FOREWORD Read online

  A sixteen-foot-square computer display - technically known as the Command Center Processing and Display System, but more commonly termed theBig Board for brevity’s sake - showed a map of the Russian Federation and the former Soviet republics. Missile silos and air bases were represented by various graphics denoting their current alert status (presently, the naval base at Vladivostok flashed to indicate that two Russian Akula fast-attack subs were putting to sea). A series of smaller displays showed similar representations of the United States, Western Europe, Ukraine and China. They derived their information from a variety of sources. SBIRS satellites, in geosynchronous orbit 22,000 miles above the Earth, used infrared sensors to detect thermal plumes that might represent ballistic missile launches and/or nuclear detonations. This data was continually processed by a high-end mainframe computer known as ALERT. Meanwhile, BMEWS stations at Thule in Greenland, Cobra Dane in the Aleutians and Fylingdales in England would track ballistic missile trajectories make estimations of probable impact points. The BMEWS system was supported by PAVE PAWS stations at Beale AFB in California and Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, DMSP satellites in polar orbits of about 450 nautical miles provided data on weather patterns and the effects of the ionosphere on long-range communications and radar tracking systems. A network of four MILSTAR and ten DSCS satellites constituted a highly advanced global communications system, linking command authorities with military assets around the world in the event of conventional systems being disabled by nuclear attack. Additionally, a series of NSA reconnaissance satellites monitored activity around Russian missile silos as a means of detecting any increase in the alert status of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces.

  All of this information was being continually processed on a 365-day-a-year, 24-hour-a-day basis by a Cray supercomputer, located deep in the bowels of the NORAD complex, its insanely powerful processors were kept cool by liquid nitrogen. Actually, the Cray served a dual purpose. In addition to maintaining the constant flow of data, it was also responsible for generating a vast array of effective attack strategies based on the real-time information available to it. Known as the Single Integrated Operation Plan (SIOP), this set of attack plans would enable US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) to present a variety of strategic options to the President; ranging from Limited Counterforce (selective targeting of military and strategic assets) to Total Countervalue (unprejudiced targeting of industrial, civilian, military and strategic assets), with approximately fifty thousand attack variations between these two extremes.

  The Big Board had been tracking six Soviet -Russian , Allen corrected himself, unable to rid himself of old prejudices - bombers crossing the Ukrainian border, heading south-southwest. Commonsense suggested that if a tactical nuclear strike was in progress, these jets had something to do with it. Their formation was ragged, as if their missions were totally unrelated (which in a sense they were, Allen thought).

  His heart skipped a beat as one of the bombers started to blink on the screen. He knew what that meant. He’s firing an ALCM. Presently the bomber turned back towards the border with steadily increasing velocity while a small dart-like graphic headed in the opposite direction even faster. A cold shudder shot down Allen’s spine as he realized that the abstract image on the screen was all very real for somebody, somewhere.

  “ALERT reports ALCM launch in Northern Ukraine,” someone yelled. “Attempting SRV.”

  Then another bomber blinked and turned. Then another.

  Suddenly, the NORAD facility filled with the scream of alarm klaxons, causing him to jump. A small white bloom appeared on the electronic map of Ukraine.

  Allen’s phone started to ring. Its single, repetitive tone indicated an internal call from the Pit. He picked it up.

  “General Allen,” a frightened sounding technician yelled. “We have positive verification of anucflash over the Ukrainian town of Konotop. SRV is negative; repeat, Systems Readiness Verification is negative.”

  Even as he spoke, another bloom appeared fifty miles to the west of Konotop and the wall-mounted DefCon indicator changed to three.

  “Possiblenucflash over the town of Nizhyn, sir,” the technician added. “Attempting to verify.”

  Allen placed his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to the Canadian Air Force Colonel standing beside him. “Get me the President.” The General felt his lip quiver as a fifth bloom appeared thirty miles east of Kiev.

  In that moment came the realization that he wasn’t as prepared for this moment as he’d thought he was.

  IVANKOV, UKRAINE

  Colonel Oleg Gerasimov of the Ukrainian Army -The Hunter - had to remind himself of his real name from time to time in order to retain something of his own identity. There would not be much left for him to live for once this war was over, but a small part of him that hoped he could revive some shred of the civilian existence he had led before it had all started. Perhaps return to teaching? Yes, that would be something, wouldn’t it? A man who had killed hundreds of Russian soldiers teaching English to schoolchildren. And how could he look at those children in the knowledge that he had failed to prevent his own child from being killed? Such thoughts were enough to drive a man to drink, he knew. It would be so easy to walk away from the war and finally surrender to his pent-up grief. But if he did that, then the Russians would have finally beaten him, wouldn’t they? He cursed himself for thinking such thoughts. Gerasimov had joined the Army in the knowledge that his career would end only when Russia surrendered or when they killed him. And in the two years of fighting, nothing had changed that conviction.

