Power Play (24 page)

“Well, right now, Jimmy, I’m in Frankfurt, Germany.”

“What the hell are you doing there?”

“Just had some kind of apple strudel, since you ask. But I have stuff you need to know.”

“Lay it on me, Mack.”

“Can I assume you are well briefed on this Russian problem—Solovetsky Islands and so on?”

“As well as I can be. Not many hard facts, though.”

“Well, here are some for you. That missile test last Friday—in the Arctic . . . ”

“Yup . . . I got it.”

“We encrypted right now?”

“Affirmative.”

“Okay. They’re planning to hit Fort Meade with that Iskander-K. Their working code’s FOM-2. Stands for ‘Fort Meade—nuclear.’ Building OPS 2A.”

“Christ,” said Ramshawe.

Mack continued, “We don’t think anything is going to be fired directly from Russia. Our source thinks South America. Unhappily, he was just shot by the FSB earlier this evening.”

“Jesus Christ, this is like the Wild West.”

“Tell me about it. But there’s something important. He was on the phone to my contact when he died. And he was trying to tell us about the missile launch site. He was saying the name of some guy in Latin America. And I think we need to locate this character, real quick.”

“That’s my part?”

“Hope so.”

“What’s his name?”

“Pedro Miguel.”

Captain Ramshawe said, “Pedro Miguel’s not a person. That’s the name of the second big shipping lock at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal. It’s the Pedro Miguel Lock. Named after the little town on the waterway.”

Mack saw the funny side of the discussion. “How the heck do you know that?” he said finally.

“I’ll tell you, mate. It’s why I’m sitting here in the big chair and you’re fucking about eating apple crumble with the Third Reich.”

Mr. and Mrs. Ramshawe had bequeathed their son the outrageous humor of the Australian Outback. And he’d mastered the art of saying the worst thing he could think of at the hands of his mentor, Admiral Arnold Morgan.

But now he was extremely serious. “That missile they fired was the most advanced rocket they’ve ever launched,” he said. “I’m talking speed, accuracy, and range. You want to stop something like that, every second matters. You guys detect any Chinese involvement in any of this?”

“Some,” replied Mack. “They’re helping with a cyber-warfare action to jam the president’s nuclear football. They got a guy from China Shenzhen Technology ensconced in the fucking monastery . . . Why’d you ask?”

“Well, China does have an involvement in the running of the Panama Canal. They have a major interest in the ports at either end. If they are in any way involved in this FOM-2, it would make sense to launch from somewhere along the canal. It’s kind of quiet, with a lot of jungle. They launch from in there, no one would ever know.”

“When they test fired from Solovetsky,” said Mack, “they used one of those regular vehicles. It sure would make life easy for ’em, if they could off-load a launcher through a Panama gateway port. Then just drive it into the jungle.”

“When are you back?” asked Jimmy.

“Tomorrow sometime. I’m getting a ride from Landstuhl.”

“Check in with me, will you? I’d like to compare notes. Meanwhile, I’ll get guys active in the Pedro Miguel area . . . By the way, am I going to read about your buddy who was shot?”

“I doubt it. That’s not the type of stuff the old Russkies issue these days. Anyway, I’m one removed. Don’t even know his name.”

“Poor bastard.”

 

Admiral Vitaly Rankov, C-in-C Russian Navy, stood in jackbooted splendor in his new headquarters. The move from the old Kremlin offices in Moscow to the majestic and historic Admiralty Building on the shores of the wide Neva River had delighted the entire Russian Navy.

This was reflected glory in its most dazzling form, beneath the epic gilded spire of the old Naval Academy, with its time-honored golden
weather vane, a Russian sailing ship of the line, swiveling quietly, the focal point above the central area of St. Petersburg.

Housed in a great building of the empire style, rows of white columns, and statues, the subject of a book by Vladimir Nabokov, the very embodiment of Russian Naval power, rising now from the hard-up ashes of the old Soviet era and into the new, prosperous, oil-rich glitter of the twenty-first century.

