by Dale Brown
“And you believe their story?” Gryzlov asked skeptically.
“I believe the maintenance report submitted by the Seven Thousandth Aviation Base at Voronezh Malshevo,” the other man said stiffly. “Engine failures are always a risk, especially in aircraft with so many years of service.”
“I see.” Gryzlov smiled. “That is very . . . illuminating.” He turned his dark gaze on Viktor Kazyanov.
The minister of state security appeared even more nervous than the others, Gryzlov noted. That was as it should be. Not only had the intelligence agencies nominally under Kazyanov’s control completely failed to identify the terrorists responsible for Voronov’s assassination, they had also failed to pick up any warning signs of this new terrorist attack in the Ukraine. No doubt Kazyanov expected to be immediately dismissed from his post and perhaps imprisoned or worse. That was tempting, he thought. But poor Viktor made a useful whipping boy. For now.
“Kazyanov!” Gryzlov said sharply, watching with inner glee as the other man swallowed convulsively.
“Yes, Mr. President!”
“I want an immediate investigation of the maintenance staff at the Seven Thousandth Aviation Base,” Gryzlov ordered. “Find out if any of its officers or men are saboteurs in league with these terrorists.”
“Sir!” Maksimov cut in. “I must protest. There is no evidence of any sabotage against our aircraft!”
“Of course there isn’t, General,” Gryzlov said coolly. “Then again, we haven’t started looking for it yet, have we? Who can say what dirty little secrets Kazyanov’s ferrets may uncover?”
He turned back to the rest of his national security advisers, most of whom sat transfixed in their seats, watching him as closely and as fearfully as a flock of sheep might eye a wolf circling ever nearer. “So much for the humiliating failures of the past twenty-four hours,” he said. “Now we face a bigger challenge.”
His chief of staff was one of the few apparently unfazed by their leader’s display of temper. Tarzarov raised an eyebrow. “In what way?”
“It is time to face unpleasant facts,” Gryzlov said. “It is time to realize that we face an enemy who is waging a war against us, a secret war. And that this is a war we are losing.”
“I am not sure that two separate terrorist attacks—however destructive—can or should be construed as acts of war,” Foreign Minister Daria Titeneva said, choosing her words with evident care. “If we do so, we might be tempted to overreact.”
Her colleagues, still watching Gryzlov’s grim, tight-lipped face, edged perceptibly away from the foreign minister—as if they were subtly and not so subtly disassociating themselves from her cautiously expressed dissent.
“Overreact, Daria?” the Russian president said with deceptive mildness. “You truly believe the risk of overreacting is the real danger we face here?”
Titeneva sat rigid, clearly aware that she was treading on dangerous ground. But she forced herself to go on. “It is one of them, Mr. President,” she said. “We were very fortunate that our last retaliatory strike into Poland did not provoke a larger international crisis.”
“I think you are mistaken,” Gryzlov told her flatly. “In fact, it is precisely our own demonstrated weakness which now tempts our enemies into carrying out ever-more-deadly attacks against us.”
“I do not understand what you mean, Mr. President,” Titeneva said, plainly troubled.
“Think about it!” he snapped. “The first terrorist attack cost us twelve dead, including a senior officer. And what was our reaction? A pinprick, nothing more. One tiny village destroyed, along with an old missile radar and a pair of near-obsolete fighter planes. Nothing of significance!”
Gryzlov looked around the conference table. “And what have we done since then? Tell me, what?”
There was silence.
“Exactly,” he snarled. “We have been passive. Idle. Locked in a defensive crouch. Certainly, we’ve had more fighters and bombers circling endlessly on patrol. But to what end?” Angrily, Gryzlov stabbed a finger at the conference room’s large flat-screen monitor, which showed gruesome images taken by the first Russian troops rushed in to reinforce the burned-out separatist base. “To that end! More than two hundred dead. A battery of heavy rocket artillery annihilated. And one of our fighter-bombers blown out of the sky.”
He turned to the minister of defense. “Tell me, Gregor. How many of the terrorists who attacked that camp have your soldiers killed or captured so far?”
