The Russian Affair

by Adrian D'hage

  Rabinovich walked forward toward the life-size figure down range. She inspected the target, and shook her head. The three shots were within a two-inch group, but the centre point was to the left of the small bullseye on the heart. She walked back to the workbench, adjusted the sights on the PSS and returned to the firing point. Rabinovich took careful aim and fired another three rounds at her father.

  The Bolshoi Opera had just finished their first-night performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Maid of Pskov. Seemingly oblivious to the falling snow, a crowd of ardent admirers had gathered outside Moscow’s iconic Bolshoi Theatre in Teatrainaya Square. Security guards held them a short distance from the fountain and the pillars of the theatre’s main entrance, but they were determined to get a glimpse of Russia’s mega-wealthy celebrity couple. General Dragunov and his wife appeared and he touched the brim of his black fedora to acknowledge the cheering fans. Svetlana Dragunov waved as they were escorted to their waiting limousine. Resplendent in a Fendi mink hat and coat, the state television anchor, long dark hair glistening under the lights, wore a string of stunningly perfect Paspaley pearls, farmed off the remote west coast of Australia. Svetlana smiled broadly again before disappearing behind the tinted windows of the Mercedes where her smile vanished instantly.

  ‘I have to leave early in the morning,’ said General Dragunov. ‘There are some important tests up north, so I’ll be away for the next few days.’

  ‘Why don’t you stay away? You disgust me.’

  A stony silence settled over the pair, broken only by the squishing of the Mercedes’ tyres on the freshly fallen snow.

  Dragunov stared out the window. Did she just suspect or did she know, he wondered.

  The next day, General Dragunov surveyed the ice floes in the Kara Sea as his Mi-26 long-range transport helicopter began its descent toward Novaya Zemlya, the Russian nuclear test site where temperatures reached 40 degrees below zero. The crescent-shaped group of islands in the Arctic Circle separated the Kara and Barents seas, and as General Dragunov knew well, it was here that Russia established the record for the largest nuclear test in history. On 30 October 1961, a Soviet Tu-95 Bear bomber dropped a massive 60 000-pound bomb that was more than 26 feet long and seven feet in diameter. The explosion was equivalent to 50 million tons of TNT – three thousand times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima and the mushroom cloud had reached more than 60 kilometres into the atmosphere – over seven times the height of Everest.

  Colonel Rabinovich snapped to attention and saluted as General Dragunov alighted on the icy helipad.

  ‘Everything is in readiness?’ Dragunov demanded as the Ruslan gathered speed across the ice. The Russian military’s latest all-terrain tracked vehicle had been built specifically for an expanding Russian presence in the Arctic.

  ‘Da, ser. Yes, sir. Everything is ready. We’ve managed to enrich the plutonium to more than 98 per cent and I’ve increased the volume of tritium gas, so hopefully, this time we will get the required yield.’

  Dragunov grunted. He was firmly of the belief that rather than building ever more powerful nuclear bombs, the technology should be used to offset the damage being caused by fossil fuels. But his president was not taking the slightest notice, and now the Kremlin had demanded what he thought to be an impossible design. President Petrov’s insistence that each new intercontinental missile be equipped with multiple re-entry vehicles had given Dragunov a payload headache. Miniaturising nuclear warheads in order to fit up to 20 in the nose-cones of the long-range ICBMs and still maintain a high enough yield-to-weight ratio to destroy major US cities involved fearsome nuclear physics. The precision guidance software requirement only added to Dragunov’s woes.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve taken into account the problems we’re having with obtaining tritium gas in any quantity, Colonel?’ The radioactive form of hydrogen was extremely rare in nature, and could only be obtained from nuclear fission reactors. More worryingly still, with a half-life of just twelve and a half years, tritium decayed relatively quickly, reducing the shelf life of any weapons that contained it.

  Colonel Rabinovich glanced at her boss. The Muslim scientist on Dragunov’s staff was not the only person she had come to dislike. Handsome men like General Dragunov rarely attracted her – her father had seen to that. But with Dragunov that wasn’t quite it. While she couldn’t put her finger on it, there was something about Dragunov that didn’t sit well and Rabinovich’s instincts were rarely wrong.

