Fortunes of War

23

Other Tokyo bombers took off first, three Mig-25’s, one after another. The four Sukhoi escorts, with Yan Chernov in the lead, took the runway as the last Mig lifted off. Chernov and his wingman made a section takeoff, Chernov on the left. Safely airborne, Chernov turned slightly left so that he could look back over his shoulder. Yes, the other two Sukhois were lifting off. In less than a minute, the four fighters were together and climbing to catch the three Migs, which were climbing on course as a flight of three aircraft, spread over a quarter of a mile of sky. The Tateyama strike was scheduled to follow ten minutes behind. Alas, this whole evolution hinged on successfully rendezvousing with tankers at three places along this route. The tankers had been launched from bases farther to the east hours ago. Or so a Moscow general said, after much shouting into a telephone. A coordinated strike, precision rendezvous, over a dozen aircraft moving in planned ways over thousands of miles of sky — the Russians hadn’t even attempted exercises this complicated in years. If the tankers weren’t at the rendezvous points, if the equipment in the tankers didn’t work, if the tankers or strike planes had mechanical problems, if a tanker pilot screwed up, if the Japanese attacked with Zeros — any of these likely eventualities would prevent the bombers from reaching Japan. The Moscow general with the chest cabbage didn’t want to talk of these things. The morning was cool, but the day was going to be hot. Already clouds were forming over mountain peaks and ridges and drifting over the valleys, portending rain. Here and there a cumulonimbus was growing in the thermals, threatening to develop into an afternoon thunderstorm. All these clouds were below the fighters, which were cruising at forty thousand feet. The oxygen tasted rubbery this morning. Yan Chernov sucked on it, glanced at his cockpit altitude gauge, and tried to rearrange his bottom on the ejection seat to get more comfortable. As briefed, Chernov split his flight of four planes into two sections. He stationed himself and his wingman three miles ahead and to the right of the strike formation, and the other section in a similar position on the left side. He looked at his watch. An hour and a half to the first tanker rendezvous. The major sat listening to the electronic countermeasures equipment and watching the clouds in the lower atmosphere. There were dust storms down there, opaque areas that hid the land. Amazing how good the view was from this altitude. God must see the earth like this, he thought.

After a careful scrutiny of their credentials, the car bearing Stolypin and Ilin was allowed to cross the small bridge at the main entrance of the Kremlin and discharge its passengers. The two men then entered a nearby room to be strip-searched. First, each man emptied the contents of his pockets into a plastic bin: watch, money, keys, credentials, everything. Other security officers began examining the attache cases they carried. They disrobed in separate cubicles in full view of two of Kalugin’s loyal ones, who then scrutinized their naked bodies. They stood naked in the cubicles while their clothes were examined under a fluoroscope, a device much like the machines used in airports to examine hand baggage. The security men fluoroscoped every item of clothing, including shoes, belts, and ties. When they brought his clothes back, Ilin put them on. Then he left the cubicle and went to a table where an officer was playing with his keys and glasses. The officer, who was about forty and fat, examined the comb, looked at the pictures in the wallet, then turned the wallet inside out and ran it through the fluoroscope again. The examination was as thorough as Ilin had ever witnessed. Another officer handed back his money, keys, and watch, then sat looking at the FIS identity card and pass. He ran the ID cards through a black light, ensured they were genuine, then scrutinized both cards under a magnifying glass before passing them back.

Ilin had brought two pens with him that evening, one a ballpoint and the other an American fountain pen. The fat officer sat there pushing on the button of the ballpoint, running the point in and out, clict, clict, clict, as he passed each of Ilin’s cigarettes through the fluoroscope. When he finished with the cigarettes, he put them back in a tin cigarette case bearing the KGB insignia and laid it on the table. He made a few marks on a scratch pad with the ballpoint, then laid it down and picked up the fountain pen. He uncapped it and scrawled a bit, looked at it under a magnifying glass, then put the cap back on and placed it beside the ballpoint. Ilin had been wearing two rings, one with the old KGB insignia engraved on an opal, the other a plain gold wedding ring that had belonged to his grandfather. He normally wore the wedding ring on his right hand since he wasn’t married. The KGB ring fascinated the security guard. Of course he studied it under the fluoroscope. Then he began picking at the stone with a penknife, trying to get it out of the setting. “You are going to destroy my ring?” Ilin asked, his temper showing a little. He motioned to the supervisor. “This officer is trying to destroy my ring.”

“He is just doing his job.”

“You pay him to pry stones out of settings?”

“Let me see the ring.” The supervisor pulled out a magnifying glass and studied the stone under it. “If you want, I can leave it with you and pick it up when I leave,” Ilin suggested. The supervisor passed the ring to him and put the glass away. Meanwhile, the security officer at the table tackled Ilin’s cigarette lighter, a crude souvenir bearing a Nazi swastika. He ran a fingertip over the swastika and looked at Ilin with an eyebrow raised. “My father’s,” Ilin said. “He killed the German officer who owned it.”

The guard flipped the lighter several times: A flame appeared. He then took it completely apart. He removed the cotton packing, examined the wick and the wheel, then put the thing back together. Finally he shoved the pile across the table for Ilin to pick up. He didn’t say anything, just sat there staring at Ilin as he pocketed his items and adjusted his tie. The marshal took a bit more time getting dressed. When he came out of his cubicle, the officer in there followed along and watched him pocket his personal items and put his watch back on his wrist. None of the security officers said a word. When the marshal was dressed, he picked up his attache case and looked at Ilin. “This way,” one of the guards said. They had a long hike — across several courtyards and up two flights of stairs, then down several long, long hallways filled with paintings of long-forgotten eighteenth- and nineteenth-century noblemen. Finally, they entered Kalugin’s reception area. Two plainclothesmen frisked them again while a male secretary watched. Only then were they shown into Kalugin’s office. One of the security men closed the door behind them and stood inside, his back against the door. Aleksandr Kalugin raised his gaze from the paperwork lying on his desk. “Ah, Marshal Stolypin. Janos Ilin. I have been waiting for you.”

The first Russian tanker rendezvous went off like clockwork, which shocked Chernov a little. One by one, the Migs queued up on the tanker and got a full load of fuel, then made room for the Sukhois. Even though the Mig pilots hadn’t flown two flights in the previous six months, they hung in proper position as if they practiced every day. There were three tankers: one for the Tokyo strike, one for the Tateyama strike ten minutes behind, and one spare. The Tateyama strike team showed up as the Tokyo strike team departed the rendezvous racetrack on course. The strike teams were passing a hundred miles north of the American base at Chita. From here to the next rendezvous, they were within range of the Zeros at Khabarovsk. Chernov turned up the sensitivity of his ECM. When they had walked out to their planes two hours before, one of the pilots asked another, “How is it going to feel to bomb Tokyo?”

Chernov overheard the question, but he didn’t hear the reply. The real question, Chernov mused now, was how each of them was going to live with the knowledge that he had helped slaughter millions of people. Ten million? Twenty? Thirty?

Thirty million human beings was certainly within the realm of possibility, he decided. Perhaps more. What in hell were those fools in Moscow thinking?

Was Siberia worth that much blood?

He shook his head wearily. He was a soldier. It was shameful to think these thought, treasonous thoughts. He adjusted his oxygen mask and checked his engine instruments and the fuel remaining and the position of his wingman, Malokov, or something like that. Chernov had never flown with him before. He was a new man, from a squadron near Moscow. The whisper was that the idiot had volunteered for this mission. Maybe he wanted a medal, a promotion, recognition, his picture in the newspapers as a hero of the Russian Republic. Or was he filled with hatred for the treacherous archenemy, Japan? One of the civilians from Moscow had addressed the pilots, and that is the way he’d referred to the Japanese. Chernov craned his head and searched the high sky until he had located all three of the Mig-25’s, lying out there like fish in an invisible sea. Sharks. His mother — what would she have said about all this?

Maybe Malokov felt like Chernov. Maybe he was just tired of living and wanted to die.

“Come in, gentlemen, come in.” Aleksandr Kalugin gestured toward the seats in front of the desk. He picked up a sheet of paper. “What is this, Marshal? A resignation?”

“Mr. President, I think it is time for someone else to serve as chief of staff.”

Kalugin sat back in his chair, hitched up his trousers. “Stolypin, you have served your country well. You are building us an army, one we need. There is a war on. You cannot be spared.” He said all of this as the guard watched from his post at the door. The man stood with his arms folded across his chest. “I disagree completely with your decision to escalate this conflict. The Japanese may have nuclear weapons and they might use them on Russia. That is a risk we cannot take.”

“Your objections have been noted. Yet I decide what risks we shall run. I am the man responsible.”

“This is no small matter, Mr. President. I feel that I must resign. You need soldiers who, even if they disagree, can support your government’s policies. I can’t.”

“Marshal Stolypin, the Japanese do not have nuclear weapons. I do not know who whispered this false information to you”—he held up his hand—“and it is no matter. Nuclear weapons are my concern.”

