by Tom Clancy
"Oh." Jack bowed his head. "I forgot all about that. They called me right before I flew to Moscow."
"What gives?"
"One of the companies I own stock in, the officers are being investigated for insider trading. I bought some of it right when they did, and SEC wants to know how I decided to buy it just then."
"And?" Greer asked. CIA had had enough scandals, and the Admiral didn't want one in his office.
"I got a tip that it might be an interesting company, and when I checked it out I saw that the company was buying itself back. So what got me to buy in was that I saw they were buying in. That's legal, boss. I have all the records at home. I do all this by computer-well, I don't since I came to work here-and I have hard copies of everything. I didn't break any rules, sir, and I can prove it."
"Let's try to settle that in the next few days," Greer suggested.
"Yes, sir."
Jack was in his car five minutes later. The drive home to Peregrine Cliff was easier than usual, taking only fifty minutes instead of the usual seventy-five. Cathy was at work, as usual, and the kids were at school-Sally at St. Mary's and Jack at kindergarten. Ryan poured himself a glass of milk in the kitchen. Finished, he wandered upstairs, kicked off his shoes, and collapsed into bed without even bothering to take off his pants.
Colonel of Signal Troops Gennady Iosifovich Bondarenko sat across from Misha, straight of back and proud, as so young a field-grade officer should be. He did not show himself to be the least intimidated by Colonel Filitov, who was old enough to be his father, and whose background was a minor legend in the Defense Ministry. So this was the old war-horse who fought in nearly every tank battle in the first two years of the Great Patriotic War. He saw the toughness around the eyes that age and fatigue could never erase, noted the impairment to the Colonel's arm, and remembered how that had happened. It was said that Old Misha still went out to the tank factories with some of the men from his old regiment, to see for himself if quality control was up to standards, to make certain that his hard blue eyes could still hit a target from the gunner's seat. Bondarenko was somewhat in awe of this soldier's soldier. More than anything else, he was proud to wear the same uniform.
"How may I serve the Colonel?" he asked Misha. "Your file says that you are very clever with electronic gadgets, Gennady Iosifovich." Filitov waved at the file folder on his desk.
"That is my job, Comrade Colonel." Bondarenko was more than just "clever," and both knew it. He had helped develop laser range-finders for battlefield use, and until recently had been engaged in a project to use lasers in place of radios for secure front-line communications.
"What we are about to discuss is classified Most Secret." The young Colonel nodded gravely and Filitov went on. "For the past several years the Ministry has been financing a very special laser project called Bright Star-the name itself is also classified, of course. Its primary mission is to make high-quality photographs of Western satellites, though when fully developed, it may be able to blind them-at a time when such action is politically necessary. The project is run by academicians and a former fighter pilot from Voyska PVO-this sort of installation comes under the authority of the air-defense forces, unfortunately. I would have preferred myself if that a real soldier was running it, but-" Misha stopped and gestured at the ceiling. Bondarenko smiled in agreement. Politics, they both communicated silently. No wonder we never get anything done.
"The Minister wants you to fly down there and evaluate the weapons potential of the site, particularly from a reliability standpoint. If we are to bring this site to operational status, it would be well to know if the damned-fool thing will work when we want it to."
The young officer nodded thoughtfully while his mind raced. This was a choice assignment-much more than that. He would report to the Minister through his most trusted aide. If he did well, he would have the personal stamp of the Minister in his personnel jacket. That would guarantee him general's stars, a bigger apartment for his family, a good education for his children, so many of the things he'd worked all these years for.
"Comrade Colonel, I presume that they know of my coming?"
Misha laughed derisively. "Is that the way the Red Army does it now? We tell them when they are to be inspected! No, Gennady Iosifovich, if we are to evaluate reliability, we do it by surprise. I have a letter for you here from Marshal Yazov himself. It will be sufficient to get you past security-site security comes under our KGB colleagues," Misha said coolly. "It will give you free access to the entire facility. If you have any difficulty at all, call me at once. I can always be reached through this number. Even if I am in the banya, my driver will come and fetch me."
