by JT Brannan
That drew a short, derisive bark of laughter from Volkov. ‘And how likely is that, my friend? The Iranians will fight tooth and nail to keep things the way they are.’
Despite their difference in rank, Ludenko didn’t chastise the major for his familiarity. They were friends, after all; they had gone through training together, and it was only by dint of Ludenko’s greater penchant for greasing the wheels politically that had seen him climb higher up the ladder than his comrade. Besides which, they were alone in their tent, now the orderly had left; in public, Volkov would always use the correct form of address.
‘You are right, Alexei, of course,’ Ludenko confirmed. ‘But we must first wait for the deadline. The Iranians have been given one week to make their decision, at which stage – if it is ‘no’ – the Security Council will meet to discuss plans for the invasion.’
‘It will be approved, you think?’
Ludenko drank the sweet beetroot soup from the metal mug, eyes closed as he savored the strong flavor. He offered the mug to Volkov, but his friend shook his head. Ludenko smiled; when his friend was keyed up, thinking about battle, he was never hungry.
‘You should drink,’ Ludenko said, gesturing outside to the snow that had started to fall lightly over their camp, ‘it is good to fight off the cold.’
‘I am a Russian solider,’ Volkov said with a smile. ‘I like the cold.’
Ludenko smiled back. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘that is something which gives us an advantage over most of our enemies, is it not? Our ability to withstand the conditions, however bad they are.’
‘Indeed,’ Volkov said with a nod of the head. ‘So,’ he continued, drawing Ludenko back to his last question, ‘do you think our own mission will be approved?’
‘I do not know what our leadership has planned, in truth,’ the colonel said. ‘Of course, we have strong relations with the Iranians. We could veto the invasion at the Security Council.’
‘But the Americans will attack anyway, won’t they? Like they did in Iraq.’
Ludenko shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Probably. And I am sure that our own president will support them.’
‘He has to, I suppose, if the next stage of the plan is to work,’ Volkov suggested.
Ludenko smiled, this time a little uncomfortably. ‘Be careful, Alexei,’ he chided gently, ‘remember that we have not officially been told what the overall plan is; we merely know our own small part in it.’
It was Volkov’s turn to smile. ‘I do not think it is any exaggeration to say that – between us – we have a pretty good idea of what President Emelienenko has in mind, do you?’
Volkov was right, of course; during the time that their reconnaissance battalion had been lying in wait in the forests, just beyond the great plains, they had spent many nights discussing what was happening. And as Volkov had just reminded him, between them they had built up a pretty accurate picture.
‘My friend,’ Ludenko said, clapping Volkov on the shoulder, ‘you are right, of course. And I am sure that things will progress as we suspect. Iran will refuse to surrender, and America will lead a huge coalition of forces into yet another war in the Middle East.’
‘And then we will act?’ Volkov said hopefully.
‘Yes,’ Ludenko said, deciding that his friend was almost certainly right, ‘and then we will act.’
He saw the smile spreading on Volkov’s face, and felt his own excitement rising unbidden in his stomach as he thought about what was to come.
At the same time, the man who was pretending to be Bronisław Ostrawski took his place at the front of the small meeting room, looking at the faces of the young men before him.
Ostrawski was a department head within the Agencja Wywiadu, the Polish Foreign Intelligence Agency. Bureau III, his domain, ran operations within the Russian Federation and was widely regarded as being the most important of the various departments. After all, existential threats to Poland could only come from that vast nation to the east, and so Bureau III received the lion’s share of the AW’s budget and manpower.
As he saw the four specially selected officers settle in front of him – athletic bodies folded into the uncomfortable steel chairs, faces alert, ready to receive their orders – he began.
‘The time for our mission will soon be upon us,’ the man known as Ostrawski announced. ‘It is as we first heard, Mikhail Emelienenko will be in Warsaw meeting our own president and other government representatives over two days next week, from the twenty-ninth to the thirtieth. This is now confirmed, and although his presence has been publicly confirmed in the media, his exact schedule is not to be revealed due to security considerations.’
A wolfish smile curled the man’s lips as he spoke, and some of the young agents in front of him allowed themselves to follow his example.
‘Of course, we have access to his entire itinerary, which is very similar to that upon which we based our original plans. We have thus already ruled out several locations for our operation. The Presidential Palace and the Chancellery will both be used for meetings, but our best option is still during Emelienenko’s tour of the city, which is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.’
He flicked a switch on the laptop next to him, and a screen on the wall suddenly showed a picture of a gigantic concrete structure, a high-rise building of Stalinist architecture which towered over its neighbors.
‘Our planners have evaluated our best percentage chance of success will be during the Russian president’s tour of the Palace of Culture and Science,’ he announced, and he was pleased at the knowing smiles and nodding heads of the specialist team before him.
The Pałac Kultury i Nauki was designed in the 1950s by Soviet architect Lev Rudnev in the style of Moscow’s famed ‘Seven Sisters’, and was still one of the tallest buildings in Poland at nearly eight hundred feet. It held theaters, libraries, sports facilities and scientific institutions, and held the headquarters of various companies and public bodies.
