The Seventh Angel - Страница 74

“That’s crazy,” the president said. “Why on earth would they agree to such a plan?”

“It’s not all that crazy, sir,” Brenthoven said. “From the Russian perspective, it solves three different problems at one stroke.”

“How is that?”

“Well, sir … First, it allows them to demonstrate to us, to the world, and to their own people that they absolutely are not afraid to play hardball with any would-be republics who try to break away and take part of the Russian arsenal with them. A demonstration this powerful will go a long way towards keeping some of their more troublesome territories in line. Especially places like Chechnya, and Ingushetia. Second, this plan allows the Russians to save face. They know we’re going to retaliate against Kamchatka. If they just sit back and take a punch in the face from another nuclear superpower, they look weak and foolish. On the other hand, if they line up shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. and we both retaliate, they get to play the part of the avenging hero.”

The president nodded. “I can see some logic in that. What’s their third reason?”

Brenthoven half-smiled. “We knocked a lot of their warheads out of the sky, Mr. President. We didn’t intercept them all, but we got most of them. From the Russian point of view, that casts serious doubt on the credibility of their nuclear arsenal. This plan gives them the chance to demonstrate the power of the Russian nuclear forces in a way that leaves no room for doubt. It’s sort of a public renewal of their ticket to the Nuclear Superpower Club.”

The president frowned. His advisor’s words were flippant, but the underlying idea seemed to have some merit. The Russian attack plan wasn’t pleasant or humanitarian, by any stretch of the imagination. But it might actually do the nasty job that needed doing.

“I think Russians division of targets is pretty shrewd,” Brenthoven said.

“How so?”

“They know we have a national aversion to killing civilian populace, so they’re offering us Yelizovo as a primary target. It has a population of about 42,000 people. Their primary target, Petropavlovsk, is closer to 200,000 people. This plan gives us a significant enough target to demonstrate that we’re not afraid to retaliate, while allowing us to reduce civilian casualties by about seventy-five percent.”

“That’s a good point,” the president said. “But 42,000 is still a lot of people.”

“You’re right, sir,” Brenthoven said. “It is a lot of people. But Zhukov nuked about twice as many of our people at Pearl Harbor.”

He spoke more softly. “No matter how we do this, it’s going to be hideous, Mr. President. But compared to what’s been done to our citizens, this response is almost merciful. And I suspect that it’s just about the minimum retaliation we can get away with, and still salvage the credibility of our nuclear deterrence.”

“What about radiation?” the president asked. “The prevailing winds are from West-to-East. Are we going to have a fallout cloud over Alaska, Washington, and Oregon?”

“The western states will get some residual radiation, sir. But not as much as you might think. The Pentagon has run fallout projections for just about every conceivable strike scenario. The results are in Appendix G of the SIOP. If we hit Yelizovo, the major fallout footprint will extend about seventy miles downwind from the blast. After that, radiation levels will taper off dramatically.”

“How dramatically?”

“Five hundred miles east of the blast, the contamination level won’t be much higher than the normal background radiation we experience every day. Most of it will blow out to sea, where it will be absorbed and diluted by the ocean.”

“Which isn’t going to do the environment any good,” the president said.

“No, sir, it won’t,” Brenthoven said. “But it’s been done before. Back before the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the Russians tested a lot of nuclear weapons in the Pacific ocean, and so did we. If we attack Yelizovo, the environmental impact shouldn’t be any worse than the old tests at Bikini Atoll, or Johnson Island, or Enewetak.”

“That’s not particularly comforting,” the president said. “We still don’t know the long-term environmental impact of Bikini, or any of those other tests. We haven’t even figured out how to accurately measure the damage they’ve caused to the ocean eco-systems.”

“That’s true, Mr. President,” the national security advisor said.

President Chandler didn’t speak for nearly a minute. At last, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry, Greg. I’m just trying to figure out how to make this omelet without breaking any eggs.”

“I don’t think it can be done, sir,” Brenthoven said.

“Neither do I,” the president said. “But that doesn’t stop me from wishing.”

