The Red Effect (Cold War)

by Black, Harvey

  Holmes waved his hand. “No, CDS, that gives us a pretty good picture of what is happening on the ground. Air Marshall, you have some additional information to back up these ground sightings, I believe.”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “Excuse me a moment, Air Marshall. Have they recovered the body of the American intelligence officer, Lawrence?”

  “No, Prime Minister.” Christopher Chambers, the Foreign Secretary, answered instead. “The first reports coming back are pretty grim. It is being said that Major Mortimer was left to bleed to death. The Soviets supposedly just stood around and did nothing to address his wound.”

  “Are the rest of the crew safe?”

  “Just the one, Prime Minister. He was very fortunate by all accounts; a bullet just missing him. He’s on his way back to the States.”

  “Thank you. Sorry for the interruption, Air Marshall Walker. Do continue.”

  Walker stood up and flicked on an overhead projector that had been set up in the centre of the long table, his fellow officers shuffling their seats sideways leaving a clear passageway for the beam of light that now shone on the white painted wall behind them.

  “The shots I will be showing you have been taken from the air by various platforms, including the SR-71, Berlin Corridor overflights and some satellite imagery. The initial analysis of the imagery by 18 Intelligence Company does not bode well.”

  He placed the first black and white slide on top of the glowing plate and an image of Soviet tanks seen from overhead were projected up onto the wall. “This was taken by an American SR-71 Blackbird. As you can see, these tanks are in a tactical formation in the area of the Lodderitzer Forest, a forest very close to the River Elbe west of Magdeburg. I would point out that this unit is not part of Exercise Hammer 84.”

  He paused, letting the information sink in. He replaced the slide with another. “This image is an overhead shot from an NRO KH-9, code name Hexagon, known as Big Bird. These images are extremely valuable as they are sent back to Earth in recoverable film-return capsules. Resolution from these is better than half a metre. All these shots are secret or NATO secret by the way.”

  The shot was at an angle, showing a large barracks area with lines of tank sheds, equipment lined up outside them.

  “The tanks you are looking at have clearly been taken out of storage. The only reason for that would be for the exercise that is currently in progress, but it’s a little late for that, or another purpose as yet unknown. The disturbing thing about the location of these tanks is that they belong to a tank division in the Baltic Military District.”

  The Air Marshall paused again but, before he could continue, Harriet Willis stepped in. “Thank you, Air Marshall. I don’t think I need to hear or see any more. But what I do need to know from you all, gentlemen, is what is going on? What are you telling me?”

  Lawrence Holmes leant forward. “The Soviet Army is mobilising, Prime Minister. We suspect that the exercise may well be there purely to provide cover for their troop movements.”

  She nodded. “Two hours ago I was on the phone to the German Chancellor and the American and French Presidents. All three are on their way to London for a meeting to discuss NATO’s defence posture going forward.”

  “Are the Alliance of a similar opinion that the Soviets may be up to no good? Surely the Soviet Union aren’t going to want to start a war with the West? It would be madness, utter madness!” Blurted out the Home Secretary.

  “Look at the evidence, Jeremy. Over a million Soviet troops are on the move, under the potential guise of an annual exercise. Along with that, we’ve seen Polish units on the march, and equipment in the Soviet military districts being taken out of mothballs. They have detained one of our liaison missions, confiscated their equipment and shot an American intelligence officer. What more do you want, Jeremy?” The Secretary of State for Defence responded angrily.

  The Prime Minister patted the table gently. “And we have done nothing about it. We can’t sit here and twiddle our thumbs any more, gentlemen. It is time to act and act decisively.” She pointed at the Home Secretary. “Jeremy, I want this place fully manned and operational within twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

  “But, Prime Minister, that will disrupt our daily routine of running the Government and the country!”

  “For God’s sake, Jeremy, if the Soviet Army invades West Germany, routine will be well and truly lost. Why do you think that three of the most powerful Western leaders in the world are coming to London? Please, see to it, Jeremy. And promptly.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister.”

