Mirror Image

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Hood had learned that the paradox of crisis management was you invariably had to lop off the head of Medusa, face the heart of the situation, when you were most tired.

The last time his head had rested on a pillow, Hood was in a Los Angeles hotel room with his family. Now here he was, more than twenty-four hours later, sitting in his office with Mike Rodgers, Bob Herbert, Ann Farris, Lowell Coffey, and Liz Gordon, waiting for the first reports from a pair of Striker teams that had been sent to attack a foreign country. However they dressed up the language— which was what Ann would have to do in press releases if the teams were discovered or captured that's exactly what Striker was doing. Attacking Russia.

Hood's staff was marking time as they waited to hear from either team, and he only half listened as he considered the ramifications of what they were doing. From the out-of-sorts look on Mike Rodgers's face he was evidently doing the same.

Coffey hooked a finger under his sleeve and checked his watch.

Herbert scowled. "Checking Mickey's hands every minute isn't going to make the time go any faster," he said.

Liz sat up and jumped to his defense. "It's like chicken soup, Bob. It doesn't hurt."

Ann started to say something but stopped when the phone beeped. Hood rapped the speaker button.

"Mr. Hood," Bugs Benet said, "there's a call for you relayed through Major Pentti Aho's office from St. Petersburg."

"Put it through," Hood said. He felt like he did on hot summer mornings, when the air was still and silent and it was difficult to breathe. "Any guesses, Bob?" he asked, hitting mute on the phone.

"Our Striker man there may have been caught and forced to call," he said. "I can't think of any other—"

"This is Kris," said Peggy.

"Scratch that," said Herbert. "Kris is Peggy's code name if she's free. Kringle if she's stuck in the chimney, so to speak."

Hood unmuted the phone.

"Yes, Kris," he said.

"General Sergei Orlov would like to speak with his counterpart," Peggy said.

"Are you with the General?" Hood asked.

"No. We've raised him by radio."

Hood touched mute and looked at Herbert. "Can this be on the level?"

"If it is," Herbert said, "Peg and George worked a Galilee-grade miracle."

Rodgers said, "That's what Striker's trained to do. And the lady was no slouch either."

Hood unmuted. "Kris, his counterpart agrees."

A strong voice said in thickly accented English, "And with whom have I the honor of speaking?"

"This is Paul Hood," he answered as his eyes took in the faces of his officers. He noticed that everyone in the room was leaning forward in their chairs.

Orlov said, "Mr. Hood, this is a pleasure."

"General Orlov," said Hood, "I've followed your career for many years. We all have. You've many admirers here."

"Thank you."

"Tell me, do you have video capabilities?"

Orlov said, "We do, through the Zontik-6 satellite."

Hood glanced at Herbert. "Can you hook me into it?"

The intelligence chief looked as though someone had turned a cold hose on him. "He'll see the Tank, You can't be serious."

"I am."

With an oath, Herbert called his office on his cellular phone, swinging his wheelchair around and huddling over it so Orlov couldn't hear.

Hood said, "General, I would like to talk face-to-face. If we can arrange that, will you agree to it?"

"Gladly," Orlov said. "Our respective governments would shudder if they knew what we're doing."

"I'm shaking a little myself," said Hood. "This isn't exactly standard operating procedure."

"That is right," said Orlov. "But these aren't ordinary circumstances either."

"How true," said Hood.

Herbert turned around. "We can do it," he said, his eyes imploring. "But I urge you—"

"Thanks," Hood said. "General Orlov—"

"I heard," he said. "Our audio is very good here."

"What does he think ours is?" Herbert muttered. "CIA hand-me-downs?"

"Ask your man to access channel twenty-four," Orlov said, "on what is undoubtedly a state-of-the-art communications control systems satellite dish and transmitter, Model CB7."

Hood grinned at Herbert, who wasn't in the mood. "And ask him," said Herbert, "if cosmonauts still urinate on the bus tires before they head to the launch pad."

"We do," Orlov said, his voice wafting past Hood's critical expression. "Yuri Gagarin started the tradition after drinking too much tea. But women cosmonauts do it too. In matters of equality, we have always been ahead of you, I think."

Ann and Liz both looked at Herbert, who shifted uncomfortably in his wheelchair as he put in the call to the satellite room.

It took two minutes for the connection to be made, and then the General's face winked on— the thick-rimmed black glasses, strong cheekbones, swarthy complexion, and high, unworried forehead. Looking into those intelligent brown eyes, eyes that had seen the earth from a perspective granted very few people, Hood felt he could trust them.

"Well," said Orlov, smiling warmly, "there we are. Thank you again."

"Thank you," Hood said.

"Now let us be frank," said Orlov. "We're both concerned about the train and its cargo. It concerns you enough that you sent a strike force to intercept it. Perhaps to destroy it. It concerns me enough to have posted guards to stop them. Do you know what the cargo is?" Orlov asked.

