by John Ringo
"Now that was mercenary," Chechnik said, frowning.
"I've got a very high overhead," Mike replied. "Welcome to capitalism."
"Four," the intelligence specialist agreed.
Mike suspected by the quick capitulation that he could have gone higher. But, hell, he was going to get that damned shipment even if it meant expending every last Keldara and no payment. On the other hand, if the Russians stiffed him they weren't going to like the repayment. That assumed that he wasn't being handed another bill of goods.
"We will get the nukes to you, here, as soon as you send word that the material has been captured and eliminated. The Georgians have agreed to let an American team pick them up. We can sneak the nukes in easily enough."
"Got it. Do I need anything special to destroy this stuff?" Mike asked.
"There are various ways," Chechnik said with a shrug. "But I would suggest carrying some carboys of acid. Very strong acid."
"Great," Mike grumped. "Just what I need to be carrying on a combat op."
* * *
"Katya," Anastasia said with a slightly malicious smile, "this is Mr. Jay." She'd called Katya into her office to introduce the Kildar's newest associate.
"Just Jay, please," the man said, looking the girl up and down. "Just...Jay."
"Hello, Jay," Katya said, looking the apparent Keldara up and down. She was smiling and ducking her head, coquettishly. "I'm Katya. How are you?"
"English, please," Jay said in British accented English. "Anastasia, could I borrow your office for a moment?"
"Certainly, sir," Anastasia replied, getting up and going to the door. "You two have fun."
"Could you say that for me again?" Jay said, walking up to the girl and starting to circle her from just beyond arm's reach.
"Who are you?" Katya asked, still smiling pleasantly. "And could you stop circling me? It's making me nervous."
"Then you need to learn to use more than your eyes to track me," Jay replied. "Say it again. In English. I will choose the language, you will reply. And you are my padwan, and I am your Jedi Master. You may call me Jay."
"I do not have a master," Katya said, somewhat less coquettishly. But it was in English.
"Well, in this case, it's an honorific," Jay replied. "And we'll need to work on the accent. You should be able, at your age, to learn to turn it on and off. After nineteen, for some reason, it becomes nearly impossible. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?"
"Nur Bisschen," Katya said. She'd taken to looking straight ahead rather than following him in his circling.
"Definite accent there," Jay said in Russian. "Try something a little longer."
"Gottverdammte teilzeit schmierfink," Katya said, smiling pleasantly.
"Yes, we're definitely going to have to work the accent out," Jay continued, ignoring the rather personal curse. "There are only three major remaining regional dialects in German. At least in Deutschland. Austrian and Swiss German are slightly different. We'll see how many you can absorb. And Arabic, well, there are so many variants of that it's funny."
"I can't pass in Arab countries," Katya said, lifting up her hair. "Blonde, see?"
"There are some blondes to be found," Jay replied. "And there's this thing I don't think you've ever heard of called 'hair dye.' Oh, no, I take that back. You're not nearly as light a blonde as you would like to appear. Closer to dishwater than platinum, babe. Your dye job's showing through at the roots. Nice touch making sure the carpet matches the drapes, though."
"You're a spy master," Katya said in English, dropping the coquettishness.
"No, I am a master spy," Jay replied. "There is a difference. A spy master runs multiple spies but is not necessarily a good spy. A master spy is a master spy. Part of my job will involve training you. Part of that will be teaching you to see what is really in front of you instead of what you want to see. There are two main purposes to that; reporting accurate information and developing the ability to recognize and assimilate every detail of a culture so that you can disappear into that culture in an instant. You'd like to learn to disappear in an instant, wouldn't you, Katya?"
"Yes," Katya admitted.
"So I'm not going to threaten you with anything but this," Jay continued, leaning in from behind so he was right by her left ear. "The moment that I think your attention waivers, the moment that you don't give me every particle of your being, I will simply stop teaching you. When you know it all, feel free to leave. Please. Because it will no longer be worth my time and I will no longer waste my time. There will be no threats, there will be no warnings, there will be no appeal and there will be no more lessons. Do you understand me?"
"Perfectly," Katya replied.
"Then let us begin..."
* * *
Mike had arranged a meeting with the rest of the command group after the private meeting. He could tell that Adams, Nielson and especially Vanner were alive with curiosity about what had been discussed. But he was still trying to figure out how to handle the information so he ignored their curiosity.