  “COBRA will be set up here, at this facility.” (COBRA, an acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, where the crisis response committee would meet at times of a potential threat, from terrorism to foot and mouth.)

  “We must keep it from the public for now, but what would you require to put the country on a war footing, General Hamilton?”

  “I don’t see how we can hide it from the public, Prime Minister. We will have to issue call-up papers to all of our Territorial Army units and reservists, and impound aircraft and ships to move men and supplies when ready; commandeer transport to start moving units across to West Germany within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

  “How soon could the Soviet Union strike – attack across the Inner German Border?”

  The general rubbed his chin, and looked left and right at his colleagues. They had obviously debated this very point prior to the meeting and had anticipated the question. “Based on all the intelligence we have to date, they could strike within forty-eight hours. They would be without their full complement; some units are still playing at being on exercise and will need some time to rearm and for a minor refit. Three to five days.”

  “I don’t need supposition, General, I need facts.”

  The Chief of the General Staff thought for a moment before he responded, choosing his words carefully; not in fear of the woman who was effectively his boss, but as a consequence of the black cloud descending on his mind at the thought that they might actually be going to war – a war he had trained for, but one he knew that, if it happened, would tear the world apart. “I’m sorry, Prime Minister, I can’t...We can’t.” He indicated to the other military personnel present. “We can’t be more certain than the earliest being within three days.” He leant forward, the rest of the Cabinet following suit, drawn in to wanting to hear what he was going to say next. “But be in no doubt, Prime Minister, they could be in position to launch a full assault, with the majority of their Warsaw Pact Allies behind them: their first strategic echelon pretty much in place, their second strategic echelon not far behind, at the latest five days. Any later, particularly should NATO units start to deploy in earnest, they would have a much greater resistance to overcome.”

  “Should we not be mobilising fully now?” the PM asked the group at large.

  “If we overreact on this, Prime Minister,” the Home Secretary was the first to reply. “The consequences to our economy would be devastating. Impounding ships and planes, denying businesses of some of their staff by calling up reservists, not to mention the mayhem of securing all our key points.”

  “It will be an even bigger disaster to our economy if the Soviet Union cross into West Germany,” she quickly responded. “We have to be prepared. If it means we get egg on our faces then so be it. The responsibility is mine. Better than we have a hammer and sickle flying over Buckingham Palace. I want a full Cabinet meeting tomorrow morning then I will speak to Parliament. In the meantime, Jeremy and Lawrence, get the ball rolling. You too, Generals, Air Marshall.” She looked at the Foreign Secretary. “Christopher, you need to pull in the Soviet Ambassador and find out what the hell is going on.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister. I will arrange it straight after the meeting has closed.”

  “Don’t give him time to think or contact his masters, Christopher. Make him come to you immediately.”

  She looked through the glass partition a
t the opposite end of the room. Clerks were moving furniture about and unpacking papers that she had requested should be brought to the site. She sensed that she could well be spending a lot of time here.

  Chapter 17

  BRUGGEN, WEST GERMANY. 2 JULY 1984.

  THE RED EFFECT −4 DAYS.

  The dark-green Volkswagen van made its way down Hoch Strasse, on the northern outskirts of Bruggen. The vehicle was in the process of doing a full circuit of the British Army base. This base was different from many of the others in West Germany; this base was special. 3rd Base Ammunition Depot was one of the largest depots in NATO and stored special munitions for use in the event of a war.