"How detailed an evaluation is required, Comrade Colonel.'
"Enough that a weary old tanker like me can understand what their witchcraft is all about," Misha said humorlessly. "Do you think you can understand it all?"
"If not, I will so inform you, Comrade Colonel." It was a very good answer, Misha noted. Bondarenko would go far.
"Excellent, Gennady Iosifovich. I would much rather have an officer tell me what he does not know than try to impress ne with a truckload of mudnya." Bondarenko got that message loud and clear. It was said that the carpet in this office was rust-red from the blood of officers who'd tried to bullshit their way past this man. "How soon can you leave?"
"This is an extensive installation?"
"Yes. It houses four hundred academicians and engineers, and perhaps six hundred other support personnel. You can take up to a week doing your evaluation. Speed here is less important than thoroughness."
"Then I'll have to pack another uniform. I can be on my way in two hours."
"Excellent. Off with you." Misha opened a new file.
As was generally the case, Misha worked a few minutes later than his Minister. He locked his personal documents in secure files and had the rest picked up by a messenger whose cart wheeled them to Central Files a few meters down the main corridor from his office. The same messenger handed over a note saying that Colonel Bondarenko had taken the 1730 Aeroflot flight to Dushanbe, and that ground transport from the civil airport to Bright Star had been arranged. Filitov made a mental note to congratulate Bondarenko for his cleverness. As a member of the Ministry's in-house General Inspectorate, he could have requisitioned special transport and flown directly to the city's military airfield, but the security office at Bright Star undoubtedly had some of its people there to report the arrival of such a flight. This way, however, a colonel from Moscow could just as easily be mistaken for what colonels in Moscow usually were-messenger boys. That fact offended Filitov. A man who had worked hard enough to attain the rank of a regimental commander-which really was the best job in any army-should not be a staff slave who fetched drinks for his general. But he was sure that this was a fact in any military headquarters. At least Bondarenko would have a chance to try out his teeth on the feather merchants down in Tadzhikistan.
Filitov rose and reached for his coat. A moment later, briefcase dangling from his right hand, he walked out of the office. His secretary-a warrant officer-automatically called downstairs for his car to be ready. It was waiting when Misha walked out the front door.
Forty minutes later, Filitov was in soft clothes. The television was on, broadcasting something mindless enough to have been imported from the West. Misha sat alone at his kitchen table. There was an open half-liter bottle of vodka beside his evening meal. Misha ate sausage, black bread, and pickled vegetables, not very different from what he'd eaten in the field with his men, two generations before. He'd found that his stomach dealt more easily with rough foods than the fancy ones, a fact that had thoroughly confused the hospital staff during his last bout of pneumonia. After every other bite, he'd take a brief sip of vodka, staring out the windows, whose blinds were adjusted just so. The city lights of Moscow burned brightly, along with the numberless yellow rectangles of apartment windows.
He could remember the smells at will. The verdant odor of good Russi
an earth, the fine, green smell of meadow grass, along with the stink of diesel fuel and above all the acidic reek of propellant from the tank's guns that stayed in the cloth of your coveralls no matter how many times you tried to wash it out. For a tanker, that was the smell of combat, that and the uglier smell of burning vehicles, and burning crews. Without looking, he lifted the sausage and cut off a piece, bringing it to his mouth atop the knife. He was staring out the window, but as though it were a television screen, what he saw was the vast, distant horizon at sunset, and columns of smoke rising along the perimeter of green and blue, orange and brown. Next, a bite of the rich, thickly textured black bread. And as always on the nights before he committed treason, the ghosts came back to visit.
We showed them, didn't we, Comrade Captain? a weary voice asked.
We still had to retreat, Corporal, he heard his own voice answer. But, yes, we showed the bastards not to trifle with our T-34s. This is good bread you stole.
Stole? But, Comrade Captain, it is heavy work defending these farmers, is it not?
And thirsty work? was the Captain's next question.
