Tsar

abhorred but felt obligated to use in these situations.

Sir David smiled. “Exactly. We want to create a highly compartmental group within MI-6, outside of SIS, but you’ll be using all of their intelligence sources, as well as additional people from our other intel organizations. Players normally associated with a compartmented cell will include ops, intel, comms, logistics, and specialized assistance from respective areas depending on specific mission.”

“Sounds good, sir,” Hawke said. “And how do you see the U.S. component’s involvement?”

“I’ve set up a meeting in Washington for you to discuss that issue precisely. It’s next week, Friday, to be exact. I’ve arranged military transport for you to and from Washington. But briefly, I see the CIA component as supplementing and integrating within Red Banner. You might well decide to incorporate special operations from other coalition military organizations, Joint Special Operation Command, et cetera. Field intelligence units you’ve worked with previously, Alex, Centra Spike, Torn Victor, and Grey Fox.”

“Good,” Alex said, warming to the task. He was certainly not going to want for resources.

“Jolly good, every bit of it,” Congreve said. “But tell me, Sir David, what will be Red Banner’s primary focus?”

“It could well change, of course, depending on events. But if you ask me for an answer today, I would say this. Terrorism has changed how we look at military threats forever. Thus, we won’t be concerning ourselves with, say, disarmament infringements, Russian warhead counts. No, we’ll be looking at threats to our food and water supplies. Nuclear reactors. Harbor attacks and biological outbreaks, electronic attacks and EMP. And, of course, the Butterfly Effect.”

“A new one on me, sir,” Hawke said.

Congreve looked at Sir David. “May I?”

“Please, Ambrose.”

“The Butterfly Effect, Alex, is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a nonlinear dynamical system, say, may produce huge variations in the long-term behavior of the system. Do you follow me?”

Hawke smiled at Ambrose’s typical pyrotechnic display of scientific erudition and said, “A ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position. Right?”

Trulove chuckled and said, “Well said, Alex. I guessed I had the right chaps for the job, and I was right.”

Hawke said, “Sir, as for Red Banner’s counterterrorism operations, I presume our intel analysis will include work from the cybercafe, cutouts, and runners. We’ll no doubt get hints and sniffs from various cooperating U.S. organizations as well, their homeland defense, immigration, and so on. Correct?”

“Right. Over time, we’ll be piecing the puzzles together using multi-intel disciplines such as imagery, UAV, communications intercepts, field agents, and the like. Your American partners will be using all of your favorite three-letter organizations, CIA, DIA, NGA, and NSA.”

“So,” Ambrose said, pushing his plate away and getting his pipe going, “it would seem the bad old days are back. Global ideological confrontation, proxy wars, arms races, and, last but not least, mutually assured destruction.”

“Cold War Two,” Hawke said, eyeing both men.

“One could almost wish, Alex,” C said, returning Hawke’s gaze. “What we had in the first Cold War was a certain cozy equilibrium based on mutual fear of mutual destruction. In those days, one party was afraid to take that extra step without first consulting the other. It was indeed a fragile peace and certainly a frightening one. But looking at those years from today’s vantage point, I’d say it was reliable enough. And I would also add that today, the peace between East and West is not looking nearly so reliable. The New Russia. That’s the new threat and we seem to have arrived at the hora decima.”

“Hora decima?” Hawke asked.

“The eleventh hour,” Ambrose translated.

Sir David raised his glass. “To Red Banner, then. Long may it wave.”

“To Red Banner,” Hawke and Congreve rejoined, glasses high.

In the dark weeks to come, the three men would look back on this meeting as a wistful dream, when their sunny optimism was matched only by their unimaginable naivete.

19

MOSCOW

Twenty-five miles west of Red Square and you will find a beautiful country estate dotted with pine and white birch trees, called Novo Ogarevo. The grounds of this bucolic dacha included stables, a recently restored Orthodox church, a well-tended vegetable plot, and, nearby, a helipad. The original house was built in the late nineteenth century for a son of Tsar Alexander II. The helipad was fairly new. So was the security cordon.

This large manor house was now the official state dacha and residence of one Vladimir Vladimirovich Rostov, his wife of many years, Natalia, and their grown son.

President Putin had had the house renovated and begun using it as his personal residence in 2001. Rostov followed after Putin was arrested and sent to Energetika Prison near St. Petersburg. He now spent a good deal of his time here in the country. It was where he was most comfortable and happiest. His unseen neighbors were wealthy Russians who had constructed opulent, if often tasteless, dachas. None of them had ever met their famous new neighbor, and none of them ever would.

As one might imagine, there was not a great deal of neighborly socializing at Novo Ogarevo. Visitors were usually members of the president’s inner circle, a small group of ten who had his full confidence, nearly all of whom he’d known for years, two of whom, the closest, were ex-KGB. There were also figures of national importance, such as visiting governors from the Federation, and the occasional head of a foreign state who came to call. Visitors came and went at all hours of the day and night. Mostly night, when the president worked into to the wee hours, sipping tea laced with vodka.

Like many Russians who enjoyed their national drink, Vladimir Rostov was not a morning person. Many days, he didn’t even roll out of bed until the crack of eleven. Even on those days when he was driven to his office in the Kremlin, he seldom left the dacha before noon.

Today, the president was working at home. There were certain visitors he preferred to receive at Novo Ogarevo, beyond the gaze of his office courtiers. Rostov was a born spy, a man who’d spent his entire career operating in the shadows. One would expect such a man to be possessed of a suspicious mind. Before ascending to the pinnacle of Russian power, he had been chief of the KGB, at one time the most feared secret police service on earth.

At eleven-fifteen on this particular December morning, the president of the Russian Federation padded downstairs in his heavy woolen robe. Despite his hangover, he was in a particularly good mood on this cold and drizzly day. The president began each working day at home with a vigorous workout in the compound’s small indoor pool. For a man getting on in years, he was in fairly good shape. Once he’d swum his accustomed number of laps (the butterfly stroke was his favorite), he’d adjourn to the small breakfast room. And there, VVR, as his staff privately called him, would sit down to enjoy his mid-morning meal.

“Good morning,” he said to the wait staff as he took his place at the table. He smiled as they replied in kind. There were three newspapers arrayed beside his place setting. Pravda, the New York Times, and the London Times. He was smiling as he pulled up his chair, they noticed. Only one guest was expected today. That meant a light day ahead for all of them. It made everyone in the kitchen happy, which in turn made everyone in the household staff happy on this grey, rainy day.

Raising a teacup to his lips, the president heard an odd sound, discordant on a peaceful Thursday morning in the country. Glancing up from the lead article in Pravda, Vladimir Rostov was surprised to see a long black limousine, considerably longer than his own heavily armored Mercedes Pullman, approaching the house at a high rate of speed.

He knew who was riding in the rear. It was Nikolai Kuragin, now a member of his innermost circle, formerly a