by Tom Clancy
The fires shrank to flamelets as the Mosquito knifed away through the cold skies.
"No," Sondra was saying over and over as strong hands reached down and grasped her shoulders.
"We've got to bring the ladder in"' lovino yelled back.
Newmeyer looked down at Sondra. "Come back in"' he cried over the howl of the wind. "Please!"
Sondra climbed into the helicopter, helped along by Newmeyer and Pupshaw. As soon as she was inside, Honda reeled in the ladder and the hatch slid shut.
His expression somewhere short of homicidal, Pupshaw used his first-aid kit to tend to Grey, then went over to the Russian. Except for Nikita's moans, the silence in the Mosquito was awful and absolute.
"He was right there," Sondra said at last. "Just a few more seconds, that's all I needed—"
"The pilot was giving them to you," Newmeyer said. "It was the explosion."
"No." she said. "I lost him."
"That's not true," said Newmeyer. "There was nothing you could have done."
She snapped, "I could have done what my guts told me to— shot the bastard he was trying to save! We made our flying weight," she said bitterly, then turned her glazed eyes toward the Russian. "And if it were up to me, we'd lose even more weight.". Then, as though repulsed by her own inhumanity, she said, "Oh, God, why?" and turned away.
Beside her, Newmeyer wept into the sleeve of his coat as Pupshaw bound Nikita's arm and leg as carefully and gently as his sorely tested charity would allow.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
Tuesday, 9:10 A.M., Washington, D.C.
Ishi Honda's voice was thick and slow and weighed on Rodgers from his soul out.
"Newmeyer and Sergeant Grey were rescued from the train," he said, choking, "along with a Russian officer. We we were not able to extract Lieutenant Colonel Squires. He remained—"
Honda stopped and Rodgers could hear him swallow.
"He remained on the train, which has been destroyed. Our mission has been accomplished."
Rodgers was unable to speak. His throat, his mouth, his arms were paralyzed. His spirit, accustomed to the suddenness with which battle could snatch away life, was still deadened by what he'd just heard.
Hood asked, "How is Sergeant Grey?"
"He took a bullet in the shoulder, sir," said Honda.
"And the Russian?"
"Hit in the thigh and grazed in the arm," Honda answered. "Because of the fuel situation, we can't put him down. He'll have to come with us to Hokkaido."
"Understood," Hood said. "We'll sort all that out with the Russian Embassy."
"Private," said Rodgers, his eyes damp, "tell the team that I gave them the impossible to do, and they did it. Tell them that."
"Yes, sir," said Honda. "Thank you, sir. I'll tell them. Over and out."
Hood shut the speaker and looked at Rodgers. "Is there anything I can do, Mike?"
After a moment, the General said, "Can you get them to give Charlie back and take me?"
Hood didn't answer. He just clasped Rodgers's wrist. The General didn't seem to feel it.
"He had a family," Rodgers said. "What do I have?"
"A responsibility," Hood replied softly but firmly. "You've got to hold yourself together so you can tell that family what happened and help them through this."
Rodgers turned toward Hood. "Yes," he said. "You're right."
"I'll call Liz," Hood said. "She can help. She'll also have Striker to deal with when they get back."
"Striker—" Rodgers started, choked. "I have to see to that. If they have a mission tomorrow, someone's got to be ready to lead it."
"Get Major Shooter to start the process," Hood said.
Rodgers shook his head and rose. "No, sir. That's my job. I'll have recommendations to discuss with you by this afternoon."
"Very good," Hood said.
Bob Herbert rolled in then, braking his wheelchair and swinging toward the men. He was grinning broadly. "Just got word from the Pentagon this second," he said. "They listened to the Russian aircraft as they flew over the target area. The pilots spotted the off-loaded Russians, saw the wrecked train, and didn't catch so much as a glimpse of the extraction craft." He clapped once, as though his hands were cymbals. "How's that for 'low observability'?"
Rodgers looked at him. Herbert's smile froze as their eyes met.
