by Jeff Edwards
Conspiracy buffs had long conjectured that the bunker contained enough food, water, and bottled air to last three years. In reality, the size of the facility limited the provision stockpiles to months, not years. Despite the claims of the supermarket tabloids, there were no secret preparations to keep the president, his family, friends, and cabinet members alive for decades following the nuclear annihilation of the American people. In the event of a full scale nuclear attack, it was hoped that the bunker and similar emergency preparations would keep the president alive long enough to coordinate retaliatory strikes and the last ditch defense of the country. But if America died—the president, his family, and all of his friends and political allies—died right along with it.
When President Chandler walked through the heavy blast doors, he bypassed the entrance to the operations room, detouring to his emergency sleeping quarters for just long enough to throw on some clothes. He chose simply: khaki trousers, a pullover shirt embroidered with the University of Iowa logo, and loafers. He didn’t want to waste time on a suit and tie, but neither was he willing to preside over an emerging nuclear crisis in his bathrobe and slippers. He dressed quickly, and was sliding into his chair at the head of the conference table within two minutes.
A tall dark-haired woman in a white U.S. Navy uniform came to attention until he was well seated. “Good morning, Mr. President. I’m Commander Kathryn Giamatti, the Deputy Situation Room Watch Officer. Lieutenant Colonel Briggs is engaged in a secure conference call with the Secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury, and Homeland Security, so I’ll be handling your initial briefing, sir.”
The president nodded. “Thank you, Commander. Has the national security advisor been notified?”
The commander nodded. “Affirmative, sir. Mr. Brenthoven is on his way to the White House. We’re expecting him any time now.”
“Correction,” said a voice from the other side of the room. “Mr. Brenthoven has arrived.”
National Security Advisor Gregory Brenthoven stood in the doorway. His suit was rumpled and there were dark circles under his eyes, but his gaze was focused and alert. He nodded toward the president. “Good morning, sir. Sorry I’m late. I was in Foggy Bottom when I got the call.”
“No problem, Greg,” the president said. “Are you planning to take over this briefing?”
“Not unless you want me to, sir,” Brenthoven said. “I got the basics over secure phone during the drive in, but I’m sure the commander here is more up to speed than I am. With your permission, Mr. President, I’d rather sit in and maybe ask a few questions.”
“Of course,” the president said. “Pull up a chair.”
The national security advisor did so, retrieving a small leather-bound notebook from the inside breast pocket of his jacket.
The president turned back to Commander Giamatti. “Proceed.”
The commander pointed a remote toward a large flat screen display built into the wall opposite the president’s chair. The Presidential Seal appeared, set against a blue background. “Sir, this will be a preliminary briefing. With your approval, we’d like to schedule a full meeting of the National Security Council for nine AM.”
The president nodded.
Commander Giamatti thumbed a button on the remote, and the Presidential Seal was replaced on the screen by a map of southeastern Siberia and the Kamchatka peninsula. Another click of the remote, and a window popped up, displaying a fairly high-resolution satellite image of a city.
“About two hours ago,” the commander said, “major fighting broke out in the Kamchatkan capital city of Petropavlovsk. Our most current satellite imagery of Petropavlovsk is more than ten hours old, well before the apparent onset of hostilities, and we don’t have any airborne surveillance assets in position for an immediate look. One of our destroyers, USS Albert D. Kaplan, is equipped with Sea Shrike unmanned reconnaissance drones, but they’ll have to violate Russian airspace to get close enough to see anything. The Air Force has already initiated orbital burns on two surveillance satellites to maneuver their footprints to cover Kamchatka. For the moment, we’re relying on HUMINT reports, and feedback from the Russian government. And frankly, Mr. President, there’s not a lot of either at the moment.”
HUMINT was the military acronym for Human Intelligence: information gathered and reported by people, rather than surveillance hardware.