"Baseline:" Mike said as soon as the group was assembled in his office. "I trust Colonel Chechnik with any information we give him. On the other hand, he's also required to report it to his superiors. And since we got burned by leaks in the Russian military one time, you can ask him any questions you'd like but we're not giving him our mission plan. You okay with that, Colonel?"
"Perfectly," Chechnik replied.
"So, besides what you gave me, which is not open for discussion at this time, why are you here?" Mike asked.
"My job is to find out what you need to improve the likelihood of this mission's success and then get it to you," Chechnik said. "I have the full support of the Stavka as well as the office of the president. We want these nuclear weapons stopped. But we ask that it be quietly."
"Also, Arensky is no longer to be considered a bad guy," Mike noted. "And we need to raise the profile of recovering his daughter. It's now believed that she was kidnapped to force him to defect with the...materials."
"Okay," Nielson said after a moment's pause. "You realize you just said we're going to have to do a split mission. And it was already hairy as hell."
"I'm aware of that," Mike said. "For various reasons I'm going to handle the side with Arensky and the WMD. Adams will lead the strike team to try to recover Marina. So what do we need, want or desire from Colonel Chechnik."
"Sucks to be a hostage," Adams said, repeating a common SEAL mantra. In most hostage rescue training missions, the "hostage", invariably a dummy dressed as the hostage, was killed either by the rescuers or the holders.
"Try to make it suck less," Mike said. "Anything else?"
"Well, I could use some better satellite intel," Vanner said. "Specifically, better than one meter scale shots for the entire area."
"You need them for map generation, yes?" the Russian officer said. "Would maps be better? We have high resolution maps for the area."
"You do?" Vanner said. "I've been looking for maps for forever for this area."
"What do you think our Spetznaz use?" Chechnik replied. "We can get you topographical maps, raw DTED or imagery, if you wish."
"I was going to ask Washington for that," Mike admitted. "I'd like a Predator on station in support."
"I have been made aware that the US is willing to supply such support," Chechnik replied.
"Christ, talk about cooperation," Adams snorted. "Am I the only one that's having weird reality distortion here?"
"I've seen it before," Mike admitted. "Once."
"Paris," the Russian said, nodding. "Yes, when one of our nuclear weapons becomes, as you American's say it, 'in play', we become very cooperative."
"We need everything you have on the players," Nielson pointed out. "And the order of battle with data on individuals down to small unit commanders. If you have it."
"Of course," Chechnik said, opening up his briefcase and sliding a DVD onto the tabletop. "All of what we have is in here. It is everything that my office was abl
e to find, at least. As with your American intelligence agencies, there is often something out there that one group knows that the rest do not. But I swear this is everything that the president of Russia could put his hand on in less than a week. It is in Russian, but I understand you can handle that."
"One thing that might or might not be in there," Mike said, musingly. "We need the name of a slaver that works the area. Preferably one that's not terribly brutal. I'd prefer one that if he has a good worker doesn't punch her around just to show her who is boss."
"I only reviewed the information," Chechnik said, cautiously. "And it focuses on the military groups in the area. I'm not sure what it has about the sex-slavers. Some of them are both, of course."
"Everything you can get in a couple of days," Mike said. "We are getting on short time for this op. And that request for info stays very close to the chest, understood? You don't even pass it to Vladimir. Just inside your group on a need-to-know basis."
"I will do it," Chechnik said.
"I think that's it for now," Mike continued. "Colonel, we have a lot of planning and prep to do for this mission. I hope you won't find it remiss if we cut this short. I'd appreciate it if you'd stay for dinner and overnight. I can have Anastasia show you around the area. I'd do it myself but I'm going to be pretty busy."
"Of course," Chechnik said. "I will leave you gentlemen to your business."
Chapter Thirteen
"Okay, Ass-boy, why's he really here?" Adams said as soon as the door was closed.
"I'm still assimilating that," Mike said, looking at the wall. "Among other things, I had to promise to not tell the US government what he told me to get their cooperation. And that goes for you guys, too. I'm willing, not happy but willing, to go along for the time being. But..."
"How serious is it?" Nielson asked. "I won't ask what it is, but how serious?"
"Not sure I can say even that," Mike replied. "But there's a reason that I'm taking the mission to recover the WMD and Arensky. I know the Keldara will keep their mouths shut."
"Well..." Vanner said, uneasily. "I hate to say this, but at this point, American and all that, my primary loyalty is here. If you think we should keep this from the US government..."