  The two Spetsnaz operators were particularly interested in this site as it was purported to store nuclear weapons, something the Soviet Union would want neutralised in the event of a war, whether the Warsaw Pact attacked the West, or indeed if NATO decided to launch a strike with intention of returning East Germany to the fold. The Beetle van chugged along the road, keeping the perimeter of the base on their left in sight as much as possible, the idea being to do a full circuit. They kept their speed down to the local traffic limits so as not to attract the interest of the Bundespolizei. The German police were the last thing they needed breathing down their neck. They had been given some aerial and ground photography of the base, but they both knew from experience that there was no replacement for a CTR (Close Target Reconnaissance) eyes on. This area was awash with British units. The Royal Air Force Base, Bruggen was not far away. The British Army also had 3rd Base Ordnance depot’s across the border in Belgium, at Broechem, Hier, Raust and Vremde. A petrol reserve depot in Grobbendonk, Base Supply Depot in Herentals, workshops in Emblems, Olen and Noorderwijk along with the 16th Base Vehicle Depot. These would be targets for other Spetsnaz agents; the 3rd Base Ammunition Depot, the target they were circuiting now, would be thiers. Two more agents had also been assigned to do a full reconnaissance of RAF Bruggen. RAF Bruggen was an equally important target. The HASs (Hardened Aircraft Shelters) each accommodated two Jaguar GR1s, air-to-ground strike aircraft. RAF Bruggen also operated Phantom FRG2s for air defence. The base was sometimes visited by the larger Vulcan bombers, capable of carrying and delivering nuclear bombs onto their target. All were protected by Bloodhound surface-to-air missiles and the more modern Rapier. Spetsnaz would focus on the air defence systems, leaving the aircraft and STARRNET communications tower and radar installations to the Soviet Air Force.

  The Spetsnaz role was twofold. First, recce the site and, if possible, determine the actual location of the nuclear storage area within the base itself. Second, facilitate an attack to destroy the nuclear stocks and destroy as much of the base as possible. The passenger nodded to his comrade and the driver changed gear, swung the vehicle left down a link road, and headed for the town of Bruggen. They needed to plan their next steps and, for that, they needed help. Both were experienced operators and knew the site would be well protected. High barbed wire fences posed no problem for the highly trained Spetsnaz soldiers; neither were they worried about the guards that patrolled the base. The guards were mainly from the Mixed Service Organisation, a civilian arm of the British Army of the Rhine, which employed mainly displaced persons. Many of them were former prisoners of war, concentration camp inmates who had survived the horror of such places as Auschwitz and who chose not to return to their native countries after the end of World War Two. They were affectionately known as MOJOs by the servicemen. It was the dogs that worried the Spetsnz agents the most. Guards were generally predictable; dogs were another matter, particularly these. It was known that the dogs were tormented to make them aggressive and wild. Even the MOJO handlers were not safe and often had to wear protective clothing, padded suits, just to retrieve those dogs that had been allowed to roam free amongst certain key, fenced-in special weapons areas.

  After completing their initial CTR, they made their way around the edge of Bruggen, skirting the town to the east, taking a turn off Boisheimer Strasse which took them into a small industrial estate. Pulling into a small yard, the gate left open for them as they were expected, they parked next to a set of large garage doors, the name above informing them that they were at the premises of ‘Muller Courier Services’. They headed for the office, to the right of the industrial doors, the light still on, even at 6pm, and went inside.

  “How did it go?” asked the fifty-five year-old man in grey overalls, black patches on the knees and elbows, the owner of the courier business. He had a successful commercial enterprise operating in the Bruggen area and was extremely proud that he now owned six vans similar to the one that had just been parked up outside – although it was not without help, funded with money from the Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravieniye (the GRU), the foreign military intelligence arm of the Soviet armed forces.

  “Are we alone?” Enquired one of the Spetsnaz agents as he dragged a chair across the room and sat down on it in front of the desk.

  The owner, a Spetsnaz sleeper and an ex-Special Forces operator himself, walked over to the window opposite, peered outside and proceeded to lower the venetian blinds, twisting them until they blocked all view into the office, but gave some visibility looking out. “Yes, it’s Sunday, so there was only a little overtime for one driver. How did the recce go?”

