The Target

by Saul Herzog

  “We’re moving new satellites into position,” Schlesinger said. “We’ll have Keyhole capability back online in the next few hours.”

  “Thank God for that,” the president said.

  “Sir,” Roth said, turning to him. “The question isn’t what can we do, it’s what are we willing to do?”

  “I don’t want to unleash Armageddon,” the president said.

  “Of course not, sir. But are we willing to really go to war with Russia? Or will we be looking at supporting a lower level NATO response?”

  “What do those options look like?”

  “Well, sir, to put it bluntly,” Schlesinger said, “what Roth’s saying is are we ready to go to war? Are we going to unleash a full-scale operation that will push Russia back, something like Desert Storm when we pushed Saddam out of Kuwait.”

  “Or we could go smaller?” the president said.

  “Well, sir. We could look to provide support to the Latvians to help them push back the Russians themselves.”

  “Would they be able to push them back themselves?”

  “No,” Roth said. “They wouldn’t.”

  “But it would buy us time,” Schlesinger said. “There’d be a lot of casualties. Russian and Latvian ground forces would engage face to face. And we’d do our best to prop up the Latvian side.”

  “While they fought, we could open a dialogue with the Kremlin,” the persident said.

  “They won’t open a dialogue until they’ve brought the entire country under their control,” Roth said. “And by then it will be too late. They’ll have won.”

  “So those are the only two options?” the president said.

  “Sir,” Schlesinger said, “both options are localized to the Baltic theater.”

  “And what if we start winning?” the president said.

  “Well that’s what we want, sir.”

  “But won’t the Russians escalate? Won’t they bring in more and more forces, bigger and bigger weapons?”

  “That’s a risk, sir,” Roth said. “But the only alternative to winning would be losing.”

  The president took a long drink of his scoth and sighed. He looked at his watch.

  “We need to leave for the Pentagon,” he said.

  Roth and Schlesinger stood up and put on their coats. Schlesinger looked about to say something when the phone on the president’s desk began rining.

  All three men looked at it.

  “Aren’t you going to answer?” Roth said to the president.

  “I told them not to call unless the Russians attacked,” the President said.

  “I see,” Roth said.

  The president picked up the phone. Roth and Schlesinger listened.

  “Thank you,” the president said, then hung up.

  Roth and Schlesinger looked at him expectantly.

  “The Russians just launched cruise missiles at targets inside Latvia.”

  There was a machine like a computer printer on a desk by the wall and it began printing furiously. Schlesinger went over to it and ripped the paper from the tray when it stopped printing.

  “3M-54 Kalibr rockets,” he said. “Launched from Kilo-class submarines in the Gulf of Finland.”

  “Were we able to intercept?” Roth said.

  “Our systems rely on Keyhole,” Schlesinger said. “But according to this, the Estonian SHORAD system shot down four missiles in their airspace.”

  “Four, out of how many?” the president said.

  “It doesn’t say how many missiles were launched, sir.”

  “I see,” the president said.

  “The local missile defense systems in Latvia and Estonia will be overwhelmed very quickly if we don’t step in,” Roth said.

  The president looked at Roth blankly, and Roth realized that even now, with the invasion already underway, the president still hadn’t made up his mind to go to war.

  85

  Lance got in the presidential Mi-8 chopper. He was dressed in a Russian officer’s uniform. Once he was airborne, he made contact with military flight control at Siverskiy Aerodrome. They confirmed what Zhukovsky had told him, that he was cleared for a direct flight to Levashovo. Levashovo was an air base north of Saint Petersburg that belonged to the Russian Sixth Air Army.

  He made his way north, and in the forests east of Ostrov, saw the tanks of the Częstochowa Brigade lined up in vast columns.

  He was so close he could see the diesel fumes from their exhausts. They were idling, waiting for the final order, and from their disposition, he knew they would be crossing the border soon.

  This was it, he thought.

  This was how the world ended.

  War between Russia and America.

  War had been fought in these lands, back and forth, for centuries. It was as regular as a tide.

  Now, it would engulf the planet.

  It had happened before.

  And it was happening again.

  There was no way around it. Not even President Ingram Montgomery, a pacifist who would have been more at home on a Nantucket fishing boat than in the White House, could stand back and allow this to happen.

  There was no question.

  If Russia invaded Latvia, regardless of what calculations the Russians had made, and what steps they’d taken to hide their actions and provide themselves with a pretext, the US would respond. No false flag operation could allow the US to sit back and watch this one play out without intervention.

  At least, that was what Lance hoped.

  What had happened in recent years in the Ukraine, and Montgomery’s response to the embassy bombings, reminded him that nothing was guaranteed.

  He reminded himself that it wasn’t his problem, wasn’t his fight. He flew on toward Saint Petersburg and his radio channel filled with chatter. He was on a VVIP craft that was part of the president’s personal fleet, and it was cleared for the highest level comms.

  The Russians had launched air strikes.

  First, thrity-six 3M-54 Kalibr rockets, launched from Kilo-class submarines in the Gulf of Finland north of Estonia. They flew through Estonian airspace and Estonia’s modest missile defense system took down a handful of them. Latvia’s defense system took down six.

