Black Ghosts (40 page)

“What!” thundered Konyigin. “Out of the question! All our arrangements have been made. They must stand.”

“The Americans say there is a security risk at Sheremetyevo,” the security chief said apologetically.

“But the airport is protected by the army,” snarled Konyigin. “How dare they question my authority? Tell them the arrangements stand.”

Gregorin cleared his throat. “I'm afraid they won't listen, Vladimir Ivanovich. They have presented this as an ultimatum: Domodedovo, or they stay at home.”

Almost beside himself with fury, President Konyigin slammed his fist on the arm of his chair, causing a little cloud of dust to rise. “The arrogant bastards! Let them stay home, then.” He sat in silence, his face contorted by an angry frown.

The security chief waited. He knew the signs: Within ten minutes Konyigin would have calmed down, within fifteen he would agree to the change, and within half an hour he would once again be boring everyone with boyish, enthusiastic praise of all things American. It was only a matter of time.

 

 

 

Ten army trucks were approaching the Kremlin walls. They were moving at a slow pace, keeping a uniform distance between them. After entering the inner yard they came to a stop, lining up outside the yellow four-story building of the old armory. As the soldiers disembarked, Sokolov gathered the senior officers around him and gave them a brief address. This, he knew, was the most important speech of his career, and he was giving it to soldiers who believed they were there to make a movie. What an irony, he thought.

“Now I know this is only a movie,” he said, “but I want you all to behave at all times as though you were on active service, in a normal operation. The main film crew will arrive shortly. We will get into position in a moment. You are to instruct your men to refrain from talking to anyone but me. If anyone approaches them, for whatever reason, they are to get their weapons in a ready position and appear to be ready to shoot. It must look real, is that clear?”

They all nodded, smiling to one another. Sokolov had never seen officers and soldiers of the former Soviet Union comb their hair as much as this unit he had received from the Ukraine. It was as though every last one of them believed he would be discovered and taken to Hollywood, to live in Beverly Hills and sleep with all the movie stars.

“The Kremlin,” he continued, “must look occupied. We are also using hidden cameras, so it is important that appearances be kept up. Is that understood?”

They all nodded again. “Very well,” he said, “carry on.”

The soldiers formed three ragged rows of ten by their respective trucks. Each truck also carried a sergeant who now ordered the troops to stand to attention.

“At ease,” came the shouted command, and the men moved as one. “Attention!” came the order again, cutting through the cold air like a sharp blade. “By the right—form!” Each man now extended his right arm and placed his fist against the shoulder of the man next to him, shuffling his feet in small steps to bring him to the correct distance. Now the ranks were in orderly parade-like position.

While this was going on, Sokolov made his way to the building that was known as the Supreme Soviet. He knew it was now called something else, but since it was still the same building with its large gold insignia of the shield with the hammer and sickle in a laurel crown, it didn't much matter. The soldier in the dark blue uniform of the Kremlin Guard stood in his path.

“Sir!” the guard said, chin out, Kalashnikov held closely to his chest.

“I'm here to see the chief of Kremlin security.”

The guard moved to the side like a well-oiled robot and pointed to a tall door in the whitewashed wall of the building. “Through there, sir.”

“I will show you in, sir,” said a second guard, walking toward the door. Sokolov was escorted to the office of Colonel Denisov, who looked at him with a complicitous smile. “Good morning, Colonel Sokolov. It is good to see you. Is everything proceeding according to plan?”

“Yes, indeed. Our men are assembling in the square outside. You may dismiss the Kremlin Guard immediately.”

“Very good,” said Denisov. The two men left the office together. At the door, Denisov seized Sokolov by the arm and said in a low voice, “Today will be a great day for Russia, my friend.”

“Indeed it will,” replied Sokolov.

“I will see that your men are in position,” the officer said, beginning to walk faster.

Sokolov stopped in his tracks. “Wait,” he said. “You get your men out of the Kremlin, I will put my men in. When you are done, wait for me in your office.”

“I thought we would—” began Denisov, but Sokolov cut him off. “I'm working on direct instructions from General Rogov. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, not at all. I will meet you back in my office as soon as I have instructed the men to return to barracks.”

Outside, the Ukrainians had formed as one large block in the center of the square, thirty ranks of ten men each. Under Sokolov's instructions, each group of ten men was marched by its sergeant to a predetermined location within the Kremlin walls. Once he was satisfied that the Kremlin Guard had been replaced by his Ukrainian stand-ins, Sokolov returned to the office.

Denisov was waiting for him. “Is everything in order, sir?”

“I believe it is. One question: We are expecting no resistance, but should anything unexpected happen, I would like our men to be fully prepared. Do you have any antitank rockets available?”

“Indeed we do,” said Denisov. “Come with me.”

They walked to the armory. Denisov unlocked the door. Inside was a considerable stock of assault rifles and grenade and rocket launchers, including the deadly RPGs. As they headed for the door, Sokolov, walking behind Denisov, clipped a silencer to his pistol. A few feet from the door, he called on the man walking before him. “Colonel Denisov.”

Denisov turned quickly, eager to please. Then he saw the bore of the gun facing him.

“Colonel Denisov,” Sokolov said, “you are under arrest on a charge of treason.”

Denisov smiled—an involuntary facial reaction that rapidly changed to an expression of shock when he realized that Sokolov was serious. He reached for his gun, but before he had time to fire, Sokolov put a bullet in his chest. A shocked expression was still on his face as he slid to the floor.

“I was hoping that would not be necessary,” Sokolov said, looking at the dead body, “but somehow I knew it would be.”

One side of the armory had a small office, where Sokolov stowed Denisov's body. Locking the door behind him, he returned to Denisov's office and sat at the desk in his place. He took the telephone and dialed the number of the presidential bodyguard.

