Then came a ray of sunshine in the form of an urgent communique from Moscow. As he read it over word by word for a third time, he felt both anger and joy. The information only reconfirmed his belief that General of the Army Pavel Sergeyev, the chief of the general staff, was a timid old woman. This was the latest example of “Do Nothing Grams” from him. It stated that there was growing evidence that a certain Colonel Ivan Strakov of the GRU, who supposedly had perished recently in an airplane crash in Siberia, was not only still alive, but had defected to the Americans. Deep-cover intelligence sources reported that Strakov had shown up unexpectedly at the U.S. Embassy in Finland, and immediately had been swept into secrecy.
The Kremlin message warned that if the report was true, Strakov posed extreme harm to Russia because he had for years been given immense access to top-secret material. Therefore, General Sergeyev in Moscow was ordering all senior military commanders to temporarily halt all operations that might be interpreted as aggressive and just remain vigilant pending further developments. They were to undertake absolutely no provocative actions. That, thought Levchenko, was the same as doing nothing.
Ivan, you slippery bastard! You did it! Levchenko felt the heavy sled that he pulled advance a bit, and the load seemed a bit lighter as he plodded another step forward. Levchenko shouted, and his own chief of staff hurried into the office, snapping to attention. The chief knew the contents of the note, since he had been the one to decrypt and deliver it. He had been waiting for his boss to react.
The colonel general was at the desk and had pulled a legal pad toward him and was furiously writing an order in longhand. “Pyotr Ivanovich, my friend, do I recall that during a briefing yesterday, there was a report that two GRU agents were murdered in that little castle over in Narva? Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir,” the chief confirmed. “They were part of a sweep of some dissidents.”
“No doubt it was an ambush, then? They were lured into a trap and killed. I mean, how else could a pair of highly trained GRU operatives be overpowered?”
The chief could almost see the wheels turning within his boss’s busy brain. In his own opinion, the two thugs just got careless and picked on the wrong dissident, and on the wrong side of the border. “Yes, sir. It was an ambush. Without a doubt,” he agreed. “Two good, loyal police officers who were just doing their duties.”
“At the request of local authorities in Narva, no doubt.” He was looking for a loophole in the facts.
“Without question, sir. The locals would have asked for assistance in a dangerous mission against terrorists.” The chief made a note. He would arrange paperwork to back that up.
With a grim smile, General Levchenko made the decision. “Then it was a deliberate provocation! We cannot sit by idly while those Estonian terrorists murder our people. Therefore, we are going to take advantage of this horrible weather to test combat preparedness under most adverse conditions. It will send them the message that we are prepared to act if these provocations continue, and we demand that justice be done. This storm is a blessing, Colonel. All divisional commanders will immediately begin preparations for Phase One of Operation Hermitage. Our troops are to respond to a simulated NATO attack on St. Petersburg.”
“Sir? In this mad weather? We will surely lose valuable men.” The chief of staff read the crisp two-sentence order to be sure he had everything straight in his mind before leaving. It would stir the Baltic and the Northern Fleets to life, launch elements of the 6th and 20th Guard Armies, Spetsnaz and air assault units, and then the 1st Air and Air Defense Forces planes would take to the skies. Almost everybody in the district was going to get wet on this miserable and dangerous day. His general was not angry at all. In fact, he seemed excited and pleased. In a matter of minutes, he had molded the bad weather, the terrible news about the defector and the deaths of a pair of careless GRU thugs into a singular reason to start the gigantic war game. Moscow would be unable to question the decision.
“Of course we will lose a few, Colonel Dolgov! Nature does not cooperate with military men, but we must be able to fight through it all. We will begin surveillance overflights of our entire border with Estonia to test NATO alertness as soon as possible,” he said. “I don’t care if this is the greatest storm in history, those pilots will scramble and take off or I will put my boot up their rear ends for being cowards.”
“Yes, sir. As you order.” The colonel saluted and headed back to his adjoining office, happy that he was not in the air force.
“And after you dispatch those orders to get Phase One under way, gather my Goon Squad. This is a great day for a run.”
The black pearl finish of the Audi A8 luxury sedan was beginning to spot with rain as Kyle Swanson sat comfortably in the rear compartment and let the driver do his job unmolested. He watched the turbulent sky for only a moment, knowing that his flight, a British Airways Airbus, would be moving away from the incoming storm that was battering northern Europe, and in the first-class cabin he would make the trip as smooth as possible. Money insulated him against many of the bumps in life as other people did the things necessary to accommodate him. The airline and limo reservations, everything from baggage handlers to concierge services, had been made by Janna Ecklund back in the States.
He found the VIP waiting lounge at the airport, where he was surrounded by even more helpful people who served him drinks and snacks, took care of the ticketing and escorted him to a small private office. Thousands of people were on the move throughout the airport, but that was an entirely different world. With the rails greased even more with his black diplomatic passport and CIA creds, Kyle Swanson hardly had to lift a finger. Polite customs and security people came to him for a private security check. He felt like a fraud. This was not who he was. He was from a place that smelled like gun oil, not eau de cologne.
Swanson checked the correct time as he opened his laptop. Belgium was only an hour ahead of London, so he would not be disturbing Sir Geoffrey Cornwell with a quick call. The old man probably wanted to know why Kyle was still hanging around Europe when he should be back in the Washington office of Excalibur Enterprises, milking cash out of the Pentagon budget. He selected the Skype icon at edge of the screen, the machine swam to life and seconds later a head-and-shoulders image of Sir Jeff appeared.
“Kyle, my boy!” Cornwell called out, and in the background, off-camera, Swanson heard his mom, Lady Pat, shout out, “Is that Kyle? He’s still in Brussels, isn’t he?” She angled onto the screen with a smile. “Come to London!”
“Hi, folks. How did you know where I am?”
Jeff gave a guffaw. “You have been causing trouble again. I have received several calls from Belgium and from Langley within the past hour.”
“Jesus H. Christ.” Belgium meant NATO, and the CIA was headquartered in Langley, Virginia. They had moved fast since he had walked away from the interview.
“Yes. Well, dear boy, what is your status?”
“I am finally about to board a plane and go back to the States. I am tired, and need to get back to the office. Also, I am more than a little pissed off at what has been happening around here, particularly those calls. We can’t really talk about this over Skype.”
“Then come to London!” Lady Pat repeated her invitation, tinting it with an edge of demand.
Jeff turned serious. “Let us talk about business for a moment, Kyle. As I understand it, you desire to return to the office as soon as possible, am I correct?”
“Yes. The original parameters of my trip to Europe were changed without my advance knowledge or approval.”