  But over twenty of the missiles successfully hit their targets. The targets were all Latvian air defense installations, including Latvian Air Defense Headquarters at Adaži, and the new medium-range air-defense system that was being installed there.

  Lance recognized these attacks for what they were. The precursor to Russian air supremacy.

  As he approached Levashovo, he saw that the helipad had been prepared for a dignitary, with a red carpet laid out that led from the center of the pad to a black limousine with tinted windows and Russian Federation flags.

  Lance lowered the visor on his helmet and made sure his pistols were loaded and ready. There were two soldiers standing at attention by the limousine.

  Lance touched down and the soldiers came to the helicopter to open the passenger doors. When they did, they saw that the compartment was empty.

  They turned toward Lance, just in time for two bullets from his silenced pistols to penetrate their skulls.

  Then he opened fire at the limousine, aiming for the driver. He couldn’t see through the car’s tinted windows and it lurched forward. Lance kept firing at the glass, and one of his bullets must have hit its mark because the car came crawling to a halt.

  The horn sounded in a constant tone, as if the driver was slumped over the wheel.

  The back door opened and a man in a suit began firing at Lance.

  Lance ducked and climbed from the front of the chopper back to the passenger compartment. He took two shots out the open door. The first hit the man in the shoulder and he dropped his gun. The second hit the man’s thigh.

  The man fell to the ground, but Lance knew the injuries were not life threatening.

  Lance climbed out of the chopper and walked toward the man.

  The man managed to lift h
imself from the ground and scramble back into his car. He tried to shut the door but Lance caught it. Then he reached into the car and pulled the man back out.

  “Don’t kill me,” the man begged.

  Lance didn’t have much time.

  They were out on the tarmac in plain view of the control tower. In a matter of seconds, soldiers would pour out of the terminal building across the runway, guns blazing.

  Lance pulled the man to the helicopter and shoved him into the pilot’s compartment.

  Then he got in next to him and took off, back into the air.

  “They’ll shoot us down,” the man said.

  “Maybe they will,” Lance said, veering the chopper west over the airfield, keeping as low as possible. A few seconds later, they were out over the open waters of the Baltic.

  “They’ll shoot us out of the sky,” Kirov said again, growing more frantic.

  “You’re name is Jacob Kirov,” Lance said to the man.

  “What?” the man said. “What are you talking about?”

  “You ordered the hit.”

  Kirov looked at him blankly, then, all of a sudden, realized what was happening.

  “You’re Lance Spector.”

  Lance removed his helmet. “Why did you kill her?” he said.

  Kirov was still shaking his head, like he didn’t know what Lance was asking him.

  “The girl,” Lance said. “The girl in Montana. What did she have to do with any of this?”

  “I didn’t kill her,” Kirov said.

  “How about for each lie you tell me,” Lance said, “I gain a hundred feet in altitude.”

  Lance began gaining altitude, making the chopper, as Kirov was all too aware, an easier target for surface to air missiles.

  “All right,” Kirov said, his voice shrill with panic. “All right. I’ll talk. Just take us down.”

  Lance reduced his altitude and looked at Kirov.

  “It was the idiot, Sherbakov,” Kirov said.

  “Sherbakov?” Lance said.

  “A sleeper agent. An idiot sleeper agent in New York. He’s a nobody.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I sent him to Montana to distract you. He wasn’t supposed to kill anyone.”

  “Killing her was the one thing guaranteed to get my attention,” Lance said.

  “He was supposed to scare her. That was all. I swear to God.”

  “And Sherbakov went off script?”

  “He completely fucking lost it,” Kirov said.

  “Well,” Lance said, “you’re going to pay for his mistake.”

  “Please,” Kirov said. “It was an accident. There’s an arrangement we can come to, you and I. I know who you are, Lance Spector. I know what you want.”

  “What I wanted was for that girl to stay alive.”

  “I can tell you what’s coming next,” Kirov said.

  “I already know what’s coming next.”

  “I can tell you the plans for the invasion. I’ve been commanding the entire thing. I know every detail.”

  “I don’t care about any of that.”

  They were flying very low over the icy Baltic waters and Kirov read Lance’s intention.

  “Are you ready to go for a swim?” Lance said.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Kirov said. “I can help you. I’ll tell you everything. I know where they’re running the invasion from. It’s not five miles from here. I can get you in.”

  “I don’t want your help.”

  “You can stop the invasion.”

  “I’m not here to stop the invasion. I’m here for you.”

  “The General Staff Building,” Kirov said. “Across from the Winter Palace. I can get you inside. You can stop everything.”

  Lance knew the building. It had been one of the most important buildings in Russia during the days of the Czar.

  “I can get you inside,” Kirov said again.

  Lance looked at him, then pulled a gun from his jacket.

  “Get out,” he said.

  “Please,” Kirov begged. “Let me help you. You’ll need my help.”

  Lance shook his head.

  “Get out,” he said again. “Get out or I’ll put another bullet in your leg, and trust me, the less blood in the water, the better it will be for you.”

