Tom Clancy - Command Authority

Still, Volodin had been here only once before, the day he cut off the gas lines to Estonia.

And everyone who saw him on the twenty-second floor today, especially those who both took note of his intense demeanor and knew anything about what was going on in the world, knew exactly why he was here.

Volodin passed into the command-and-control room, and then he stopped suddenly. Though he was a single-minded and purposeful individual, perhaps to a pathological degree, he still could not help being impressed by the image in front of him. Fifty or so employees were hard at work at their desks, and beyond them at the front wall of the room, a digital map one hundred feet long by twenty-five feet high displayed a lighted maze of pipes intertwined in different colors. This was a graphic representation of Gazprom’s pipeline network, some 175,000 kilometers long, stretching east to Siberia and west to the Atlantic, north to the Arctic and south to the Caspian Sea.

Here, in this nerve center, a few commands into a computer terminal could shut off much of the power across Europe, plunging tens of millions into darkness and cold, and crippling industry and transportation.

And that was the plan.

Volodin had a speech planned; there was a cameraman along with his PR people, and they hustled into the room and began filming.

But Volodin changed his mind on the speech. He decided the less he said, the more impactful his actions would be. He walked to the front of the room, turned around, and faced the controllers. Every man and every woman sat wide-eyed, waiting for the instructions they knew would come.

The president of Russia said, “Ladies and gentlemen, all lines heading to and through Ukraine will be shut down. Immediately.”

Those controlling the flow of the lines to Ukraine had been given a heads-up before Volodin arrived. But no one had said anything about lines flowing through Ukraine and into Western Europe.

The director of transfer pipelines sat in the second row. He would comply, of course, but he did not want to make a mistake. With great reluctance, he stood from his desk.

“Mr. President. Just so there is no misunderstanding. Shutting all lines that cross Ukrainian soil will reduce Western Europe’s gas supply by seventy-five percent.”

The pipeline director wondered if his career would end today for questioning the president, but Volodin seemed pleased to be given the opportunity to expand on his declaration.

The president responded, “The current political authority in Ukraine has shown itself to be unreliable as a steward of the resources desperately needed by the people of Western Europe. Natural gas is our resource, and it is in jeopardy as long as Ukraine continues as an unstable state. We here in Russia call on the world community to put pressure on Kiev to do a better job. It is springtime, Europe will not feel the most drastic effects of this action for months, and I am certain Europe will help us alleviate this crisis long before the cold becomes an issue. I am not concerned about Europe’s energy needs as much as I am concerned about Russia’s citizenry both here and in the near abroad. With this decision to cut export pipelines, I expect to see a sense of urgency.”

There was no smile on Volodin’s face. No evil laugh. He delivered the edict that had the power to devastate millions of people as if it were nothing more than a dry administrative decision cooked up by a junior technocrat.

The process to shut the pipeline flows was surprisingly swift and straightforward. Volodin stood there with his hands on his hips and watched the first lines on the massive graphic map change from green to yellow and then to red, signifying a stop in flow.

He did not wait for the entire shutdown process; there were a lot of lines, after all. Instead, he told everyone to keep up the good work, and he stormed out of the command-and-control center just as quickly as he’d rushed in.

Volodin was downstairs and back in his armored limousine in minutes, and as it raced away, shooting north toward the city through a lane reserved for government vehicles, the president looked across the backseat to his chief of staff. “Get Talanov on the line.”

While he waited, he thumbed through some papers in his lap and sipped tea from a filigreed holder.

Soon a mobile phone was passed to him by his chief of staff. Volodin took it. “Roman Romanovich?”

“Da, Valeri.” Talanov would never have called Volodin by his first name in public, but Talanov was never in public, so this was a nonissue.

Volodin asked, “Has the site exploitation of the CIA compound in Sevastopol taken place?”

“ Da. The results were not what we had hoped. The CIA group there vacated with most of their equipment and destroyed the rest. They inflicted heavy losses on our Spetsnaz troops, as well as Seven Strong Men irregulars.”

“And we’ve got nothing to show for it?” Before Talanov replied, Volodin said, “Bodies? What about bodies of dead Americans?”

“There was a lot of blood in the compound’s main building. I am told there was enough blood to say with confidence the Americans lost several personnel. But all bodies were retrieved when the American Marines rescued the CIA men.”

“Damn it.”

“ Nyet problem. It will be fine, Valeri. We will salvage a diplomatic coup.”

“How?”

“We are recording interviews with Ukrainians who worked in the compound. They will say whatever we want them to say. Plus, we have film of American aircraft overhead. The Americans will say they were NATO-flagged aircraft rescuing their Partnership for Peace troops, but you will make the statement that the CIA has been working in the Crimea to destabilize the area.”

“I wanted hard proof.”

“Sorry, Valeri, but if you wanted bodies, you should have given the Black Sea fleet permission to blow the American planes out of the sky. But that’s not my department.”

“No, Roman, it’s not. I did not want to provoke a war with America over Sevastopol. I wanted evidence of CIA provocation in Sevastopol to use against the Americans when the time is right.”

“I understand. But if you—”

“I need more from you on this, Roman. I need an act that can be positively attributed to the CIA in the region.”

There was a short pause on the line. The pause would have been much longer if Roman Talanov and Valeri Volodin did not know each other as well as they did.

Talanov said, “I understand you, Valeri. I will create something, and I will use the evidence we do have from the Sevastopol compound to show incontrovertible proof.”

“Quickly. Very quickly. I just stopped gas flow to and through Ukraine.”

“I will get to work, then. Paka. ” Good-bye.

CIA analyst Jack Ryan arrived at Century House with his bags packed for his trip to Switzerland. He had to be at Heathrow at noon, so he figured he would put in an hour and a half of work before carrying his suitcase back downstairs and climbing into a cab.

His first task of the day was to call David Penright in Zug, to see if he’d received the documents from Morningstar and to check for any final instructions from the English spy in the field.

He had just returned to his desk with his first cup of coffee of the morning, ready to fire up his STU for the call, when the director of the Russian Working Group, Simon Harding, hurried into his office. “Charleston needs you in his office, straightaway.”

Jack could see consternation on Harding’s face.

“What is it?”

“Just go, mate.”

Minutes later, Jack stepped out of the elevator into the director’s corner office. On the ride up, he ran a dozen possible scenarios through his head, but he admitted to himself he couldn’t imagine what had Harding so agitated.