by Tom Clancy
Ultimately, Operation Barbarossa was a disaster for the Germans. But it taught the Soviets an important lesson about the desirability of fighting an offensive rather than a defensive war. For the next forty years, their military grew with the almost fanatical goal of being able to launch and sustain an offensive war— as General Mikhail Kosigan had once put it in a speech to his troops, "to fight the next world war, if it comes, on everyone else's territory." To this end, missions for commanders of first-echelon tactical units were comprised of three components designed to destroy or capture enemy troops and equipment and seize and control key territory: the immediate mission, or blizhaiashcha zadacha; the subsequent mission, or posledyushchaia zadacha; and the follow-up mission, or napravlenie dal'neishego nastupleniia. Within those broad missions, regiments were often assigned a key mission of the day, or zadacha dnia, which were goals that had to be completed within a specific time frame— no excuses accepted.
Whether it was in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, Afghanistan in 1979, or Chechnya in 1994, Moscow relied on its military and not on diplomacy to solve problems in its own backyard. Its guiding principles were supriz, neozhadennost' and vnezapnost': surprise, anticipation of the unexpected, and causing the unexpected. Often their efforts were successful, and sometimes they were not. But the mind-set remained, and Interior Minister Dogin knew it. He also knew that many Russian commanders yearned for the opportunity to redeem themselves after nine bloody years in Afghanistan and the lengthy and costly suppression of the rebels in Chechnya.
The time had come to give them a chance. Many of his men had been moved to Russia's border with Ukraine, where, unlike Afghanistan and Chechnya, they wouldn't be fighting rebel armies and partisan guerrillas. This war, this aktivnost, this initiative, would be different.
At 12:30 A.M., local time, in Przemysl, Poland, less than ten miles from the Ukranian border, a powerful pipe bomb exploded in the two-story brick building that served as the headquarters of the Polish Communist Party. Two editors working on the semiweekly newspaper Obywatel, the Citizen, were blown into the surrounding trees, their blood and ink splashed on the two walls that remained standing, newsprint and flesh burned onto the chairs and file cabinets by the heat of the explosion. Within minutes, Communist sympathizers were in the streets, protesting the attack and storming the post office and police station. A local munitions depot was pelted with Molotov cocktails and exploded, killing a soldier. At 12:46 the local constable telephoned Warsaw to request military assistance to quell the uprising. The call was intercepted and simultaneously transcribed by a military intelligence station in Kiev and was passed to President Vesnik.
At exactly 2:49 A.M. President Vesnik telephoned General Kosigan to ask for his help in containing what looked like it might be a "situation" on the border between Poland and the Ukraine. At 2:50 A.M. 150,000 Russian troops entered Ukraine, from the ancient city of Novgorod in the north to the administrative center of Voroshilovgrad in the south. Infantry, motorized rifle regiments, tank divisions, artillery battalions, and air squadrons moved in frightening lockstep, showing none of the disorder or slovenly behavior that had marked the move against Chechnya, or the retreat from Afghanistan.
In Moscow, at precisely 2:50:30 A.M., the Kremlin received an urgent communication from President Vesnik in Kiev requesting troops to help the Ukranian forces protect the nearly three hundred miles of border the Ukraine shared with Poland.
Russian President Kiril Zhanin was awakened with the news and was caught utterly off guard by the request. Even before he had reached his office in the Kremlin, Zhanin was telephoned in his car with another message from the Ukranian President. As this one was read to him, it surprised him even more than the first:
"Thank you for your prompt action. The timely arrival of General Kosigan's forces will not only keep the population from panicking, but reaffirms the traditional ties between Russia and Ukraine. I have instructed Ambassador Rozevna to inform the United Nations and Secretary General Brophy that the incursion was by invitation and design."
Ordinarily, Zhanin's woolly mustache and shaggy eyebrows gave his oval face a paternal, even jovial look. But now his dark brown eyes were afire, his small mouth tight and trembling.
He turned to his secretary, Larisa Shachtur, a middle-aged brunette dressed smartly in a Western style business suit, and told her to get General Kosigan on the telephone. She only got as far as General Leonid Sarik, senior liaison officer of the aviations operation group and combined tank army. Mavik informed her that General Kosigan had imposed a strict radio silence for the duration of the march itself, and that it would be lifted only when troops were fully deployed.
"General Mavik," said the secretary, "it is the President calling."
The General replied, "Then he will understand the need for security as we honor our defense pact with a fellow republic of the Commonwealth."
The General excused himself to attend to his duties and hung up, leaving the President and his secretary listening to the gentle puff of the engine.
Zhanin looked through the tinted, bulletproof window as the dark spires of the Kremlin came into view against the night sky and deep gray clouds.
"As a young man," he said, breathing deeply to calm himself, "I managed to get a copy of Svetlana Stalin's book about her father. Do you remember it?"
"Yes," said Larisa. "It was banned for years."
