by David Archer
The truck started up and drove away and the newly released prisoners piled into the house. Jim Marino was at the tail of the line and closed the door as he entered. Noah saw Monica standing in the kitchen doorway and nodded to her, then spotted Catherine Potts. He gave her a nod as well, then turned to the assembled crowd in the living room.
“Okay,” he said. “Neil, I need you and Jenny to join us in the kitchen. The rest of you, find somewhere to sit and take a load off. We’ve got to make a report back home, and then we may have to wait a while before we’re ready to leave. Tony, come here. Tony, this is my wife, Sarah. Sarah, this is Tony VanHorn. He’s CIA, he got caught up in this because he was picked to carry weapons to Jenny and her team. The FSB in Vladivostok was able to identify him, so he’s coming in from the cold.”
Noah didn’t bother to introduce him to Monica and Catherine, but told him to make himself comfortable. He took Sarah, Neil and Jenny into the kitchen and joined Monica and Catherine at the table.
“Monica, I appreciate you coming to help. I figured, under the circumstances, you were the only person outside any government agency who might be able to help figure this out and accomplish what we needed.”
“My pleasure,” Monica said. “Believe it or not, it sort of felt nice to be a good guy for once.”
“One day,” Catherine said, “somebody is going to tell me the story behind this. You’ve got this little bitty woman sitting here, and she seems to know more about what’s going on in the world than any of my superiors, in either country.”
“Sorry,” Noah said. “I’m not sure how MI6 rates a security clearance, but I don’t think yours is going to be high enough to know the story behind Monica. Just be glad you’ve met her, and be even more glad you lived through it.”
He looked around the table at all of them. “Here’s the situation as I see it,” he said. “The reason Jenny and her team got captured is because they probably interrupted another attempt on Kalashnikov’s life, a genuine one. Somebody was watching the security men who were watching him, because they shouldn’t have been listed as missing so quickly. With Kalashnikov out on the water, they would have been able to stand down and take it easy for the day. Nobody should have realized they were off the job until late that night, maybe even the next day. For them to be under surveillance, someone was probably planning to eliminate them, anyway. When the boat blew up and they were already dead, whoever was behind that must have simply chosen Jenny and the guys to blame because they were Americans. I suspect it was pure chance that they actually picked the right people.”
“You’ll forgive me if that’s not a lot of consolation, right?” Jenny said. “I’m still trying to figure out how they knew I was the one who killed those guys.”
“Well, it could be that whoever was watching them actually saw you do it. It occurs to me as I think about it now, there might have been surveillance devices inside those rooms. We’re talking about a very powerful group of people, involving high-ranking officers of the FSB, the SRV, probably the military—and I’ve learned that it’s all coming together under the direction of the Russian prime minister. The plan was to stage an assassination and use it to embarrass Russia badly enough that she could justify rebuilding the USSR. The people organizing it are aware that this would cause some temporary problems for Russia, but they’ve come to the conclusion that it would be worth it because the new Soviet Union would be far more powerful than it ever was before. Their plan is to build a whole new union based on Soviet principles, but to make it the world’s premier superpower.”
“Holy mother of God,” Monica said. “Noah, the implications are staggering. If the PM is involved, this thing’s got to be huge.”
“I agree, especially since a major part of the plan is to embarrass and get rid of the president. Done properly, this whole fiasco about sleeper agents and such could destroy his party. The only political party with any power left would be whichever one is behind this plot, the people holding the carrot and the stick. By using a little bit of carrot and a lot of stick, it wouldn’t take them more than a year or so to have a new union put together. The Kremlin would command one of the largest standing armies the world has ever known, and if they decide to exercise any kind of force, things could get pretty dicey for the rest of the major powers in the world. The U.S., the U.K., China, you name it, the Kremlin would be capable of handling just about anybody.”
“I’m making notes,” Neil said. He had opened his computer and was typing like crazy the whole time Noah was talking.
“Good.” Noah turned to Catherine. “Catherine, first tell me why you’re here.”
She snorted. “I’m here because Her Majesty found out from someone that you were in a pickle. She appointed me QRA, Queen’s Royal Ambassador, and sent me over to find out just what in the bloody hell you Yanks were doing. When I got here, one of our blokes told me enough to make me worry, so I called Allison and she filled me in. Since I was already here, she thought I might as well come join the girls and Neil to see if I could be of any help.”
“When you see her again, please give her my thanks. Now, you’ve just heard everything I said. Can you tell me what you believe the U.K.’s take would be on a new Soviet Union?”
“We’ll be sodding buggered, that’s what,” she said. “The USSR was one of our greatest enemies, and most of the world would be shocked if they knew how often we came close to war with them. I mean, it would be like David and bloody Goliath, wot? Even today, it’s seemed prudent to keep a couple of Trident submarines close enough to launch a strike if we had to. If this new union is anything like the old one, we’ll be expanding our nuclear arsenal just as bloody hard and fast as we can.”
