by Jeff Edwards
That could not be allowed to happen. He had to stop the next punch before it was thrown. And that meant sending an unambiguous message to the enemies of the United States that America could not be attacked with impunity.
He had to answer Zhukov’s attacks with a nuclear response. But he had absolutely no desire to actually do it. Owning the keys to the nuclear arsenal was not the same as wanting to use them.
And he wasn’t entirely sure that he could use them without triggering another nuclear conflict. Kamchatka was a Russian province, after all. Now that Zhukov’s missile submarine had been eliminated, would the Russian government tolerate a retaliatory strike from the United States? Could he expect them to sit on their hands, while America launched nuclear missiles at targets on Russian soil?
The answer to those very questions walked in the door, in the guise of Gregory Brenthoven. The national security advisor nodded as he pulled out a chair and sat down. “Good morning, Mr. President.”
The president stared at him without speaking.
“Okay, poor choice of words,” Brenthoven said. “It is most definitely not a good morning. But I have a piece of news that you might find useful, in light of your current dilemma.”
The president turned his gaze back toward the blank display screen. “What have you got, Greg?”
Brenthoven laid a black diplomatic pouch on the table. “I’ve just finished up a meeting with Ambassador Kolesnik. He hand-delivered a very interesting proposal from President Turgenev. It’s counter-signed by Prime Minister Primakov, and a solid majority of the Russian Federal Assembly.”
“What are our Russian friends proposing?” the president asked.
Brenthoven leaned back and made a steeple of his fingers. “They suggest that the United States and the Russian Federation carry out joint retaliatory strikes against Kamchatka. They recommend that we act in concert, and that we hit Kamchatka hard.”
President Chandler looked around. “What? I think you must have misunderstood…”
Brenthoven shook his head. “No, sir. There’s no misunderstanding. Ambassador Kolesnik was extremely direct. The Russians want to divide the target list. They nuke Petropavlosk and the surrounding volcanoes. We hit Yelizovo and as many of the local geographic features as we want.”
The national security advisor raised an eyebrow. “That last part is only to give us an even bite of the candy bar. The Russians want to go after the volcanic peaks surrounding Petro, because that’s where they think Zhukov is hiding. They’re offering us a chance to nuke a few volcanoes too, so we won’t feel like we’re getting left out of the party.”
“That’s crazy,” the president said. “Why on earth would they agree to such a plan?”
“It’s not all that crazy, sir,” Brenthoven said. “From the Russian perspective, it solves three different problems at one stroke.”
“How is that?”
“Well, sir … First, it allows them to demonstrate to us, to the world, and to their own people that they absolutely are not afraid to play hardball with any would-be republics who try to break away and take part of the Russian arsenal with them. A demonstration this powerful will go a long way towards keeping some of their more troublesome territories in line. Especially places like Chechnya, and Ingushetia. Second, this plan allows the Russians to save face. They know we’re going to retaliate against Kamchatka. If they just sit back and take a punch in the face from another nuclear superpower, they look weak and foolish. On the other hand, if they line up shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. and we both retaliate, they get to play the part of the avenging hero.”
The president nodded. “I can see some logic in that. What’s their third reason?”
Brenthoven half-smiled. “We knocked a lot of their warheads out of the sky, Mr. President. We didn’t intercept them all, but we got most of them. From the Russian point of view, that casts serious doubt on the credibility of their nuclear arsenal. This plan gives them the chance to demonstrate the power of the Russian nuclear forces in a way that leaves no room for doubt. It’s sort of a public renewal of their ticket to the Nuclear Superpower Club.”
The president frowned. His advisor’s words were flippant, but the underlying idea seemed to have some merit. The Russian attack plan wasn’t pleasant or humanitarian, by any stretch of the imagination. But it might actually do the nasty job that needed doing.
“I think Russians division of targets is pretty shrewd,” Brenthoven said.
“How so?”
“They know we have a national aversion to killing civilian populace, so they’re offering us Yelizovo as a primary target. It has a population of about 42,000 people. Their primary target, Petropavlovsk, is closer to 200,000 people. This plan gives us a significant enough target to demonstrate that we’re not afraid to retaliate, while allowing us to reduce civilian casualties by about seventy-five percent.”
“That’s a good point,” the president said. “But 42,000 is still a lot of people.”
“You’re right, sir,” Brenthoven said. “It is a lot of people. But Zhukov nuked about twice as many of our people at Pearl Harbor.”
He spoke more softly. “No matter how we do this, it’s going to be hideous, Mr. President. But compared to what’s been done to our citizens, this response is almost merciful. And I suspect that it’s just about the minimum retaliation we can get away with, and still salvage the credibility of our nuclear deterrence.”
“What about radiation?” the president asked. “The prevailing winds are from West-to-East. Are we going to have a fallout cloud over Alaska, Washington, and Oregon?”
“The western states will get some residual radiation, sir. But not as much as you might think. The Pentagon has run fallout projections for just about every conceivable strike scenario. The results are in Appendix G of the SIOP. If we hit Yelizovo, the major fallout footprint will extend about seventy miles downwind from the blast. After that, radiation levels will taper off dramatically.”
“How dramatically?”
“Five hundred miles east of the blast, the contamination level won’t be much higher than the normal background radiation we experience every day. Most of it will blow out to sea, where it will be absorbed and diluted by the ocean.”
“Which isn’t going to do the environment any good,” the president said.
“No, sir, it won’t,” Brenthoven said. “But it’s been done before. Back before the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the Russians tested a lot of nuclear weapons in the Pacific ocean, and so did we. If we attack Yelizovo, the environmental impact shouldn’t be any worse than the old tests at Bikini Atoll, or Johnson Island, or Enewetak.”
“That’s not particularly comforting,” the president said. “We still don’t know the long-term environmental impact of Bikini, or any of those other tests. We haven’t even figured out how to accurately measure the damage they’ve caused to the ocean eco-systems.”
“That’s true, Mr. President,” the national security advisor said.
President Chandler didn’t speak for nearly a minute. At last, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry, Greg. I’m just trying to figure out how to make this omelet without breaking any eggs.”
“I don’t think it can be done, sir,” Brenthoven said.
“Neither do I,” the president said. “But that doesn’t stop me from wishing.”
He looked at his national security advisor for several seconds. “Let’s talk this over with State and the Joint Chiefs. If our people can’t offer any compelling reasons to the contrary, I’m going to take the Russians up on their offer.”
He turned back to the blank display again. One way or another, in a few hours there would be missile trajectories painted on that screen again. But this time, they’d be pointed in the other direction.
CHAPTER 59
OPERATIONS COMMAND POST #3
OUTSIDE PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKI, RUSSIA
FRIDAY; 08 MARCH
0401 hours (4:01 AM)
TIME ZONE +12 ‘MIKE’
Sergiei Mikhailovich Zhukov checked his watch for the twentieth time. What was keeping that accursed helicopter? It was time to be away from this place—past time. Didn’t these fools understand that?
It was all arranged; the Chinese treasury bills were safely hidden in three banks on Grand Cayman. Zhukov and his senior advisors would evacuate to the Caribbean islands, submerge beneath the never-ending flow of tourists, and calculate the most effective way to leverage the Chinese money into another opportunity.
Zhukov was not abandoning the plan. This was only a change of tactics. He was still dedicated to restoring the Rodina to her rightful glory.
The Russian people were yearning for a return to their proper place in the world. He could feel the undercurrent of their hidden desire coursing through the streets and alleyways like the flow of an invisible river.
It was his destiny to make the secret dream of his people into a reality. This battle was lost, but the war was far from over. This was a setback—nothing more. He would study his errors, and learn. And then, he would begin again.
He took some comfort in the knowledge that even Vladimir Ilyich Lenin had suffered failures and reversals of fortune in the early days of the great revolution. Lenin had become a hunted man. He’d gone into hiding, to elude his pursuers, and to gather his forces. And he had returned, to triumph over the enemies of the people, to forge the great Soviet empire.
Zhukov would follow that magnificent example. He would form a covert government in exile, operating quietly from the shadows until he was ready to strip away the veil of secrecy, to reveal the reborn revolution. By his hand, Novaya Rossiya, the New Russia, would be molded from the very ashes of this failure.
If only that damned helicopter would arrive …
“Comrade President?”
Zhukov’s head snapped around, his eyes quickly locating the source of the voice. His chief assistant, Maxim Ivanovitch Ustanov, stood at the door.
“Yes,” Zhukov said. “Is it the helicopter? Has it finally arrived?”
Ustanov’s face was a mask of exhaustion. “I’m sorry, Comrade President. No helicopter. Not yet. There is a meteor shower.”
Zhukov felt the frown form on his face. “A meteor shower?”
“Yes, Comrade President,” Ustanov said. “You asked to be notified of anything out of the ordinary. There is a meteor shower.”
Zhukov swallowed the urge to shout at this idiot, for bothering him with such trivial matters as meteor showers. He reached for his coat.
Three minutes later, he stood at the entrance to the cave, staring up into the darkness. It did look like a meteor shower. Trails of flaming brightness were streaking down out of the sky.
Zhukov’s heart went cold. Those were not meteors. They were …
The air above Koryaksky mountain, 1,000 meters directly over Zhukov’s head, was shattered by a flash more than ten times as bright as the sun.
It was the last thing that Sergiei Mikhailovich Zhukov ever saw.
CHAPTER 60
SHIPPING LANES
WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN
FRIDAY; 08 MARCH
0437 hours (4:37 AM)
TIME ZONE +11 ‘LIMA’
The cargo was divided between the two ships. Strapped to steel cradles on the lower vehicle decks, each of the 20,000-ton Roll-on/Roll-off vessels carried the warhead section of an ex-Soviet R-29R nuclear missile—the unofficial (and unacknowledged) payment for China’s support of Sergiei Mikhailovich Zhukov’s short-lived revolution.
As true owners of the nuclear warheads, the Russian Federation had not authorized their transfer to the People’s Republic of China, but the transfer was taking place nonetheless. In the bowels of two innocent-looking merchant ships rode the technology that would finally transform China into a nuclear superpower. The balance of world power was poised to shift suddenly and (perhaps) irrevocably toward Communist Asia.
In the years to follow, no one would ever be able to prove the details of the illegal transaction taking place on a lonely stretch of shipping lanes in the Western Pacific Ocean. Despite a mountain of suspicion, and an avalanche of circumstantial evidence, no investigative body would ever manage to formally verify the link between the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Zhukov. No court would ever bring official charges against the Chinese government or the People’s Liberation Army.
Unconcerned by the growing controversy in Russia, the United States, and Japan, the Motor Vessel Shunfeng and the Motor Vessel Jifeng made twelve and a half knots of steady headway against a brisk easterly wind. When they made landfall in their home port of Zhuhai, the masters and crews of both ships would all become very wealthy men, as well as national heroes of the People’s Republic of China. And they would all take pride in having elevated their great nation to its rightful place as the dominant military force of the new millennium.
The West would rattle and rail, but the sluggish mechanisms of the international courts would move far too slowly to have any real effect. By the time the self-important fools had finished wrangling with themselves, the deed would be done.
* * *
They came from the northwest: six Mitsubishi F-2A fighter jets, screaming through the darkness in three flights of two, afterburners trailing streaks of translucent blue flame less than 1,000 meters above the wave tops. Although no one aboard the Shunfeng or Jifeng would ever see them, each plane had the ‘rising-sun’ roundel of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force emblazoned on its wings and fuselage.
The attack was sanctioned by no court. It was recorded in no log book, and it was not formally authorized by any agency of any recognized government.