“Understood,” the president said impatiently. “We can’t see anything; we don’t know anything, and we’re reduced to reading tea leaves and staring at the entrails of goats. I’ve got that. But somebody woke up half the government for a reason. I’d like to know what the damned tea leaves say.”
Commander Giamatti’s cheeks reddened. “Yes, sir.” She swallowed before continuing. “Mr. President, we have indications that the Russian military is ramping up to an advanced state of combat readiness. Intelligence sources in Moscow and Vladivostok confirm that Russian nuclear forces have been ordered to an increased alert status. Analysis of Russian Command and Control message traffic is consistent with a rapid escalation of nuclear and conventional readiness. We haven’t seen this level of activity since the worst days of the Cold War. Almost half of the Russian Pacific Fleet is putting out to sea.”
“Why half?” the president asked.
The commander paused. “Pardon me, sir?”
“Why half?” the president asked again. “If the Russians are gearing up as heavily as we think they are, why are they only putting half of their Pacific Fleet to sea?”
Brenthoven looked up from his notebook. “That’s probably the best they can manage, Mr. President. The Russian Federal Navy is in bad shape. I’ll be surprised if they actually manage to get half their units to sea in any sort of realistic fighting condition.”
The president waved a hand. “Continue.”
“Initial indications from Petropavlovsk suggest that the fighting there is military in nature, rather than insurgent,” Commander Giamatti said. “A rough assessment of the scale indicates major combat operations. There’s some fighting scattered through the city itself, but most of the activity appears to be concentrated in the vicinity of Rybachiy naval station.”
President Chandler pursed his lips. “I haven’t memorized the name of every Russian military base, but we’re sitting in the bunker, the Russians are peeing their pants, and the National Military Command Center wants to initiate Continuity-of-Government protocols. So I’m assuming that this Rybachiy naval station is home to part of the Russian nuclear arsenal.”
“Yes, sir,” the commander said. She thumbed her remote again, and a pop-up window appeared on the screen to the left of the Kamchatka peninsula. Inside the new window was a grainy black and white photo of a naval base. Three submarines were moored to battered concrete piers.
The president realized that he’d seen this exact same slide just a couple of days earlier, during the briefing about that Russian courier who claimed to be the middleman in some back-channel deal between the Chinese military and … the president frowned … the Governor of Kamchatka.
“Rybachiy naval station, at Petropavlovsk, is the home port for the Russian Pacific Fleet’s ballistic missile submarines,” Commander Giamatti said. “According to the most recent threat assessments, at least three Delta III class nuclear ballistic missile submarines are based at Rybachiy. Each Delta III submarine carries sixteen Russian R-29R missiles …”
“Also known by the NATO designation of SS-N-18 Stingray,” the president said. “And each missile is armed with three nuclear warheads, for a total of 48 nuclear warheads per submarine.”
The commander nodded. “You’re up on your Russian missile subs, Mr. President.”
“Not really,” the president said. “But I got some of this during an intelligence brief a couple of days ago.” He frowned. “Tell me, Commander, is the Chinese military involved in this somehow?”
The naval officer looked puzzled. “Mr. President, how did you …”
“The intelligence brief I mentioned.
I’m just playing connect-the-dots.”
“We do have uncorroborated reports from Petropavlovsk, suggesting that Chinese soldiers—or military personnel who appear to be Asian—are present in large numbers, and appear to be heavily engaged in the fighting.”
“Is this the HUMINT you spoke of?”
“Part of it, sir,” the commander said. “But the source is unofficial and unconfirmed. A twenty-two year-old American college student on an ecotourism vacation to Kamchatka. Her name is Janeane Whitaker. She claims she’s been hiding in an attic above a café since the militia, the local police, began rounding up all visitors and foreigners about twelve hours ago.”
Brenthoven paused in his note-taking and looked up at the commander. “Why did it take us twelve hours to find out about this?”
