FOREWORD Read online

  “Well, let me tell you something. Whenever you insult her, you insult me. She’s my wife, not some piece of trash.”

  “She’s not your type,” Cathy told her son. “You could do so much better. I just don’t want to see you get hurt. It just upsets me to see you with someone who, let’s be honest, isn’t good enough for you.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Mom. I love Beth, and she loves me. We’ve been married for three years, and we’ll be married long after you’ve gone. So deal with it, okay?”

  Patrick’s finger was still wagging. He was determined to have his say. “You’ve got no right talking to your mother like that. She gave you…”

  “Oh, for Chrissakes, don’t give me that speech again, Pop. I’m thirty-eight years old. And you guys have no right talking to Beth like that either. She’s given me a lot too.”

  “Hasn’t given you a child yet,” Cathy mutteredsotto voce as she stuffed a forkful of overcooked lamb into her mouth.

  Martin flinched. The mention of children was a sore point for him. As a Catholic, he had been raised not to believe in contraception, while Beth wasn’t yet ready for children. She had a good career, and her salary was almost double that of Martin’s. Cathy and Patrick didn’t know this, of course. It was none of their business. The point was that Beth believed that a woman should only have children if she was able and prepared to devote all her time to them. Presently, her career would not allow that, and she wasn’t prepared to give it up just yet. There would be plenty of time for kids later on, once her and Martin had saved up enough money to give their children a stable upbringing and a good education. Until then, it was a non-subject. Martin knew he had a choice. He could either accept that she was on the pill, or he could live a life of celibacy. And his Catholic convictions were notthat strong.

  So far as his parents were concerned, the long-awaited conception just hadn’t happened yet, for reasons that only biology could explain. Privately, Cathy blamed it on religious incompatibility – God’s disapproval of a bi-religious union – although not even she had the courage to say as much to her son. The fact of the matter was that Martin simply couldn’t bring himself to tell them the truth. Not because he wanted them to be disappointed in him - after all, how much more disappointed in him could they be? - but because he didn’t have the will or the energy for the inevitable arguments that would ensue.

  “I’m not hungry either,” he said. “I’m going inside to watch TV. Enjoy your meal.”

  Once Martin had left the room, Cathy leaned over to her husband and lowered her voice to a whisper.

  “She’s really not taking good care of that boy, you know.”

  JFK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, NEW YORK CITY

  Less than twelve hours earlier, he’d been getting laid. Now Richard Gellis was queuing at the UA check-in desk for a flight to Moscow. Funny how things panned out, he mused.

  It would be freezing in the Russian capital -isn’t that always the truth? - and the trip was open ended, its duration entirely contingent upon the course of events. So he’d taken care to pack two suitcases with just about every piece of winter clothing in his wardrobe. Although he’d been born in Russia, Gellis had grown up in San Diego, California, and had never quite conditioned himself to the harsh chill of Moscow.

  “How you doing?” he beamed at the clerk, a pretty young woman whose lack of a wedding or engagement ring didn’t go unnoticed by the amorous journalist. Gellis handed his passport and ticket to her.

  “One moment, sir.” She tapped his name into the computer and checked his passport against the details on the screen. “Ah, here we are Mr. Gellis. Business class to Moscow, yes?”

  “That’s right.” With a grunt, he heaved his luggage - heavy with equipment - onto the conveyor belt, wondering as always whether he would ever see it again. Fortunately, the airlines didn’t lose luggage quite as often as they had used to, but it still happened occasionally. And given the law of averages, it would happen to a frequent traveler like Gellis sooner or later.

  A display on the clerk’s desk reported the weight as 41kg, just inside his baggage allowance. She attached two labels to his luggage and started to print his boarding pass.

  “Are you going on business, sir?”

  “Something like that,” he smiled cockily. “I’m a reporter for the New York Post. I’m going out there to cover Godonov’s death.”

  The clerk - her nametag identified her as Mandy Willis - pretended to be impressed. “Oh, how exciting. Interesting times over there, huh?”

