by F X Holden
Devlin saw several states turn yellow around 2010, but then a number of them, mostly around the big cities, turned light green again. The timeline paused. “In 2015 a large-scale desalinization program which was started in 2010 began delivering new freshwater supplies into the hardest hit catchments,” HOLMES said. “Following this success, any talk of a crisis in freshwater supplies in the Russian Duma was put aside and the desalinization program was intensified. The availability of large amounts of freshwater for industry and agriculture supported the resurgence of the Russian economy between 2020 and 2030.”
Now the screen shifted, to show a simple line graph, with dates from 2000 to 2025 on the bottom axis and a line that rose dramatically, and then fell just as dramatically toward the outer years. “This graph shows water delivered into Russian groundwater reserves by melting Siberian permafrost. At the same time as Russian desalinization plants were coming online, massive amounts of meltwater were being delivered to the Central Asian aquifers and beyond, by underground ice melting due to global warming. This meltwater artificially elevated the levels of available freshwater, but this was not sustainable. I believe I may be the first one outside Russia, either human or AI, to have identified this critical piece of the puzzle,” HOLMES said, in a matter of fact way.
The timeline resumed, and Devlin saw that around 2025 all the states in yellow had reverted to green. Whatever Russia had done to solve its freshwater problem, it appeared to have worked.
“With increased agricultural and industrial production, climate-change induced droughts, plus uncontrolled urbanization, freshwater demand has begun outpacing supply again, even with the commissioning of hundreds of desalinization plants, and even with the inflow of Siberian meltwater,” HOLMES continued. Now the map was showing half green, nearly half yellow and a deal red. More states turned red, until about a third of the map was red, and a third yellow, with only one or two states still in green. “This is the present day,” he said. “I have projected this analysis into the future by ten years, and done a sensitivity analysis to arrive at a base case scenario. May I skip directly to my ten-year prognosis ma’am?”
“Please,” Devlin said. She had a fair idea where it was going to land.
With a flicker, the map on the screen turned blood red, from west to east.
Devlin looked at it thoughtfully. What HOLMES had shown her was not news to Williams, so he sat patiently while McCarthy processed it. So did HOLMES.
“I have some questions,” Devlin said at last.
“Yes ma’am,” Williams and HOLMES replied together.
Devlin smiled, “HOLMES, your analysis tells me Russia is facing a critical shortage of fresh water in the next ten years. I assume you have allowed for a continued increase in the rate of commissioning desalinization plants, or purification of polluted water sources?”
“Yes ma’am, the base case scenario I am showing allows for the current rate of growth in desalinization plant and purified water delivered inflow to double, which is against current trends. I have also modeled a modest decline in economic growth, also against current trends. Neither of these adjustments enable Russia to avert the critical water shortages.”
“Have you considered the impact of climate change mitigation strategies on current rainfall?”
She felt she was asking dumb questions, but they had to be asked, because someone would very soon be asking her.
“Yes ma’am, I have incorporated the best-case projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change into the base case. Climate change mitigation strategies cannot work quickly enough to change these projections.”
She looked at Williams, “Russia is dying of thirst.”
“Not yet, but it will be,” Williams agreed. “Very soon. And it seems that HOLMES, me, and now you, are the only ones outside Russia who know it.”
“You haven’t copied this analysis to NSA?” she was surprised.
Williams looked sheepish, “He wanted to tell you first, before he uplinked it.”
“Are you serious?” she asked. “HOLMES, is that correct?”
The voice that came back had the quality of an English schoolboy, trying to please his teacher. “You were the one who provoked me to revisit my scenarios ma’am. Your intel regarding the personal reaction of the Russian Foreign Minister when you accused him of making a land grab for Saint Lawrence was pivotal to redirecting my analytical energies. I may not have made the connection to dwindling Siberian meltwater levels without your input.”