"We lost Charlie," the General said.
Herbert's smile fluttered, then crashed. "Oh, man— man," he said. Lines appeared in his forehead and his ruddy cheeks paled. "Not Charlie."
"Bob," said Hood, "we need you to help us tie this up with the Russians. One of their officers is on the extraction craft. We'd prefer if he could be snuck out of—"
"Paul, are you effin' crazy?" Herbert yelled. He rolled forward menacingly. "Give me a second to swallow this shit!"
"No," Rodgers said in a firm voice. "Paul is absolutely right. We're not finished yet. Lowell has to inform Congress about what's happened, Martha has to work her charms on the Russians, the President has to be briefed, and if the press finds out about this— as I'm sure they will— Ann will have to deal with them. We can mourn later. Right now, we've all got work to do."
Herbert looked from Rodgers to Hood. The red from his face had pooled over his collar. "Yeah, right." He turned his chair around. "Gotta keep the wheels of government spinning, with blood for oil. Nobody did much for me either when I got half blown up. Why should Charlie be any different?"
"Because this is what would have made him feel like he hadn't died for nothing," Rodgers shouted at Herbert's back. "We'll honor Charlie Squires, I promise you."
Herbert stopped and his head slumped forward. "Yeah, I know," he said without turning. "It just hurts like a bitch, you know?"
"I know," Rodgers said quietly as tears finally spilled from his eyes. "I surely do know that."
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Tuesday, 4:15 P.M., Moscow
Five minutes after the Pentagon intercepted the communication from the Russian jets to their base, Interior Minister Dogin received a call from Air Force General Dhaka's office.
"Mr. Minister," said the caller, "this is General Major Dragun. The intercept craft you requested found no sign of foreign aircraft. Only military and civilian passengers from the train."
"Then the team must still be down there," Dogin said.
"Moreover," Dragun persisted, "the General has asked me to inform you that a train you commandeered in Vladivostok has been spotted at the bottom of the Obernaya Gorge, east of Khabarovsk."
"In what condition?" Dogin asked, even though he knew the answer. Damn Orlov and his team, he knew.
Dragun replied, "The train has been destroyed, utterly."
Dogin's mouth opened as though he'd been punched. It was several moments before he could draw breath to speak. "Let me talk to the General," he croaked.
"Unfortunately," said Dragun, "General Dhaka is in a meeting with representatives of President Zhanin. It will be quite some time before they're finished. Would there be a message— Mr. Minister?"
Dogin shook his head slowly. "No, General Major. There will be no message."
"Very good," Dragun said. "Good afternoon, sir."
Dogin slashed the cradle with the side of his hand.
It's over, he thought, all of it. His plan, his dreams, his new Soviet Union. And when Shovich learned that his money had been lost, his life would be over as well.
Dogin lifted his hand. When he heard a dial tone, he buzzed his assistant and asked him to get Sergei Orlov on the phone.
Or will he avoid me too? Dogin wondered. Maybe the Soviet Union had returned, though not in the way he'd expected.
Orlov came on immediately. "I was about to phone you, Minister. There's been a shoot-out in the museum. Colonel Rossky is in very critical condition, and one of his operatives, Valya Saparov, has been slain."
"The perpetrator—?"
"An agent who came in via Helsinki," said Orlov. "She escaped into a crowd of striking worke
rs. The militia is looking for her now." He hesitated. "Do you know about the train, Minister?"
"I do," said Dogin. "Tell me, Sergei. Have you heard from your son?"
Orlov's voice was cosmonaut-professional. "There has been no communication with the people from the train. I know they were taken off— but I don't know about Nikita."
"I believe he's all right," Dogin said confidently. "There's been so much carnage, like in Stalingrad. Yet one or two flowers always survive."
"I hope you're fight," said Orlov.
Dogin took a deep breath, trembled letting it out. "I appear to be one of the casualties. I, General Kosigan, perhaps General Mavik— the ones who didn't stay to the rear. The only question is who will get to us first, the government, Shovich, or the Colombians who gave the money to him."