  Gellis leaned on the desk, beginning to make his move. He thought himself to be something of an expert at such things. “Well, I’ve seen a lot on my travels. It takes a lot to impress me, Mandy.”

  “Uh-huh.” She handed him his boarding card and passport, smiling her sweetest smile. “Me too.” You ain’t got a chance, buster, the smile said.

  “Thanks.” Oh well, so much for that, he smiled back, his illusions shattered.

  He still had over an hour to kill before his flight boarded. Enough time to grab a bagel and a cup of coffee and forget all about the atypical rejection. Unfortunately, almost all of JFK was completely non-smoking these days, a rule that was also true for the vast majority of airlines that departed from it. He figured that he would have to suppress his nicotine craving for another fifteen hours until he set foot in the smokers’ haven of Shermeteyevo Airport in Moscow. It had been just half an hour since his last cigarette, and Gellis was already suffering.

  Fifteen hours to go. Over half a day. He toyed with the idea of buying a nicotine patch.

  He was not to know that his plane would never touch down in Russia.

  WASHINGTON D.C.

  John Huth, the CIA’s Deputy Director of Operations, was a man with a lot on his mind. He hadn’t slept all night, and it showed in the bags underlining his eyes. Sitting in a booth in one of D.C.’s finer dining establishments, awaiting the arrival of his luncheon partner, he lit his tenth cigarette of the day.

  He couldn’t resist having a quick glance around to see who else was in the restaurant. The staff here was accustomed to servicing some of the capital’s most prominent figures. The secluded dining booths lent themselves to privacy, and the restaurant owner, who was actually a former Congressman himself, carefully screened his employees. More deals were struck here, more unattributable leaks uttered, than perhaps in any other building in the United States. If you weren’t part of the establishment, you had no chance of getting a table. And even then, you had to be approved by the owner; a man who had struck his own fair share of underhand deals during a brief but colorful political career.

  It was lunchtime, and the restaurant was filled with the normal Washington set; lobbyists, government employees, aides, lawyers, politicians and just a few journalists (the maitre’d had a list of select political correspondents whose discretion was guaranteed. Any reporter not on the list didn’t get past the front door). Soft jazz music played in the background, deliberately concealing whispered revelations and deals.

  Huth’s Special Protection Officer was sat at a booth no more than ten feet away, as watchful for eavesdroppers as he was for potential assassins. He looked up as his charge’s guest arrived with his own SPO in tow.

  “John,” the Secretary of Defense smiled, patting Huth on the shoulder as he sat in the booth. “You look tired.”

  “What took you so long?” Huth had been waiting for half an hour. With a crisis unfolding in Russia, that was time he could ill afford to waste. I should be back at Langley, his conscience kept reminding him.

  “What do you think?” Nielsen snorted derisively. “Explaining things to that man is like dealing with a child. It says something for the overestimated wisdom of the American people that they would vote a moron like that into the White House.”

  “I guess Russia’s not his thing,” the DDO volunteered.

  “Sometimes I wonder what is his thing. You know, Reagan may have been a dumb-ass cowboy with some half-cocked idea
s, but at least he was a patriot. Mitchell? I don’t know. I often think he’d like to sell this nation to the goddamn corporations. He’s got no concept of the danger we could be facing from those red bastards. He just doesn’t get it.”

  “Who does these days? The Soviet Union died a long time ago, Paul.”

  Nielsen rolled his eyes. “Yes, but those who propagated Communist ideals didn’t die with it, did they? No, they simply put on new hats, pretended to be free market democrats and started kissing babies. But underneath, they’re still reds, no matter which way you slice it. You know something? I’ve a feeling that with Godonov gone, they’ll start to show their true colors again. And then what do we do? Our benevolent C-in-C has presided over a net thirty percent cut in our defense budget, a cut that I have to explain to the boys out there on the frontline. We have only a third of the nuclear capability we had in 1989, two operational aircraft carriers at any one time. And our submarines are contracting out their services to environmental groups; tracking whales, for Chrissakes. All in the name of peace,” he added with a contemptuous snort.

