Red Metal

CHAPTER 13

Lieutenant Colonel Dan Connolly and Major Bob Griggs sat next to each other in the “plans cell” weekly coordination meeting, listening to each officer in the room give a quick review of the projects they were working on. Connolly’s turn came up, and he delivered his review, detailing the work he and Griggs had been doing regarding the order of battle of the forces arraying in the Pacific.

The chief of staff for the director of the plans office was a Navy captain, the rank equivalent to a colonel in the Army, Marine Corps, or Air Force. The admiral was in attendance as well, but he normally didn’t speak up until the end, when he’d deliver some last words of wisdom before the plans cell carried on with the day.

Griggs had been waiting for the end of the meeting to speak up. He and Connolly knew they had to try one more time to convince the admiral to take a closer look at Russian involvement in cyberespionage in Asia.

“Last thing from me,” continued the chief of staff. “Don’t forget — flu vaccinations are mandatory DoD-wide, so don’t put the shop in a bad spot. Get your shots on time to keep us off the director’s shit list.” There were bored nods of ascent around the room. “Okay… anything else?” The chief of staff scanned the room now, pointing with his pen in the direction of each man sitting around the big table. When the pen reached Connolly and Griggs, the major raised his hand, and the chief raised his eyebrows. “Major Griggs, you have something for the group? Make it quick.”

“Yes, sir, will do. Sir, I’d like permission to pull a few more facts and figures on the Russia thing.”

“What Russia thing?” asked the chief, clearly perturbed.

“Sir, myself and Lieutenant Colonel Connolly… we think we may have found a connection.”

“Connection to what?”

The admiral interrupted. “I’ve got this, Chief.” He pointed to Connolly and Griggs. “You two were brought on board to review the requirements and order of battle for our deployment to the Pacific, not to worry about a completely different combatant command. We already heard from NSA about this supposed Russia hack involving the admiral and the general, and there are plenty of folks looking into it. Right now you two are to focus on your assigned mission. Is that clear?”

“Check, sir,” Griggs said.

“Roger, sir,” Connolly added.

The captain closed his notebook. “Okay, shipmates, I have nothing else to pass to you this afternoon. Have a super week. Keep up the good work.”

The admiral stood and the room came to attention.

“Dismissed,” said the admiral as he walked out of the room.

The chief of staff called out as the others were leaving. “Griggs, let’s take a walk.”

“Copy, sir.”

“Me, too, sir?” Connolly asked.

“No. Just Griggs. Follow me, Major.”

Griggs fell in next to the chief and they walked out of the briefing room and into the E ring, headed toward the “bullpen,” the cubicle farm where Connolly and Griggs worked.

The chief of staff said, “Major Griggs, something’s buggin’ me.”

“Yes, sir? How can I help?”

“You can help by cutting out the shit.” On the last word the chief of staff pivoted to look directly at Griggs. “I’m tired of you digging around into a bunch of crap not assigned to you. Do you and Lieutenant Colonel Connolly really think we don’t have all of the European desk officers focused firmly on Russia? How stupid do you think the chairman’s staff is? Do you think J3 Ops and J2 Intel are just fartin’ around?”

“No, sir,” said Griggs, but he couldn’t contain himself. “But we’ve already talked to J3 and J2, and no one is really looking at this specifically. They now admit the Russians were at least partially involved in the hack on the computer, but they don’t think it means the Russians are up to anything. Dan… uh, Colonel Connolly feels — and I have to concur — that the Russians went to a hell of a lot of work just to make things harder for us in the Pacific. Add that to the fact they seem to be ramping up repairs of equipment and increasing fuel stores, and it’s troubling. The PACOM folks are fixated on the Taiwan issue and see this all fitting nicely into their profile for Taiwan invasion precursors, and the EUCOM folks are just fixated on the NATO exercises we have coming up after the new year. I just thought we needed to make sure the admiral took this up to the vice chairman for his SA.”

The vice chairman’s situational awareness was the responsibility of the chief of staff.

The chief said, “All right, Major Griggs, you’ve told me what you wanted to say. Now I’ve got a few things for you. First, were you aware that this morning Russia announced war games in Belarus next week that will last through Christmas?”

Griggs shook his head slowly.

“War games that will account, I’m pretty damn certain, for the uptick in their repair tempo and fuel storage.”

Griggs said nothing.

“Russia is just going to their client state for exercises; they’re not invading anybody, anywhere, and you picking up some cyber scrap from NSA about Russia doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.”

The captain continued. “We’ve already got dead sailors off Taiwan, and we might well be just weeks away from war with the Chicoms, so get your fat ass back to the job you were brought over to do! Got it?”

Without waiting for a response, the captain turned and walked away.

Connolly pressed Griggs when he returned to the bullpen. “So, how bad was it?”

“Just wondering at what rank the ass chewings stop. I’ve had enough to last a lifetime.”

Connolly poured Griggs a cup of coffee. “Bob, they get less frequent, but they also get more vitriolic.”

“Guess I should be happy my military career is in the tank, then. Hey, did you know Russia just announced war games in Belarus?”

“What?”

“Since you and I have been working on PACOM planning since first thing this morning, we didn’t know about it, and to the chief of staff that means neither of us knows jack shit about Russia.”

“These war games — when do they begin?”

“Next week, running through Christmas.”

“Why the hell would they hold war games at Christmas?”

“No idea,” Griggs said, “but I sure as hell hope it doesn’t give our president any ideas.”

Connolly looked off across the bullpen for several seconds. “You know much about a General Lazar?”

