“I’ll show I didn’t sign the order, which makes Gryzlov look even more like a berserker than he already is.”
“But if Gryzlov finds out that you double-crossed him?”
“We’ll just have to be sure that he’s taken care of before that happens,” Valentin Sen’kov said. “We’ll start building a ‘watch file’ on Gryzlov with the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Bureau.” The Federal Security Bureau was the new name of the old Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnoti, or KGB, the main foreign-and internal-security and intelligence agency in Russia, whose commander reported directly to the president. “I’ll need a copy and transcript of his tirade on the phone to me. That’ll show the world that the man’s insane. Then I won’t be accused of murder — I’ll be praised for ridding the world of yet another mad dog.”
Assistant Deputy Secretary of State Isadora Meiling stepped quietly past the sleeping berths occupied by former president Kevin Martindale. Oh, God, she thought. All she could think about was sneaking in there and giving him a kiss — or maybe something more. What was it about that guy anyway? His supernatural silver locks? The tight ass? Or the sheer power that seemed to ooze from every pore of his body?
She knocked twice on a locked door, swiped her passkey on the lock, and went inside to the private cabin in the rear of the Air Force C-32A transport, a modified VIP version of the commercial Boeing 757 airliner. The private VIP cabin had a walkway on the port side of the aircraft, making room for two soundproof sleeping quarters on the starboard side. The cabin then opened up into the main working area. There was a large semicircular desk, a small eight-person conference area in front of the desk with a table and laptop computer hookups, another desk on the starboard side, and electronic and office equipment in glass-enclosed soundproof racks. Two aides were working away at their computers; behind them Deputy Secretary of State Maureen Hershel was also busy typing on her laptop.
She looked up and noticed the worried look on Meiling’s face. “What do you have, Izzy?” she asked.
Meiling glanced around to see who else might be in the room.
“Martindale is finally taking a nap. I’ve never seen people use the phone as much as he and his staff do — he probably had every transponder channel on every satellite in earth orbit tied up. So what do you have?”
“The latest from Turkmenistan,” Meiling replied. She placed a folder on Hershel’s desk. “Late yesterday some Turkmen and Russian military forces attacked those Taliban insurgents.”
“What was the outcome?” Hershel asked, opening the folder and studying the maps. “Anything left of the Taliban?”
“The Turkmen units and their Russian officer corps got slaughtered,” Meiling said.
Hershel’s jaw dropped in surprise.
“Sixty percent casualties in less than half a day. The Taliban insurgents are firmly in control of the city of Mary and the TransCal Petroleum lines.”
“Oh, shit,” Maureen said. “Well, that’s what General McLanahan predicted all along. We can expect the rest of his predictions to come true, too — including the Russians’ counterattack. Anything else?”
“The Russians’ counterattack, ma’am.” She dropped another folder on Hershel’s desk. “Shortly after the battle outside Mary, the Russians tried to insert about three hundred commandos northeast of the city.”
“ ‘Tried’?”
“The Taliban troops were waiting for them,” Izzy said. She tapped the folder with a long, red-painted fingernail. “Looks like every Russian helicopter was shot down, and every Russian soldier is either dead or captured. The satellite photos, sent from Battle Mountain, are pretty explicit.”
“My God.” Maureen thought for a moment. “Ask Colonel Briggs to come in here.”
The tall, good-looking black officer was brought into the VIP cabin within moments, followed by Sergeant Major Chris Wohl. Maureen handed Briggs the message form.
“Your thoughts, Colonel?” she asked.
Briggs studied the reports for a few moments, then handed them to Chris Wohl. “Any word from the Turkmen foreign ministry?” Briggs asked.
“Just the warning that insurgents have taken Mary.”
“Has Turkmenistan revoked our overflight authorization?”
“No,” Isadora Meiling said. She turned to Hershel and said, “The closest divert base is Athens. Ankara, Turkey, is ahead, or we can reverse course and go to Rome.”
Hershel looked puzzled. “Land in Europe? We’ve already got clearance to land in Bahrain, and we’ve got permission to land in Ashkhabad. Why do we need to reverse course?”
“Why? A major shooting war just started in Turkmenistan!”
“I agree with the deputy secretary,” Briggs said. “If everyone is going to respect our diplomatic credentials, we should keep on pressing forward.”
“Land in Turkmenistan? In the middle of a war? Excuse me, Colonel, but that sounds crazy,” Meiling said incredulously. “Is there any guarantee that the Taliban or the Russians are going to respect our credentials? Is someone’s air-to-air or surface-to-air missile going to respect our credentials before it blows us out of the sky?”
“Good points,” Chris Wohl said.
Izzy Meiling nodded and smiled at the big Marine — and Hal Briggs nearly fell over in a dead faint when he saw Wohl nod and even appear to favor her with a half smile in return. When Chris Wohl was on the job, he usually remained as serious as a nuclear war. That microscopic smile was the closest Hal had ever seen the big Marine come to emotionally connecting with a woman — Hal hesitated to call it a “flirt”—in eleven years of working with the guy.
“It might be safer to land in some neighboring country — the United Nations base at Samarkand in Uzbekistan would be my first choice — and proceed by land or helicopter, or conclude your business by phone, or have the principals come to you,” Wohl added.
“All good suggestions — except I don’t feel we have the time,” Hershel said. “I know there’s a risk involved, but I want to proceed.”
There was a knock at the door. Meiling checked the peephole. “It’s President Martindale.” The phone rang at that moment, and Hershel picked it up immediately as she waved for Meiling to let Martindale in. “Hershel… okay, operator, going secure.” She pushed a button on her phone and waited for the beeping and hissing to stop. “Yes, I’m secure, thank you, operator…. I’ll stand by.”
A few moments later: “Maureen?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“I don’t suppose I can assume that because your plane hasn’t diverted, you didn’t get the word.”
“I got the information on the attacks on the city of Mary and the Taliban ambushing those Russian commandos, Mr. President,” Hershel replied. “But unless they revoke our landing permission, I intend to complete this mission.”
“Miss Hershel, you know I try not to involve myself in my staff’s decision making, but this is one instance when I think the smart thing would be to postpone your trip to Turkmenistan until things have calmed down.”
“I’ll talk it over with my staff, sir.”
“But your inclination is to go ahead with the trip.”
“It is, Mr. President.”
Maureen heard the president sigh, but he did not contradict her. Instead he said, “I heard you brought along some… help.”
Not one word of advice, second-guessing, or questioning — Maureen liked that. This was a president who trusted his staff, all right. “I hope that’s okay, sir.”
“It was a good call. What’s your plan?”