Noah looked at Monica. “What’s your opinion?”
“A new Soviet Union would undoubtedly adopt an expansionist policy. It wouldn’t stop at just reclaiming their own member states, they would want more. They would almost certainly sweep down through Asia into the Middle East and Africa. Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, all of them would fall. I’m not sure what they would try to do with Israel, but Saudi Arabia would almost certainly end up one of their members. If they get down into Africa, the Kremlin could end up controlling ninety percent of the hemisphere. What we do end up with is a world that was divided into two major philosophies, socialism in the East and democracy in the West. The two are mutually exclusive, so I wouldn’t give it five years before we were looking at World War III.”
“And in all your travels, you’ve never run across this plot before?”
“Not even a whisper. Believe me, if even one major intelligence agency had heard of this, I’d know it. This is the kind of thing that would have rattled around every intelligence HQ that came across it, there’s no way I could’ve missed it.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Now, if you had run across it before, what would you have done?”
“Well, this would certainly have fallen under the heading of oppressing the people. I’d have been looking for a way to kill it, obviously. That’s what’s going to have to happen, now. We’ve got to find a way to kill this thing before it can get any bigger.”
“I don’t suppose you can speculate on how that might be done.”
“Well,” Monica said, “you said the prime minister is actively involved. I don’t know if it would actually kill it, but we could definitely put a crimp in its operation if we can convince the president and his party that this is a genuine threat. Some quiet threats of a potential preemptive attack, especially if we could claim support from a few other countries, would cripple it for a long time, at the very least.”
Noah looked at Neil. “Are you getting all this?”
“You better believe it. I’m summarizing a bit, but I’m making sure that all the major points are in here.”
“Okay. Do whatever you gotta do to get that to Allison, and send a copy to Molly. Sarah, where’s my phone?”
Sarah jumped up and ran to the bedroom, coming back a moment later with Noah’s iPho
ne. He took it and powered it on, then touched the icon that would dial headquarters. Both his phone and the ones at headquarters had built-in encryption that would prevent anyone from listening in on the conversation.
“Brigadoon Investments, how may I direct your call?”
“Camelot calling for Allison Peterson.”
“Cam—one moment, please.”
The hold music started, but vanished almost instantly. “Camelot, report,” Allison said.
“I am pleased to report that the rescue mission has been implemented, with all team members present and accounted for. We also picked up a stray, a CIA operative named Anthony VanHorn. He was burned in the investigation into Cinderella. We are still in country at the moment, but we’ve come across some other information that I feel is critical. Neil has just sent that information to you and Molly.”
“I’m looking at it now,” Allison said. “Good God, Camelot, how do you fall into these things?”
“It’s a very long story, so we need to save that for when I get back. I felt this was important enough that we needed to get the report off to you now, so that we are still in country if you want us to take any kind of action while we’re here.”
“All right. I’m going to call Molly and now and we’ll go over all this, then see who else we need to share with. I’ll be back in touch within a few hours. What time is it there?”
“Almost eleven P.M.”
“Then get some sleep. From what I’m seeing in this report, we’re going to have to make something happen pretty quickly.”
“We’ll be ready.” He ended the call and laid the phone on the table, then looked at the others. “We all need to get some rest. I’ve got a feeling our mission has only really just begun.”
* * * * *
Molly came into the office and took a seat. She wasn’t surprised to find Donald Jefferson already there.
“Have you read it?” Allison asked.
“Twice, already,” Molly said. “This is a potential disaster in the making, you know that, right?”
“Of course I do. Donald, opinion?”
“I have to agree with the things that Monica said,” Jefferson replied. “I think she might be a little optimistic on her projection of World War III. I’d be surprised if it took more than three years to get there.”
“I’ve emailed this off to Nick Weber at the CIA, John Hardy at NSA, Paul Karcher at Homeland Security, the joint Chiefs and the president, with all references to Monica redacted, of course. I expect the calls to start coming in in the next few minutes, and I’d like to have something to say by the time they do. Talk to me, people. What do you recommend in this situation?”
“If we could identify,” Molly said, “which of the primary Russian politicians are involved, I’d suggest a surgical removal. The problem is that the only one we know for sure about is the prime minister himself, and assassinating him could fall right into the hands of the people behind it all. He’d become a martyr, most likely, and we don’t need to give them something that powerful.”
“Agreed,” Jefferson said. “As noted, the point of this thing is to embarrass President Feodor, make him resign or get him ousted. I think we need to try to turn the tables. If we could turn this into some kind of embarrassment for the prime minister, it should strengthen Feodor’s party considerably.”
