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Lambert wore a dark gray business suit. His tongue was sore from running it nervously along the new addition to his molar. The taste from his visit to the CIA dentist lingered.

All my life I've studied war,
Lambert realized suddenly,
from the time I was a child. I even made it my chosen career.
But when it came time to decide whether to go into the military, he had gone to graduate school instead. He had feared most wasting his time training and preparing to fight a war—the “big one” against the Soviet Union—that seemed virtually certain would never happen.
Who the hell would have guessed?
he thought, tracing the origins of this war, each step of which seemed so logical, almost preordained, when viewed retrospectively, but so improbable when viewed prospectively.

He looked over again at the major standing by his side. His face was dirty or tanned and leathery, he couldn't tell which. Two months of war—of World War III.
I could have done what you've done. I could have risked what you've risked. I could have seen what you've seen.

The major looked back at Lambert. His eyes were bloodshot and glassy, his gaze focusing on Lambert for only a moment before dissolving into that look, that “thousand-yard stare,” that Lambert had seen in the faces of hundreds of men and women on his way up to the front. They were exhausted, emotionally as well as physically. It had to end here, at Moscow. They could not go on.

I would have joined,
Lambert thought as he looked back across no-man's-land toward the Russians,
if only I had known it would happen.

“There they are,” the major said.

“Got 'em,” the lieutenant replied.

Lambert saw the white flag unfurl in the distance across the open field.

“Let's go, sir,” his escort said, and the three of them—Lambert, the flag bearer, and the major—began the slow walk from the tree-line out into the open.

They had to walk slowly because of the effort it took the soldier carrying the large flag into the stiff wind, which cut into and through Lambert's light summer suit and left him with a distinct chill. Up ahead, the Russian flag bearer was having the opposite problem, digging his heels in as he stumbled in front of the tide of cool air.

“Careful,” the major said, his hand slapping back against Lambert's chest to stop him. “Unexploded submunitions,” he said, nodding at the small silver disk that lay half buried in the dirt. They skirted the disk and kept going, the only sound the vigorous snap and rustle of their flag's fabric. Lambert searched the charred and cratered ground ahead as did his escorts, looking for anything unusual.

As they neared the group of three Russians, Lambert glanced up to see that the man in the center was Filipov. He was wearing full combat gear.

They stopped about ten yards apart. “Greg,” Filipov said in a raised voice.

“Hello, Pavel.”

Lambert could feel the eyes of both the major and the flag bearer glance over at him, barely turning their heads for the look. “Come with us,” Filipov said, and Lambert walked across the open space dividing the two armies—alone.

As they walked back to the Russian lines, Filipov said in English, “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Lambert said. “Busy.”

“I can imagine.”

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

Lambert tried to think of something more to say, but they walked on slowly and in awkward silence. Lambert thought the silence would hold all the way to the opposite treeline, which they approached slowly walking into the wind, but he was wrong.

“Greg, why is your country doing this?” Filipov stopped and faced Lambert.

“Doing what, Pavel? You mean the war?”

“I mean invading my country, destroying our towns and villages, killing our people?”

It was a simple question, and Lambert was the national security adviser to the President, but he could not seem to formulate an answer that was appropriate for Filipov, his enemy and his best friend. From Filipov's expectant look, Lambert realized his answer was somehow critical.

They stood in the field on the outskirts of Moscow, the capital of Filipov's country. He had come all the way across Filipov's homeland
but had not asked the Russians' permission for the visit. He hadn't any need to, for the land was, however temporarily, U.S. territory now. Taken, not given, but paid for in the blood of tens of thousands and the shattered lives of hundreds of thousands more.

“If you mean the moral justification for it, I would point to the eight million Americans who have died or are dying from the grossly negligent safeguards you maintained over weapons aimed at my country,” Lambert said, sounding more bitter than he felt at first, the bitterness rising, however, with every word spoken. “If you want the statement of a policy goal, I will say to disarm you of the nuclear arsenal of which you have proven untrustworthy custodians. But if you want a geopolitical analysis, Pavel,” Lambert said, turning to face Filipov full on, “if you want an answer that the historians many years from now will write, it is because our two countries were bound to each other with a strange attraction, fascination mixed with mistrust. We were bound so closely for so long, war was never far away, and when it happened, we were strong, and you were weak. We win, you lose—that's the way of it.”

There was a soft knock on the door of Razov's office. “Enter!” he said, not lifting his head from the report on the U.S. naval buildup in the Barents Sea until he realized that someone was waiting for him. He looked up to see a female soldier, the same woman who had come several times before to update his map, standing at the door. “Come in.”

She walked over to his map table. “New data?” Razov asked, looking back down at the report.

“Yes, sir, General Razov,” the soft-spoken woman said. “It's from Nizhni Novgorod—straight off the imager, just like you ordered.”

He glanced up at her; she was smiling at him. Razov flashed a smile back, having trouble concealing his rising fear that despite all his efforts the Americans were deploying for an assault on the Bastion.

“They said I needn't bother, but I officially went off duty a few minutes ago,” she chattered on, “and I told myself, ‘Lyudmila,' I said, ‘you'd better get these up to General Razov right away before he evacuates with the rest of them.' ”

“Possible sonar contacts from Sensors CX-51 and CX-27,” Razov
read, flipping pages to find the sea-floor sensors on the map. He looked up at the woman, who was carefully drawing on the plastic map overlay. “What did you say?”

She looked up petrified.

“Who told you not to update my map? And what is this about an evacuation?”

She was speechless, her eyebrows knitted over worried eyes.

Razov rose and went over to face her. “Answer my questions.”

“I . . . it was . . . it was the duty officer. He . . . I said maybe I should come up here and update your maps, and he said no, but I was going off duty, and so I came up anyway.”

