The Nuclear Option

by Allan Leverone

June 11, 1988

  9:45 p.m.

  Moscow, Russia, USSR

  Tracie had gained entry into Russia three days ago in her usual manner. She departed Washington National Airport in the CIA’s Gulfstream G4, landing in Helsinki, Finland after a stop for fuel in northern Italy.

  Upon deplaning, she was met by a mysterious Finnish fishing boat captain who’d been contracted with the agency for years—decades, maybe—to ferry operatives into and out of northwest Russia via the Gulf of Finland. For obvious reasons, neither Tracie nor the captain knew each other’s real names, and Tracie had long thought of the man as the “Gorton’s Fisherman.” He had driven her along the rocky Finnish coast to a hideaway where he’d left his boat moored. It was in a different location every time Tracie had ever taken the trip, and the area was so remote, with so many crevasses and lonely inlets, that she knew she could make the trip another thousand times and never shove off from the same place twice.

  The crossing from Finland to Russia took anywhere from ninety minutes to two-and-a-half hours, depending on weather conditions, and also whether or not the little boat was intercepted by the Soviets, who monitored the area heavily. When that happened, Tracie was forced to take refuge under a false bottom built into the deck, waiting as the Soviet patrol reviewed the Gorton’s Fisherman’s official paperwork permitting him to fish the Russian portion of the gulf.

  This particular crossing had gone smoothly, although it was never a comfortable ride in the open boat. After about an hour and forty minutes, Tracie had found herself wading out of the gulf’s chilly water onto a deserted beach outside the tiny Russian town of Vistino.

  From there she had hiked a little less than ten miles and picked up an agency car—an ancient but anonymous-looking Russian Lada—for the drive to Moscow and her CIA safe house.

  The trip was long and tiring, but the trans-oceanic portion of it on the agency Gulfstream offered her plenty of peace and quiet, as well as several uninterrupted hours to study her intel and review her mission plan until she felt as comfortable as possible with it.

  In this case, she had spent a large bulk of that study time reviewing the diagram of General Gregorovich’s home. She had committed the layout of all three floors, as well as the basement, to memory, studying it until she thought she could navigate the home in the dark if necessary.

  So the minute she started up the stairs she knew exactly where she needed to go. The door providing access to Gregorovich’s home office was located roughly midway along a central second-floor hallway on the left. The doorway would be closed and it would be locked.

  According to the intel it was always left closed and locked. That made sense, Tracie thought, given the sensitive nature of much of a high-ranking Soviet general’s work.

  She knew something else as she hit the staircase—there was no chance the general would open his home to any number of strangers, many of them young people, and leave his office unguarded.

  By the time she reached the halfway point of her climb, where the elaborate staircase began its long, sweeping turn to the left, Tracie slowed her pace and began wobbling, weaving from side to side, slopping champagne out of her glass. She kept her attention focused squarely on the second floor hallway as it came into sight, wanting to discern the location of the inevitable Red Army sentry before he spotted her.

  Or at least at the same time.

  She was four steps from the top when she saw him. He looked a little older than the young men who’d been put to work downstairs. He was slouched against the wall outside Gregorovich’s closed office door examining his fingernails, the very picture of a man bored to distraction. It was clear he didn’t think he’d be doing any real work tonight.

  That all changed when he caught Tracie’s movement out of the corner of his eye. He straightened instantly and reached for the Makarov holstered at his hip as he turned to face her.

  She grinned drunkenly and stumbled, continuing to climb the stairs. It was important to give the sentry the impression she was no threat to him, just a harmless party girl who’d had too much to drink. But it was also vitally important she get onto the solid footing of the hallway before trying to take the man down.

  If she couldn’t manage that, she would find herself at a distinct disadvantage, even more so than she already was.

  She wobbled and weaved as the sentry took a couple of steps in her direction. That was good. He hadn’t said anything yet and that was also good. But what was very good was that he hadn’t yet drawn his weapon.

  Her deception was working.

  So far.

  At the top of the stairs she allowed her momentum to carry her across the hallway. She collided with the far wall and bounced off, being careful to strike it softly with the side of her upper body to avoid making any noise that could be heard on the first floor. The music was still blasting, so it seemed unlikely anyone would hear anything softer than a gunshot, but Tracie wasn’t taking any chances.

  She hoped crashing into the wall accomplished two goals: emphasizing to the guard she was drunk and harmless, but more importantly giving the man time to approach to within arm’s reach.

  She had to get him within arm’s reach.

  He was maybe eight feet away when he finally challenged her. “What are you doing? You should not be up here.” He spoke authoritatively but also calmly and quietly, and while his hand still hovered near his weapon, the gun remained holstered and thus useless to him.

  She met his eyes and widened her drunken smile. “It is too hot and too loud down there.”

  “Go outside then. You cannot be up here.”

  He was still hanging just out of her reach.

  She dropped to one knee and mumbled, “I need the bathroom. Where is the bathroom, I think I’m going to be…” She placed her champagne glass on the floor and clapped her hands to her mouth.

