Arc Light (60 page)

“Sir, even assuming that we have all the right specialties here, and all the right equipment, and everything falls into place just right,
how
could we be expected—”

“Expected!”
The dam burst. The motion in the room stopped again. “Ex-
pec
-ted! You want to know what's
expected?
You don't like it that I only gave you
ten days?
I've only got two battalions in the field right now, and I don't know whether I can even hold
this
position for ten days! But they want me to head on off to
Russia!”
His arm shot up, pointing, Chandler assumed, east.

“Expected? I'll tell you what's expected. At zero nine thirty this morning I got handed one of those little sheets of paper over there,” he said, pointing to a pile to which the radio operator sitting next to it added, “and it said that a company of MPs that I'd sent up to the line”—he had to stop, choking with anger—“had been overrun on the reverse slope of a hill. They'd been trying to get to the top, but
the Russians got there first. And that little message wasn't the last one either. Oh, no! They went on and on. You see, the first wave that overran 'em didn't stop to kill 'em all. They didn't have time. They just shot every one of 'em they could as they drove on by. So, what do the MPs do? They go on up to the top of the fucking hill like I ordered and
they dig in, Goddammit! They dig in!”

He was right in Chandler's face, yelling with foul coffee breath.

“So, along about mid-morning, I get another of those little pieces of paper,” Harkness continued.
“Another
echelon had overrun 'em, shooting 'em up again. They were just calling to let us know. Just to let us know and to ask
where the fuck was the help they'd been screaming for while they dug for their lives!”
He paused to look down at the clutter of his desk as he rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. Chandler felt the eyes of the others in the still room burning holes in his back. “They never stood a chance. They were trucked up there on buses. The third wave killed 'em all. Every last one of 'em Dead, prisoner, I don't even know, 'cause once they quit handing me those
fucking
pieces of paper, I don't know
anything!
They're just gone! A whole company”—he looked up at Chandler, wild-eyed, menacing—“every last one of 'em
women!
Goddamned
women
left after we'd stripped about five MP companies of all the males for infantrymen!” He paused, his gaze dropping again, then said quietly, “Those women were on foot, Major. You'll have tanks.”

The driver had taken the nondescript car off the main roads to try to avoid the enormous traffic jam that had developed. Filipov looked out the window on the gray day at the slums of the underprivileged, mostly black. Irina would have been upset. He tried to avoid showing her things like this. He tried to make her love America.

rom where Filipov sat nearly parked in the traffic, he could not see what lay ahead. A sign at the intersection in front of the car indicated that Veterans Stadium lay in that direction, and Filipov wondered whether the American baseball season was resuming already. People streamed by the car on both sides of the street and headed up the hill away from the river. A family, their young child on her daddy's shoulders. The incongruous picture of three laughing boys, wearing counterculture clothes but carrying small American flags. An elderly couple, somber and quiet, ambling their way slowly up the sidewalk.

“What's the delay?” Filipov asked the FBI agent in the seat in front of him.

The man was pointing to the empty lane on their left and saying, “Just pull out around this shit,” to the driver. He then turned to face Filipov. “Just a little rally. Thought you'd like to take a look.” There was no disrespect in his voice. There was also nothing friendly about it either. The agent rolled down his window. The electric whine was almost immediately drowned out by the full-throated roar of a crowd cheering in the distance.

The driver twisted in his seat to look over his shoulder and then pulled out into the empty lane for opposing traffic, accelerating boldly up the hill. Just before he got to the turn that was his goal, a policeman stepped out into the street and held both hands out for him to stop.

“Shit!” the driver said, rolling down his window. Filipov looked out onto the backs of the crowd stretching across the closed street ahead just as the crowd roared again. American flags, large and small, were being waved above the sea of heads. The crowd itself was, Filipov noticed, a cross-section of Middle America, mostly families with some groups of young gathered together and rowdy, all facing the speaker standing somewhere in the direction of the giant stadium in the distance.

“A-a-ll right!” the cop said. “Just whaddaya think yer doin'?”

The driver pulled out his badge and said, “FBI.”

Filipov opened the door and stood up on the floorboard as he leaned out of the car. “Hey!” the agent in the front seat shouted and opened his own door, one hand grabbing the butt of the pistol he wore under his armpit. The other agent was out also, his pistol drawn and resting on the roof of the car pointing straight at Filipov. The policeman stood there confused by the commotion and staring at Filipov, whose own attention turned to the crowd that from his elevated vantage was now in full view.

The speaker was so distorted that all Filipov could tell was that some man was speaking with great volume and energy. There were large, homemade banners held aloft by dozens in the center of the crowd. There was smoke and a flame as a dummy burned on the end of a pole held up in the air. Everywhere there were flags. Another great cheer rose up and with it ten thousand, a hundred thousand pumping fists in one long, continuous shout that slowly grew organized.

“U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” the orderly crowd shouted as if at an Olympic event. The crowd covered the great distance all the way to the stadium, repeating the chant over and over. The speaker was finished, and Filipov now realized that he was not standing in front of
the stadium, he was in the stadium itself, and the stadium was filled to capacity.

“My name is James Anderson, Central Intelligence Agency. This is Colonel Petry, Defense Intelligence Agency. And of course you know Mr. Lambert with the White House. Why don't we all have a seat?” Anderson suggested, ushering Filipov to the sofa so that he would face Camera 1, the only color camera in the old house.

The place was dusty and had smelled of disuse when Lambert and the agents had arrived there an hour earlier. They had spent most of their time frantically pulling sheets off furniture, even sending one of the three agents in the camera room out to the Safeway to get new light bulbs for the darkened parlor.
Not getting too much use for these places,
Lambert thought bitterly,
now that we're such good friends with the Russians.

Filipov stood waiting until Anderson placed him in the correct seat. Filipov's eyes were continually drawn back to Lambert. “Greg, I don't know what I can say,” Filipov had said when greeted at the door, waiting afterward through the awkward silence for a reply that did not come. “I'm so sorry about Jane” were the only other words spoken.

After they all were seated, Lambert looked up at Filipov, and Filipov stared back at him, concern etched deep into his face. Filipov cocked his head as if to ask Lambert what was wrong. He gave up and looked at the other two intelligence officers before looking back at Lambert. “Thank you for agreeing to this meeting,” Filipov began formally.

Anderson and Petry sat there like stones, clearly there to listen, not talk.

“I have come here on a matter of great importance,” Filipov continued. “It is also of such great sensitivity that the most extreme discretion is required, on your part as well as our own.” Filipov swallowed and licked his lips, and Lambert wondered whether he should offer him a drink but took his cue from the two operatives with him and sat still.

“First, let me tell you that I come here at the direction of General Razov. Secondly, let me tell you also that none of the other members of
STAVKA
know of this visit. That is the reason why this visit must remain discreet. The other members of
STAVKA
would object
to my telling you what I am about to tell you.”

Out of the corner of his eye Lambert saw Anderson and Petry glance at each other. Lambert concentrated on Pavel, whose eyes remained fixed on Anderson for quite some time before looking over at Lambert.

The silence hung over the room.

Filipov's eyes fell to the floor as his palms came to rest on his knees, his stiff arms conveying the discomfort that he obviously felt. “As you doubtless know, the ballistic missile submarine force of our country's navy remains largely intact and is currently defended from your forces in a bastion located in the Kara Sea.” He looked up at Lambert, and Lambert gave him the slightest of nods. “As you also are aware, those submarines did not fire their missiles in the exchange on June eleventh.” Again Lambert nodded. Filipov opened his mouth as he looked back down at the floor, struggling with the words.

Finally he said in a rush, “There is one other thing of which you are probably not aware, however.” He now looked straight up at Lambert. “The submarines' nuclear control orders employ a doctrine most commonly called ‘fail deadly.' Under those fail-deadly orders, the commanders received at the time of the exchange
both
targeting coordinates and release orders. The release orders are conditioned upon satisfaction of one of two criteria. They will fire if they receive a valid launch order from the nuclear communicators possessed by
STAVKA,
or
they will fire if any of those boats' commanders believes that he is under attack. In the latter case, the launches would be against the targets whose coordinates were part of the original firing orders Zorin selected. Those targets include U.S. military bases worldwide . . . and the three hundred and four largest cities in the United States.”

The silence was so complete that Lambert's subconscious mind tried to fill it with sounds—a deep rumble just beyond audible range, a whoosh from the street outside that did not quite materialize.

“Well,” Filipov said, slapping his palms on his thighs and rubbing before he stood, “I think that I'd better be going now.”

Anderson and Petry again looked at each other, and then rose, uncertainly, to their feet. Lambert stood also.

“Just one question,” Lambert said.

“I am sorry. I am not at liberty to answer any questions, nor would I be so inclined if I were.”

Filipov's English was always impeccable, but the answer he had just given was stilted. Not a moment's hesitation. Not a single search for a word. Rehearsed.

“Pavel,” Lambert said, “can you recall those submarines?”

“I'm sorry, Greg. I'm not at liberty to discuss control orders further.”

“We are engaged in a war, Pavel. If what you're telling us is true, and those submarines are ‘cocked and locked,' then one mistake, one stray weapon or inadvertent contact. . . ”

“And ‘that's the ball game,' ” Filipov said, as Lambert stared at him.

Lambert saw that Petry was about to say something, but Anderson jumped in and held out his hand. “Thank you very much, Pavel Sergeevich.” They shook hands.

They ushered Filipov to the front door. Anderson nodded at Lambert as they all waited for Petry to open the door, which he did not do, and Lambert said, “Might I have a word with you in private, Pavel?”

“Yes,” Filipov said, immediately jumping at the chance and following Lambert into an anteroom. Lambert pulled the pocket doors closed on the two men outside, consciously avoiding a glance at the side table under which one of the room's microphones was placed.

“Where is Irina?” Filipov blurted out immediately. “I've phoned everywhere and I can't find her.”

Lambert felt the great weight again pressing down on him. “What?” Filipov asked, his face paling before Lambert's eyes.

“I have to ask you this first, Pavel. Please forgive me.” It was distasteful to make him wait, but he had to do his job. “Back there in the parlor—what you told us—is it true? I absolutely have to know, Pavel. Would those submarines fire on their own authority if attacked?”

“Yes,” Filipov said, but then quickly asked, “Where is she?”

Lambert looked at Filipov, his face, his posture, everything about him a pathetic jumble of nerves. He knew he should press on, that Pavel would not be of much use after he was told, but he couldn't. It was too much. “She's dead, Pavel. I'm sorry. She's dead.”

“The release orders are conditioned upon satisfaction of one of two criteria,” Filipov said. Lambert was on edge. Pavel's own agitation was contagious. It reminded Lambert of the old Cold War defection scenes: CIA safe house, senior Russian officer . . . “They will fire if they receive a valid launch order from the nuclear communicators possessed by
STAVKA,
or
they will fire if any of those
boats' commanders believes that he is under attack. In the latter case, the launches would be against the targets whose coordinates were part of the original firing orders Zorin selected. Those targets include U.S. military bases worldwide . . . and the three hundred and four largest cities in the United States.”

The image on the screen froze with Filipov's eyelids drooping in an odd manner.