Plan of Attack

again, completely disregarding the sovereignty of our airspace!”

Stepashin had to bite a lip to keep from grimacing — after what they had done to the United States of America, they had no cause to criticize anyone else’s breach of air sovereignty!

“Do they think they own that airfield now? Do they expect us to just look the other way while they load up their transport and fly away again? We should hit that transport immediately with another air strike — blow the Americans to hell, where they belong!”

“Sir, I strongly suggest we let that transport load up and leave Yakutsk unharmed,” Stepashin said measuredly, not risking angering the already frantic-looking president but trying to be firm at the same time. “They undoubtedly have Russians in those shelters with them — they could be helping our soldiers. It is a humanitarian airlift, not an offensive strike. We should not interfere with it, especially since we did nothing similar ourselves to help survivors at Yakutsk.”

“Are you saying I am a coward, Stepashin?” Gryzlov shouted. “You will be silent, Stepashin, or you will be dismissed! I will not tolerate insubordination in my own command center!”

“With all due respect, sir, I was making a recommendation,” Stepashin said, his rising anger barely restrained. “We should not attack an unarmed humanitarian rescue mission.”

“I do not care if they flew in a children’s choir carrying daisies and magic pixie dust, General — I want that plane destroyed!” Gryzlov shouted. Stepashin noted the large, dark bags under his eyes, the drooping shoulders, the shaking hands, and the pale complexion — the man probably hadn’t had any sleep for the past two days and was subsisting mostly on cigarettes and coffee. “See to it immediately! I want—”

At that moment the conference room’s telephone rang again. Gryzlov jumped, then stared at it as if it were a gigantic hairy spider. He’s losing it, Stepashin thought as he picked up the phone. “Stepashin…Yes, I copy. Alert all air-defense sectors. Keep all other air-defense radar systems in standby, and use optronic sensors to locate it. Repeat, do not use radar — they will only be destroyed as well.”

“What the hell happened, General?” Gryzlov gasped.

“Air-defense alert issued by Novgorod air-defense region,” Stepashin said. “Small, subsonic aircraft detected east-northeast of the capital. Intermittent and very weak return, too small to be a stealth aircraft. Possibly an unmanned aircraft or reconnaissance drone.”

“My God…he’s here,” Gryzlov murmured, eyes bulging in fear. “McLanahan’s here! He’s decided not to attack our Siberian bases but is going to attack Moscow itself!”

“McLanahan is not the only threat out there, sir,” Stepashin said. “Our air defenses are much more capable around Moscow than anywhere else in the world. Perhaps this is just—”

“Order an attack, Stepashin,” Gryzlov said. “I want a full retaliatory strike launched on the United States.”

“Sir?” Stepashin retorted. “You want to order a nuclear attack on the United States? You cannot do this!”

“They are attacking my capital — I will retaliate with everything I’ve got and make them pay for their actions!” Gryzlov shouted. He stepped quickly over to the Strategic Forces officer carrying the special briefcase and snatched it out of his hands — he had to drag the officer to the conference table, because the briefcase was still handcuffed to him. Gryzlov unlocked the briefcase, withdrew a circular slide-rule-like decoder device from under his shirt, dialed in the current Greenwich Mean Time, wrote down a series of numbers, then selected a card from arowofred cards in the briefcase. He punched the series of numbers into a keypad in the bottom of the briefcase, then inserted the card in a slot and pressed a green button. He then turned to Stepashin and said, “Enter the authentication instructions, General.”

“Are you absolutely sure, Mr. President?” the chief of the general staff asked. He took the card but held it up to the president, using it to focus Gryzlov’s attention. The president couldn’t seem to keep his eyes steady on any target for more than a second or two, and it appeared as if he was having trouble keeping his eyelids open. “This will certainly start a world war, Mr. President. Millions of lives could be lost in the next hour if you proceed.”

“Our lives will be lost and millions of our people’s lives will be held hostage if we do not do this,” Gryzlov said. “Give the authentication code, General.”