It was also almost universally hated by the local population, ‘gifted’ to them as it was by Josef Stalin at the height of the Soviet occupation. It was said that the viewing platform on the thirtieth floor offered the best view of the city – because it was the only place in Warsaw from which you couldn’t see the Palace itself.
There was considerable debate, in fact, about the political ramifications of President Emelienenko – leader of the Russian Federation, successor to the Soviet Union which erected the building in the first place – visiting the palace alongside the Polish president. But, the man at the front of the room mused, whatever the political implications were, it played into the hands of this team from Bureau III nevertheless.
‘The palace offers us multiple routes in and out,’ he reminded the group, ‘and is almost impossible to secure fully. The police will provide perimeter security and crowd control, while close protection will be provided by the BOR, with members of GROM in support, should anything untoward happen.’
There were various murmurs from the men in the room, and the man they knew as Ostrawski knew why. The Biuru Ochrony Rządu, or Bureau of Government Protection, were highly trained bodyguards in the US Secret Service mold, while the Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno-Manewrowego was Poland’s top counter-terrorism unit, a military force modelled on Delta Force and SEAL Team 6. The men in front of him knew that their mission would subsequently not be an easy one.
The man smiled. ‘And this is not to mention the personnel from the Russian Presidential Security Service, who will be there in force. And of course, our counterparts at the ABW,’ he continued, referring to the Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego, the country’s internal security agency, ‘will be monitoring everything that goes on during the visit. Electronic surveillance is a given, and we do not know – despite our best efforts – where their human resources might be deployed.’
‘Sounds like a walk in the park,’ said Maciej Badowski, to the muted chuckles of his teammates. But in the humor, everyone recognized the senior officer’
s resolve.
‘But the palace does present our best chance,’ offered Marcin Pazdan, the youngest but most serious of the men in the room. ‘With the plans we have been working on, we can do this.’
Stanisław Hajto shook his head slowly. ‘I still cannot believe these orders,’ he said, and everyone turned to look at him. He was not the highest ranked officer, but he was the oldest, and his opinions were always listened to. ‘The ramifications will be –’
‘The protection of the Polish republic,’ said the man called Bronisław Ostrawski, cutting Hajto off mid-sentence. ‘Nothing more, nothing less. We are instruments of the state, and it has been decreed that this action is necessary by people higher up the chain than ourselves. We have a mission to carry out, and we will do so to the very best of our ability. Is that understood?’ It was important to still any dissent as soon as it was voiced, the man knew; especially as Hajto’s objections were quite correct.
‘That is understood, sir,’ Hajto said. ‘Of course, I will do my job without complaint. But if it doesn’t work out,’ he muttered, ‘then Heaven help us all.’
Right again, my friend, thought the man at the front of the room with a smile that nobody could see.
Heaven help you all.
3
Jake Navarone’s head lolled gently on his chest, a line of saliva, pink with blood, stretching from his slack lips down to his bare pectorals.
Navarone, though he could scarcely remember, was the second-in-command of Force One, a covert operations unit operating out of Washington, DC. He’d been serving in SEAL Team Six when he’d been recruited for the unit by its commander, Mark Cole. It was a close-knit cadre, operating beyond the oversight of Congress.
As such, there weren’t a lot of people who knew that he was missing. Hell, he figured, maybe nobody knew he was missing? It was a struggle to recall much of anything, but his drug-addled brain seemed to remember that he had been here – wherever here was – for several days, possibly even weeks by now. And wasn’t that long enough for suspicions to be aroused back home? Wasn’t there some sort of protocol for all this?
His head swimming, Navarone no longer knew exactly what was real, and how much he’d made up; and if some of it was real, how much of this truth had he told his captors?
His brain hurt as he thought, but he knew he had to try and stay on top of things, try and retain his sanity against the constant probing of the interrogators.
Where was he? Who had captured him?
Moscow . . . Moscow . . .
The word kept repeating itself, and Navarone was sure it had some significance, but what was it?
He couldn’t process the information; his world was like a living nightmare, where someone was chasing him but his body refused to move, or else like he was drunk, the room spinning around him, his mind refusing to cooperate with him.
The dark of the room changed then, light spilling in powerfully, hurting his eyes.
Without realizing, he moaned.
He heard the flick of a switch, and the whole room became bathed in light, it was as if he was being thrown into the sun, face-first, eyelids peeled back, the pain scalding on his retinas.
He thought he would scream.
The light was bad, but he knew there would be worse to come.
Because the light could only mean one thing.
His captors, his interrogators, his tormentors.
They were back.
His head was even more muddled after the latest injections of drugs. Navarone had no idea what they were, only that they made his brain hurt worse than ever. He could have been saying anything, telling them anything, for all he knew.
He just had to hope he wasn’t.