  The Ukrainian Army convoy was heading south towards the town of Makarov, carrying supplies for troops struggling to maintain a rigid defensive formation against Russian infantry units that were advancing on them from the East. The convoy comprised four scouting jeeps, six Army trucks and three APCs. Gerasimov was in the lead jeep, his alert eyes searching left and right for signs of danger. It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen a Russian soldier for nearly two days. Perhaps the rumors of Russia’s capitulation had some substance after all. But now was not the time for complacency. Gerasimov had prudently ensured that the convoy had sufficient firepower to defend itself against even the most well orchestrated Russian ambush. His comrades in Makarov were counting on their supplies getting through.

  The Ukrainian stronghold of Ivankov was about eight miles behind them now. Gerasimov glanced at his driver. A serious looking woman called Ivana Serov, she had also led a relatively normal civilian life before the war; husband to a lawyer, mother to two young children. But like Gerasimov, her family had been murdered by the Russians. He knew her to be an expert in hand-to-hand combat. Not that there had been much opportunity to demonstrate those skills against the Russians, who like the cowards they were, chose to hide behind their artillery shells and laser-guided bombs. He imagined that she had been stunningly beautiful before the war. Now those looks had been spoiled by a permanent scar running down the left side of her face; the result of a shrapnel wound sustained when a Russian mortar shell had exploded just a few feet away from her six months’ ago.

  But, for Gerasimov, Serov’s beauty was not so much aesthetic as in her passion for the cause she defended. That was not necessarily a sexual observation, since he felt precisely the same way about many of the men under his command.

  “When we get to Makarov, Ivana, we will drink,” he told her. “I think we have earned it, don’t you?”

  She tried not to smile, but couldn’t prevent a corner of her mouth twitching. Although she would never admit it, and certainly wouldn’t allow anything ever to come of it, she found Gerasimov hugely attractive. Perhaps, under different circumstances, a romantic attachment might have developed. Although, under different circumstances, both of them would have had their own families and probably wouldn’t have given the prospect a second thought. Since the deaths of their respective families, neither of them had indulged in pleasures of the flesh. Not when there were more important things upon which to exp
end energy.

  “In moderation,” she asserted.

  “Of course.”

  Serov glanced in her rear view mirror to check that the rest of the convoy was keeping pace with her. They were. In fact, she could clearly see the bespectacled face of the man driving the truck behind her.

  It would be the last thing she saw for a very long time.

  Without warning, her world was consumed by an incandescent white flash, the light of a sun exploding in fury. The dazzling reflection in her rear view mirror blinded Serov, causing her to scream and raise her hands to her eyes. Instinctively, she slammed on the brakes. The driver of the truck behind her was too slow to react and crashed into the back of the jeep, jolting it a few feet forward.

  “What the…” Gerasimov began, feeling nauseous from the impact of the truck hitting his vehicle. He was aware of the flash, but his mind hadn’t quite registered it.

  Gathering his senses, he turned around and stared over his shoulder in horror. Beside him, Serov groaned, hands clamped to her useless eyes. Other soldiers disembarked their vehicles and stood transfixed by the spectacle. None of them were psychologically prepared for the scene that confronted them.

  A two hundred foot mushroom cloud rose into the clouds over where the town of Ivankov had been.

  Amongst the rubble were the remains of regional Army headquarters and a number of senior Ukrainian officers.

  MOSCOW, RUSSIA

  “Has Pushkin lost his fucking mind?” The Foreign Minister – a pudgy-looking reformed Communist called Mikhail Suronev – was beet red with fury when Yazov reported the news to him. “He will destroy us all.”

  Yazov impassively watched Suronev pace his office in the Russian Foreign Ministry, shoulders hunched, fists clenched. His mood hadn’t been improved by the fact that one of Pushkin’s first decisions as President had been to fire him as Foreign Minister. That decision itself had been encouraged by Yazov’s suggestion that Suronev was one of the shadowy political figures planning to make Pushkin’s term in office as short as possible. Naturally, Suronev knew nothing of this. He probably never would.

  “And now the Americans have gone on full alert,” Yazov reported, knowing that Suronev hadn’t seen President Mitchell’s address. The General’s words had the intended effect of further aggravating the Foreign Minister. “They are planning to impose economic sanctions against us, possibly even a trade embargo. That will destroy our nation, sir. Our people are already facing famine this winter.”

  Suronev stopped pacing and fixed the General with a hard stare. “You are certain of this?”

  “The American President made the announcement a short time ago,” Yazov confirmed. “Our President seems to have set back our relations with Washington by a couple of decades in no more than three days, don’t you think?”

  The former Minister grunted. The prospect of Russia’s civilian population facing famine did not overly concern him. His dacha north of Moscow was well stocked, and he had enough contacts in the black market to ensure that it remained so. But Suronev had an acute sense of history, and he knew that the Russian people wouldn’t tolerate much more hardship, certainly not a famine. The Czars had made the fatal mistake of underestimating the peoples’ resolve in 1917. He didn’t intend to allow Pushkin to make the same mistake. Not when he himself had so much to lose.

  “He must be stopped,” Suronev concluded flatly.

  “And then what? The military is beginning to react of its own accord to the American alert. These events have a tendency to take on a life of their own. We need to replace Pushkin with somebody to whom the military will listen. Somebody who can stabilize the situation.” The General had rehearsed this scene with Kalushin for nearly two days, and he calculated that the lie he had just told was an acceptable risk. The military wasnot reacting to the American alert. Yazov had given express orders that Russia’s alert levels should remain normal. For, even though the nuclear strike had been his idea, he had no desire to risk an accidental conflict with the Americans.