Indeed, Comrade. The corporal chuckled. From behind, a bottle was handed down. Not State-produced vodka, this was Samogan, the Russian bootleg liquor that Misha himself knew well. Every true Russian claimed to love the taste, though not one would touch it if vodka was handy. Nevertheless, for this moment Samogan was the drink he craved, out here on Russian soil, with the remains of his tank troop standing between a State farm and the leading elements of Guderian's panzers.
They'll be coming again tomorrow morning, the driver thought soberly.
And we'll kill some more slug-gray tanks, the loader said.
After which, Misha did not say aloud, we'll withdraw another ten kilometers. Ten kilometers only-if we're lucky again, and if regimental headquarters manages to control things better than they did this afternoon. In either case, this farm will be behind German lines when tomorrow's sun sets. More ground lost.
It was not a thought on which to dwell. Misha wiped his hands carefully before unbuttoning the pocket on his tunic. It was time to restore his soul.
A delicate one, the corporal observed as he looked over his Captain's shoulder at the photograph for the hundredth time, and as always, with envy. Delicate like crystal glass. And such a fine son you have. Lucky for you, Comrade Captain, that he has his mother's looks. She is so tiny, your wife, how can she have had such a big boy as that and not be hurt by it?
God knows, was his unconscious reply. So strange that after a few days of war even the most adamant atheist invoked the name of God. Even a few of the commissars, to the quiet amusement of the troops.
I will come home to you, he'd promised the photograph. I will come home to you. Through all the German Army, through all the fires of hell, I will come home to you, Elena.
Just then mail had come, a rare enough occurrence at the front. Only one letter for Captain Filitov, but the texture of the paper and the delicate handwriting told him of its importance. He slit the envelope open with the bright edge of his combat knife and extracted the letter as carefully as his haste allowed so as not to soil the words of his love with grease from his battle tank. Seconds later he leaped to his feet and screamed at the stars in the twilight sky.
I will be a father again in the spring! It must have been that last night on leave, three weeks before this brutal madness began
I am not surprised, the corporal observed lightly, after the fucking we gave the Germans today. Such a man leads this troop! Perhaps our Captain should stand at stud.
You are nekulturny, Corporal Romanov. I am a married man.
Then perhaps I can stand in the Comrade Captain's stead? he asked hopefully, then handed the bottle down again. To another fine son, my Captain, and to the health of your beautiful wife. There were tears of joy in the young man's eyes, along with the grief that came with the knowledge that only the greatest good fortune would ever allow him to be a father. But he would never say such a thing. A fine soldier Romanov was, and a fine comrade, ready for command of his own tank.
And Romanov had gotten his own tank, Misha remembered, staring at the Moscow skyline. At Vyasma, he'd defiantly placed it between his Captain's disabled T-34 and an onrushing German Mark-IV, saving his Captain's life as his own ended in red-orange flames. Aleksey Il'ych Romanov, Corporal of the Red Army, won an Order of the Red Banner that day. Misha wondered if it was fair compensation to his mother for her blue-eyed, freckled son.
The vodka bottle was three-quarters empty now, and as he had so many times, Misha was sobbing, alone at his table.
So many deaths.
Those fools at High Command! Romanov killed at Vyasma. Ivanenko lost outside Moscow. Lieutenant Abashin at Kharkov-Mirka, the handsome young poet, the slight, sensitive young officer who had the heart and balls of a lion, killed leading the fifth counterattack, but clearing the way for Misha to extract what was left of his regiment across the Donets before the hammer fell.
And his Elena, the last victim of all All of them killed not by an external enemy, but by the misguided, indifferent brutality of their own Motherland-
Misha took a long last swallow from the bottle. No, not the Motherland. Not the Rodina, never the Rodina. By the inhuman bastards who He rose and staggered toward the bedroom, leaving on the lights in his sitting room. The clock on the nightstand said a quarter of ten, and some distant part of Misha's brain took comfort in the fact that he'd get nine hours' sleep to recover from the abuse that he inflicted on what had once been a lean, hard body, one that had endured-even thrived on-the ghastly strain of prolonged combat operations. But the stress Misha endured now made combat seem a vacation, and his subconscious rejoiced in the knowledge that this would soon end, and rest would finally come.
