“To name a few things,” Williams said.
“Well, that sounds exciting,” Devlin said with deliberate irony. “Perhaps too exciting. I suspect as soon as this report hits Washington, I’m going to be asked to start negotiating a treaty with Russia for a water pipeline under the Bering Strait.” She swallowed the last of her coffee with a grimace, “Thanks for the coffee. I think.”
“You’re welcome,” he nodded. “I think.”
She stood, but hesitated by the door, “And thank you for the briefing HOLMES. Carl, I’d offer to get you a decent coffee machine down here but I hear you’re already leaving us.”
He looked a little sheepish, “Uh, yeah. It seems I came into a little money. I brought my retirement plan forward.”
Devlin tipped him a wink, “At least something good came of all this then.” She tapped a hand on the doorframe, not quite ready to go, “When you get that place on the Pacific Coast, send me a note. I’d like to come and see it some time.”
“Anytime ma’am.” Carl smiled.
It was the first time Bondarev had seen his old friend in weeks. During his return to Savoonga, he’d ordered Arsharvin to fly to the headquarters of the 3rd Air Army at Khabarovsk and mobilize GRU troops to arrest General Potemkin and his staff. That done, Bondarev had assumed command of the 3rd Air Army and flown to Moscow to meet with the newly liberated and recently appointed Defense Minister, Kelnikov, while Arsharvin had stayed in Khabarovsk to consolidate. In the meantime, Kelnikov had insisted Bondarev stay in Moscow, to help with the work of cleaning out the traitor Burkhin’s sympathizers inside the VVS.
Moscow was approaching normality again but pockets of the country were still riven with civil unrest, riots and looting. Syrian forces were being pushed back out of Lebanon and the Syrian regime was screaming for Russian air support, which Kelnikov was not minded to provide, but he had asked Bondarev for options so Bondarev had called a meeting of his operations staff at his temporary office in Moscow.
Arsharvin arrived the evening before they were due to meet, and came into Bondarev’s office holding a bottle wrapped in brown paper. “I found this when I was packing,” he said, and pulled the paper off to reveal a half full bottle of Macallan whiskey. “You know I don’t like leaving a job unfinished.”
Bondarev had regarded him from behind a pile of folders, then reached into a drawer for a pair of shot glasses. “Your new uniform suits you, Comrade Colonel.”
Arsharvin grinned, “As does yours, Comrade General.” He sat down, poured the drinks and held up his glass. “I’m told the best way to drink such a fine whiskey, is to use a pipette to place just a single drop of water on the surface, to break the meniscus and let the aromas enfold you.” With that, he threw it down in a single gulp and poured himself another.
Bondarev put his glass down on the table, without drinking it.
“That’s bad luck,” Arsharvin warned him.
“I’ve used up all my luck Tomas,” Bondarev told him. “Bad, and good. All I have left is my wits. So I need to keep them straight.”
“Agh, why the sad song?” Arsharvin said, leaning back. “You know, if we hadn’t been white-anted by the coup plotters, I think LOSOS could have succeeded.”
Bondarev laughed, “It could have succeeded in starting a nuclear war. That is all.”
“You still think the US held itself back from an all out counter-attack because it went straight for the nuclear option,” Arsharvin said, running his glass under his nose a little more thoughtfully this time. “Whereas I think they were shocked by our boldness, cowed by our military might and panicked into a weak response that was targeted at the world media, not at our military. If not for the coup, we would have taken Nome and you and I would be sitting in Alaska right now, policing our new demilitarized zone and mixing fresh, clean Yukon glacier water into our whiskey!”
“Our fatherland needs dreamers friend, now more than ever. I toast you and your dreams.” Bondarev took a sip of his whiskey at last, and rolled it around his mouth. He put the glass down again, “But the Americans have moved a flotilla of guided missile destroyers and a squadron of F-47s into Nome, less than ten minutes flight time from Lavrentiya. They have announced plans to base HELLADS and anti-air missile batteries along the Alaska Coast from Nome to Port Clarence, and rebuild their base in Savoonga. There is a US carrier task force transiting the Strait as we speak. Our so-called allies in Lebanon are having their asses whipped by the Israelis and rightly claiming it is our fault they are even engaged. And the commander of the 126th Center for Special and Physical Training in Kalinka is still refusing to recognize my command authority and insisting he will answer only to the traitor Potemkin.” He raised his eyebrows at Arsharvin, as this last problem was one he had tasked the GRU Colonel to assist with.
“If he doesn’t hand over command by tomorrow, I will take his base by force,” Arsharvin said. “Unless he has the brains to shoot himself first, and save us all some trouble.”
Bondarev drained his glass and turned it upside down, “And the US base at Little Diomede?”
“No activity since the last personnel were taken off, just after you left. The Americans may attempt to re-establish the radar facility but as a covert drone base, it is finished,” he scoffed.
Bondarev frowned, “And how many others do they have Tomas? Sitting on our shores, hiding under the ice, under the sea, ready to strike next time?”
Arsharvin sighed, “You are asking me to investigate whether…”
“I am, Colonel Arsharvin, I most definitely am. And I have one more favor to ask, a personal one.”
“Name it, Yevgeny,” Arsharvin said.
“I would like you to task your intelligence agents to trace the Australian drone aviator I met under that godforsaken rock. I gave you her name. Find her.”
“And kill her?”
“What? No. Recruit her! Find her, compromise her and turn her. We are twenty years behind the Americans in the strategic application of drone technology and that woman could be the key to leapfrogging us ahead of the Americans.”
To find Bunny right at that moment, all the GRU would have had to do was walk through the door of a small brown weatherboard house in Little Italy, San Diego.
Inside, on pale yellow walls, they would have seen framed sketches in red, blue, green and black. A gallery, of sorts. Except for the strange sound coming from the salons off the reception area. A buzzing, like electric barber clippers.
In one of the salons, sitting in a black leather chair, the GRU would have found Karen O’Hare. And reclining on the chair beside her, Alicia Rodriguez.
“Here you go,” the artist said, walking back into the room with a sketch pad. “I don’t often get a really original commission like this. Spent way too much time on it, so I hope you like.”
He lay the pad down on the table between them and turned it to face them.
A huge smile spread across Bunny’s face. It looked like a biker’s gang patch. In the middle, white on dark red, was a mushroom cloud, and in a half circle above and below it in gothic script, the words: To The Brink / of Hell.
“Uh, I’m not sure…” Rodriguez said, uncertainly.
“It’s perfect!” Bunny said, pulling off her shirt, unclipping her bra and rolling onto her stomach.
“Do you want to see some other options?” the tattooist asked Rodriguez. Bunny was glaring at her.
“No, it’s good. It’s great,” she said, and pulled the sleeve of her t-shirt up to her shoulder.
“OK, cool. I’ll do the big one,” he said, beginning the process of pasting stencil paper on Bunny’s back, between her shoulders. “Sienna will do yours, she’s just finishing with another client.”