"That's right. Even though she was critical of a man who had fallen from grace, a so-called nonperson. One thing she wrote about Stalin struck me. She said that toward the end of the 1930s, she felt he had reached the stage of what she called 'persecution mania.' Enemies were everywhere. He had fifty thousand of his own officers purged. He murdered more Russian officers at or above the rank of colonel than the Germans killed in the entire war." He filled his chest and exhaled slowly. "It frightens me, Larisa, to think that he may not have been as mad or paranoid as everyone thought."
The woman squeezed his hand reassuringly as the black BMW turned off Kalinina Prospekt and headed toward the northwest side of the Kremlin, Trinity Gate.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Tuesday, 3:05 A.M., over the Barents Sea
The Il-76T landed in Helsinki shortly before midnight, and the Striker crew, their cold-weather gear, and their arsenal were aboard ten minutes later. Their arsenal consisted of four trunks, each five by four by three feet, loaded with guns and explosives, ropes and pitons, gas masks and medical supplies. A half hour after they were aboard, the plane was refueled and airborne.
The initial phase of the flight had carried the craft northeast over Finland, then east across the Barents Sea and another time zone, flying just below the Arctic Ocean as it skirted the northern coast of Russia.
Lieutenant Colonel Squires's eyes were shut, but he wasn't sleeping. Nasty habit, he knew: he couldn't sleep unless he knew where he was going and why. He knew that further instructions from Op-Center would be forthcoming, since they were rapidly approaching the end of their flight plan, which carried them to where the Barents met the Pechora Sea. Still, it was frustrating not to be able to focus on an objective and stay zeroed in. Crossing the Atlantic, he'd been able to concentrate on St. Petersburg and the mission there. Now that was in Private George's hands, and Squires had nothing. When he had nothing, the officer always played a little game to keep his mind from wandering to his wife and son and what they'd do if he didn't come back.
It was the What Am I Doing Here? game, in which he picked an appropriate word or two, reached deep into his guts, and tried to understand why he loved being a Striker so damn much.
The first time he'd played it, en route to Cape Canaveral to try and find out who put a bomb on board a space shuttle, he'd decided that he was here to defend America, not just because it was the best place to be but because our nation's energy and ideals were what motivated the whole world. If we were to go away, Squires was convinced that the planet would become a battleground for dictators who wanted to rule, not autonomou
s states that were competitive and vital.
In the second game, he'd asked himself how much he enjoyed leading this life because it made every inch of him feel vital and challenged. A lot, he had to admit. Much more than when he played soccer, because the stakes for himself and for his nation were so high. But there was no sensation like pitting his confidence, skills, and ability to self-start against circumstances that would cause most people to freeze or retreat or at the very least think twice about going ahead.
Today while he wondered where the hell the call from Mike Rodgers or Bob Hernert was, he was thinking about something Op-Center's psychologist, Liz Gordon, had asked him when she first interviewd him for the command post.
"What are your thoughts on shared fear?" she had asked.
He'd answered that fear and strength were qualities the crested and troughed in any individual, and that a good team— and especially a good commander— had to be able to bring each member's levels to their peak.
"That's fear, " Liz had said. "I asked about shared fear. Think about it. Take your time."
He had, and then he'd said, "I guess we share fear because it's caused by something that threatens us all, as opposed to courage, which comes from the individual."
He'd been naive and Liz had let it go. Now, after three missions, Squires had come to understand that shared fear wasn't something to overcome. It was a mutual support system that turned people of disparate backgrounds and intellects and interests into a single, bonded organism. It was what made the crew of a World War II bomber or a police squad car or an elite commando force closer than a husband and wife could ever be. It was what made a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
As much as patriotism and valor, shared fear was the glue that held Striker together.
Squires was about to tackle Seeing the World as a motivation when Mike Rodgers called on the secure TAC-Sat. Squires was instantly out of his reverie and, as his old soccer coach used to put it, "There with the goods.
"Charlie," Rodgers said, "sorry it's taken so long to get to you. We've been going over your game plan and we're really going to need World Cup performance on this one. In just over eleven hours, having stayed out of Russian airspace until the last possible moment, your team will parachute to a point in Russia just west of Khabarovsk. Bob is giving your pilot the flight plan and coordinates— and we hope that the Il-76T buys him enough time to get in and out before Russian air defenses realize it's not one of their own aircraft. Your target is a four-car-plus-engine train of the Trans-Siberian express. If the cargo is narcotics, currency, gold, or weapons, you're to eliminate them. If the weapons are nuclear, get us proof and disable them if you can. Sergeant Grey has the training for that. Any questions so far?"
"Yes, sir," Squires said. "If the Hermitage is involved, they could be shipping art. Do you want us blowing up Renoirs and Van Goghs?"
The line was silent for a moment. "No. Photograph and disengage."
"Yes, sir."
Rodgers continued, "Your target area is a one hundred-eleven-foot-tall cliff overlooking the track. The appropriate topographic maps will be sent to your computer. You'll rappel down and wait for the train. We chose that area because there are trees or rocks from the cliff face that you can use to block the track. We'd prefer that to using explosives that may cause casualties. If the train is running on time, you'll only have about an hour before it arrives. If it's running late, you'll have to wait. This one can't get away, though you're to make every effort not to hurt any Russian soldiers."