“None,” Sokolov said reluctantly. “It appears that the enemy force dispersed well before our reaction force arrived.”
“Leaving us looking like fools,” Gryzlov said bluntly. “Weak, incompetent, cowardly fools.” He shook his head. “That must stop. We must act boldly and decisively against this terrorist threat. And we must do so before it metastasizes into something infinitely more dangerous.”
Titeneva stirred herself. “We cannot attack Poland a second time, Mr. President! Not in retaliation for this act of terrorism, which occurred hundreds of kilometers outside its territory. Weak though she may be, you heard the American president’s warning. If we strike the Poles again without clear evidence that Warsaw is somehow involved in this atrocity, the United States might be forced to honor its alliance.”
“True, Daria,” Gryzlov said regretfully. “But I do not intend to punish the Poles again. At least not yet.”
“Then what other options do we have, Gennadiy?” Tarzarov asked, keeping his voice low.
In answer, Gryzlov put his own tablet computer on the table and lightly tapped its slick surface. The pictures of dead men and ruined buildings vanished, replaced by a map of Ukraine. Pockets of red centered on eastern industrial cities like Donetsk and Luhansk showed the extent of the territory controlled by separatists acting on Russian orders.
The Russian president let them all stare at the map for a few moments and then, smiling coldly, he touched the tablet’s screen again. “You ask what we can do?” he said. “This is what we will do.”
Abruptly, the area shown in red expanded, growing rapidly to cover the entire eastern half of Ukraine—all the way up to the line of the Dnieper River. Only a small sliver of territory, containing the eastern half of Kiev, Ukraine’s capital city, remained untouched. There were muffled gasps around the table.
“Annex virtually all of eastern Ukraine?” Tarzarov said, staring at the sea of red. He shook his head. “No one will stand for that, Gennadiy. It’s too much.”
“But we are not annexing this territory,” Gryzlov told him with a wolfish smile. “We are simply establishing a temporary ‘zone of protection’ for the innocent ethnic Russians whose lives and property are in danger from these continuing terrorist attacks. After what happened last night, who can blame us for taking such reasonable and measured precautions?”
He stood up and went up to the display, tracing the long line of the Dnieper River with his finger. “This river is the key,” he told them. “Once our troops control the bridges and ferries across the Dnieper, we can soon get a grip on these terrorists and then tear them to pieces.”
“By cutting their lines of supply and retreat,” Sokolov realized. For the first time that morning, the defense minister looked less hunted.
Gryzlov nodded. “If their hiding places and arms caches are on the east side of the Dnieper, our Spetsnaz forces will eventually find and destroy them. They will have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.”
“And if the terrorists are receiving Polish support as you suspect?” Titeneva asked quietly.
“If Warsaw is involved, we will soon find out,” he told her. “And it will be much easier to intercept new shipments of Polish-supplied weapons and explosives if they have to cross the Dnieper first.”
“The Ukrainian government will resist our invasion,” the dark-haired foreign minister warned him. “They cannot stand idly by and watch while we seize most of the rest of their heavy industry and move tanks and soldiers right up to the suburbs of their
capital.”
“You think not?” Gryzlov wondered. He turned to Sokolov. “How many troops can we move into eastern Ukraine within forty-eight hours?”
“More than forty thousand, Mr. President,” the defense minister said, glancing down at his computer. “Including two tank and four motor-rifle brigades. We can also use elements of the Seventh-Sixth Air Assault Division and the Forty-Fifth Special Reconnaissance Regiment to seize the Dnieper crossings by surprise.”
“And what is your evaluation of the fascist Ukrainian regime’s ability to resist our operation?” Gryzlov asked.
“Negligible,” Sokolov replied. “We shattered their regular army and their so-called volunteer battalions with ease three years ago. Since the Western powers have refused to supply them with arms or ammunition, the Ukrainians are even less able to fight us now. We could destroy their ability to resist in a matter of days at most. Conquering their whole country would be a mere matter of marching!”