  ‘I’ve taken that into account, General,’ she replied, ‘but at the moment, I’m concentrating on achieving the yield the Kremlin wants, and if tritium provides that solution, then we’ll turn our attention to increasing the gas production.’ Her tone matched the icy terrain.

  In a flurry of snow, the tracked Ruslan ground to a halt outside the entrance to the underground control centre. The two guards from Russia’s crack 200th Independent Motor Rifle Brigade, specially trained for Arctic duties, snapped to attention and Dragunov touched his fur cap, returning their salute.

  The lift descended silently to a corridor below, over a hundred metres beneath the ice. Two more guards snapped to attention outside a heavy steel door. Rabinovich entered a code and ushered Dragunov into the huge control room. They made their way past monitoring stations where technicians were bent over a dizzying array of computers and they stopped in front of one of five huge wall screens.

  ‘The test bomb, codenamed Cucumber, is located in sector Tango, here.’ Rabinovich flicked a remote and focused her laser pointer on the map of the underground test range. The gleaming yellow warhead was located 20 kilometres away, at the bottom of a vertical shaft that was over a kilometre deep. A fraction of a second after detonation, the temperature would reach over 100 million degrees centrigrade, six times the temperature at the core of the sun. The image of the warhead was being transmitted by an underground camera, just one of many sensors that would provide data on the test.

  ‘Cucumber is only one-tenth the size of the ultimate re-entry vehicle,’ said Rabinovich. ‘That way, we hope to minimise the amount of data picked up in Vienna.’ In 1996 the United Nations had adopted a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty which prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons, but the treaty was not yet law, as several nations, including the United States, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea, were yet to ratify it. Dragunov and Rabinovich both knew, however, that there were over three hundred monitoring stations distributed around the globe to pick up seismic waves from any underground nuclear tests that might be conducted in defiance of the treaty.

  Three warning bursts from the control room klaxon indicated that Rabinovich had armed the bomb and the countdown had begun. The technicians stayed glued to their computer screens as the synchronised digital displays and the sweep hand on a large control clock above the wall screen ticked off the seconds: five, four, three, two, one . . .

  The underground control room rocked on its heavy springs designed to absorb the shock of tests. Even at this distance, the vibrations reverberated through the rock and ice. Minutes later the chief systems engineer reported to General Dragunov. His face was grave.

  Dragunov surveyed the results. ‘I’ll leave you to explain this to the Kremlin, Colonel.’ The General turned on his heel and stormed out of the control room.

  The two Special Operations Black Hawks, rotors clawing at the thin air and with door gunners on high alert, thundered above the Kunar River in the pre-dawn darkness. To the east and to the west, the Apache attack helicopters were flying at a slightly higher altitude. Armed to the teeth with Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, rockets and 30-millimetre cannon, they were ready to peel off and deal with the first sign of trouble. O’Connor scanned the instrument panel over the pilots’ shoulders: 150 knots. For O’Connor and his men, their faces painted in green and black camouflage and weapons at the ready, it was never routine, and like the last operation in the notorious Korengal Valley, here they were again, charging into the unknown.

  Th
e lights of Asadabad loomed in front. The river below was running swiftly past flat-roofed concrete houses on the banks, and at the low altitude, O’Connor could pick out the foaming rivulets. The mountains soared on either side of the valley and the cloak of the night was just being eased by the approaching dawn.

  ‘Alley Cat Five, Gangster Two, this is Alley Cat Four, breaking to the west, good luck, over!’ O’Connor’s Black Hawk pilot, with the call sign Alley Cat Four, radioed Chief Kennedy’s Black Hawk and Apache that were continuing north toward Arandu. O’Connor steadied himself as his own Black Hawk banked sharply to follow the Pech River out to the west, into one of the most hotly contested valleys in Afghanistan.

  Those of General Waheeb’s fighters tasked with securing the strontium-90 source from the generators near Nangalam had taken up a position overlooking the river junction where the Waygal joined the Pech River in a torrent of foam. Waleed Hussain, a swarthy veteran of more than a dozen missions and his less experienced second-in-command, Abdul Prakash, were quietly discussing their plans, their faces hidden behind the customary ISIS black scarves.

