through the nuclear-proof blast doors at the west side of the cavern and into the Polyamyy Inlet beyond. From that spot, just a few kilometers north of Murmansk, he could reach across the pole to strike targets as far south as San Francisco or the Americans' big nuclear-missile sub base at Kings Bay, Georgia.
Or, with different orders, he could reach any target at all anywhere across the broad sweep of Asia. No renegade army, no traitorous city, no nationalist-minded republic in all the vast sweep of the neo-Soviet empire from Odessa to Dushanbe to Vladivostok was safe.
'You are Captain First Rank Anatoli Chelyag,' Karelin said, as if he were speaking the name for the first time. He gestured toward the nearest black metal cliff rising by the concrete pier. 'This is your vessel, is it not?'
'He is, Comrade Admiral.' Chelyag stiffened with evident pride. 'It is my great honor to command Lenin's Invincible Truth.
At thirty-nine, Chelyag was young for such an important command, but his father was Vice Admiral Gennadi V. Chelyag, a senior staff officer serving now with the Baltic Fleet and a personal friend of the Minister of Defense. Such was the time-honored way of patronage within the fleet.
'Hmm. Where are you from, Comrade Captain?' Karelin asked, suddenly curious. Having studied the dossiers of all command officers in the division, he knew precisely where Chelyag had been born and raised, but he wanted to hear what the man would say with his own ears.
'Kuybyshev, Comrade Admiral.' The man sounded suddenly defensive, cautious, as though the question masked some unseen trap. His eyes turned private and flicked once to the KGB men and the MVD guards. 'But… I've not been back there for a long time.'
'Kuybyshev? I thought the city's name was now Samara.'
'I still think of it as Kuybyshev, sir.'
'Ah, I see.' Kuybyshev, named in the 1930s for a leader of the October Revolution, was one of the hundreds of former Soviet cities and towns that had resumed their old, Czarist names during the Soviet collapse of the early 1990s. 'The city is deep within rebel territory, Captain. And they persist in calling it Samara.'
'Y-yes, Comrade Admiral. But I assure you that my total and complete loyalty is to-'
'Tell me, Captain. Were I to give you the order to incinerate Samara now, this moment, what would be your response?'
'I would instantly and without question carry out my orders, Comrade Admiral. I have trained all my life in the service of the Rodina. My home now is Party, Motherland, and Navy.'
'The proper answer, Captain. But what would you feel about such an order, eh?'
Chelyag had difficulty meeting Karelin's eyes. 'I… I would be unhappy about it, of course. Kuybyshev is a magnificent city, and an important port on the Volga. It has a population of almost a million and a half people, and I sincerely doubt that more than a fraction of them are Blue counter revolutionaries. I certainly would not want them all to die. But I would follow orders. Sir.'
'And your family?'
'My wife and child,' Chelyag said slowly, 'live in Severomorsk. Both my parents are now in St. Petersburg… in Leningrad, I mean. There is nothing to tie me to Kuybyshev, or to any other rebel city.'
Relenting at last, Karelin reached out to clap the young PLARB captain on the shoulder. 'Relax, Anatoli Gennadevich. I was not doubting you.'
Chelyag looked as though his knees were about to give way, and his face was pale. 'Thank you, Admiral.'
'Nor would such a terrible burden as the destruction of your own home be laid upon your shoulders. But the destruction of our enemies, of the Rodina's enemies, will demand the utmost in loyalty and dedication from every one of us.'
Now it was Karelin's turn to glance briefly at the stolid, central Asian faces of his escort. Few Asians in the MVD even spoke Russian, but Karelin was not about to jeopardize the unit's morale with the information that their home cities were about to become nuclear targets.
Somehow, he did not think they would understand.
Chances were, they'd not even been told that Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and the other Asian republics had sided with the rebels… as had been inevitable from the beginning, of course. They were barbarians, fighting with one another incessantly, hating only the Great Russians more than they hated one another. If Moscow decided to loose nuclear-tipped missiles against her own territory, the Union would be well rid of dissidents' hives like Tashkent and Alma-Ata.
