“What are you planning on doing next?”
“I’m going to commence round-the-clock heavy aerial bombardment until satellite imagery detects no movement of Taliban armored or mechanized forces,” Gryzlov replied. “Then I’m going to drop an entire battalion of paratroopers with artillery on that city, retake the airfield, and set up a secure forward command center in Mary. I’m going to insert a brigade of mechanized infantry into Mary and retake the city. I’m going to repeat the entire process with Chärjew, then Kizyl-arvat, and finally Gaurdak.”
“What in God’s name is your objective here, Gryzlov? Do you want to destroy all those cities? Do you intend to take the entire country?”
“My objective will be to eliminate all Taliban and any other subversive elements in Turkmenistan and retake the oil fields and pipelines,” Gryzlov said. “Russia will be criticized for attacking Turkmenistan with such overwhelming force — but I don’t care. I will retake control of the country quickly and effectively.” Gryzlov paused, waiting to see if Sen’kov was going to object. When he did not, Gryzlov continued, “Sir, the warning order will be transmitted to the district headquarters immediately, and the execution order will be on your desk in fifteen minutes. I expect you to sign the order. I plan on launching the first air strike in less than eight hours from now.”
There was a very long pause, almost a full minute. Gryzlov was growing angrier by the second, unticlass="underline" “Very well, General. Issue the warning order, then get the execution order on my desk immediately. I am prepared to sign it. But, General?”
“Sir?”
“You will be very careful in the future to consult with the Defense Ministry and myself before making any more such plans,” Sen’kov warned. “I don’t like your tone, and I don’t like being told what to do.”
“Sir, at this moment I don’t much care what you like,” Gryzlov said. “You told me you were so afraid of Turkmenistan’s turning into another Kosovo or Chechnya, and then you tied my hands behind my back—”
“Watch your tone of voice, General!”
“I will not, sir!” Gryzlov shot back. “I am putting you on notice from now on, sir, that the Russian military will not tolerate any more political equivocating or half commitments where vital Russian interests or Russian military forces are involved! If my men are attacked again, I will act — and if I do not receive one hundred percent backing from the Kremlin, I will see to it that there are leaders in place who will back the military!”
“You are out of line, Gryzlov!” Sen’kov cried. “One more word out of you and you’ll find yourself in a Siberian prison beside Zhurbenko!”
“Don’t threaten me, Mr. President,” Gryzlov said. “As long as my men and women guard your offices, support influential members of the Duma, and monitor your phones and computers, you will not threaten me! My soldiers know I will die before I fail to support them, and I know they will die to support me. That is all you need to remember. I’ll have that execution order on your desk in ten minutes. It had better be back on my desk in twenty minutes, or the next target for my bombers will be the Kremlin!”
Valentin Sen’kov replaced the phone on its cradle. His foreign minister, Ivan Filippov, stared at him in complete amazement. “Was that General Gryzlov shouting on the phone?” he asked. “I could hear it all the way from here!”
“The commandos he sent to Turkmenistan—”
“The ones he sent in to sneak into Mary and reconnoiter the Taliban positions — I remember,” Filippov said. “What about them? Were they successful?” He looked at Sen’kov’s horrified, incredulous expression. “Some of them get hurt?”
“All of them… got dead,” Sen’kov breathed.
“What?” Filippov cried, rising to his feet. “All of them? How many…?”
“Three hundred.”
Filippov was too stunned to speak.
“Gryzlov is shutting down the airspace over Turkmenistan, and he’s going to send in a large bomber force,” Sen’kov went on. “You need to contact the American foreign ministry and the White House right away, notify them what happened, and tell them that for our protection we are imposing a blockade of Turkmen airspace.”
“Sir, we didn’t discuss doing that — not even as a contingency,” Filippov said. “Besides, we can’t legally just close off another country’s airspace. My advice would be to let a bunch of journalists in to see what those Taliban raiders did. Then the world might be more on our side when we’re ready to strike.”
“General Gryzlov is sending over an execution order for me to sign right now,” Sen’kov said. “He’s already issued a warning order to his bomber forces.”
“Well, fuck him until you decide what you want to do first,” Filippov said. “He’s not the—” Filippov stopped and looked at Sen’kov with a perplexed expression that quickly turned to shock. “Wait a minute… Gryzlov was yelling at you on the phone just now? He was telling you what he was going to do, and he ordered you to comply?”
“He threatened me,” Sen’kov said.
Filippov had never seen the president so scared before — in fact, he thought he’d never seen anyone so scared before, even Zhurbenko just before they hauled him away to prison.
“He threatened to kill me, blow up the Kremlin — and he’s serious, Ivan. He’s not crazy — he’s dead serious.”
“He needs to be arrested — no, he needs to be disposed of!” Filippov cried. “Threatening the president of the federation, threatening the lives of government officials — who in hell does he think he is?”
“Who’s going to dispose of him, Ivan? You? Me? He’s threatened to turn every uniformed man and woman against me. And after what happened in the Balkans, I don’t think the Duma or the bureaucrats will stand in his way.”
“Don’t let him bullshit you, sir,” Filippov said. “The MVD Interior Troops and the OMON special-assignments command forces assigned to protect you are not under his command — they’re part of the Interior Ministry.”
“That’s… what? A few thousand troops? Maybe ten thousand? He controls over a million battle-ready troops.”
“He doesn’t command them — he runs the general staff,” Filippov said. “He can’t get on the radio or TV tomorrow and order all those troops to do what he…”
But Filippov’s voice trailed off, and Sen’kov immediately knew why. They both knew that General Anatoliy Gryzlov might just be popular enough to do exactly that: get on TV and the nationwide radio system, address the Russian people, order a coup, and roll his tanks into Red Square to take over the government.
Tomorrow. Maybe even tonight.
“What are you going to do?” Filippov breathed.
“We’re going to do exactly what he told us to do,” Sen’kov said nervously. “We are going to get Gurizev to immediately rescind his invitation for the Americans to visit Ashkhabad, and we’re going to announce an air cordon of Turkmenistan. And then we’re going to let Gryzlov pound the hell out of those Taliban.” Sen’kov thought for a moment, then added, “And we are going to use every opportunity, quietly and publicly, to distance ourselves from this military action.”
“But you’ve got to sign the execution order.”
“I said I would sign it, but Gryzlov said he was going to deploy his troops immediately and attack as soon as they were in place,” Sen’kov said. “I think we could arrange for Gryzlov’s office to think I signed the order….”
“So if the attacks work, you can show you signed on to the plan,” Filippov said. “And if it doesn’t work…”