  ‘Last night, there was almost no activity in the town, Waleed,’ said Prakash, the thinner of the two.

  ‘That usually only means one thing, Abdul.’

  Prakash nodded, his face grave. ‘Taliban.’

  ‘They are becoming more and more active,’ Hussain agreed. ‘The generators are supposed to be in that old stone hut,’ he said, scanning the area as the first hint of the dawn bathed the snow above them. ‘You can see it in the shadows – it’s near where the river turns to the south, and you can see the Infidel’s old fire base further north near the river junction.’ Camp Blessing, occupied by elements of the 82nd Airborne Division, was one of four bases in the valley. When US forces occupied it, the base had been attacked almost daily from the steep mountains on which Hussain and Prakash had halted. Back then, the Airborne’s big 155-millimetre guns would fire four and five missions every day, the heavy rounds exploding in blasts of fire and shrapnel. But since 2011, the base had been occupied by the Afghan National Army.

  ‘Even the base is quiet, Waleed. I don’t like it.’ Both men knew that when a large force of the Taliban moved through a district, it was not uncommon for the villagers to seek shelter in their stone huts.

  ‘It’s time to move. Tell the men to keep a sharp lookout,’ Hussain directed. He led his men down through the snow and across slippery rocks and boulders. They reached the bottom of the mountain and Hussain summoned Prakash forward. The stone hut where he’d been told the generators were stored was only a hundred metres away, but it was in the open, and Hussain was wary.

  ‘Post a sentry on that small hill,’ he ordered, pointing to a rocky outcrop from where the hut could be covered and he signalled for the rest of his squad to follow. Hussain led the way, sweeping the barrel of his AK-47 in an arc, his finger on the trigger guard. They reached the hut and Hussain motioned Prakash to cover him. Hussain approached the old wooden door cautiously and in one quick movement, he gave it a powerful kick with the sole of his boot. The door separated from its rusty hinges and disintegrated against the first of the generators.

  ‘It’s empty, Abdul,’ he called quietly. ‘Leave the sentry in place and spread the men out.’

  ‘Waleed! Listen!’ Prakash had picked up a noise above the river to the east. It was faint but getting louder, and there was no mistaking the sound. ‘Helicopters! The Infidel! He is coming!’

  ‘Get the hacksaw. Quickly!’ Hussain commanded.

  Prakash summoned one of the fighters but no sooner had he set to work on the first of the generators when the air was rent with a burst of savage gunfire. The ground around the hut erupted in deadly puffs of dust, accompanied by the crack-thump . . . crack-thump . . . of bullets crackling around Hussain’s fighters.

  ‘It’s coming from those huts further up the river!’ Hussain yelled, returning fire across the open field. ‘And there’s movement on the ridgeline too!’ The intensity of fire coming toward the stone hut increased as a dozen shadowy figures, dressed in black, broke cover across the ridgeline before going to ground again. The crack-thump decreased momentarily, and then started up again as another group of Taliban broke cover and doubled toward the ISIS fighters. It was the classic ‘fire and movement’ tactic. One group moving while the other group pinned down the opposition.

  ‘They’re coming toward us!’ Prakash yelled, spraying a full magazine at the advancing Taliban. ‘There must be a hundred of them!’

  ‘We need to pull —’ Hussain half rose to his feet and then fell back, riddled with bullets.

  Prakash crawled over to him, but his commander was dead.

  ‘Firefight up ahead!’ The co-pilot of Alley Cat Four had picked out the muzzle flashes coming from the south of Nangalam. O’Connor had seen them too and he acknowledged with the squelch button on the internal mike.

