Ghost Force

Admiral Vitaly Rankov (C-in-C Fleet, Deputy Defense Minister)

Russian Navy

Captain Gregor Vanislav (CO, Viper K-157)

Siberian Political and Oil Executive

Mikhallo Masorin (dec.) (Chief Minister, Urals Federal District)

Roman Rekuts (New Leader, Urals Federal District)

Jaan Valuev (President, OJSC Surgutneftegas Oil Corp.)

Sergei Pobozhiy (Chairman, SIBNEFT Oil Corp.)

Boris Nuriyev (First VP Finance, LUKOIL Corp.)

Anton Katsuba (Oil Ops Chief, West Siberia)

Argentina Senior Command

The President of the Republic

Admiral Oscar Moreno (C-in-C Fleet)

General Eduard Kampf (Commander Five Corps)

Major Pablo Barry (Commander Marine Assault, Falkland Islands)

Principal Wives

Diana Jarvis (Mrs. Rick Hunter)

Mrs. Kathy Morgan

UK Prime Minister's Principal Guests

Honeyford Jones (pop singer)

Freddie Leeson (soccer player), wife Madelle (former nightclub employee)

Darien Farr (film star), wife Loretta (former TV weather girl)

Freddie Ivanov Windsor (restaurateur)

MAPS

PROLOGUE

As a general rule, Admiral Arnold Morgan did not do state banquets. He put them in the same category as diplomatic luncheons, congressional dinners, state fairs, and yard sales; all of which required him to spend time talking to God knows how many people with whom he had absolutely nothing in common.

Given a choice, he would rather have spent an hour with a political editor of CBS Television or the Washington Post, each of whom he could cheerfully have throttled several times a year.

It was thus a matter of some interest this evening to witness him making his way down the great central staircase of the White House, right behind the President and his guests of honor. The Admiral descended in company with the exquisitely beautiful Mrs. Kathy Morgan, whose perfectly cut dark green silk gown made the Russian President's wife look like a middle-line admin clerk from the KGB. (Close. She had been a researcher.)

Arnold Morgan himself wore the dark blue dress uniform of a U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, complete with the twin-dolphin insignia of the U.S. Submarine Service. As ever, shoulders back, jaw jutting, steel-gray hair trimmed short, he looked like a CO striding toward his ops room.

Which was close to the mark. In his long years in service as the President's National Security Adviser, he considered the White House was his ops room. He always called it 'the factory,' and he had conducted global operations against enemies of the United States with an unprecedented free hand. Of course, he had kept the President posted as to his activities. Mostly.

And now, with the small private reception for the Russians concluded in the upstairs private rooms, Arnold and Kathy stood aside at the foot of the stairs, alongside the Ambassador and a dozen other dignitaries, while the two Presidents and their wives formed a short receiving line.

This was deliberate, because the Russians always brought with them a vast entourage of state officials, diplomats, politicians, military top brass, and, as ever, undercover agents — spies, that is — badly disguised as cultural attaches. It was, frankly, like seeing a prizefighter's goons and bodyguards dancing a minuet.

But here they all were. The men who ran Russia, being formally entertained by President Paul Bedford and the First Lady, the former Maggie Lomax, a svelte, blonde Virginian horsewoman, fearless to hounds, but nerve- wracked by this formal jamboree in support of U.S.-Russian relations.

So far as President Bedford had been concerned, the presence of Arnold Morgan had been nothing short of compulsory. Although the telephone conversation between the two men had been little short of a verbal gunfight.

'Arnie, I just got your note declining the Russian banquet invite…Jesus, you can't do this to me!'

'I thought I just had.'

'Arnie, this is not optional. This is a Presidential command.'

'Bullshit. I'm retired. I don't do State Banquets. I'm a naval officer, not a diplomat.'

'I know what you are. But this thing is really important. They're bringing all the big hitters from Moscow, civilian and military. Not to mention their oil industry.'

'What the hell's that got to do with me?'

'Nothing. 'Cept I want you there. Right next to me, keeping me posted. There's not one person in Washington knows the Russians better than you. You gotta be there. White tie and tails.'

'I never wear white tie and tails.'

'Okay. Okay. You can come in a tuxedo.'

'Since I don't much want to look like a head waiter, or a goddamned violinist, I won't be wearing that either.'

'Okay. Okay,' said the President, sensing victory. 'You can come in full-dress Navy uniform. Matter of fact, I don't care if you turn up in jockstrap and spurs as long as you get here.'

Arnold Morgan chuckled. But suddenly an edge crept back into his voice. 'What topics concern you most?'

'The rise of the Russian Navy, for a start. The rebuilding of their submarine fleet in particular. And the exporting of submarines all over the world.'

'How about their oil industry?'

'Well, that new deepwater tanker terminal in Murmansk cannot fail to be an issue,' replied the President. 'We're hoping they'll ship two million barrels a day from there direct to the USA in the next few years.'

'And I guess you know the Russian President already has terrible goddamned problems transporting crude oil from the West Siberian Basin to Murmansk…' Arnold was thoughtful. And he added slowly, '…And you know how important that export trade is to them.'

'And to us,' said President Bedford.