The Target

by Saul Herzog

  No one knew where they were.

  No one knew what they were about to do.

  This wouldn’t be the first false flag operation carried out by the Russian Army. Just a few years earlier, they’d flooded the Eastern Ukraine with soldiers everyone called “little green men.”

  The Kremlin strenuously denied that they were Russian, even going so far as to suggest they were adventurers on vacation, but everyone, from Kiev to Brussels to Washington, knew they were active duty Russian soldiers.

  Those soldiers had supported separatist forces and engaged the Ukrainian military.

  The operation Zhukovsky was about to lead was an order of magnitude more sinister. The soldiers would be disguised, to an extreme degree, as Latvian soldiers. No one, not even they themselves, knew exactly what it was they were doing, and as soon as the operation was over, they would be pulled back to Russian territory.

  The entire Latvian communications network had been brought to its knees to allow Russia to control the narrative, and even US military satellites had been attacked in an unprecedented space operation that blinded the Keyhole network across one quarter of the planet’s surface.

  While this operation took place, there would be no surveillance, no satellites, no news crews, no social media posts, no witnesses.

  And once the invasion began, the most advances elements of the American military would be so unreliable that the Pentagon would not be able to muster a response until it was too late.

  The extreme measures were necessary.

  Not only was the president planning a full-scale ground invasion of a NATO member, a Western democracy, but the false flag operation was not going to engage the Latvian military, it was going to commit a massacre of civilians.

  And what was more, the soldiers themselves, once they returned to Russia, were going to be liquidated. Zhukovsky had argued against that, not out of moral concern, but because they were an asset he’d personally trained, and would have liked to get more use out of,

  But the president was adamant. There could be no evidence of what was perpetrated here. The men had to be silenced. Permanently.

  There was a problem, though.

  A delay.

  Zhukovsky was supposed to be crossing the border any minute. Everything, down to the tiniest detail, had been painstakingly orchestrated.

  The Keyhole satellite was down.

  The Latvian communications system was down.

  The Latvian army had been pulled out of the border region and moved south.

  Zhukovsky and his men were ready, out in the cold, surrounded by swamp and forest and bitterly cold winds from the north.

  Zhukovsky picked up the receiver on his satellite phone and called Kirov. Kirov had moved from his hotel to the General Staff Building in the center of the city to run the invasion. The building was the headquarters of the Western Military District and gave him direct command over all of the most advanced and elite units in the Russian military.

  “Kirov, sir,” Zhukovsky said when he was connected. “We’re at the border.”

  “Zhukovsky, we have a problem.”

  “What problem? We’re ready to go. Just give me the order.”

  “I can’t give you the order. I haven’t been able to get in touch with Kuzis.”

  “We gave him a satellite phone.”

  “He’s not answering it,” Kirov said irritably.

  “Sir,” Zhukovsky said, “we’re ready to go. You need to issue the order now, or we’ll miss our window.”

  “You’ve still got hours until dawn,” Kirov said. “I can’t take the risk something’s not right. The president himself requires an update before the final order is issued.”

  “So what are you going to tell him? That some fat, Latvian policeman’s not answering the phone?”

  “Just hold your position, Zhukovsky. Do not cross the border until you hear from me. That’s a direct order.”

  “Sir,” Zhukovksy said, “we’ve confirmed that the Latvian monitoring equipment has been pulled out. The entire sector is clear.”

  “I know,” Kirov said.

  “Kuzis has fulfilled his usefulness.”

  “Just do as I said, Zhukovsky. Hold your position. I’m going to contact my asset in Riga and see if I can find out what’s wrong with Kuzis.”

  “How long is that going to take?” Zhukovsky protested.

  “It will take as long as it takes, Oleg. If you have a problem with it, take it up with the president yourself.”

  66

  Prochnow was in the back of a white van in central Riga. He had a secure, direct satellite connection with the General Staff Building in Saint Petersburg, where the invasion was being commanded from, and he saw that a call was coming in from Kirov.

  “Fuck,” he muttered to the other two operatives in the van. “How much do you want to bet this isn’t good news?”

  The men were in Riga to provide backup to the pro-Kremlin protest movement that the GRU had orchestrated. The protests were a crucial element of the invasion, and were to provide the backdrop, and pretext, for the military intervention that was to follow. Thousands of ethnic Russian protestors had been flooding into Central Riga since nightfall, and Prochnow and his men were there to make sure they made an impression.

  With the Latvian communications system down, the GRU’s own television crews would be the only source of information to the outside world on what was going on.

  He picked up the phone as one of the other men offered him a cigarette.

  “This is Prochnow,” he said, lighting the cigarette.

  “Prochnow, this is Kirov.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “What’s your status?”

  “We’re in Riga as you ordered, sir, getting ready to film the protests. Everything is proceeding like clockwork. Riots and looting has already broken out on Tērbatas Street.”

