Op Center 02 - Mirror Image

by Mirror Image [lit]

  Rodgers smiled. "I liked that one," he said under his breath.

  Orlov said, "But though I can't get to the cargo, it mustn't be delivered. And you mustn't attack the train."

  "General," Hood said, "that isn't a proposal. It's a Gordian knot."

  "I'm sorry?" Orlov said.

  "A puzzle, one that's very difficult to solve. How can we satisfy those criteria?"

  "With a peaceful meeting in Siberia," Orlov said, "between your troops and mine."

  Rodgers swept a finger across his throat. Reluctantly, Hood killed the speaker again.

  "Be careful, Paul," Rodgers said. "You can't leave Striker out there defenseless."

  Herbert added, "Especially with Orlov's son in charge of the train. The General's looking to protect his boy's butt. The Russians could gun Striker down, armed or not, and the U.N. would tell them they had every right. "

  Hood hushed them with his hand and got back on the phone. "What do you suggest, General Orlov?"

  "I will order the officer in charge of the train to have the guards stand down and allow your team to approach."

  "Your son is in charge of the train," said Hood.

  "Yes," Orlov replied. "My son. But that changes nothing. This is a matter of international importance."

  "Why don't you just order the train to turn back?" Hood asked.

  "Because I would lose the cargo to the people who sent it," Orlov said. "They would simply find another way to transport it."

  "I understand," said Hood. He thought for a moment. "General, what you propose would put my people at grave risk. You're asking them to approach the train in the open, in full view of your troops."

  "Yes," said Orlov. "That's precisely what I'm asking

  "Don't do it," Rodgers whispered.

  "What would you want our people to do when they reached the train?" Hood asked.

  "Take as much of the cargo as they can carry out of the country. Hold it as evidence that what is going on is not the work of the legal government of Russia, but of a corrupt and powerful few," Orlov replied.

  "Minister Dogin?" Hood asked.

  "I'm not at liberty to remark," Orlov said.

  "Why not?"

  Orlov said, "I may not win this, and I have a wife."

  Hood looked at Rodgers, whose resistance to Orlov showed no sign of softening. He wasn't sure he blamed Rodgers. Orlov was asking a lot and offering only his word in return.

  "How long will it take to communicate with the train?" Hood asked, aware that the extraction of Striker could not be delayed.

  "Four or five minutes," Orlov said.

  Hood looked at the countdown clock on the wall. The Russian train was due to reach the Striker position in approximately seven minutes.

  "You won't have any longer than that," Hood said. "Machinery is in motion-"

  "I understand," said Orlov. "Please leave this line open and I will return to you as soon as possible."

  "I will," Hood said, then hit mute.

  Rodgers said, "Paul, whatever Striker was planning will already have been done, whether it's ripping up the track or planning to ambush the engine. Depending on the disposition of the TAC-Sat, we may not even be able to stop them."

  "I know," said Hood, "but Charlie Squires is smart. If the Russians stop the train and come out with a white flag, he'll listen. Especially if we tell them what to say to him."

  Herbert said bitterly, "I'm glad you're willing to trust those vodka chuggers. I'm not. Lenin plotted against Kerensky, Stalin against Trotsky, Yeltsin against Gorbachev, Dogin against Zhanin. Cripes, Orlov is plotting against Dogin! They stab their own in the back, these guys. Think of what they'll do to us."

  Lowell Coffey said, "Given the alternative of armed confrontation-"

  "And Orlov's heroic nature," Liz said, "which seems very important to him."

  "Right," Coffey agreed. "Given all that, the risk seems reasonable."

  "Reasonable because it's not your two potatoes on the line," Herbert said. "Heroic reputations can be manufactured, as Ann will attest,' and I'd rather have an armed confrontation than a massacre."

  Rodgers nodded. "As Lord Macaulay put it back in 1831, 'Moderation in war is imbecility.'

  "Death in war is worse," Liz said.

  "Let's see what Orlov delivers," Hood said. Though as he watched the small green numbers of the clock flick by, he knew that whatever it was he would only have seconds to make a decision that would affect lives and nations-all of it based on what his gut told him about a man's face on a computer screen.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Tuesday, 10:45 P.M., Khabarovsk

  When Orlov raised the train, Corporal Fodor informed him that Nikita had gone to the engine to watch the track ahead. The Corporal said it would take a few minutes to bring him back.

  "I don't have a few minutes," Orlov said. "Tell him to stop the train where it is and come to the phone."

  "Yes, General," the Corporal said.

  Fodor hurried to the front of the gently rocking car, lifted the receiver of the intercom, and pushed the buzzer on the box beneath it. After nearly a minute, Nikita picked up.

  "What is it?" Nikita asked.

  "Sir," said Fodor, "the General is on the line. He's said that we're to stop the train where we are and he'd like to speak with you."

  "It's noisy up here," said Nikita. "Repeat?"

