by Jeff Edwards
“Good point,” Bowie said. He sighed. “I agree with your assessment, Nick. We’re not ready for this. But it doesn’t look like we’re going to have much of a choice.” He scanned the message again. “I’ll contact the bridge and order the Officer of the Deck to steam due-west to get us moving in the right direction until the Navigator has a chance to lay out a new nav-track. Have Ops get on the satellite phone and arrange a helo for the civilians, and then pass the word to have all officers gather in the wardroom for briefing and tactical planning.”
He dropped the message on his desk. “We should try to tune into a satellite news feed. CNN may not exactly be a reliable intelligence source, but if things are really heating up in Kamchatka, they probably know about it by now. I’ve got a feeling we’re about to stick our head in the lion’s mouth. If we don’t want to get it bitten off at the neck, we’re going to need all the smarts we can get.”
CHAPTER 18
U.S. NAVAL HOSPITAL
YOKOSUKA, JAPAN
FRIDAY; 01 MARCH
0901 hours (9:01 AM)
TIME ZONE +9 ‘INDIA’
Lieutenant Eric Hogan, MD, United States Navy, yawned and rubbed the back of his neck as he ambled down the corridor toward the nurse’s station. He needed a cup of coffee, but first he wanted to order some more labs on Seaman Landry, the young Sailor with the heart arrhythmia. The patient was lean and muscular, an obvious gym-hound, so the arrhythmias were probably just premature ventricular contractions, triggered by an electrolyte imbalance, or too much exercise.
But the patient’s skin showed signs of pigmentation loading. That might mean nothing, but it could be a subtle symptom of hemochromatosis. They’d better pull some more blood and run the genetic differentiation tests, just to be on the safe side. The kid was probably tired of being poked with needles, but the only other way to rule out hemochromatosis would be a liver biopsy, and the seaman would like that a lot less.
Hogan made a left at the nurse’s station, and walked the thirty or so feet to his office. He’d punch the new test orders into the computer, and then he could slip down to the break room for that coffee. And maybe a sweet roll, if the stuff in the vending machine didn’t look too wilted.
He swung the door open to find two people waiting in his office: Captain Krantz, the commanding officer of the hospital, and a stranger wearing a dark gray civilian suit.
The captain nodded. “Good morning, Dr. Hogan. Come in, please. And close the door.”
Hogan hesitated for a fraction of a second. He’d been stationed at Naval Hospital Yokosuka for the better part of two years, and the commanding officer had never come down to his office before. What was going on here? He supposed he was about to find out.
It was not a large office. Hogan had to squeeze past the civilian to reach a standing spot near his bookcase.
He nodded to his superior. “Good morning, Captain. What can I do for you, sir?”
Captain Krantz crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned a hip against Hogan’s desk. His words and tone of voice were cordial, but his posture and body language were overtly defensive. The captain was not a happy camper.
“Dr. Hogan, this is Agent Ross, from the Defense Intelligence Agency. He and his partner, Agent DuBrul, have just arrived on this morning’s MEDEVAC flight from the Philippines. They were escorting the MEDEVAC patient, whom—I’m led to understand—is a foreign citizen under the protection of the U.S. State Department.”
Hogan nodded, still not seeing what any of this had to do with him, or what the captain and this agent were doing in his office.
The man identified as Agent Ross was almost professionally nondescript. He was of about average height and weight, and his medium brown hair was cut in a style (or perhaps anti-style) typical of middle class office workers. Even his face was unremarkable. He had the sort of features that your eyes could glide over without settling. You could see the man, and then instantly forget him.
Only his eyes stood out. They were a quite ordinary shade of blue-green, but there was a concentration of focus in the agent’s gaze that was nearly feral in quality.
Hogan was struck by the sudden and oblique certainty that this oddly-intense man remembered every person he had ever seen, and every word that had ever been spoken within his range of hearing. That almost certainly couldn’t be true; the human mind didn’t operate that way, but the impression stuck with Hogan anyway.