  “The commercial district?”

  “The shops, sir, yes. The people are looting them, stealing goods, setting buildings and cars on fire. It will make for excellent footage.”

  “What about the political protests?”

  “Yes, sir. Crowds are beginning to congregate outside the Saeima. It won’t be long before they reach critical mass. Once that happens, it will only take a very little spark to ignite a fire.”

  “That’s good,” Kirov said. “Very good.”

  “With the weapons we’ve got, sir, the government will be forced to respond. Things will get bloody fast.”

  “Very good,” Kirov said again.

  Prochnow knew how important the protests were. He hadn’t been briefed on what exactly was being planned by the military, although he could have made a pretty good guess. All he’d been told was that the protests were a crucial aspect of the larger operation, which Kirov would be commanding from the Western Military District headquarters.

  In the Kremlin’s view, Riga was a tinderbox. About a third of the city’s population was ethnically Russian, and Kirov wanted every single one of them out on the streets tonight. It hadn’t been too difficult to orchestrate. Many of those people had been denied citizenship and other rights under the Latvian constitution. Persuading them to rise up and protest, especially when the GRU was willing to offer them cash to do so, was easy.

  Word had spread throughout the city before the communications network was taken down, and every Russian in the city knew that if he was able to provide proof afterwards that he participated in the protest, he’d be able to claim a one-time electronic cryptocurrency payment equal to about five hundred dollars.

  That was a lot of money to attend a protest that most of them would have agreed to anyway.

  The Kremlin had also taken the time to distribute materials that would amp up the tension and effectiveness of the protests, and increase the likelihood of their turning violent. Placards and banners had been distributed that did not air the usual greivances of ethnic Russians such as better access to jobs, education, and social welfare, but instead call
ed for the direct aid of the Russian government to intervene in their defense.

  Ominously, Prochnow noticed that some of the placards called for the immediate ceasing of Latvian massacres against Russian civilians in the east.

  The GRU had also distributed weapons. These included thousands of guns and ammunition, instructions and materials for making Molotov cocktails, and CS gas launchers.

  The protestors would be better armed, and more militant, than anything the Latvian government could have possibly predicted. They would have more than enough fire power to fight back against the Latvian police and military who would inevitably be called in to quell the disorder.

  Things were going to get messy in Riga tonight.

  Very messy.

  And that was precisely what the Kremlin wanted.

  In order to make absolutely certain that things went according to plan, and that some last minute political manuevering from the Latvians didn’t dispel the crowds, the GRU had also bussed hundreds of its own activists into the capital. They’d come from all over Latvia, as well as from the Russian side of the border, and had been explicitly instructed to foment unrest and ensure that the weapons that had been distributed were used.

  They were the sparks that would ignite the entire city.

  As far as Prochnow knew, the Kremlin had calculated that within a matter of hours, over a hundred thousand ethnic Russians would be rioting in the streets of Riga, they would be heavily armed, and they would be actively fighting back against Latvian security forces.

  Their placards and banners would call not for justice, but for direct intervention from Moscow.

  The Kremlin had also made sure that this was the one story that was being emitted from Latvia’s crippled communications network, because as well as shutting down the national communications grid, they’d also established a number of satellite uplinks for their own media outlets to transmit news on what was happening.

  And what would be happening, would be exactly what Moscow wanted to be happening.

  The Internet would be down, social media would be down, and the only footage would be of ethnic Russian protestors fighting against the Latvian government and calling for intervention from Moscow.

  It was a potent cocktail of factors, but Prochnow knew that Moscow hadn’t stopped there. It was a multi-pronged attack that he concluded was designed to lay the groundwork for a full reoccupation of Latvia by the Russian Federation.

  It was genius.

  So simple.

  And it made perfect sense.

  Russia had lost the Baltic states during the collapse of the USSR and the only way to get them back was by force.

  This was an audacious move against NATO, the United States, and the European Union, but nothing important had ever been gained without risk.

  Prochnow had the feeling that he would be witnessing history in the making this night, and that by morning, the entire world would be a very different place.

  “Listen, Prochnow, something’s come up. I need you to look into it for me.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “A captain in the national security police there in Riga was providing me with some very sensitive information.”

  “I see.”

  “His name is Alfreds Kuzis. He was out at his dacha in the lake country near the capital. He went dark about two hours ago.”

  “Send me the address,” Prochnow said. “I’ll be at the dacha within the hour.”

  Prochnow took down the address and had the operatives drop him at the Russian embassy where he could get a car. Then he drove out to the lake district outside the capital. The traffic system was a mess, and the center of the city was chaotic with the mounting protests, but once he got out of the city he made fast progress.

  When he reached the address of the dacha, he saw two police cruisers were already there. There was also an ambulance, and Prochnow saw the paramedics lifting a body from the lake and placing it on a stretcher.

