Man on Ice: Russia vs the USA - in Alaska

SIXTEEN

Eyes welling, President Christopher Swain held Stephanie in an embrace. She allowed it for a second — she needed human warmth too — but couldn’t stop her concentration returning to the news screens. The cameras focused on the charred rims of three boardroom windows, gaping holes, burnt shreds of curtain, and blackened patches along the white walls.

Inside the building two friends had been murdered, just like that. ‘Vaporized’ was the word the newscasters were using. She had known Roy Carrol and Lucy Faulks for a long, long time. Lucy had been funny and supportive during Stephanie’s divorce. She and Carrol were separated by then, but Stephanie could tell she respected him, probably still loved him.

‘What’s going on, Steph?’ Swain whispered.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Russia walks into our territory, and half the board of the Federal Reserve is wiped out in a terrorist attack.’ Swain stared stone-faced out of the Oval Office window. ‘I’m heading down to the Situation Room. Are you going to your embassy?’

‘I’ll be wherever you want me, Mr President.’ Stephanie hoped formality would prevail over emotion.

‘Go to your embassy. Counsel your Prime Minister. I need a strong and unified Europe in the coming hours, its support, its will, its military.’

Prusak stepped into the room. ‘They’re ready for you downstairs, sir. The President-elect says he needs to be with you. Karl Opokin called from the Russian Embassy with condolences and outright condemnation.’

‘The Russian Ambassador?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘Then tell Opokin and all of them to go fuck themselves.’

Prusak flinched. Swain rarely used bad language or a raised voice. ‘I have the contacts here of the families, sir,’ he said.

‘I need the families of the helicopter crew, too,’ said Swain.

‘They are included.’

‘Put Holland off for half an hour, but we must keep him onside. I’m announcing Tom as the temporary chair of the Fed,’ said Swain referring to the Treasury Secretary, Thomas Grant. ‘What are the markets doing?’

‘FTSE and DAX down more than four percent,’ said Prusak. ‘We’re ninety minutes from opening.’

‘I suspect there’ll be a brief violent dip, then recovery,’ said Stephanie.

‘Exactly. So how does killing the board of the Fed achieve anything?’

‘The best way to undermine capitalist democracy is to strike at the heart of its financial system,’ said Stephanie.

‘But, a brief dip. Tom moves seamlessly in. No institution crumbles. People keep going to work. Six dead—’

‘Eight, sir,’ said Prusak. ‘Roy’s PA was in the room and a staff member was outside the door.’

‘Eight is not three thousand and the Twin Towers. I can’t believe Lagutov would have authorized this.’

‘Agreed,’ said Prusak.

‘Me, too,’ said Stephanie. ‘I get the Diomede operation. Lagutov calculates we’re not going to go to war over a place that no one’s heard of. It is so peripheral, so remote, so unimportant, that it’s barely a scratch on the complicated relationship between two nuclear powers.’

‘Which reflects in those preliminary opinion polls,’ said Swain.

‘So, what happens?’ continued Stephanie. ‘A few hours of macho insults, and an announcement to discuss the border dispute. That, Mr President, you could have wrapped up before leaving office. You set up a committee that sits for twenty years and decides nothing. Lagutov’s victory is that Russian military muscle achieved what diplomacy didn’t and that opens the door for negotiations on a swathe of other things. That would have been possible even with helicopters shot down on both sides. But now, with this attack on the Fed, you can’t give them anything. Whoever did this wants a big, big fight.’

Prusak looked up from his tablet. ‘The New York Fed says Lucy Faulks was in touch seconds before she died. She wanted to know specifically any movements of money between Russia and China.’

‘Were there?’ asked Swain.

‘Yes. Large renminbi-denominated transfers through Hong Kong and Shanghai. And the FBI’s confirmed that Roy Carrol gave Opokin a tour of the Eccles Building before coming to the White House. Opokin brought six bodyguards from the Russian Federal Security Service with him. They spent ten minutes in the boardroom. Four are clean. Two may not have been fully vetted.’

‘In any international incident of the caliber of the Diomede occupation, the Fed chair will call a crisis meeting,’ said Swain. ‘The Diomede incursion was just after seven last night. Roy called the meeting for seven this morning in time for the nine-thirty opening of the markets here.’

‘More in from the FBI,’ said Prusak, reading from his tablet. ‘Initial forensic investigation points to a Russian military issue plastic explosive known as PVV-5A.’

‘That doesn’t mean Russia’s responsible,’ said Stephanie.

‘Correct. It’s like the AK-47, everyone uses it.’

‘Was it on a timer?’ said Stephanie.

‘They don’t think so. They’re investigating triggers by cellphone within a mile radius.’

‘We work on the presumption that the Diomedes and the Fed are linked.’ Swain lifted his jacket off the back of his chair.

‘We’ll get you a car,’ Prusak said to Stephanie.

‘No,’ said Stephanie. ‘I think it’s better if I can get the Prime Minister back here to the White House.’

Swain began leading them towards the door, but stopped mid-stride. ‘Are we all thinking the same thing?’

The three close friends looked at each other, working out why Russia was carrying out a coordinated assault against America. Or were their imaginations running away with them?