“The patient’s real name is Oleg Yurievich Grigoriev,” Ross said. The agent’s voice was flat and atonal, an acoustic match for his undistinguished appearance.
“That information is classified,” he continued. “The patient will be registered in this facility under the cover name of Dmitry Hugo. You will refer to him only by his cover name, and no member of the hospital staff is to be given any information regarding his identity, his medical condition, or his treatment regimen without direct authorization from Agent DuBrul or myself.”
Hogan looked at his commanding officer. “Sir, I don’t understand what’s going on here. We’re a U.S. military facility. We’re prohibited from treating foreign civilians, and we’re not trained or equipped to do cloak and dagger work. In any event, my patient load is already over max allowance. I …”
The captain interrupted. “Dr. Hogan, your other patients will be handed off to other doctors. I’ll take some of them myself, if I have to. As of this moment, you are relieved of all other duties for the duration of this case. Mr. Grigoriev … excuse me, Mr. Hugo … is your only patient. He will remain your sole priority until he leaves this hospital.”
“Captain, I can’t just …”
“That’s an order, Lieutenant.”
“But, sir …”
“Lieutenant!” It was a command.
Hogan nodded once. “Aye-aye, sir.”
The captain’s voice softened. “I don’t like this any more than you do, doctor. But my orders come directly from Vice Admiral Gibson, the Surgeon General of the Navy. Those orders have been countersigned by Commander Naval Forces Japan, and Commander Pacific Fleet. I’ve been ordered to give these agents extreme latitude in the treatment of this patient, and to comply with any and all security protocols they require. That includes enforced secrecy and armed guards, if required.”
He glanced at the agent, and then back to Hogan. “The patient, Mr. Hugo, is suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. His condition is critical, but stable, and I’ve been directed to assign my most experienced gunshot doctor to his case. You did three tours treating combat casualties in Iraq, so that would be you, Dr. Hogan. Do you have any questions?”
Hogan suppressed a huff of incredulity. He had about four thousand questions. In all likelihood, most of them would never be answered. He decided to try an easy one.
“What will I do for staff, Captain?”
“You can hand-select a team of nurses and corpsmen. Get your list to the XO, and we’ll pull them out of the duty rotation and put them at your fulltime disposal.”
“Try to select people who can keep their mouths shut,” Agent Ross said. “Keep your team as small as possible. Use whoever you need to get the job done, but don’t pad the roster. The fewer people we involve, the easier it will be to keep this low-key. And make damned sure they understand that they talk about this to no one. I don’t want to lock up any of your people for talking out of school, but I will if I have to.”
“You can’t arrest people for talking,” Hogan said.
Ross showed him a grim little smile with no amusement in it. “Wrong answer. This is a matter of the utmost national security. A leak could endanger the lives of literally millions of American citizens. If one of your people talks and I find out about it, I’ll shoot him for treason myself, and take my chances with a Federal judge.”
Hogan threw a questioning look at his commanding officer. Was this clown for real?
“I don’t think we need to resort to threats,” Captain Krantz said.
Ross straightened the lapels of his
suit jacket. “I just want to make sure everyone understands how serious this is. We all have to be on the same wavelength here.”
“This is crazy,” Hogan said. “I’m a doctor, not a spook, or an operative, or whatever you call it.”
“A doctor is all we want you to be,” Ross said. “Leave the spook stuff to us.”
Hogan said nothing.
“I can’t tell you very much,” Agent Ross said. “You don’t have the clearance, or the need to know. But I’ll tell you what I can, so that you’ll have some idea of why these precautions are necessary. Does that sound reasonable?”
“I guess so,” Hogan said.
“Mr. Hugo,” Ross said, placing emphasis on the cover name, “was—until recently—the go-between in a deal between two foreign powers. I can’t give you details, but the deal involves the transfer and possible employment of weapons of mass destruction. I’m talking the big stuff; not piddly crap like Anthrax or chemical warfare.”
