The Bear and the Dragon

“Do you know the name of the target?”

Maximov shook his head. “No. He did not say. I did not ask.”

“That is good. You see, the target is President Grushavoy.” That got a reaction, as Maximov’s eyes flared.

“That is state treason,” the former Spetsnaz sergeant breathed, hoping to convey the idea that he’d never do such a thing. He learned fast.

“Yes. Tell me, is twenty thousand euros a good price for a murder?”

“I would not know. If you want me to tell you that I have killed for money, no, Comrade Yefremov, I will not say that.”

But you have, and you’d probably participate in this one if the price went high enough. In Russia, E20,000 was a considerable sum. But Yefremov had much bigger fish to fry. “The others at the meeting, what do you know of them?”

“All are Spetsnaz veterans. Ilya Suslov and I served together east of Qandahar. He’s a sniper, a very good one. The others, I know them casually, but I never served with them.”

Sniper. Well, those were useful, and President Grushavoy appeared in public a lot. He was scheduled to have an outdoor rally the very next day, in fact. It was time to wrap this up.

“So, Suvorov spoke of a murder for hire?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Good. We will take your statement. You were wise to cooperate, Igor Il’ych.” Yefremov had a junior officer lead him away. Then he lifted his phone. “Arrest them all,” he told the field commander.

“The meeting broke up. We have all of them under surveillance. Suvorov is en route back to his flat with one of the three.”

“Well, assemble the team and arrest them both.”

Feeling better?” Colonel Aliyev asked.

“What time is it?”

“Fifteen-forty, Comrade General,” Colonel Aliyev replied. “You slept for thirteen hours. Here are some dispatches from Moscow.”

“You let me sleep that long?” the general demanded, instantly angry.

“The war has not begun. Our preparations, such as they are, are progressing, and there seemed no sense in waking you. Oh, we have our first set of reconnaissance photos. Not much better than the American ones we had faxed to us. Intelligence has firmed up its estimate. It’s not getting any better. We have support now from an American ELINT aircraft, but they tell us that the Chinese aren’t using their radios, which is not a surprise.”

“God damn it, Andrey!” the general responded, rubbing his unshaven face with both hands.

“So, court-martial me after you’ve had your coffee. I got some sleep, too. You have a staff. 1 have a staff, and I decided to let them do their jobs while we slept,” the operations officer said defiantly.

“What of the Never Depot?”

“We have a total of one hundred eighty tanks operating with full crews. Shorter on the infantry component and artillery, but the reservists seem to be functioning with some degree of enthusiasm, and the 265th Motor Rifle is starting to act like a real division for the first time.” Aliyev walked over a mug of coffee with milk and sugar, the way Bondarenko preferred it. “Drink, Gennady Iosifovich.” Then he pointed to a table piled with buttered bread and bacon.

“If we live, I will see you promoted, Colonel.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a general officer. But I want to see my children enter university, too. So, let’s try to stay alive.”

“What of the border troops?”

“I have transport assigned to each post-where possible, two sets of transport. I’ve sent some of the reservists in BTRs to make sure they have a little protection against the artillery fire when they pull out. We have a lot of guns in the photos from the M-5, Comrade General. And fucking mountains of shells. But the border troops have ample protection, and the orders have gone out so that they will not need permission to leave their posts when the situation becomes untenable-at the company-officer level, that is,” Aliyev added. Commissioned officers were less likely to bug out than enlisted men.

“No word on when?”

The G-3 shook his head. “Nothing helpful from Intelligence. The Chinese are still moving trucks and such around, from what we can tell. I’d say another day, maybe as many as three.”

So?” Ryan asked.

“So, the overheads show they’re still moving the chess pieces on the board,” Foley answered. “But most of them are in place.”

“What about Moscow?”

“They’re going to arrest their suspects soon. Probably going to pick up the control officer in Moscow, too. They’ll sweat him some, but he does have diplomatic immunity, and you can’t squeeze him much.” Ed Foley remembered when KGB had arrested his wife in Moscow. It hadn’t been pleasant for her-and less so for him-but they hadn’t roughed her up, either. Messing with people who traveled on diplomatic passports didn’t happen often, despite what they’d seen on TV a few weeks before. And the Chinese probably regretted that one a lot, pronouncements on the SORGE feeds to the contrary notwithstanding.

“Nothing from inside to encourage us?”

“Nope.” The DCI shook his head.

“We ought to start moving the Air Force,” Vice President Jackson urged.

“But then it could be seen as a provocation,” Secretary Adler pointed out. “We can’t give them any excuse.”

“We can move First Armored into Russia, say it’s a joint training exercise with our new NATO allies,” TOMCAT said. “That could buy us a few days.”

Ryan weighed that and looked over at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Well, General?”

“It can’t hurt all that much. They’re already working with Deutsche Rail to get the move organized.”

“Then do it,” the President ordered.

“Yes, sir.” General Moore moved to make the call.

Ryan checked his watch. “I have a reporter to talk to.”

“Have fun,” Robby told his friend.

Zhigansk, on the west side of the Lena River, had once been a major regional air-defense center for the old Soviet PVO Strany, the Russian air-defense command. It had a larger-than-average airfield with barracks and hangars, and had been largely abandoned by the new Russian military, with just a caretaker staff to maintain the facility in case it might be needed someday. This turned out to be a piece of lucky foresight, because the United States Air Force started moving in that day, mainly transport aircraft from the central part of America that had staged through Alaska and flown over the North Pole to get there. The first of thirty C-5 Galaxy transports landed at ten in the morning local time, taxiing to the capacious but vacant ramps to offload their cargo under the direction of ground crewmen who’d ridden in the large passenger area aft of the wing box in the huge transports. The first things wheeled off were the Dark Star UAVs. They looked like loaves of French bread copulating atop slender wings, and were long-endurance, stealthy reconnaissance drones that took six hours to assemble for flight. The crews got immediately to work, using mobile equipment shipped on the same aircraft.

Fighter and attack aircraft came into Suntar, far closer to the Chinese border, with tankers and other support aircraft-including the American E-3 Sentry AWACS birds-just west of there at Mirnyy. At these two air bases, the arriving Americans found their Russian counterparts, and immediately the various staffs started working together. American tankers could not refuel Russian aircraft, but to everyone’s relief the nozzles for ground fueling were identical, and so the American aircraft could make use of the take fuel from the Russian JP storage tanks, which, they found, were huge, and mainly underground to be protected against nuclear airbursts. The most important element of cooperation was the assignment of Russian controllers to the American AWACS, so that Russian fighters could be controlled from the American radar aircraft. Almost at once, some E-3s lifted off to test this capability,