The Russian Affair

by Adrian D'hage

  ‘Yes, I am suggesting just that!’ the president fumed. ‘You don’t understand. ISIS is messing with me! Bedford Travers! And the American people expect better than this, a lot better!’

  The president’s tirade was interrupted by a live feed. Abu Muhammad al-Rahman was dressed in his customary black robes and turban and the bearded, self-declared Caliph was broadcasting a chilling threat from behind a stone balustrade, the top of which was covered in snow.

  Travers’s eyes narrowed and he glared at the self-styled leader of the Sunni jihadist Islamic State.

  ‘I have a message for you Infidels,’ the Caliph began in an ominous tone. ‘It’s a message that comes directly from Allah and the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. We will shortly be in possession of nuclear warheads, and if you do not immediately cease your operations against us in Iraq and Syria and other parts of the world, your cities will be reduced to smoking, radioactive rubble. The President of the United States is weak and unpopular. Your western civilisations have sunk into the depths of depravity. Your politicians are corrupt. Your banks are corrupt. Your entire society is corrupt. But, Insha’Allah, now you have an opportunity to reform.’ And with that, the screen went blank.

  ‘Where was that broadcast made!’

  An uncomfortable silence descended on the Security Council. Tom McNamara thought hard before he broke it. At the very time this meeting had got underway, McNamara knew that his leading field agent, Curtis O’Connor and elements of SEAL Team Six were preparing to launch an airborne assault on an ancient castle in the snow-capped Caucasus Mountains in Georgia.

  ‘We believe that video was made in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia,’ said McNamara, finally breaking the silence with the barest information.

  ‘Where in the Pankisi Gorge exactly?’

  ‘Again, we’re not sure, Mr President,’ said McNamara, ‘but we think the location is not far from a little village called Jokolo in the upper reaches of the Alazani river.’

  ‘Then we bomb them,’ said the president.

  ‘Mr President, with respect,’ the grey-haired Secretary of Defense Corbett intervened, ‘bomb whom?’

  ‘ISIS! I promised the American people I would destroy these barbarians and I will, and I’m starting with their leader.’

  The Defense Secretary took a deep breath. ‘Mr President, we can’t just order our aircraft to bomb another country. Georgia is not Syria or Iraq. And even if such a grave step were taken, without more exact intelligence on the precise location of a target, conventional weapons are not going to have much effect, other than on the civilian population of Jokolo.’

  ‘Then we nuke them.’

  A collective gasp echoed off the walnut walls.

  ‘Mr President, you can’t be serious.’ This time it was the turn of the Secretary of State to reason with the increasingly irritable and fitful Travers.

  President Travers glared at the veteran diplomat. ‘I’ve never been more serious in my life. As of right now,’ the president said, turning to General Elbert T. Reid, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, ‘I’m authorising you to use one or two of those low-power battlefield nukes you’ve briefed me on. That way, the damage will be confined, but make no mistake – I’m going to wipe these barbarians off the face of the earth!’

  ‘Mr President, it must have occurred to you, that if we launch small nuclear bombs – even conventional bombs – into Georgia, not only will innocent Georgians get killed but the Russian president will see that as an attack on his interests and he may retaliate.’

  ‘Petrov would do no such thing,’ President Travers shot back. ‘He hasn’t got my ticker. ISIS have threatened us with nuclear weapons, and that will be all over tonight’s news. I’m going to tell the American people that we will fight the ISIS fire with a bigger fire. Get your battlefield nukes ready, and I want a brief on my desk by tomorrow morning with a plan to wipe this village off the map. The plan is to include putting our missiles and submarines on full alert in case Petrov decides he wants to mix it with me. ISIS is not going to get away with this, because no one – no one – calls me weak and unpopular and gets away with it. This meeting is terminated!’ The president stormed out of the Situation Room toward the stairs that led up to the Oval Office.

  At the conclusion of the explosive meeting – just one of many – the National Security Council members huddled in separate groups, but there was only one topic of conversation: the fitness of this president to serve in high office and his seeming inability to comprehend reality.

