Resurrection Day (20 page)

'The caller rang the American ambassador's residence in Moscow.'

The Defence Secretary faced the President in the Oval Office. 'He said the bombers took off less than two hours ago, sir. Kuzmin's ordered eight of al-Qaeda's principal camps to be bombed into oblivion, including Abu Hasim's command post outside Kandahar.'

'Who gave us the information?'

'The caller didn't offer his name. But it had to be someone high up in Kuzmin's government. He knew about the decision to carry out the attack, and that Hasim had the nerve gas formula stolen in Moscow three months ago.'

'He gave no other details about the theft?'

'No, sir. But he suggested if we wanted proof of the attack we should try and monitor the aircraft using radar and satellites. I asked General Horton's help in doing just that.'

'And?' The President stared at the general, who accompanied the Defence Secretary.

'Eighteen heavy bomber aircraft took off from a Russian airbase at Solcy over an hour ago, Mr President,' the general answered. 'Our radar installations in Turkey and one of our AWACs picked them up. They were vectored heading south-east, on a direct course for Afghanistan. According to the Moscow caller, one of the bombers has an air-to-surface missle on board with a ten-kiloton nuclear warhead, to target Hasim's Kandahar command post. The rest are carrying conventional thousand-pound bombs and missiles. They're going to wipe the camps off the map.'

The President stood, dumbstruck. Placing one arm against the nearest wall, gazing out blankly towards the darkened lawns, he rested his forehead against his arm, as if he were going to throw up. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse with alarm. 'My God, Kuzmin must be insane. Doesn't he realise that an action like this may destroy Washington?'

'It seems to me he's made a choice between Washington and Russia's survival. Kuzmin probably thinks his oil and gas fields will be under threat next. I'd have to agree that it's a likely assumption. Kuzmin's obviously decided that a massive pre-emptive strike to destroy the enemy will prevent that from happening.'

'That doesn't allow the sonofabitch to condemn this city to death. Because that's exactly what he's doing.' The President turned to address Horton. 'General, how soon could our air force strike units in the Gulf intercept the Russian craft?'

'Even if they scrambled right now, our fighters wouldn't have enough time, sir. We estimate the Russians will reach their targets within forty minutes, maybe even sooner.'

'Could we shoot them down with long-range missiles from our Gulf destroyers?'

'Sir, there's no, absolutely no guarantee that would work. We might not manage to take out all the aircraft. Some might still reach their targets. And our action could be tantamount to declaring war on Russia.'

'General, I'm not going to allow Kuzmin to trigger the destruction of this city. Alert whatever attack aircraft we've got nearest to the Russian bombers. Have them try to head for an intercept. And have our Gulf destroyers standing by for my further instructions.'

'Yes, Mr President.'

'I'm going to try and talk with Kuzmin.' The President reached for his telephone. 'John, I want everyone back in the conference room in case this thing turns ugly.'

Moscow 5.59 a.m.

The phone buzzed on Vasily Kuzmin's desk. Beside him lay a supper tray: hot vegetable soup and a pot of fresh coffee, but he had barely touched either, his stomach gripped by a knot of tension. The call from the White House surprised him, and he was instantly wary.

He spoke reasonable English and had no problem understanding the US President, nor the blunt tone, glacial as a Baltic wind.

'President Kuzmin, it has come to my attention that Russian bombers are on their way to attack Abu Hasim's bases in Afghanistan. My information is that the aircraft will reach their targets within the next thirty-five minutes. I cannot emphasise strongly enough that this would be the gravest act, a foolhardy enterprise that would jeopardise beyond repair the relationship between our two countries.'

Kuzmin was silent. How could the Americans have known? Had their radar picked up the aircraft? 'President Booth, may I ask where you got this information?'

'With respect, that isn't important. What is important is that you call off this attack at once. It will come to no good for both of our countries. Surely you must realise this?'

Kuzmin was irked. The American President sounded like a schoolmaster reprimanding an errant schoolboy. 'Mr President, I think it is you who must realise something. I can now inform you that an investigation by the FSB has revealed that the formula for a deadly nerve gas — code-named Substance A232X — was stolen from Russia. The culprits who carried out this grave criminal act are obviously these same fanatics who now threaten Washington. The same people who past experience has taught me want to destabilise and wreck the Russian Federation ... '

'Mr Kuzmin, what's important right now is calling off the attack — '

'Let me finish, please. If Abu Hasim has his way and ejects US forces from the Gulf, we both know the entire Middle East will be swamped by a tidal wave of Islamic revolution. For Russia, this would be a catastrophe. In our central Asian regions are tens of millions of followers of the Prophet Mohammad. My country would be unable to prevent such an immense revolution from flooding across its borders. Russia would be terrorised, ripped apart. This I cannot and will not allow to happen. My country has a right to strike back at those who threaten its destruction. And please, don't tell me you would not do the same if the US found itself in our position.'

Kuzmin heard the deep sigh at the other end of the line before the American President replied. 'I'm not denying your right to punish al-Qaeda for this theft, Mr Kuzmin. I'm not denying that force may ultimately have to be used to preserve the unity of your country. But now is not the time for either punishment or force.'

'I totally disagree. To delay means only one thing — defeat. A decisive strike now will show these terrorists that their criminal actions will not succeed, or be tolerated.'

Kuzmin heard another sigh, even more exasperated. 'Mr Kuzmin, am I to understand that you will not call off this attack?'

'You understand correctly, Mr President.'

A long pause followed, and Kuzmin wondered whether the connection had been lost. Then President Booth's voice came back, cold and deliberate. 'Mr Kuzmin, I want you to be very clear about the consequences of your action, so let me be blunt. Like you, I have a duty to do my utmost to protect the citizens of my country from harm. To use extreme force, if necessary. Therefore, I must tell you that, as we speak, US fighter aircraft are on their way to intercept your air armada. Reluctantly, I have given instructions that they are to shoot down every last one of your aircraft the second they are within range.'

Kuzmin barely contained his fury. 'That would be a grave mistake. A blatant act of war. One that would bring swift retaliation, I can assure you!'

'Just as I can assure you that any retaliation you make will be met with an even greater force. US naval carriers in the Gulf armed with nuclear missiles are on stand-by at this very moment, ready to reply to any reprisal you may make.' The American President let the threat hang, allowing a pause before he carried on. 'Mr Kuzmin, we can crank this up as high as we want. But before this escalates into something both of us regret, I'd suggest you call off these bombers.'

Kuzmin fell silent. Were the Americans bluffing? Would they shoot down Russian aircraft? Were they rattling their missiles just as Reagan and Kennedy had done in the past? Kuzmin stared at the clock on his desk: 6.32. In less than nine minutes the bombers would be shedding their deadly loads. There was no time to reconvene his Council. Any decision to call off the attack would be his, and his alone. Beads of sweat glistened on his brow. He looked at the photographs of himself on the turret of the T-80 tank, and in the SU cockpit. He had forged his political image as a man who would never allow the further dissolution of Russia's power. A man of steel who would deal swift, harsh retribution to any enemy who threatened her sovereignty.

'You must be aware, Mr President,' Kuzmin said firmly, 'that the greatest danger facing Russia is from the forces of Islam. I cannot allow the day to come when al-Qaeda's terrorists will hold a gun to our heads, as they've done to you. Understand, therefore, that I cannot do as you ask. If I do not finish this now, then Russia is finished.'

'Mr Kuzmin, I don't know how much time exactly we have left ... '

'You will never defeat these fanatics by giving in to them. My experience in Chechnya has taught me that. The only way is to crush them completely.'

'I'm well aware of your experience in Chechnya. But there are over half a million innocent citizens in Washington. Many of them may lose their lives if you call Hasim's bluff. That is something the American people would not tolerate. They would demand of me the harshest military retribution against your country. And I do mean the harshest, Mr Kuzmin. Because once those bombs of yours fall, and if Hasim carries out his promise and devastates Washington, then I, or whoever succeeds me if I die in the attack, shall hold you personally responsible. Is that what you want? To risk a war between our two countries? To risk the lives of millions of innocent people? And all because of some madman who threatens us both?'

Kuzmin loosened his shirt collar. The pressure was on him now. 'I am not attacking America. I am attacking terrorists who stole a weapon of mass destruction from Russia. A crime that cannot be allowed to go unpunished.'

