demanded that the elected representatives of the people of Russia grant him dictatorial powers to mobilize the nation and save it.
Of course, he had made many enemies through the years. Those he judged to be his worst enemies, he buried. Seven new corpses were now resting in hastily dug graves in the woods outside Moscow. Several dozen deputies who might be brought around if properly persuaded were locked in Lubyanka. Kalugin bought support where required, appointed ministers, and drafted decrees. Tonight, as he walked into the Congress amid the buzz of crisis, with the television cameras of the world watching, he was ready to declare his victory. Janos Ilin was one of the people in the gallery, packed shoulder-to-shoulder with his fellow FIS officers. He could see the top of Kalugin’s balding head as the president moved through the crowd of sycophant deputies. A dictator. Another dictator. To solve Russia’s problems with brute force and hot blood and endless rules and regulations, administered by powerless little men who lived in terror. Kalugin, the savior. Kalugin ascended the dais. Now he approached the podium. Massive applause. Everyone rose to their feet, still applauding. Finally, Kalugin motioned for his audience to be seated. “Tonight is a grave hour in the history of Russia. Japanese forces in the far east have captured Vladivostok; Nikolayevsk; Petropavlosk, on the Kamchatka Peninsula; and Sakhalin Island … “Russia has done nothing to deserve the vicious wounds being inflicted upon her by evil, greedy men, men intent on robbing future Russian generations of their birthright … “Your leaders have today come to me, asking me to wield the power of the presidency and the Congress to save holy Mother Russia.”
His voice seemed to grow louder, deeper, to fill the hall, like the thunder of a summer storm on the steppe. “In the name of the Russian people, I, Aleksandr Ivanovich Kalugin, take up the sword against our enemies.”
When Bob Cassidy walked into the lobby of the Mcguire Air Force Base Visiting Officers Quarters to register, the first person he saw was Clay Lacy, sitting in the corner looking forlorn. “Colonel Cassidy, Colonel Cassidy.” Lacy rushed over. “I’ve been waiting for you. I called Washington and they said to come to Mcguire, but these people don’t have me on their list.”
“Uh-huh.” Cassidy signed his name on a check-in card as the civilian behind the desk watched. “I need to see your ID card,” the desk clerk said to Cassidy. “Wearing a colonel’s uniform, I look like an illegal immigrant?”
“I just do what I’m told, Colonel.”
Cassidy dug out his wallet, extracted the card, and passed it over. “Didn’t get to talk to you after our interview,” Lacy was saying, “but I want to go with you. Over there.” He nodded his head to the east. Maybe south. He didn’t seem to want to say the word Russia. “I called Washington and they said to come here, to Mcguire, so I did. At my own expense. But when I got here, this man said I wasn’t on the list, so he couldn’t give me a room.”
“Do you really want to go?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” Lacy said, glancing at the clerk behind the desk. “I’ll be frank with you, Lacy. You look like a flake to me.”
Lacy was offended. “Have you seen my service record?”
“Yeah. You still look like a flake. Think you got the balls for this?”
“Yes, sir.” Lacy set his jaw. He looked as if he might cry. Well, the folks in Air Force Officer Personnel said this guy was one hell of a pilot. Maybe there was some mix-up on the name. The colonel shrugged. If Lacy couldn’t cut the mustard in the air, he would put him in maintenance, or give him a rifle, make a perimeter guard out of him. Surely there was something useful an overgrown teenager like Lacy could do. Cassidy turned to the clerk. “Where’s your list for JCS Special Ops?”
The civilian produced a clipboard from beneath the counter. Cassidy looked over the printed list, then added Lacy’s name in ink at the bottom. He handed the clipboard back to the clerk. “Okay, Lacy. You’re on the list.”