“Ms. Whitaker’s mobile phone is apparently not compatible with the cellular networks in Russia. Her only means of communication is a notebook computer or a tablet; we’re not sure which. She tapped into the café’s wireless internet signal and began firing off emails. She’s an ordinary citizen, without any particular connections in the military or government, so she didn’t have any fast-track method of communicating with anyone in positions of authority. She ended up sending emails to the ‘Contact Us’ links on every government website she could think of. The White House, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the Pentagon.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very efficient process,” the president said.
“It’s not, Mr. President,” the national security advisor said. “Every agency in the government receives thousands of crackpot emails every day. I know who shot JFK; my neighbor is running a secret al-Qaeda training camp in his basement, and brain-sucking aliens have taken over the local television studio. Don’t get me wrong, sir. There are some useful suggestions buried in all of that junk, and occasionally even some bona fide intelligence tips, but it’s not easy to separate the wheat from the chaff. An uncorroborated email from a foreign internet café about secret police activity in Kamchatka? Frankly, it’s a miracle that anybody followed up on it at all.”
“They didn’t at first,” Commander Giamatti said. “Until the Russian military went into overdrive.”
“Do we still have contact with this woman? Janeane Whitaker?” the president asked.
“Uh … No sir. She reached her daily spending limit.”
“Her what?”
“Her daily spending limit,” the commander said. “The wireless internet provider charges by the minute, and apparently Ms. Whitaker’s credit card has a low daily spending limit. They cut her off and we lost contact.”
The president stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t believe this. We have a multi-billion-dollar intelligence apparatus and the one person in the entire world who can tell us what’s going on has maxed out her credit card?” He turned to his national security advisor. “Can’t we do something about this? Every agency in the government has at least a few thousand dollars of discretionary funds. Can’t someone get on the phone to the bank and deposit some money into this woman’s account?”
Brenthoven sighed. “The State Department has people working on that right now, sir. Ms. Whitaker’s bank is based out of California, and it doesn’t offer twenty-four hour customer service. State is on the phone to California, waking people up. It’s after midnight out there.”
The president looked down at the table and shook his head. “If we weren’t sitting on the brink of a nuclear emergency, this might actually be funny. Can we just forget about Kamchatka, and launch some missiles at the damned bank?”
The door opened, and an Air Force lieutenant colonel walked in, carrying a white folder bordered with red diagonal stripes. He moved quickly to the national security advisor, whispered into his ear and handed him the red and white folder.
Brenthoven opened the folder and scanned the document inside as the Air Force officer quietly made his report. After a few seconds, Brenthoven looked up. “Mr. President, we have updated satellite imagery of Petropavlovsk. One of the Delta III nuclear missile submarines has gotten underway, and is currently unlocated. As far as we can determine, it’s carrying a full loadout of nuclear ballistic missiles.”
“Jesus Christ,” the president said.
The Air Force Officer faced the president and came to attention. “Sir, I’m Lieutenant Colonel Briggs, the Situation Room Watch Officer. I’ve just been on the phone to the Joint Chiefs. The National Military Command Center is still waiting for permission to initiate Continuity-of-Government protocols, and CINCNORAD is recommending DEFCON 2.” The lieutenant colonel paused and took a breath. “Mr. President, the Joint Chiefs concur with CINCNORAD’s recommendation. They are also recommending DEFCON 2, sir.”
President Chandler felt his stomach tighten. DEFCON 2, or Defensive Readiness Condition 2, was the highest level nuclear alert for American military forces. The United States hadn’t been to DEFCON 2 since the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world had come within days—perhaps hours—of World War III. The only higher readiness level was DEFCON 1, full preparation to launch nuclear war.
He frowned. “No. From what we can see, the Russians are already jumpy as hell over this. If we hike up our own nuclear alert levels, we’re only going to make them more nervous than they already are. And the spookier they get, the more likely they are to do something stupid. We don’t have enough information to justify that sort of risk.”