Stepashin sighed. He looked around the room, hoping to find someone who might be sympathetic or help him try to talk Gryzlov out of this, but there was no one. He withdrew his own decoder from inside his tunic, glanced at the clock, dialed in the time, inserted the red card in the slot, and entered the resultant code and his own personal passcode into the briefcase device. Moments later a strip of paper printed out of the briefcase. Stepashin tore it out, read it over to be sure it had printed correctly, then nodded.

“Do it, General,” Gryzlov said through clenched teeth. “Let us get this war over with. I want McLanahan to pay, not with his own life but with the lives of his fellow Americans.”

Stepashin walked over to the telephone on the conference table, picked up the receiver, dialed some numbers, and waited. After a short wait, he spoke. “This is Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation General Nikolai Stepashin. I am with President Gryzlov in the Alternate Military Command Center at Oksky Reserve, Lybedskaya Street, Ryazan’. I am prepared to authenticate.” He waited another few moments, dialed in the date and time again on his decoder, and said, “I authenticate iyul’ pyatnadtsat’. Authenticate noyabr’ shyest’.” He waited again, checked his decoder, then said, “That authentication is correct. I have a priority emergency-action message from the commander in chief. Advise when ready to copy.” He waited once more, then read the characters from the printout twice. “Go ahead with your readback.” Again he was silent for several long moments as he checked off each character. “The readback was correct,” he said finally. “You may hand over the phone to your deputy, who will reread the message back to me…. Yes, I hear you clearly, Captain. Go ahead with the readback.”

The second authentication readback seemed to be taking longer than the first one. Gryzlov had been through many exercises simulating this procedure — he had in fact devised most of these very same procedures himself, when he was chief of the general staff — but for some reason this seemed to be taking longer than usual.

Gryzlov lit up a cigarette and was halfway through it when all of a sudden he saw two officers running toward the conference room, with two armed security men behind them. Stepashin turned toward them, the phone still to his ear, then held up a hand, silently ordering the men not to enter. The officers hesitated, conversed between themselves for a moment, then decided to enter anyway.

“What is the meaning of this!” Gryzlov shouted. “Get out of here! Go back to your posts!”

“Sir!” the senior officer said, snapping to attention momentarily. “I am Captain Federov, the communications-section commander of this facility.”

“Get out of here, Captain,” Stepashin said. “We are busy here. That is an order!”

“Sir…” He saw the phone in Stepashin’s hand, his eyes bulging in surprise, then turned to Gryzlov and said excitedly, “Mr. President, we have detected an unauthorized overseas call being placed from this room!”

“A…what?” Gryzlov shouted.

“Someone…” The captain turned to Stepashin, swallowed, and said, “Sir, the chief of the general staff is making an unauthorized telephone call — to the United States of America.”

Gryzlov turned to Stepashin, his mouth dropping open in surprise. “The United States? I thought he was talking to the communications center! He is relaying an emergency-action message—”

“He called the United States, sir — specifically, the general exchange at Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base in Nevada.” Gryzlov looked as if he were going to pass out in shock. “He has been connected to the Battle Management Center and is speaking with the facility commander, Brigadier General David Luger. They have been connected for the past several—”

“No!” Gryzlov shouted. Ignoring the phone and the open connection, he threw himself at Stepashin, grasping him by the throat and wrestling him to the floor. Stepashin put the phone under his body and held on to Gryzlov’s wrists, not allowing the president to choke him but keeping his body atop his so the security guards couldn’t grab the phone. Ultimately, he heard the phone clatter to the floor, so he assumed that Federov had pulled its cord from the wall.

“Pizda tyebya rodila!” Gryzlov was shouting. “You fucking traitor!” Stepashin barely noticed the muzzle of the semiautomatic pistol pushed up under his left cheek before he heard a loud bang, felt a brief sting in his left eye, and then felt nothing at all.

It seemed like a long time later when Gryzlov finally got up from on top of Stepashin’s nearly headless corpse.