’ve learned in tomorrow’s President’s Daily Brief, along with appropriate recommendations for a response. What the president does will obviously be up to him, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t take it up to at least DEFCON Four, and maybe even to DEFCON Three. Just in case. Anything else?’ he asked again. Nobody replied. ‘Right, that concludes this conference call. We’ll do the next one in six hours, so make sure you’re all available then. Richter, stay on the line now.’

  Richter heard a series of faint clicks and other noises as the participants disconnected, then Simpson spoke again.

  ‘You’re in the hot seat again, Richter,’ he said. ‘Because of your access to the Russian Pavlov you have more chance of working out what’s going on than anyone else. Let me just ask you one question. Do you think this is a real threat, or is the ID right and all we’re doing is chasing our tails because of a pretty sophisticated bit of disinformation cooked up by somebody in Moscow?’

  ‘I think it’s the real deal. Dmitri was less than a second away from having his head blown off when the CIA guy took down the Russian who was holding him, and the second Russian did his best to finish the job. Luckily, he was outgunned, and that’s the only reason Dmitri is still alive today and on this ship. That’s all a bit unlikely if this really is just disinformation.’

  ‘Right, then. So the clock’s running. Unfortunately, we don’t know when it started or when the alarm will sound, so you’ll need to find out what’s really going on and get it sorted out bloody fast. Keep me in the loop.’

  Chapter 29

  Saturday

  Rublevka, Zhukovka, outskirts of Moscow, Confederation of Independent States

  The unofficially-named Kotel Project group had previously always met during the week, the participants scheduling their attendance in their diaries, just like any other official function that required their presence. It had been felt from the start that holding meetings out of normal working hours would have been counter-productive and might have led to questions being asked.

  But this meeting had not been called by the SVR general, Dmitri Ivanovich Yasov, but by the minister, the civilian head of the project and the man who had overall responsibility for seeing it through to completion. And it would, as they all knew only too well, be the last such meeting to be held in the dacha.

  ‘This will not take us very long,’ the minister said, when they were all seated on both sides of the long oblong table in the former library. ‘General Koslov. Perhaps you could bring us up to date with events on Svalbard and the fate of the traitor Pavlov.’

  This was nothing more than a public exercise in humiliation, and everybody in the room knew it.

  ‘This was not the outcome we had hoped and expected,’ Koslov began. ‘The members of our recovery team were working with two obvious handicaps in their search for Pavlov. First, because they were undeclared and were posing as German tourists visiting the archipelago, they were forced to act in a covert manner when carrying out their searches and surveillance. This, for example, prevented them from openly inspecting the registers of the various hotels and guesthouses in Longyearbyen to see if the traitor had booked a room using either of the names in the two passports he was known to possess. Instead, they were forced to mount random surveillance of these establishments in the hope of seeing him entering or leaving.

  ‘Their second problem was the three-man CIA team sent to Svalbard after the disappearance and death of the American case officer Walter Burdiss, a team that clearly had some form of official backing from the governor. The recovery team assumed that the Americans would quickly contact Pavlov and fly him off the island, and accordingly they began close surveillance of the CIA officers. That is what, we believe, prevented the Americans from locating Pavlov immediately, and our intention was to maintain that close surveillance until additional personnel arrived on the island from Moscow. But because following the Americans was a high priority, with only six men in the recovery team, that meant that half the number were always shadowing them, leaving a maximum of three people to search for Pavlov. The situation was complicated by the almost certain knowledge that the Americans would also be sending out reinforcements, and so surveillance of the Americans was later reduced to a minimum, using just two people who could quickly contact the other members of the team by telephone if required, while the other four continued their search for the traitor.’

  Koslov paused for a few moments and glanced around the table. All the other members of the group were looking in his direction, but none of them seem prepared to catch his eye.

  ‘As it turned out, this technique was successful. The recovery team also came to the conclusion that Pavlov would not have taken a room in any of the normal places on the island, in the hotels, guesthouses and self-catering establishments there, because that would have made him too easy to locate, so instead they began checking the private residences in the settlement. They assumed that Pavlov would not have been using his Russian passport, and so they began searching for their "friend" Viktun Larsen.

  ‘And only yesterday this technique paid off. The owner of a private residence that they visited confirmed that a man named Larsen was occupying one of its rooms. Pavlov had apparently claimed to be an author working on a manuscript with a deadline to meet, a plausible reason that would allow him to remain closeted in his room almost all the time, only emerging for the meals which the owner agreed to provide for him.’

  ‘So what did the recovery team do once they had located Pavlov’s hiding place?’ the minister asked.

  ‘The need for covert action ended the moment they discovered where Pavlov was. The two recovery team members involved in the search forced their way into the building. The traitor made his escape through a window as they did so, but they seized him outside the building to execute him. Unfortunately, Pavlov must have telephoned one of the Americans and explained what was going on before our men broke into his room. When Pavlov climbed through the window, all three Americans, along with an Englishman who we believe is also an intelligence officer, were outside the building, and before Pavlov could be shot, one of the Americans, armed with a rifle, shot and killed both of our men. Two other members of the recovery team, who had followed the Americans to the building, witnessed the entire event, but were powerless to intervene because they were held at gunpoint and disarmed.’

  ‘So like the rest of the actions taken by the GRU recovery team on Svalbard,’ the minister said, ‘it was an almost complete shambles. About the only thing they did right was to finally track down Pavlov. If they’d just shot him in his room and recovered the material he had recorded, I would have had no hesitation in declaring the operation an unqualified success, and a triumph over the Americans. As it is, we have left two dead GRU men on the island, with the remaining four members of the recovery team now in custody in Oslo and facing awkward questions from the Norwegians.’

  ‘And where is Pavlov now?’ SVR General Yasov asked. ‘Do we know?’

  ‘After the double shooting, the situation was somewhat confused,’ Koslov admitted. ‘The two GRU men on the scene were allowed to go on their way once they’d been di
sarmed by the Americans. One of the CIA officers and the Englishman escorted Pavlov away from the building before the police arrived. One of our men followed, but unfortunately the three targets climbed into a taxi, which immediately drove away. There were no vehicles he could use to follow, and he quickly lost sight of it. The other GRU man remained by the building. The American who had used a rifle to kill our men remained on the scene, along with the American woman, and waited for the police to turn up. When they did, both the Americans were handcuffed and driven away.

  ‘One of the remaining two GRU men was carrying out surveillance at the airport, and he is adamant that Pavlov did not leave the island by air. However, the male and female CIA officers did arrive at the airport in time for the afternoon flight to Tromsø, so clearly they had been released by the authorities after the shooting. We subsequently discovered that there was a small American research ship, the Thomas G Thompson, alongside in the harbour at Longyearbyen, and that this vessel sailed very unexpectedly about twenty minutes after the shooting occurred. So we have to assume that Pavlov was on board, and most probably still accompanied by the Englishman and the remaining CIA agent.’

  ‘If he is on board the ship, which will be unarmed if it’s a research vessel,’ one of the Russian Navy officers said, ‘then we can probably get one of our naval vessels to intercept it and arrest Pavlov. We do know, after all, that he is certainly guilty of the murder of his fellow GRU man here in this very building. In fact, I’m slightly surprised that the recovery team sent to Svalbard did not tell the authorities there that they were in the archipelago searching for a murderer.’