About a half hour later, a car drove down the street. In the passenger's seat, a woman was driving her son home from a hockey game. She looked up and noted that the lights in certain windows were on, and the shades adjusted just so.
The air was thin. Bondarenko arose at 0500, as he always did, put on his sweatsuit, and took the elevator downstairs from his guest quarters on the tenth floor. It took him a moment to be surprised-the elevators were operating. So the technicians travel back and forth to the facility round the clock. Good, the Colonel thought.
He walked outside, a towel wrapped around his neck, and checked his watch. He frowned as he began. He had a regular morning routine in Moscow, a measured path around the city blocks. Here he couldn't be sure of the distance, when his five kilometers ended. Well-he shrugged-that was to be expected. He started off heading east. The view, he saw, was breathtaking. The sun would soon rise, earlier than Moscow because of the lower latitude, and the jagged spires of mountains were outlined in red, like dragons' teeth, he smiled to himself. His youngest son liked to draw pictures of dragons. The flight in had ended spectacularly. The full moon had illuminated the Kara Kum desert flatlands under the aircraft-and then these sandy wastes had ended as though at a wall built by the gods. Within three degrees of longitude, the land had changed from three-hundred-meter lowlands to five-thousand-meter peaks. From his vantage point he could see the glow of Dushanbe, about seventy kilometers to the northwest. Two rivers, Kafirnigan and Surkhandarya, bordered the city of half a million, and like a man halfway around the world, Colonel Bondarenko wondered why it had grown here, what ancient history had caused it to grow between the two mountain-fed rivers. Certainly it seemed an inhospitable place, but perhaps the long caravans of Bactrian camels had rested here, or perhaps it had been a crossroads, or-He stopped his reverie. Bondarenko knew that he was merely putting off his morning exercise. He tied the surgical mask over his mouth and nose as a protection against the frigid air. The Colonel began his deep knee-bends to loosen up, then stretched his legs against the building wall before he started off at an easy, double-time pace.
Immediately he noticed that he was breathing more heavily than usual through the cloth mask over his face.
The altitude, of course. Well, that would shorten his run somewhat. The apartment building was already behind him, and he looked to his right, passing what his map of the facility indicated to be machine and optical shops.
"Halt!" a voice called urgently.
Bondarenko growled to himself. He didn't like having his exercise interrupted. Especially, he saw, by someone with the green shoulder boards of the KGB. Spies-thugs-playing at soldiers. "Well, what is it, Sergeant?"
"Your papers, if you please, Comrade. I do not recognize you."
Fortunately, Bondarenko's wife had sewn several pockets onto the Nike jogging suit that she'd managed to get on the gray market in Moscow, a present for his last birthday. He kept his legs pumping as he handed over his identification.
"When did the Comrade Colonel arrive?" the sergeant asked. "And what do you think you are doing so early in the morning?"
"Where is your officer?" Bondarenko replied.
"At the main guard post, four hundred meters that way." The sergeant pointed.
"Then come along with me, Sergeant, and we will speak with him. A colonel of the Soviet Army does not explain himself to sergeants. Come on, you need exercise, too!" he challenged and moved off.
The sergeant was only twenty or so, but wore a heavy greatcoat and carried a rifle and ammo belt. Within two hundred meters, Gennady heard him puffing.
"Here, Comrade Colonel," the young man gasped a minute later.
"You should not smoke so much, Sergeant," Bondarenko observed. "What the hell is going on here?" a KGB lieutenant asked from behind his desk.
"Your sergeant challenged me. I am Colonel G. I. Bondarenko, and I am doing my morning run."
"In Western clothing?"
"What the hell do you care what clothes I wear when I exercise?" Idiot, do you think spies jog?
"Colonel, I am the security watch officer. I do not recognize you, and my superiors have not made me aware of your presence."
Gennady reached into another pocket and handed over his special visitors pass, along with his personal identification papers. "I am a special representative of the Ministry of Defense. The purpose of my visit is not your concern. I am here on the personal authority of Marshal of the Soviet Union D. T. Yazov. If you have any further questions, you may call him directly at that number!"