  ‘Continue with the mission,’ O’Connor ordered the pilots. ‘We’ve got to get to those generators, so we don’t have an option on this one. I make the LZ about 500 metres this side of the firefight.’ To allow for a covered approach, O’Connor had chosen a landing zone short of the target to the east. He directed his next transmission to his combat air controller. ‘Put the F-16 vipers on standby and get Ghost Rider airborne.’ Hank Ventura gave the thumbs up. He and his number two, Milton Rayburn, had served with O’Connor in the Korengal Valley and the US Air Force combat air controllers were cool and collected under fire. The F-16s could be overhead from Bagram in a matter of minutes, but Ghost Rider, the big AC-130 Hercules gunship – in effect, a flying weapons platform – would take a little longer. It was the most powerful airborne weapons platform in the world, equipped with 250-pound bombs, Hellfire air-to-surface missiles, Viper guided bombs and 30-millimetre cannon. O’Connor suspected they might be needed. The muzzle flashes to the west had increased.

  Gangster One, the Apache attack helicopter circled overhead, and O’Connor’s pilots brought the Black Hawk in low and fast, flaring to a hover. In an instant, the crew had the rappelling ropes out the doors either side of the aircraft, and a second later the crew chief signalled ‘go’. O’Connor grabbed one of the ropes on the starboard side. With one hand on the rope behind him, and the other in front, he pushed away from the fuselage and dropped to the clearing, ten metres below. It took less than a minute before his team were on the ground. The Black Hawk gained height and withdrew some distance to the east, but the Apache attack helicopter stayed in closer. The firing to the west around the generator hut could be heard clearly now and O’Connor reached for his handset.

  ‘Gangster One, this is Hopi One Four, the firefight is in the area of the generators and we’re about to move in that direction. I’m not sure who is disturbing the peace, but I suspect it’s the Taliban. I’ll let you know when I have them under observation, but I think we’re going to need you. What’s your endurance time over target, over.’

  ‘Gangster One, we’ve got about two hours fuel, so we’ll be around for a while yet. Nice to be needed. Good luck, out.’

  O’Connor grinned. Gangster One was being flown by Chief Warrant Officer Naomi Lieberman, one of the best pilots the Army possessed and one of only two female pilots assigned to the Apaches. O’Connor knew he could count on her if the going got rough, and although the firing to the west was dying down, there was every chance that wouldn’t last.

  O’Connor scanned the area in front of him. The snow on the mountain peaks was turning pink, heralding the dawn. O’Connor checked his GPS and turned to his second-in-command, Petty Officer Denver Rogers. ‘This is going to get interesting.’

  ‘One way of putting it,’ replied the tall, lanky Texan, grinning beneath his helmet and fingering his Heckler and Koch 416 carbine.

  ‘I’d say it’s a fair bet the clash is between the Taliban and ISIS,’ said O’Connor. ‘We’ll move forward around that ridge ahead of us, and that will give us a better view of the valley.’ O’Connor turned to Ale
jandro Gutiérrez, his long-time intelligence operator. ‘What’s the latest?’

  ‘Ventura’s requested a drone. Should be on station in another one zero minutes, so we might get some visuals very soon. From the amount of firing it sounds like a sizeable force and I think you’re right, it’s likely to be Taliban. I’ve just received a report of a hundred-plus force who were identified north of Asadabad three days ago, so it could be them,’ Alejandro said, ‘but ISIS have been building in Afghanistan as well.’

  ‘I guess we’ll find out soon enough,’ O’Connor said. ‘Let’s move on out.’ O’Connor stationed himself behind his forward scout, José Lopez. The team moved slowly toward the generator hut. Lopez reached the top of the next ridge and dropped to the ground, beckoning O’Connor.

  ‘What’ve we got?’ he whispered.

  ‘Look down by the generator hut,’ Lopez replied, pointing toward the stone hut that was now clearly visible by the river.

  ‘Shit,’ O’Connor swore as he focused his binoculars. The area around the generators was swarming with Taliban. Some were searching the bodies of the ISIS patrol. Suddenly, the area in front of O’Connor was raked with a burst of AK-47 fire.

  With the air exclusion zone activated, President Dmitry Petrov’s military helicopter lifted off from the garden of Novo-Ogaryovo, the Russian president’s official residence, located in a forest to the west of Moscow on the Roublevo-Uspensky Highway. Four white pillars flanked the entrance to the opulent two-storey dacha. To look at, it was not unlike the White House, although with stables for Petrov’s horses, separate servants’ quarters and a restored church, Novo-Ogaryovo was perhaps better compared to the British Queen’s sprawling country estate at Sandringham.