It was not immediately clear whether or not the truck was on the move. The blinking red dot was still pointing her in the direction of the abandoned service station where she’d seen it parked last night, but if that were the case, the little receiver was performing even better than advertised because the distance between Tracie’s safe house and the abandoned service station had to be close to thirty-five miles.
In any event, she needed to hurry, to close the distance between herself and the F-150 before the terrorists decided to move the bomb. If they left the service station and drove northeast faster than Tracie was driving, there was every possibility they would move the tracker antenna out of range of the receiver.
How far in front of her the bomb was she had no way of knowing, because the receiver provided no specificity in terms of distance between it and the transmitter. The truck might be five hundred feet away from her or it might be twenty miles, there was no way to know.
Additionally, navigational guidance was not a part of the equation. The only information Tracie had to go on was the direction of the transmitter from the receiver. If the blinking red dot was located in the upper right corner of the receiver’s screen, as was the case currently, the only thing Tracie knew for certain was that the F-150 was northeast of her present location.
She had never thought Navsegda would detonate the nuke in or around Moscow, and now she was certain of it. For all of the group’s single-minded dedication to their mission of Soviet regime change, they were still born-and-bred Russian citizens. Tracie couldn’t imagine any scenario where they would want to kill the numbers of Russians that detonating the nuke inside Moscow’s city limits would entail, since the population of Moscow alone was nearly nine million. Adding in the surrounding suburbs, Tracie guessed, would probably make that number rise to fourteen million or more.
She was certain the radicals would want to make their point by targeting a more remote city. The damage in terms of lives lost would still be unthinkable, but Tracie had dealt with the mindset of radicals many times, and she thought she had a good handle on their thought processes. If her assumptions were correct, she would need to travel via highway in order to cover ground as quickly as possible.
Within fifteen minutes she had accessed the M8, the major southwest/northeast artery into and out of Moscow. It was most closely aligned with the direction of the blinking red dot on her screen, so it was the route she took.
The M8 took her directly toward Yaroslavl, and she thought for a while she was going to end up exactly where she’d been not twenty-four hours ago, although via a different route. But that made no sense; why would the terrorists just leave the device inside the abandoned service station? What would be the point? The area was too remote to make the kind of statement they would want by detonating it where it was, and there could be nothing to gain by waiting and allowing the KGB or Soviet military to catch up to them.
She was pondering that question while driving much too fast on the M8 when the dot began drifting more to the northeast on the screen.
That was when it all became clear. They had waited until now to depart the service station because they wanted to arrive inside their destination city at a certain prescribed time. Most likely that time would be in the middle of the night, providing them the cover of darkness.
She exited the M8 at the next available off-ramp, moving more to the east, changing highways again a little later, always seeking to center that tiny blinking red dot.
Eventually she found herself on the A113. The landscape outside and between Russian cities was typically rural, heavily forested and remote, particularly north and east of Moscow. This case was no different.
Tracie found herself yawning, fighting exhaustion but determined to keep moving and close the distance between herself and the nuclear device being hauled somewhere on the back of an F-150 pickup. Her dilemma was obvious: she couldn’t continue without sleep indefinitely, but she had no way of knowing whether the pickup was stationary and had arrived at its final destination or whether it was still moving. And if it was still moving when she stopped to nap, she risked losing the signal.
At dinnertime Tracie took ten minutes at a travel plaza to refill her fuel tank and grab food and coffee, and then she was back on the road. It had taken her a fair amount of time working inside western Russia to get used to their late sunsets this time of year—it would be almost nine-thirty before full dark tonight—but she appreciated driving in the sunlight for as long as possible.
Continuing after sunset was going to be interesting, given the fact she’d only slept for maybe three of the last forty or so hours. She’d stayed awake longer on missions, though, and she guessed this would not be the last time she fought the physiological imperative to sleep.
She merged back onto the A113 and continued moving northeast.
The red dot continued to blink in the upper right portion of the screen.
Tracie sipped her coffee and tried to avoid dwelling on her exhaustion.
39
June 14, 1988
11:35 p.m.
Kirov, Russia, USSR
The three-vehicle caravan eased to a stop against the curb at the preselected location.
Rostya led the way, as he had the entire trip, in his stolen Lada. Nikolay rolled up behind him in the red American-made truck with the bomb in the cargo bed, and Ilya brought up the rear in his East German Trabant.
The three vehicles maintained a tight formation, slowing and then stopping in unison. All three sets of headlights were extinguished immediately, and then the men sat quietly. There was no sign of a police presence, but in the event they were challenged by a Kirov police officer, the plan was to explain that they were construction workers transporting a testing device to a site in Kirov and had stopped to share a vodka toast in celebration of a job nearly complete.
They would then move on to a secondary location to launch the attack. Under no circumstances were they to risk raising the suspicions of the police.
But as they sat, three men alone inside three vehicles lined up in a nearly perfect row, it became clear they had nothing to worry about. There was not the slightest sign of law enforcement activity.
