Black Ghosts

by Victor Ostrovsky

  “So they have the array working?”

  “Yes, it’s a long story, but they’re on the way here and we have a lot of work to do.”

  “When you say ‘they,’ do you mean the convoy I just passed on the way here?”

  “Wait,” Sokolov said, and he called in the Ukrainian officers. “They are almost here,” he said to them.

  “We’re all with you,” said Major Ostinov. “All our men have volunteered.”

  “I want you to know we really don’t stand much of a chance,” Sokolov said. “What we might gain is maybe a few minutes.”

  “We are free people,” said the major. “Believe me, that is a good feeling, worth dying for. We choose to fight.”

  They got as much information as Sparky had about what was heading their way, and the major left the office to get his men ready to take their stand. It was then that Peter’s tanks first opened fire.

  CG Command Bunker, outside Moscow

  13:40 hours

  Edward stared as if hypnotized by the digits that were counting down the minutes and seconds on the monitor. You did not have to be a rocket scientist, he thought grimly, to know what they signified. In thirty-four minutes and nine seconds, the missiles would be launched. And once that happened, there was not much anyone could do to halt the destruction of America. It was possible to retaliate but not to stop something that was already on its way. “Come on,” he said aloud, “what’s keeping you?”

  Major Mirsk’s wound had been patched up, stopping the flow of blood. He now sat next to Edward at the computer console, watched over by Vanya, who seemed to enjoy pointing an assault rifle at a former member of the KGB. The gleam in his eye said he would enjoy it even more if the prisoner gave him the slightest excuse to open fire.

  The telephone rang and Edward grabbed it.

  “Sokolov?” he said. “Finally! All set?” Then he handed the phone to Vanya.

  Vanya reeled off the names and locations of the Black Ghosts’ forces around Moscow. Then he handed back the phone.

  “Is Sparky there?” said Edward. “Put him on.”

  For several minutes there was furious activity in the control room, as Sparky asked questions and gave instructions. Edward answered and obeyed when he could, otherwise Sparky’s request would be translated by Vanya, for Mirsk to answer.

  Finally, everything was set. This is it, thought Edward, it’s now or never. He looked again at the white digits of the countdown.

  The Kremlin, Moscow

  14:00 hours

  Around the Kremlin walls the battle raged. Plumes of smoke rose from the inner yards as bullets spattered off the thick walls the czars had built, which gradually gave way to the constant barrage of exploding shells fired at almost point-blank range by the sea of tanks moving from side to side like giant fire-spitting turtles. The Council of Ministers Building was ablaze. The earth shook as mortar shells exploded between the tanks. Every so often a soldier of the Ukrainian unit would come out from behind a smoldering vehicle and run under fire for a better position. Then he would fire a single antitank missile at the oncoming, seemingly endless waves of T-72s, blowing off one of the low turrets, turning the killer turtle into a burning, exploding heap of scrap iron. Another tank that followed would get the soldier in its sights and blow him and whatever he was hiding behind to smithereens. But gradually there were more and more of the smoldering heaps that used to be tanks, and the Ukrainians kept popping up. Rogov’s infantrymen were also running into trouble from the snipers who were picking them off from every direction. The Savior Tower was on fire, sending flames high into the air.

  Around the corner, in the lee of the Tsar’s Tower, Peter sat in his truck, protected from the heat of the battle by heavy armor plating and the Kremlin walls. He was confident that within a matter of minutes his troops would have secured the Kremlin and he would be able to make a triumphant entry. He could feel the blood pounding in his veins. This was his great moment. The defenders of the Kremlin only made his victory taste better. There is nothing as sweet as a military victory against a brave foe, and whoever they were, they were brave. But in and around Moscow, Peter had as many brigades as he could want. He had tanks, armored troop carriers, and more tanks. Nothing could stop him.

  Abruptly the monitor in the truck lit up, and a hiss of static came over the audio system. Peter stared incomprehensibly at the screen. “What the hell is this?” he shouted at the technician seated by the console. Then a bald, plump-faced man appeared on the screen. He seemed nervous, looking to the side as if he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. Peter leaned closer to the screen. He wanted to hear what the man who couldn’t be was saying.

  “We are expecting an announcement,” the red face said. He paused and someone handed him a note. He read from the note. “There will shortly be an address to the people of Russia by General Peter Rogov, the leader of the CG.”

  “How can this be?” Peter roared. This unscheduled broadcast was going out over the array! That fool Mirsk. Somehow, the man had allowed himself to be tricked.

  Peter leaned out the window and shouted an order at the soldier whose head stuck out the top hatch of an armored car. The car ground into motion, heading for the breach in the wall, followed by Peter’s truck. He had to get to a phone line and stop this madness.

  Inside the wall, a narrow track ran from the breach by the Savior Tower along the back wall of the Supreme Soviet Building. At the far corner of the building stood one of Peter’s tanks, its cannon pointing across the square. There was a crunch of thunder as the cannon fired.