“Sir, I disagree most vehemently.”

“Your resignation letter says you have been in the army since you were seventeen years old. Fifty-four years.”

Stolypin nodded. “Everyone in uniform obeys the orders of their superiors, including the chief of staff. You know that. I don’t care about your support. You have expressed your opinion, I have decided the issue, and now you will obey and soldier on. You will serve on until I release you from your obligation.”

Kalugin seized a pen and wrote across the letter, “Denied. Kalugin.”

Then he passed it across to the marshal. “National policy is mine,” Kalugin said, his face devoid of expression. “We cannot wait six months to fight the Japanese on even terms. Nor can we give up a piece of our country. The Japanese must be violently expelled. They must shed their blood. Nowst “The Russian people are united as they haven’t been since World War Two. This is our opportunity to weld these desperate, hopeless people into a nation. If we fail to seize this opportunity, we may never get another. One powerful, united nation, with the dissenters silenced at last — we owe this duty to Mother Russia.”

Kalugin sneered. “On the telephone minutes ago, the American president threatened an economic and political boycott, “total political isolation,” he said, if Russia uses nuclear weapons on the Japanese aggressors.” Kalugin shook his head balefully. “The man doesn’t understand that the very life of Russia is at stake. This is our moment.”

Stolypin took a deep breath, then exhaled. He glanced at Ilin, who had been paying strict attention to Kalugin. Ilin half-turned to see what the door guard thought of all this. The man was still standing with his arms crossed. His eyes met Ilin’s. Stolypin muttered something inaudible. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at his hands and face. “What did you say?” Kalugin asked. “I think you are wrong, Mr. President,” Stolypin said flatly. “However, I took an oath many years ago. I will obey.”

Kalugin decided to be satisfied with that. His gaze shifted to Ilin. “Why are you here?”

“Mr. President, I came with Marshal Stolypin,” Janos Ilin said, “to share some critical intelligence with you. As you know, the Americans are aware of your plans to use nuclear weapons. The Japanese also. A spy told them.”

Kalugin blinked several times, like an owl. Or a lizard.

Ilin drew his chair closer and leaned forward. “I believe this traitor is on your staff.”

“Who is it?”

“The Japanese call him Agent Ju, or Agent Ten. He has been giving the Japanese information for years. Now he is passing secrets to the Americans.”

Kalugin almost snarled. “Can you find this man?”

“We are looking, Mr. President. I came today to warn you.”

“I suspected it,” Kalugin shot back. “But we will root him out. You are to cooperate with my loyal ones. Give them everything they ask for.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We must reinstitute political background checks. Find out what people believe, what they are saying privately. We must know who is reliable and who isn’t. I see no other way. Your agency will be tasked with much of this new mission, just as it was in the old days. The modern reforms didn’t work.” Kalugin crossed his hands on the desk. “A lot of people did not believe in the new ways. This will be a popular move.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have your director arrange an appointment with me for tomorrow. We will not waste time on this.”

Kalugin leaned back in his chair and levered himself erect. “Gentlemen, I wish to thank you for your devotion to your nation, and to me.” He came around the table and stood before them. “I embody our country now. I am Russia, its spirit and its soul. I shall guard her well. That is my sacred trust.”

Ilin was on the president’s right side, and as Kalugin stepped for the door, he kept pace. The moment came as the guard turned and reached for the knob. For just a few seconds, his back was turned.

Janos Ilin had the fountain pen in his hand. He thrust it a few inches from Kalugin’s mouth and pushed in hard on the refill lever. A cool, clear spray shot from a pinhole just under the nib of the pen.

Startled, Kalugin inhaled audibly. “What— was he demanded loudly.

Then his heart stopped. As he fell forward, Ilin caught him, lowered him to the floor.

Ilin dropped to his knees beside the president. He felt his carotid artery. “My God, his heart has stopped! He’s had a heart attack!”

To the guard, he said, “Quick, call the medics! The president has had a heart attack!”

As the guard rushed from the room, Ilin squirted another charge from the pen into Kalugin’s mouth just to be sure. The pen then went into his pocket. He pulled off Kalugin’s tie, ripped open his coat and shirt, and began cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

He was pumping hard on the dead man’s heart when the medical team rushed in thirty seconds later. Ilin had already cracked some ribs; he felt them go.

The white-coated professionals quickly checked the president’s vital signs as five loyal ones gathered around. A medic jabbed a needle straight through Kalugin’s chest into his heart and pushed the plunger in. Then they zapped him with the paddles. The body twitched. Again with the paddles. Nothing.