Williams looked annoyed, “I’m sorry ma’am. I’m using regularization algorithms like least absolute shrinkage and selection to simplify his alternative ‘out of the box’ scenario development.”
“English?”
“Uh, right. He was creating scenarios that are too intricate and complex to be likely, so I taught him to learn to like simplicity in his scenario building and seek out inputs that force him to simplify,” he shrugged. “That’s you.”
“I’m an input that forces him to simplify?”
“People in my work see the world in shades of grey. You however see the world in black and white ma’am,” Williams said gently. “Good guys, bad guys kind of thing. I’m training him to seek out simpler perspectives.”
“I like your perspectives Ambassador,” HOLMES said. “They are elegant and appealing.”
Williams shrugged, “That’s why I apologized. I think he has a brain crush on you.”
“Yes. I like the Ambassador,” HOLMES said.
Devlin found herself smiling again. “I sincerely appreciate the gesture, but you should share your intel on this quickly, not wait for me next time.”
Williams coughed, “If I can interrupt this mutual admiration club ma’am, we haven’t got to the meat of the briefing yet. HOLMES is describing ‘cause’ to you, he hasn’t gotten to ‘effect’.”
“It was my next question,” Devlin admitted. “What are the implications of Russia running out of water? They must be significant, to have provoked them to risk global nuclear war.”
“Total economic dysfunction,” HOLMES said. “Social upheaval. Political destabilization, regime collapse and civil war.”
“To name a few things,” Williams said.
“Well, that sounds exciting,” Devlin said with deliberate irony. “Perhaps too exciting. I suspect as soon as this report hits Washington, I’m going to be asked to start negotiating a treaty with Russia for a water pipeline under the Bering Strait.” She swallowed the last of her coffee with a grimace, “Thanks for the coffee. I think.”
“You’re welcome,” he nodded. “I think.”
She stood, but hesitated by the door, “And thank you for the briefing HOLMES. Carl, I’d offer to get you a decent coffee machine down here but I hear you’re already leaving us.”
He looked a little sheepish, “Uh, yeah. It seems I came into a little money. I brought my retirement plan forward.”
Devlin tipped him a wink, “At least something good came of all this then.” She tapped a hand on the doorframe, not quite ready to go, “When you get that place on the Pacific Coast, send me a note. I’d like to come and see it some time.”
“Anytime ma’am.” Carl smiled.
It was the first time Bondarev had seen his old friend in weeks. During his return to Savoonga, he’d ordered Arsharvin to fly to the headquarters of the 3rd Air Army at Khabarovsk and mobilize GRU troops to arrest General Potemkin and his staff. That done, Bondarev had assumed command of the 3rd Air Army and flown to Moscow to meet with the newly liberated and recently appointed Defense Minister, Kelnikov, while Arsharvin had stayed in Khabarovsk to consolidate. In the meantime, Kelnikov had insisted Bondarev stay in Moscow, to help with the work of cleaning out the traitor Burkhin’s sympathizers inside the VVS.
Moscow was approaching normality again but pockets of the country were still riven with civil unrest, riots and looting. Syrian forces were being pushed back out of Lebanon and the Syrian regime was screaming for Russian air support,
which Kelnikov was not minded to provide, but he had asked Bondarev for options so Bondarev had called a meeting of his operations staff at his temporary office in Moscow.
Arsharvin arrived the evening before they were due to meet, and came into Bondarev’s office holding a bottle wrapped in brown paper. “I found this when I was packing,” he said, and pulled the paper off to reveal a half full bottle of Macallan whiskey. “You know I don’t like leaving a job unfinished.”
Bondarev had regarded him from behind a pile of folders, then reached into a drawer for a pair of shot glasses. “Your new uniform suits you, Comrade Colonel.”
Arsharvin grinned, “As does yours, Comrade General.” He sat down, poured the drinks and held up his glass. “I’m told the best way to drink such a fine whiskey, is to use a pipette to place just a single drop of water on the surface, to break the meniscus and let the aromas enfold you.” With that, he threw it down in a single gulp and poured himself another.
