Peter Sasgen - War Plan Red

The trio reached the hub where the narrow cobblestone streets met the roundabout with the fountain at its center. The streets themselves were lined with three story czarist-era buildings recently restored to their former glory and resplendent in their creamy yellow and white paint.

“And what is it that you think you know, Ivan Ivanovich?” said Zakayev.

“I know, for instance, about the death of an American in Murmansk. Rumor has it that your people were involved. Why?”

Zakayev stopped and unlinked his arm from Serov’s. He faced the mafiyosoi and said, “The rumors are wrong. You shouldn’t believe them.”

Serov took hold of Zakayev’s coat lapels. “You’re not listening to me Ali. We will lose everything we have gained if you go ahead with another large-scale operation. If you are planning something big— bigger than the concert hall operation—and you succeed, the Russians will turn Chechnya into a wasteland.”

“But they have already turned it into a wasteland.” For a moment his eyes went to the girl taking it all in, then back to Serov. “Ask her, if you don’t already know this, and she’ll tell you.”

One of the most dangerous men in Russia gave Zakayev a menacing look. He took time to light a cigarette. When he spoke, his voice was cold and flat. “Not only are you pigheaded, Alikhan Andreyevich, you insult me.”

Zakayev said nothing.

“As a practical matter,” Serov said icily, “whatever it is you are planning, I suggest you change your mind and put it off.”

Zakayev gave Serov a crafty smile. “Is that a threat?

Serov, looking down, rolled the flattened brown cigarette between a thumb and forefinger. “I don’t believe in threats,” he said.

“Then go back to Moscow,” said Zakayev. “We have nothing more to discuss.”

Serov took the cigarette out of his mouth and made a face.

Zakayev, alert, saw an almost imperceptible gathering of feral energy in Serov’s body. The mafiyosoi raised his arm over his head and, with a sweeping gesture that gave the appearance of being staged, threw the cigarette he was smoking into the dry fountain, where it landed with a shower of sparks among withered leaves and dried bird droppings.

A split second later Zakayev heard the thunder of tires on cobblestones echoing off the fronts of buildings. He spun around and saw terrified pedestrians flatten themselves against the walls of buildings as a black BMW hurtled down one of the narrow streets.

Behind Zakayev a burgundy BMW, its tires thundering over the cobblestones and scattering pedestrians, hurtled down another street from the direction of the river toward the hub. The two big sedans, tires howling, engines roaring, raced each other round the fountain as if playing tag. A man wearing a balaclava leaned out an open front window of the black car and opened fire on the burgundy car behind him.

Serov the gimp, backpedaling toward the fountain, had drawn a heavy automatic from his coat pocket. Zakayev heard a powerful explosion, then another. He saw Serov slam against the rim of the fountain. The girl, aiming the pistol she’d pulled from the portfolio, was ready to shoot Serov again. But before she could, Zakayev dragged her to the cobblestones out of the line of fire, breaking her fall with his body.

Bullets whined off the fountain and cobblestones. Someone in the burgundy car returned fire. Bullets thunked into BMW sheet metal, slapped through wind shields. The black car swung too wide and sideswiped an iron bench, then fishtailed, jumped the curb, and slammed head on into a stone wall fronting one of the czarist-era houses. Steel shrieked and buckled; diamonds of shattered safety glass exploded against the wall. The car rebounded, leaving both the driver’s and gunman’s heads tangled in the bloody folds of the deflated air bags that had punched through the bulging windshield.

The burgundy BMW slewed to a stop; its doors flew open and pairs of strong hands dragged Zakayev and the girl into the car. Zakayev felt brutal acceleration, heard tires spinning, fighting for traction on the cobblestones. The girl lay sprawled on her stomach in the backseat across the lap of one of the brutes from the auto repair shop. Her long hair flew every which way and her stockings had been torn at both knees. Zakayev, lying on his back on the floor of the car, saw that she still had a tight grip on the pistol and an exultant look on her face.

“I shot him,” she said. “I shot Serov.”

“Dobro pojalovat’v Rossiyu—welcome to Russia, Captain Scott.”

He saw a pretty woman with short blond hair and a serious look on her face. She had on sneakers, jeans, and a down-filled jacket over a turtleneck. Not the typical U.S. Embassy greeter sent to fetch a jet-lagged VIP, thought Scott, but just as well. Low profile, Radford had said.

“Spasiba—thank you. I’m supposed to meet—”

“That’s right, I’m Alex Thorne,” she said.

“But I thought—”

“I know what you thought. My name is Alexandra, but everyone calls me Alex.”

They shook hands while passengers departing customs and immigration flowed around them like a river.

“Sorry for my getup,” she said, “but they didn’t tell me I was to pick you up until an hour ago. Shall we go?”

Outside the terminal she muscled a black Embassy SUV from the parking lot through airport traffic and sped for the Moscow Ring Road via the International Highway.

“Where are you quartered, Captain?’’ she asked, all business now.

“Jake.”

She smiled. “Right. Jake.”

He looked at her profile, the straight line of nose, taut chin, and full lips. She pushed blond hair behind an ear and gave Scott a glance.

“The Marriot Grand,” he said. “They broke the budget for me.”

“I take it you’ve stayed there before.”

“During my last tour.”

“Ah. Then you know your way around Moscow.”

He glanced out the SUV’s tinted windows at a forest of construction cranes rising over the Russian capital’s skyline. “But I hear it’s changed a lot.” “It sure has. Parts of Moscow are like a Potemkin village, while other parts of it are more like the States than the States. Shopping malls are popping up all over. Want mall rats? We have ’em. Rap stars too.” She wrinkled her nose. “And terrorism.”

“That attack on the concert hall must have everyone on edge.”

“Sure does. People here are frightened of what might happen next. Things won’t return to normal until Russia pulls out of Chechnya. Even if they do, it may not end the bloodshed. The Chechens have been brutalized and are bent on destroying Russia by any means possible.”

“What’s your role in this?”

“It’s my job to see that Chechen terrorists don’t get hold of fissile materials from decommissioned nuclear subs to make a radiation bomb or a nuke. It’s a frightening situation. There’s so much nuclear rubbish laying around up north that it’s almost like another Chernobyl.”

“I know it’s the most radioactive place in the world,” Scott said. “The Russian Northern Fleet has decommissioned—what? — sixty nuclear submarines, nearly their entire fleet. That’s more than a hundred reactors to safeguard. Can it be done?”

“Not the way things are. The Russian Navy’s main concern is when they’re going to be paid. A crew in charge of a laid-up nuclear submarine is hardly thinking about security. Plus, many of the crews are unfit for service. A month ago a sailor at the sub base in Olenya Bay went berserk and killed five people before he killed himself. A week later a guard at a nuclear reprocessing plant in Siberia killed his boss and two coworkers. A terrorist could easily walk onto a base and steal enough nuclear fuel to make a dirty bomb. Just mix a couple of kilos of strontium 90 with Semtex and set it off in Moscow.”