Power Play (28 page)

“There is no possibility, I suppose,” offered Mark Bradfield, “that this Russian Naval officer is a double agent playing one side against the other.”

“I’d be inclined to doubt that,” replied Rani. “Particularly since the FSB shot him dead a couple of weeks ago.”

“They did? Jesus!” said the CNO.

“There’s no doubt, this was the most important traitor Russia has had for some years. He was the personal assistant to the highest-ranking fleet admiral in the Russian Navy, Alexander Ustinov, C-in-C, Northern Command. This man, a career officer and a lieutenant commander, was so trusted he sat in on the last major meeting on this subject in the Kremlin’s rotunda, two seats from the president.”

“Have you yet told everything to your own government?”

“I’ve told them quite a lot. But, you see, I’ve been given no hard facts about a strike against Israel. Only America. The Mossad is happy to help you in any way we can, but it is important you now know everything there is to know, and that’s why we’re having this dinner. Because this thing is real. If we don’t stop them, they will hit Fort Meade.”

“How soon did you realize it was Fort Meade?”

“It took months. No one ever mentioned the true name, only FOM-2. Then Nikolai found it in the pages of Ustinov’s personal notebook, pages he was not supposed to see.”

“No wonder they shot him.”

“Very quickly everything fell into place. Nikolai had fingered that monastery on the Solovetsky Islands as the kind of remote place where they might set up the research and development systems for the new missiles and the radio jammer. We were mystified for months about the identity of the monastery, which they kept mentioning in meetings—but they never put a name to it.”

“Then the missile test launch?”

“Yes, but Captain Bedford had already alerted the US satellite surveillance system, based on Nikolai’s accurate suspicions.”

A white-coated butler emerged and summoned them into a small dining room, where they dined lavishly, beginning with Israeli eggplant salad made with tahini, and then progressed to shaslik of spiced lamb with crispy fried
mallawah
bread.

Rani was an excellent host and served with the lamb a deep-red Israeli wine from the fabled Domaine du Castel in the Judean Hills. Mark Bradfield, who considered himself well beyond the novice stage in his appreciation of fine vintages, was astonished at the deep, rounded quality of the Castel Grand Vin, and commented, “Rani, this is really good—I didn’t even know Israel had a wine industry.”

“No, it’s quite a new development,” chuckled Rani. “Just for the past twenty-five hundred years. What d’you think they drank at the Last Supper—Budweiser?”

Mark Bradfield and Mack Bedford laughed, partly at the wit, but mostly at the mock-doleful expression on the face of the Israeli agent.

“You didn’t have to buy this, did you?” asked Mack.

“Hell, no,” said Rani. “This place has a great cellar, all Israeli bottles. And since the ambassador’s away, I thought I’d raise the corkscrew for my country.”

“Good call,” replied Mark. “And I’d like to thank you. This, I hope, will not be our Last Supper.”

“I’ll drink to that,” answered Mack Bedford, raising his glass. “Confusion to our enemies—may all their missiles fall on stony ground.”

“I’d have said, ‘May all their goddamned missiles fail to launch,’” added Mark. “I was just beginning to forget how serious this is.”

Before they sampled the dessert, Admiral Bradfield suggested that Rani give them a quick rundown of what precisely was factual and what was educated guesswork.

“No problem,” said the Israeli. “First, we know that Markova has requested his senior naval commander to prepare a missile attack on the US surveillance headquarters. We know these missiles, the improved Iskander-K, have an increased range and can carry a nuclear warhead. We photographed the test launch from space, and we know the precise distance the missile traveled.

“Number two, we know where the research and development is being
carried out. We also know there have been several visits by top foreign missile scientists, including those from Iran, China, and North Korea.

“Number three, we know Russia does not intend to launch at Maryland from anywhere inside the old Soviet Union. We know for certain they have always intended to attack from Central America—presumably because of the reduced distance. We now know their chosen launch site is Panama, and the last words Nikolai Chirkov uttered before he died were
Pedro Miguel.
”

“Remind me,” said Mark Bradfield. “How do we actually know that?”