Admiral Rankov, a former Russian Olympic oarsman, presided over a dark-blue service comprising 150,000 active personnel, a burgeoning blue-water fleet, and a desk full of wonderful reports revealing updates on new and brilliant nuclear submarines, plus nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, Russia’s first. The latest guided-missile destroyers and frigates were being constructed along the river, just as they always were in Russia’s maritime history, when this building was for so long the hub of the navy, the old HQ, until the 1917 Russian Revolution.

Rankov was one of the first Russian Naval chiefs ever to stand on the brink of such overwhelming improvements. Before him stood a man whose star was plummeting to earth, as surely as Rankov’s was rising to the heavens. Alexander Ustinov, despite his status as patriot, fleet admiral, and heir apparent, had the appearance of a defeated warrior.

His face was crestfallen, his expression was resigned, and there was a slouch to his shoulders. His very bearing suggested the end of the line. But Vitaly Rankov had known him for many years and had long admired his clear grasp of Russia’s problems. When the chips were down, when the dockyards were falling apart, when the old government could not afford to pay the dockyards’ electric bills, Admiral Ustinov was a power in the land.

He had kept the shipyards open. Even as a rear admiral, he had fought and argued for his men to be paid, and when they weren’t (which was often), he issued great patriotic speeches, imploring his captains not to give in, promising that Russia would rise again, reminding them of the times Russians had stood alone in the face of unprecedented human onslaught. And, above all, telling them that they were the best, that a united Russia was unstoppable. Mother Russia must be protected . . .
If not by you, who?

Admiral Rankov had never forgotten this martinet of the Northern Fleet, and now, for the first time in his long career, he was witnessing the man at his lowest level. But Vitaly was a sportsman. He understood the
levels of performance required to stay at the very top. And he knew about days when everything went wrong. His mighty heart went out to his longtime colleague Alexander, the peerless commander who had been compromised by a cheap little traitor who had tried to sell everyone down the river.

Rankov, a massive man, an Olympian, and, like Alexander, a patriot, smiled and said, “Sit down, old friend. Let me pour you some coffee.”

Admiral Ustinov sank gratefully into a chair. He watched the all-powerful Vitaly tilting the coffeepot, and he knew that on his huge mahogany desk there was a document demanding his own court-martial for dereliction of duty, allowing the Northern Fleet to be infiltrated by a spy for the West and failing to protect documents of a vital nature. He was further accused of endangering Russia’s homeland security and of willful neglect of duty.

“Have you read the charges?” asked Admiral Rankov.

“I have.”

“Will you plead guilty?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll tell you what you’ll do,” added the boss. “You’ll plead not guilty to every one of those charges. Because they’re trumped up, cobbled together by a bunch of fucking politicians who, as usual, know nothing. There’s not one senior admiral in the entire Russian Navy who believes you should be court-martialed. And, in the end, you will be tried by a Navy Board of Inquiry, and I’m the fucking head of it, and I won’t put up with it.”

“That’s kind of you, sir.”

“It’s right. That’s what it is. That lieutenant commander could have gotten inside any part of the Russian Navy. He had a flawless record, he was from an important family, and he was destined for the top. He could have worked for me, and I would never have known what he was doing.”

“Sir, I do understand the damage he may have done. And I do accept the responsibility for what happened on my watch.”

“That’s still no excuse for some kind of political witch hunt. Alexander, times have changed. Modern communications, computers, and cell phones have made it near impossible to intercept a really determined infiltrator. Until he makes a mistake.

“However, to court-martial a fleet admiral for the unforeseen actions
of a trusted Russian officer is the height of folly. First of all, because the whole matter will rapidly become public, which we do not need. But, mostly, because it does us no good. If they were to find you guilty, we lose the best fleet commander in the Russian Navy—for no good reason whatsoever.”

“Again, sir, I thank you. But what happens now?”

“I’m speaking to the president this afternoon. I’m having this whole bullshit court-martial thrown out. I have asked you here because I need a few facts. And the first is, how much did Chirkov find out about FOM-2?”