“That’s a wonderful idea, but how do we go about it?” Allison asked. “And would it really have any effect on the rest of the action behind this?”
“No, it probably wouldn’t,” Molly said. “I’m sure they’ve got someone else ready to take over as the primary figurehead, in any case. I think the best move might be to approach the president himself, let him know everything we know about this and see what he can do about it internally.”
“Yes, Monica mentioned that. She also suggested some kind of preemptive strikes. Any idea what she might be talking about?”
“I took it to mean a potential invasion,” Molly said. “She mentioned getting other countries to back it up; if these plans can be exposed without damaging the president in the process, it’s possible we could insert a peacekeeping force, maybe even from the UN. Barring that, I would say we need to find intelligence on the leadership and start going after them directly.”
“Yes, but where? I wouldn’t have a clue how to start looking for that kind of intelligence, would you?”
“Actually, I think I would. I think the key is sitting right there with Noah at the moment. Monica, when she was doing all her nefarious little things, had an awful lot of people under her control. If anyone could find a lead on who is running this thing, I think it would be her.”
Allison chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “I think you’re right,” she said, “but we have to handle that pretty quietly. Most of the government isn’t ready to trust her very far, and I can’t really blame them. We’d basically be turning her loose again, and that might be dangerous both politically and personally.”
“Ask the president,” Jefferson said. “He’s never been one to back down from a fight, and he’s always willing to use whatever tools are available. I think this might be a good time to defer to his authority.”
Allison started to speak, but the phone on her desk buzzed at that moment. She reached over and hit the speaker button. “Yes?”
“It’s the president on line one,” came the receptionist’s voice.
Allison reached over and hit the appropriate button. “Mr. President,” she said. “I take it you got my message?”
“I got it. You want to tell me just what on Earth it is?”
“There’s a faction inside Russia that is trying to bring back a lot of the Cold War policies, reinstate the Soviet Union or form a new one. The goal seems to be to implement a major expansionist, possibly even an empire-building policy. This whole recent debacle about our people being arrested seems to have been engineered with the goal of planting the seeds of that possibility in the minds of the people. It’s also very embarrassing for the current president of Russia, and since we now know the prime minister is one of the top people in this faction, we’re looking at quite a potential threat.”
“What does the CIA have to say about this?”
“I haven’t heard back from them yet,” Allison said. “I sent it to Nick Weber, he is the Deputy Director of Analysis over there now. He and I go way back, and I know I can trust him not to let it get into the wrong hands.”
The phone buzzed again. “Hold one, Mr. President,” Allison said. She hit the hold button, then tapped the button for the receptionist. “Go ahead.”
“John Hardy on line three and Nick Weber on line four.”
“Tell Hardy I’m on the phone with the president and I’ll call him back.” She reached out and punched the button for line four. “Nick? What you think of that?”
“I think I’m beginning to believe the end of the world is coming,” Weber said. “Where on Earth did you get all this?”
“Camelot,” she said. “Hang on, I’ve got the president on another line and I’m going to patch you in.”
She pushed a couple of buttons, then scowled at the phone. “Mr. President?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Good, I managed to do it. I’ve brought Nick Weber in with us.”
“Afternoon, Mr. President,” Weber said.
“Hello, Nick. What’s your take on all of this?”
“Sir, I think that this is something we should have known about months ago, and I can’t come up with a reason why we didn’t. I’m trying to figure out just what might be a good plan of action, but short of identifying the key players and eliminating them, I’m not sure what to suggest.”
“Nick,” Allison said, “did you see the suggestion about going directly to the president over there? If we could get him to publicly oppose this faction, and turned as much of the intelligence community as possible onto identifying those key players, we might have a good chance of at least stopping them from any immediate action.”
Allison scowled. “Then how in the hell are these people trying to use this to bring the Soviet Union back? If the countries that used to be part of it are going to see this as a threat, they’ll never get any of them to agree.”
“I disagree,” Weber said. “If Russia tries to force them back into membership, then no, it’s doomed to failure. On the other hand, if the president and his party are discredited, then it leaves the prime minister a perfect opportunity to suggest that a voluntary reorganization of the Soviet Union would only make all of the countries stronger. He has to at least say that he’s going to preserve their individual democracies and sovereignties, but once they sign on, there aren’t many of them that would have enough independence to be able to stand up to whatever he wanted. He accomplishes the same thing he wants people to believe the president is trying to do with threats, and he can do it without even an angry word.”
“This is giving me a headache,” said the president. “It sounds like a schoolteacher I knew once. She would stand in front of the class and threaten all of us with failing grades if we didn’t do something she wanted, then promise us all some kind of treat if we did it. You never knew from one minute to the next what it was she really wanted, because you were too busy trying to figure out if you were going to get a swat or a cookie.”