  Finally the sentry closed the gap between them. He placed his hand roughly on her shoulder and said, “You cannot use any bathrooms up here. You must go back downstairs.”

  She moaned into her hands but didn’t answer.

  “I said you must go downstairs!” He dropped into a crouch in front of her and reached both hands under her armpits as if to force her to her feet.

  Only then did Tracie move. She raised her hands, palms lifted as though she were an outlaw surrendering to the police.

  But she wasn’t surrendering to anyone. She shoved hard with her arms and drove forward with her legs, forcing her hands under his chin at his neck. His jaw was half open as he spoke and now it closed with an audible click. His head snapped back and he cracked his skull on the hallway floor as he sprawled full length onto his back, stunned and moaning.

  Tracie scuttled forward and unsnapped the sentry’s holster, taking away his weapon and training it on him. She remained perfectly still, controlling her breathing, tamping down on the adrenaline racing through her system as she listened closely for any unusual activity on the first floor, anything that would indicate someone had heard the brief struggle.

  The hallway was carpeted and she hoped the thump of the man’s skull striking the floor had been muffled by the driving bass track of the dance music playing much too loudly downstairs, but plenty of operatives had been killed thanks to faulty assumptions, and she didn’t intend to join their ranks.

  So she waited, crouched a few feet from the Soviet guard, listening for any unusual activity coming from the first floor or the stairs but watching the guard closely.

  Nothing.

  The music blared.

  The buzz of conversation continued.

  Still she waited.

  When a good thirty seconds had elapsed and no one came rushing up the stairs, she got to work. The guard’s eyes were open but glazed and she doubted he represented much of a threat.

  Yet.

  But he was only dazed and it wouldn’t take him long to recover. Despite the fury with which she’d struck, he probably wouldn’t be suffering from much more than a bad headache and
a very sore neck when his brain finished rebooting.

  She pushed to her feet and towered over him, holding his Makarov pistol directly in front of his eyes. Then she waited, allowing his fuzzy vision to clear enough to focus on the weapon.

  His expression told her quite clearly when that had happened.

  Then she eased to the floor next to his head and leaned down like a lover coming in for a kiss. But unlike a lover, she slowly lowered the gun until she’d placed the barrel directly against the man’s forehead.

  Then she pressed her lips to his ear. She spoke softly but enunciated clearly. “You are going to lie perfectly still until I tell you to move. Nod slowly if you understand.”

  For a tense moment nothing happened. Tracie wasn’t sure whether the solider was simply trying to get his still-fuzzy brain to decipher the meaning of her words, or whether he was actually calculating the odds of success should he choose to make a move for his gun.

  Then he nodded.

  Slowly, exactly as instructed.

  The gun barrel was still pressed to his forehead and it scraped his skin as his head moved up and down.

  “Good,” she whispered. “Do not get stupid. If you get stupid, you die. Nod if you understand.”

  He nodded again, this time with no hesitation.

  She moved just far enough to take herself out reach should the guard suddenly get brave and stupid. Then she pulled her dress to her hips. The guard’s eyes widened comically. If the situation had been different she would have laughed out loud.

  Instead she just smiled grimly and dropped to her left knee. She steadied the gun on her upraised right knee, keeping it trained center-mass on the prone soldier.

  To her left thigh she had strapped her combat knife, but she ignored that. Instead she reached for her right thigh, to which she’d strapped her lock picking tools and a tiny camera.

  She removed the tools and turned to the doorknob, moving quickly. Every second that passed with the guard lying unrestrained made a negative outcome that much more likely. He represented little threat to her, flat on his back and weaponless, but if he decided to attack she wasn’t sure she could disable him quietly enough a second time to avoid drawing the attention of the guard manning the door downstairs. He would almost certainly be back at his post by now.

  And there was another reason for haste.

  Tracie’s actions at the front door a few minutes ago had been sufficient to allow her to access the home’s second floor, but General Gregorovich’s suspicions would be raised when the sentry came to him and told him a young partygoer had passed a message that the general required his presence.

  How he responded to those suspicions would be anyone’s guess. But her mission would not be completed successfully if he were to check on the security of his office and find an armed CIA officer breaking into that office.

  She manipulated her tools, concentrating as much as possible on the lock. It was not easy doing so with the knowledge a Red Army soldier lay just a few feet away, a man who undoubtedly wanted nothing more than revenge for the beating he’d just taken.

  But the lock wasn’t much more complex that something an average American homeowner would place on the bathroom door, and after less than a minute she smiled as it popped. It was clear Gregorovich had never seriously considered the possibility his home office might be targeted. Tracie supposed the home’s location—practically in the shadow of the Kremlin—probably had a lot to do with that bit of self-deception.

  She turned the knob and pushed open the door. Then she got to her feet and waved the gun barrel between the sentry and the office, her message clear: get inside.

  The man steadied himself against the hallway wall as he got to his feet. He was either still wobbly or pretending to be. Tracie backed away slightly and then fell in right on his heels, prepared in the event he got the bright idea of slamming the door and stranding her in the hallway.