“I was on the line talking to him when he said it.”

“That’s decisive,” added Mark. “Obviously, he was referring to the small village and the huge lock at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal.”

“That was our surmise,” replied Rani. “But the Panama connection was very strong, especially with Markova’s friends the Chinese in such an influential position with the government of Panama, and I would say we may safely put that under the fact column.”

“I agree,” said the admiral. “But we’d better adjust the satellites to keep a survey on Pedro, right?”

“Done,” said Mack. “I reported it to Admiral Carlow, and he’s already taken care of it.”

“Okay, what else do we know for sure?”

“A great deal,” said Rani. “And the first thing concerns that Russian submarine. Nikolai established it was a trial run to check whether SOSUS was still working and whether it was still possible to bring a big underwater boat through the GIUK Gap, without being harassed or sunk, by the British or the Americans.

“The test failed.
Gepard
was detected twice, possibly three times. From that moment they decided all the hardware was going by surface ship. We don’t know which one, or indeed what it will carry as cargo, except for the missiles. But Nikolai did think it was based in the Black Sea somewhere and that extensive repainting and dockwork were required, before it set sail for Murmansk.”

“We got that in hand, Mack?” asked Admiral Bradfield.

“Yessir. I sent a note to Admiral Carlow, and Bob Birmingham is on the case at Langley.”

“Rani, do you think they’re shipping those damn great launchers, or
will they fire from a standing start they’ll have to build in the jungle behind Pedro Miguel?”

“We think they’ll take the mobile launchers,” he replied. “Those Iskanders have always been a little sensitive—always required their own specialized launch and radar. They had one of them out on the Solovetsky Islands, right? God knows how they got it there.”

“So, we surmise we’ll be looking for a couple of huge TELAR mobiles making their way to Pedro Miguel, sometime before the launch.”

“Admiral, we also surmise they’ll arrive and fire immediately. The Russians won’t take any chance on US surveillance. They’ll know that if they’re seen from the US satellites, the United States might just make a preemptive. They threatened to do it to the Russians in Cuba; they sure as hell won’t think twice about upsetting Panama.”

Just then the butler arrived with a spectacular-looking wide plate of Israeli baklava—the classic Middle Eastern dessert of baked phyllo pastry and chopped pistachio nuts dripping in aromatic sweet honey. Mark Bradfield considered it probably the best thing he’d ever tasted. And Rani added to the overwhelming feeling of dining in paradise by serving a silky, sweet dessert wine, which the Israelis use principally for ceremonial occasions but usually produce for VIP guests.

It all provided a perfect atmosphere for a sense of genuine trust among the three men. And it was Admiral Bradfield who finally stated what they all knew: “Colonel Adan, your long friendship with Captain Bedford has proved to be critical in this very dangerous time. And I speak to you as one of my country’s best friends. This is my question: would you favor slamming into these Russian gangsters right now, taking out the Solovetsky plant, sinking their fucking freighter, blowing the hell out of the missile launchers in Severomorsk, and taking Pedro Miguel off the map?”

“I cannot fault that line of logic,” replied Rani. “As you know, we were faced with a similar decision over the potential atom bombs in Iran. I have to say we dealt with it much as you just suggested, but equally we maintained an element of mystery. We struck at their cyber structure; we trained and practiced in total secret. We told no one else, we came into the attack from out of the blue, and we pressed it home with massive security. No one actually knew it was us. And we’ve never said it was us.

“You, Admiral, have a bigger problem. If you carried out the program
you just outlined and beat Russia about the head and shoulders with the kind of military clout you are considering, there would be absolute hell to pay, for one simple truth: no one can hit as hard as the United States.

“If you blew their freighter out of the water, obliterated their missiles on the docks, vaporized their monastery, and then smashed into the launch site at Pedro Miguel so hard you’d probably knock out the Panama Canal for six months . . . well, the whole world would know who’d done it in about seven seconds. Because no one else
could have
done it. That’s the reality. And the USA would be accused of mounting an absolute power play.”

