Power Play (15 page)

Rani smiled at the memory of it all.

He also smiled at the likelihood of a new Russian cyber-research center, working on a method to zap the American president’s nuclear-launch communications system. President Markova would need a site beyond the prying eyes of the US satellites, and he knew precisely where that would be—inside those eighteen-foot walls of the monastery . . . the ones that had withstood a nine-hour cannonball siege, never mind a few laser beams.

He wondered about the best way to tackle the new myriad of problems that faced him. He needed instant satellite surveillance of Solovetsky Island, a controlled and regular search for signs of interceptors, antenna, or radio masts. “Jesus,” said Rani, to the empty room, “we ought to be able to spot that kind of stuff jutting out of a sixteenth-century building.”

The photographs he had studied also showed a private docking area, right below the monastery, and there would be regular lines of supply, food, and electronic equipment, not to mention nuclear components, as well as some kind of replicas for the nuclear football, systems upon which the Russian scientists could practice.

The more he thought about it, the more enormous the problem seemed to be. He understood the scale of the Russian spy system, the “spooks” in every embassy, the ease with which they had penetrated some of the most secure agencies in the world.

But the Mossad were certainly their equals and probably their betters. Of course, the Israelis, if they knew what he knew, would probably be tempted to slam a nuclear missile straight at the island and have done with it.

But this was Russia, not Iran. Not even the United States would be anxious to pull off something like that, because that was tantamount to war. And that would be as crazy as old Markova’s plan to hit Washington.

Rani was in a quandary. He could contact Mossad headquarters in King Saul Boulevard and hand the entire thing over. Or he could tip off the Americans. But Rani had a feeling he should do more, personally, to bring this problem to a resolution.

Also, he was extremely concerned about blowing the bugle for a five-alarm
fire when he could be barking up the wrong tree. He had, after all, no proof of anything, and the last thing he wanted was to be regarded as some kind of a hysteric. In the espionage game, no one ever forgot the field agent who activated a massive reprisal, only to be proven completely wrong.

No, Rani Ben Adan wanted more time to work on this. Lieutenant Commander Chirkov was proving a fantastic ally, and he might just find a way to get closer to the heart of the matter. However, there was one man in all the world he very much wanted to speak to—his trusted American buddy, the man with whom he had jumped off the oil rig in the Gulf.

This was a man as influential as he was in classified Special Forces operations. He had a private cell-phone number in the United States and would probably relish the idea of something this potentially important, this potentially dangerous.

But Rani would need to take the greatest care with the communication. If he was caught, in Russia, trying to make contact with an American military officer, or even “hacked” by the FSB, they would arrest him instantly. What an ignominious end to a promising career, to disappear without a trace into the Lubyanka, never to be seen again.

Rani thought it over. If he spoke to his buddy, who could put various investigations into action, it would not be directly his problem if it all proved groundless. But if he alerted King Saul Boulevard and it all turned out to be rubbish, it would not be regarded as his finest hour—Bren Adan’s nephew or not.

The clandestine American route appealed to him more, and he thought it through, long and hard. He could not have the conversations by phone, and he surely could not use the Internet except in the briefest possible way. He would obviously have to meet his friend somewhere where neither would be noticed. He pulled up a map of Europe on his screen to find his bearings.

Then he picked up a telephone and asked for a secure line from which he could dial the United States, much of which was slumbering in the middle of the night. Rani, however, was dialing the West Coast, where it was eleven o’clock. He knew the cell-phone number would first go through a military switchboard at SPECWARCOM, the US Navy’s Special Warfare Command, Coronado, San Diego.

He was dialing the home base of the United States Navy SEALs. And
at this time in the late evening, it would be answered by the duty officer. The connection was swift.

“United States Navy . . . ”

“Could you please connect me to Captain Mackenzie Bedford? I’m a very old friend. Colonel Adan, Israeli Army.”

It took a full three minutes to clear the call through to the SEAL commander. But he came on the line and let out a shout of delight.