  “It went well,” the second Spetsnaz operator responded, a slim twenty-eight year-old with thick black hair that covered his ears, whereas his comrade was shorter, stockier and chose to keep his brown hair close-cropped. “We got a good feel for the complex, but need to go over the photographs again now we have a better perspective on the base’s scale.”

  The owner left the window and walked over to a solid-looking, free-standing grey steel safe that was bolted to the floor. He bent down, inserted a key, tugged the heavy steel door open with a yank, pulled out an A4-sized envelope from the bottom shelf and chucked it on the desk. He stood up. “These are the latest. They came in the diplomatic bag this morning.”

  The one with the close-cropped hair sat on the edge of the desk and picked up the brown envelope, extracting the glossy prints, dropping them on the top of the desk next to the map his comrade had just placed there and was in the process of smoothing out flat. They shuffled through the pictures, matching them up to the relevant points on the map and laying them down on the outer edge.

  The Sleeper placed a sheet of paper on top of the map. “These are the guards’ schedules. Pretty regular; they’ve been doing the same routine for years.”

  “Accurate?” asked Cropped Hair.

  “As best we can get. There is only myself and one other, so we have to be careful. We can’t hang around too long in case we get mistaken for the IRA.” The Sleeper laughed. “They don’t seem to be particularly suspicious about anything, and I haven’t noticed anything to indicate they are on any alerts. That usually happens if there have been a few IRA bombs chucked at any of their camps. Searches of people and vehicles in and out of the camp are pretty thorough though.”

  “Not a problem for us. We certainly won’t be going through the main gate,” Cropped Hair joked. “Anything to drink?”

  “Yes, in the cupboard next to the safe. There are some glasses too.”

  The dark-haired one got up out of his seat and in a couple of strides was at the other side of the desk, opening the cupboard door and removing the bottle in question along with three shot glasses. With vodka bottle in one hand and the three shot glasses gripped with his fingertips, he got up and placed them on the desk, shuffling some of the photographs aside. “You have a date and time yet?”

  “No,” responded the Sleeper.

  The bottle glugged as Dark Hair filled the threes small glasses, each one to the brim.

  “I am expecting the signal any day now, but I suspect it will be sooner rather than later.”

  Dark Hair handed a glass to each of them and knocked his shot straight back. “Na zdorovje.”

  “Spasibo,” his comrades responded as they too knocked
their drinks back in one, then banging the glasses down loudly on the steel-topped desk.

  Dark Hair quickly refilled the glasses. Sleeper waved his hand, but his new found comrade thrust the glass at him.

  “I’m driving.”

  “Aah, don’t worry about it.”

  “You are in the West now, my friend. Not easy to get away with drinking and driving.” He grabbed the glass out of Dark Hair’s hand. “Just this last one, then. Na zdorovje.”

  Sleeper had also been in the GRU’s Spetsnaz as a full-time soldier. But now he had a different mission as a Spetsnaz agent: a sleeper. Infiltrated into West Germany in the mid-seventies and given the necessary funds, he had set up his courier business, providing courier services to local businesses, often travelling many kilometres across the country. This gave him an ideal cover for gathering intelligence on other parts of the country for the GRU: photographing bridges, ridges, potential river crossing points and, of course, military bases. He could familiarise himself with terrain that may potentially be of interest to the planners of a potential future invasion by the Warsaw Pact. He would feed back the intelligence he had gathered by leaving film and documents at pre-arranged ‘dead letter boxes’, where a member of the Russian Consulate would retrieve it and ship it back to the motherland via the diplomatic bag. His other role was in fact being enacted now: acting as a contact point and guide for a Spetsnaz unit that had been given instructions to plan for an offensive operation against a major British ammunition dump which was likely to also be a storage point for nuclear weapons. Like the two men that were with him now, Sleeper had also been trained in the art of killing, killing silently, along with sabotage and demolition; and, if called upon, to carry out the assassination of military commanders or senior public officials.

  He looked at the two men. “This isn’t just an exercise, is it?”