Janos Ilin blotted the perspiration from his brow with the sleeve of his suit jacket. Marshal Stolypin stood watching the medics with a thoughtful expression.

Three of Kalugin’s lieutenants were hovering. One asked the guard, “What did you see?”

“He had a heart attack. That man caught him as he collapsed. It was a heart attack. I never took my eyes off him.”

At length, the medics decided the case was hopeless. They packed their gear and left the room. Kalugin was still lying on the floor, his shirt and coat wadded up on the floor beside him. The guard was nowhere in sight. The loyal ones followed the medics. The last one glanced at Ilin and Stolypin, shrugged, then hurried after the others.

Stolypin picked up the telephone and placed a call. It took several minutes to get through to the person he wanted. Meanwhile, Ilin closed Kalugin’s eyes and draped the dead man’s suit jacket over him.

“This is Marshal Stolypin. I am calling to rescind the order given by President Kalugin to attack Japan with nuclear weapons … He is dead Yes, the president is dead. A heart attack just a few minutes ago There is no mistake; I swear it … Don’t give me that! I’ve known you for twenty years, Vasily. I order you not to launch those planes.”

Stolypin listened a moment, then covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “He can’t stop them. They took off two hours ago. Five loyal ones are still in his headquarters, armed to the teeth. The pilots were specifically ordered not to turn back for any reason.”

Stolypin listened for several more seconds, then grunted a good-bye. Ilin wandered out of the room into the reception area. Marshal Stolypin followed him. The reception area was empty. The men walked along the corridor the way they had come in. They met no one. At the head of the grand staircase there was a window. Through it they could see the lighted grounds of the Kremlin and the main gate. The loyal ones were walking quickly toward the gate. Even as Ilin and Stolypin watched, the grounds emptied. Not a single person remained in view. “The pilots were ordered to bomb Japan, then return to Irkutsk.”

“Will they do it?”

“If they have wives and children, I imagine it will not occur to them that they have a choice.”

“Perhaps, Marshal,” Ilin said, “we should use the hot line to call Washington. The American president may be able to help.”

Side by side, they walked the empty corridor back to the president’s office. “He was mad, you know,” Stolypin said. “Yes.”

Pavel Saratov stood under the air lock in the forward torpedo room, watching Michman Martos check his scuba tanks and strap them on. “Three against one,” Saratov said. “I wish we had someone to send with you.”

“It will be all right.” Martos was trying to concentrate on checking out his gear, getting it on correctly. The captain obviously had other things on his mind, which was okay. That was why he was the captain. “Try to figure out how the timers work and turn them off.”

“It may take a few minutes.”

“Nuclear war, the end of the world … I won’t be a part of it.”

“I understand, Captain.” Martos glanced at Saratov, who looked years older than he had a month ago. These last few weeks had aged them all, Martos reflected.

“You’re all traitors,” one of the naval infantrymen put in. He had been disarmed and was sitting on a nearby bunk, watching Martos get ready. “General Esenin will—” Saratov glanced at the senior torpedo michman, who backhanded the infantryman across the mouth. “Any more noise, tape his mouth shut.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The michman wearing a sound-powered telephone headset spoke up: “Captain, Sonar reports two destroyers at ten thousand meters, closing quickly.”

Saratov smacked Martos on the arm. “Hurry.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Martos pulled his mask over his face and scurried up the ladder into the lock. As the torpedomen sealed the hatch closed, Saratov headed for the control room. White faces watched him every step of the way. He tried to keep his gait under control, but the sailors must have thought he was galloping. “Two destroyers,” the sonarman reported. “About ninety-five hundred meters. And two more helicopters.”

“Are they echo-ranging?”

“Yes, sir.”

Askold had been wearing the extra sonar headset, and now he passed it to the captain without a word. He looked very tired.

As he waited inside the dark lock while the cold water rushed in, Martos felt the dogged-down hatch above his head. Esenin had closed the hatch once he was outside the ship. Had he left the hatch open, no one else could have used the air lock. Was closing the hatch a tactical error, or was Esenin waiting for someone to come out through the lock?