Griggs nodded. “Yeah, he’s that old-school Russian colonel general, as high ranking as they come. One of their best, follows kind of a Soviet doctrine. He was, like, the head instructor at their war college for a few years. His most recent big combat command was Chechnya and Dagestan, like, ten years ago. What about him?”

Connolly turned to his computer. “I was poking around, saw something on an INTSUM.”

He clicked around a moment looking for an intelligence summary file in his saved classified e-mails. “Here it is. This struck me as odd. J2 found out that Lazar put his dacha up for rent. When I saw that, I thought that might have meant he had money troubles or something. But now…”

“Now what?”

Connolly read the intelligence summary. “DTG 2019-09-16, Moscow North West. Gavrilkovo, Tverskaya Oblast, Russia. Today the Moskovskij Komsomolets newspaper showed an advertisement for Colonel General Boris Lazar’s dacha. The rental value was placed at 70,000 rubles a month. Leninskaya Ulitsa number 133, Novozavidovsky, Tverskaya Oblast, Russia.”

Over his shoulder Griggs said, “You know the spooks are going to go nuts when they see us looking up Russian cabins for rent on our government computers.”

“Better we do it on the government machines so your buddy at NSA’s comrades don’t see it on our personal laptops.”

After a few seconds Connolly said, “Found it! It’s online at intermarksavills-dot-ru.” He began scrolling through images of the place. “Pretty sweet pad. Log cabin, lake view. Well appointed, and sits on a peninsula among pine trees next to the Zavidovo National Park.”

“How long is the rental?”

“Looks like it’s offered for up to nine months.”

“That’s a weird term, isn’t it? I usually see rentals on a month-to-month, or six months, or a year.”

“Maybe he’s involved in this war game and they are training and gone for that,” Connolly said.

“That would be the longest Russian war game in history. Let’s look up who is in charge of the exercises in Belarus. They usually announce it.”

Griggs typed this into his machine. “Not your guy. Looks like a fella named Sabaneyev. He’s also a colonel general.”

“Maybe Lazar’s gotten command somewhere else.”

Griggs said, “Hold up. Found something.”

Connolly left his computer and headed over to Griggs’s cubicle. The Air Force guys were putting on their coats, preparing to leave for the day. Connolly checked his watch: it was past 1800 hours. Julie was going to have his ass. He was supposed to be picking up the kids in a half hour, and with D.C. evening traffic he was already pushing it.

“Shit, Bob, I might have to head out soon.”

“First, take a look.” Griggs pointed to an article about Colonel General Eduard Sabaneyev leading upward of thirty thousand troops in the Belarus military training exercise. Moscow was bragging about his credentials in the article, which Griggs had translated to English using Google Translate. The exercise over the Christmas holidays, the Russians claimed, was for the purpose of validating several newer pieces of equipment, including the Bumerang armored personnel carrier and the T-14 Armata, Russia’s newest tank, to “demonstrate the effectiveness of superior Russian technology and the spirit of partnership with the people of Belarus.”

Connolly said, “Well, that’s a load of bullshit.”

Griggs agreed. “No kidding. Belarus doesn’t want the Russian army pounding around their nation at Christmas, but they can’t tell Moscow no. And as far as the Russians go, they’ve done small-scale exercises over the holidays before, but always to test some poor-performing unit’s readiness. Something of this magnitude… I’m pretty sure it’s unprecedented.”

Connolly said, “Let’s look at Intelink,” he said, referring to the government’s own classified version of Google.

Griggs and Connolly both spent several minutes looking through the files on Eduard Sabaneyev. He was clearly one of Russia’s premier generals. The reports detailed his schooling, military history, and profile, and — Connolly found this interesting — the files said he had been second-in-command to Boris Lazar for many years.

“Should we try Intelink-TS?” Connolly said, referring to the top secret version of the portal.

“We’d have to go to the vault to get on top secret.” TS intelligence could be accessed only at a sensitive compartmented information facility, a special locked and protected room. The Pentagon had many SCIFs, but getting into one took some time.

Connolly looked down at his watch.

Griggs saw this and said, “You get home, boss. I’ll stay and check out the top secret intel on this joker.” He added, “Hey, you want me to check with NSA or CIA?”

“No. If we do that, we’ll just skyline ourselves. The chief will shit his pants if we send over a special intel request that has anything to do with Russia.”

Connolly put on his Marine Corps “tanker’s jacket,” the coat worn with the Marine Corps Class B and C uniform that was meant for rain or cold. “Don’t stay too late, Bob. Need you bright and fresh in the morning.”

Griggs waited for Connolly to leave; then he sat alone in the office for several minutes thinking over his next move. Finally he clicked on the “Intelligence RFI management” button on Intelink and then “Customer request for information.” A fresh screen opened with a reminder that requests for intelligence were prioritized and might not be met in a timely fashion unless the user clicked “Urgent.”

Griggs clicked “Urgent.”

What the hell, he thought.

Another box opened with a pull-down menu asking under which authority he was making the request. He scrolled down to “Director of the Joint Chiefs for Planning and Operations and/or Vice Chairman.” A warning popped up stating, “Please have written authorization from your staff primary member, chief of staff, or a general officer before proceeding.” The major hesitated but not for long. He clicked the “Yes” box and filled out the information needed to request that the CIA provide all intelligence on one Colonel General Eduard Sabaneyev.

Then he powered down his computer, pulled out his military ID card, grabbed his coat, and headed out of the Pentagon for the night.