“Too much. He was in the rotunda when we had the most important meeting. No one revealed the meaning of the code, but I still think he could very quickly have put two and two together. The president kept mentioning his desire to strike against the USA.”

“Alexander, with you on Solovetsky, he must have known the missile we test fired was the selected weapon chosen by the president for the strike.”

“Sir, he also knew the president was there at the launch. He took the call, which informed me of the lineup at the monastery. So he must also have known of the presence of Dr. Yang, but I don’t think he could have known what he was here for, nor where he came from.”

“Do you think there’s any possibility he could know what
Operation FOM-2
stands for?”

“Well, I have never written it down, nor seen it in any document. If he found out, which I doubt, it must have been from somewhere beyond Northern Fleet Command HQ. You have my guarantee the words
Fort Meade
do not appear anywhere in my office, or on any computer. Not even my deputy has that information, and, as you know, he’s a vice admiral.”

“And how about the launch site? Could he have found that out?”

“Sir, that’s more of a problem. I did write it down in my notebook, but I did so as if it were a person.
Pedro this, and Pedro that. Pedro has to understand
. . . That type of thing. Chirkov could have copied the name, but I would be very surprised if he understood the implication.”

“Alexander, did he have permanent access to that notebook?”

“Absolutely not. But in this case I used a clip to show him the significant
pages because I was under pressure to write up the Northern Fleet’s official report of the test-firing operation.”

“And Chirkov was to draft this?”

“Yes, from my notes. He was very good at getting hold of reams of rough notations and turning them into ordered, well-written reports, with all the correct headings and source notes . . . He was actually the best I ever knew at it.”

“I’m not sure that is very helpful right now,” said Admiral Rankov wryly.

“No. I understand that. But you want the truth. And I must give it to you.”

“So, at this stage, he almost certainly found a way to inform the Americans we planned a revenge strike in return for the Iranian debacles at Qom and Natanz. But he probably was not specific about the target, and certainly not about the launch?”

“Correct.”

“Can you estimate how great an opportunity he had to transmit knowledge to his contact on his way out of Russia?”

“Well, he was driving fast for the first three hundred miles in an area notorious for its lack of cell-phone reception. Then he was on a train for six hours, surrounded by people. It seems to me his first attempt at contact was in that shop doorway in Galkinskaya Street, in Vologda.

“The agents were hiding within fifteen feet of him, and they heard him say only three words,
Brest, Frankfurt,
and
Ustinov,
before they took him out.”

“Any clues who Chirkov was talking to?”

“’Fraid not. His phone was dropped and smashed. They tested it, but nothing worked.”

“And how about his pockets?”

“Just what you’d expect from an escaping traitor: extra passports, British and German; cash; driver’s licenses; and his notes.”

“Copied from your own?”

“Correct. Specific reference to the test firing.”

“Anything incriminating?”

“Not really, except for ‘Pedro Miguel.’ There were two references.”

“But he never had a chance to relay them to anyone in the West?”

“I don’t think so, sir. And neither do the agents. They swear to God his phone would have been dead all the way from Severodvinsk. Mostly because their own cells would not work until they reached Vologda.”

“Then there is just one further matter. This afternoon, I will have this court-martial stopped. After that, in association with the Lubyanka, you will devote your entire energies to tracing this John Carter.

“I don’t care if you have to ransack the Israeli Embassy. I don’t care if they close it. But I want to know the precise identity of this fucking paint salesman from England.”

 

The press room was typically quiet in the early part of the afternoon. Russia did not actively encourage inquiries from anyone in the great imperial capital of the United States. Various attachés and press officers spent these peaceful hours pouring through the US newspapers and magazines.

Tamara Burda, who was preparing to move into the heartland of America as a trainee field officer, was an unusually alert young woman from the Urals, age twenty-six, and she had been tasked with discovering a definite location for the president of the United States on a given date in the summer of next year. Preferably out in the open air.