  The armored car edged along the track, with the truck close behind. A burst of machine-gun fire from the trees opposite strafed the vehicles. An armor-piercing bullet managed to make it in. Some of the equipment in the back of the truck was damaged, but no one was injured. About halfway along, Peter called a halt. In the wall of the Supreme Soviet Building there was a back door, now level with and protected by the dark green bulk of the armored car.

  “Open the door,” yelled Peter. There was more fire from the trees, quickly silenced by a return volley from the armored car escorting the truck. The first soldier out of the truck had been hit and fell painfully to his knees. The tank fired again, there was more fire from the armored car, and a second soldier began to disembark.

  Across the square, two Ukrainian soldiers were preparing to launch an RPG. The rockets had so far proved highly effective: Scores of tanks were destroyed. The disadvantage of the RPG is that the user needs to expose himself to his target for a short time. But that disadvantage was undermined by the bravery of the Ukrainian soldiers, who kept popping up like poison mushrooms after the rain. Nevertheless, numerous tanks remained, including one positioned at the corner of the Supreme Soviet Building.

  A soldier held the launcher on his shoulder, setting the tank’s center in his sights. The tank commander saw him and frantically tried to turn the turret so he could blow the man away. In the meantime, he opened the top hatch and started to fire the Gurianov machine gun, raising clouds of dust around the soldier, who didn’t move. The bullets hit the wall behind him. Finally the cannon was on target. Each fired at the same time and neither was around to witness the destruction of the other.

  The loss of the tank was the least of Peter’s worries. In the back of the truck the one television screen that was still functional lit up again. Peter was enraged to see the face of Sokolov appearing and his voice saying, “To all divisions of the Black Ghosts, this is your commander, General Peter Rogov, speaking.”

  “Impostor!” yelled Peter, beside himself with fury. Then he stuck his head out the armored truck window. “Move! Get that bloody door open, now, now!”

  The second soldier reached the door and, attaching a small explosive pack near the lock, blew it off its hinges. Peter jumped out of the truck and, huddled between the technician and two more soldiers from the armored car, rushed inside the building.

  They were met with a burst of fire from a group of sold
iers at the far end of the corridor. While his men returned the fire, Peter opened a door at random. There was a staircase. Without hesitating, Peter ran up the stairs and into the first floor corridor. There was no one in sight here, but there were also no other doors. Peter ran to the end of the corridor and peeped around the corner, where he saw two soldiers standing guard outside an ornate double door.

  Peter recognized the place. He knew they were guarding President Konyigin.

  The president, seated on a large sofa, wished he had a drink. Everything had been going so well—the Elite Guard in position, the Americans’ plane just coming in to land. Then the television screen had unaccountably gone blank. Worse still, Gregorin’s mobile phone had stopped working, cutting them off from all but a handful of the Presidential Guard. There had been shouted orders and hurried movements of soldiers in the square below. In Red Square, visible across the Kremlin walls from the upper floors of the Supreme Soviet Building, heavily armed troops had appeared. Then the shooting had started. Something was obviously very wrong.

  Konyigin seethed with impotent anger. He felt like an innocent bystander, watching but not directly involved in the battle going on all around him. But he knew that whatever happened, it would involve him soon enough.

  He drew some comfort from the presence of Gregorin, his security chief. Solid, reliable Gregorin—he would not let anything happen to his president, would he?

  Outside in the corridor, Peter again peeped around the corner at the two soldiers standing guard. He was alone again. Deep inside, he had always known he would have to do things himself. The men guarding the president should have been his men, and the president should have been dead by now. Peter couldn’t trust anyone. He would have to finish the job himself. He drew his pistol. Then, walking tall, he stepped into the corridor. The two soldiers stared at the general in his glorious uniform, with stripes and ribbons and rows of medals. They froze, just long enough for him to fire twice from the hip.

  That was all it took. The two guards crumpled in a heap. Peter was at the door in a second. Pistol in hand, he opened it and walked inside.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said.

  CHAPTER 38

  CG Command Bunker, outside Moscow

  14:10 hours

  Even though he could not understand the language the man on the screen was speaking, Edward knew what was being said. The tone of voice was calm, reassuring, serene. Not only that, Edward had told Sokolov exactly what to say only a few minutes earlier.

  “I repeat, this is General Peter Rogov, commanderin-chief of the Black Ghosts. Blaze Alpha Alpha Two Five Five Nine Peter. In the best interests of Russia, our glorious motherland, I hereby issue the following decree: Suspend all hostilities. Return to your barracks. We have won our victory. All hostilities will cease immediately.

  “To Svirt, nine nine four gamma nine. Stop countdown, return clock to zero, now. All orders to launch ICBMs are rescinded. There will be no nuclear strike. I repeat, suspend all hostilities, return to your barracks . . .”

  So far, the link that Sparky had patched through from the mobile television van in the Kremlin, via phone line to the array in the bunker, was performing flawlessly. Observing the monitor in the bunker’s control room, Edward could see and hear Sokolov as clearly as if the man were sitting opposite him. The same signal was being broadcast throughout Russia, to every radio and television that was switched on. Now Edward could only hope that whoever controlled the missile in the silo visible on the other monitor was also watching Sokolov’s broadcast.

  The countdown was still running. It had reached one minute and eight seconds.

  As Sokolov’s voice continued, Edward’s eyes were on the white digits. Thirty seconds, twenty-nine, twenty-eight . . . and then, twenty-eight. Twenty-eight! The countdown was halted with twenty-eight seconds left. On screen, the curved dome of the missile silo could be seen moving slowly into the closed position. Edward started breathing again.

  The Kremlin, Moscow

  14:15 hours

  The news came through by phone. A jubilant Edward told Sparky that disaster had been averted: The missile countdown had been halted. Sparky gave the signal and Sokolov wound up his broadcast. Once he was off the air, the colonel took the phone out of Sparky’s hands.

  “We did it!” Edward could barely contain his joy.

  “Not quite,” said Sokolov, and Edward could hear the explosions in the background. “We’ve still got a battle going on here.”

  “What is the signal for stopping hostilities?”

  “The general said that in the battle we would stop fighting only when the other side was dead or waved the white flag of surrender.”

  “Well, what the hell are you waiting for? We’ll blow up the array here, and you wave the bloody white flag.”

  “Good idea.” Edward could hear Sokolov shouting orders in Russian. “They’re putting a flag up now. Let’s hope it works.”

  “Get the Russian president on the air,” said Edward. “Have him tell the people that everything’s under control.”

  “We’ll do it over the regular broadcasting system, the moment you disable the array.”

  The battle for the Kremlin had lessened in fury but was not yet over. The Ukrainians had performed superbly, and despite heavy casualties, they had been able to contain the Black Ghosts’ onslaught. But Peter’s infantrymen were still active and several tanks were still operational.

  Soon after the white flag went up, the fighting ceased. Sokolov, still wearing the general’s coat he had used for the television broadcast, walked into the inner courtyard. He had the Ukrainian officers with him as he approached the commander of the armored column that they had been battling.

  “We have won,” he said to the colonel who had stepped down from the rear of a T-72 tank to greet him. The colonel saluted smartly. “What now, general?”

  “Assemble your men at the Askanskia Stadium. Clear the Kremlin, the fighting is over. Russia is in our hands.” Sokolov knew he had to be convincing. Now with the array about to go off-line, if the Black Ghosts’ soldiers suspected anything it would be very easy for them to reassemble. He had to get them out of the way until he could be sure the general was taken care of. And he had no idea where Rogov might be.

  Nor did anyone know where the Russian president was. All Sokolov knew was that he was under guard in an upstairs room of the Supreme Soviet Building. Accompanied by a half dozen men, Sokolov went looking for him.

  Of all the Kremlin buildings, the Supreme Soviet had been the worst hit in the battle. The west wing was almost entirely destroyed, and smoke was rising from several of the broken windows of the east wing. Only the central block was fairly free of damage.

  They made straight for the room where the president was last seen. The bodies of the two guards outside were not a good sign. The ornate doors were hanging open. Two of Sokolov’s men went in first, guns ready. Sokolov followed. Inside, Gregorin lay dead, the victim of Peter’s first bullet. Two other personnel of the presidential bodyguard were wounded, one seriously. Peter himself was sitting in a chair, his eyes wide open, the back of his head missing. President Konyigin was weeping softly.

  Domodedovo Airport, Moscow

  15:00 hours

  “We have raised Domodedovo control tower,” the pilot said over the internal speakers in Air Force One. President Bradshawe breathed a sigh of relief, even though they were still in the air.

  For the last three hours they had been in a holding pattern above Moscow, circling round and round, cut off from the ground by a complete failure of radio transmission, not knowing whether or when it would be safe for them to land. Fenton, wanting to cut away and leave the area, was locked in an ongoing argument with the president.

  “I’m not turning tail,” Bradshawe said. “We stay until we start running out of fuel. And then—and only then—will we divert to another airport.”

  “But sir, what’s the point? For all we know, there might not be a Russia down the
re, and surely not the one we were coming to visit.”

  “We will leave when we know, and that’s that.”

  Now, at last, radio communication had been reestablished and they had been given permission to land at Domodedovo Airport. Fenton managed to open a channel to his people on the ground, who gave him the full picture. They had already been contacted by the Russian president, who wanted to talk to President Bradshawe. They were going to set up the link, then they would decide what to do. An endless stream of calls were coming in from the White House, where the vice president was about to be sworn in.

  “What the hell is going on?” asked Bradshawe. “They all think we were killed? What are they talking about?”

  On the ground, the media crews were in a state of utter confusion. Having seen with their own eyes the destruction of Air Force One a few hours earlier, they had now been told the president’s plane would be landing shortly.

  To insure that no red tape would trip up the valiant soldiers of the Ukrainian army, Sokolov had informed President Konyigin that the authorization to protect him came directly from the Ukrainian president. When Konyigin called the Ukrainian president and informed him of the heroism of his men, he was surprised, to say the least. But having the big Russian brother in his debt was not something he was going to argue about. He would worry about what had really happened later; for now, he decided to make the most of this unexpected Russian goodwill.

  “I would be honored if you and the American president would be our guests here in Kiev. We will also request authorization to sign the treaty and join in your heroic effort for world peace and democracy.” So it was settled.