by Tom Clancy
The officers followed Rozhkov from the room to rinse the sweat from their bodies with cold-water showers. Ten minutes later, refreshed and dressed in full uniform, the officers reassembled in a second-floor banquet room. The waiters, many of them KGB informers, noted the subdued mood and quiet conversations that frustrated their efforts to listen in. The generals knew that KGB’s Lefortovo prison was a bare kilometer away.
“Our plans?” CINC-Southwest asked his deputy.
“How many times have we played this war game?” Alekseyev responded. “All the maps and formulae we have examined for years. We know the troop and tank concentrations. We know the routes, the highways, the crossroads that we must use, and those that NATO will use. We know our mobilization schedules, and theirs. The only thing we don’t know is whether our carefully laid plans will in fact work. We should attack at once. Then the unknowns will work against both sides equally.”
“And if our attack goes too well, and NATO relies on a nuclear defense?” the senior officer asked. Alekseyev acknowledged the importance and grave unpredictability of the point.
“They might do that anyway. Comrade, all of our plans depend heavily on surprise, no? A mixture of surprise and success will force the West to consider nuclear weapons—”
“Here you are wrong, my young friend,” CINC-Southwest chided. “The decision to use nuclear weapons is political. To prevent their use is also a political exercise for which time is required.”
“But if we wait over four months—how can we be assured of strategic surprise?” Alekseyev demanded.
“Our political leadership has promised it.”
“The year I entered Frunze Academy, the Party told us the date on which we would surely have ‘True Communism in our lifetime.’ A solemn promise. That date was six years ago.”
“Such talk is safe with me, Pasha, I understand you. But if you do not learn to control your tongue—”
“Forgive me, Comrade General. We must allow for the chance that surprise will not be achieved. ‘In combat, despite the most careful preparation, risks cannot be avoided,’ ” Alekseyev quoted from the syllabus of the Frunze Academy. “ ‘Attention must therefore be given, and the most detailed plans prepared, for every reasonable exigency of the overall operation. For this reason, the unsung life of a staff officer is among the most demanding of those honored to serve the State.’ ”
“You have the memory of a kulak, Pasha.” CINC-Southwest laughed, filling his deputy’s glass with Georgian wine. “But you are correct.”
“Failure to achieve surprise means that we are forcing a campaign of attrition on a vast scale, a high-technology version of the ‘14—’18 war.”
“Which we will win.” CINC-Ground sat down next to Alekseyev.
“Which we will win,” Alekseyev agreed. All Soviet generals accepted the premise that the inability to force a rapid decision would force a bloody war of attrition that would grind each side down equally. The Soviets had far more reserves of men and material with which to fight such a war. And the political will to use them. “If and only if we are able to force the pace of battle, and if our friends in the Navy can prevent the resupply of NATO from America. NATO has war stocks of materiel to sustain them for roughly five weeks. Our pretty, expensive fleet must close the Atlantic.”
“Maslov.” Rozhkov beckoned to the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy. “We wish to hear your opinion of the correlation of forces in the North Atlantic.”
“Our mission?” Maslov asked warily.
“If we fail to achieve surprise in the West, Andrey Petravich, it will be necessary for our beloved comrades in the Navy to isolate Europe from America,” Rozhkov pronounced. He blinked hard at the response.
“Give me a division of airborne troops, and I can fulfill that task,” Maslov responded soberly. He held a glass of mineral water, and had been careful to avoid drink on this cold February night. “The question is whether our strategic stance at sea should be offensive or defensive. The NATO navies—above all the United States Navy—is a direct threat to the Rodina. It alone has the aircraft and aircraft carriers with which to attack the homeland, at the Kola Peninsula. In fact, we know that they have plans to do exactly that.”
“So what?” CINC-Southwest observed. “No attack on Soviet soil is to be taken lightly, of course, but we will take severe losses in this campaign no matter how brilliantly we fight it. What matters is the final outcome.”
“If the Americans succeed in attacking Kola, they effectively prevent our closure of the North Atlantic. And you are wrong to shrug off these attacks. American entry into the Barents Sea will constitute a direct threat to our nuclear deterrent forces, and could have more dire consequences than you imagine.” Admiral Maslov leaned forward. “On the other hand, if you persuade STAVKA to give us the resources to execute Operation Polar Glory, we can seize the combat initiative and dictate the nature of operations in the North Atlantic on our chosen terms.” He held up a closed fist. “By doing this we can, first”—he raised a finger—“prevent an American naval attack against the Rodina; second”—another finger—“use the majority of our submarine forces in the North Atlantic basin where the trade routes are, instead of keeping them on passive defense; and, third”—a final finger—“make maximum use of our naval aviation assets. At one stroke this operation makes our fleet an offensive rather than a defensive weapon.”
“And to accomplish this you need only one of our Guards Air Rifle divisions? Outline your plan for us, please, Comrade Admiral,” Alekseyev said.
Maslov did so over a period of five minutes. He concluded, “With luck, we will with one blow give the NATO navies more than they can deal with, and leave us with a valuable position for postwar exploitation.”
