by Bart Gauvin
Medvedev smirked as he remembered the look of fear on Ivanenko’s face following the president’s teasing admonition. Keep alert for wolves on your journey, Pavel had said, they are as big as mastiffs from feeding on reindeer in these mountains, and they travel in packs. Oh yes, and they like to hunt at night. Of course, Medvedev knew Ivanenko would be perfectly safe. The same could not be said for the plan now in front of him.
Not that Boyar was unsatisfactory, Medvedev reflected sourly. It was excellent, brilliant even. Medvedev marveled at how Rosla had combined grand simplicity with elegant misdirection, the way it played to NATO’s preconceptions of how a war in Europe would unfold while directing the Soviet military’s blows against politically decisive weak points. Rosla, as he had hinted in their first meeting, proposed to shift much of the USSR’s efforts to the strategic flanks in a way that stood a good chance of decisively altering the calculus on the vital central front and even overturning the current world order in the USSR’s favor.
Unfortunately, Boyar possessed one glaring weakness. Surprise. Surprise must be complete if we are to have any chance of success. Given that Boyar was, like all Soviet war plans, predicated on an initial NATO act of aggression, in this case an interference in the goings on in Poland, strategic surprise was all but impossible.
It had been such a good week up until this point, the president mused, leaning back. He looked across the table, out the western windows of the expansive log construction dacha. The retreat was set on a ridgeline, giving views of other low, uninhabited, wooded ridges rippling away to the horizon. All these were dark now, the fading light of a long summer day wreathing the last summit in an orange halo.
Misha, his son, had accompanied him on this, his first vacation since ascending to the leadership of the faltering USSR. The young man brought along a friend, though not one of the female variety as his father would have liked. The other man was a Spetsnaz officer assigned to the group at Pskov. When the two boarded Medevedev’s aircraft, Pavel had the distinct impression that he’d met the man before. He experienced the electric feeling of being too near a wolf during a hunt. But even the man’s name, Ivan Ivanovich Khitrov, hadn’t sparked Pavel’s normally sharp memory, so he let the moment pass.
Upon arrival they linked up with their local Mongolian guides to prepare for the main event of their getaway, the wolf hunt. Pavel was the most experienced hunter in the group, at least as far as wolves were concerned. He’d taken up the sport as a young Party official helping to oversee the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railroad northeast of this presidential getaway in the 1970s. The future president kept the hobby to himself, not wanting to admit to such a bourgeois pastime, even in the less restrictive socialism of the post-Brezhnev era. Still, Pavel slipped away as often as he could to hone his skills against Siberia’s endemic predators during his yearly two weeks of paid vacation. And that Khitrov showed me up in just one morning, Medvedev thought, the memory souring his mood further.
The men had risen long before dawn on their first morning at the dacha. The guides led them, rifles in hand, along a winding footpath to a low ridge overlooking a long, sloping meadow surrounded by thick forest. There they waited for their predators-turned-prey in the chill, damp, pre-dawn darkness. As the eastern horizon started to brighten, the moaning howls of a dozen or more wolves rose from among the trees far up the valley. The Mongolian guide stood, cupped his hands to his mouth, and let out his own piercing howl, imitating the wolves. Medvedev, who had practiced his own wolf call over numerous hunting expeditions, stood up next to him, adding his own howl to their faux wolfpack. Misha, a veteran of several hunting trips with his father, also joined in, though his calls lacked the skill of the older men.
The three of them stood there on the ridge, howling into the dawn, the wolves up the valley answering them and drawing closer as the sky brightened. Pavel remembered having looked back at his son’s friend. Khitrov had admitted the previous night to never hunting wolves before, and now he watched the others’ wolfish antics with a bemused smirk. His predatory eyes briefly met Pavel’s good one, and then Khitrov turned and let out a howl so authentic that it nearly startled the others into silence. The hairs on the back of the president’s neck stood up as if there was a wolf right there among them.
