by Bart Gauvin
Jack looked up. The assistant editor, was standing at his desk. “Bill wants to know where your story is, Jack,” she said in her nasally New York accent. “You’re ten minutes late.”
Jack decided to deflect with charm. He smiled at her and pointed to the screen of his word processor. “It’s right here Jane, just giving it the final look-over now. Tell Bill he won’t even need to look this one over.”
“I won’t be telling him that,” Jane said. She wasn’t known for her sense of humor, especially when up against the daily deadline.
“Five minutes,” Jack assured her. “I’ll have a hard copy, and one on disk, if you want it.”
“Just get me the hard copy,” she responded, walking away. He watched her plod heavily on to another reporter across the newsroom who, Jack saw, was furiously pecking on an old typewriter. He turned his attention back to the second part of his article.
Despite the dramatic lowering of tensions in Europe, some Defense Department officials have noted that Soviet involvement around the globe has seen a dramatic uptick in the past several months. Renewed arms shipments to Nicaragua and Cuba drew sharp criticism from the White House just before the November midterms. Defense officials say that the USSR has made dramatic diplomatic and economic inroads into many other parts of the world in recent months, including Libya, India, Vietnam, and Africa, re-establishing a global Soviet presence that had all but disappeared two years ago. The Soviets appear to be pursuing a covert strategy of destabilization reminiscent of the darkest days of the Brezhnev era. Perhaps this is an attempt to replicate the frozen conflicts now embroiling Poland and Yugoslavia as a way to counter American influence. The Soviet government officially denies any connection to leftist uprisings cropping up in the Third World of late, saying only that they respect the rights of people who seek to throw off the yoke of authoritarian governments supported by the US and Europe.
The consensus appears to be that the Soviet exercises last month were a bluff, and that destabilizing activities around the world are a sign of weakness, a desperate and unsustainable attempt at remaining globally relevant. Many in Washington expect that major concessions on Poland might be forthcoming over the coming months as the Soviets attempt to get out from under the weight of economic sanctions. For now, Europe and the world appear to have avoided a war that seemed very possible just last month.
It could use more artistry, Jack thought, as he waited for the word processor to noisily print his copy. It was the sort of mundane page filler that took up much of the space in any daily paper, despite his own paper’s claim to contain “all the news that’s fit to print.” What he needed was to get back out in the field, someplace where he could be reporting real news again, rather than providing variations on months-old stories. Jack enjoyed the drama of investigation, the pull of real stories with real import. The printer stopped and Jack stood and grabbed the sheet, walking towards Bill’s office.
As he neared the frosted glass enclosure that demarcated the editor’s domain, Jack saw his friend Jonathan Blackwell exiting the office. Jonathan worked at the sports desk, and he wore a grin on his face that made Jack stop to see what good fortune had just befallen the sportswriter.
“What’s up Jon?” asked Jack. “You look like you think the Giants have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting past the ’Niners this year.” Jack was a Jets fan himself, and never missed an opportunity to razz the cross-town team.
“Oh yeah?” said Blackwell, “well we might at that. I guarantee we’ll beat the Vikings in the first round, and hey,” his grin grew broader, “at least we made the playoffs. How’d your Jets make out this year?”
Jack made a show of cringing. “Be nice, my friend. I’ll remember that when you’re singing a different tune in February. You look to lose Phil Simms and Lawrence Taylor in the off season.”
“True enough,” said Blackwell, “but that’s Future Jon’s problem. I’m focused on the here and now, that, buddy, is the first round of the playoffs against Minnesota this weekend.”
“Seriously,” Jack probed, “what’s going on? You don’t usually walk out of Bill’s office looking like you won the lottery.”
“Well,” the sports writer said, “this time I did. Win the lottery, so to speak. Bill’s putting up the money to send me to cover the Winter Olympics next month. I’m headed to Lillehammer!”
“Norway!” Jack exclaimed. “Gonna be cold this time of year, or so they tell me. Have fun brother! Great opportunity.”
“Thanks, Jack,” Blackwell said, walking away.
Jack walked into Bill’s office and delivered his article. He was saved from the usual scolding by another reporter who rushed in just behind him with a piece that Jack could tell right off the bat was going to need some major revising. Jack took advantage of the diversion to make his escape.
As he walked back to his desk he thought about Blackwell heading to Norway in a few weeks. Jack enjoyed the excitement of covering the drama of human conflict in the world’s hotspots, but part of him yearned for an assignment where he could cover the best of humanity rather than the worst, someplace where nothing bad ever seemed to happen.
PART V: MOVEMENT TO CONTACT
“There are only two stories: a man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town.”
—Leo Tolstoy
CHAPTER 21
1615 EST, Sunday 9 January 1994
2115 Zulu
Brighton Beach Avenue, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
THE STRANGER STEPPED off the heated subway and into a cold wind on the open-air elevated platform. The sign on the station’s siding read “Brighton Beach” in white letters upon a black background. Odd, thought the man, elevating the metro line above the street like this. Cars and busses were passing noisily on the boulevard below, pedestrian traffic bustled on the sidewalk.