  Kirov looked at him, then very slowly, turned the latch that kept his door shut.

  The door flew outward and freezing air immediately filled the cockpit.

  “This is for Sam,” Lance said.

  He raised his leg and shoved Kirov unceremoniously out the door. The man flailed in the air for a second then hit the water with a crash. Lance circled back once and saw him on the surface, frantically trying to swim as the weight of his clothing pulled him down.

  With the water temperature what it was, he’d be dead in seconds.

  86

  As Lance flew low over the Kronstadt Naval Cathedral on Kotlin Island, two surface-to-air missiles came flying toward him. He pulled up hard on the controls and deployed the enhanced decoys that were part of the presidential defense upgrades that had been made to the chopper.

  The missiles missed, but by mere feet.

  He knew more would follow.

  He was fast approaching the southern shore of the gulf and could make out the distinctive shape of the Peterhof formal gardens. He brought the chopper in for a hard landing in front of the enormous Fountain of Neptune, just as two more missiles flew over head, missing their mark my less than ten feet.

  More missiles flew over the chopper, confused by its lazer decoys, and exploded in the air.

  Lance leapt from the chopper and rolled across the ground as a missile finally made contact.

  The chopper exploded in an enormous fireball that billowed into the air in a cloud of black smoke.

  He was on the lawn of one of the Tsar’s most famous palaces, the Russian Versailles, as it was known, built on a scale to rival any of the palaces in Europe.

  Lance got to his feet and ran. He could already hear the sirens approaching and didn’t intend to still be there when they arrived.

  He ran past perfectly manicured rows of trees and shrubs, and some of the most intricate foutains ever made.

  At the end of the lawn was a set of fourteen-foot-high wrought iron gates, painted with black and gold leaf. Lance climbed over them and dropped to the other side.

  He ran into the street, forcing the traffic to swerve around him, and drew his gun. The first car to stop was an old Mercedes sedan and Lance pointed his gun at the driver.

  “Get out,” he said.

  The driver, a man in his twenties, got out of the car.

  Lance got in and gunned the engine, speeding down Saint Petersburg Prospekt, past the Aleksandriyskiy Park, and weaving his way through the morning traffic. If he stayed on the road, it would have brought him through the Krasnoselsky and Admiralteysky Districts before entering the city center, but Lance knew there was no way he’d be able to get through all that traffic without Saint Petersburg Police stopping him.

  There were street cars that ran along Stachek Prospekt and at Leninskiy Avenue, Lance pulled over and abandoned the vehicle. He boarded a street car and took it in the direction of the Winter Palace. As he passed the enormous apartment buildings by the main dock railway, he counted fourteen police cruisers, lights and sirens blazing, speed by in the opposite direction.

  The street car was about fifty percent full, and Lance sat still, making eye contact with no one. The massive apartment buildings gradually gave way to older architecture closer to the city center, and the street car grew more crowded. They passed the industrial zone around the Electric Depot, and then the more expensive residential neighborhoods between the canals and Trotsky Prospekt.

  Lance got off the street car on the Palace Embankment and walked the last few hundred yards along the wide, Neva River. Where it forked before entering the gulf, icy wind gusted in from the coast and Lance raised the collar of his army unif
orm jacket.

  That stretch of the embankment brought him past some of the most imposing structures in the city. All the palaces and mansions of the aristocracy, as well as the residences and embassies of foreign governments lined the river. Across the frozen river from the Imperial Arts Academy and the Menshikov Palace was the enormous bronze statue of Peter the Great on horseback.

  When he reached the buildings of the admiralty, he turned right through the Alexander Garden. The ornate, golden dome of Saint Isaac’s Cathedral was visible through the barren branches of the trees, and ahead, the imposing victory column in Palace Square towered over everything.

  The square was ringed by the neoclassical assemblege of buildings that housed the Hermitage and Winter Palace, and directly across from those buildings, was the wide arch of the General Staff Building.

  Lance stood at the edge of the park, looking over the windswept square, the flurries of snow rising in the gusts like dust devils. The square was one of the most visited spots in Russia, drawing millions of tourists every year, but today, in the bitterly cold wind, it was empty.

  Lance checked his hands, they weren’t exactly numb from the cold, but they weren’t as dexterous as he would have liked. He needed to warm them. He looked around and saw an old-fashioned coffee house on Nevsky Avenue that overlooked the Bol’shaya Plaza. He entered it and sat by a window overlooking the plaza.

  “Good evening, officer,” the waitress said.

  The coffee house was a fancy place, in a fancy part of town, and the patrons were well-dressed. It had a formal atmosphere and the waitress was dressed in a French-style black dress with lace trim. She wore shoes with a slight heel and Lance pegged her at about fifty.

  He calculated that she was competent, that she would know an opportunity when she saw one, and he gave her the most charming smile he could manage.

  She placed a menu in front of him and left.

  From where he sat, he could see out across the plaza to the back of the General Staff Building.

  Lance took off his coat and looked at the building. It was tremendously grand, like the headquarters of a London investment bank, and Lance knew that as soon as he passed through the doors, every room and corridor would be bristling with security.