  “Hey, you’re preaching to the choir here,” Huth reminded him, raising his hands. His own budget had been slashed over the past couple of years, to the point where it was impossible to keep an eye on all the parts of the world that needed an eye keeping on. The fact of the matter was that the CIA, particularly its operational arm, wasn’t too popular with Congress these days, not to mention with a President who had stated that he thought of the Agency as an anachronism.

  A waiter appeared, handing menus to the two men. Once he’d disappeared, the DDO got down to business. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Anyway, enough of that. We need to talk aboutOverlord .”

  Nielsen showed no reaction to the mention of what was one of the CIA’s most closely guarded secrets. OperationOverlord had begun during his tenure as CIA Director. Ithad been his pet project, involving as it did the covert supply of arms to Ukrainian nationalists fighting against the Russian Army. Neither President Mitchell nor his predecessor, under whose administrationOverlord had begun, knew anything about it. That it continued owed everything to Huth’s success in concealing it from his new boss, Anthony Bishop and, accordingly, the President.

  “What’s the problem?” the Secretary of Defense asked as he turned his attention to the menu. His tone exuded indifference. Huth concealed his irritation at his ex-boss’s apparent flippancy.

  “The problem is that we don’t know what’s going to happen in Russia now,” he stated. “That increases the risk of exposure, don’t you think?”

  Nielsen peered over the menu at the DDO. “IsFalcon still running things over there?”

  “Yes.”

  The former DCI nodded his approval and returned his attention to the menu. “He’s a good man. One of the best. He’ll keep things tight, don’t worry.”

  Huth bit his lip hard in frustration. “But Ido worry, Paul. I worry that if it ever gets out what we’re doing over there, I’m the one whose ass is on the line. Bishop doesn’t know a thing about it. You’re not at Langley any more. I’m out there on my own, it’s my ass on the line. And, quite frankly, I’ve got no intention of taking the fall for this. Have you seen what they’ve been asking for lately?” He was referring to the latest list of supplies requested by the Ukrainians; a document only ever seen byFalcon , Huth and Nielsen, whose job it was to provide the necessary items. “Computer chips. High voltage capacitors. Specially configured laser machine tools. Krypton gas. I mean we’re way past rocket grenades here. Krypton gas, for Chrissakes.”

  “Who knows? Perhaps they’re trying to kill Superman,” the Secretary of Defense remarked facetiously. “What’s your point, John?”

  “My point is that all of these items can be used for building a bomb.” Huth lowered his voice to a whisper. “Athermonuclear bomb. Do you get my drift?” he hissed through clenched teeth.

  “Sure,” Nielsen acknowledged. “And also for building microwave ovens, I dare say. I may not be a scientist, but I always thought you needed elements such as tritium and uranium to build nuclear bombs. You can’t exactly buy that stuff at your local hardware store. Where are they going to get it? Our AEC inspectors visited their nuclear plants last year, and they’re satisfied that the Ukes aren’t capable of producing weapons-grade material. Anyway,” he added with a sniff, “even if you’re right about this, it might be the best thing that could have happened.”

  “What on Earth are you talking about?”

  “Well, if the Ukes get the bomb - and Heaven knows how they’ll do it - but if they do, it might give the Russians pause for thought. I mean, after all, nuclear deterrence worked for us, didn’t it?”

  Huth considered that. Nielsen’s flippancy was beginning to concern him now. At the very least, he’d expected the Secretary of Defense to express some concern. But no. He didn’t seem bothered in the slightest that the United States might covertly be creating a new nuclear power, and that this power was at war with another nation with the same potential for destruction.

  “All the same,” the DDO concluded, inhaling deeply, “I’m not comfortable with this any more. I’m going to call it off.”

  That got Nielsen’s attention. He laid down his menu and appeared to stiffen before Huth. “You can’t do that,” he growled. It’s my operation, he almost said.

  “Why not? I’m the Deputy Director of Operations.”