  The office was nothing more than a converted bedroom, and even with just the light spilling in from the hallway Tracie could see a large desk placed on the right side of the room and a bank of metal filing cabinets lining the wall to the left.

  The soldier walked to the middle of the room and Tracie said, “Stop right there.”

  He did so. She flipped a switch next to the door and a ceiling light flashed on.

  “Get on your knees,” she said.

  “Please, do not kill me.”

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t get on your knees right now.”

  The man sank to his knees, still facing away from Tracie. He was trying to remain calm but was breathing heavily and it was obvious he thought he was about to die.

  Tracie walked up behind him and clubbed him in the back of the skull with his own Makarov.

  He toppled onto his side and lay still.

  6

  Tracie raced out the office door and grabbed her champagne glass off the carpet. Remarkably, she didn’t appear to have spilled a drop besides what she’d slopped intentionally on the staircase. She returned to the office, closed and locked the door, and got down to work.

  Time was at a premium, and logic would suggest that any specifications regarding the portable Soviet radar system rumored to be under development would be stored somewhere inside one of the four filing cabinets lined up like silver metal soldiers to her left.

  But Tracie wasn’t so sure about that. A radar system small enough and portable enough to allow grunts in the field to pin down the locations of their enemies would be revolutionary, and she thought that if such a system were real and close to being ready for deployment, it would probably take up a great deal of General Gregorovich’s time and attention.

  Which meant he wouldn’t want to pull all his materials out of a filing cabinet every day.

  Which meant a better place to start looking would be his desk.

  She stepped over the body of the Soviet soldier. He was still unmoving, but Tracie knew it wouldn’t take his brain long to begin rebooting again, although after a second blow to the head in a matter of two or three minutes, he wouldn’t be waking up immediately. Still, she would need to keep a close eye on him.

  General Gregorovich’s desk was big, although compared to the monstrosity in Aaron Stallings’ home office it was strictly minor league. She noticed one thing immediately, however. The three drawers on the left side were not fitted with locks, nor were the three on the right. The single drawer in the middle, directly above the chair well, was the only one that was lockable.

  This made it the only one Tracie cared about.

  She’d tossed her lock picking tools onto the carpet after breaking into the room and now she retrieved them and got to work. The lock on the drawer was only marginally more complex than the one on the doorknob, and despite the fact that picking locks had never been Tracie’s best skill, inside of a minute she’d pulled the drawer open and begun examining its contents.

  A sheaf of official-looking papers sat beneath a tangle of pens and pencils. Tracie pulled the paperwork out of the drawer and laid it on the desktop. Then she began scanning everything, looking for any reference to “portable radar” or “ground troops,” or anything else that might indicate the documents were in any way related to her mission. She was so focused on searching for out those specific keywords it took maybe thirty seconds to recognize the significance of what she’d found.

  When she did, she blinked hard and shook her head.

  Slowed down and actually concentrated on what she was reading.

  And felt a creeping sense of horror begin to overtake her.

  She swallowed heavily and set the top page aside. Then she moved to the second page and began reading it over, only long enough to determine whether it was related to the subject of the first page.

  It was.

  She thumbed through each succeeding page, eyes wide. All the documents that had been stored in the locked drawer were in regard to the same subject. And that subject made Tracie forget all about portable ground radars. />
  She glanced across the room at the Red Army soldier. He still lay face down and unmoving on the floor, blood trickling onto the carpet from his second head wound.

  She was reaching for her miniature camera when she heard a male voice outside the door. The voice sounded annoyed. The man cursed in Russian then said, “Aniskevich, where the hell are you?”

  The question was followed by a jiggling of the doorknob, but Tracie was already moving. She vaulted the desk and landed softly on the carpet between the desk and the door. By the time she could hear the key scratching in the lock she had flipped off the light switch and was in position.

  The door pushed open slowly and as it did the light from the hallway began illuminating the interior of the office, a yellow piece of pie steadily increasing in size. The new arrival had the door half open when the light fell upon Aniskevich’s body. The door stopped moving and for a moment nothing happened.

  Then a large figure entered the office, moving slowly. Tracie assumed it was General Gregorovich. She had no idea whether or not he was armed, but decided there was nothing to lose by assuming he was.

  She knew shooting him had to be her last option if she wanted any reasonable chance of escaping the mansion alive. But the angle was all wrong for bludgeoning him like she’d done with the Russian sentry. Aniskevich had been kneeling on the floor, but Gregorovich was standing. And he wasn’t a small man.

  But it was her best shot so she took it. She gripped the gun in her right hand, shoulder height, butt protruding below the meat of her fist. The moment his left shoulder cleared the door, Tracie swung the Makarov at his head, an overhand strike that clipped the side of his skull.

  He staggered right and dropped to one knee and Tracie leapt out from behind the door. Before he could react she was on him again, this time putting him down with a second blow, flush to the head. He dropped to the floor next to the sentry, who was only now beginning to moan and stir. She took a moment to frisk Gregorovich for a weapon and discovered he was unarmed.

  Time was running out and she knew it. Christ, she thought. Pretty soon this office is going to be the most crowded room in the house.