"I'm pretty sure I should be on the phone to Washington right now," Mike said. "And I'm going to call them and ask them for a special tasking in case we fail. Put it that way."
"Special tasking?" Adams said. "You mean you want them to bomb the area if you can't get the materials?"
"Sort of."
* * *
"This is rather unusual, Mike," the president said over the video connection.
The secure room in the US Embassy, Tbilisi was a windowless shield-room. But it had a video connection on the securest possible system connected to the American military communications system. Mike simply didn't have time to go to Washington for the conversation; this was the best compromise under the circumstances.
"I agree Mr. President," Mike said, looking at the other connections. The Secretary of State, the former NSA, was on one of the screens, the Secretary of Defense on another. "And thank you for your time. But this was something that only you could decide upon."
"Go ahead," the president said.
"Yes, sir," Mike said, trying not to swallow nervously. "I have been given some additional information by the Russians. However, I was given the information on the agreement that I would not pass it to the American government."
"So why are we here?" the Secretary of Defense asked, angrily. "And how the hell could you agree to that?"
"Because Colonel Chechnik said I needed it," Mike said. "And because I hope that I can convince you of something very serious without, in fact, divulging the information."
"Do we need the information?" the Secretary of State asked.
"Probably," Mike replied. "I'm playing a very hard game here, balancing a wire that's damned thin. I will say that if my mission succeeds you probably don't need it anymore. It will be history. And if I fail, well, that's why I'm here."
"Mike..." the president said then paused. "Mike you've done a lot of good things for your country, for the world. I'm not about to sit here and question your patriotism. But I have to wonder about judgment."
"So do I, sir," Mike admitted. "But if my judgment was incredibly hot, I never would have made it to Syria."
"Point," the president said, grinning. "What do you want?"
"I think it's what we all need, instead," Mike replied. "I'm going to insert the Keldara, and an agent, into the area then attempt to intercept the transfer. One of the items I don't feel bad about passing is that the Russians now think that Arensky is being forced by the terrorists. His daughter was probably kidnapped to get him to go along. That means we're now trying to intercept the shipment, rescue Arensky and his daughter. With a very small force. The only thing that matters, though, is the shipment. In the event that we are unable to secure the shipment, I'm asking that you task a nuclear weapon to take it out."
"You want us to drop a nuke on Georgian territory?" the Secretary of State said, evenly.
"Yes, ma'am," Mike replied. "Here is my thinking on this. The Georgians are aware that there may be a passage of a weapon through their territory; that's why I have the mission. If there is a nuclear event, we can say that it was a detonation of the package due to the terrorists. Just like the Bahamas. Put up a B-2 on station with a steerable special munition. If the package goes into play, if we fail, the B-2 takes out the package. It looks as if the terrorists set off the nuke rather than have it fall into our hands. I'd also like to request Predator tasking in support."
"Mike..." the president said then paused again. "How far do we let it run?"
"No where," Mike replied. "Hit it the moment it goes into play. Right then, right there. If I am still in play and on site, I will specifically request it."
"That's your own position," the Secretary of defense pointed out. "Close counts with nuclear weapons, Mike. I'd hate like hell to have a nuke in play, but I'm not sure it's worth taking you out. We've got strategic room to stop it."
"Sir, as I said, I have information that you do not," Mike replied. "My...judgment is that if we cannot absolutely secure this weapon at the point at which we know it is going to be, that a special munition be used to ensure that it does not go into play. And it has to be a special munition. It can not be a standard munition. That would be worse than not hitting it at all."
"You said 'weapon', not nuclear weapon. It's not a nuke," the Secretary of Defense said, definitely. She had cut her teeth on Soviet disarmament negotiations and knew WMD backwards and forwards.
"Neither confirm nor deny," Mike replied with a death's head grin.
"I'll get back to you on this," the president said, looking at his own monitors. "With either a yes or no. If it's a no, it's a definite no. Who's going to coordinate for the Predators and such? That we can guarantee."
"I'll work that through our CIA liaison," the Secretary of Defense said. "Based upon Mr. Jenkins' recommendation, though, you have my assent and recommendation. His argument about the cover story is a valid point. We can blame it on the terrorists. And if he is willing to nuke his own position, and his own people, to stop this 'weapon' then he has thought this through carefully."
"I'm not worried about blame," the president said. "I'm worried about killing a friend."
"Don't, Mr. President," Mike said. "Make that the last thing on your mind. Because no decision you've ever made is as important as this one."