Razov looked down at the map on which she had been writing. “What evacuation are you talking about?”

“They're packing everything up downstairs. We all just assumed . . . ”

The division markers of the army groups around Nizhni Novgorod were being replaced by brigade and, in some cases, battalion markers as the unit symbols spread out over the landscape beneath the plastic. The divisions were splitting up, dispersing, and Razov had given no orders for the move. “What the hell is this?”

The private's mouth hung open, and she closed it to swallow, but no words came out of the stricken face.

“Do you know,” Razov said in as soothing a tone as he could muster, “why it is these units are being redeployed? Why they are dispersing?”
To be of no further use as a threat to the Americans!
he wanted to rage.

She shook her head.

Razov knew.
Operation Samson!
Someone had ordered the troops in the field to thin out. It was a major deployment. It was consistent with the details of Operation Samson, the supposed “deception” plan
STAVKA'S
staff had developed. He imagined how this would look on the American satellite photos.
What would their intelligence analysts conclude about Russian intentions?
he thought. The answer was so clear it sent ice water through his veins.
They'll see us preparing. Nuclear war!
“Do you know anything?” he snapped at the woman. “When did the evacuation begin?”

Her eyes lit up. “The duty officer was talking last night with a general.”

“Which general?”

“I don't know.”

“What service? What uniform?”

Her eyes lit up again. “Strategic Rocket Forces.”

“General Karyakin?”

“Yes—
yes!
They said ‘Operation Samson' over and over. I was
working at the map while they talked, and . . . ”

Razov strode toward the door, leaving her alone at the map.

Walking through the underground offices Razov saw that they were indeed being packed. He felt the eyes of startled aides standing at printers as he walked down the long corridor for the closed double doors of the conference room at the end. He burst through them with a loud noise from the latches, and General Mishin fell silent midsentence. Karyakin sat at the head of the table, in Razov's seat.

“General Raz-
ov
,” Karyakin said in an upbeat voice.

“What's the meaning of this?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

“I'm sorry, Yuri,” Mishin said. “We took a vote. We've decided to go in a different direction.”

“And what direction is that?” Razov sensed more than heard the approach of the two men who appeared at his elbows. He turned to look at the soldiers at either side of him. They would not look him in the eye.

“Please leave us, General Razov,” Karyakin said. “We have work to do.”

Abramov and several of the others loyal to him were missing.

Razov scanned the table. No one returned his look except Mishin. Even old Admiral Verkhovensky couldn't bring himself to look up at him.

Lambert passed the Russian firing positions, so like their American counterparts. The Russian soldiers stared at him with white eyes gouged out of dirty faces. Small clumps of previously unseen, brush-covered soldiers rose on a sharp “Let's go!” yelled in Russian and rushed into the open hatches of the dozen armored vehicles just behind the lines. The vehicles were lying low on either side of the blackened and artillery-pitted road and started their engines as Lambert's small entourage climbed into the open rear door of their own BTR-80.

As the ramp clanged shut and Lambert took a seat on a bench, the engine turned over and the lights came up. “Granite Forty-two, this is Canyon Seventeen,” Filipov said in Russian and Lambert translated silently, listening. The vehicle lurched to a start as the wavering
signal of a man speaking Russian answered.

“This is Granite Forty-six, go ahead, Canyon.” Lambert could barely hear over the loud whine, a storm of constant American jamming.

“Inform Granite Forty-two that our guest has arrived,” Filipov said into the microphone. There was silence. “Granite Forty-six, can you hear me. Respond.”

“Canyon Seventeen, there has been a change. They have taken Granite Forty-two.”

The look on Filipov's face confirmed Lambert's translation.
“Vzyali,”
the word had been—the Russian conjugation of the verb “to take” meaning “they have taken,” only without a pronoun or noun to identify who “they” are.
“Vzyali,”
Lambert remembered, a word at once as familiar to Russians as it was terrifying. Never
“arrestovani”
“arrested.” Only
“vzyali,”
“taken.”

“Who?” Filipov asked.

“
STAVKA
” the response came. “Karyakin.”

“Where to?”

“Lefortovo by motorcade. They have him downstairs right now making a videotape for broadcast on television about the change in command, and then they will take him to Lefortovo.”

Filipov signed off and looked over at Lambert. “
STAVKA
has . . . has arrested General Razov.” His face was ashen.

“Do we go to the Kremlin?” Lambert asked. “Should I try to talk to the others on
STAVKA
?” Filipov looked lost. “Karyakin—he's the commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces, right? Can I talk peace to him? Is it worth a try?”

Filipov shook his head slowly, clearly in shock at the news.

Lambert grabbed Filipov by the shoulders, and his friend looked back at him. Lambert spoke slowly, enunciating each word carefully in Russian. “Then let's go get Razov.” The vehicle's commander and gunner standing in front and a lieutenant and a half dozen men who had piled in after Lambert all stared at Filipov, who hesitated. Filipov's eyes, however, slowly focused and he closed his mouth. He turned and began barking orders to the driver.

Chandler and his men were exhausted. Twice his driver had strayed off the road onto the shoulder of the highway. Both times
they had been lucky: no mines. The MPs had said that there was a belt every few hundred meters and that they had cleared only the road itself, not the shoulders or fields around it.

His battalion had been pulled off the line and sent one hundred miles over dirt roads, highways, and the streets of towns small and large down the main route of the American advance, never knowing from turn to turn whether the next copse of trees or building might hide Russian Spetsnaz waiting in ambush. The MPs never knew anything more than what the next turn was or which road to take the next few miles. When they ran through the northern edge of their last map and pulled out the new one, it became apparent where they were headed. Centered on the next map, covering the middle third in gray rather than the green and brown of rural terrain, lay Moscow.