“Wait a minute, Colonel,” the clerk protested. “Base Housing sent this list over—“
“Give Lacy a room, mister. Right now, no arguments or I’ll have your job.” He said it softly, barely glancing at the desk clerk as he picked up his bags. The clerk swallowed once, took a deep breath, and watched Cassidy’s back as he headed for the elevator. When the elevator door had closed on the colonel, the clerk turned to Lacy. “ID card, driver’s license, or something.”
They gathered that evening in the second-floor television room of the VOQ. Two Air Force policemen sealed the hall.
“For those of you who haven’t met me, I’m Colonel Bob Cassidy.
My friends call me Hoppy or Butch; you can call me Colonel.”
No one smiled. Cassidy sighed, looked at the list. “Answer up if you’re here. Allen, Cassini …”
They answered after each name. He knew about half of them, the ones he had recruited and several he had known from years ago.
He put the list down, looked around to see if he had everyone’s attention, then began. “Thanks for volunteering. You’ll probably regret it before long; that’s to be expected. About all I can promise you is an adventure. We are going to Germany in the morning on a C-141. There we’ll check out the newest version of the F- 22. After a week, two at the most, we’ll go to Russia. You pilots will be civilians hired by the Russian government. They may even swear us into the Russian army — we’ll see how it goes. The aircraft will be loaned to the Russians by the U.s. Air Force. Although the U.s. markings will be removed, the planes will still be U.s. property, so they will be maintained by active-duty Air Force personnel, who will join us in Germany. Any questions?”
There were none.
“Besides me, I think there is only one other pilot in this room who has ever flown in combat. All of you will be veterans very soon. You undoubtedly have some preconceived notions of what combat will be like. What you cannot know now is how it will feel to have another human being trying his absolute damnedest to kill you. Nor can you know what it feels like to kill another person. All that is ahead.”
He looked at their faces, so innocent. Some of them would soon be dead; that was inevitable.
“We all won’t be coming back,” he said slowly. “If anyone wants out, now is the time to say so. You get a handshake and a free ride home from here, no questions asked.”
Nobody said a word. They didn’t look at one another, just seemed to focus on places that weren’t in the room.
“Okay,” said Bob Cassidy. “We are all in this together. From now on, you are under my rules. Not Air Force regulations: my rules. Disobey my rules here or in Germany, I’ll send you home. Disobey in Russia …” He left it hanging.
“No telephone calls, no letters, no E-mail, and no one leaves the building. Those of you I haven’t met, I will talk to as soon as possible. I want each of you to know what you are in for. That’s all.”
Cassidy walked out of the room as someone called the crowd to attention. The people in the room were struggling to snap out of the low lounge chairs as he went through the door. Over his shoulder, he said, “Preacher, come with me.”
Preacher was Paul Fain, a tallish man with a square face and a ruddy complexion. When he entered the colonel’s room, he closed the door behind him and grinned, displaying perfect white teeth. “Good to see you, Bob.”
Cassidy reached for Fain’s outstretched hand. “What in the dickens are you doing here, Preach? Of all people, I never expected to see your name on that list.”
“Life’s an adventure. This sounded like a good one, and when I heard you were in charge, well … Here I am!”
“What about Isabelle? What did she say when you broke it to her?”
“She wasn’t happy, but she knows me, inside and out. We’re stuck with each other.”
Fain was the only uniformed ordained minister not in the Chaplain Corps that Cassidy had ever met. He was serving as assistant pastor in his first church when he chucked it all years ago and joined the Air Force. When Cassidy had last seen him, Fain was flying F-22’s at Nellis. Isabelle was his long-suffering wife, a woman who thought she married a minister but wound up with a fighter pilot instead.
They chatted for several minutes about old times, and Cassidy made Fain bring him up-to-date on Isabelle and the two children.
Finally, Cassidy said, “Preacher, I want you to think this Russia thing through. The rest of them”— Cassidy nodded toward the television lounge—“are adventurers, rolling dice with their lives. Live or die, they don’t really care. They want excitement, to try something new, to bet their lives on their skill and courage. A few of them just want to kill somebody. You aren’t like them.”