And once more the terrifying moments of that night on the oil rig stood before them both. Mack Bedford, blood pouring from a wound in his upper arm, trembling from head to foot and just staring down at the black ocean water. Colonel Adan grabbing him and shouting: “We stay here, we’re gonna die, Yankee . . .
JUMP! FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, JUMP!
”

And then he had hauled him over the edge. And what a fall it was—
down . . . down . . . down
—before they crashed into the water, Mack still hanging onto the Israeli commando’s arm.

“Mack, I must see you.”

“When?”

“Now. This might be the most important phone call you’ll ever take.”

“Christ! That’s a hell of an entrance.”

“Deadly serious, Mack. How soon can you get to Europe?”

“Quick. We got a flight going to the US military hospital at Landstuhl, Germany, tonight, leaving 1:00 a.m. Picking up some of our guys wounded in Afghanistan.”

“I’ll fly to Frankfurt.”

“Okay. We’ll check times later. But I’ll have a US military plane pick you up in Frankfurt—you’ll be on Lufthansa from Moscow, right? Then we’ll fly on over the border into France. That’ll lose anyone tailing, right?”

“Great work, Mack. Talk to you later, same number.”

Rani put down the phone and sat back in his chair. The situation room was still empty. The computer screen still showed a sinister photograph of the monastery. He shut it down and found himself again wondering about that submarine.

Because of Nikolai’s information, it seemed the
Gepard
had been on some kind of a trial run. Those Russians had guessed it would be detected off Scotland and, in these post–Cold War times, were quite prepared to
put up with that. Submarines, he thought, have a lot of advantages, like you can’t see ’em, mostly can’t hear ’em, and you never know where the hell they’re going, or even where they’ve come from.
Furtive little fuckers,
he muttered.

They also had one or two devastating advantages—their reputation for pure sneakiness, unimaginable firepower, and a complete lack of human conscience, which always preceded them. They are, simply, acutely dangerous. They also have a couple of major disadvantages, like no one takes a chance with them in times of war, hot or cold. There is no ship in all the oceans more likely to be hit and sunk by its enemy with no questions asked.

And when a submarine goes to the ocean floor in deep waters, it’s just about impossible to locate because of the vast distances involved. Contrary to popular belief, no submarine is in constant touch with its base. It communicates by means of a satellite signal, and for this it must come to the surface and activate its mast, sending its signal and receiving any orders or advice from home.

Most submarines have a “call time” and go through this procedure once every twenty-four hours, usually in the small hours of the morning. If a Russian attack submarine is hit by an American torpedo at 0400 hours, two hours after it checked into Murmansk, no one is going to know. There’s no open line. It will be twenty-two hours before it’s due to check in again and possibly four more before anyone at home base starts to panic because it’s late.

This is a total of twenty-eight hours since its last-known position, and the submarine is known to be cruising at eighteen knots. Therefore, the possible distance between its last-known and right now is more than five hundred miles. And somewhere along that line, it may be located. But . . . it could have changed direction for whatever reason at any point along that line, anywhere it chose.

The submarine hunters had better draw a half circle with a five-hundred-mile radius, maybe a quarter of a million square miles. You want to arrange a search over that distance in the North Atlantic? Good luck.

Which is why submarines have been known to vanish. In Rani’s mind, the Russians were considering moving a valuable cargo by submarine, at least they were before
Gepard
ended up on the beach. And now they may have to regroup and move that cargo on the surface.

Everything in Nikolai’s dossier adds up to a Russian revenge strike,
he thought.
I think they’re going to launch from somewhere else . . . They might even be preparing to blame someone else. And they’d have loved to transport everything deep underwater, but they dare not do that now, because the Americans will go on a post-
Gepard
high alert. They’ll have that SOSUS submarine-hunt system up and running within weeks, not months.