“Better to draw their carrier forces in and destroy them.” CINC-West joined the discussion.
Maslov responded: “The Americans will have five or six carriers available to use against us in the Atlantic. Each one carries fifty-eight aircraft that can be used in an air superiority or nuclear strike role, aside from those used for fleet defense. I submit, Comrade, that it is in our interest to keep those ships as far from the Rodina as possible.”
“Andrey Petravich, I am impressed,” Rozhkov said thoughtfully, noting the respect in Alekseyev’s eyes as well. Polar Glory was both bold and simple. “I want a full briefing on this plan tomorrow afternoon. You say that if we can allocate the resources, success in this venture is highly probable?”
“We have worked on this plan for five years, with particular emphasis on simplicity. If security can be maintained, only two things need go right for success to be achieved.”
Rozhkov nodded. “Then you will have my support.”
4
Maskirovka 1
MOSCOW, R.S.F.S.R.
The Foreign Minister entered stage left, as he always did, and walked to the lectern with a brisk step that belied his sixty years. Before him was a mob of reporters arrayed by the Soviet Guards into their respective groups, the print press grasping at their pads and backed up by their photographers, the visual media arrayed in front of their portable klieg lights. The Foreign Minister hated the damned things, hated the people in front of them. The Western press with its lack of manners, always prying, always probing, always demanding answers that he need not give to his own people. How odd, he thought, while looking up from his notes, that he often had to speak more openly to these paid foreign spies than to members of the Party Central Committee. Spies, exactly what they were . . .
They could be manipulated, of course, by a skilled man with a collection of carefully prepared disinformation—which was precisely what he was about to do. But on the whole they were a threat because they never stopped doing what it was they did. It was something the Foreign Minister never allowed himself to forget, and the reason he did not hold them in contempt. Dealing with them always held potential danger. Even while being manipulated, they could be dangerous in their quest for information. If only the rest of t
he Politburo understood.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, speaking in English. “I will be making a brief statement, and I regret that I cannot answer any questions at this time. A full handout will be given to everyone as you leave—that is, I think they are ready by now—” He gestured to a man at the back of the room, who nodded emphatically. The Foreign Minister arranged his papers one more time and began to speak with the precise diction for which he was known.
“The President of the United States has often asked for ‘deeds not words’ in the quest for control of strategic arms.
“As you know, and to the disappointment of the entire world, the ongoing arms negotiations in Vienna have made no significant progress for over a year, with each side blaming the other for the lack of it.
“It is well known by peace-loving people the world over that the Soviet Union has never wished for war, and that only a madman would even consider nuclear war a viable policy option in our modern world of overkill, fallout, and ‘nuclear winter.’ ”
“Damn,” muttered AP bureau chief Patrick Flynn. The Soviets scarcely acknowledged “nuclear winter” and had never mentioned the concept in so formal a setting. His antennae were already twitching at whatever there was in the wind.
“The time has come for substantive reductions in strategic arms. We have made numerous, serious, sincere proposals for real arms reductions, and despite this the United States has proceeded with the development and deployment of its destabilizing, openly offensive weapons: the MX first-strike missile, so cynically called the ‘Peacekeeper’; the advanced Trident D-5 first-strike sea-launched ballistic missile; two separate varieties of cruise missiles whose characteristics conspire to make arms control verification almost totally impossible; and of course, the so-called Strategic Defense Initiative, which will take offensive strategic weapons into space. Such are America’s deeds.” He looked up from his notes and spoke with irony. “And through it all, America’s pious words demand Soviet deeds.
“Starting tomorrow, we will see once and for all if America’s words are to be believed or not. Starting tomorrow we will see how great a difference there is between America’s words about peace and Soviet deeds for peace.
“Tomorrow, the Soviet Union will put on the table at Vienna a proposal to reduce existing arsenals of strategic and theater nuclear weapons by fifty percent, this reduction to be accomplished over a period of three years from ratification of the agreement, subject to on-site verification conducted by third-party inspection teams whose composition will be agreed upon by all signatories.
“Please note that I say ‘all signatories.’ The Soviet Union invites the United Kingdom, the French Republic, and”—he looked up—“the People’s Republic of China to join us at the negotiating table.” The explosion of flashbulbs caused him to look away for a moment.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please—” He smiled, holding his hand up to shield his face. “These old eyes are not up to such abuse as this, and I have not memorized my speech—unless you want me to continue in Russian!”
There was a wave of laughter, then a sprinkling of applause at the jibe. The old bastard was really turning on the charm, Flynn thought, furiously taking notes. This was potential dynamite. He wondered what would come next, and he especially wondered what the precise wording on the proposal was. Flynn had covered arms talks before, and knew all too well that general descriptions of proposals could grossly distort the nuts-and-bolts details of the real issues to be negotiated. The Russians couldn’t be this open—they just couldn’t be.
“To proceed.” The Foreign Minister blinked his eyes clear. “We have been accused of never making a gesture of our good faith. The falsehood of the charge is manifest, but this evil fiction continues in the West. No longer. No longer will anyone have cause to doubt the sincerity of the Soviet people’s quest for a just and lasting peace.
