Then they detonate the device, potentially killing tens of thousands in the initial blast, followed by tens of thousands more in the ensuing weeks and months thanks to radiation poisoning.
After that, they distribute their photographs of the bomb sitting in the cargo bed of an American pickup truck, and the Soviet leadership has no choice but to respond in kind against the American aggressors, if only to satisfy the panicked, angry Russian citizenry.
Then the Navsegda hardliners make their move within the Soviet hierarchy.
Such a plan would be devastatingly effective, using simple human psychology to create a wave of support for war and for Sovetskiy Soyuz Navsegda. The radical group would insist on all-new Communist leadership, claiming Gorbachev and his policies of openness and conciliation in dealing with the United States had created a climate where the Americans had felt emboldened enough to attack Russia just outside its own capital city.
Could such a plan really work?
Tracie didn’t know, but with the acquisition of the tactical nuclear device and the American-made truck, they were frighteningly close to finding out.
She might have just days to stop an action that could trigger a third world war.
She might have just hours.
And she was utterly alone.
21
June 13, 1988
9:20 p.m.
Somewhere northwest of Moscow, Russia, USSR
The discussion inside the abandoned service station was still ongoing between the four Navsegda members when Tracie retraced her steps and moved out of sight along the side of the building. Traffic had been light along this road since Tracie had originally driven past the station while tracking Kozlov, so she decided to risk jogging back to her car along the verge.
If her interpretation of what she’d just seen was accurate, time was at a premium, and wasting ten to fifteen minutes sneaking through the forest suddenly seemed like a very bad idea. She needed to get back to her safe house absolutely as quickly as possible.
Once there she would notify Aaron Stallings via secure satellite phone of what she’d discovered. America’s intelligence presence inside Russia and its satellite states had taken a serious hit with multiple assassinations last year of CIA covert personnel, but Tracie was certainly not the only operative still active inside the USSR. It was imperative she brief Stallings and convince him to commit as many American assets as possible to helping her.
She didn’t think it would take much convincing on her part, but even if he agreed with her assessment and dispatched personnel immediately, it would take time to get them into position thanks to the sheer vastness of the Soviet Union.
And until help arrived, Tracie would be working alone on a mission that was suddenly far too big—and far too important—to be left in the hands of any one operative.
She made good time trotting along the empty road and within minutes had arrived back at her stolen car. Tracie bypassed the vehicle and plunged headlong into the woods. The darkness was nearly complete, and she was becoming more than a little concerned it would take too much time to find the equipment bag she’d secreted. She’d made sure to pack a flashlight in the bag, but it hadn’t occurred to her to take it with her on her reconnaissance mission, and now she cursed her lack of foresight.
She worked her way back to the spot in which she’d dumped the bag, breathing a sigh of relief when she located it after a brief search. She moved as quickly as possible, picking it up and throwing the strap over her left shoulder. Then she reversed course out of the woods. She tossed the bag into the back seat of the VAZ and slid behind the wheel.
Hotwiring the car took only a moment and the engine sputtered to life. Tracie rummaged through her equipment bag until finding her map book. It contained page after page of road maps, detailing the area in and around Moscow. She was continually in the process of updating the book, replacing as many of the maps as she could at least once a year.
After a short search she found a map containing the village of Yaroslavl, and in another minute or two had plotted out the fastest route to her safe house. Then she tossed the map onto the passenger seat, spun the wheel and hit the gas.
Seconds later she was passing the service station. There was no activity that she could see, nor did there appear to be any lighting coming from inside, but the F-150 was still parked nose-in to the rear of the building.
She breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the truck, knowing it was silly to think Navsegda could have loaded a nuclear device the size of the one she’d just seen onto the back of a pickup truck and driven off with it in the time it had taken her to run back to her car, but doing so anyway. She just couldn’t seem to get the thought of the F-150 being incinerated by a nuclear blast out of her head.
Tracie took a deep breath and eased the accelerator a little closer to the floor. She wasn’t anxious to get stopped by a Russian cop for speeding, but given the remoteness of the area and the minimal traffic activity, felt it was a risk worth taking.
Traffic would pick up as she got closer to Moscow, obviously, but even when that happened, Tracie didn’t think it would be a major problem. It was after sunset on a weeknight, and city traffic should be relatively light. She had committed the route to memory back in Yaroslavl and was more or less driving on autopilot, so she began planning out exactly how she would approach Stallings.
If she recognized the danger lurking inside that tiny abandoned service station, she had little doubt he would as well. But still, bitter experience had taught Tracie that dealing with the mercurial CIA director was always a challenge, and if she went into the conversation with a concrete plan of attack, she would be much more likely to come out of it with the result she wanted.
The roads were winding and narrow, forcing her to maintain a speed lower than she would have preferred. But when an unexpected straightaway appeared, Tracie gunned the engine. She would haul ass for the next half-mile or so before once again slowing at what appeared to be almost a ninety degree hairpin turn far off in the distance.