  Fodor shouted, "The General has ordered us to stop the train at once and- "

  The Corporal bit off the rest of the sentence as he heard a cry from the engine, through the door and not over the intercom; a moment later he was flung forward as the wheels screeched, the couplings groaned, and the car was jolted hard against the coal tender. Fodor dropped the receiver as he jumped back to help steady the satellite dish, which one of the soldiers had been heads-up enough to hold, but the receiver itself was knocked on its side and one of the coaxial cables was ripped from the back of the dish. At least the bottomheavy lantern hadn't fallen over, and when the train came to a rest and the soldiers and civilians helped each other to their feet amid the spilled boxes, Fodor was able to check the equipment. Though the connector had been torn off and was still attached to the dish, the cable itself was all right. He pulled off his gloves and began trying to repair it at once.

  Because the large boiler sat in front of the cab, the engine's only windows were on the sides. Nikita had been looking out one of them when he saw the fallen tree through the thick, failing flakes. He had shouted to the engineer to stop, but when the poor young man didn't act fast enough Nikita threw the brake for him.

  'The three men in the cab were flung roughly to the floor, and when the train stopped Nikita heard shouting from above and from the rear cars. He got to his feet quickly, his right hip numb where he'd landed on it, took a flashlight from the hook on the wall, and ran to the window. He searched the snow with the wide beam. One man had been thrown from the top of the first car, but he was already climbing from a snowbank.

  "Are you all right?" Nikita yelled.

  "I think so, sir." The young soldier stood unsteadily. "Do you need us up front?"

  "No!" Nikita bark-ed. "Get back on lookout."

  "Yes, sir," the soldier replied, saluting sloppily with a snow-covered glove as a pair of hands was extended to pull him back to the top of the car.

  Nikita told the two men in the cab to keep a careful watch at the windows, then he climbed to the top of the coal tender. The winds had stopped and the snow fell straight down. It was disturbingly quiet, like the cottony silence after a car crash, and the sound of his boots on the coal was crisp and brittle. He scuttled across, kicking up snow and coal dust, then dropped nimbly to the coupling of the first car. Wheezing from the cold, he used the flashlight to find the doorknob.

  "Take six men out to the track," he hawked at the burly Sergeant Versky as he entered. "A tree has fallen across it and I want it cleared now. Have three men stand guard while the other three move

  "At once, sir," said Versky.

>   "Watch out for possible sniper positions," Nikita added. "They may have night-vision capability."

  "Understood, sir."

  Nikita turned to Fodor. "How is the phone?"

  "It will take several minutes to repair," Fodor said as he crouched beside the lantern.

  "Do it quickly," snapped the Lieutenant, huffing out white clouds of vapor. "What else did the General say?"

  'Just to stop the train and come on the line," Fodor said. "That's all."

  "Damn this," Nikita said. "Damn it all."

  As the Sergeant's crew pulled flares from a supply sack, Nikita ordered the civilians to restack the crates. A soldier came in from the next car, looking slightly rattled, and Nikita sent him back to secure the crates and make sure the soldiers there stayed alert.

  "Tell the caboose to be on the lookout," Nikita added. "We may be approached from the rear."

  The Lieutenant stood with his legs apart in the center of the car, bouncing impatiently on the balls of his feet.

  He tried to put himself in the place of his enemy.

  The tree may have fallen or the tree may have been placed there. If the latter, then the ambush had failed. Had they struck the tree, they'd have been stopped beside a cliff-an ideal place from which to pick off the soldiers on top of the train. But here, hundreds of yards away, they could get maybe one or two soldiers before being spotted. And there was no way anyone could approach the train without being seen and, once seen, shot.

  So what, then, is their game?

  His father had called to tell him to stop the train. Had he known about the tree? Or had he learned something else, perhaps about explosives or ambushers ahead?

  "Hurry!" Nikita said to Fodor.

  "Almost ready, sir," the Corporal replied. Despite the cold, his forehead was flush and spotting with perspiration.

  Nikita was becoming angrier with the helplessness he felt, and increasingly aware of a weight in the air around him. It was more than just the isolation and dampered sounds. It was a growing sense that whether he was predator or prey, the enemy he sought was very near.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Tuesday, 3:50 P.M., St. Petersburg

  "I think they forgot all about us."

  Private George was amused by the thought as he drove toward the Hermitage, negotiating the tricky turns he had to make after crossing the Moika River. He stayed to the right of the Bronze Horseman, then turned right on Gogolya Street and made his way toward the adjoining Palace Square.

  Peggy had shut off the radio after Orlov and Paul Hood had switched satellites and it became clear that no one else was coming on the line. After leaving their shaken but grateful passenger off, she and George decided to continue on to the Hermitage, where they could leave the car, lose themselves in the crowd, and get their bearings before undertaking the second part of their mission.

  "I mean, that's kinda rude, don't you think? We travel like watery walnuts a couple thousand miles, do the job, and no one bothers to get back on the line and say, 'By the way, guys-nice work.'"

  "Did you come here for their approval?" Peggy asked.

  "No. But it's nice to get it."