“Beginning today, as a sign of good faith which we challenge the United States and any other interested nation to match, the Soviet Union will remove from service an entire class of nuclear-powered missile submarines. These submarines are known to the West as the Yankee class. We call them something else, of course,” he said with an ingenuous grin that drew another wave of polite laughter. “Twenty of the vessels are presently in service, each carrying twelve sea-launched ballistic missiles. All active members of the class are assigned to the Soviet Northern Fleet based on the Kola Peninsula. Beginning today, we will deactivate these vessels at a rate of one per month. As you know, complete deactivation of so complex a machine as a missile submarine requires the services of a shipyard—the missile compartment must be physically removed from the body of the vessel—and so these vessels cannot be fully disarmed overnight. However, to make the honesty of our intentions undeniable, we invite the United States to do one of two things:
“First, we will permit a selected team of six American naval officers to inspect these twenty vessels to verify that their missile tubes have been filled with concrete ballast pending removal of the entire missile rooms from all of the submarines. In return for this, we would require that a comparable inspection visit by an equal number of Soviet officers to American yards would be allowed at a later date to be agreed on.
“Second, as an alternative should the United States be unwilling to allow reciprocal verification of arms reductions, we will permit another group of six officers to perform this service, these officers to be from a country—or countries—upon which the United States and the Soviet Union can agree within the next thirty days. A team from such neutral countries as Sweden or India would be acceptable in principle to the Soviet Union.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come to put an end to the arms race. I will not repeat all of the flowery rhetoric we’ve all heard over the past two generations. We all know the threat that these ghastly weapons represent to every nation. Let no one ever say again that the government of the Soviet Union has not done its part to reduce the danger of war. Thank you.”
The room suddenly fell silent but for the sound of motor-driven still cameras. The Western press representatives assigned to their respective Moscow bureaus were among the best in their profession. Uniformly bright, uniformly ambitious, uniformly cynical about what they found in Moscow and the conditions under which they were forced to work, all were stunned to silence.
“Goddamn,” muttered Flynn after a full ten seconds.
“One must admire your understatement, old boy,” agreed Reuters correspondent William Calloway. “Wasn’t it your Wilson who spoke of open covenants openly arrived at?”
“Yeah, my granddad covered that peace conference. Remember how well it worked out?” Flynn grimaced, watching the Foreign Minister depart, smiling at the cameras. “I want to see the handout. Want to ride back with me?”
“Yes on both.”
It was a bitterly cold day in Moscow. Snow piles were heaped at the roadsides. The sky was a frigid crystal blue. And the car’s heater didn’t work. Flynn drove while his friend read aloud from the handout. The draft treaty proposal took up nineteen annotated pages. The Reuters correspondent was a Londoner who had begun as a police reporter, and since covered assignments all over the world. He and Flynn had met many years before at the famous Caravelle Hotel in Saigon, and shared drinks and typewriter ribbons on and off for more than two decades. In the face of a Russian winter, they remembered the oppressive heat of Saigon with something akin to nostalgia.
“It’s bloody fair,” Calloway said wonderingly, his breath giving ghostly substance to his words. “They propose a builddown with elimination of many existing weapons, allowing both sides to replace obsolete launchers, both sides to reach a total of five thousand deliverable warheads, that number to remain stable for five years after the three-year reduction period. There is a separate proposal to negotiate complete removal of ‘heavy’ missiles, replacing them with mobile missiles, but to limit missile flight tests to a fixed number per year—” He flipped that page and rapidly scanned the re
mainder. “Nothing in the draft treaty about your Star Wars research . . . ? Didn’t he mention that in his statement? Patrick, old son, this is, as you say, dynamite. This could as easily have been written in Washington. It will take months to work out all the technical points, but this is a bloody serious, and bloody generous, proposal.”
“Nothing about Star Wars?” Flynn frowned briefly as he turned right. Did that mean that the Russians had made a breakthrough of their own? Have to query Washington about that . . . “We got us a story here, Willie. What’s your lead? How’s ‘Peace’ grab you?” Calloway just laughed at that.
FORT MEADE, MARYLAND
American intelligence agencies, like their counterparts throughout the world, monitor all news wire services. Toland was examining the AP and Reuters reports before most news bureau chiefs, and comparing them with the version transmitted over Soviet microwave circuits for publication in the regional editions of Pravda and Isvestia. The way items of hard news were reported in the Soviet Union was intended to show Party members how their leaders felt.
“We’ve been down this road before,” his section chief said. “The last time, things broke down on this issue of mobile missiles. Both sides want them, but both sides are afraid of the other side having them.”
“But the tone of the report—”
“They’re always euphoric about their arms-control proposals, dammit! Hell, Bob, you know that.”
“True, sir, but it’s the first time that I know of that the Russians have unilaterally removed a weapons platform from service.”
“The ‘Yankees’ are obsolete.”
“So what? They never throw anything away, obsolete or not. They still have World War II artillery pieces sitting in warehouses in case they need them again. This is different, and the political ramifications—”