A crossroad loomed a hundred feet ahead, but Tracie had seen virtually no traffic during this entire drive, and she felt certain this intersection would be no different. She was almost on top of it when a set of headlights flared off her right, traveling at a speed roughly equivalent to her own.
It was some kind of cargo delivery truck.
And it wasn’t slowing. Clearly its driver had had the same thought as Tracie about the roads being deserted.
She slammed her foot down on the brake and wrestled the wheel, willing the VAZ not to shoot off into a tree while watching the lights of the other vehicle and desperately calculating the odds of avoiding a collision.
At the same time, the truck driver caught sight of her and hit his brakes, and the big rig yawed precariously to the right before crashing onto its side and sliding straight into the intersection.
And Tracie’s car.
The headlights grew in size and brightness, becoming impossibly large, and for one desperate moment Tracie thought the VAZ would screech to a stop short of the intersection.
It didn’t happen.
The truck slammed into the car to the sound of shattering glass and crumpling sheet metal. Tracie was thrown to the right and jerked almost immediately back to the left. Her head struck the side window as a searing flame of pain fired through her neck.
Her last thought before losing consciousness was, So this is what it’s like to die.
22
June 13, 1988
9:35 p.m.
Yaroslavl, Russia, USSR
Nikolay Stepanov handed Kozlov the keys to the Škoda parked behind the abandoned gasoline station.
“Thank you for your outstanding work,” he said, “and for procuring the funds necessary to allow us to successfully complete this mission. I think I can speak for everyone in Sovetskiy Soyuz Navsegda when I say we owe much to your efforts.”
“I believe in what you are doing every bit as much as you do
,” Dimitri Kozlov said. “And we all have our roles to play. For me, it is mostly acting as financial middleman.”
“It is a critically important role,” Nikolay stressed.
“But I must say,” Dimitri continued, “it was very gratifying—if perhaps also a bit nerve-wracking—to be permitted the opportunity to deliver this beautiful American-made truck to you.”
Nikolay smiled. “Another critical component of making this a successful mission.”
“Even if it did take much longer than it should have,” Ilya Kalinin groused.
Rostya Terschenko chuckled. “My God, Ilya,” he said. “You would find something to complain about if a stranger handed you a million rubles with no questions asked.”
Ilya spat on the floor. “Do not play innocent,” he said. “Do you really expect me to believe you weren’t going out of your mind with boredom sitting around this decrepit building playing Durak while we waited for Comrade Kozlov to get off his ass and bring us the vehicle we needed?”
“I could not deliver the truck until it was available,” Dimitri said mildly.
“Ilya, that is enough,” Nikolay said sharply. “Comrade Kozlov could not conjure the truck out of thin air, nor could anyone else at Navsegda. I do not doubt he got it to us absolutely as quickly as possible.”
Rostya looked at Ilya and laughed again. “See? Thank you for making my point about the million rubles.”
Nikolay held one hand up to stop Rostya’s needling. The man loved pushing Ilya’s buttons, and normally it was amusing but at the moment he just wanted it to stop.
He turned to Dimitri. “As I was saying, thank you for your excellent work, Comrade Kozlov. Remember to abandon the stolen car at least two to three kilometers from your residence once you are back in Moscow. Walking the rest of the way home will not be enjoyable but you do not want to lead the authorities straight to your door.”
“I understand.”
“Good. And obviously, once this mission is finished, we will not speak for a very long time, six months at the absolute minimum. Maybe one year. Maybe longer.”
“I understand that also,” Dimitri said.
“Then take care, my friend.” Nikolay wrapped the older man in a bear hug and then watched as Kozlov turned away and walked out of the service station without speaking further to Ilya or Rostya.
He waited until he heard Kozlov start the car and drive away before continuing the conversation with his fellow Navsegda operatives. “It is too late to leave tonight, so we will plan on making the drive tomorrow.”
“Of course,” Ilya said sarcastically. “More waiting.”
“Do you not understand simple mathematics?” Rostya said to Ilya, shaking his head as if Ilya were a child. Nikolay’s first instinct was to shut Rostya down, but he knew where the other man was going with this, so he decided not to interfere. Maybe it would make more of an impact on the inveterate complainer coming from Rostya than from himself.
“It is more than a twelve-hour drive from here to Kirov,” Rostya continued. “Twelve hours from now would be what time, Ilya?”
“You have made your point,” Ilya snapped.
“Twelve hours from now would be what time?” Rostya repeated firmly. “You were the one complaining about the delay. Answer the question.”
“Fine,” Ilya said, fuming. “Twelve hours from now would be mid-morning.”
“Exactly. And do you think it would be a good idea to park a truck carrying a nuclear bomb in the middle of downtown Kirov in the middle of the morning?”
“I said you have made your point.”
“Answer the question,” Rostya said again, steel in his voice. He was a large bear of a man, slow to anger and normally good-natured. But Nikolay thought Ilya’s sourness had finally pushed him to his limit. “You have been nothing but difficult for almost the entire time we have been stuck here, and I have had enough of it. Do not make me force the answer out of you. You will require medical attention if it comes to that.”
