“No, it’s not.” Swanson placed both hands flat on the table. “Let’s not waste time arguing hypotheticals. It’s like when you spout off with poetry. You say words, but nothing comes out. President Pushkin might want to take a bite out of the Baltics, but NATO and the United States will never allow that to happen.”
Ivan Strakov let that stupid grin break through again. “And you think that is what Operation Hermitage was about: practice to invade the Baltics?”
Kyle felt as unsteady as if he was standing on a cliff edge. “Yes.”
Strakov slowly moved his head back and forth and exhaled heavily, a teacher disappointed in a student. “It was all a misdirection play, Kyle. Your people concentrated on the exciting Armata hardware and the movement and flights along that border, looking for the Red Horde to ransack some beleaguered town so your brave air cavalry could dash in to save the day, all to be reported by your vapid television people. You swung and missed again, Kyle. Strike two.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“While you people scrambled to meet the nonexistent threat of Operation Hermitage, Moscow slipped forty-five hundred more men — an entire motorized rifle brigade — into the Murmansk region, far to the north. The war game had nothing to do with the Baltics, Kyle. Those three little dominoes will fall back to the Motherland on their own, in due time. Instead, the operation had everything to do with the Arctic Circle.” He leaned back and crossed his legs. “Further details will cost another million or so.”
Swanson remained outwardly unruffled. “Stop stalling with the bullshit, Ivan. Our satellites and submarines watch and listen to Pushkin’s every move up there.” At least he hoped they did. “A fur seal can’t belch on an iceberg without us hearing it, so let’s get back to the real world, which is you and me in this room.”
The Russian bobbed his head. “Fine. Did you know that the media is now carrying my name and picture and a story about how important I may be to allied intelligence? I believe it is time to renegotiate the terms.”
“I don’t handle press relations. I am not a lawyer. The clock is still ticking, Ivan, and I am cold out of patience with this game. To me, you are just a big puddle of useless noise. Your value lies in supposed cyber warfare, not troop movements.”
“You are wrong, Swanson. Overall intelligence has always been my game. Computers are but a component, just like the Armatas.”
“Give me something,” Swanson pressed him. “Convince my higher-ups that you’re still worth the trouble, or you may be visiting Guantánamo.”
Strakov considered that and stared at Kyle for a few moments. “All right. Do you remember last time, when I said that you were dealing with a madman?”
“Right. Personally, I do not think President Pushkin is mad, in the clinical sense. Crazy like a fox, yes, and much too brutal and aggressive, but he seems to know what he is doing.”
“There. You jump to the wrong conclusion once again, Swanson. I should start worrying about your own value to this interrogation progress. I was not referring to Pushkin at all. The maniac behind all of these sudden military moves is General of the Army Pavel Sergeyev, the chief of the general staff.”
Swanson thumbed through his memory bank. “Sergeyev? He’s just another paper-pushing Kremlin bureaucrat, too old to fight and getting ready to retire.”
“He is much more than that, Kyle. General Sergeyev maintains, shall we say, large dreams. He needs to be locked away in a place that treats the mentally ill before he triggers a nuclear war.” Strakov checked his new watch. “That’s enough for now. I need a nap. Check out Sergeyev. Send in a company lawyer next to discuss my contract.”
Freddie Ravensdale dined alone that Tuesday evening, unfit for company while merciless tendrils of memory squeezed his heart. Really, was there any way out for him? He didn’t think so. The general took a deep breath, drank off the remainder of his brandy in a single swallow and closed his eyes while he excavated his life as some anthropologist of a future generation might study his bones. Beside his right hand lay a Glock 17, a beckoning 9mm solution that would end his pain, but not the problem.
His mind became a time machine that dialed him back to Berlin in the mid-1980s and the fateful ballet performance at the Deutsche Staatsoper on the Unter den Linden. He was a young captain at the time and looked splendid in the dress black uniform of a British officer, his bemedaled chest crossed with a brilliantly shining Sam Browne belt as he drove out of the British Zone and was waved through Checkpoint Charlie after a purely routine stop, then entered the Russian Zone. Berlin was a divided city, but certain courtesies were extended. As usual, a little Russian car fell in behind to follow, just as the allies trailed any Russians coming out of their sector. It was the Cold War and all that, but a man could still have a good time in Berlin.
At intermission, the British officers stood by themselves in a group, drinking inexpensive champagne, and the crowd around them gave them plenty of space. In postwar Germany, civilians who did not recognize the uniforms were wary of any officers who wore black, once the color of the hated SS.
Lorette had appeared at his elbow out of nowhere, and asked the cheerful group with open curiosity, “Who are you men?” Lorette with the fair hair and sky eyes, tall and full-figured; God had made all German women beautiful and had spent extra time creating this one, who was touching his arm.
Ravensdale took a bite of the tempting apple. The ballet and his friends were forgotten and the two began a courtship filled with ecstasy. His little auto bearing the BZ license tag was soon making almost nightly trips to her flat and they went to the theater, for long walks, to new restaurants and always ended up back at her flat. He never missed a day of work, never shirked his duty. Lorette understood. She did not pry. His professional life was full, and now she was giving his personal life meaning, too. It was not an unusual event. A large number of British and Americans had German girlfriends and many were eventually taken back home as wives; glistening, living, beautiful, spirited war trophies.
He did not see Lorette die. She was already dead when he arrived at the flat that night, dead on the bed, her long arms and legs spread and tied with ropes to the bedposts. The neck was purple with bruises as were her face and rib cage. A silk tie was tight around her neck. Several East Berlin policemen were standing in the room, talking calmly, waiting for him. The dreaded Stasi, the Ministry for State Security, made him identify her corpse, then pounced on him like wolves on a lamb, and gnawed on him with questions while Lorette’s naked body cooled on the mattress nearby.
About an hour into the questioning, a Russian intelligence agent appeared and spread the bad news before the stunned British captain. They had fingerprints, they had pictures, they had eyewitnesses, and they even had reports that Lorette had written about him. Long pages in her beautiful script traced their relationship from their first meeting at the ballet, how lust turned to romance, almost his every word, and finally her concerns that he was a violent man trained as a British commando, and that she feared him. Their sex play had turned increasingly rough, she lied. By midnight, Ravensdale was informed that he was going to be charged with murdering a civilian in East Berlin.
He had fallen headlong into a honey trap. Lorette was an agent of Moscow. By morning, he had agreed to the offered deal. It had seemed so easy at the time for the naïve, frightened, embarrassed, saddened British officer: He could be wrecked, or he could cooperate. All the Russians wanted was a single favor to be granted by him at some unknown time in the future, a debt that might never even be collected, for who could tell what fortunes life would deal a combat officer? Agree and the evidence and the dead girl would disappear. Otherwise, something quite different would happen. He accepted the offer, and made it back to his duty station on time the following morning.