Power Play (16 page)

“Surprising. I thought you were especially good at that.”

Both men laughed. And right then the military aircraft began its descent into the Metz-Nancy Lorraine airport, dropping down across long, sloping fields into superb country east of France’s champagne district. SPECWARCOM had touched base with their French counterparts and had booked rooms for both men at Hotel de la Cathedral, a converted seventeenth-century town house with only twenty beamed rooms, antique rugs, and unobtrusive staff.

They were met by a chauffeured car, arranged by the American Embassy in Paris, and taken directly to the hotel. Both Mack and Rani were amazed by the sight of the stupendous Gothic cathedral of St. Étienne, visible from both of their rooms. This enormous edifice dates back to the twelfth century and contains towering stained-glass windows, some more than seven hundred years old and reputed to be the finest in France.

It was a civilized place to speak of barbaric actions. They were directed for dinner to an excellent French restaurant, L’Étude, a half mile from the hotel. This had the effect of turning a potentially arduous afternoon into a kind of overture.

Captain Bedford was a natural-born gourmet, coming as he did from coastal Maine with its sublime fish and lobster, and Rani was starved of excellent restaurants in Russia and could hardly wait to seize the wine list at L’Étude.

Meanwhile, they checked in, ordered a couple of omelets for lunch, and settled down to talk in a quiet corner of the hotel’s lounge.

“Okay, old buddy, lay it on me,” said the big US Navy SEAL commander. “And by Christ, this better be good.”

Rani began his story, beginning with the strange case of the grounded submarine and the odd-sounding intercepts the Russian officer had discovered. He told him about the incoming foreign nuclear scientists, and
he regaled him with the mention of the monastery, the site of the monastery, the history of the monastery.

He walked him through the mention of the “nuclear football”—and the onset of cyber warfare, which would be necessary should his theories be correct—and the Russians really did intend to kick that football “out of the stadium,” as the naval officer had overheard.

But most of all, he concentrated on the vengeful mind-set of the old Russian president, Markova, and his obsession with America’s part in smashing aside the Russian S-300 missile defense system, which the Iranians had purchased from Moscow at vast expense.

He explained to Mack how Markova had been appalled when he heard the ease with which Israel’s US-built fighter-bombers had screamed through the skies at supersonic speed, then blitzed the underground bunkers of the nuclear factories, slamming missiles with nuclear warheads straight into the ramparts of the protective mountains.

In the opinion of Rani Ben Adan, President Markova and his closest advisers would never forgive the United States for its part in arming the ruthless Israeli Defense Force. He believed that Mother Russia had been held up to ridicule by the rest of the world and that he, and he alone, the Great Markova, was now tasked by all the Russians to wreak a terrible revenge on the United States.

“Of course, he’s fucking crazy,” murmured Mack Bedford helpfully.

“So he might be,” replied Rani. “But what if he has perfected some kind of new, sleek, very fast lightweight cruise missile, medium range, carrying the massive wallop of a nuclear warhead? And what if they have found a way not only to launch from outside Russia, but to zap the US president’s black box, the last-ditch communications system?”

“That would be bad,” mused Captain Bedford. “Very bad. Because we could come under attack from an incoming missile from a highly unusual direction and then find ourselves badly delayed in response.”

“And then Russia sits back,” said Rani, “surveys from long range the death and destruction, and says:
Oh, my God, how awful. Who could do something that terrible? Mr. President, you can count on your friends in Moscow to do everything we can to assist you—and indeed to help discover and punish the culprits for this disgraceful breach of international goodwill.
”

Silence for at least ten seconds. “What then?” asked Rani.

“I’m afraid that’s for you to answer, because, quite frankly, it beats the
hell out of me,” replied Mack. “I’m really new around here. But I’m getting a strong feeling that you’re on the right lines, as usual. However, I question, why you are doing this? You’re not even American.”

