The Ajax Protocol

CHAPTER 4

In the Yasenevo district on the outskirts of Moscow, the hot sun of a humid Russian summer beat down on a gray office building. On the top floor of the building, a tall, athletic man with close cropped blond hair walked toward the office of his boss, the heels of his shoes echoing from the linoleum floor of the hallway. His eyes were the clear blue of an Arctic sky. Two gold stars gleamed on the red and gold shoulder boards of his uniform. His chest bore ribbons honoring secret campaigns and battles that would never find their way into the history books.

Lieutenant Colonel Arkady Korov was Spetsnaz, part of Russia's elite special forces. He carried a thin folder in his left hand. He paused at the door of General Alexei Vysotsky's office to gather his thoughts, knocked twice, and went in.

Alexei Vysotsky commanded Department S of the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service. SVR was Moscow's equivalent of CIA, the latest in a long line of Russian secret police and intelligence organizations that had begun with the Czars. Department S included the secretive Spetsnaz unit called Zaslon. The Kremlin refused to admit that Zaslon existed, but it was Zaslon that took care of the black ops assignments, the ones that needed to be officially denied. Everyone in Zaslon had gone through the rigorous Spetsnaz training, had seen serious combat, and spoke at least three languages. Korov was one of Vysotsky's senior commanders in Zaslon.

Vysotsky sat behind an old-fashioned wooden desk rescued from a Kremlin storeroom. The desk had belonged to Lavrenti Beria, head of the secret police during the reign of Stalin. It amused Vysotsky to use Beria's desk. It appealed to his sense of history. Vysotsky even looked a bit like Beria. His black hair showed signs of gray and had started to recede from a large, rounded forehead. His eyes were unreadable, but they sent a message that it would not be wise to offend him.

The nature of Vysotsky's job meant that he dealt with rumors, stories, false leads, disinformation and lies. He had assigned Korov to sort out what was useful and what was not in the mass of conflicting data accumulating in the aftermath of the riots in Novosibirsk.

"Colonel. Tell me you have good news inside that folder."

Vysotsky leaned over and pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk. He took out a bottle of vodka and two glasses, fairly clean. He poured the drinks and pushed a glass across to Korov.

"Sit down, Arkady." He raised his glass. "Na zdrovnya."

"Na zdrovnya."

They downed the drinks. Vysotsky refilled the glasses. Five days had passed since the riots and he'd slept little during that time. Russia's domestic security agency, the FSB, had failed to produce anything except reams of useless paperwork that led nowhere. The Kremlin suspected that foreign sabotage had somehow caused the events in Siberia. The problem had been given to Vysotsky to solve, with the unspoken certainty that failure would terminate his chances of promotion.

"Tell me what you have learned," Vysotsky said.

"The riots have stopped and order has been imposed on the city," Korov said. "The sequence of events is clear but confusing."

"What do you mean? How can it be both?"

"Not long before the trouble started, a bomb exploded in the factory district on the edge of the city. It drew all available police and fire units. They were engaged when the riots started. The epicenter of the riot was near the city center. By the time police got to the scene, everything was out of control. The riot had already spread over a wide area."

"How could it spread so fast? What triggered it?" Vysotsky asked.

"At first glance there seems to be no specific cause for what happened. However, questioning of survivors reveals a consistent pattern."

"Go on."

Korov twirled his empty glass between his fingers.

"People report that before the trouble started they heard a high pitched sound, more like a vibration than an actual sound, and felt a sensation of heat. Immediately after that, most said they felt angry, enraged. In many cases they attacked anyone nearby."

"Most? What about the others?"

"Some became nauseous and vomited, followed by a blinding headache. They were incapacitated. All the survivors report headaches, to a greater or lesser degree."

"Continue."

"It appears that everyone within a radius of about eight square kilometers was severely affected, with lesser degrees of affect farther away from city center. The riots spread out from the center and people got caught up in them."

"Casualties?"

"Still unknown," Korov said. "Estimates are over 4000 dead and injured. People were murdering each other for no apparent reason. There are countless injuries, many severe. Property and infrastructure damage is extensive."

"What is your assessment?"

"Of the cause?"

Vysotsky nodded and downed his drink.

"I can't say. We don't know enough."

"Speculate."

Korov chose his words with care. "I think it's an attack. At first I thought perhaps the water supply had been poisoned or drugged. Analysis shows nothing. Besides, if the water was the problem there wouldn't be a sudden, simultaneous explosion of rage like that. Everyone would have to drink at the same time."

"Some kind of electronic weapon, then? We have beams that can make people sick or kill them with microwaves."

"Those weapons are narrow in their focus and limited in range," Korov said. "They couldn't affect a large area. We don't have anything that can produce an effect like this."

"I agree," Vysotsky said. "We should assume it was an attack. Why Novosibirsk? It doesn't make sense. Who would risk war for such an insignificant result?"

Vysotsky refilled the glasses. Korov didn't drink like his boss, but it would be insulting to refuse. The men drank.

Vysotsky continued. "There aren't many who would have the kind of technological resources to do something like this. The Americans, perhaps. Or Beijing."

"It doesn't make sense," Korov said. "Why would either the Chinese or the Americans do this? Why risk war for no strategic gain? The Chinese are preoccupied with their economy. They can't afford a war. The American President would never sanction such an attack. And how was it done?"

"If it is a beam weapon of some kind, it had to come from a satellite."

Korov nodded. "We can look for anything that was in range."

"Find out what was up there."

"Yes, sir."