  Suronev stared into Yazov’s eyes, measuring him. Yazov stared back, giving nothing away. The politician sensed that the General had already given the issue some thought, and in a sense Suronev’s assumption was quite correct, although not in the way he thought.

  “What are you suggesting?” The former Minister narrowed his eyes inquisitively.

  “We need to work together, sir. I can persuade the military to stand down before this situation with the Americans escalates any further. I already have the support of several cabinet ministers and the General Staff. But I need you to take care of the political aspect. The Duma respects you, sir. They will abide by what you tell them.”

  Suronev started pacing again while he performed a series of quick mental calculations. A man who had cut his political teeth in the former Supreme Soviet, he was well known for his acute political instincts; the sole reason he had managed to resuscitate his career following the demise of Communism. Now he needed those instincts more than ever. Requisite to Yazov’s plan for ousting Pushkin was that the General himself became de-facto President of Russia for the short term at least. Suronev wasn’t entirely comfortable with the prospect of putting the nation in military hands, but he knew that a man such as Yazov would need an astute politician to guide him through what promised to be one of the most difficult periods in Russia’s troubled history. Suronev imagined that was where he himself figured in the equation. For this reason alone, Yazov’s proposal was the least of a series of possible evils. If he were to assist Yazov, he would be in an ideal position to succeed him. And, more importantly, he would remain close to the epoch of power throughout. The alternative was to suffer political exile. Suronev calculated that this was a very real danger, since a man such as Yazov would not have approached Suronev unless he had already consolidated a power base.

  “And what happens once this crisis has passed?”

  “A transition of power to civilian rule,” Yazov promised. “On the condition that free, democratic elections are held at the earliest opportunity. This will be an essential part of the nation’s healing process.”

  Healing process indeed, Suronev thought bitterly. What sentimental rubbish. “Then we must move quickly, before the damage is done.”

  “The process is already underway,” Yazov told him. Had he the time to do so, the General might have allowed himself to wallow in the Machiavellian genius of his strategy. In little over seventy-two hours, he had persuaded Pushkin to go nuclear in the Ukraine and then gone on to exploit the new President’s inherent paranoia in order to isolate him from Russia’s political elite. Then he had turned that same political elite against Pushkin on the basis of the nuclear attack against Ukraine and the political divisions that Yazov had himself engineered. The irony was almost tragic.

  Suronev considered Yazov’s last statement and turned his back on the General to gaze through the window of his office. It was a bitterly cold, dark night outside, and he didn’t offer much thought to those less fortunate than he - people whose homes would be poorly heated and lit - other than to remember that a disenchanted peasantry had altered Russia’s destiny once before and could quite possibly do so again. Many of Russia’s modern day peasantry belonged to a still vast military whose role it was to defend a country that was dangerously adrift without an effectual captain at the helm.

  And that very military was presently embodied by a certain General Gennady Pushkinich Yazov.

  “You would have proceeded regardless of my cooperation,” Suronev quietly spoke to the window, more a conclusion than a question.

  Yazov remained impassive and silent. That, of course, meantyes .

  Suronev turned to face him. Military rule unnerved him, but not half as much as the prospect of the prospect of exile from the hub of power. He was an experienced politician, and had an acute instinct for when not to force an issue. This was such a time.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  Yazov outlined a plan that had already bee
n set in motion.

  KIEV, UKRAINE

  “How bad is it?” the President asked on a secure line.

  “We managed to get out of Ivankov before it happened. Three of my people of injured, one with flashburns, two more with slight blast injuries. The town has been destroyed. Communications are irregular, due to the effects these weapons have, I imagine.” The line crackled, threatening to die altogether. For once, Gerasimov was thankful for the EMP-hardened communications gear with which the Americans had supplied him.

  “We are equipped to respond?”

  “We are, and we should, sir.”

  Gerasimov heard some muffled chattering in the background. The President and his advisors took no more than twenty seconds to come to their decision.

  “Very well. You have my authorization.”

  “Thank you, sir. And good luck.”

  “Good luck to you too, Colonel. I think we’re going to need it.”

  THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON D.C.

  Lewis didn’t really believe where he was going untilHawk-Two landed on the front lawn of the White House. It occurred to him that, despite all the times he had been to Washington, he had never seen the Presidential residence up close.

  He stared at Bishop, his eyes full of awe. The DCI managed a grim smile when he saw Lewis’s expression.

  “You look like a kid in a candy store,” he remarked.

  “Yeah, I mean, Jesus. TheWhite House , for Chrissakes.”

  Bishop patted Lewis on the shoulder. “Hey, it’s nothing special. You’ll get used to it. Just relax and don’t be yourself,” he joked.

  As they climbed out of the helicopter, the awaiting Secret Service detail ushered them to the West Wing entrance, where Jim Reynolds met them.

  “Hey Jim,” the DCI said. “I’d like you to meet Dr. Lewis Stein.”