Officially, the attack never occurred at all. Unofficially, it happened quickly and without mercy.
Twelve jewel-like flashes announced the launch of a dozen Japanese ASM-2/Type 93 Air-to-Ship missiles. The dart-shaped weapons locked onto the heat signatures from the two unarmed merchant vessels and hurled themselves toward their respective targets.
The darkness was shattered by a dozen simultaneous explosions, as the Motor Vessels Shunfeng and Jifeng received Japan’s unofficial answer to China’s unofficial bid for nuclear supremacy. The fragments of the broken R-29R nuclear warheads tumbled to the bottom of the ocean, accompanied by the wreckage of two ships and the bodies of their crews.
The fighter planes circled the area until the demands of fuel consumption forced them to turn back toward the waters of their own country.
When the sun finally straggled above the horizon, the location was marked only by a scattered field of floating debris, and the rainbow smudge of an oil slick from the ruptured fuel tanks of the Shunfeng and Jifeng.
There were no survivors.
EPILOGUE
STONE COVE ESTATES
MARINA DEL REY, CALIFORNIA
FRIDAY; 21 JUNE
4:15 PM PDT
Whoever it was would not stop knocking.
Ann Roark grabbed the remote for her stereo and wound up the volume another few clicks. Johan Sebastian Bach fairly flew out of the speakers, the buoyant violins filling the living room of her condo with the brightness and promise that were totally lacking from her life.
The knocking grew louder.
“Go away!” Ann said. She fingered the remote again, and Bach swelled to maximum volume.
The scars on her wrists were fading now, just thin white lines where the razor blades had cut their tracks through her skin. She wondered when she’d have the courage to try again. Maybe she’d get it right this time. And maybe that would finally end the dreams. Maybe she’d stop seeing the fireball in the sky over Pearl Harbor. Stop seeing the faces of the dead strangers she hadn’t been able to save.
The knocking on the door continued unabated.
She would wait them out, whoever it was. She wasn’t going to answer the door.
But the knocking continued, pausing only for brief intervals every now and then, as the unwanted visitor changed up and be
gan knocking with the other hand.
The Bach CD ran out, and the stereo restarted it automatically. Ann wondered if the persistent asshole at the door would still be pounding away when the disc restarted the next time.
She sighed and stood up, trudging to the door as though the weight of the world was on her shoulders. And, in a way, it was.
She left the security chain on, opening the door only as far as the short length of chain would allow. She glared at the dark-haired man outside her door. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him.
“What?” she said. “Can you not take a freaking hint? Are you too freaking dense to see that I don’t want visitors?”
The dark haired man smiled, and suddenly Ann recognized him. It was Bowie. Captain Bowie, from the Towers. She’d never seen him in civilian clothes before. He looked different. Like a regular guy.
“I realize that you don’t want visitors,” he said. “But you know how captains are. We get spoiled. We’re accustomed to having things our own way.”
“So I remember,” Ann said.
Bowie looked through the gap of the partially-opened door, past Ann into her living room. “Brandenburg Concerto Number 3, right? One of my favorite Bach pieces, but I don’t usually listen to it quite this loud.”
Ann turned far enough to point the remote toward the stereo. She brought the volume down.
“Are you going to invite me in?” Bowie asked.
Ann made a face. “Do I have to?”
Bowie smiled again, and she saw again that he really was a decent looking guy, in a Boy Scout sort of way.
“It’s not an order, if that’s what you mean,” Bowie said. “And I don’t really need to come in. I actually came to take you out. Let’s go have a drink, okay?”
The request took Ann completely by surprise.
Bowie must have caught the expression on her face, because he waved a hand. “I’m not trying to pick you up,” he said. “I promise.”
He crossed his heart. “I’m happily engaged. But even if I weren’t attached, I wouldn’t shoot my career in the head, by hitting on a civilian contractor. This is completely innocent. Scout’s honor.”