Because, somewhere deep in his subconscious, his aching brain kept telling him that he wasn’t allowed to talk, he wasn’t allowed to tell them what they wanted to know. Somewhere, somehow, lives depended upon his silence.
‘You know she is dead, don’t you?’ a voice announced, just millimeters from his ear. The words were Russian, he realized; and what was more, he understood them.
‘Who?’ he asked groggily, surprised to find himself answering in Russian.
‘Your president,’ the voice said, this time in English.
‘My president is a man,’ Navarone said, still speaking Russian despite his interrogator’s change of language. He could barely grasp the words coming out of his own mouth, but come out they did. ‘Mikhail Emelienenko is my president.’
‘No,’ said a second voice, this one from the front, the man’s face hidden by the shadow created by the blinding lights behind him, ‘our president is Mikhail Emelienenko. Yours is – or, should I say, was – Ellen Abrams, President of the United States of America.’
This second man also addressed him in English, Navarone realized, and yet still the American commando responded in perfect Russian.
‘There is some mistake,’ he argued. ‘She is not my president. My name is Aleksandr Petrushkin, I work in the Moscow White House for Boris Manturov, I served fifteen years with the Vozdushno-Desantnye Voyska for my country!’
The lies came out thick and fast, and Navarone didn’t know where from; but they had obviously been learned, and learned well.
‘Lies,’ said the first man, tutting loudly. ‘And pointless lies, I might well add. Because we know all about you, and about your organization. You are an American covert agent, yes?’
‘What do you mean?’ Navarone said. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’ Did they know? Or were they just fishing for answers? They hadn’t mentioned his name yet directly, or that of Force One; so they were probably still just guessing.
He hoped.
‘We are talking about America,’ said the man in front of him, ‘and the fact that your president – who perhaps could have helped you – is now dead, killed in a terrorist attack along with half of the world’s leaders.’
They’d told him this before, Navarone suddenly remembered. But was it true? It was hard to say, the alleged attack having apparently occurred since he’d been captured. But the information sparked off other memories, one in particular that probed the barriers of his conscious mind.
There was something about the terrorist attack, something important.
Something he had to remember, information he had to try and get back to Washington.
Something he’d learned in Moscow . . .
‘I still do not understand why you are telling me this,’ Navarone spoke almost without realizing. ‘I am a Russian citizen, I know nothing of what you are saying.’
There was a long pause, a silence that seemed to make the room suffused with a dark, suffocating heaviness; and then one of the unseen men spoke again.
‘That is a shame,’ the voice came, still in English. ‘It appears that you still need more help. Doctor?’
Another shadow emerged from the corner of the room at the command. ‘Yes, my friend?’ the reply came in Russian.
‘I think we need to up the dosage,’ the interrogator suggested, and then Navarone saw the doctor approaching, hypodermic in his hand.
And then all he could see was the needle as it came up . . . up . . . up . . .
Jake Navarone thought that the gates to Hell had opened, and all the demons had come flying out, screeching and crying as one.
He did not understand that those sounds were his own screams.
Navarone could never know how much time had passed, could only feel himself gagging, coughing, in a world of pain.
The man in front of him, seen through hazy eyes, held up a hand for silence. ‘Do not waste your energy,’ he said. ‘Save it for when you talk. For we will soon find out for sure what you know, or what you don’t know. And more importantly,’ he added, ‘who you have told.’
But that was the worst part, Navarone thought as he watched the man walk to a suitcase placed on a nearby table, horrified as he saw what was inside; the worst part was that he knew everything, but had told no one.
And
now he was going to die, and the Russians would be free to carry out their terrible plans.
For he had finally remembered what it was that he had discovered in those Moscow offices, how important it was to get that information out, to warn America, to warn the world.
Because the Russians had a plan that was going to change everything, beyond all comprehension.
It was madness, he remembered, sheer madness.
But it was going to happen, and there was no longer anything he – or anyone else – could do about it.
PART ONE
1
Mark Cole sat at the table and put the small glass to his lips, watching the crowds as he tasted the ice-cold vodka. Despite the extensive list of more fashionable vodkas, he’d decided to stay with one of the classics; Stolichnaya harked back to the days of the Soviet Union, when bottles of the stuff proved a more stable currency than the ruble. Workers even used to get paid with it, Cole remembered as he savored the smooth, slightly creamy taste.
He had been to Moscow many times in his career, as both an enemy and a friend depending on the year, and his abiding memory of the place was of the cold. It was hot in the summer of course, but it seemed he only ever came here in the winter; and so he was again, and he was glad to be out of the December chill. Snow had even been starting to fall when he’d followed his target in here, lightly dusting the brightly-lit streets outside.
He was in a bar called Duma, hidden within the backstreets of Moscow between Moss and Nikitskaya. It was small yet atmospheric, bare brick walls with wooden tables and chairs scattered throughout. In the corner sat a jazz quartet, warming up before they started to play in earnest. From what he’d heard so far, he expected them to be good.
Whether or not he would get to hear them in full flow, however, was entirely up to his target; if she left before they started, then so would Cole.