'So, Captain, if you will,' he said, gesturing toward the back of the cavern. 'Let us proceed to your Operations Building. I have important business to discuss with Rear Admiral Marchenko.'
'At once, Comrade Admiral. This way, if you please.'
The party made its way deeper into the cavern, leaving the waterfront and dock area, passing fenced-off clusters of machine shops, ordnance stores, foundries, and open buildings housing heavy industrial equipment. Everywhere he looked there were soldiers, overseeing the workers, standing guard on metal catwalks and before each building, marching in small groups along the macadam roadways that ringed the subterranean harbor. Many were MVD troops assigned to protect this and other PLARB bases. Others were regular army troops, or Soviet Naval Infantry with their flat caps and blue-and-white striped shirts showing beneath their uniform blouses. Some even, Karelin knew, were Spetsnaz, Russia's elite army special forces, though those units had originally been under the command of the GRU and so were now suspect. Those Spets forces that had remained loyal to Moscow were all carefully screened for Blue sympathizers, as carefully screened as Chelyag and his brother PLARB captains. In addition, each formation had its own secret cadre of KGB Third Directorate watchdogs, working undercover.
The Operations Building was located clear to the back of the cavern opposite from the blast doors. It seemed to grow from the black rock, a blocky, four-story structure bearing the traditional emblems of Soviet might: five- pointed star, hammer and sickle, and an enormous bronze profile of Lenin.
A banner above the door repeated Lenin's image, together with the Motto: PROGRESS, MIGHT, VICTORY THROUGH SOCIALISM. In many parts of the Russian military, the spirit and dedication of Communism had never died, even during the worst excesses of the democratic revolt.
In fact, Communism was as dead now as it had been in 199 1, when the Congress of People's Deputies had first disbanded the Soviet Union. Today, Russia and her empire were ruled by the military, by tough, practical men who had both the courage to make hard decisions and the might to carry them out.
Inside, the Operations Building was host to a bustling swirl of activity, gleaming, brightly lit, and modern in comparison with the scene in the cavern outside, which might have been lifted from some industrial center or major shipyard early in the century. In each open office, men leaned over computer terminals and keyboards, while in the Primary Command Center, wall-sized monitors displayed electronic maps of all the former Union, with color-coded symbols marking the units mobilizing now on one side or the other from Belarus to the Far East. Elevators in the back led up through fifty meters of solid rock to the surface. Armed MVD troops stood guard at every intersection, every checkpoint.
Rear Admiral Viktor I. Marchenko occupied an enormous suite of offices on the fourth floor. Karelin announced himself to Marchenko's personal secretary, a young and pretty blond corporal who, Karelin decided when she smiled up at him, owed her formidable position to talents other than her skills at typing and stenography. Her uniform blouse was unbuttoned farther than regulations allowed, and as she moved behind her desk he suspected she was not wearing a bra.
After a brief exchange with Marchenko over the intercom, the secretary ushered Karelin into the inner sanctum. Only Karelin's chief aide, a captain third rank with a leather briefcase chained to his wrist, accompanied him.
The rest of the entourage, including Captain Chelyag, remained in the outer office.
The inner office was luxuriously furnished, featuring a massive wooden desk the size of an aircraft carrier, and a broad window overlooking the cavern outside. Marchenko was a small, rotund man whose red-nosed, fleshy face looked more like that of a bartender or shopkeeper than the commander of one of Russia's most secret and most vital military installations. Like others, like Karelin himself, he owed his present power to connections in Moscow. His uncle was a member of the neo-Soviet Parliament, a man wielding considerable power.
'So, Viktor Ivanovich,' Karelin said cordially. 'You still have an excellent eye for picking out efficient and highly motivated personnel, I see.'
Marchenko hesitated, then laughed, a booming, jolly sound. 'Ah! You mean Yelana! She's something quite