Rani shut down the computer and walked upstairs to the travel department and discovered this could hardly have been more awkward. Mack Bedford would arrive in Landstuhl at eleven o’clock at night. So he must get out of Moscow this afternoon and then stay overnight at Sheraton’s Frankfurt Airport Hotel.

He texted Mack to meet him tomorrow at 0800 (local) at the hotel. The shuttle would run them both over to the private general aviation area on the north side of the airport.

Within moments he received a text back:
See you then . . . Walk, don’t jump. Mack.

Rani was glad to be leaving Russia for a few days. He looked forward to the flight, and he looked forward even more to seeing Mack. He spent a few hours writing down his thoughts, in an indecipherable code, and had an embassy driver take him out to the airport.

The Lufthansa flight left at 6:00 p.m. and began its 960-mile journey, traveling back through two time zones. The Boeing 737 would thus touch down in Frankfurt at more or less the same time it left Moscow. Its route took it over Belarus and then Poland, directly into German airspace, leaving Berlin to the north, and flying along eastern Germany’s southern border to Frankfurt. They landed at 6:15 p.m. Mack Bedford was still out over the North Atlantic.

The evening passed easily, Rani in the Sheraton Hotel, Captain Bedford in the officers’ quarters at Landstuhl. There were about sixty miles between them, and the following morning the military flight to Frankfurt took less than a half hour. The two old friends met up with commando precision in the Sheraton foyer at 0800 sharp.

Their short ride to the airport was conducted in silence since both men understood the peril of Rani’s position in Russia—fraudulent cultural attaché, fraudulent documents, Mossad spy/assassin, running important Russian Naval officer as a paid informant, and currently engaged in trying to thwart the personal wishes of the Russian president.

Neither man uttered a word until they were safely on the US aircraft bound for the small French airport in the heart of Alsace-Lorraine, which serves the French town of Metz. It lies in rich countryside, twelve miles southeast of the town, which was once German, but now the capital of Lorraine.

After they landed, Captain Mack Bedford requested that the pilot return to Landstuhl and to have them both picked up the next afternoon to return him to the US base and to drop Rani off at Frankfurt Airport, for the evening flight to Moscow.

Not until they were in the air and speeding toward the French border did they finally lean back in their seats and discuss the reasons they had flown several thousand miles just in the interest of trust.

“Well, old buddy, I sure as hell knew you would not have summoned me from San Diego to the French-German border unless it really mattered.” Mack Bedford was certain of his ground at least on that.

Rani came swiftly to the point. Before they had even landed he had explained that he was “running” a highly placed Russian Naval officer, who was, in a sense, a prisoner of his own conscience and thought nothing of working against the excesses of his own government.

Mack was all ears. It was not often that anyone managed to hear of the inner workings of a top Mossad operator at this close range.

“And this character actually believes the president of Russia is planning a major missile strike against the United States?” said the American. “Probably somewhere in the Washington area?”

“This character was actually sitting at the table, two places away from the president, when the old bastard was talking about it.”

“Who else was there?”

“The fleet commander, who appears to be in charge of the organization. Plus the foreign minister, and the prime minister, and the head of the entire Russian Navy, Rankov himself.”

“Fuck me,” said Mack. “And where were they?”

“Only in the friggin’ rotunda, former Supreme Command HQ of Stalin’s Red Army, directly behind Lenin’s tomb.”

“Holy shit!” said Mack. “You’re right. This matters. How the hell did you get this Russian to turn traitor?”

“Nothing to do with me, Mack. He just turned up at the embassy. I debriefed him for a couple of days, and we decided he was genuine.”

“And you’re sure?”

“Absolutely certain.”

“So why not go through the usual channels? Tell your guys in Tel Aviv and have them alert the right people in the CIA and the Pentagon.”

“Mack, I’m sure of this, in my own mind. But I’m not so certain that I could not be wrong. And that would be awful, to raise a huge fuss inside both of our countries and then be wrong. I’m just not ready to jump in the deep end. Yet.”