The calls worked, and before long they were catching glimpses of gray pelts moving between the trees below, trotting up the valley. One huge, beautiful wolf, the best specimen that Pavel had ever seen, paused on a flat rock in the clearing just downslope from the party’s perch, a perfect shot. Medvedev, both as president and elder of their group, by default was granted the honor of the first shot. Sitting in the dacha now, Pavel cringed with the memory of what followed.
He had sighted down the scope of his hunting rifle. This was the point where he always struggled with his eye during a hunt; judging distance was difficult. He knew the shot would miss in the last millisecond before the firing pin struck the cartridge. It ricocheted off the rock. The report of the rifle startled the huge wolf and sent him fleeing as Pavel swore at his own clumsiness. Then, the supposedly novice hunter in their group, Khitrov, stood and with one smooth, efficient motion, brought his rifle up to his shoulder, sighted down his scope, and dropped the running wolf with a single, perfect shot, tumbling the animal end over end in mid-stride.
The gray pelt, even bigger up close than they’d realized, was now drying on a rack outside the dacha alongside the smaller ones taken during the following days by Pavel and Misha. A good week, Pavel thought again. They dined on reindeer venison, on huge pike fished from the nearby mountain lakes, on berries gathered for them by the families of their local guides. Medvedev allowed a smile to pass across his face as he reflected. A man could really disappear in these mountains, live off the land, not be troubled by the goings-on in the outside world.
The president’s eyes snapped open and he sat up with a start. Turning, he saw Khitrov standing just inside the doorway, looking at his president with that annoyingly bemused smirk.
“Is there something you need, Ivan Ivanovich,” Pavel asked gruffly, trying to mask his discomfort.
“No, thank you, tovarich President. I was simply coming in to find my smokes,” the other man said.
Khitrov walked over to a side table and picked up a pack, pulling out an unfiltered cigarette and resting it between his lips, allowing the paper cylinder to hang precariously. The younger man looked around and patted himself, then turned to Pavel and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have a light, would you, my President?”
Medvedev fished uncomfortably in his pocket before pulling out a silver lighter. Khitrov leaned over the table and Pavel obliged him. The younger man leaned back, taking a long drag on his cigarette before contentedly blowing a stream of smoke at the ceiling in a way that was oddly familiar. Medvedev, still seated, watched him.
“Was there something else, Ivan Ivanovich?” Medvedev asked impatiently. “I am very busy tonight.”
Khitrov looked down at the president, through the smoke, and seemed to ignore the pointed question. After a moment he spoke. “You don’t remember me, do you, sir?”
“Should I?” Pavel asked, on guard now. This man was familiar, and he apparently knew something Pavel did not.
Khitrov took another drag, then spoke again, the cigarette dangling precariously from his lips. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I am no one of importance, but then again, maybe I am not so unimportant after all.”
“What is your meaning, Ivan Ivanovich?” Medvedev asked, trying to keep his anger at the impertinence in check.
After a moment, Khitrov answered bemusedly, “I may be the reason that you are president today.” He paused, then asked, “You really don’t remember? I lost my dream job on the Alpha team for helping you.”
Medvedev looked closer, becoming increasingly annoyed. Then, suddenly, the memory came flooding back. The high-cheeked Slavic face, the wolfish eyes, the dangli
ng cigarette, the brash attitude. This is the Alpha team leader who led the assault on the White House two years ago!
Pavel’s blood chilled. Misha was sleeping off several vodkas in the other room. His bodyguard, Igor, was lounging in the front of the dacha, and the rest of his reduced security detail was otherwise engaged. Pavel was here with Khitrov, alone. Why is he here? What does he want?
Khitrov saw his president tense, and chuckled. Quickly raising his hands, palms forward in mock surrender, the Spetsnaz man said, “My President, you have nothing to fear from me. I am your man. I became your man when I killed all those people for you in Moscow.” He dropped his hands, pulled out a chair without asking permission, and sat. “Indeed, I admire you. You are someone who knows how to use violence. This is something I have studied for a long time. Not many people have the khrabrost to do it.”
