by John Ringo
"Mike will do," Mike replied, grinning. He'd arranged a formal reception line for the visiting Russian and now waved him farther into the foyer of the serai. "May I introduce Colonel Nielson, my operations officer?"
"Colonel Nielson," Chechnik said, shaking his hand. "I read your paper on IED patterning as they related to street crime incidences in Iraq. A very interesting premise."
"I had to think of something," Nielson said, nodding. "And my original paper was rejected."
"And what was that on?" Chechnik asked, smiling quizzically.
"The utility of crucifixion as a means of control," Nielson replied, smiling thinly.
"I think we need you in the Russian Army, Colonel," Chechnik said, smiling in much the same way. "We could use you in Chechnya."
"My field operations number two, Master Chief Adams," Mike said, shaking his head.
"Master Chief," the Russian replied, shaking hands again. "I've only been able to see a portion of your confidential files, but I must ask a question: What in the world does your first team nickname, 'Ass-Boy One,' relate to?"
Both Adams and Mike flinched at that and Adams shook his head.
"Colonel, I doubt that you have the stomach for the full horror of that story," Adams said. "But if you have to know, you'll have to ask . . ." He suddenly stopped and shook his head. "Ask someone else."
"Sergeant Vanner, my intel specialist," Mike said, moving on rapidly. What Adams had nearly said was "Ask Ass-Boy Two" referring to Mike. However, if Chechnik knew that team name, then he also had access to Mike's other team name, Ghost. And since "Ghost" was known as the man who had broken up the Syrian operation, and thus drawn the ire of virtually every terrorist on the face of the planet, Adams had nearly handed Chechnik a piece of information worth both money and power.
"I sincerely apologize for the lapse in our own security," Chechnik said, shaking Vanner's hand. "The leak to the Chechens has been closed."
"That one," Vanner said. "But you ought to know that at least one of your people has been having regular sat-phone contact with Kamil Resama. All we're picking up are the externals, some side-band waves and scattering, but whenever that one phone, coming from your Stalin Base in Subya, starts sending, Kamil's phone's duration is dead on for receiving quite a few of the calls."
"I'll keep that in mind," Chechnik replied, stone-faced.
"Last but not least, my manager of internal matters, Anastasia Rakovich," Mike said. He'd promised Anastasia that, unlike under her former employer, she'd get introduced and not treated like a piece of furniture.
"The picture in your file does not do you justice, Ms. Rakovich," Chechnik said, bowing over and kissing her hand.
"I have a file?" Anastasia asked, raising one eyebrow.
"You've had a file since you became the harem manager for Sheik Otryad," the colonel replied. "It has simply been moved up in precedence since you've become the Kildar's."
"Oh," Anastasia said, her face blank.
"It is a pleasure to meet you all," Chechnik said, nodding to the group. "I hope that we can talk at length sometime soon."
"Meaning that right now you'd like to talk at length with me," Mike said.
"Alas, yes," the colonel replied. "If you don't mind, I would like to have the talk in private."
"Not at all," Mike said. "Guys, I'll see you later."
Chapter Twelve
"Sit," Mike said, collapsing behind his desk. His office was in one of the older parts of the serai, with thick stone walls and no windows. Vanner had checked it for emissions and it was damned near as good as a professional secure room. That was probably because of the high olivine content of the local stone. Mike still had it swept once a week and Vanner had insisted on "touching up" with some impossibly expensive paint. The stuff was a nice light blue but apparently it was opaque to transmissions.
"What's on your mind? And are you an emissary from Vladimir?" he asked, meaning the president of Russia.
"Among others," Chechnik replied, sighing. "In fact, it was I who convinced the president, and others, that I should come. I have some information that you need about your mission."
"So give," Mike said, frowning.
"Yes, that is the problem," the colonel replied, sighing again. "Kildar, Mikhail, I believe that you are an honorable man, a man of your word."
"He said, just before ripping the honorable man off," Mike said.
"Nonetheless," Chechnik said. "I must ask you this. I cannot give you the information unless you agree that you will not, in turn, give it to your government or the government of Georgia."
"Oh," Mike replied. "I could go for that, but it depends. Does this information have serious strategic or tactical bearing on the United States?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Chechnik said. "But my masters have determined that they are unwilling to share the information with the Ami." The Russian paused and grimaced. "It has to do with an area that the Americans have chided us on. In my opinion with good reason. But it . . . this situation is extremely embarrassing for our government. And we can only take so much embarrassment. That thing with Paris last year, my God, the ripples are still refusing to settle. Then the Albanian thing that you turned up!"
"Every government had problems with that," Mike pointed out. "That's why it's stayed so damned quiet."
The Albanian op had turned up a load of files on a sex ring that had "honey-trapped" dozens of officials in nearly as many countries. The worst part about the honey-trapping was that the officials, ranging from minor military officers all the way to the British home secretary, had abused, raped and even killed the prostitutes involved. The files were still sending very quiet shudders through more than a dozen governments, including every major world power. And in the end, Mike had ended up holding all the originals. The thought on that went something like this: None of the governments trusted the others with the information. But somebody had to hold it. Mike was the easiest to wipe off the face of the earth if it came down to cases.