Squires wasn't surprised by the warning: ambassadors hated having to explain illegal incursions, let alone what the CIA called "maximal demotions." Though Squires was well trained to kill with everything from a shoelace to an Uzi, he had never had to do it— and he hoped he never did.
"The Il-76T will have gone to Hokkaido for refueling and then return," Rodgers said, "though it will not be your extraction vehicle. When you've completed your mission, you'll signal the Il-76T and go to the rendezvous point, the southern side of a bridge one-point-three miles west of the target."
Now, that was intriguing, Squires thought. The only reason Rodgers wouldn't tell him about the extraction craft was in case they were captured. He didn't want the Russians to know. As if the mission itself weren't stimulating enough, the mystery sent another part of Squires's motivation into overdrive. The part that, like almost every male he had ever known, loved flashy, secretive, state-of the-art hardware.
"Charlie, this one isn't like North Korea," Rodgers said. There was more friend than general in his voice. Now that he'd had Squires's undivided attention while he laid out the specifics, he was ready to give him the overview. "We've reason to believe that elements in Russia are looking to rebuild the Soviet empire in a hurry. Though St. Petersburg is probably involved, you're the key to stopping them."
"I understand, sir," Squires said.
"The plan's as complete as we can make it given the little we know," Rodgers said, "though I expect we'll have updates as H-Hour nears. I'm sorry we can't do more for you."
"That's okay, sir," Squires said. "It isn't Tacitus or any of those guys you quote, but I told Private George when we left him in Helsinki that the cartoon character Super Chicken had a perfect observation for tough situations like these: 'You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.' We knew it, General, and we're still glad to be here."
Rodgers laughed. "I'm trusting the fate of the world to a man who quotes Saturday morning cartoons. But I'll make a deal with you. Come back in one piece, and I'll bring the popcorn to your house next Saturday morning."
"You're on," Squires said, signing off and collecting his thoughts before briefing the team.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Tuesday, 3:08 A.M., St. Petersburg
For just over an hour, Sergei Orlov had been asleep in the chair at his desk— elbows on the armrests, hands folded on his abdomen, head slightly to the left. Though his wife didn't believe he'd actually disciplined himself to be able to fall asleep anywhere, at any time, Orlov insisted that it wasn't a talent he'd been born with. He said that when he first became an astronaut, he trained himself to snatch sleep in half-hour segments amid the long hours of training. More remarkable than that, he said he found what he called his "rest bits" nearly as refreshing over the course of a day as his normal six hours of sleep a night. And there was the added benefit that, instead of his energy and attention span flagging as the day went on, they remained high.
He could never work like Rossky, who needed to stay with his problems until he had wrestled them to the ground. Even now, with his night counterpart on duty, the Colonel was still at his post in the heart of the Center.
Orlov also found that daunting problems always seemed to make more sense after a short nap. During his last space flight, a joint mission with Bulgaria— and the first three-cosmonaut flight since the crew of Soyuz II suffocated in their spacecraft— Orlov and his two comrades had tried to dock their Soyuz ship with the Salyut 6 space station. When engine failure left the ship and the station on a collision course, mission control ordered Orlov to fire his backup rocket to return to earth immediately. Instead, he fired a short burst to back a safe distance away, shut off his headset, and rested for fifteen minutes— to the dismay of his crew. Then he used the backup engine to effect the docking. Though there was no longer enough fuel in the backup rocket to return to earth, once inside the space station Orlov was able to troubleshoot the main engine, repair the faulty circuit, and salvage the mission and the self-respect of the mission team at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Later, back on earth, Orlov was told the on-board echocardiograph had showed that his cardiovascular activity slowed and remained down after his rest. Thereafter, cosmonaut training included "power naps," though they didn't seem to work as well for other cosmonauts as they did for Orlov.
He never slept to escape what was happening in his life, though when Orlov was finally able to shut his eyes at 1:45 A.M., it felt good to file away the concerns of t
he moment. He was awakened at 2:51 when his assistant, Nina, buzzed to tell him he had a call from the Ministry of Defense. When Orlov got on, Marshal of Communications General David Ergashev informed him about the troops moving into Ukraine and asked the new Operations Center for help monitoring European communiqués about their activities. Stunned by the news and wondering if this was just a high-level test of the Center's capabilities— why else wouldn't he have been told? — Orlov passed the order to Radio Officer Yuri Marev.
Through fiber-optic links with satellite dish stations outside of St. Petersburg, and through their own special lines in the city's own telephone center, the Operations Center was designed to monitor all electronic communications between the field and the Defense Ministry. It was also capable of monitoring all types of communications in and out of the office of the Chief Marshal of Artillery, the Chief Marshal of the Air Force, and the Admiral of the Fleet. The Center's job was to make sure those lines of communication were not being monitored by outsiders. It could also be used as a centralized clearinghouse to disseminate information among other government agencies.
Or they could simply listen in.
Before hanging up with Marev, Orlov asked him to tap into the data coming into the Ministry of Defense from General Kosigan and the Chief Marshals' offices. Marev's answer caught him off guard.