Bondarev put his glass down on the table, without drinking it.
“That’s bad luck,” Arsharvin warned him.
“I’ve used up all my luck Tomas,” Bondarev told him. “Bad, and good. All I have left is my wits. So I need to keep them straight.”
“Agh, why the sad song?” Arsharvin said, leaning back. “You know, if we hadn’t been white-anted by the coup plotters, I think LOSOS could have succeeded.”
Bondarev laughed, “It could have succeeded in starting a nuclear war. That is all.”
“You still think the US held itself back from an all out counter-attack because it went straight for the nuclear option,” Arsharvin said, running his glass under his nose a little more thoughtfully this time. “Whereas I think they were shocked by our boldness, cowed by our military might and panicked into a weak response that was targeted at the world media, not at our military. If not for the coup, we would have taken Nome and you and I would be sitting in Alaska right now, policing our new demilitarized zone and mixing fresh, clean Yukon glacier water into our whiskey!”
“Our fatherland needs dreamers friend, now more than ever. I toast you and your dreams.” Bondarev took a sip of his whiskey at last, and rolled it around his mouth. He put the glass down again, “But the Americans have moved a flotilla of guided missile destroyers and a squadron of F-47s into Nome, less than ten minutes flight time from Lavrentiya. They have announced plans to base HELLADS and anti-air missile batteries along the Alaska Coast from Nome to Port Clarence, and rebuild their base in Savoonga. There is a US carrier task force transiting the Strait as we speak. Our so-called allies in Lebanon are having their asses whipped by the Israelis and rightly claiming it is our fault they are even engaged. And the commander of the 126th Center for Special and Physical Training in Kalinka is still refusing to recognize my command authority and insisting he will answer only to the traitor Potemkin.” He raised his eyebrows at Arsharvin, as this last problem was one he had tasked the GRU Colonel to assist with.
“If he doesn’t hand over command by tomorrow, I will take his base by force,” Arsharvin said. “Unless he has the brains to shoot himself first, and save us all some trouble.”
Bondarev drained his glass and turned it upside down, “And the US base at Little Diomede?”
“No activity since the last personnel were taken off, just after you left. The Americans may attempt to re-establish the radar facility but as a covert drone base, it is finished,” he scoffed.
Bondarev frowned, “And how many others do they have Tomas? Sitting on our shores, hiding under the ice, under the sea, ready to strike next time?”
Arsharvin sighed, “You are asking me to investigate whether …”
“I am, Colonel Arsharvin, I most definitely am. And I have one more favor to ask, a personal one.”
“Name it, Yevgeny,” Arsharvin said.
“I would like you to task your intelligence agents to trace the Australian drone aviator I met under that godforsaken rock. I gave you her name. Find her.”
“And kill her?”
“What? No. Recruit her! Find her, compromise her and turn her. We are twenty years behind the Americans in the strategic application of drone technology and that woman could be the key to leapfrogging us ahead of the Americans.”
To find Bunny right at that moment, all the GRU would have had to do was walk through the door of a small brown weatherboard house in Little Italy, San Diego.
Inside, on pale yellow walls, they would have seen framed sketches in red, blue, green and black. A gallery, of sorts. Except for the strange sound coming from the salons off the reception area. A buzzing, like electric barber clippers.
In one of the salons, sitting in a black leather chair, the GRU would have found Karen O’Hare. And reclining on the chair beside her, Alicia Rodriguez.
“Here you go,” the artist said, walking back into the room with a sketch pad. “I don’t often get a really original commission like this. Spent way too much time on it, so I hope you like.”
He lay the pad down on the table between them and turned it to face them.
A huge smile spread across Bunny’s face. It looked like a biker’s gang patch. In the middle, white on dark red, was a mushroom cloud, and in a half circle above and below it in gothic script, the words: To The Brink / of Hell.
“Uh, I’m not sure…” Rodriguez said, uncertainly.
“It’s perfect!” Bunny said, pulling off her shirt, unclipping her bra and rolling onto her stomach.
“Do you want to see some other options?” the tattooist asked Rodriguez. Bunny was glaring at her.
“No, it’s good. It’s great,” she said, and pulled the sleeve of her t-shirt up to her shoulder.
“OK, cool. I’ll do the big one,” he said, beginning the process of pasting stencil paper on Bunny’s back, between her shoulders. “Sienna will do yours, she’s just finishing with another client.”
Rodriguez took a sip of the energy drink she’d brought in with her as she watched the tattooist work. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m not even drunk.”
“And I can’t believe you’ve been in the Navy half your life and this is your first tattoo,” O’Hare said. Rodriguez leaned forward as the tattooist slowly peeled the stencil away. As the paper came off, Rodriguez saw the Australian had another tattoo, just above her panty line. Some words, in a flowing script.
“Is ait an mac an saol?” Rodriguez said, reading them out loud, no doubt pronouncing them wrongly. “What language is that?”
“Gaelic,” O’Hare said.
“What does it mean?”
“That, Lieutenant Commander Rodriguez, is for me to know and you to never find out,” Bunny grinned.
Sarge hiked back to Savoonga with a heavy heart. There had been three bodies inside the water tank, as far as he could tell.
He had wrapped a scarf around his face and gone down into the tank. He wanted to be sure it was Perri Tungyan and Dave Iworrigan in there. He had found two rifles, a Makarov pistol. And a Russian soldier in a private’s uniform. The bodies were pretty torn up, but the freezing weather had stopped them from decomposing. He had seen enough photos of Perri and Dave to recognize them easily.
He knew why Perri and Dave were inside the water tower; he’d probably been the last one to speak to them. But what the Russian was doing there, he had no idea. He was a policeman, not a war vet, but he’d be willing to bet the carnage he had seen inside that tank had been caused by a bomb or grenade.
It looked like some bizarre three-way suicide pact but that was ridiculous. Had someone thrown a grenade in from outside, killing them all or leaving them to die? Had they died in a bombing or mortar strike? He shook his head. The island was crawling with war crimes investigators - a special team from The Hague appointed by the UN Security Council. Russia had accused the US of bombing its own citizens at Savoonga, the US had accused Russia of using them as human shields. The US had accused Russian troops of the massacre of the sick and elderly residents of Gambell, while Russia accused
US troops of killing its wounded soldiers there and hiding their bodies in a mass grave.
Perri, Dave and the Russian private would probably just be added to the long list of tragic mysteries that Saint Lawrence now held.
The pockets on his cargo trousers were heavy with the wallets he’d taken off the bodies of the boys inside the water tank. The Russian had an ID card on him, too bloodied for him to read, but he took it with him as well, to give to the investigators. He had to work out how he was going to get the boys’ bodies back to Gambell, and what he was going to tell their families - but that was a problem for tomorrow.
Sarge knew only one thing for sure. If it hadn’t been for the boys inside that water tank getting the warning out, the air battle over Little Diomede could have turned out very differently, and with it, the entire conflict. Maybe even the whole of history.
But then, history belonged to small people doing great things, didn’t it?
He was pretty sure Dostoyevsky had said that.
END
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Growing up I read a book by British adventure writer, Brian Callison, called ‘The Dawn Attack’. It was an hour by hour account of a fictional British commando raid on a Norwegian port in World War Two but what sets it apart is the use of multiple perspectives - both land, sea and air, and of both sides of the conflict – which served to highlight that wars are started by politicians and generals but fought by ordinary people doing extraordinary things. It does not glorify war; the author successfully paints the picture of an ultimately meaningless action in a brutal war, and of painful, lonely and pointless battlefield deaths, but it is an exhilarating read. I’d guess I have read it at least twenty times over the years.