  ‘Could you all resume your seats please, gentlemen.’ The demeanour of the normally avuncular Vice-President Ellison McCarthy was grave and the muffled conversations ceased. ‘Tom, I’d like you to stay.’ The trust between the vice-president and McNamara went back years. The vice-president indicated for his long-serving secretary, Mary Jo Kennedy, whom he’d summoned, to take one of the other vacant advisors’ chairs.

  ‘What I’m about to say must remain in this room. If it gets out, I will resign immediately.’ The silence in the Situation Room was as complete as McNamara had ever witnessed.

  ‘Over the past months, the media have been questioning President Travers’s mental fitness to govern. On many occasions, their questioning has been uncomfortably close to the truth, but we, as our appointments require, have remained steadfastly loyal to the president. Fortunately, the media and ordinary Americans don’t know the half of it, because if they did, most of them would be extremely worried. But today, we have reached a tipping point. The president is rightfully angry over the attacks on New York, and on our staunch ally, Australia. We are all angry. But in times of crisis there is a need for calm, unemotional discussion and a measured response, lest we lead the entire planet over a cliff. Since World War Two and excluding wars like Korea and Vietnam, we’ve confronted many major crises – the Berlin Blockade of 1948; the Cuban missile crisis of 1963; the Pueblo Incident in 1968 – and the USS Pueblo is still held captive by the North Koreans; the Iran Hostage Crisis; and of course 9/11 . . . the list goes on. We’ve been in this position, in this very room, many times, but today there has been a marked and disturbing shift from the principle of a measured response.

  ‘I could perhaps go along with a targeted bombing raid on the Caliph’s location, provided we knew exactly where he was and that we used conventional weapons. Whatever you might think of Petrov, he understands the need for nuclear weapons as a deterrent, not as something to be employed in times of anger because they’re somehow of low power and the damage can be confined – it can’t. In my private discussions with the president, I have attempted to dissuade him from any extreme reaction, but to no avail. We now have very little time to stop the president launching battlefield nuclear weapons.’ The vice-president nodded to his secretary who distributed thin leather folders to each member of the National Security Council. ‘Rather than discuss this further here, if you are in agreement, I’m proposing that we meet outside the White House. Those folders, which I would ask you to keep very safe and show no one else, contain the details. The folders also contain some background reading on the Constitution and a recommendation on a possible way out of this dangerous precipice with which we, and unknowingly, the American people and the rest of the world, are now confronted.’

  McNamara shook his head, unsure which was the greater threat to the world – ISIS or an unstable President of the United States. His thoughts turned to O’Connor and SEAL Team Six, 6000 miles away. O’Connor would, he knew, be preparing to launch his covert mission into Georgia from the Turkish Air Base at Incirlik near the Turkish Mediterranean coast.

  O’Connor waited until Chief Kennedy finished briefing SEAL Team Six on the high-altitude parachute drop for the assault on the castle in Pankisi Gorge, and then added the latest intelligence.

  ‘I’ve just received word from Langley that we now have satellite images of General Dragunov’s chartered superyacht, Printsessa, and she’s now berthed in the southern Georgian port of Batumi. That fits with our
intelligence on Bartók being held in the castle.’ O’Connor went over the details of the castle for a second time.

  ‘I still think they’ve got to be bloody joking,’ muttered Petty Officer Estrada as O’Connor flashed up the imagery of the castle built on a rocky outcrop among perilously steep, snow-capped mountains and now occupied by ISIS.

  ‘Equipment checks in the hanger at 1700 hours and H-hour is 1800. Any final questions?’ O’Connor asked, grinning at Estrada.

  At the end of the briefing he pulled Chief Kennedy aside. ‘We’re now only after Bartók and the thumb drive. I’ve just received a message from McNamara. They’ve got deeper into the ISIS communications and discovered what ISIS have on Dragunov. Our general is fond of little boys.’

  Kennedy shook his head. ‘Asshole. I hope they string him up.’

  With their night-vision goggles protruding from the top of their helmets, O’Connor led his men out onto the tarmac to the waiting special forces Hercules MC-130J Commando II aircraft. The new lighter and more efficient version of the C-130 workhorse had been built specifically for special operations and McNamara had ensured that two – one for a backup, just in case – had been deployed to the US Air Force at the Turkish base. The loadmaster gave the thumbs up and they strode purposefully up the rear ramp.