'But Americans may very well die because of your action. And don't forget what's important here. We're both facing the same enemy. But we're not fighting him together. Instead, we're fighting each other. Don't you see? That's what Abu Hasim would want. To drive a wedge between us. And so far he's succeeded.'

Kuzmin remained steadfast. 'Because you have allowed him to succeed. Because you are prepared to withdraw fifteen per cent of your Gulf forces. You have given in to him already. How long can it be before you surrender completely?'

'My order of withdrawal was given for a good reason. To assure Hasim I took his threat seriously. But there are six days remaining, Mr Kuzmin. A lot can happen in six days. We may succeed in finding this device and foiling the attack. If we don't, and Hasim wins his game, then I make you this personal promise: I'll stand back while you bomb every one of his bases. Pummel them to dust for all I care. I'll probably even cheer you from the sidelines. But you must call off this attack now.'

Kuzmin felt cold sweat on his face. Beyond the Kremlin's north wall was the tomb of the unknown soldier. For him, it symbolised the sacrifice made to defend his country from enemy aggression. If he called off the bombers, how many more Russian soldiers would he condemn to die in the mountains of the Caucasus and central Asia, defending their country against the sword of Islam? Better to finish it here and now. But everything had depended on speed, on annihilating Hasim's camps and explaining why afterwards.

He could even have claimed that a nuclear weapon had been stolen by the Islamics, giving added weight to his reasoning for a pre-emptive bombing. He could have claimed anything after the event, and made it plausible. But he couldn't do that now.

'Like you, I have a family,' the American President went on. 'Right now, I'm looking at their photograph on my desk. Of my wife and son and daughters. I know they may well die because of your action. Look on your own desk. Look at the photographs of your family. Imagine how you would feel if they were about to die. You can have your justice, Mr Kuzmin. You can have every damned thing you want if you just wait.'

Kuzmin looked at the framed snapshot of his wife and daughters on his desk. How typical of the Americans to appeal to the heart, not the head. He massaged his temple with the fingers of his right hand. There was agony in that simple gesture, an agony he found impossible to shake off. The final decision had to be made. His desk clock read 6.40. Was it already too late? 'If I were to agree, there would be a precondition ... '

'Name it. But for God's sake call off the attack now.'

Afghanistan

In the warm glow of the Tu-95 cockpit, forty thousand feet above Kandahar province, Colonel Vadim Sukov once again checked his bearings, scanned his instruments. In less than four minutes, he would release the KH-120 missile, and it would rapidly home in on its target co-ordinates twenty miles away. 'Arm cargo,' Sukov ordered, and pulled back on the throttles, reducing his speed.

'Cargo armed, sir,' came the almost immediate response from the bomb bay.

Sukov tensed. The ten-kiloton missile was now 'live', ready for delivery. Even at forty-thousand feet and twenty miles from the blast the crews would see the flash of the nuclear explosion, and the intensity could blind an observer. Special goggles would protect the crew's eyes. He slipped his pair on, relayed the instruction to his crew, then contacted his MiG escorts, their dark forms floating on his port and starboard sides, and ordered them to do likewise. A minute later, the other Blackjacks and Bears and their escorts peeled away to prepare for their bombing runs on their own designated targets. Sukov could pick them out as blips on his radar screen. 'Three minutes to missile release.'

At 250 knots Sukov was rapidly approaching his objective. He positioned the throttles to near idle, his speed bled off, and he gave the command, 'Open bomb doors.'

Seconds later the bomb doors in the aircraft's belly whirred open and the Bear buffeted with the increased drag.

'Two minutes to missile release.'

'Sir — sir, there's a call coming through.'

Sukov was distracted by the radio operator's voice in his earphones. 'From who, damn it?'

'Moscow command. Endgame! Endgame!'

'Disarm cargo! Disarm cargo at once!' Sukov screamed into his microphone, pulling back on the throttles, banking left. The aircraft began to turn, drifting away from the target. 'Cargo disarmed, sir,' the co-pilot called out.

Sukov wiped a glaze of sweat from his face and exhaled with relief. For whatever reasons, Operation Hammer had been stood down.

PART FOUR

11 November — 12 November

'The devastation of Washington will be total.'