  "Don't worry," Peggy said. "I have a feeling that before we're out of here, you'll crave anonymity."

  As the white columns of the Hermitage came into view, growing amber in the late afternoon light, George could hear and then see the army of workers that Captain Rydman had warned them about.

  He shook his head. "Who'd've ever thought it?"

  Peggy said, "Probably the last time anyone protested here was when it was still called the Winter Palace and Nicholas Il's itchy guards gunned the workers down."

  "It's scary," George said, "that there are people who want to bring the iron heel back."

  "Which is why I don't mind not getting thanked," Peggy said. "It's fear keeps us going, not a pat on the rump. Vigilance is its own reward. That's how Keith felt."

  George looked at her in the rearview mirror. There wasn't a hint of nostalgia in her voice for her dead lover, nor did he see the loss in her eyes. Maybe she was one of those people who didn't cry in public, or perhaps not at all. He wondered how she would react when they reached the building where Keith had died.

  There were at least three thousand people scattered across the large checkerboard of the Palace Square. They were facing a low stage and podium that had been erected in front of the General Staff Arch. Police were directing traffic away from the square, and Peggy told Private George to pull over before they reached them. He parked next to an outdoor cafe with brown umbrellas over every table, each umbrella advertising a different brand of beer or wine.

  "The marketers didn't waste any time coming here," he grunted disapprovingly to Peggy as they stood side by side.

  "They never do," she replied, then noticed that one of the police officers was looking at them.

  George noticed him too. "They'll ID the car," he said.

  "They won't expect us to stay in the area, though," Peggy said. "As far as they know, we've completed our mission. "

  "Don't you think our friend Ronash has already given them physical descriptions which are being faxed all over St. Petersburg?"

  "Not quite yet," she said. "But we do have to get out of these uniforms anyway if we're going to leave as tourists." Peggy checked her watch. "We've got to meet Volko in an hour and ten minutes. I suggest we go inside. If we get stopped on the way I'll tell them we're from the Admiralty, which is a block to the east. I'll say we I re just watching to make sure the crowd doesn't spill over. Once we're inside, we'll change, pose as a young couple in love, and make our way to the Raphael."

  "Finally, a masquerade I can relate to," George said as they started toward the square.

  "Don't like it too much," Peggy said. "We're going ,o have a little spat inside so I can stalk off and strike a conversation with Volko.

  George grinned. "I'm married. I can relate to that too." The grin broadened. "Strikers among strikers," he whispered. -I like the irony."

  Peggy didn't return his smile as they went around the fringes of the crowd in the Palace Square. George wondered if she'd even heard him as she looked at the orderly mob, at the sculptural grouping over the General Staff Arch, at her feet-anywhere but the Hermitage itself and the river beyond, on whose banks Keith FieldsHutton had died. He thought he saw dampness in the comers of her eyes and a heaviness in her step that he had not seen before.

  And he finally, happily, felt close to the person he had been sitting beside, hip-to-hip, for the better part of a day.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Tuesday, 10:51 P.M., Khabarovsk

  Spetsnaz soldiers were trained to do many things with their chief weapon, the spade. They were left in a locked room with just the spade and a mad dog. They were ordered to chop down trees with them. On occasion, they had to dig ditches in frozen ground with them, ditches deep enough to lie in. At a specified time, tanks were rolled over the field. Soldiers who hadn't dug deep enough were crushed.

  With the help of Liz Gordon, Lieutenant Colonel Squires had made a special study of spetsnaz techniques, searching for those that best accounted for the remarkable endurance and versatility of their soldiers. He couldn't adapt them all. Regular beatings to toughen the soldiers would never have been approved by the Pentagon, although he knew commanding officers who would have sanctioned them gladly. But he adapted many spetsnaz methods, including his favorites-their ability to create camouflage in a very short time and to hide in the unlikeliest places.

  When he had learned about the soldiers posted on top of the train, he realized they'd be watching the treetops, cliffs, boulders, and snowbanks along the route. He knew that someone in the engine would be watching the tracks for explosives or debris. But he also knew that he had to get under the train unseen, and that the best place to hide would be on the tracks themselves.

  The glow of an engine-mounted headlight would be diffused and dull, and the soldiers would be paying careful attention to the rails. So he f
elt safe using a small hatchet to hack through two of the dry, old crossties, chop a shallow ditch in the railbed, lie on his back, and have Grey cover him and his sack of C-4 with snowleaving an arm-thick tunnel on the side so he could breathe. After interring Newmeyer nearby, Grey hid behind a boulder, far from the train; when Squires and Newmeyer tackled the two cars and the fireworks started, Grey would move on his target, the engine.

  Squires had heard, then felt, the drumming approach of the train. He hadn't been nervous. He was below the surface of the rails where even the cowcatcher, if there was one, wouldn't touch the snow piled on top of him. His only concern was that the engineer see the tree too soon or not see it at all and collide with it. In the latter case, not only would the train be damaged but the wheels would kick the tree back and over him, in which case he would be, as he'd joked to Grey, "ground Chuck."