Overall, the man was rather unimpressed with his experience of the New York City subway system. These Americans apparently took no pride in their public transportation. Certainly not as much pride as his country put into its own city trains. Where he came from every Metro stop was a unique work of art, almost a cathedral. Here the metro was crowded, dirty, ugly, and certainly inefficient. At one connecting station he had been forced to wait fifteen minutes for a train. This had made the last leg of his long journey, crossing from Newark to Manhattan and then to Brooklyn, very frustrating.
Shouldering a small backpack, the athletic, upper-middle-aged foreigner took the stairs and descended to street level. Glancing left and right, he checked to see if anyone was paying him any untoward attention. No one was. The sights at ground level, in contrast to the elevated subway platform, were jarring in their familiarity, given all the places he had visited on his trek so far. Damascus, Johannesburg, Paris, Singapore, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Newark. Each place had smelled, looked, and tasted very different, but none reminded him so much of his point of origin as this place did now. Looking up and down the boulevard he saw more signs in Cyrillic lettering than he did in English. No wonder they call this place “Little Odessa,” he thought, before remembering that the area was beginning to earn a new nickname: “Little Russia.”
The Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn had decades ago become a destination for Ukrainian Jews fleeing pogroms in the Soviet Union. They congregated here, forming an ethnic community, just as so many other immigrant groups coming to the United States had done. Such communities provided familiarity to the first-generation immigrants while allowing access to the broader culture of the great city to the new arrival’s children. It was this second generation who would inevitably identify more with their new home than with the old country. When the Soviet Union was teetering in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, a new surge of immigrants flooded into the neighborhood, this time it was mostly ethnic Russians rather than Ukrainian Jews. With the rise of Medvedev after the August 1991 coup, another, smaller su
rge had arrived, mostly political outcasts no longer welcome in the resurgent USSR, along with a few others. It was one of these “few others” that the he sought now.
He’d memorized the name of his destination before departing, wanting no written proof that might compromise him if some security official became suspicious. His precautions had been unnecessary. The US Customs official at Los Angeles International Airport, which Mr. Taylor made sure he referred to as “LAX,” had barely looked at him before she stamped his passport, smiled, and said, “Welcome to America, Mr. Taylor. Always fun to see Australians come through here.” Of course, Taylor was not his name, nor was he Australian, but she would never know that. Once past that pathetic obstacle, internal border security had been non-existent, in stark contrast to the Soviet Union where citizens needed a pass just to travel from one city to another. He was a veteran traveler to America, but he still marveled at the anarchic idea that any person could cross any state boundary in this country, even board an airplane, without any sort of papers.
Spying a sign in the distance that indicated his destination, hewalked towards it. The modest restaurant was decorated tastelessly with politically-themed Matrioshka stacking dolls and imitation Samovars. Draping his coat over a chair, he sat at a flimsy table and picked up a menu. No one else was in the establishment at present. After a few moments a middle-aged man with a day’s growth of beard and a dirty apron covering a protruding gut came out and asked brusquely for his order.
Mr. Taylor spoke the memorized phrase slowly in Russian, enunciating every word, “How is the Borscht today? Your uncle Vladimir tells me that no one but he makes it better.”
The man’s eyes narrowed, but without missing a beat he responded with equally clear enunciation, “Sadly we are all out of the Borscht. Perhaps you would enjoy the Pirozhki instead? They are my Uncle Vladimir’s favorite.”
“Yes, that sounds nice,” responded Taylor, completing the challenge and response, “with tea, please.”
The cook relaxed visibly and sat down across the table before leaning in conspiratorially.
“Are we secure here?” Taylor, whose real name was Vasily Volkhov, asked calmly in Russian.
The aproned man nodded his head. “Da, I swept the whole place just last night. No listening devices, no visitors. I am sure their security forces don’t suspect me. We’re safe.”
The man in the apron had been living here, managing this pathetic excuse for a restaurant, for over a year now. If he is compromised, the Volkhov thought, then the whole operation is blown.
“The others?” he asked.
“They are all here. I’ve moved them to safe houses in the neighborhoods specified in my instruction. So many! Can you tell me what is going on?” asked the cook in wonderment.
Taylor, or rather Volkhov, did know what was going on. He was actually the only person in this city, in the world in fact, other than the man who had personally selected him for this mission, who knew in full what he and those who had preceded him were here to do. His response was deadpan. “I would prefer you did not ask such questions.”
“Of course, of course,” the aproned man nodded jerkily. “It is just, well, there are so many! I can’t imagine—”
“Then don’t.” his tone was icy as he cut the restauranteur off. He let the silence hang for a few moments to be sure that this expatriate understood that no further questions would be entertained. “There will be several shipments arriving over the coming days. I’ll be relying on you for secure places to store them. I will also require several vehicles when the time comes. Trucks. You received the funds?”
The cook nodded that he had.
“Good.” Taylor’s tone softened. “You will have the details of exactly what we require when you need to know. In the meantime, a visit to each of the safe houses is in order, I have briefings to deliver to the teams. There are also several points around the city to see in the coming days. Do you have a room for me?”