Locked in this steel cylinder as the water rose past his shoulders, Martos recalled that Esenin and one of his men had gone out first, then the third man. That third man must have closed the hatch behind him. The cold water shot into the lock under pressure. This small, totally dark steel chamber with cold seawater flooding in was no place for a person suffering from claustrophobia. Martos had conquered his fear of the lock long ago. The water was over his head now. Breathing pure oxygen from the tank on his shoulders, Martos waited until the sound of water coming in had stopped completely. He could just hear the pinging of the Japanese sonars probing the dark waters. Saratov was right: they were running out of time. Martos reached above his head and grasped the wheel on the outer hatch. He applied pressure. The wheel resisted. Martos braced himself and grunted into his mask as he twisted with all his strength. The wheel turned ninety degrees, and he pushed on the hatch. It opened outward. Martos flippered up and out. The light was dim, visibility in the murky, dark water was very restricted. He could see, at the most, ten feet. He had his knife out now, in his right hand, ready. He cast a quick glance in all directions, including upward. Keeping his chest just inches off the steel deck plating, Martos swam aft. The first two containers loomed into view. They appeared to be closed, with the metal bands that encircled them still attached. As he got closer, he could see someone between the containers, someone in a semierect position, facing aft. The other two men must be beyond this guy. Martos’s adrenaline level went off the chart. He was ready. He flippered up and over the left container, which was about four feet high, so that he came at the man he could see from behind his left shoulder. As he closed he saw the other two, their heads bent. They had the container behind this one open and were bent over, working on whatever it contained. A light source near what they were working on silhouetted them in the murky water. Martos took in the scene at a glance as he closed swiftly on the nearest man, still motionless. The head of the man across from him jerked up just as he stabbed with the knife, burying it to the hilt in the side of the nearest man’s neck. With a ripping, twisting motion, he jerked the knife free as dark blood spouted like ink. Martos used his left hand to slam the victim away. His momentum carried him toward the man who had jerked his head up. He slashed with the knife, but the man kicked backward, so the knife missed its target. As he went by the third man, Martos slammed an elbow into his mouthpiece, causing it to spill out.

Scissoring hard with his legs, the Spetsnaz fighter shot toward the second man and slashed again with the blade. This time, the knife clanked into a wrench the man had in his hand. The man dropped the wrench. The human shark that had attacked him bored in relentlessly. Another slash with the blade at his oxygen line bit deep into his shoulder. The panicked man got a hand on Martos’s goggles and snatched them away. This time, Martos drove the blade deep into the man’s abdomen and ripped it free with one continuous motion, then pushed the dying man away and spun to face his last opponent.

“Eight thousand meters, Captain. They were making at least thirty knots. Now one of them is slowing. The other is charging toward us.” Ping/t damned noise. “The helos? Where are they?”

“One is overhead, sir. I think he has dipped a sonar pod.”

Saratov could hear the steady whop-whopping beat of a helicopter in his earphones. It did sound as if the chopper was in a hover. Ping!

“How long has Martos been out?”

“About a minute, sir.”

Everyone in the control room was looking at him, waiting for him to hatch a miracle, pull a rabbit from the hat. Pavel Saratov made a show of reaching into Askold’s shirt pocket for a cigarette, lighting it, and taking a deep, slow drag.

Esenin was no amateur. He fought like a trained professional, without wasted effort, making every move count. He kept his eyes on Martos’s abdomen, not his face. He had his knife in his right hand. And the bastard was grinning! Martos saw the flash of white teeth just before Esenin placed the scuba mouthpiece back in his mouth. For the first time, Martos felt fear. Was the general grinning because he was going to kill Martos with a knife, or was he grinning because this damned bomb he had been working on was now set to explode?

Esenin slashed with the knife and Martos countered, but in slow motion, because all their movements were slowed by the water. At first blush, avoiding a slow-motion attack seemed easy, until you realized that your movements were inhibited to the same degree. Then underwater hand-to-hand combat became a horrible, twisted nightmare. Martos got his left hand on Esenin’s right wrist and gripped it fiercely. Before Martos could deliver a killing thrust with his right, Esenin seized his wrist. Locked together, they struggled. Martos was the stronger of the two. He could feel Esenin yielding, and at that moment, Esenin got his feet up and kicked. The two men flew apart. Martos had to look at the bomb. There was a panel with glowing numbers. Esenin launched himself off the front of the submarine’s sail. Martos flippered hard to avoid him and slashed with his knife as Esenin went under him. He felt the blade bite flesh. Esenin whirled to face him. The shoulder of his wet suit was leaking dark black blood, or perhaps Martos only imagined it. In the dim murk it was hard to tell. This time as Esenin came forward, he held the knife low, ready to slash upward. Martos used his hands to move himself backward, waiting for his moment. Something rammed itself into his left shoulder. Stunned by pain and shock, Martos looked down at his shoulder. Protruding from the wet suit was the tip of a knife blade, gleaming in the watery twilight.