Ten minutes later, Gregorin hurried into the office, flushed and smiling apologetically. “Sorry to keep you—a slight emergency. The Americans have decided at the last minute they want to land at Domodedovo instead.”

Sokolov did his best to look surprised. “Really? And will they?”

“We are still discussing it. I'll let you know what is arranged,” said Gregorin. “Now, how are things on the ground?”

“The Elite Corps is in position,” said Sokolov.

“Good,” said the security chief. Then he went back upstairs to try to placate President Konyigin.

 

Everything was ready. A convoy of trucks, armored cars, and tanks was arranged in formation in the parking area of the bunker. Among them was a van specially fitted with sound and video equipment, from which the new ruler of Russia would show his face for the first time. General Rogov's men were waiting for the order to close the iron fist that already held all of Russia in its grasp.

The telephone call came through right on schedule. The only problem was, it came from the wrong place. General Rogov had been expecting to hear that his elite commando corps was securely in position in and around the Kremlin. Now here was their commanding officer, phoning in from Vnukovo Airport. After apologizing for not landing in Gorky because of technical difficulties, he declared that he was awaiting further instructions.

The general personally got on the line. “Who instructed you to divert course?”

“I received instructions from Blaze Delta Fox, sir,” said the puzzled officer on the other end. “He said I should keep radio silence, sir, I know. But since we couldn't land in Gorky, I thought I should call in.”

“Well done,” the general said. As it turned out, he thought, destiny was on his side. No one could stop him now. It wasn't only Moscow that was at his feet; soon it would be the entire world. And without the arrogant Americans to disturb it, it would be a better world indeed.

“So it's Sokolov,” the general whispered as he looked at his code list. “He's the culprit.” Had he not the proof that Sokolov's code name was used to divert the Ilyushins, he could scarcely have credited the earnest, methodical colonel with the initiative or guts to be a traitor—or could it be that he had misjudged him? Too late to worry about that now. Peter had only one option.

“Wait there,” he told the officer on the other end. “I will join you at Vnukovo and together we will take the Kremlin by force if we have to. They will not defeat us with a little trick like this.”

Peter went down to the control room. “Get me the ICBM site at Svirt,” he commanded.

“Svirt on the line, sir,” said the radio operator.

Peter picked up the microphone. “Nine nine four gamma nine. Begin the countdown now. Alpha, alpha two five five nine Peter.”

“Initiation confirmed,” came the voice over the speakers. “Targeting one o nine.” A red circle lit up next to the city of New York on the world map, then another number was called and a circle lit up next to Washington, D.C. Then it was Los Angeles, then Chicago. Within five minutes the entire United States was covered with tiny, ominous circles. Then came the voice again. “Countdown initiated, Svirt, over.”

On the map, white lines splayed out westward from a point north of Moscow. Somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean, each dotted line split into several more, which spread out and finally linked with the little red circles. In the corner of the screen, white digits began to turn. One showed tenths of a second, moving too fast for the eye to see clearly. The other digits showed seconds, minutes, and hours. At this point the digits showed three hours, fifty-nine minutes and forty-five, four, three, two seconds.

Satisfied that all was now in order, Peter made his final preparations to depart. Everyone in the bunker knew their orders. He gave Colonel Mirsk, who was in charge of the array, a final briefing, and bid farewell to Major Androva, who was disappointed that she would not accompany the general on his triumphal journey to the Kremlin.

“When all is done, my dear,” he promised her, “you shall be the tsarina of all Russia.” Rogov got into his mobile media van and the convoy moved out of the bunker compound.

A half a mile away, on the other side of the valley, Edward watched the convoy leave. As soon as the last truck was out of sight, he sent his men on foot down through the woods in the trough of the valley. Their task was to get as close as possible to the bunker without being seen. Edward threw the crossbow into the back of the Jeep Cherokee and got behind the wheel. According to what Sokolov had told him, there was a road a couple of miles away that passed within a few hundred yards of the bunker's mouth. More important, it passed a point uphill from the bunker itself, which meant that he should be able to approach unobserved. He was to look for a bend in the road by a large craggy boulder. Forty yards uphill from there was a flat area beside the road where he could park the jeep. He would then be separated from the bunker by about five hundred yards of inhospitable rocks and wilderness.

It took him about twenty minutes to drive around to the point Sokolov had described, by which time he hoped that his men would be in position. He left the jeep and struck out across a jumble of rocky terrain to the right. He made slow progress through the rocky scrub, feeling somewhat encumbered by his assault rifle and grenades, as well as the heavy crossbow.

He had moved perhaps three hundred yards when he felt the ground begin to slope more sharply downward. Rounding a rocky outcrop, he caught a flicker of movement below. He froze and watched, counting the seconds as they passed. Nothing happened until, seconds later, the same flicker caught his eye. He realized it was the helmet of the sentry as he passed on his rounds below.

Moving as stealthily as he knew how across the rugged terrain, Edward got within twenty yards of the sentry. He knew, from previous observation and the information Sokolov had given him, that behind the personnel door at the side of the bunker's mouth, a second armed sentry would have his eye to the narrow horizontal observation slit. In addition, the front of the bunker was surveyed by two video cameras, one stationary and one moving. Positioned above the rolling garage doors, they provided between them a panoramic view of the entire frontal approach. Through binoculars from the other side of the valley, Edward had painstakingly observed the movement of the camera and the sentry. Marching back and forth from one side of the bunker's mouth to the other, the sentry was in view of the cameras at all times, except for a few seconds when, every third or fourth time he reached the left-hand side, the moving camera was pointing away to the right. The video monitors were deep inside the bunker, in the control room. If anything untoward were to appear on them, the alarm would be raised, and the surprise factor, on which the success of Edward's plan depended, would be lost.