"Why don't you tell us?" Hood replied. He figured that they might as well hear it from the horse's mouth.

Orlov said, "The train is carrying currency which will be used in Eastern Europe to bribe officials and finance anti-government activities."

"When?" Hood asked.

Herbert raised a finger to his lips. Hood touched mute.

"Don't let him try and tell you he's on our side," Herbert said. "He could stop the train if he wanted. Someone in his position has to have friends."

"Not necessarily, Bob," Rodgers pointed out. "No one knows what's going on in the Kremlin."

Hood unmuted the phone. "What do you propose, General Orlov?"

"I cannot confiscate the cargo," Orlov said. "I haven't the personnel."

"You're a general with a command," Hood said.

"I've had to have an ally here scan my own line and office for bugs," he said. "I am Leonidas at Thermopylae., betrayed by Ephialtes. I am holding a very dangerous pass here."

Rodgers smiled. "I liked that one," he said under his breath.

Orlov said, "But though I can't get to the cargo, it mustn't be delivered. And you mustn't attack the train."

"General," Hood said, "that isn't a proposal. It's a Gordian knot."

"I'm sorry?" Orlov said.

"A puzzle, one that's very difficult to solve. How can we satisfy those criteria?"

"With a peaceful meeting in Siberia," Orlov said, "between your troops and mine."

Rodgers swept a finger across his throat. Reluctantly, Hood killed the speaker again.

"Be careful, Paul," Rodgers said. "You can't leave Striker out there defenseless."

Herbert added, "Especially with Orlov's son in charge of the train. The General's looking to protect his boy's butt. The Russians could gun Striker down, armed or not, and the U.N. would tell them they had every right."

Hood hushed them with his hand and got back on the phone. "What do you suggest, General Orlov?"

"I will order the officer in charge of the train to have the guards stand down and allow your team to approach."

"Your son is in charge of the train," said Hood.

"Yes," Orlov replied. "My son. But that changes nothing. This is a matter of international importance."

"Why don't you just order the train to turn back?" Hood asked.

"Because I would lose the cargo to the people who sent it," Orlov said. "They would simply find another way to transport it."

"I understand," said Hood. He thought for a moment. "General, what you propose would put my people at grave risk. You're asking them to approach the train in the open, in full view of your troops."

"Yes," said Orlov. "That's precisely what I'm asking."

"Don't do it," Rodgers whispered.

"What would you want our people to do when they reached the train?" Hood asked.

"Take as much of the cargo as they can carry out of the country. Hold it as evidence that what is going on is not the work of the legal government of Russia, but of a corrupt and powerful few," Orlov replied.

"Minister Dogin?" Hood asked.

"I'm not at liberty to remark," Orlov said.

"Why not?"

Orlov said, "I may not win this, and I have a wife."

Hood looked at Rodgers, whose resistance to Orlov showed no sign of softening. He wasn't sure he blamed Rodgers. Orlov was asking a lot and offering only his word in return.

"How long will it take to communicate with the train?" Hood asked, aware that the extraction of Striker could not be delayed.

"Four or five minutes," Orlov said.

Hood looked at the countdown clock on the wall. The Russian train was due to reach the Striker position in approximately seven minutes.

"You won't have any longer than that," Hood said. "Machinery is in motion—"

"I understand," said Orlov. "Please leave this line open and I will return to you as soon as possible."

"I will," Hood said, then hit mute.

Rodgers said, "Paul, whatever Striker was planning will already have been done, whether it's ripping up the track or planning to ambush the engine. Depending on the disposition of the TAC-Sat, we may not even be able to stop them."

"I know," said Hood, "but Charlie Squires is smart. If the Russians stop the train and come out with a white flag, he'll listen. Especially if we tell them what to say to him."

Herbert said bitterly, "I'm glad you're willing to trust those vodka chuggers. I'm not. Lenin plotted against Kerensky, Stalin against Trotsky, Yeltsin against Gorbachev, Dogin against Zhanin. Cripes, Orlov is plotting against Dogin! They stab their own in the back, these guys. Think of what they'll do to us."

Lowell Coffey said, "Given the alternative of armed confrontation—"

"And Orlov's heroic nature," Liz said, "which seems very important to him."

"Right," Coffey agreed. "Given all that, the risk seems reasonable."

"Reasonable because it's not your two potatoes on the line," Herbert said. "Heroic reputations can be manufactured, as Ann will attest,' and I'd rather have an armed confrontation than a massacre."

Rodgers nodded. "As Lord Macaulay put it back in 1831, 'Moderation in war is imbecility.' "

"Death in war is worse," Liz said.

"Let's see what Orlov delivers," Hood said. Though as he watched the small green numbers of the clock flick by, he knew that whatever it was he would only have seconds to make a decision that would affect lives and nations— all of it based on what his gut told him about a man's face on a computer screen.