Rostya exited his car first. He climbed out the driver’s side door, and as Nikolay watched the big man stretch his back and then rise to his full height, he winced inwardly. The drive must have been extremely uncomfortable for Rostya, stuffed into the tiny Lada with his knees nearly flush against his chest.
But Nikolay knew Rostya would voice no complaints. He was the anti-Ilya, who, Nikolay knew, would have unleashed a nearly nonstop litany of grievances during the drive had he not been alone inside his car.
Maybe he’d done so anyway.
Rostya flashed Nikolay a grin before crossing the empty street and plodding up a small embankment on the far side. He walked almost all the way to an unidentified building before turning to face the F-150. In his hand he held a camera.
He looked through the viewfinder and then walked slowly forward, ten meters or so, and then stopped again. He fiddled with the camera’s settings and then flashed Nikolay a thumb-up, indicating he was ready.
At that, Nikolay leapt out of the truck and climbed into the cargo bed. He raised the tarp on the side of the bomb facing Rostya and then crouched behind the nuclear device until completely concealed from Rostya’s camera by its bulk.
Then Rostya began snapping photographs, one after the other, flash after flash coming from across the street as Sovetskiy Soyuz Navsegda compiled the visual evidence required to ensure that the Russian public’s outrage following detonation was focused in the appropriate direction.
The United States.
After maybe two-dozen photos Rostya began ambling back toward the truck as Nikolay stood and lowered the tarp into place. Nikolay then climbed into the pickup’s cab and retook his place behind the wheel. Then he began rolling down the driver’s side window.
Rostya arrived at the truck, standing in the street whi
le Nikolay finished opening the window. One thing they could all agree on, even Ilya, was the absurd design of the American vehicle, which featured the steering wheel on the left side of the cab. Fucking Americans could not even design a vehicle properly.
Nikolay said, “You looked a bit uncomfortable climbing out of your car, my friend. Did you have to fold your body in half to drive that thing?”
Rostya laughed, the sound booming in the stillness of the sleeping city. “Any discomfort will be temporary. And the results will be well worth the pain, I assure you.”
Nikolay glanced into the rear view mirror and saw Ilya sitting alone and unmoving in the darkness. He said, “It appears Comrade Kalinin will not be joining us in a goodbye toast.”
“That is just as well,” Rostya said. “We do not have time to stand around Kirov listening to him piss and moan. Besides, I will have to hear it all during the long ride back to Moscow. He will be lucky if I don’t kill him and dump his body on the side of the road at some point along the way.”
Nikolay chuckled. He thought Rostya was making a joke but wasn’t one hundred percent certain.
He reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out a bottle. Unscrewed the cap. Held the vodka up and said, “To revolution.” Then he took a long swig and savored the fiery liquid rolling down his throat.
He handed the bottle to Rostya, who said, “Da, to revolution.”
Nikolay had taken a big sip, but Rostya’s gulp put his to shame. The big man swallowed at least three times before coming up for air. Then he stood with his eyes closed, enjoying the burn, before reaching to hand the bottle back to Nikolay.
“No,” Nikolay said. “Keep it. Toast our success with Ilya later, before you split up.”
Rostya glanced back at the Trabant, with Ilya Kalinin still sitting resolutely alone. He rolled his eyes and said, “That man has done nothing these past five weeks to make me want to toast his health.”
“Do it for me, then,” Nikolay said. “Ilya might be difficult, but—”
“Might be?” Rostya interrupted. “That is the most unintentionally humorous thing you have ever said.”
“Okay, I will give you that one. Ilya is most definitely an unpleasant human being. But he is risking every bit as much as we are in this mission to get our beloved Soviet Union back. Not this newer, wishy-washy version, but the strong, proud Union of Soviet Socialist Republics we remember from decades ago. He is as committed to this course of action as we are, and thus he deserves to be toasted, regardless of his disagreeable personality.”
Rostya stared at Nikolay for a long moment, an unreadable expression on his face. Nikolay felt as though the bear of a man might be trying to read his thoughts.
He hoped not.
At last the big man withdrew the bottle and held it down by his side. “I will do it,” he said. “For you.”
“Thank you. And now, you should be going. I need to get to work and finish arming the device.”
Rostya nodded. He took two steps in the direction of the Trabant and then turned back toward Nikolay. “We will see each other again.”
“Goodbye, Rostya.”
Nikolay watched as his friend hesitated, almost as if he wanted to say something else. Then he turned toward the car with Ilya sitting behind the wheel. He plodded to the passenger side, opened the door and then dropped into the seat.
At that, Ilya started the engine and flicked on the headlights. He pulled away from the curb and drove off toward the highway.
And Nikolay was alone.
40
June 15, 1988
1:05 a.m.
Kirov, Russia, USSR
Tracie stopped once for more gas and coffee around seven-thirty, and by midnight found herself approaching the city of Kirov, preparing to exit the highway as her fuel tank was again getting low.