"If you go to Zhanin, you can request protection."
"Against Shovich?" Dogin snickered. "In a country where one hundred American dollars can buy an assassin? No, Sergei. My fortunes burned with the train. It's ironic, though. I hated the gangster and everything he stood for."
"Then why, Minister, did you ever get involved with him? Why did so many people have to suffer?"
"I don't know," Dogin replied. "Honestly, I don't. General Kosigan convinced me we could move him aside later, and I wanted to believe that— though I never did, I suppose." His eyes ranged over the old maps on his walls. "I wanted this so very much to bring back what we've lost. To return to the time when the Soviet Union acted and other nations reacted, when our science and culture and military might was the envy of the world. I suppose, in retrospect, this was not the way to do it."
"Minister Dogin," said Orlov, "it could not have been done. Had you built this new union, it would have fallen. When I returned to the space center in Kazakhstan last month, I saw the bird droppings and feathers on the staircases, and the boosters covered with plastic that was covered with dust. And I ached for a return to the past as well, to the era of Gagarin and the time when our space shuttles, the Burans, were going to allow us to colonize space. We cannot prevent evolution and extinction, Minister. And once it has occurred, we cannot reverse it."
"Perhaps," said Dogin. "But it is in our nature to fight. When a man is dying, you do not ask if a treatment is too expensive or too dangerous. You do what you feel must be done. Only when the patient has died, and reason has replaced emotion, do you see how impossible the task was." He smiled. "And yet, Sergei— yet I must admit that for a time I thought I was going to succeed."
"If not for the Americans—"
"No," said Dogin, "not the Americans. It was just one American, an FBI agent in Tokyo who fired at the jet and forced us to transfer the money. Think of it, Sergei. It's humbling to think that one unassuming soul changed the world where the mighty failed."
Dogin was breathing easier now. He felt oddly at peace as he reached to the right and opened his top desk drawer.
"I hope you will stay on at the Center, Sergei. Russia needs people like you. And your son, when you see him— don't be too rough with him. We wanted to recapture what we once had and he wanted to see it for the first time, outside the history books. Though the methods may have been questionable, there was no shame in the dream."
Replacing the receiver, Dogin looked at the map of the Soviet Union in 1945, and continued to look at it through clear eyes as he put the barrel of the Makarov against his temple and pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Tuesday, 4:22 P.M., St. Petersburg
It seemed strange to General Orlov that the three men who had had such key roles in the day's events— Dogin, Paul Hood, and himself— had conducted their business from desks, had not seen daylight since the crisis began.
Devils in the dark we are, conducting the affairs of men
There was only one thing Orlov had to do, and he couldn't do it, not yet. Having called General Dhaka's office to request news of his son and the rest of Nikita's command, all he could do was sit and think and wait.
He let his body sink back into the chair, his arms on the rests, hands hanging over the front and seeming to weigh so very much. Orlov had been forced to fight his own countrymen, all of whom loved Russia in their own way, and now the tragedy of what had happened, and his part in it, began to weigh on him.
He bent his head toward his watch, promptly forgot what time it was. Why hasn't anyone called? he wondered. Surely the pilots had been able to ascertain how many soldiers were on the ground.
The beep of the phone startled him, like the hiss of a coiled snake. But it brought him to life and he grabbed the receiver before the first beep had died.
"Yes?" His temple was beating against the earpiece.
His secretary said, "There's a video call for you."
"Send it," Orlov said urgently.
Orlov's eyes were on the monitor as Paul Hood's face came on. The American took a moment to ascertain that it was Orlov he was looking at.
"General," Hood said, "your son is all right."
Orlov's jaw trembled for a moment, then he smiled with relief "Thank you. Thank you very much."
"He's in the extraction craft," Hood continued, "and we'll arrange for his safe return as soon as possible. That may take a day or two, since he was wounded slightly in the arm and leg."
"But he's all right— in no danger."
"We're taking good care of him," said Hood.