Ilya spat again on the floor. He crossed his arms and stared down Rostya, who seemed somehow to have become even more imposing than usual, like a cat fluffing out its fur when threatened.
They held each other’s gaze for a moment before Ilya thought better of challenging his comrade. He said, “No, obviously I do not think it would be a good idea to park a truck with the bomb strapped on the back of it in the middle of Kirov in midmorning.”
“Good boy,” Rostya answered. “Now, please allow Comrade Stepanov to finish speaking.”
Ilya fidgeted and fumed and spat again. Rostya winked at Nikolay as Ilya looked down at the floor, and Nikolay almost could not suppress his smile.
“Anyway, as I was saying,” Nikolay continued, “with Comrade Kozlov using our stolen vehicle to get home, we must secure more transportation before we leave for Kirov tomorrow.”
“I am sure when you say ‘we,’” Ilya began. “You do not mean…” His voice trailed away as Rostya loomed over him, cracking his knuckles.
“No,” Nikolay said. “To answer your question, Ilya, I am not asking you to go out and steal a vehicle tonight. I was merely trying to communicate our plan of attack. You may get some rest. Rostya will drive me into town to find a car to steal. Once we bring that car here, we will go back out and get another.”
Rostya squinted in confusion. “Two stolen cars? Why do we need to pick up a second car?”
“Because,” Nikolay said. “Once we get the American truck into position we must split up. You and Ilya will depart in one car. I will depart in the second, a short time later.”
“I do not understand. Why split up? Why do we not all leave Kirov together in one car?”
“Because it will take me a little time to arm the detonator once the truck is in position. I do not want all of us clustered around the bomb in the middle of the night. If anything would draw the attention of the local militsiya it would be that.”
“Obviously we do not want to draw the attention of the police. But I think—”
“And besides,” Nikolay interrupted. “Once the mission has been completed, there will be a manhunt throughout Russia for whoever set off the nuclear device. We will have to separate as soon as possible, anyway, so there is no reason for the two of you to wait for me at the detonation site.”
“Manhunt? But the whole point of this entire mission is to frame the United States for the explosion and to spark a war!”
“Yes it is,” Nikolay agreed. “And this nuclear blast will do exactly that. But even while blaming the United States for the blast, even while retaliating against our enemies, Soviet leadership will realize the bomb was detonated from within. They will search exhaustively for us, even while fighting a war against the United States.”
Nikolay looked up at Rostya’s expressive face. It seemed to be paler than usual, as if the big man had never truly considered the consequences of this mission.
But Nikolay had. It was all he’d been thinking about for months, and he thought he had a pretty good idea how the aftermath of the explosion would go.
“But…” Rostya’s voice trailed off. It was clear he wanted to disagree with Nikolay’s analysis but did not know how to do so.
“We will be fine, Rostya,” Nikolay said, speaking in a calm voice. “Eventually, when the coming war is over and the regime change is complete, we will be hailed as heroes. But in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, before events play out as they must, we will be hunted. We must split up and have no contact, exactly as I explained to Comrade Kozlov.”
Rostya stood, lips pursed, as he considered Nikolay’s words.
Nikolay continued, speaking gently. “Fanning out and scattering across the country will make us harder to find. And if one of us is tracked down,” he added, “it will be impossible to point the KGB in the direction of the others, regardless of torture, because their location will be unknown.”
“Of course,” Rostya said, nodding. “I understand.”
Then the big man sai
d, “You still should not be the one to go into town and steal two cars tonight. Of the three of us, you need to be the most rested tomorrow. I will walk into town by myself and find a car to steal. Then I will do it again. I will be honored to contribute to our mission in this way.”
“No, my friend,” Nikolay said while noting Ilya’s continued refusal to volunteer. “The process will go much more quickly if we do it together. All three of us will have plenty of time to rest when this mission is complete. And we are on the final lap of the race. It will not be long now.”
“As you wish,” Rostya said.
“Let us get started,” Nikolay answered. “The sooner we do, the sooner we can return and get some sleep.”
Ilya began walking toward the service station’s office and his rickety cot before Nikolay had finished speaking.
23
Date unknown
Time unknown
Location unknown
The sunlight was blinding. Tracie had never been one to spend a lot of time catching rays on the beach, and this relentless glare was one reason why.
And her head felt like someone was hitting it with a sledgehammer. Once, years ago during her freshman year at Brown University, she had gone out bar-hopping with some of her new friends shortly after moving into her dorm, drinking far too much and getting as sick as she could ever recall.
The headache portion of her hangover the next day had felt exactly like this.
The problem was she couldn’t remember taking a trip to the beach, and she sure as hell couldn’t remember drinking heavily. Or drinking at all, for that matter.
But the evidence of her debauchery was impossible to ignore. Her temples throbbed, sending lightning bolts of pain reverberating around the inside of her skull like pinballs in an arcade machine. The throbbing in her head caused her stomach to pitch and roll sickeningly.
The Nuclear Option Page 12