The Russian Affair

by Adrian D'hage

  Murray flicked the remote again to display two images of the targets. ‘The village of Nangalam is located here,’ she said, ‘at the junction of the Pech and Waygal rivers.’ The imagery showed a collection of stone huts, built in the shadow of the Hindu Kush. ‘Two generators are believed to be in the vicinity of this stone hut in the Pech Valley, here.’

  ‘I remember that area only too well,’ O’Connor remarked ruefully. ‘The last time we were in there, the Taliban were not particularly keen to see us.’

  ‘That possibility exists again,’ Murray replied with a concerned look. ‘The other two generators are located near the village of Arandu, on the border with Pakistan.’ Murray focused her laser on an area 100 kilometres to the north-east of Nangalam.

  ‘They’re probably going to take some casualties retrieving this stuff, because although they’ve procured some lead sheeting, their precautions are pretty rudimentary.’

  ‘I don’t think that will worry the ISIS high command,’ said O’Connor.

  ‘Quite. I’m not sure of their plans once they’ve looted the generators,’ Murray continued, ‘but we’re working on that, twenty-four seven.’

  ‘I think we’ll find that the US is a prime target, along with some of our allies,’ said McNamara. ‘Any idea how they plan to transport the material?’

  ‘Not yet, but shipping containers are probably our biggest vulnerability.’

  ‘I agree,’ said O’Connor. ‘About 12 million shipping containers enter this country every year and although they scan them, if the radiation is shielded, that’s problematic. And they can only physically inspect a fraction of that number – about five per cent, I think, so ISIS would be happy to chance their arm here, and for similar reasons, they would chance their arm amongst our allies as well.’

  ‘Yes. Without a tip-off,’ said Murray, ‘they’ll have a reasonable chance of getting this stuff to where they want it.’

  ‘Which means we’ve got to have a crack at getting to these generators before they do,’ McNamara said.

  ‘Have I done something to upset you lately?’ said O’Connor, his eyes mischievous.

  ‘No, but you will, so hold it on account.’

  ‘He’s already overdrawn,’ O’Connor whispered to Murray.

  ‘I heard that,’ McNamara said with a faint smile. ‘What are your thoughts on the targets?’

  O’Connor was suddenly serious. ‘Based on our previous operation up there, I would think we’ll need a combined SEAL–CIA field team – the same one we used last time, if we can put it together. That will make eight of us – four per target – plus two combat air control teams. Although air support might be a little more difficult this time,’ O’Connor added. ‘What’ve we got left at Bagram?’ The air base, 40 kilometres north of the capital, Kabul, remained the largest US military base in Afghanistan. At the height of the war, it had been home to thousands of servicemen and women and hundreds of fighter aircraft, transports and helicopters.

  ‘The 455th Air Expeditionary Wing is still there,’ said McNamara, ‘along with about 10 000 troops. If necessary, I’ll get the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to divert some more resources to cover your ass.’ McNamara winked at Murray. ‘He might need them, he seems to have a knack of attracting trouble.’

  From his seat in the cockpit of the huge Boeing C-17 Globemaster, O’Connor had a commanding view of the Hindu Kush and the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He glanced at the altimeter. Twenty-five thousand feet. Suddenly Captain Sarah Whitfield, their young but very experienced pilot, banked the big aircraft and they began a steep spiral tactical landing into Bagram, one of the world’s most dangerous airports.

  To minimise the threat from the Taliban launching a surface-to-air missile, O’Connor knew that Whitfield would drop the big transport 20 000 feet in under a minute. He looked out the cockpit window as the airfield came into view. O’Connor had flown in here many times before, but that was when the war was at its peak. By 2011, America had deployed nearly 100 000 troops and Bagram was home to F-15 and F-16 fighters, C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, Beechcraft RC-12 surveillance aircraft, and dozens of Black Hawks, twin-rotor Chinook helicopters and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, along with Reaper and Predator drones. Now, with the withdrawals, the entire NATO force was down to 13 000 and O’Connor knew his team would need whatever support the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing could provide.

  Captain Whitfield levelled out at 5000 feet on finals and she lined up runway 030. O’Connor’s headphones crackled as Whitfield’s co-pilot requested clearance.