He looked at his national security advisor. “The Russians have definitely got themselves a problem, but I don’t see any reason to believe that it involves us. For all we know, that submarine put out to sea to safeguard its missiles, to keep them out of the wrong hands. No one has shown me any evidence that the intentions of that sub are hostile to the U.S.”
“Mr. President,” the Air Force officer said, “with all due respect, anything that affects the stability of the Russian nuclear arsenal involves us. That submarine has enough firepower to incinerate every major city in the western United States.”
The president shook his head. “We’re over reacting. We can’t let things move this fast.”
“I understand your caution, sir,” the lieutenant colonel said. “And I understand that I’m just a light colonel and you’re the Commander-in-Chief. But I’ve been doing this all my life, sir. If this escalates into a nuclear engagement, it’s all going to happen fast. Nuclear warfare follows a completely different timeline than conventional war, Mr. President. Our reaction window won’t be measured in weeks, or even hours. We’ll have minutes. And if we get caught with our pants down, we won’t have any time at all.”
The president nodded gravely. “I understand, Colonel. I’ll keep that in mind.”
He turned to his national security advisor. “This is what that courier was talking about. We were briefed about him a couple of days ago, remember? The Russian bagman who staggered into our embassy in Manila, bleeding to death from five or six bullet wounds. Gregorovitch? Is that his name?”
Brenthoven laid the folder on the table. “Grigoriev, sir. Oleg Yurievich Grigoriev.”
The president nodded. “That’s the guy. He was claiming to have information about a deal between the governor of Kamchatka and the Chinese Politburo. Something about trading Russian nuclear missile technology for Chinese military intervention.”
The president looked at the screen. The black and white photo of the Russian submarine base stood out next to the map of Kamchatka. “I didn’t put much stock in Mr. Grigoriev’s claims at the time, but it looks like he might have the inside track on this. Let’s see if we can find out what that gentleman has to tell us.”
“We’ve been trying, sir,” Brenthoven said. “We’ve got agents by Mr. Grigoriev’s bedside around the clock, but he’s in pretty bad shape. His doctors don’t know when he’ll be stable enough to talk to us.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t take too long,” the president said. “We may not have a lot of time.”
CHAPTER 16
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WHITE HOUSE
ROOSEVELT ROOM
WASHINGTON, DC
WEDNESDAY; 27 FEBRUARY
9:37 AM EST
National Security Advisor Gregory Brenthoven opened a door, and ushered the tall Russian man into the Roosevelt Room. A pair of tucked-leather Kittinger armchairs had been drawn up near the fireplace at the center of the curved east wall. The chairs created a small and informal meeting area, away from the long conference table.
Brenthoven nodded toward the chair on the right. “Please, Mr. Ambassador, make yourself comfortable.”
“Thank you,” Ambassador Aleksandr Vladimirovich Kolesnik said. His English was only slightly accented. He sat in the offered chair, and ran a long-fingered hand through his thick white hair.
Brenthoven took the other chair. Before he could begin with the traditional diplomatic pleasantries, the Russian Ambassador cut directly to the point of the meeting.
“My government thanks you for your generous offer,” Kolesnik said. “But we do not require military assistance at the present time.”
The national security advisor watched the man for several seconds without speaking. In appearance, Kolesnik was as far removed from the stereotypical Russian bear as it was possible to be. He was thin and fastidious, with deep-set eyes and a triangular face that made his bushy white eyebrows look as though they belonged to someone else.
Brenthoven thought about allowing the pause in conversation to stretch a few seconds longer. In matters of diplomatic exchange, Ambassador Kolesnik was not comfortable with silence, a trait that could sometimes be taken advantage of. But now was not the time for gamesmanship. The Russians were already climbing the walls; there was nothing to be gained by intentionally putting their senior diplomat on the defensive. Better to get to the hard part quickly, and hope that open discussion could somehow allow them to work past more than a half-century of mutual distrust.