She had suspected for the last couple of hours that her journey may come to an end in Kirov. Navsegda might not choose to use Moscow to make their point, but they would want to decimate a large enough city to get their government’s—and the world’s—attention. Kirov would fit the bill perfectly, with a population of nearly half a million citizens and no real suburban sprawl to speak of outside the city limits, located as it was near the foothills of the Ural Mountains.
Additionally, the terrorists had been moving steadily northeast, and beyond Kirov in that direction was a vast swath of emptiness for hundreds, or perhaps as many as a thousand, kilometers.
The city lights were visible on the horizon for close to thirty minutes as Tracie approached. Against the inky black background of the largely unpopulated terrain, Kirov glowed like an alien spaceship hovering in the distance. For fifteen minutes or more the city seemed not to come any closer, but then there it was, the first outposts of civilization dotting the landscape here and there before the urban sprawl of a mid-sized Russian city came into view.
Instead of exiting at the first sign of a service station, Tracie continued on the A113. Her plan was to leave the highway and circle back for fuel once she’d put the entirety of Kirov in her rear view mirror, because her immediate goal was to determine whether her theory about Kirov being the target of the nuclear strike was accurate.
The fastest way to make that determination would be to continue straight ahead at highway speed. If the F-150 with the transmitter attached to its underside were located somewhere in the city, the blinking red dot would swing suddenly from the upper portion of the screen to the lower.
And that was exactly what happened.
Sovetskiy Soyuz Navsegda had arrived in their target city.
Tracie felt the first rush of adrenaline pound through her, but she still needed gas, so her first order of business was to find a service station open at this time of night. It wasn’t easy, but she cruised the surface streets adjacent to the A113 until finding one. Five minutes later she was back in the car, rubbing her eyes and yawning.
Despite her exhaustion, her nerves were thrumming, her entire body on edge. Now that she had closed the gap once more on the nuclear device, she was suffering from the semi-irrational fear that something would prevent her from completing her mission, exactly as had happened a little more than twenty-four hours ago: she would be involved in another car accident, or her engine would sputter and die, or—the most likely and thus most frightening possibility—the batteries in the transmitter attached to the truck would finally give out and she would lose the trail despite being inside the same city as the bomb.
After leaving the service station, Tracie began prowling the city streets, making left and right turns that to an onlooker would appear random but were done with the goal of keeping the blinking red light pegged as closely to the top center of the receiver screen as possible.
With a population of nearly five hundred thousand, Kirov was plenty large, but the vast majority of those half-million residents were fast asleep, and city streets were mostly deserted. Shops and other businesses were shuttered, windows in the ubiquitous Russian concrete-block high-rise apartment buildings mostly dark.
Tracie drove slowly, trying to do a two-person job all by herself inside a city with which she was totally unfamiliar. Ideally when using the tracker, one operative would concentrate solely on driving while a second operative in the passenger seat focused his or her attention on the receiver, calling out turns as necessary.
Obviously, Tracie didn’t have that luxury. She was holding the tracker in her left hand, and steering and shifting with her right, her eyes darting from the road to the screen, road to the screen. She could feel them burning, itching from exhaustion.
Still, she was making progress.
Fifteen minutes after filling her gas tank, Tracie spotted the F-150 as her vehicle crawled through Kirov. The truck’s fire-engine-red paint job and distinctly American look made it impossible to miss. It was parked on the side of the road against a curb, a massive Russian church looming in the background. The church appeared well maintained, and its exterior was brightly illuminated,
in stark comparison to the dim lighting typically provided for pedestrians and drivers.
The Soviet Union had banned organized religion decades earlier, but Russian citizens prior to the Marxist revolution had been deeply religious. Most still were. All across Russia were churches of various vintages that had been lovingly constructed, buildings that featured magnificent architecture, with high, sweeping arches and the huge onion domes that made them so distinctly Russian. They had been repurposed or now stood empty and unused, testaments to a state that refused to compete with religion for the hearts of its citizens.
Tracie thought back to her conversation with Aaron Stallings and his insistence that Navsegda would build support for war with the United States by photographing the nuclear device on the back of the American-made truck while parked in front of a landmark that was easily-recognizable to most Russians.
She was no more familiar with this church specifically than she was with the city of Kirov as a whole, but was certain it would qualify as such a landmark. And with the high-intensity lighting in the background, the church would show up in photographs taken in the middle of the night every bit as well as if they’d been taken at noontime.
She wanted a closer look at the truck so she motored past, moving as slowly as she thought reasonable while still not drawing the attention of any Navsegda operatives who might be in or around the vehicle.
As she drew closer she could see what she assumed must be the device in the cargo bed. The terrorists had constructed a wooden frame around the bomb, and secured to the frame were heavy black tarps that served to screen the actual device from prying eyes.
Undoubtedly one Navsegda member had waited until no witnesses were present and then lifted the tarp out of the way while a second operative had snapped photos of the bomb. As he did so, he would have been careful to prominently feature the Ford logo and also the church looming in the background. Then the men had lowered the tarp back into place.
The Nuclear Option Page 20