  ‘Reach Two Nine One, you are cleared visual, runway zero three zero, contact tower on one two zero decimal one.’

  ‘Thank you, and good day.’

  The aircraft shuddered as the 12 massive tyres on the main landing gear settled onto the runway. Whitfield brought the nose down smoothly and applied reverse thrust. Minutes later, O’Connor and his team exited the aircraft wearing their packs and carrying their weapons.

  ‘Changed a bit since we were last here,’ observed Chief Petty Officer Kennedy.

  ‘Not for the better, by the look of it,’ said O’Connor, surveying the airfield. Concrete barriers that had once protected shipping containers serving as housing lay in huge haphazard piles. Rows of semicircular khaki tents stood empty, waiting to be demolished. Broken chairs, desks and corrugated iron – debris from the now demolished temporary housing – lay strewn about, awaiting removal. So too did row upon row of rusted, burned out Afghan National Army Toyota trucks.

  ‘Yeah . . . I don’t think we’ll be having too many more presidential visits to this part of the world,’ said Kennedy.

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on that,’ Petty Officer Estrada replied. ‘I wouldn’t put it past that cavalier Travers to start it all up again.’ Known for being irreverent, and having a healthy dislike for politicians – Republican, Democrat or Calathumpian – like the rest of the team, Estrada had been with O’Connor when they’d fought their way into the notorious Korengal Valley. On that mission they had been ordered to search for lost missiles when a US Army Chinook had been shot down by the Taliban. ‘If six shooters were still in vogue, POTUS would be wearing a pair of ’em around the White House,’ Estrada added.

  O’Connor grinned inwardly. He would not openly criticise the new president, but as they made their way toward the headquarters of the 455th his sympathies were with his men. Estrada was right. When it came to foreign policy, Travers and his sycophantic team in the White House didn’t have a clue.

  ‘The last time we were here,’ O’Connor began, after he’d welcomed the supporting pilots of the Black Hawks and Apache attack helicopters to the briefing, ‘we completed a highly successful mission, albeit the Taliban did their best to annoy us.’

  ‘Annoy us? Got that bit right,’ Kennedy interjected with a grin. ‘We were shot at when we had to fly low up the Kunar River, we had to blow up a highly classified Black Hawk when it crash-landed after we rappelled into the Korengal Fire Base, we had to fight off an attack by a very large bunch of towelheads and we needed Apache attack helicopters, F-16s, a C-130 gunship and a drone to quieten them down, and here we are, back again for round two. Walk in the park, really.’

  O’Connor, smiling, waited until the laughter died down. ‘Thank you for that very concise summary, Chief – now,’ his voice suddenly serious, ‘as the chief has so eloquently pointed out, it’s time for round two. Last time, we were looking for stolen missiles. This time, it’s even deadlier,’ said O’Connor, not mincing his words. ‘Operation Gamma Ray, as the name implies, is a mission to recover some old Soviet nuclear-powered generators before ISIS does, because we have reason to believe that ISIS are after the radioactive components for the construction of dirty bombs.’ O’Connor gave his men just enough intelligence for them to understand the importance of the mission, and no more. If they were captured, the sources back at the NSA had to be protected.

  ‘The technical name for these generators is Radioisotope Thermoele
ctric Generator, or RTG.’ His team listened intently as O’Connor briefed them on the old Soviet equipment. ‘They were left behind when the Soviets were defeated and had to pull out of here in 1989.’

  ‘Defeat. Afghanistan seems to have that effect on armies,’ said Estrada.

  O’Connor again waited for the laughter to die down. He knew that his men had seen more than most Americans would ever see, and amongst this band of seasoned warriors, black humour was a key factor in maintaining morale.

  ‘As best as intelligence can estimate,’ O’Connor continued, ‘there are still four RTGs lying unattended in the mountains to our east.’ O’Connor flicked up a map marked ‘SECRET’.

  ‘Two of them are located here, near Nangalam,’ he said, indicating an area due north of the Korengal Valley, ‘and two of them are located here, further to the north-east near Arandu on the Afghanistan–Pakistan border. Chief,’ O’Connor said, looking at Kennedy, ‘your team will recover the RTGs on the border, while my team will head for Nangalam. We’ll leave here with one team in each Black Hawk. We’ll be supported by two Apache attack helicopters, and to minimise the risk of shoulder-fired ground-to-air missiles, we’ll be travelling just before dawn, flying low and fast up the Kunar River as far as Asadabad.’ O’Connor pointed to the capital of the Kunar province nestled in a valley between high ridgelines either side of the confluence of the Kunar and Pech rivers. ‘Once we reach Asadabad, we’ll split. Chief, you and your team will continue north up the Kunar until you reach a point here, just on the Afghan side of the border. Arandu itself is in the Chitral district on the Pakistan side and it sits beside the banks of the Landai Sin River, close to its confluence with the Kunar, but intelligence puts the RTGs just inside Afghanistan near an old Soviet forward base. My team – once we reach Asadabad, together with the other Apache, we’ll turn west and fly low along the Pech River until we reach a point here, in the mountains overlooking Nangalam. We’ll go into a hide until first light, and then we’ll move to secure the RTGs. Two Chinooks, one for each team, will be on standby to recover them. Any questions?’

  ‘These radio whatsits – RTGs – I think I’ll stick to the abbreviation,’ said Estrada. ‘Are they radioactive? I mean do they make you impotent? I’m only 35, and I reckon I’ve got a fair bit of sex life in me yet. Always prepared to serve Uncle Sam, but there are limits.’

  Again, O’Connor grinned good-naturedly, sharing in laughter that had a touch of nervousness in it. He knew better than anyone what he was asking of these men, and it was nothing short of laying their lives on the line.

  ‘Way too much information, Estrada. That old fella of yours will be just fine, but if I can get serious for a moment, on no account are you to dismantle or remove anything from these generators. Without getting too technical, these RTGs were not only used by the Soviets to provide a power source in remote areas, they are still used today in space probes. Essentially, the radioactive fuel decays and produces heat, and that is converted into electricity by what are known as thermocouples.’

  Estrada rolled his eyes.

  ‘There’ll be a test on this Estrada, so stay with us,’ said O’Connor, his eyes mischievous. It was a quality of leadership that so few commanders possessed, but O’Connor had it in spades. The ability to mix it with the elite of Washington and pull up even the president when he was going down a dangerous path, juxtaposed with an ability to communicate with his men. But given a choice between the beltway of Washington, and the seasoned warriors in front of him, despite the danger they faced, for O’Connor it was a laid-down misère.

  ‘For Estrada’s sake, I won’t go into the nuclear physics or the characteristics the fuel has to meet to be suitable, but there are four likely candidates: plutonium, strontium-90, americium-241, and polonium-210, the lethal radioactive substance used to murder the former KGB agent, Alexander Litvinenko.’

  ‘No prizes for guessing who he upset,’ observed Chief Kennedy.

  ‘We think the RTGs ISIS are after are likely powered by strontium-90, because if ISIS want the maximum effect from a dirty bomb, this is one element that will serve their purpose admirably. So rest assured, Estrada, as long as you don’t dismantle anything, your sex life will be in good shape. Any other questions?’

  ‘I seem to recall the last time we were here, it was the original shit sandwich, so apart from the Apaches – good to have you aboard again, guys,’ Chief Kennedy added, nodding toward the attack helicopter crews, ‘can we expect any other backup?’

  ‘I’m hoping we can get in before ISIS, and that there won’t be too many Taliban around,’ O’Connor replied, but it was a race against time. Given the period that had elapsed between Murray cracking the ISIS transmissions and the assembling of the team, O’Connor knew the ISIS fighters might beat them to it. ‘But if it does come to a shit sandwich,’ he said, ‘I’ve convinced Washington that this part of the world can be a little unfriendly. You may have noticed them when you stepped off the Globemaster, but in addition to the Apaches that are based here, we’ve been guaranteed F-16 Falcons and an AC-130 Hercules gunship. That said, the mission is to retrieve the generators, so if we do encounter a large force of Taliban like the last time, we’ll be doing our best to avoid them. A prolonged firefight would be inconvenient.’

  ‘One way of putting it,’ said Estrada with a grin.

  Four thousand kilometres to the north-west, a very different mission was taking place.

  Colonel Ilana Rabinovich, a tall, dark-haired attractive 38-year-old with piercing green eyes, stopped in her tracks at the sound of the heated argument.

  ‘You will agree to our demands, General, or your dirty little secret will be exposed and you will be finished!’

  Rabinovich stepped aside as Doctor Mohammed Pavlenko stormed out of the laboratory. She retrieved her white lab coat from her office and walked toward General Dragunov who was standing near a row of ‘Fireflies’ – small, gleaming yellow nuclear warheads that had just come off the production line.

  ‘Everything all right, General?’

  The head of Russia’s nuclear program looked worried and there were dark circles under his eyes. The General had not been sleeping well. ‘Pavlenko’s not happy with his working hours . . . he’ll get over it,’ Dragunov muttered. ‘Impressive, nyet?’ He abruptly changed the subject and gestured toward the warheads.

  ‘Let’s hope they live up to expectations,’ Rabinovich said, still puzzled. Rabinovich had never liked Pavlenko, the Muslim scientist, and the sort of insubordination she’d just witnessed would normally have resulted in instant dismissal, but it was not her place to pursue it.

  Dragunov nodded. ‘I guess we’ll find out next week.’ Despite the nuclear test ban treaty, the frozen wastes of the Arctic were ideal for the yield trials Rabinovich had scheduled for the Fireflies.

  ‘I suspect we have a way to go yet, General,’ she warned. ‘This latest design is still likely to be limited to a yield equivalent of six megatons of TNT per warhead. If it were to be detonated over an American city like New York, that would only demolish buildings in one square kilometre.’

  ‘Yes, although the radiation would be far more severe, with third-degree burns for anyone within five square kilometres. Did you see the GRU’s last intelligence report on the new American bomb?’ The GRU, or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye, was the Russian military’s foreign intelligence agency. Just one of myriad intelligence agencies spying on the Russians at home, or seeking intelligence abroad.

  ‘Their guided B61 modifications?’

  ‘Yes. If the GRU intelligence is correct, although I gather there are still some questions, the Americans seem to be making more progress than we are, especially on their guidance systems, but we have to remember the B61 is a single guided bomb . . . we’re dealing with smaller multiple warheads, which makes life more complicated.’

  ‘Well hopefully these latest Fireflies will work.’ Rabinovich chose her words carefully. ‘I have enriched the amount of tritium in the fu
el, but we will have to wait and see.’

  After the General had left, Rabinovich walked over to the railing protecting the top of the silo that housed the gleaming nose-cone of Russia’s latest intercontinental ballistic missile, the RS-28 Sarmat, the fastest missile in the world. Its supersonic speed made it nearly impossible to intercept. The nose-cone could take up to 20 of the new warheads, and that provided a capability of targeting 20 different cities simultaneously from an altitude of 750 miles. It dwarfed the US Minuteman III and Rabinovich knew that the massive new 100-tonne missile contained a huge array of countermeasures that were designed to defeat any known missile shields, but like the Fireflies, the Sarmat had yet to be fully tested. Intelligence reports indicated that President Travers had ordered an increase in the US nuclear arsenal and both the United States and Israel were working on their own suite of miniature warheads, but Rabinovich was determined to get there first. If her team could solve the thermonuclear challenges, it would put her beloved Russia back in a position to challenge the West. But tomorrow was another day, she thought, and she slipped out of her lab coat. There was time for a practice session on the range before she headed home.

  Rabinovich aimed at the target, steadied and fired three rounds in quick succession, her accuracy improved by imagining the target was her father. Assigned to Spetsnaz with the rank of colonel, as a senior reserve officer advising on nuclear and biological warfare, Rabinovich maintained a fitness and preparedness regime that matched those of the regular special forces. Given the remoteness of the Sarov nuclear laboratories, she had negotiated with General Dragunov for a small indoor target range and an upgrade of the Sarov gymnasium, which Rabinovich often had to herself. Her weapon of choice had long been the Russian 7.26-millimetre PSS Pistolet Spetsialnyj Samozaryadny. The stubby pistol had been specially designed for black operations and it featured a unique system that shut off the explosive gases once the projectile left the barrel, making it almost silent.