He looked at his national security advisor for several seconds. “Let’s talk this over with State and the Joint Chiefs. If our people can’t offer any compelling reasons to the contrary, I’m going to take the Russians up on their offer.”

He turned back to the blank display again. One way or another, in a few hours there would be missile trajectories painted on that screen again. But this time, they’d be pointed in the other direction.

CHAPTER 59

OPERATIONS COMMAND POST #3

OUTSIDE PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKI, RUSSIA

FRIDAY; 08 MARCH

0401 hours (4:01 AM)

TIME ZONE +12 ‘MIKE’

Sergiei Mikhailovich Zhukov checked his watch for the twentieth time. What was keeping that accursed helicopter? It was time to be away from this place—past time. Didn’t these fools understand that?

It was all arranged; the Chinese treasury bills were safely hidden in three banks on Grand Cayman. Zhukov and his senior advisors would evacuate to the Caribbean islands, submerge beneath the never-ending flow of tourists, and calculate the most effective way to leverage the Chinese money into another opportunity.

Zhukov was not abandoning the plan. This was only a change of tactics. He was still dedicated to restoring the Rodina to her rightful glory.

The Russian people were yearning for a return to their proper place in the world. He could feel the undercurrent of their hidden desire coursing through the streets and alleyways like the flow of an invisible river.

It was his destiny to make the secret dream of his people into a reality. This battle was lost, but the war was far from over. This was a setback — nothing more. He would study his errors, and learn. And then, he would begin again.

He took some comfort in the knowledge that even Vladimir Ilyich Lenin had suffered failures and reversals of fortune in the early days of the great revolution. Lenin had become a hunted man. He’d gone into hiding, to elude his pursuers, and to gather his forces. And he had returned, to triumph over the enemies of the people, to forge the great Soviet empire.

Zhukov would follow that magnificent example. He would form a covert government in exile, operating quietly from the shadows until he was ready to strip away the veil of secrecy, to reveal the reborn revolution. By his hand, Novaya Rossiya, the New Russia, would be molded from the very ashes of this failure.

If only that damned helicopter would arrive …

“Comrade President?”

Zhukov’s head snapped around, his eyes quickly locating the source of the voice. His chief assistant, Maxim Ivanovitch Ustanov, stood at the door.

“Yes,” Zhukov said. “Is it the helicopter? Has it finally arrived?”

Ustanov’s face was a mask of exhaustion. “I’m sorry, Comrade President. No helicopter. Not yet. There is a meteor shower.”

Zhukov felt the frown form on his face. “A meteor shower?”

“Yes, Comrade President,” Ustanov said. “You asked to be notified of anything out of the ordinary. There is a meteor shower.”

Zhukov swallowed the urge to shout at this idiot, for bothering him with such trivial matters as meteor showers. He reached for his coat.

Three minutes later, he stood at the entrance to the cave, staring up into the darkness. It did look like a meteor shower. Trails of flaming brightness were streaking down out of the sky.

Zhukov’s heart went cold. Those were not meteors. They were …

The air above Koryaksky mountain, 1,000 meters directly over Zhukov’s head, was shattered by a flash more than ten times as bright as the sun.

It was the last thing that Sergiei Mikhailovich Zhukov ever saw.

CHAPTER 60

SHIPPING LANES

WESTERN PACIFIC OCEAN

FRIDAY; 08 MARCH

0437 hours (4:37 AM)

TIME ZONE +11 ‘LIMA’

The cargo was divided between the two ships. Strapped to steel cradles on the lower vehicle decks, each of the 20,000-ton Roll-on/Roll-off vessels carried the warhead section of an ex-Soviet R-29R nuclear missile — the unofficial (and unacknowledged) payment for China’s support of Sergiei Mikhailovich Zhukov’s short-lived revolution.

As true owners of the nuclear warheads, the Russian Federation had not authorized their transfer to the People’s Republic of China, but the transfer was taking place nonetheless. In the bowels of two innocent-looking merchant ships rode the technology that would finally transform China into a nuclear superpower. The balance of world power was poised to shift suddenly and (perhaps) irrevocably toward Communist Asia.