Washington, DC 11 November 11.15 p.m.

In the United States, twenty-three hours had passed since al-Qaeda's threat had been delivered to the nation's capital. Darkness had fallen at just before 5.20 p.m. in Washington, and by 11 p.m., unaware of the charged telephone conversation between Vasily Kuzmin and the President of America, the FBI and the CIA, at their headquarters in Langley, Virginia, twenty miles away, were busy issuing secret orders to their station chiefs around the world to make a relentless effort to discover how Abu Hasim had acquired the nerve gas, how he might have constructed his device, and who among his supporters might be behind the effort to conceal it in Washington.

Sixteen miles away, at Fort Meade, Maryland, home to over thirty thousand employees of the National Security Agency, the same job was being done electronically. Using satellites and terrestrial communications stations covering every point of the globe, operating twenty-four hours of every day, and with 18 acres of computers underground, the NSA snatched millions of land-line and cellphone calls from the air and scoured transmitted e-mails, all in the sometimes questionable interests of America's security.

Be it a Chinese factory manager in Beijing making a private call to one of his customers, or an unsuspecting Italian politician enjoying an intimate phone conversation with his mistress in Rome, none was safe from the Agency's potent eavesdropping equipment. Stored on massive, powerful computers, the calls and e-mails were electronically filtered for certain programmed 'key' words that might identify them as worthy of investigation, before being sifted through and scrutinised by the Agency's analysts and cryptologists. Since noon that same day, months' worth of data stored on thousands of computer disks was being scrutinised yet again by the NSA, in the hope that it might throw up even the slenderest clue.

At Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, extra nerve-gas 'sniffer' units — electronic devices that could detect the presence of a limited number of nerve agents and their component chemicals — were being flown in from specialist army chemical units around the country, along with army chemical weapons teams trained to use them. Over thirty all-weather helicopters equipped with night-vision cameras were already on their way to the capital, 'borrowed' from police forces in surrounding states, to bolster the FBI's own helicopter fleet. Once they arrived in Washington, their decals would be temporarily removed, and the fleet scattered to at least a dozen pre-selected landing strips, both public and military, so as not to arouse suspicion.

With such a massive search under way, every available FBI agent had been recalled for duty. Like most, Jack Collins always carried a pager and cellphone wherever he went. But that morning, when he met Nikki before the trip out to Chesapeake and the cemetery, he'd made a conscious decision to leave both at home. For at least one day in the year, he'd told himself, he was owed the luxury of forgetting about the Bureau. But when Nikki had driven him back to his apartment after dinner at her mother's he found a half-dozen calls on his answering machine, four more on his cellphone, and the same number on his pager. All were from Tom Murphy. He dialled Murphy's cellphone. It was answered on the first ring. 'Tom, it's Jack Collins.'

Murphy sighed. 'Jack, I've been trying to get you all day. Where the hell have you been? I need you here straight away.'

'What's up?'

'We'll talk in my office, Jack.'

Murphy didn't elaborate, but Collins could sense the urgency in his boss's tone, and wondered whether it had anything to do with the Union Station incident. He glanced over at Nikki, busily making coffee in the kitchen. She'd put Daniel to bed at her mom's, and they'd intended to spend the rest of the evening relaxing together, watching TV. 'I'm on my way. See you soon.'

When he told Nikki, he saw her disappointment. 'Is it an emergency?'

Collins tried to make light of it. 'It's probably nothing important, Nikki. Somebody at headquarters in a funk over nothing. But you know how it is. I've got to be there.'

'You want me to stay until you get back?'

'I may be a while. I don't want you waiting up half the night.'

After the visit to the cemetery that afternoon, Collins knew that Nikki had made an effort to be extra attentive. Even after their talk at Chesapeake she hadn't let her own disappointment show, and at her mom's her cheerfulness had been as evident as ever. Her unselfishness made him feel guilty. 'I'm really sorry about tonight, Nikki.'

'Hey, it's not a problem. You go do what you have to do.' He could still sense her disappointment, even though she was smiling. 'But call me at home later, OK?'

'Sure. I promise.' Collins kissed her. The kiss threatened to become an embrace. She winked up at him and smiled. 'Hey, I thought you had work to do. Come on, I'll walk you out to the car.'