“You see?” Gryzlov said to Titeneva. “Kiev’s rulers are not idiots. Given a choice to keep half their country or lose it all forever, they will be sensible.” He shrugged. “Besides, I will promise them that this is only a short-term move to suppress terrorism. If the Ukrainians peacefully withdraw the remnants of their army to the west side of the Dnieper, our troops will stop at the river line. And once we are satisfied that we have destroyed the terrorists who have been attacking us, our tanks and soldiers will return to Russia.”
“Will they?” Tarzarov asked. The older man had a cynical look in his eyes.
“Of course,” Gryzlov said, grinning openly. “After all, Sergei, I am a man of my word, am I not?”
FORWARD ELEMENTS, 9TH MOTOR-RIFLE
BRIGADE, NEAR KONOTOP, EASTERN UKRAINE
TWO DAYS LATER
Surrounded by his staff and headquarters security troops, Major General Konstantin Zarubin stood on a low hill, watching his brigade’s T-90 tanks and BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles rumble west along the highway. Thick clouds of diesel exhaust hung low above the long column of armored vehicles.
Off to the west, the distant clatter of rotors marked the darting flight of Ka-60 reconnaissance and Mi-28 attack helicopters belonging to the 15th Army Aviation Brigade. The helicopters were probing ahead of his advancing battalions, ready to smash the least sign of Ukrainian resistance with rockets, antitank missiles, and 30mm cannon fire.
Zarubin frowned. So far, of course, there had been no resistance. Confronted with President Gryzlov’s ultimatum and sworn pledge that this military venture was purely a defensive and temporary measure, Kiev’s government had ordered its forces to withdraw west of the Dnieper without engaging the advancing Russians.
Well and good, Zarubin thought. It was always better to take territory without a fight. But he wasn’t sure this relative peace and quiet would last much longer. Already there were reports of mass protests and rioting in Kiev and other western Ukrainian cities. If the current government fell, its successor might feel compelled to wage a hopeless war for honor.
The general contemplated that with some unease. Oh, he knew a conventional war against the Ukraine’s outgunned and outnumbered regulars would not last long. One or two sharp battles should finish them off as a coherent force. No, what he worried about was the possibility that open fighting might trigger a bitter guerrilla war here in the east.
Despite what Moscow might say about the ultimate loyalties of the Russian-speaking population of eastern Ukraine, Zarubin had seen few signs of enthusiasm from the locals as his tanks and troops rolled toward the Dnieper. A few Russian flags had fluttered from various public buildings as they drove through towns and cities, but he privately suspected most of those had been planted by Spetsnaz and GRU recon teams sent in ahead of his motor-rifle brigade.
The prospect of facing stony indifference or even cold disapproval from the Ukrainians did not bother him. Unlike the foolish countries of the West, Russia did not train its soldiers to worry excessively about winning the “hearts and minds” of those it conquered. But the general knew that open hostility from even a small fraction of the population in Moscow’s newly proclaimed “Zone of Protection” could present a serious challenge.
Once Zarubin’s tank and motor-rifle battalions reached the Dnieper line, his brigade’s supply lines back to Russia would stretch for more than three hundred and fifty kilometers. That was a lot of territory to guard if partisans began sniping at convoys or planting mines and other improvised explosives. And though Moscow already planned to send additional troops to protect those roads and railroads—both its own border-guard units and groups of Russian-allied separatists brought in from Donetsk and Luhansk—they would still be stretched pretty thinly.
Any protracted guerrilla war would be a big military and diplomatic headache, especially since the whole purposes of this invasion was to isolate and destroy the terrorist bands that had already attacked Russian interests in this region. That was why Zarubin and the other commanders advancing toward the Dnieper were under direct orders to make the painful consequences of any armed resistance or sabotage explicit now, while the local reaction was still in flux.
He turned away from the highway and marched back down the hill toward the gaggle of wheeled and tracked command vehicles that marked his brigade headquarters. A herd of worried-looking civilians waited there, hemmed in by grim-faced Spetsnaz troops in body armor. Most of them were local government officials from the neighboring towns and villages. Others were business owners, Catholic and Orthodox priests, and schoolteachers. They had been rounded up in the early-morning hours and held for his arrival here.