  Minutes later, the big aircraft roared down the runway. The four huge Allison turboprops, each delivering nearly 5000-shaft horsepower, thrust O’Connor and his men into the gathering dusk and on toward the border of the sovereign nation of Georgia. Black Operation Caucasus was very tightly held, and no one in the White House or the Pentagon, save for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs – let alone the Turks, Russians or Georgians – had any idea of the risks O’Connor and his team were about to run.

  Forty-five minutes out from the drop point, at 35 000 feet, O’Connor and his men connected to the oxygen console for pre-breathing to prepare for when the ramp would be lowered and the aircraft depressurised. O’Connor looked around at his men. The light through the night-vision goggles was an eerie green and once again he felt privileged to be in the company of America’s finest. This operation, he knew, could go horribly wrong at any point, but he couldn’t think of a better team with whom to make the attempt to get Bartók out.

  Kennedy looked at his computer. He had already punched in all the factors, including wind speed, direction and distance, and they were approaching the High Altitude Release Point or HARP. He indicated for the team to reconnect to their bailout bottles and held up five fingers. Five minutes to go. The big ramps folded open and the red jump light illuminated.

  Kennedy indicated one minute, and then 30 seconds and O’Connor led the team toward the ramp and the blackness of the Georgian Alps below. The jump light turned green and O’Connor dived into the void, his team jumping unerringly behind him, each trained to adopt a stable position, enabling them to manoeuvre and take up their place in the formation. Twenty seconds after exiting the C-130, O’Connor and his men deployed their tactical steerable ‘mattress chutes’ and they began the long glide to the landing point – 15 kilometres to the east and 2 kilometres north of the castle.

  O’Connor checked his compass, GPS system and altimeter. Three minutes out, he began to alternate the control toggles to eat up ground speed in a series of S-turns. The clearing was visible now and one by one they flared their chutes and landed in the snow. O’Connor and his men quickly packed their parachute gear and hid the bags under the snow in thick forest.

  O’Connor signalled for his men to spread out and he led the way toward the castle. Two hundred metres further on, a withering burst of AK-47 fire kicked up the snow in front of him.

  ‘A hundred metres, eleven o’clock,’ Estrada yelled, indicating the muzzle flashes.

  ‘Got them.’ O’Connor, camouflaged in white over clothing, crawled over to where Estrada had positioned himself behind a big pine. ‘I’m going to come at them from behind. Give me three minutes and then distract them.’

  O’Connor stuck to the cover of the thick forest until he was within 40 metres of the ISIS position where he could make out two figures. Even in the green light of his night-vision goggles, their signals to each other looked urgent. They were quite possibly young and inexperienced, O’Connor thought, typical of the ISIS youth who were disaffected, radicalised, given a minimum of training and used as cannon fodder. Suddenly both ISIS fighters opened fire again. Estrada was doing a courageous job of distraction, darting from his tree and diving behind another, keeping the ISIS fighters’ attention to their front. O’Connor circled and approached from behind. One of them turned to get more ammunition and O’Connor fired twice, hitting each of them in the head. He scanned the surrounding forest but there was no further movement. Satisfied there were only two, O’Connor signalled for the rest of the patrol to come forward.

  ‘ISIS.’ Kennedy’s observation was more a statement than a question. ‘Just the two?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ agreed O’Connor. ‘I’d say they’ve been sent out here as an early warning post, so whoever is in command in the castle is no amateur, and unfortunately, the firing might have been heard, although the forest is pretty thick and at this distance it will be muffled. Anything on them?’ O’Connor asked when Estrada had finished searching the bodies.

  ‘Amateurs,’ Estrada replied, a look of contempt on his camouflaged face. ‘Passports, driver’s licences and cell phones,’ he said.

  O’Connor shook his head. ‘The castle is still another 2 kilometres south-east of here, so let’s move. Fortunately it’s downhill, because I want to put in an assault before dawn when they least expect it.’

  The snow was heavy on the ground and it took nearly two hours before they reached their target. O’Connor motioned for his men to stay in the tree line while he and Chief Kennedy moved forward.