Hogan and his commanding officer watched Agent Ross without speaking.
“Six days ago,” Ross said, “one or both of the foreign powers in question decided that Mr. Hugo’s services were no longer required. They left him in an alley in Manila, with a half-dozen 5.8mm assault rifle bullets as a parting gift. They think he’s dead, and we’ve gone to considerable effort to encourage that belief. If they find out that he is not dead—if, for instance, they should discover that their former associate is recovering in a U.S. military hospital in Japan—they’re going to want to come back and finish the job. Because Mr. Hugo knows things that they cannot allow us to discover. And Mr. Hugo has already indicated that he’s willing to share that information with us, in exchange for political asylum.”
Agent Ross raised his eyebrows. “The guys who tried to murder Mr. Hugo are not nice people, Dr. Hogan. We don’t want those people visiting your hospital. We don’t want them going after you, or your staff, or your collective families. Because—if this slips—they will come after you, doctor. And they prefer to operate with leverage, so they’ll probably go after your families first. Do you understand?”
Hogan nodded. His mouth suddenly felt too dry to speak.
“Excellent,” said Agent Ross. “Your captain has kindly consented to loan us a private room on the fourth deck. I believe you usually reserve them for Flag Officers and government VIPs. Agent DuBrul and the MEDEVAC crew are getting Mr. Hugo settled into the room now, and setting up basic equipment with the help of the fourth deck staff.”
“We know the fourth deck personnel are going to ask some questions,” Captain Krantz said. “So Agents Ross and DuBrul have supplied us with a ready-made cover story. We’re hoping that it will keep questions to a minimum.”
Ross nodded. “Hospital personnel will be informed that Mr. Hugo is a mid-echelon diplomat, attached to the office of the assistant secretary of state for Eastern European Affairs. Further questions will not be encouraged. If people get too nosey, we’ll drop hints that Mr. Hugo was injured by Chechen separatists during a diplomatic mission in the Caucasus mountains. We’ll also let it be known that the incident is under investigation, and that anyone who pokes his nose into an ongoing Federal inquiry will find himself answering some very unpleasant questions.”
Hogan nodded mutely.
“Either Agent DuBrul or I will be within eye contact of your patient at all times,” Ross said. “Security will be supplemented around-the-clock, by an armed Marine guard. The Marines have been briefed. They will not interfere with your duties. Make sure your people don’t interfere with theirs.”
He held out a green cardboard folder. “Here’s the patient’s medical file. It covers his treatment following the shooting. In addition to the paper file, the folder contains digital copies of all x-rays, pre-op and post-op photos, lab results, MRIs, what have you. We need to talk to this patient, doctor. We need to ask him a lot of questions, and he has to be conscious enough and healthy enough to answer. That’s your job.”
Hogan accepted the folder without opening it.
“You can look that over, and start making your list of personnel,” Ross said. He glanced at his watch. “Let’s meet in Mr. Hugo’s room in an hour.”
“Agent Ross?” Hogan’s voice was nearly a croak. “What if your cover story doesn’t keep the lid on?”
Ross shrugged. “Then the guys who shot your patient are going to come knocking. And a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt.”
CHAPTER 19
WHITE HOUSE
PRESIDENTIAL EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER
WASHINGTON, DC
FRIDAY; 01 MARCH
9:24 PM EST
President Chandler nodded toward the television screen. “Run it again, Greg.”
National Security Advisor Gregory Brenthoven pointed the remote control toward the oversized television and punched a button.
White House Chief of Staff Veronica Doyle, Secretary of Defense Rebecca Kilpatrick, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—Army General Horace Gilmore—sat in silence as the video disc chapter-skipped to the beginning and the recorded news feed began again.
The screen filled with an establishing shot of Sergiei Mikhailovich Zhukov, framed against the giant statue of Lenin in the park at Ploshad Lenina. A light snow was falling, adding to the thick blanket covering the ground. A pair of uniformed soldiers stood behind the newly self-proclaimed President of Kamchatka, Nikonova assault rifles held at port arms, their breathing marked by plumes of vapor.