Orlov slumped forward slightly, his body relaxing with the good news. But there was something in the American's eyes, a hollowness in his voice, that suggested something else was wrong.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" Orlov asked.
"Yes," said Hood, "there is. I want you to tell your son something."
Orlov rose attentively on his elbows.
"Your son did his best to resist extraction. I'm sure he thought it was his duty to go down with the ship, or perhaps it was a point of honor not to leave on an enemy craft. But in so doing, he caused the death of my team commander."
"I'm deeply sorry," Orlov said. "Is there anything I can do to—"
"General," Hood interrupted, "I'm not selling guilt or asking for anything. We'll reclaim the remains through diplomatic channels. But my second-in-command was very close to the team leader, and he wanted you to relay something to your son."
"Of course," said Orlov.
"He says that in the Russian folktale 'Sadko,' the Czar of the Sea tells the hero that any warrior can take lives, but a truly great warrior struggles to spare them. Make sure your son understands that. Help him to be a great warrior."
"I've not had great success convincing my son of anything," Orlov said, "but I give you my word, great warriors will grow from the seeds that have been sown here."
Orlov thanked Hood again, and then the General signed off and thought in respectful silence about the nameless, faceless man but for whom his own life and the life of his wife would now be a shambles.
And then he got up from his desk and took his hat from the rack and went outside. Except for the dwindling crowd of protesting workers, the day looked exactly like it had when he arrived, and he was startled to realize that exactly twenty-four hours had passed since he'd arrived for the showdown with Rossky.
Twenty-four hours since the world nearly changed.
And twenty-four hours since he had hugged his wife.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
Tuesday, 10:00 P.M., Helsinki
It was easy for Peggy to get out of the Hermitage.
When the shots were fired on the staircase, rumors erupted among the striking workers that the Army was coming and the gathering was going to be broken up. The crowd quickly began to disperse, then rejoined almost as fast, like mercury, when police began to rush inside and leaders realized that the gunplay had nothing to do with them. The mass of workers then sloshed toward the Hermitage, clogging the main entrance where there were no longer any guards, walking and tripping inside, causing panic among tourists trying to get out, and drawing the guards bac
k again. They used nightsticks and rigid forearms, hands pressed knuckle-to-knuckle, to protect the art and drive the strikers back.
Peggy left as a panicked tourist.
The day was growing dark, and once outside Peggy made her way to the Nevsky Metro stop. It was crowded with rush-hour commuters, but the trains came every two minutes and, paying her five kopeks, she was able to leave shortly after arriving. From there, it was a short run across the Neva to the Finland Station, which made stops in Razliv, Repino, Vyborg, and Finland.
Private George was already there, sitting on a wooden bench in the waiting room, reading an English-language newspaper, a plastic bag of souvenirs at his side. She watched him after showing her visa and passport at the ticket window and purchasing passage to Helsinki. He would read for a minute, look up and around for a few seconds, then read again.
Once, he looked up for several seconds longer than usual. Not at her, but she was certainly in his range of vision. Afterwards, he got up and walked away with his newspaper and postcards and Hermitage snow globe and other mementoes. That was to let her know he had seen her and wouldn't be watching anymore. Once he was gone, Peggy walked over to the central kiosk and bought English and Russian newspapers of her own, several magazines, and sat down to await the midnight departure of the train.
Security was no tighter than usual at the train station, events in Moscow and Ukraine obviously consuming the resources and attention of the rank-and-file militia. Peggy boarded the train without incident after presenting her credentials and leave papers at the gate.
The train was a modern one, brightly lit with faux-plush seats in the coach which were narrow but soft, to make unsophisticated travelers think they're riding in high style. Though Peggy couldn't stand the ambience here or among the crushed red and yellow velvets of the lounge car, neither her aesthetic disapproval nor the pressure of the last few hours showed on her relaxed features. Only when she was in the airplane-style rest room, checking her clothes and flesh for spots of the dead woman's blood, did she allow herself a moment of release.