  ‘Christ,’ exclaimed Kennedy. ‘Estrada was right. Colditz wouldn’t be out of place on that cliff.’

  O’Connor surveyed the ruined castle through his night-vision glasses. ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘if we tried to scale the walls it would be impossible, but there is a weakness that our informer pointed out.’ O’Connor pulled the rough sketch from his pocket and checked it again. ‘I think the dungeons are our best bet for Bartók,’ he said, indicating their location to Kennedy, ‘but when the castle was built as an outpost as a defence against the invading Persians, the local Kakhetian ruler incorporated a secret passage in case he needed to escape. The entrance to that passage is on the lowest point of the southern wall, here.’

  ‘Guarded?’

  ‘Possibly, but there’s only one way to find out,’ said O’Connor, ‘although first we need to get our Black Hawks airborne.’ Operation Caucasus was high risk and they were using the same Black Hawks used by SEAL Team Six on their raid into Pakistan to eliminate bin Laden in 2011. The special forces Black Hawks were covered in Radar Absorbent Material or RAM which lowered their radar signature, and they were also significantly quieter. By flying nap-of-the-earth, the plan was to avoid any radar coverage by either the Turks or the Georgians. So far the plan had worked. Two of the heavily modified Black Hawks were fuelled and waiting on the Turkish side of the border with Georgia, 250 kilometres away. O’Connor reached for his radio handset.

  ‘Alley Cat Four, this is Hopi One Four, how do you read me, over.’

  ‘Alley Cat Four, five by five.’

  ‘Hopi One Four, roger, crayfish, over.’ Crayfish was the code word that would get the rescue Black Hawks with the accompanying Apache attack helicopter airborne.

  ‘Hopi One Four, crayfish, out.’

  ‘They’ll be hitting 150 knots, so we haven’t got much time to get to Bartók.’ O’Connor signalled for the rest of his patrol to come forward and he led the way down to the entrance to the secret passage, again keeping to the trees.

  ‘Sentry,’ O’Connor said quietly as Estrada joined him.

  ‘Yeah, but he’s not too alert.’ The ISIS fighter had lit a cigarette, and was shelteri
ng from the cold under a tree near the entrance to the camouflaged stone passageway that led up into the castle forecourt. ‘I’ll deal with him.’

  ‘I’ll cover you,’ said O’Connor.

  The Mayflower – the old lady of Washington – had a colourful history. Over the decades she had hosted presidents, governors, FBI chiefs and high-class callgirls, and during that time, the superbly trained, white-gloved bellhops and receptionists had turned a blind eye. The callgirls were never hard to spot. They were invariably impeccably dressed and often arrived without luggage as they headed straight for the lifts.

  One by one, and ten minutes apart, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the other members of Travers’s cabinet made inconspicuous arrivals at the rear entrance of the Mayflower Hotel and made their way up to the Presidential Suite. Dressed in a suit, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, although not a member of cabinet, also arrived. Given the nature of a nuclear strike, the vice-president wanted him there as an advisor.

  Vice-President McCarthy was the last to arrive, and as his driver approached the hotel in a nondescript black Secret Service Suburban, sans the flags and escort vehicles, McCarthy allowed himself a smile, reflecting on the stories the Mayflower could tell if the walls could talk. A short walk from the White House, President Harry Truman had stayed there for three months while the White House was being renovated and had called the hotel ‘the second best address in Washington’. In 1933, the President-elect, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had written his inaugural ‘only thing we have to fear is fear itself’ speech in room 776. J. Edgar Hoover ate lunch there for 20 years, mostly with his long-time friend and Associate Director of the FBI, Clyde Tolson. The two worked together, holidayed together, and were buried together, but whether they ever shared a bed in the Mayflower or anywhere else had been rumoured, but never proven. More recently, the Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, had been forced to resign over his patronisation of the high-priced prostitution service, the Emperors Club VIP. Monica Lewinsky had been photographed with President Clinton at a 1996 election event. She had later stayed there in room 860 and had been interviewed for Clinton’s impeachment in the Presidential Suite. Now the Presidential Suite had once again been pressed into service for a similar move, but with a different mechanism.