“Because, Mack, if they can hit the United States with some kind of an advanced new missile, they can persuade Iran to turn it on Tel Aviv or Jerusalem . . . The carnage in our cities would be unimaginable. Meanwhile, we have to think, what can anyone do? If asked, the Russians will deny everything, which, hypothetically, would leave the Americans with just one option . . . ”

“Which is? . . .”

“They’d have to hit the goddamned monastery,” said Rani flatly, “and hope to Christ to destroy the entire program—high-speed missiles, cyber-warfare equipment, satellite comms, masts, antenna, computer systems, technicians, scientists, the lot . . . ”

“But they will not do that,” interjected Mack. “Nothing is going to persuade the US government to nuke a remote sixteenth-century monastery in the far north of Russia because it might have a fucking bomb in the cloisters. That’s not going to happen. Because that would bring us as close to World War III as October 1962, when Khrushchev decided to plant ballistic missiles in Cuba . . . DEFCON 3 . . . ninety miles from Miami and all that.”

“Then there’s no point mentioning any of this to any government,” said Rani, “because no one’s going to believe us sufficiently to take action. That means it’s up to us, to work in the background, investigate, research, utilize my spy, and sound the alarm at precisely the right time.”

“Rani, I’m afraid it’s mostly up to you.”

“Will you help, Mack? Provide intelligence backup? Maybe surveillance? Get the CIA involved? Alert the Special Forces, if we need to move?”

“Affirmative, Rani. Affirmative to all of the above.”

 

“Could you tell me precisely where you want to start?” Captain Bedford had the US Navy SEAL’s yearning for precise and clear orders, identical to the ones he always issued in combat.

Rani Ben Adan was from a military background and had no problem with that. “Gotta get satellite surveillance on the island of Solovetsky . . . because they must have heavy-duty electronics, out in the open. Darn walls are so thick, no beams of any kind could possibly penetrate.”

“Okay, and what else are we looking for?”

“Arrivals by sea. There’s no other way in. And there has to be incoming freight, to supply the nuclear program. There will be a steady stream of Russian Naval vessels, small craft. It’s not deep water inshore. I’d say we’re watching for night landings.”

Mack Bedford had studied the map. In addition, he knew, more or less from memory, the programs of US surveillance satellite passes over northern Russia. He thought it unlikely that America’s space photographic department had much of an interest in the north end of the Onega Peninsula—a sincerely desperate place, aside from the paralyzing cold weather.

The Onega is sparsely populated, with a few tiny coastal fishing villages and some logging in the Southeast. The peninsula is a wilderness, one hundred miles long with high, snowcapped hills and a half-dozen rivers hurling, occasionally, melted ice into the already freezing White Sea.

“For months at a time no one can get to it,” said Rani. “And with a major scientific program ensconced there, I would guess there are helicopter deliveries to the monastery.”

“We’ll have heavy satellite surveillance,” said Mack. “Especially on the Russian Navy bases to the north in Murmansk and Severomorsk. The same Big Bird will photograph to the south—shipyards in Archangel and Severodvinsk. I doubt it catches the Solovetskys. That will take an adjustment.”

“Can that be done?”

“Yup, I’ll get that fixed. What else?”

“Look, Mack, a strike on Washington would be terrible, and it must be prevented. But I am even more worried about Russian interference with the president’s black box. We know the Russians have it on their minds, because it is the one thing that can screw up their crazy plans and initiate a possibly fatal US strike against the motherland. Also, my man in the rotunda heard them use a reference to the nuclear football. And I do not believe that was a coincidence.”

“But you don’t have much else on that, right?”

“Only my brain, which might not be good enough.”

“Well?”

“Mack, the clear leaders in the race to cyber warfare are the Chinese. They’re ahead in the technological stampede to hack into other nations’ comms systems. It’s happening in Shenzhen, a city that transformed from a Pearl River Delta farmyard to China’s Silicon Valley in about an hour and a half.”

“And what happens there?” he asked.

“It’s high-tech central. And there’s one corporation that stands supreme—China Shenzhen Technology. I have a gut feeling that inside that place, there’s a Russian connection. If I wanted to clobber America’s nuclear football, that’s the first place I’d go. Just because they’re the acknowledged world experts.”

