Glen Allen - The shadow war

Once inside, he immediately offered Benjamin and Natalya a small glass of vodka each. Benjamin was exhausted, just wanted to lie down, but a look from Natalya told him this was a ritual they must indulge. He accepted the glass, Boris roared, "Za vashe zdorovye!" and he and Natalya tossed theirs back in a single gulp. Benjamin started to sip his, and Boris protested.

"Nyet, nyet," he said, and motioned for Benjamin to toss the vodka off as he had. Benjamin smiled, saluted him with the glass, and did so.

The vodka burned his throat, and he bent over, coughing, much to Boris's amusement. And then Boris poured another shot for each of them, pronounced another toast Benjamin didn't understand, and they repeated the procedure.

This time Benjamin didn't cough. And at least, he noticed, he was beginning to feel the warmth return to his hands and face.

It was then Natalya asked Boris to use his telephone.

"Da, da," he said. "But not always work." He showed Natalya where it was, and she went into the other room where it was located.

Benjamin looked around Boris's "business" house. It seemed more of a hunting lodge than anything else. There were bear and fox heads on the walls, and everything was made of either wood or stone. Boris went to the stone fireplace and began making a fire.

Natalya returned from the other room looking even more worried.

"There is no answer," she said to Benjamin. "Not at Olga's, not at his apartment."

While Natalya and Boris carried on another animated conversation, Benjamin looked around the cabin. He noticed a well-stocked gun rack on one wall and a shelf lined, row upon row, with unmarked, clear-glass bottles. There were also numerous foot lockers that looked ex-military, a huge meat refrigerator, a very old television set complete with rabbit ears antenna, and what appeared to be an ancient CB radio.

Photographs were set unevenly along the walls, most of them showing Boris posing with other men over the bodies of bears, deer, and in one case a white-and-black tiger; there were also other, older photographs with Boris in a uniform of the Red Army, standing in groups of men, their arms around each other's shoulders, all of them smiling and looking young, brave, and cold. Upon closer examination, Benjamin recognized one of those men as a younger Nikolai Orlov.

Finally Natalya and Boris finished talking, and Boris turned to the stove and began making coffee.

"I told him we must continue," Natalya said. "Wherever Nikolai is, whatever has happened to him, it is what he would want. What he would insist upon."

Benjamin looked at her. He thought again of how much he admired her strength, her calm resolve in the face of the unexpected. Perhaps Natalya sensed his thoughts, as she came to him and held his arms, looking into his face. He didn't need to say anything; she knew he couldn't but agree with her.

"And so, Monsieur Levebre," she said, "I believe we have an interview to arrange."

"The general says, if the order comes through, he will not hesitate to follow his duty to the Motherland. He will launch his missiles."

As Natalya translated what General Voroshilov had just said, Benjamin scribbled notes, as though he were taking down every word. But in fact he was scribbling nonsense-in French, just in case the general knew more English than he let on.

They were sitting in General Voroshilov's surprisingly cramped office, in the base administration building, which from the outside looked like an average grocery store. Of course, most grocery stores didn't have soldiers patrolling their hallways with AK-47s.

The moment Benjamin had seen the gates of the military base through the windshield of Boris's jeep, he began to regret his decision to allow Natalya to come along. The high fence, obviously electrified; the dozens of soldiers, all armed with automatic weapons; the forbidding expressions on their faces… all of it made him want to tell Boris to turn the jeep around. Added to that, Natalya had pointed out the large monument of Comrade Lenin. Benjamin thought he saw a malicious smirk on Lenin's lips, as though he was saying Who do you think you are fooling?

At the gate, a soldier took their names, referred to a checklist, then looked very long and hard at their press credentials. Finally, he waved them through, but telling Boris he must park his jeep and wait outside. Boris told Natalya that was okay, there was a soldier's bar nearby where he could wait.

Benjamin asked the questions during the interview and Natalya translated General Voroshilov's answers. The general-a large man with a wide face and a thick neck that the tight collar of his uniform only emphasized, and an easy smile that Benjamin felt wasn't to be taken as quite what it seemed-was obviously eager to praise the dedication and sacrifice of his men, and himself, and at the same time to make it clear that he had under his command the power to devastate large areas of the Western world. He said, looking very stern, that their Voyevoda rockets each had the destructive capacity of 1,200 Hiroshimas.

During all this propaganda, Benjamin looked properly impressed. But finally, Benjamin brought the interview around to the only question he really cared about: What about security? For instance, what if terrorists tried to get to his missiles?

The general looked disdainful, laughed. Even though he was kind enough to entertain two French journalists today, he said, it was not long ago that they would not have been allowed within one hundred kilometers of the base.

And what about the missile silos themselves? asked Benjamin; how well were they protected?

The general spoke at some length, his tone that of an indulgent parent lecturing a child. The entire territory was protected, he said, by cameras and night-vision equipment and special electronic sensors. Each silo was surrounded by an electric fence carrying thousands of volts. He said even the famous Siberian bear wasn't clever enough to cross those fences. Once, one had tried and been "burnt to nothing more than smoking fur." Even the elite Russian Spetsnaz, the Special Forces, had not been able to penetrate their defenses.

As Benjamin jotted down a steady stream of words, his heart sank. This was going to be even more difficult than they'd thought.

Finally, Benjamin said the general had been most helpful. But there was one more favor he could do for them, something to give their article "real spice." He said they would like to interview one or two of the other people involved in the defense of the base, to get some further perspectives on the truly excellent safeguards in place; such assurances, Benjamin said, would go a long way toward quelling Western fears about "loose Russian nukes." Could they, for instance, speak to-and here Benjamin leafed through his notes, as if checking a name-a Lieutenant Colonel Vasily Kalinin, commander of base security?

From the look on General Voroshilov's face, Benjamin was certain he would say nyet. But he seemed to consider it for a moment, then smiled, said something that Natalya translated as, "Of course, we have nothing to hide"-which he accompanied with a wink and a chuckle-and then pressed a button on his phone-intercom system.

Suddenly, Benjamin had a horrible thought: What if Voroshilov was summoning Vasily to his office? What if he would insist they interview Vasily there, in front of him?

But it turned out the general was merely finding out Vasily's location on the base. He then summoned the guard outside, barked some instructions at him, and told Natalya that the soldier would accompany them down the hall to Vasily's office. He shook their hands, insisted they send him a copy of their article, which he promised to mount on his wall, and saw them out the door.

The moment they entered Lieutenant Colonel Kalinin's office, Benjamin caught a look of recognition in his eyes. Vasily looked perplexed for a moment, then instructed the soldier to wait outside, and bid them to sit down.