The Seventh Angel

She opened the door and stepped back, finally allowing Bowie into her living room. “Have a seat, while I get changed.”

Bowie stepped through the door. “Thanks.”

Ann headed for the hall. Just before she left the room, she stopped and turned around. “I’ll go with you to meet these people,” she said. “But it’s only fair to tell you up front. I still don’t like you.”

Bowie nodded. “I know,” he said. “That’s why you’re buying.”

AUTHOR’S NOTES

As students of oceanography or climatology will note, I’ve taken a few liberties with the ice formations in the Sea of Okhotsk. I’ve described the location and geography accurately, and the surface topography of the ice is every bit as rugged as I’ve depicted it, but the density and coverage of the winter ice pack are not as heavy as my story suggests. From late February through early March, the ice in the Sea of Okhotsk is often 30 to 50 inches thick, but less than half of the sea will freeze over during a typical winter.

These exaggerations were strictly for dramatic purposes. The Soviet Navy actually did hide ballistic missile submarines under the ice pack in the Sea of Okhotsk during the Cold War, and the practice may still continue under the new Russian Navy. I didn’t invent the strategy. I simply embellished the size and thickness of the ice pack to make the task of going after the rogue missile submarine a little tougher for the crew of USS Towers.

I’ve also exercised a bit of artistic license in my portrayal of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The real world mission of the DIA is to provide timely, objective, and cogent military intelligence to warfighters, defense planners, and national security policymakers.

DIA agents don’t generally conduct the kind of field operations that I’ve written about in The Seventh Angel. They are unlikely to stash wounded foreign intelligence operatives in U.S. military hospitals, and they don’t customarily threaten to shoot people for breaches of security protocol. If such extreme actions ever become necessary, the DIA will probably not be called upon to handle the dirty work. I thought it would be fun to let a couple of DIA agents do some cowboy stuff, even if only in the pages of a novel.

I’m sorry to report that I did not invent or exaggerate the tragic condition of the Russian Federation’s nuclear forces. The Russian military has fallen into an advanced state of decay, and the Russian news media has stated openly on several occasions that the integrity and security of the massive post- Soviet nuclear arsenal are in serious jeopardy. In 2007, the Russian government began a series of major military funding initiatives that are supposed to halt and (eventually) reverse this dangerous trend. At the time of this writing, I’m seeing no compelling indications that the budget increases are having the desired effect. They may well be too little, too late.

Personally, I hope the Russians do manage to turn the problem around. As strange as it sounds, I believe that a stable and capable Russian military is better for global security than one on the verge of disintegration. If the Russian military collapses, the thousands of remaining nuclear weapons in the Russian stockpile will not magically evaporate. Every one of those warheads will ultimately fall into someone’s hands. We cannot predict who will gain control over those weapons, or what their agendas will be.

In the writing of this book, I’ve deliberately created tense situations. I’m a thriller writer, and there are no thrills without a sense of danger and dramatic tension. But I didn’t invent many of the scariest parts of this story. I simply looked at the current climate of world affairs, and wrote what I saw.

— Jeff Edwards