“Of course,” the aproned man responded.
Mr. Taylor paused. Travels ended, he was beginning to feel the effects of the journey. His mind told him he needed to sleep, but his body was telling him that it was, what? Morning? Afternoon?
“The ocean is near, is it not?” he asked.
“Yes of course, just that way,” the man answered, pointing behind him.
“Let’s take a walk.”
Both men retrieved their jackets and, after the owner called to someone in the back to tend the place, they exited the front of the restaurant. Walking down Brighton 4th Street towards the beach, they passed between low-income apartments that reminded the man masquerading as Taylor of the buildings in his own city. They emerged onto the boardwalk, lined with benches that were presently covered with dirty snow. Beyond the benches he could see the water, small waves lapping up onto a sandy beach, an icy breeze blowing off the sound. Not as cold as back home, he thought turning up his collar, but cold enough. To his right, down the Strand was Coney Island, the amusement park’s rides and Ferris wheel idle for the winter season. It looked almost post-apocalyptic in the stillness of winter, bright colors dulled by the gray sky.
Looking back out to sea, across what the Americans called the Lower Bay, he could make out the low shape of the Sandy Hook peninsula. There, on that sand spit, at the mouth of the expansive New York harbor, was an American Coast Guard station built on the site of an old coastal defense artillery fort. Fort Hancock, the Russian remembered after a moment. The layout of the facility had been much more important to him than its name.
The Russian shifted his gaze to take in the whole Lower Bay. It is all going to begin right here, he thought. Of course, his mission briefing had not said so explicitly, but he was an intelligent man, and it did not take a genius to figure out the import of the missions he was to oversee here. Volkhov knew nothing of other such missions elsewhere in the world, or even elsewhere in this country, but could not imagine that his was the only one. That can only mean one thing. The war will start with a dagger thrust to the heart of this powerful country. The thought pleased him. He turned abruptly on his heel and began walking back to the restaurant, the restaurant owner scrambling to catch up. There was work to do, but first, rest. The “go” order must come soon. All the pieces are coming together.
CHAPTER 22
0855 EST, Monday 31 January 1994
1355 Zulu
US 2nd Fleet Headquarters, Building W-5, Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, USA
COLONEL ROB BUCKNER walked through the front door of the 2nd Fleet headquarters building five minutes before the start of work. He was nursing a hangover, compliments of the big game the night before. Or maybe it was because I finally dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s on the retirement paperwork, he reflected, patting the tactical knapsack he used as his daily briefcase. Regardless, Super Bowl XXVIII or not, retirement or not, Buckner prided himself on his timeliness and the quality of his work. That won’t change once I drop this paperwork off with the personnel section, he promised himself.
Rob passed by the Marine guard just inside the doorway, flashing his identification card as he did so, then navigated his way through the narrow corridors until he arrived at the operations staff section’s bank of offices and cubicles. As he passed by the open door of the N3’s office he heard Admiral Johnson rumble, “Rob, how ’bout that game last night?”
Buckner stopped, stuck his head through the door and said, “Wasn’t much of game in the second half, sir. Those Bills can’t seem to catch a break.”
Love of American football was something he and the N3 shared, to the benefit of their working relationship.
“Definitely not against my ‘boys,’” crowed Johnson in his deep Mississippi drawl. “That running back Emmitt Smith was magnificent.” The 2nd Fleet N3 was a fan of the now back-to-back NFL champion Dallas Cowboys.
“Don’t remind me,” said Rob in mock disgust
. The Cowboys had defeated his beloved Green Bay Packers in the second round of the playoffs this year on their way to the title.
“Why the long face, Colonel?” teased the admiral. “There’s always next year.”
“There is at that sir,” Rob said, still fighting back the dull pain in his head but enjoying the light banter with his boss. “That new quarterback of ours, Favre, he’s our ticket to the big game. Give him a couple years and we’ll be there.”
Johnson pointed at Rob and winked. “Mississippi boy, he is,” the admiral reminded the Wisconsin-born Marine.
Rob nodded good-naturedly, letting his chief bask in his team’s big win for a moment. Then he asked, “Any priorities for me this week, sir?”
Johnson leaned back in his chair and said, “Just Enterprise sailing at the end of the week. She’ll be getting back in tomorrow from a three-day cruise. Then it’s a quick turnaround and out again for ten days off Puerto Rico. After that we’ll bring her back in, get her outfitted, and send her on up north for a few weeks.”
“Any amphib business you need me to handle, sir?” asked Buckner.
“Not this time, Rob. Things are pretty quiet,” answered Johnson. “There hasn’t been a peep from the Russians in weeks. You just keep working on setting up that joint exercise with those paratroopers from Ft. Bragg.”
“Roger, sir,” Buckner said as he headed to his cubicle in the cramped office suite to begin his last several weeks in the service of his country, massaging his temples as he tried to dispel the dull thumping in his forehead.
CHAPTER 23
1005 EST, Friday 4 February 1994
1505 Zulu
USS Enterprise, one hundred miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina