by Craig Thomas
Khamovkhin's face darkened, as if bruised by the stinging remark. Then, strangely, he nodded. 'Perhaps, perhaps. You play a better game of knife-edges than I do, Yuri. I admit that.'
Andropov bowed his head mockingly. 'I shall need to.'
'Let me know — anything, let me know.'
'Of course. My men will rig the transmitter for you. I will be available — either myself or Kapustin, at any time. Regular reports will be made to you. If it happens, you'll hear it on the news. If not, you'll hear it from me.'
Khamovkhin nodded. Restlessness again — yet some other movement than a cramped stirring seemed appropriate, even necessary. He stood up, and straightened his body. Like someone going out to execution, he thought, then smiled. No, someone bluffing his way across a border. Leaving his friend, but subordinate, to face the firing-squad. As everyone there knew, he had always played a good bluff.
He looked at the little groups of dark coats, and the white or bald heads — very few dark ones, a game of old men — and wondered which one of them it was.
'Which of those bastards is it?' he whispered, and Andropov touched his elbow in a warning gesture. Old men, he thought with contempt that did not entirely disguise self-disgust. Thinking aloud, dribbling while we sleep, creaking when we bend, snapping like old sticks when we break. A stupid, desperate game of old men — ancient, toothless figures who have to wear long underwear all year, and waistcoats and woollens — Politburo, High Command, Central Committee, Secretariat. Full of old men.
'Which of those bastards is it?' he asked again, bending slightly towards Andropov. 'Find him, and kill him — then kill the others.'
Andropov touched his forehead in a mocking salute.
Five: Schemes of Things
The underground OPCO-ORD (Operations Co-ordination) Room of Group of Soviet Forces North was surprisingly understaffed, or so it seemed to Admiral of the Red Banner Northern Fleet Dolohov, as Praporovich ushered him through the door, so that the two elderly men stood looking down from a gallery over the huge electronic map-table below. Only a few staff officers fussed around its perimeter, like billiard players assessing some future shot. He looked towards Praporovich as if for some explanation. Praporovich smiled.
'Bare, isn't it?' he said gruffly. 'With a purpose. And not just to demonstrate what things might be like if-' Marshal Grigory Ilyich Praporovich, commander, GSFN, cut off the sentence by an effort of will. A moment of silence in which calm reasserted itself in his features, then: 'We have moved normal strategic exercises and war-games to OPCO-ORD TWO at Murmansk. There have been various computer malfunctions here in the past weeks which made such a move imperative.'
Dolohov, the smaller, neater of the two men, smiled at the Marshal.
'And those officers down there — your Rabbit Punch team, I presume?'
Praporovich nodded. 'They are all entirely trustworthy, Admiral.'
'I don't doubt it.'
'Come,' Praporovich instructed, the arm he placed about Dolohov's shoulder oddly at variance with the inflexibility of command in the voice. 'Come and see what you came to see.'
He walked the Admiral along the gallery, their shoes ringing on the metal walkway, then ushered him into a control-booth, glass-fronted and empty except for two junior officers, which looked down over the huge map, its surface like opaque, slaty glass, devoid of features, reflecting only, and in a diffused manner, the lights in the ceiling of the high room.
The two junior officers sprang to attention from their chairs in front of a massive command console, and then Praporovich motioned them to sit. He guided Dolohov to the window, and then said:
'Very well — begin. Placements for dawn on the 24th. Set it up.'
Dolohov could see the lights winking on and off on the control board behind him, and noticed, too, that the staff officers below had donned headphones, picked up cues so that they were more like billiards players than ever. More lights reflected in the glass in front of him, and he heard the rapid clicking of instructions being typed into the computer. Winking lights.
'You have recalled Pnin, then?' he said, as if to make conversation with Praporovich, staring grimly down at the unlit table below.
'Yes. It is done. Tonight.'
'Tell me — you consider that Kutuzov made a mistake — ?' He tailed off as Praporovich glared at him.
'No, I do not. It must be right. Kutuzov wished to ensure that nothing can go wrong. Pnin's timings had to be got right. Unknown territory for us — virtually. We don't rehearse the invasion of Scandinavia very much, even in GSFN!' Praporovich laughed deep in his chest, almost a threatening sound, and without humour. 'The timetable is vital — the North Cape installations have to be taken out, and the Allied Mobile Force has a timetable we must be certain we can beat. Kutuzov understands this — ' There was an implied slight, but Dolohov ignored it. 'Now, the timings are right.'
Dolohov nodded. Below him, the table sprang to life — a huge map of the north of Russia and northern Scandinavia appeared, melting into sharp focus, having, through the thick glass of the table, the appearance of three dimensions — brown mountains, green forests, blue sea. It delighted him, and he did not despise the almost child-like pleasure, though he thought Praporovich would have disapproved. Praporovich considered him, he knew, a weak link, a prevaricator. Perhaps he was; but it was his head, once the Northern Fleet put to sea on its own initiative.
Dolohov, in the silence of the OPCO-ORD room's control booth, his sense of Praporovich's presence both disturbing and reassuring, was prepared to admit a certainty beneath his prevarication. But only to himself. The navy would suffer as acutely as the army in the wave of the new SALT agreement. He, as a vocal opponent of such arms reductions, would be put out to grass, and a yes-man brought in. Dolohov could already name the man who would succeed him.
But not that, he reminded himself. Not that He had moved uncertainly, and with darting, uneasy self-consciousness through a political maze for much of his life. From practical sailor to flag rank to administration, to Fleet command — for thirty years he had ceaselessly wondered why he never heard the language of revolution, the tone of Leninism, except in public utterances. He had kept his thoughts private, so that people believed he had none to think and none to share — but there had been a secret. He had stood, for a generation — since the Great Patriotic War — on a rising mental ground, watching for the movement of armies, the spread of the creed to which he had given himself. Until now, it had never happened, or seemed likely to happen.
He could not speak for the army — even for the big man beside him — and its motives. And he clung, against suspicious, chilling moments of differing insight, to the idea that Kutuzov believed as he did.
Prevarication was, for him, a need to ensure that it would work. He was gambling his ideology, his secret self.
So, prevaricate — let them prove it, once again.
Lights on the map now. Dolohov recognised the colours which represented his own vessels — red for submarines, yellow for destroyers, green for cruisers, white for troop transports. On the map, the Northern Fleet had already set sail, and was in position. Along the northern coast of Norway, troops were to be landed from transports, each of them flanked by red lights, backed by yellow or green. Varangerfjord, Tanafjord, Laksefjord, Porsangenfjord, Altafjord — each deep inlet of the Barents Sea having a loop of the one main road from Kirkenes running at its edge. And that road had to be held, so that the massive armoured thrust, preceded by chemical attack, could move effectively across the border into Norway, and along that road. The armoured force was a vivid concentration of blue light on the border, seeping already, it seemed, into Norway.
'Your principal dispositions,' Praporovich said unnecessarily, Dolohov nodded.
'I can reasonably go no further down the coast than that — except with submarines,' he observed. 'That is what I wish to discuss with you. I think your targets ill-defined, in some cases wrong. I agree with the North Cape monitoring systems. I have to
move units of the Fleet very carefully until they are disposed of. I accept the operation against the fjord targets, however, with much more reservation. I think we should move to close the Baltic, and the northern Atlantic shipping lanes — '
Praporovich seemed surprised, even irritated, as at a persistent but untenable request from a child. His voice was carefully modulated, however, as he said, 'Not yet — we threaten only Scandinavia directly. The rest is implicit. We have discussed this topic often before, Admiral. There is nothing new to say.'
Dolohov felt no reservation concerning Praporovich's anger. He had decided, in advance, that he would promote the sense of his importance to Group 1917 by this challenge. Praporovich was too careful, and too thorough, to steamroller his opinions, or dismiss them as the waverings of a weaker man.
'Very well. I want assurances that you can reach Tromso and Bode and Bardufoss during the hours of daylight on the 24th. And you can't do it by road, and I can't do it for you.'
'I will have available — wait!' He turned to the two console operators, and snapped: 'Put up dispositions for 24:00, on the 24th.'
Dolohov turned back to the view through the window, watching the lights of his naval force wink out, wink on again in different locations.
'Sir — which variant?' he heard one of the two young men ask.
'Variant Four,' Praporovich replied. Then he said to Dolohov, 'Variant Four anticipates the strongest possible resistance, and the slowest build-up of forces on our side. It assumes the arrival of units of the Allied Mobile Force, to support the Norwegians, in strength. It is an extreme unlikelihood that they could stiffen resistance as much as we have posited here. Also, in this Variant, we have considered the worst kind of weather and road conditions along the entire length of the road system we persuaded the Finns to let us build.'
Dolohov masked his satisfaction behind a nod. This is what he had come for. After, months of more peripheral vision of the invasion — oh, yes, they had told him the details of the coup against Khamovkhin's gang, but treated himself, and the Fleet, as something dog-like to be given its orders, round up the sheep, and sit panting at their heels until they patted it on the head. He was at last being put fully in the picture now. Thus, he ignored the seaborne lights on the map-table as they winked out then came on, clustered around the seaward ends of fiords or threatening Tromso and Hammerfest and Narvik and Bodo, and watched the landward lights. Like minor explosions of current, thick purple light bloomed around Kirkenes, Tromso, and points between them — a chain of purple clouds — until the computer adjusted to the time-factor, and the purple became a dissipating fuzzy haze. Chemical attacks, taking place ahead of the main column, now being stabilised by the decontamination teams, rendered safe for the passage of armour.
'You have taken more than a hundred and fifty kilometres of the Kirkenes road?' Praporovich nodded. 'And the other targets — desant operations? Again, Praporovich nodded, but remained silent. Dolohov sensed that he disliked imparting the information. Perhaps GSFN had been secretive for too long.
As he watched, child-like at some celebration full of coloured lights, he began — even as he masked any satisfaction that might appear in his features — to believe that it would work. Work — yes, the great work. It was beginning, down there where the staff officers fussed around a chessboard of coloured lights.
Kirkenes was now distinguished on the map as an orange light; so was Bode, and Bardufoss — and Ivalo, Dolohov noticed as his glance strayed eastwards from Norway. Airfields, he presumed, taken as being used to accelerate the inflow of support troops. Or to launch other desant operations towards the south of Finland and Norway.
'Look — ' Dolohov began, irritated by the Marshal's silence. Praporovich turned to him. 'I accept everything you've shown me — but my vessels are sitting in fjords all that day, and for days to come. What guarantees have you to offer?'
'None. We will be at war.'
'I want to know about response, dammit!'
'None. Not until we stop. Annexation of Finland, and the north of Norway. Then we consolidate, and then we talk to the Americans.'
'You're very sure of Wainwright.'
'We are. He has not time for flexible response, no time for a conventional force to encounter our forces. And he won't use the nuclear force. Nor shall we. That's your guarantee. When we are in power, he will deal with us, because he will have to. On our terms — '
Dolohov, studying his companion, sensed, in a peculiar way, the voice and person of Kutuzov himself — a quiet, deep fanaticism, an abiding self-assuredness insisting on reality only in the terms that the voice described. Praporovich ended: 'We shall succeed, because we must. It is the last throw. This — ' He waved down at the map. 'This is our show of strength, just as much as the capture and trial of Khamovkhin and the others, and the stamping out of those shits in the KGB.' Suddenly, he seemed to relax, almost as if amused at the portentousness of his own words. 'Come down. Admiral, and have a closer look. And — ' Dolohov saw that it was as if the soldier had read his mind, had been reading it over the past months. 'No secrets now, eh. Too late for secrets between us.'
Again, he put his arm around Dolohov's shoulder as he led him out on to the gallery. Admiral Dolohov felt no resentment, and no sense of pride to be reasserted. The long, high room, the echoing of the footsteps, most of all the map that glittered with a myriad lights, suggested a community that could not be broken, and of which he was an essential part.