“What is it you want, Ivan Ivanovich?” Medvedev repeated, but his tone was more even now. He realized that earlier, as Misha had been drinking vodka and Pavel had been sipping the same, Khitrov had not touched his own glass. What’s he playing at? Medvedev wondered.
Khitrov’s smile managed to convey very little warmth. He responded, “Only the opportunity to use my talents more effectively. My superiors in Alpha were…displeased…after I followed your orders at the White House. They relieved me, banished me to Pskov, that backwater. I am an educated man, my President. I have graduate degrees in psychology and political theory. I need an outlet for my education, my talents. My service to you left me hungry for more,” a pause as he drew on his cigarette, “more influential pursuits.”
“And what are your talents?” Medvedev asked warily.
“Political violence, of course.” Khitrov answered point blank. “I have studied this my whole life. My research at Leningrad State University was focused on this, and,” he raised a finger for emphasis, “I have some practical experience, in Afghanistan and in Moscow, as you know.” Khitrov smirked at his own little joke and took another pull of his cigarette. The tip flared.
“Ivan Ivanovich,” Medvedev said slowly, “while I appreciate the service that you did for me and for Russia in Moscow two years ago, I am not sure I understand where you think your talents would be useful.” Pavel was regaining his composure, trying to wrest back control of the conversation after his initial shock.
Khitrov leaned forward and indicated the folder in front of Medvedev with his chin. “What are these?” he asked.
“These,” Pavel responded coldly, putting his palm on the folio, “are marked Most Secret.”
“No matter,” said Khitrov, leaning back, feigning disinterest. “I know what they contain, more or less.” The man was confident, poised. “I can help you.”
“You know what these folders contain?” Medvedev responded, dangerously. “Were you listening in on my aide’s briefing, Ivan Ivanovich?”
“Of course not, my President,” answered Khitrov, as if the very idea were absurd. “Your security men hustled me out of the dacha, and did a good job of it too. No, I know what is in those folders because I know you, or at least of you. I have studied the world situation from your perspective.”
“Go on,” Pavel said. This should be good.
Khitrov took one last pull from his dying cigarette, then said, “You plan to invade Poland. You are worried that NATO will try to stop you. This worries you because if they do intervene, we may lose.” He blew out a thick cloud of smoke. “Am I close?”
Pavel was growing more annoyed by this man, but intrigued as well. “Perhaps,” he answered, “what else do you think you know?”
“I know that you have a plan to deal with NATO. Why else would a naval officer come all the way out here to brief you? I know from your mood right now that you know the plan will fail. And I know why.” The younger man was obviously enjoying this.
“Why will it fail, my young soldier?” asked Medvedev, keeping his tone as light as he could, humoring the young wolf.
“Because it is a military plan, my President, not a political one,” explained Khitrov. “We soldiers are very conventional, predictable. We think in terms of destroying the enemy’s equipment and formations, and we often forget about the political will that a nation must possess to actually prosecute a war to its conclusion.”
Medvedev decided to indulge the younger man a little further, if only because he was exhausted from poring through the reports before him and needed the distraction, and perhaps, This young man is getting at something interesting.
“Take me through your thinking,” the president ordered.
Khitrov nodded, then stood and retrieved a half-empty bottle of Russkaya Standard vodka from a side table along with two crystal tumblers. He returned, sat, and poured, making sure that Pavel’s tumbler was fuller than his own. Then he quashed his cigarette in an ashtray and began.
“Tovarich President, despite what the western media says about you, you are a man of your word, are you not?” he asked, but didn’t wait for a reply. “When you say you will not stand by while a united Germany remains a part of the NATO Alliance, you are serious. Yet, the western governments, the Americans, the British, the Germans, do not take you seriously. They posture and offer symbols of conciliation, but refuse to relent on this issue, even though our own Warsaw Treaty alliance is a skeleton of what it used to be. So, you keep our army in Czechoslovakia, and you support the dissidents in Poland.”