“And . . . ”

“We want to know if any of their guys make the journey to Solovetsky—because if they do, that’s game, set, and match to us.
Hackers Supreme enter Honorable Monastery to help Russian Maniac kick the shit out of American capital city
.”

“What am I supposed to do about that? Kill them on the Solovetsky dock?”

“No, Mack, but I hope you will alert the CIA to a possible cyber attack on the nuclear football, which may be masterminded in Shenzhen Technology. They’ll have guys in there. Jesus, the Mossad has two. I just want Langley to watch out for a connection between the cyber center of the world and what I believe is a new intercept laboratory on those islands.”

“Can your man help us? You’ll keep us posted if he hears anything significant?”

“Affirmative to both, sir.”

“Okay, Rani. I’ll talk to Bob Birmingham and get some kind of surveillance. He’s damned well good at all that undercover crap.”

“He must be, otherwise he’d be damned well dead. We know all about that Bobby. Same racket, right?”

For a few moments the two men sat sipping wine and studying the menus. Rani went for escargots and steak au poivre, Mack for
moules à la marinière
followed by coq au vin. Rani chose a 2010 St. Emilion, Château Canon Fronsac.

“I am about to place myself in a very delicate position, which I’m not used to,” said Mack finally. “This sounds to me like a serious Russian threat against Washington. I do not doubt anything you have said. But I’d better not misjudge it—because right now I’m all there is.”

“Even if I alerted my top commanders, I’m not sure they’d carry it forward to the Americans. It’s just too tenuous, and all of us are afraid of causing an uproar over nothing.”

“In my game we kinda specialize in causing an uproar,” said Mack. “But the most I can do is alert all of the key players in the Pentagon and the CIA that the Mossad believes something truly dangerous is going on. We need to step up surveillance, sharpen up the satellite cameras, and get SOSUS back in the front line. That’s likely to be the toughest part.

“Because however good the electronic sensors are, none of it matters if you don’t have warships or planes to arrest or destroy an intruder. We can’t count on the Brits anymore—they don’t have the hardware.

“Christ knows, the Brits were our guys. And they were the best; top-class officers, top-class crews, top-class ships, weapons systems, and aircraft. Now they’re like some fucking banana republic. No strike aircraft, no carrier force, hardly any destroyers or frigates. And their submarine force is just a shadow of its old self. It’s a goddamned shame. And it’s the end of our trusted right arm on the eastern side of the Atlantic.”

Rani nodded his agreement and understanding. And they dined together speaking mostly of old times. Mack Bedford was hours away from returning to the high-pressure environment of Coronado, home of the US Navy SEAL training program and strategic planning for US Special Forces missions.

Since his promotion to captain, Mack had moved his wife, Annie, and young son, Tommy, out to California for the remainder of this tour of duty. They lived in extremely comfortable officers’ quarters, but it was right on the base and almost impossible to escape the long friendships and camaraderie of his calling. But it was a grand and healthy way of living in almost perpetual sunshine, and Annie was just thrilled her husband was not required to lay his life on the line in active combat every other week.

SEAL Team 6 was also back at Coronado, and Mack’s vast close-quarter combat experience was constantly used by all the base commanders. Returning home to Coronado was never a hardship, however hard the training and the work.

Rani, on the other hand, led a cold and lonely life in Russia, as the eyes and ears of his nation, shouldering enormous responsibility and often working alone for weeks on end.

Before the two men parted, Rani alerted the American to the Russian code word for the probable forthcoming attack. “Listen out for
Project FOM-2
,” he said. “That’s the code they used at that meeting in the rotunda. And they used it more than once. No one even told our man at the table what it meant. Which I guess put it under the heading of ‘Top Secret.’”

 

The two men finally parted the following morning. Mack headed toward the huge military aircraft that would transport him nonstop from Landstuhl to California.

Rani boarded a smaller US military aircraft for the short flight to Frankfurt and then a return to the shadows of Moscow, and the sinister regime that ruled the place.