“And that would not be true, would it?” murmured the admiral. “We would have acted in self-defense—the power play is theirs. And then, I guess, the Russians would throw up their hands and deny all knowledge.”

“That’s the truth of it, Mark—may I call you Mark?”

“Certainly you may—Rani?”

“Of course. I’m just trying to point out that for us to stop these Russians, there needs to be an element of stealth and secrecy. That means we’d better let them pull this together and then hit them all at one go, hopefully someplace far from the crowds.”

“You mean like the middle of the Atlantic?”

“That’s what I’m leaning toward,” said Rani. “Maybe nail their ship with all the hardware on board and put it on the seabed. So no one would ever know what happened. It would be justice, because, after all, it’s the Russians striking the first blow, with no prior warning. And they will deny all knowledge if their own attack succeeds in hitting Fort Meade.”

“I’m with you there,” interjected Captain Bedford. “Although a mission like that is not without its problems . . . ”

“Before we start on that,” added Mark, “may I just ask about the nuclear-football part of this equation?”

“Definitely,” replied Rani. “Nikolai heard them use the phrase twice, but did not think twice about it. He thought it was just some figure of speech. But, months later, it came up again, in a context that seemed to beg for clarification. He did the simple thing and Googled the words. And out it popped, the US slang expression for the presidential emergency transmitter, the one that launches cruise missiles, instantly, against a hostile enemy.”

Mark Bradfield’s eyebrows raised, and he said, “I bet a whole lot of pieces suddenly fitted together when Nikolai worked that out.”

“Hell, yes,” said Rani. “He already knew something was going on when he found out there was a Chinese scientist from Shenzhen at the launching of the Iskander-K . . . ”

“Jesus, are we looking at a cyber attack on the presidential communications system?” frowned Mark.

“I think we were,” replied Rani, “but not anymore. Nikolai heard them take a serious swerve away from that. He thought that the Shenzhen scientist Dr. Yang had advised against, on the basis that the nuclear football is basically a telephonic device. It’s not a computer; it’s what the C-in-C uses to communicate the critical computerized code numbers. Which gives you two options: first, you can get inside the system, probably controlled at the Pentagon, and screw up the sequences, so the wrong numbers are fed in—a lot like when we confused the centrifuges to death in Qom—or, second, you can merely jam the satellite phone, before it even comes out of the big leather bag we call the nuclear football. Then it doesn’t really matter whether the code words are right or wrong, because the president is going to be unable to communicate them. One major part of the issue is that the Gold Codes need to be transmitted to the US Command Center, direct from the actual football device. Just so there are no misunderstandings.

“The Russian answer is, at this stage, to jam up the football, so no one can work it. And while you’re at it, you could jam up the communications grid of the entire presidential party. That would close down everything for at least an hour, possibly two . . . ”

“Which would give those fucking nutcases from the Russian Navy sufficient time to vaporize Fort Meade and then sit back without any chance of a nuclear reprisal coming in from the US of A.”

“Precisely,” said Rani. “Very neat, right?”

“Too goddamned neat,” said Mark. “Don’t write off that first option—for us to beat ’em up so badly, and so quickly, that they won’t feel like trying anything like this again.”

For a few moments Admiral Bradfield ruminated. And then he took another sip of his sublime Israeli wine, which, for a fleeting second, reim-bued him with that steel-edged resolve of the embattled desert nation.

“We’ll do it, if we have to,” said the head of the US Navy.

The black US Navy staff car pulled out through the high gates of the Israeli Embassy shortly before midnight. For the first time, Mark Bradfield considered he had a firm handle on the Russian problem.

He now understood precisely how it had happened, why it had happened, and where it would happen. None of it changed his opinion that President Markova and his band of thieves in Moscow were not much short of international gangsters.

“Thank Christ for Rani Ben Adan,” said Mack Bedford. “If not for him, we never would have known.”

“I meant to ask you sooner,” replied the admiral, “is he related to Major General Avraham Adan?”

“Yup. Nephew. His own father commanded the Golan Brigade on the heights in 1973. His mother was killed on the shell line.”