She had a dozen department heads either asking her what was going on, or telling her what she should be doing, and on top of this, she had Carl Williams hovering at the door with his damned laptop trying to get her attention and arguing with her personal security detail.
“Let him in,” she barked at them, then turned to the three technicians. “I don’t care if that cabinet is three hundred years old, pull it off that wall and get me a link to DC. What is it Carl?”
“NORAD has reported that the Russian bombers were destroyed, and I have Major-General Yevgeny Bondarev on the line for you,” the analyst panted. Clearly he had run from the New Annex over to her office, laptop in hand.
“How do you have comms?” she asked, and then realized it was a stupid question. “Did you call him or did he…”
“He called NORAD,” Williams said. He pushed the laptop across her desk and she saw he had a video feed running.
She looked for the first time into the face of the man who was the father of her granddaughter and right now, her enemy in war.
“Hello Ambassador,” he said. He seemed to be standing outside, wind blowing his hair. She could see a quadrotor helicopter in the background.
She took a deep breath, “Major-General Bondarev. Did you stop those bombers?”
He nodded, “I did. Or rather, you did. One of your pilots did. The immediate threat has passed but I need you to give some information to your political masters. Can you do that?”
She looked across at the three technicians, one of who held up five fingers.
“We lost our uplink but I’m told it will be restored soon,” she said. “What is the information?”
“There has been a coup attempt in Moscow. The attempted nuclear attack on Anchorage was not authorized by our President or Prime Minister, but by the coup plotters, led by the Defense Minister and the head of the 3rd Air and Air Defense Forces Command Potemkin. The situation is currently highly fluid.”
“Do these coup plotters still have access to your strategic nuclear arsenal?” Devlin asked, horrified.
“No,” Bondarev told her. “Our military intelligence service is still loyal to the President and has secured the codes. They are currently in the process of determining which military and police units the coup plotters have turned, and which we can trust. It will take some hours.”
“What do you want Major-General?” she asked.
“I have ordered the arrest of the 3rd Air and Air Defense Forces Command Commander, General Potemkin. The aircraft and support units of my 6983rd Brigade and 25th PVO Brigade are being withdrawn from the Bering Strait area of operations, as we speak. Ground forces should start withdrawing to their pre-conflict bases tomorrow. I just ask for time to get the situation under control, that is all.”
“I’ll pass that on,” she told him. “Thank you.”
“Ambassador,” he said. “There may be men on your side who see this as the ideal opportunity to attack us, while we are riven with internal division.” He leaned forward toward the camera. “Tell them that would be very unwise. The President of the Federation is back in control of our strategic rocket, space and submarine forces and will not hesitate to use them if necessary.”
She swallowed, “I will be sure to make them aware of that.”
Someone called to Bondarev from off camera and he looked away, then looked back. “I must go. There is one more thing. Your facility under Little Diomede Island will not be allowed to operate so close to our border. You have 48 hours in which to evacuate any personnel there, after which we will mine the entrance.”
Devlin had little idea what he was talking about but she could see in Carl’s face that he did.
Something in his tone annoyed her, “I don’t think you are in a position to be making more threats,” she said.
“Nonetheless,” he said, and gave her a casual salute, “Give my regards to your daughter,” he said, and reached forward to cut the call.
Alicia Rodriguez and Bunny O’Hare watched on Bunny’s laptop as the icon from Bondarev’s quadrotor headed south, escorted by four Su-57s. To the east, their last remaining Fantom was starting its final approach to the airfield at Juneau. Bunny shut her laptop down.
They’d watched Bondarev exit the chute on the rope he swung in on, and had lain in wait with rifles trained on the small square of sky at the end of the chute in case it was all just a ploy to allow a larger Spetsnaz force to take them on. But they’d eventually had to allow that perhaps the Russian officer had kept his word.
This time, after they contacted CNAF and briefed them on developments, and with Russian aircraft clearly pulling out of the Operations Area, Navy agreed to send a chopper from Port Clarence to lift them off.
“Not that I don’t like it down here ma’am,” Bunny said. “But perhaps we could wait topside?”
“They could still be up there,” Rodriguez said. “A few hours ago he led a Spetsnaz team in here to kill us.”
“I know Boss,” Bunny sighed. “But I’ll take the chance that the killing is over for now — the trust has to start again somewhere.”
It wouldn’t be easy, that much she knew. Too many people had died. As they had walked him across the bridge toward the chute, Bunny trailing watchfully with her rifle ready in the crook of her arm, Rodriguez had stopped him.
“Tell me something?” she’d asked. “I couldn’t follow your conversation earlier. A lot of good people died. Can you tell me why?”
He’d looked away, “Why did we go to war? For all the usual reasons, I suppose. Power. Greed. Survival.” He’d looked back at her and tapped the star on her flight suit. “Ours is not to reason why Lieutenant Commander.”
Bunny had shaken her head and prodded him up the ramp with the barrel of her gun, “Yeah, right. See that’s the difference between us, right there,” she’d told him. “Decades ago, you stopped asking your leaders why. We never will.”
Dave was asking himself why. Why he’d left. Why he hadn’t got back faster. Why he hadn’t taken the shot when he had it. Why he’d let the Russian get inside the water tank and shoot his friend.
But he’d nailed the guy. As Dave climbed down inside the water tank again, the Russian was slumped against the wall behind Perri, gasping, a new bloodstain spreading across the front of his chest. He wasn’t dead, but he couldn’t be far away from it this time. Dave ran a couple of steps and picked up his pistol, just to be sure, then knelt down beside Perri.
He was cold.
So he’d been dead a while. Was probably already dead when the Russian shot him a few minutes ago. In a way, Dave was relieved; relieved it hadn’t been his gutlessness that had killed his friend. Then he felt bad about feeling relieved. And that led to anger.
He looked up at the Russian, still taking heaving, shuddering breaths with his eyes fixed on Dave.
Dave didn’t want to listen to him anymore. He lifted his rifle, chambered a round.
The Russian held up a hand, feebly, as if to stop him.
Dave hesitated, lowered his rifle. No, the guy was offering him something.
Dave frowned and looked at it.
Oh, it was a grenade. The Russian was offering him a grenade.
POSTSCRIPT
In the sub-Arctic autumn of Saint Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea, a cadaver can keep for months without spoiling. Whether a whale on a black volcanic beach, a walrus caught in the rocks along the coast, or the body of a man.
So there was no tell-tale stink when Sergeant Dan Kushniruk of the Canadian Mounted Police approached the water tank in the last brief light of day, and noticed it was full of bullet holes.