The DVDs, paper files and hard drives were buried in the basement of the caravanserai. The information in those documents was power in a very real sense; one person privy to it had referred to it as "the blackmail equivalent of a nuclear weapon" with good reason. But it was a dangerous power that Mike intended to invoke as cautiously as possible and only in an extreme situation. It was a power that could topple governments. If he used it, he was going to be immediately targeted by some very pissed off, and hugely powerful, people.
Mike was far less worried about the Russians, for example, than the Japanese yakuza. Some of the files referred to actions of senior Japanese businessmen. They'd all, at this point, committed suicide, even if some of them had to be helped with the knife. But the Japanese would not care for the loss of face if the information surfaced. Nor the French, Chinese . . . The list was very long.
"Yes, but most governments are not still recovering from the embarrassment of one of their nuclear weapons almost vaporizing Paris," Chechnik snapped. "If this got out on top of everything else . . . Please, Mikhail, I must have your word. If your mission is successful, let us hope to God, even then I hope I can persuade you to keep the exact nature of this secret."
"That's a hell of a lot to ask, Erkin," Mike replied. "What's so damned important? I mean, yeah, nukes are a big deal. But we already know about those."
"Dr. Arensky is not carrying nukes," the Russian replied, softly.
"Then what the hell is he carrying?" Mike asked, just as softly.
"Your word."
Mike sat back and looked at the Russian for a long time. The colonel was a professional intelligence officer with a long track record. He'd been in a lot of hairy situations from what Mike had gleaned; he hadn't always been a desk officer. But as Mike watched, a bead of sweat formed on his forehead and started to trickle down.
"You've got it."
"Dr. Arensky is not a nuclear scientist," Chechnik said, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. "He is our premier expert at biological
and chemical weapons."
"Biological," Mike said, softly.
"Dr. Arensky walked out of the Biological Weapons Research Facility with four vials of weapons-grade smallpox."
"WHAT?!" Mike shouted, then clutched his head. "How in the FUCK!?"
"The security on our facilities has . . . much to be desired, yes?" Chechnik replied, shrugging. "This material was kept in Category Five quarantine, the very highest level. It was surrounded by guards. Everything in and out was carefully controlled. As far as we can determine, he moved it out slowly. First from Cat Five then to Cat Four and so on. The missing material was not discovered until after he left. 'Left' does not cover it. The offices of the facility were destroyed by a special operations team that took down the entire guard force. Then we did a very thorough survey of the materials and, lo, the smallpox was missing. Only that. And it was the only sample of that particular, particularly vile, weapon."
"Jesus Christ," Mike said. "Smallpox. That shit is nasty. And you go and let him waltz out with . . ."
"Yes, it is nasty," the Russian said. "Also eliminated from the face of the earth. But this is not just any smallpox. This was developed very late in the Soviet era, when genetic technology was fairly advanced, far enough advanced that our scientists could really begin to tinker, yes? They made a breakthrough, then. May I lecture?"
"Go ahead," Mike said, sighing.
"There are three strains of smallpox," Chechnik said. "Standard, hemorrhagic and macular, you understand this? Standard has about a thirty percent death rate, but it has a slow onset. So if you are inoculated against it, only those with very weak immune systems die. Often inoculation will stop onset even in those showing symptoms. Hemorrhagic and macular are quite different. They strike very very fast and kill even faster. And almost everyone who gets them dies. The one clinical study showed ninety-four percent for hemorrhagic and one hundred percent for macular, each with over a hundred cases."
"So this is, what? Hemorrhagic or macular?" Mike asked.
"Wait," the Russian replied. "It is worse. The problem with hemorrhagic or macular as a weapon is that they are infectious only for a very short period of time. Then the carrier dies and is no longer spreading them. From a bio-weapons standpoint, that is termed a 'sub-optimal carrier.' Standard, in many ways, is better because the onset is slow."
"You figured out a way to spread it out," Mike said, tonelessly. "Or you upped the fatality level of standard."
"This is a modified form of macular, the very most deadly," Chechnik said, nodding. "The infected person lives for up to five days while being infectious and then dies, nearly one hundred percent of the time. And that is even if they have been given the vaccine. There is no vaccine, no antidote, that will save anyone who is infected. If this gets out, it will kill the whole world. Your writer Stephen King wrote a book, yes, The Stand. This is Captain Trips. At most a few thousand people left in the whole world. That cannot even restart the human race. And it was modified to be very . . . latent. That is it will survive for a long time even if there is not a host. It will wait for years if necessary to find a host."
"You evil motherfuckers," Mike whispered. "You couldn't just destroy it, could you? We turn our nukes away, you turn your nukes away, but you keep this . . . this fucking doomsday device? Why?"