  Nielsen momentarily squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, they were hard with determination. “If we don’t stop those bastards in the Ukraine, where will it end? Where will we make our stand, eh? Kazakhstan? Georgia? Mol-fucking-dova? We have to make our stand now, in Ukraine, otherwise we’ll be facing a new Russian empire before you can sing Howdy Doody. Only this time, we won’t be dealing with reds, we’ll be dealing with nationalists. And, guess what? Nationalists don’t tend to like us very much.”

  “And for as long as we perpetuate the war,” Huth retorted, “the greater the risk of Russia slipping into chaos. Quite frankly, I’d rather face a Russian empire than a Russian anarchy. We’ve dealt with an empire before, we can do it again.”

  Nielsen grimaced, wondering if the progressive liberal epidemic that already seemed to have debased America’s political establishment was truly infectious enough to have reached Langley also. Was he the only true American left in Washington? Could none of these idiots see what was going to happen? He didn’t mind being alone - he had, after all, spent most of his political career fighting the good fight against frequently overwhelming odds - but this was one situation that was slipping out of his control. He could no longer issue direct orders to the Deputy Director of Operations. But that wasn’t to say that other alternatives didn’t exist. Normally, even an experienced operator such as Nielsen would have thought twice about resorting to blackmail, but these were extraordinary circumstances. Huth had been his protégé. He never thought that the DDO would wimp out at the moment of reckoning. Perhaps he’d read him wrong.

  “Tell me,” the Secretary of Defense said casually, “how is Cleo?”

  There was a sinister edge to Nielsen’s tone that caused the DDO to flinch at the mention of his wife. “You wouldn’t,” he muttered, knowing very well that Nielsen would.

  “I imagine you’ve told her about that young lady in Georgia whose son’s education you’re financing. Youare still sending her money, aren’t you?”

  The color drained from Huth’s face. It had happened nearly two decades’ earlier, when he was an Army Captain fresh home from the Gulf War. Cleo, to whom he’d been married for just over a year, was a young, ambitious attorney in Baltimore. Because of the situation in Iraq, they’d actually spent seven months as a married couple when he was sent overseas, and upon returning from the Middle East, he was rewarded for his efforts in the Gulf with an assignment to the Brigade Combat Team Task Force at Fort Benning in Georgia, whose locality didn’t exactly lend itself to career opportunities for rising lawyers. Actually, the posting mean
t an increase in salary and rank for Huth, although from his wife’s perspective, this did not compensate for having to move from Maryland to the Deep South.

  For the next couple of months, Cleo suffered the solitude and isolation of living in Georgia, but she could no more stop being a lawyer than her husband could stop being a soldier. That realization coincided with a lucrative job offer from a law firm in Washington D.C.. For her, it was the opportunity of a lifetime; the chance to practice corporate law for one of the most exclusive partnerships in the country. Huth understood this. He didn’t see why his wife should have to sacrifice her career for the sake of his, and that was why he advised her to move north. In the meantime, he’d apply for a transfer so that he could be reunited with her as soon as possible. If such a transfer weren’t forthcoming, he promised to willingly resign his commission and seek civilian employment in D.C.. After all, he had an MBA from Yale. How hard would it be to find a good job?

  As it happened, his request for a transfer was duly accepted. He was offered a posting at the National Security Agency at Fort Meade in Maryland, but was told that – for bureaucratic reasons – he would not be able to leave Benning for six months. So, for that time, he remained alone in Georgia while Cleo pursued her own career, seeing his wife only when he was on leave, which wasn’t as often as he would have liked.

  One evening, he and some buddies from Benning went into town for a few beers. It was a routine event that normally resulted in nothing worse than a stinking hangover. But this particular evening was to be somewhat different. It was the evening that he met Helen.

  Helen was an attractive young waitress in a bar that was a regular haunt for off-duty troops from Benning. It was only her second night on the job, but it was the night that she would end up in bed with Major John Huth. He hadn’t intended it to happen and, until laying eyes on Helen, had never considered that he could be unfaithful to Cleo. But he was lonely and drunk, and Helen had been giving him the come-on. The sex was passionate, almost animalistic. For the next three months, he found himself unable to stop the affair, even though he knew how wrong it was. Their relationship was to end only when he transferred to Fort Meade.