The meaning of the display was success. Of that, he was at last convinced. He was among men who shared his secret dreams, and not amidst opportunists, lackeys, self-seekers, revisionists. The revolution was taking up arms. Jihad. He did not know why the Arabic had popped into his consciousness, but he smiled at its appropriateness. Jihad. The biting wind chilled Khamovkhin immediately he stepped out of the comfortable warmth of the Tupolev; it seemed to have waited for him, for he saw the quick grabbing of fur hats, the sudden discomfort, of those waiting for him on the tarmac of Seutula Airport. Two security men went down the steps in front of him, and took up their positions — and he felt himself reluctant to follow. The flight had been a respite, almost a reprieve. The sense of crossing the border from a foreign country to somewhere safer. Now, nothing of that — just the wind buffeting him, shrinking his sense of safety until he was aware of every inch of his old flesh.
Behind him, Gromyko murmured something to an aide, and Khamovkhin stepped forward, one gloved hand holding the rail of the passenger gantry. Immediately, the Finnish army band began the Soviet anthem. Its strains sounded tinny and unsubstantial in the wind, and the little figures of the President and Prime Minister of Finland, and the official party, too far away from him and quite unimportant. It was as if the bulk of the Soviet Union pressed at his back like a palpable thing, and he had the sense of Andropov's last mocking glance and the idea that he had run away.
He shook hands — more old men, he thought. The President welcomed him, they embraced in the Russian style. He felt old, leathery skin against his cheek. Then stepping forward again, down the two rows of the guard of honour, the cold eating into him, the faces of the Finnish soldiers white and stiff like those of dolls, the slim rifles bisecting their chilly features. He wanted it to be over.
A strip of red carpet, its edges ruffled by the searching wind, leading towards the podium, and the microphones. The flash of cameras; he remembered to smile at them, facing the battery. The press of the West, of course, all of them booked into comfortable hotels in Helsinki and waiting for the 24th. He climbed the three steps to the podium in front of the Finnish President, and composed his features to listen to the speech of welcome. He looked at the airport buildings, and saw only a few watchers, and some security men, all unnaturally still. And the television cameras — pictures to Finland, America by satellite, and of course, Russia. Persistent flashes from the photographers below the podium, and the sense of others crowding behind him. Ridiculously squashing on to something much too small to accomm
odate them. He almost wanted to laugh.
The President remarked the historic nature of the visit, the fittingness of the time and place, the wished-for completion of the treaty in a week's time. Until that time, he was their honoured and welcome guest in Finland. His own reply was brief, memorised even though he held the notes in his hand — the extra-large type of the IBM machine, specially manufactured with the Cyrillic alphabet, required because of his weakening sight. He promised a successful signing of the Treaty, and looked forward to his visit. Two metaphors of a long journey occupied the central part of the text, which had already been distributed to the press.
Thankfully, he stepped down from the podium, where the wind seemed worse, and climbed into the official Presidential limousine which had drawn up alongside. More flashes of cameras in the strengthening morning light, and then they were lights and faces behind him, sliding past the windows. He was alone in the car with the President of Finland, and they both smelt of the cold, and of heavy overcoats. He sat back in his leather seat, and closed his eyes. The President stared straight ahead, as if he had been warned not to look in his basilisk direction. Khamovkhin was thankful for that. The chill, in this sense of every inch of himself began to dissipate. He began to feel comfortable.
Galakhov went directly through the nothing-to-declare corridor for UK citizens at Heathrow. An uneventful flight in company with a motley group of British tourists — half an hour's boring conversation with a Trade Unionist and his wife about the cosy picture of Russia they had seen, venturing as far as Novosibirsk on their round trip. And the restorations to Leningrad, and the hospitality they had been shown.
'At last we can begin to learn in Britain,' he remembered the man saying. 'When this Treaty's signed, nobody can go on pretending Russia's still something to be afraid of — eh?' He had smiled, and nodded, and agreed, and had himself, in his English persona as a bank clerk, been most impressed with everything he had seen, including the women. The presence of the Trade Unionist's wife had restrained her husband's replies, he felt.