"We see as one on this," Chechnik said, shrugging. "Vladimir swears that he was unaware of this weapon, but I don't believe him. However, if you recover it . . ."
"If I recover it it's going straight to the U.S.," Mike said, savagely. "I don't know if they'll destroy it or not . . ."
"No," Chechnik said. "Please. This is exactly what we cannot allow."
"What? You think I'm just going to give it back?"
"No, I don't expect that," Chechnik said. "No one expects you to give it back, although I have been assured that if you do we will destroy it."
"Right," Mike scoffed. "Just like you did for the last, what? Twenty years?"
"But Dr. Arensky knows the proper protocols for destroying it," the Russian continued as if he wasn't listening. "He will show you how to destroy it. You must recover Arensky, alive."
"I'm tempted to put a bullet through his head," Mike snarled.
"Don't," Chechnik said, shaking his head. "Arensky is very much a victim in all of this."
"Huh?" Mike replied, frowning. "More stuff you haven't told us?"
"Arensky is a good man," Chechnik said. "Yes, he works on biological and chemical weapons. But he has come up with more cures, more defenses, than assaults. He also is a . . . a universalist, yes? He thinks of his country first, but then of the good of the world. He prefers playing the defense, yes? You have people in your own military who work on these things. Are they all evil?"
"So why'd he defect?" Mike asked. "And take this shit with him?"
"Probably his daughter," Chechnik said with a sigh. "He dotes on Marina. We now believe that Marina disappeared well before Dr. Arensky. It is probable that she was kidnapped and used to force him to do this. Arensky is also a genius in the entire field. He is expert on chemical and biological production methods. He even has much knowledge of details of nuclear weapons production. We believe the smallpox was only the tip of the iceberg. He took disks with him with details on various forms of weapons production, including nuclear. We believe that he is being traded to a major country. They probably were the funding source for this operation. One assumes that they can continue to use Marina as a method to force him to assist them in their WMD efforts. And the smallpox is probably not for use. Some country, Iran, yes? They will get it, prove that they have it, and hold it to prevent the Americans from taking action against them. Mutual Assured Destruction, yes? If you overthrow the mullahs, they destroy the world."
"Your security is a nightmare," Mike said. "You know that, right?"
"We are aware of that, yes," the Russian said with a frown. "In this case . . . we are aware of this, yes. We are, as they say, working on it."
"Work faster," Mike replied. "I'm getting tired of cleaning up your messes for you. The Keldara are not prepared to handle chem-bio. Hell, we haven't even trained them on MOPP gear!"
"If this gets loose, it won't matter," Chechnik said, shrugging. "But the vials are in very sturdy containers. As long as those are not breached, and you cannot do that with a rifle or even an RPG, then everything will be fine. He took containers as well. They are about ten centimeters high and eight across and made of steel and depleted uranium, yes? You cannot even penetrate one with one of your Barrett sniper rifles. But you must recover Arensky, yes? It would be good if you could recover Marina. Then destroy the vials and this nightmare is over."
Mike thought about what was being asked of him for a moment and then shrugged.
"I'm going to do this anyway," he said, carefully. "And I don't want to sound mercenary. But . . . Bob pointed out that if I recovered nukes, I'd get the vig on those. If you guys don't even want me to tell the U.S. what I got . . ."
"How are you going to get paid?" Chechnik asked.
"That and . . . They're going to want to know what I got," Mike pointed out. "If I turn up empty-handed, there are going to be lots of unpleasant questions."
"We will give you three nukes," Chechnik said. "If you destroy the smallpox and . . ."
"Keep my mouth shut," Mike finished for him.
"Yes."
"So . . ." He started to chuckle and just couldn't stop for a second. "So what you're telling me is that you're going to hand me nuclear weapons? Atomic bombs? Da Big Ones?"
"Well, we're pretty sure you won't use them," the Russian pointed out. "And then you can sell them to the Amis and everyone is happy. Also, they will be very small nukes," the intel officer added with a grin.
"Four," Mike said. "For this op, I'd better be paid a pretty penny. And it's not like you don't have a shitload lying around."
"Now that was mercenary," Chechnik said, frowning.
"I've got a very high overhead," Mike replied. "Welcome to capi
talism."
"Four," the intelligence specialist agreed.
Mike suspected by the quick capitulation that he could have gone higher. But, hell, he was going to get that damned shipment even if it meant expending every last Keldara and no payment. On the other hand, if the Russians stiffed him they weren't going to like the repayment. That assumed that he wasn't being handed another bill of goods.
"We will get the nukes to you, here, as soon as you send word that the material has been captured and eliminated. The Georgians have agreed to let an American team pick them up. We can sneak the nukes in easily enough."
"Got it. Do I need anything special to destroy this stuff?" Mike asked.
"There are various ways," Chechnik said with a shrug. "But I would suggest carrying some carboys of acid. Very strong acid."