Man on Ice: Russia vs the USA - in Alaska

TWENTY-NINE

Stephanie stepped across the checkered black and white tiled floor of her residence, suddenly filled with nostalgia. By God, she had held some strained meetings here, lavish parties too, but nothing compared to what was about to unfold. She weaved through ornate gold pillars and headed to the dining room, stopping abruptly at the entrance.

Harry had called her moments after Carrie’s helicopter went down. She was replying to Sergey Grizlov’s message that asked her to get back to him as soon as possible. It wasn’t his usual number. She dialed, but it rang out. No reply. No voicemail.

Then Harry’s call interrupted. He had received information connected to Vitruk from the Japanese intelligence community. It was complicated. They must meet, and he needed a secure place to operate, somewhere to coordinate private, government, home, and foreign intelligence, completely off the books if need be. They had swapped suggestions. Harry’s apartment was fine for a visit, but it wouldn’t work for what was needed now. His office was in an unsecured office block in Crystal City, near the Pentagon, where many defense companies were based. The Pentagon, the White House, and any other government property would be impossible because of government control. Securing and sweeping a hotel suite would take too long. Harry suggested Stephanie’s place, the British Ambassador’s residence, which she immediately queried: ‘You said off the books. This is British government property.’

‘British books ain’t American books,’ Harry said, and Stephanie had agreed.

From his time in the military and on Congressional committees, Harry’s contacts in the global defense world were second to none. He was trusted, known to return favors and to keep his word. Stephanie spoke to Slater who, to her surprise, immediately gave her the go-ahead.

Now, standing in the doorway of her elegant dining room, Stephanie was amazed at how quickly Harry had turned this museum piece area into something resembling the planning center of a military boot camp. The long graceful table, usually set for thirty, was covered in maps, diagrams, phones, and laptops. Four men worked around the table, wearing ID passes around their necks. Two marker boards hung on either side of the tall marble mantelpiece, one with calculations, the other with a list of countries with red, green, and white crosses next to them. ‘We’re trying to build up support,’ said Harry as he weaved round the table towards her. ‘The more intel we muster, the safer it will be.’

‘Explain,’ she said impatiently. ‘And keep it simple.’ Stephanie still had no idea what ‘it’ was, except it had come via the Japanese.

‘You were right, Steph, on the Cuban missile crisis comparison. If this intel is correct, Moscow is making a similar play, except this time using Asia as the theater of confrontation.’

A flush of anxiety hit Stephanie as she thought of Grizlov’s message. Was he warning her? Was it the first step in a negotiation? If so, why didn’t he pick up? Back in the Sixties, she hadn’t even been born. But her father rarely stopped talking about the thirteen days when the world came to the brink of nuclear war. One of her first memories was him carrying her down to the basement of his scrappy used-car showroom to acquaint her with his bomb shelter and shelves of provisions.

Harry flattened his hand on a map on the table which showed East Asia, running from the east coast of India to Hawaii. ‘The Japanese have a long-time intelligence asset at the Sinuiju border crossing between North Korea and China,’ he said.

‘You mean an agent, a spy?’

‘Yes, I do. And a couple of hours after the Bering Strait kicked off, three sports utility vehicles, a black BMW, a white Toyota, and a gray Chinese-made Chana, followed by a white Kia truck, passed through that border. The convoy’s VIP status meant that no papers were needed. Identities, even the number of passengers, were not logged. The vehicle windows were blackened. But the Japanese asset managed to look through the surveillance video. He found what I regard as intelligence gold dust.’

Questions tumbled through Stephanie’s mind, but she held them back. She was crying out for the top line, but this was how Harry operated. He built blocks of evidence so that his conclusion would not be questioned. North Korea was a dynastic dictatorship, a buffer state between authoritarian China and democratic South Korea, that controlled the thoughts and movements of twenty-five million people, ran labor camps for tens of thousands, executed people with abandon, and had dodged just about every international sanction to develop a nuclear weapons system. Whether it would work or not was anybody’s guess. But the bombs were there, and the Trump presidency had brought things to crisis point. North Korea was China’s ally. But the big question was: why was Harry telling her and not his own people?

Harry continued, ‘For a few seconds, as the BMW pulled away onto that bridge into North Korea, the driver’s window came down and a cigarette butt was dropped onto the road. The hand that held it was white. The agent enhanced the pixels enough to ascertain that in the front passenger seat was another Caucasian, about fifty, with spectacles, his head slightly turned towards the camera. Defense Intelligence Headquarters in Tokyo identified the passenger as Dmitri Alverov, aged fifty-two, designer of ballistic missile re-entry vehicles. Alverov works at the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology and has been photographed twice in Votkinsk, the factory eight hundred miles east of Moscow where the Topol-M missile is made. This is Russia’s most lethal long-range ballistic missile. It’s not Alverov’s first visit to North Korea. He was there from October 7th to 18th last year when he visited the Toksong nuclear weapons facility, which is three hundred miles north-east of Pyongyang.’

Harry pointed to it on the map, tracing a route down from the North Korea — China border to the capital Pyongyang and then looping up again to the nuclear site at Toksong, reminding Stephanie how Russia, China, North and South Korea, and Japan all got crushed together in this part of the world. The Sunuiju crossing lay at the south-west end of the border. She shifted her finger to the north-east, inadvertently brushing Harry’s hand. ‘Why didn’t they bring it in here?’ she asked. ‘The direct crossing between Russia and North Korea. No need to involve China.’

‘That’s only a rail crossing. Vitruk would need the flexibility of road transport, which is why he sought Chinese help.’

‘On Alverov’s first crossing, was the vehicle window up or down?’

‘We missed him at the border, but why?’

‘They could have thrown out the cigarette butt anywhere. They have ashtrays in the vehicle. So why bring the window down here, where they know they’re being watched? Were nuclear scientists being absent-minded? God forbid! Or did they want us to know they were going through? And if they did, why?’

‘And, of course, you have a theory.’

‘Yes, if we run with our Cuban missile analogy. Kennedy knew the Russian naval ships were on their way to Cuba and that was the beginning of the negotiations. If Moscow wants a deal, far better to start talking now than when the missile has been readied for launch. Unless, of course, it’s a bluff.’

‘No.’ Harry shook his head. ‘They couldn’t bluff on something like this.’

She tapped the China side of the border. ‘Isn’t this the Shenyang Military District?’

‘It is,’ said Harry. ‘Run by the same General Bu Zishan whom Vitruk lavishly entertained last year.’

‘And would he need Beijing’s authorization to let the Russian team through?’

‘No. He has a lot of independence.’

‘Would Vitruk need authorization?’

‘Alverov and the Institute of Thermal Technology are in the Volga Military District. The commander there is a rival to Vitruk and an ally of Sergey Grizlov. So, yes; my guess is that Vitruk would need to reach out, beyond his arc of control.’

Which meant that Vitruk’s operation must have been sanctioned by Lagutov; not just Little Diomede, but, if Harry’s intel was right, ratcheting it all the way to nuclear confrontation. The timing of Grizlov’s message suggested this was the case. Stephanie checked her phone to see if he had messaged again. Nothing. ‘Grizlov tried to contact me.’

‘I know.’

And how the hell did he know that? He must be plugged directly into the highest classification of signals intelligence. ‘Explain, please.’ Stephanie shifted her weight and looked him straight in the eye. ‘No, forget that. First give me your overall conclusion as to what you think is going on.’

‘If we were not dealing with the Bering Strait crisis—’

‘But we are—’ Stephanie began.

Harry cut her off. ‘If we were not, my analysis would be that a rogue Russian team was showing North Korea how to build a long-range missile that can avoid US counter-measures. But since, as you say, we are, I have to assume that an authorized Russian team is assembling a missile in North Korea with the intention of launching it against the United States, or at least threatening to.’

‘Hence the Cuban comparison.’

‘Install your missiles with a proxy, then negotiate away the American missiles in Europe.’

‘The Soviet missiles never got to Cuba. The Topol-M is already in North Korea.’

‘That’s why I needed to talk to you first. The transition, Steph, in particular the acrimony between Holland and Swain, is leaking like a gas can peppered with gunshot. Holland’s people brief against Swain, Swain’s against Holland. Ten thousand experienced staffers are clearing their desks at State and Defense alone, all looking for new jobs. We cannot afford to share this through the usual channels.’

She understood where he was coming from, but it wouldn’t work. Harry was always the impatient wild card that tore up the rule book. Sensible Stephanie reined him in.

‘No,’ she said, dialing Prusak. ‘You need to brief the President.’

‘Didn’t you hear me, Steph? I’m not briefing because it will leak. And how to explain the source of my intel? What reputation do I have? A failed congressman from a rival party who quit because he couldn’t hold his drink and keep his marriage together?’

Stephanie paused the dialing and put her phone on the table like a peace offering. Harry pointed at the men working in the room. ‘These are my guys, but they’re here privately, OK? If I bring my business direct to the Oval Office, half my clients will melt away.’

‘You brief the President as Harry Lucas, chief executive of—’ She stopped as she momentarily forgot the name of his company. Harry let her struggle for a few seconds, half-amused that she had been caught out. Stephanie picked up. ‘Your reputation speaks for itself. Just do it, for Christ’s sake.’

‘You do it.’

‘I can’t, I’m British.’

‘The way this is going down, you might as well be a Mongolian pagan dancer.’

Stephanie didn’t mean to, but triggered by the tension and the outlandish image conjured up by Harry, she laughed, a real belly laugh. It had been the pattern of their marriage; where his mood hardened, she would react, and at the height of their anger, he would come up with a ridiculous line that cracked her up.

‘Sorry. Yeah. I forgot,’ said Harry, chuckling too. ‘We’re not married anymore so we don’t have to yell at each other.’

‘You’ve still got your cute side.’ She took his hand and squeezed it. ‘If all this fails, Swain, me and Slater are the scapegoats. It’s not right, but you know how these things work. No one will know you’re involved.’

His face opened, resistance gone. ‘OK. You win. I’ll do it, and tell Matt to get Frank Ciszewski over from Langley.’

Good. She had won him round. They understood enough of each other’s minds to know that this was far bigger than the two of them. But as Harry was unhooking his coat from a stand by the door, he announced a counter-deal. ‘I need something from you.’ He put on his coat, keeping his eyes on Stephanie. It wasn’t a sexual look, as he used to give her. He was studying her, measuring her, playing a thought through his mind, until deciding what to do with it. He handed her a phone. ‘Afterward, try Sergey Grizlov on this. It’s registered to Narva on the Russia — Estonia border. He won’t know it’s you, so he’ll likely pick up.’

‘But—’

‘No buts, Steph. Like you say, just do it. I know it wasn’t just one night with him, Steph. It was a full-blown affair. He’ll tell you more than he’ll tell anyone else. When you speak to him, just ask him outright what the fuck is going on.’

His suggestion was simple and brilliant. For some inexplicable reason, as she wondered what she would say and why Grizlov should reveal anything to her, Stephanie felt her heart pound. Harry was reading her mind. ‘I’ve been tracking him. For what it’s worth, I know he still holds a candle for you.’