Pavel nodded.
Khitrov went on, “Well, how does the west respond? With ever more crippling economic attacks. They refuse to buy our goods, even the oil and gas that your interior minister is pulling out of the ground in Central Asia and Siberia as fast as the holes can be drilled. We possess perhaps the greatest energy reserves in the world, but without customers…” the young officer let the thought linger, like the remnants of smoke still wafting from his cigarette butt.
The Spetsnaz man was right. Petrochemical supplies in the Persian Gulf were now secure, and the energy being pumped out if the North Sea’s muddy depths, added to the reserves in Canada, left the United States and Europe feeling secure in snubbing the alternative Soviet supplies. Their intransigence was threatening to derail all of Drugov’s herculean efforts to make the Soviet Union a major energy exporter. One of those American senators even had the gall to suggest, on the floor of their senate chamber, that NATO close the Baltic approaches and Bosporus to all of our shipping until we withdrew unilaterally from Poland, Medvedev fumed silently.
Khitrov continued, “So, my President, you plan to invade Poland. If I am not mistaken, you plan to do so when they are celebrating their Catholic Christmas this December, no? Crafty of you and the marshal, but perhaps too crafty.”
Medvedev’s blood chilled and his anger flared at the same time. How has this man worked all this out on his own? Who does this major think he is, criticizing the defense minister? Khitrov continued to speak, clearly enjoying the conversation, so the president held his tongue, for the moment.
“The problem with this hypothetical plan of the marshal’s,” Khitrov spoke the word “hypothetical” with a raising of his eyebrows, overtly indicating that he knew the plan was anything but, “is that it misjudges NATO politically, and this dooms the plan militarily. If I am not mistaken, once we have established a government friendly to us in Poland, you intend to offer the west an exchange: withdrawal of our forces from Poland and Czechoslovakia for German withdrawal from NATO, assuming of course that this gambit does not result in broader war. Am I correct?”
Pavel said nothing.
Khitrov continued as if the older man had agreed, “My President, I am sure your foreign minister has hinted at the obvious. The United States and the other NATO governments will never assent to this exchange. Why should they? You intend to offer them two potentially neutral states for one that is already firmly in their camp. This is not an equal trade. What is more, no matter how sincere you may actually be for
peace, my President, the western leaders do not trust you. They don’t trust the USSR. They will not believe that you are offering a true deal.”
At this point Khitrov fished out another cigarette and placed it in his mouth without lighting it, speaking from the back of his throat around the unlit smoke in the manner that so annoyed Medvedev.
“What is more, I am sure your intelligence officials are telling you that the NATO militaries are becoming wise to your timing, yes?” Khitrov asked with a raised eyebrow. “Their Christmas holiday is too obvious. You cannot conceal the preparation of forces as large as ours, and if NATO is prepared for our move they will be far more likely to intervene”
In fact, Medvedev recalled, the foreign minister rated the chances of just such an outcome at fifty percent or greater. Captain Ivanenko had even mentioned how a source in the American dockyards had revealed that the US 2nd Fleet was altering the maintenance schedule for its carriers so as to have as many ships as possible available in December for operations in the Atlantic.
“Any competent officer must know that we cannot hope to decisively defeat NATO under these circumstances, without complete surprise,” Khitrov was saying, “not if the westerners are allowed to commence hostilities when they are fully ready. At least, not without resorting to atomic weapons…”
Medvedev cut the young officer off forcefully, “I will never assent to starting an atomic war. Do you understand?”
Khitrov leaned back, his hands up again in mock surrender. “Of course, of course, my President,” he said around his cigarette, “I of course agree. The game loses its fun when the explosions become too big.”
You view all this as a game? Medvedev thought as he contemplated his son’s friend. Still, this young wolf has just told me all the high points of the critiques that the KGB, GRU, and Foreign Ministry have offered of Boyar.