The ticker at the bottom of the screen flared with the CNN logo and a graphic depicting a map of the Russian Federation with the Kamchatka peninsula broken off like a piece from a jigsaw puzzle. A snippet of the Russian national anthem played as the words ‘Crisis in Russia’ scrolled below the graphics.
The camera zoomed in for a close-up until Zhukov filled the screen. Dressed in a double-breasted greatcoat of dark wool and a black Ushanka hat, he looked like an old Soviet hardliner, which indeed he was.
Zhukov stared into the camera and began speaking in Russian. The voice of the CNN interpreter cut in a few seconds later with the English translation.
“I speak now to the people of the Rodina—the great land of Russia, who is mother to us all. You have learned by now of the events unfolding in this small corner of our great nation. Perhaps you have heard our struggle described as an uprising, or an insurgency.” He shook his head. “Those are the wrong words. Those are the words of weak-willed fools who would have you believe that what happens here is the act of a handful of delinquents and miscreants.” His heavy eyebrows came down like hammers. “No! This is not an uprising. This is not a riot among criminals. It is a revolution. It is a spark to ignite the flame that will illuminate the world!”
Zhukov turned his head to the left and then to the right. “Look around you, people of Russia. Look at what we have become. Look at how far the great Russian empire has fallen. A few short years ago, we were the greatest country this earth had ever seen. And now we are the largest third-world nation in history.”
His voice climbed to a shout, nearly eclipsing the voice of the CNN translator. “Where has our greatness gone? Where has our power gone? Where has our honor gone? And the will of the great Russian people? I will tell you where they have gone! They have been stolen from us. They have been leached away from us by treachery and fraud.”
Zhukov lowered his voice. “The West could not defeat the Soviet Union with tanks, and missiles, and soldiers. Our might was too great. Our courage was like iron. So they defeated us with lies, and with lust for material objects. They were afraid to face the naked power of the Soviet military, so they attacked our national ideals instead. They whispered their capitalist perversions into our ears until our minds were clouded. They eroded our internal values, made us lust after designer jeans and cellular telephones until we lost all touch with our moral center.”
His eyebrows drew even tighter. “And it worked. We stumbled blindly into their velvet-lined trap and we were des
troyed.”
“Look at us,” he said again. “Look at the Rodina, the great land of Russia, the invincible Soviet empire. We are nothing. We are less than nothing. We have traded our national identity, our strength, and our self-respect for microwave ovens and video games. We made a whore’s bargain with the enemies of our country, and now we lay in the gutter, violated and bleeding, wondering how we could have fallen so far.”
He pointed a thick index finger toward the camera. “It stops here! It stops now! Like Vladimir Ilyich before me, I DECLARE THE REVOLUTION! I have raised the sword and drawn the blood of the true Russia’s enemies. There will be more blood, I am certain. But no price is too high for reclaiming Russia’s rightful place in the world.”
“What has happened here is only the first step,” he said. “I proclaim the independence of Kamchatka. As of this moment, Kamchatka is a sovereign country, entitled to the recognition and rights enjoyed by all nations. And I will make this new nation the cornerstone of the reborn Russia.”
Zhukov’s features softened. “My fellow Russians, I do not raise my fist against you. We are brothers and sisters, children of the Motherland. Together we are the rightful inheritors of the Russian dream, and together we will seize that dream and return our nation to its former greatness. I invite you, all true people of Russia, to join me in taking back that which is rightfully ours.”
His voice changed pitch, became lower and harder. “To the false government in Moscow, I say this … You cannot stop what has begun here. You are not the leaders of this nation, no matter what titles and honors you have conferred upon yourselves. You are parasites and fools. You have betrayed the very people you were sworn to protect. You have brought Russia to her knees. Now I order you to stand aside as the true patriots of this country lift their beloved mother to her feet.”