  He went up to one of the police officers and asked in his broken Latvian what had happened.

  “Went through the ice,” the cop said.

  “Who went through?” Prochnow said.

  The officer looked over his shoulder then said, “I can’t give out that information.”

  “Was it the captain?” Prochnow said. “It’s all right. I work for him. I was supposed to meet him here.”

  The cop nodded.

  Prochnow lit a cigarette. This wasn’t good news.

  “Any sign of foul play?” he said.

  The cop shrugged.

  It didn’t matter.

  Nothing was a coincidence in this game.

  He knew that.

  Kirov knew it.

  Everyone knew it.

  He went back to his car and called Kirov on his sat phone.

  “I found out what happened to your police captain,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “He had an accident.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “He went through the ice at his lake.”

  “Fuck,” Kirov said.

  “I’d say someone’s trying to put a wrench in our plans, sir.”

  67

  The president’s personal limosuine was a custom, Russian-built behemoth. It weighed seven tons and was twenty-two feet long. It was descended from the Russian-made ZiL limosuines that had been used to transport Communist leaders during the Soviet era.

  It was one more sign the president was sending the world that the USSR was back on the rise.

  The car was known as the Aurus Senat, and was a bomb-proof, bullet-proof tank that the president had taken a personal hand in designing. It’s door openings were custom sized to allow him to step out without dirtying the leg of his pants, and the passenger compartment had been designed by him down to the last detail.

  It contained the most advanced communications equipment in the world, and he was capable of running a full operational command center from it in times of crisis. It’s windows were six centimeters thick, enough to withstand any high-powered sniper shot, and its ventilation system was capable of detecting even trace amounts of toxins and poisons. In the case of a chemical attack, it was equipped with an air suppression system, and the steel hull was reinforced to withstand all known improvised explosive devices. At the rear was a secret emergency exit, and even when the privacy shades were closed, digital screens on the interior showed exactly what was going on outside. It’s four liter, eight cylinder engine was able to get the car up to a hundred kilometers an hour in under six seconds, and in the event it ran out of gas, it was equipped with a backup electric engine.

  The car had been flown in to Saint Petersburg in advance of his arrival and the president sat in the back seat and sipped champange.

  He wanted to be in the city to see first hand the results of all his months of work. He’d wanted to go directly to the General Staff Building, but his security team prohibited it. Because of the building’s age, his security there couldn’t be guaranteed. Too many legacy issues to deal with.

  Instead, he would spend the night in the Imperial Winter Palace, directly across the Palace Square from the General Staff Building, where he would host a select group of dignataries in celebration of what he was going to announce as the rebirth of the USSR.

  His cavalcade zipped through the streets of Saint Petersburg. He knew every street of that city like the back of his hand, he knew the people, and while he didn’t spend much time there, he considered it, and not Moscow, as his true home.

  The light on his communications panel lit up, showing an incoming call from Kirov, and he picked up.

  “I hear the Latvian monitoring troops are moving south,” he said into the receiver.

  “That’s correct, sir. It appears Kuzis was able to get all the necessary orders through.”

  “And the protestors are wreaking havoc in Riga. Our news crews are already sending out footage to international outlets. It’s the only news coming out of the countr
y.”

  “Excellent news, sir,” Kirov said.

  “The American systems have been crippled by our satellite attack.”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  The president looked out his window. He was just passing the General Staff Building, which was the building Kirov was calling from, and he could tell from Kirov’s voice that something was wrong.

  “I’m right outside,” the president said.

  “Already, sir.”

  “I’m hosting a reception at the Winter Palace,” the president said. “You must come and join us once your work is done.”

  “I would be honored, sir.”

  “But first, you have to tell me why it is that you’ve called.”

  “Well, sir…”.

  “Spit it out, Kirov.”

  “There’s been a slight complication, sir.”

  “Slight?”

  “Kuzis is dead.”

  “What? How did that happen?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “This is a problem.”

  “It changes nothing, sir.”

  “Changes nothing? It changes everything.”

  “It might have been accidental.”

  “That woman. The police woman. She got the word out before your man got to her in Berlin.”

  “Impossible, sir. He got her while she was approaching the embassy. The mesage was still inside her coat pocket.”

  “Well, something’s going on, Kirov.”

  “Give me some time to look into it, sir. I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

  “We can’t afford to make a mistake here,” the president said. “If we misjudge this, it could lead to nuclear war, Kirov.”

  “We can still pull off this operation, sir. I’ve spoken to Zhukovsky. His men are ready. The American satellite system is down. The protests have begun. The Latvian monitoring units have withdrawn.”

  “I don’t know, Kirov.”

  “We’ve come too far, sir.”

  The president let out a long sigh. This was a risk. A big one. One of the most dangerous of his long career. He’d been at the helm, guiding Russia back to greatness for almost two decades, and he knew how quickly things could go south.