Zarubin clambered up onto the hood of his GAZ Tigr-M 4x4 command car and stood there, looking down at the crowd with his hands on his hips. “Citizens! Since I know that you all want to return to your homes, offices, and places of business, I will make this very short,” he said, raising his voice just enough to be heard. He smiled thinly. “If not so sweet.”
There were no answering smiles.
Undeterred, he carried on. “This region is now part of the Zone of Protection. During this short campaign against terrorist forces, your own local police and officials will remain charged with maintaining law and order on a day-to-day basis. My soldiers and I are here only to protect you from terrorists, not to subject you to our rule.” Zarubin paused for a moment, graciously allowing anyone who felt like it to applaud.
There was only silence.
He shrugged. That was not surprising. Now he hardened his voice. “But make no mistake! The armed forces of the Russian Federation will exercise ultimate authority for as long as is necessary. And interference with our operations will not be tolerated!”
Zarubin eyed the crowd. He had their full attention. Good. Now to ram home today’s civics lesson. “The rules are very simple,” he said sternly. “Obey the orders we give without question and there will be no trouble. But—”
Moving slowly and deliberately, he unsnapped the flap of the holster at his side and drew his 9mm pistol. The faces of the civilians at the front of the crowd turned pale. The Russian general smiled. He raised his pistol so that everyone could see it. “Attacks of any kind on my soldiers or my vehicles or on those we place in authority will be met with deadly force. I warn you now that our reprisals will not be proportionate or measured. On the contrary, they will be designed to inflict enormous pain on the terrorists who attack us—and on anyone who aids these terrorists or even simply turns a blind eye to their criminal actions. For every Russian who is murdered, ten Ukrainians will die! For every piece of Russian equipment destroyed or damaged, ten homes or shops will be burned to the ground!”
That created a stir in the crowd, a palpable ripple of fear.
Seeing it, Zarubin nodded to himself in satisfaction. The threat of Russian reprisals should turn the populace against itself—significantly increasing the numbers of those who could be tempted to report their neighbors for suspicious activities. The lessons of antipartisan warfare wer
e clear. Networks of local collaborators and informants were the key to crushing any attempted campaign of ambush and sabotage.
He jumped down from the Tigr and then beckoned the Spetsnaz captain who commanded this detachment of commandos. “Good work, Pelevin,” he said. “Now get rid of this bunch. Let them walk home. Then send your men out ahead of the column and round up the next batch of local leaders. God help us, but we’ll need to do this all over again another thirty kilometers down the road.”
THE WHITE HOUSE,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
A FEW HOURS LATER
President Stacy Barbeau listened to General Spelling’s report on the Russian advance into eastern Ukraine with unconcealed irritation. Less than two weeks ago, she had persuaded Gennadiy Gryzlov to agree to high-level negotiations aimed at defusing tensions in Eastern Europe—and now he pulled this stunt? Was Russia’s president as crazy as Ken Phoenix and his crowd had claimed? Sure somebody, probably fanatical Ukrainian nationalists, had wiped out a Russian-backed separatist base and knocked down one of Gryzlov’s planes, but how could anyone sane think that justified moving thousands of troops and tanks into a sovereign country? Damn it, didn’t the Russians realize the risks they were running? If she couldn’t find a way to smooth this over and fast, hard-liners here at home would use it to justify their demands that she take a stronger line overseas—at the expense of all her domestic programs.
“All of our sources confirm that the spearheads of Russia’s invasion force have already pushed more than eighty miles into Ukrainian territory,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said. “We believe—”
Barbeau’s temper snapped. “This is decidedly not an invasion, General Spelling! And we will not label it as such. President Gryzlov may want to provoke a full-fledged confrontation with this stunt, perhaps as way to deflect some of the political heat he must be taking for not stopping the terrorist attacks on Russian forces. Well, we are not going to play that game with him,” she said. “I want everyone in this room to be very clear on that.” She looked around at the others crowded into the White House Situation Room. “Is that understood?”