Pushkin agreed. “Yes. From what I know of President Thompson, he will do something. The fact that it happened in Finland was a wonderful touch, because NATO cannot claim that any of its members were attacked.”
“The more fog and confusion we sow, the better,” the general said. “I expect the response will be something in proportion to the flea bite in Finland. But it will open the door for us to respond even harder. According to Strakov, everything should be ready in time for Sunday’s election in Narva.”
“Good, good, good.” The president was enjoying this. The Western democracies were terrified that a situation similar to the Ukraine would bloom in April like a noxious weed, and Russian troops would once again be on the move. They were right, but didn’t yet know it. “How is Ivanov himself?”
“According to our sources in Brussels, he is living very well. They even let him go shopping. American newspapers and television are covering him.”
“And he really thinks he will be able to escape when the time comes?”
“Mr. President, the man is a dare-devil and understands the risks. The plan is for the FSB to kidnap a high-ranking American of some sort, maybe a businessman or even a diplomat, this weekend and hold him to create a prisoner-swap scenario for Ivanov’s freedom at the proper time.”
Pushkin liked that plan. He had used the strategy before.
Levchenko continued, “One thing you should also know is that he obtained the presence of the American sniper that he wanted, a psychotic criminal named Kyle Swanson, to begin the interviews. He gave Swanson the Armata systems at bait. Ivanov now has them all dancing to his tune.”
“And how go the election preparations? Is that all in place?”
“Under tight control, sir. We will have a mayor and a majority of the council in our pockets after the vote. Democracy will rule in Narva, and we will be permitted to do whatever we wish!” He relished the irony of using the freedom of the vote to lead a revolution.
“That’s it, then?”
“Everything is there for now, sir. The plan is on schedule. My army is returning to the barracks after Phase One of Operation Hermitage and getting ready to launch Phase Two right after the election. I should be getting back to St. Petersburg now before they start thinking I’ve been imprisoned in the Lubyanka or sent off to some corrective colony for my sins. General Pavel Sergeyev will be disappointed that I have not.”
President Pushkin rose along with General Levchenko and this time, the two men awkwardly hugged. “Please stay on top of this, Valery Ivanovich. We want Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania back, and the Ivanov plan gives us the best chance to bring them home without starting the incident. For diplomatic reasons, we must not fire the first shot. But once someone else shoots, be ready to strike hard and get across that border in such force as to make NATO think twice about responding. Now, go.” He motioned toward the door, and the colonel general departed, masking his satisfaction with a dour look of gloom.
The hardest thing for the CIA’s deputy director of clandestine operations to do was nothing. Marty Atkins had set in motion the immense intelligence-gathering resources of the United States government and his main task now was not to meddle. Thousands of the smartest people on the planet were shaking the trees to see what might fall out.
They did not know exactly what they were looking for, but they were specialists. The Russians had screwed up an airspace invasion over Finland and orders had come down to examine anything out of the ordinary in their respective sectors. Not only was NATO fully involved, but so were assets in Asia, Latin America and even the Middle East. It was time to make a statement to Moscow. The messenger had been chosen. All that was needed was an appropriate target.
Every shred they could find was considered, the Internet clouds were combed, the NSA monitoring was scanned, and that harvested mass of human and signals intelligence was then winnowed, either trashed or funneled up to the next level. Step by step, the best of the possibilities crept up the ladder until it was on the CIA desks of Atkins’s two top assistants. Stew Willenson, the square-shouldered military veteran, and prim and precise Agatha Brice watched like a pair of hawks, sometimes asking for more information on a topic, but discarding most of it out of hand. Nothing fit.
With his machine humming, Marty Atkins took advantage of a rare opportunity to escort his wife out to dinner at a nice seafood restaurant in Baltimore. They spent Wednesday night enjoying themselves with lobster and white wine and an excellent, romantic hotel. Marty had left orders that he was not to be contacted unless the White House was under direct assault by at least a regiment of enemy ground forces. He would be back on the clock tomorrow morning.
Stew and Aggie labored all night and lashed their troops to get this thing done. There had to be something out there that fit the established parameters. They did not know what it was, but would when they saw it. And they revealed no details to the others who were supporting them, mindful of the final instruction from Atkins that the word “secret” in this case meant exactly that. There was a suspected leak somewhere, and the fewer people who knew what was going on, the better. Within the Central Intelligence Agency, that included only Atkins, Brice and Willenson. The director himself, a political appointee, was not in the loop.
Aggie had gone to the cafeteria for a sugar-and-caffeine fix about dawn, and when she returned to her office, Stew was waiting for her with a big grin on his face. “What?” she said, placing her warm onion bagel smeared with cream cheese on her desk.
“I think our boys and girls have nailed it.” He was drumming his fingers on his big knee.
“Where?” She slid into her chair and put on her glasses when he handed her the note.
“It’s in Russia, but not the big, real Russia. The target is just across the southwestern border of Lithuania, in the Kaliningrad Oblast.” He pushed over a printout of the region. Kaliningrad was a small country of less than a million people, sandwiched in a triangle between Lithuania to the east and Poland to the south. To the north lay the Baltic Sea. “Easier for our team to get in and out.”
“What is the target, Stew?”
“Why, Aggie, my dear, we are going to crash a birthday party.”
Kyle Swanson was a firm believer in the six-P sniper mantra that “Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance” and left as little to chance as possible, because something was always going to go wrong on a mission, and usually at the worst possible time. Without good planning, however, you didn’t have a prayer. He had been aboard the yacht when Sir Geoffrey Cornwell arrived early on Thursday afternoon. The old man looked good, although still very unsteady on legs that had been smashed during a terrorist attack on his castle in Scotland several years ago. The brilliant mind, though, remained as sharp as ever.
“You should not be here,” Kyle scolded the chairman and chief executive officer of Excalibur Enterprises once Jeff was made comfortable in the spacious salon.
“Pat sends her love. She chose to stay at home,” said Jeff. Lady Patricia, Sir Jeff and Kyle were the sum of a peculiar process in which three adults who had no one else had decided to create a family amongst themselves. Swanson was the adopted son. “She also told me to remind you to stop getting into trouble, get married and present us with scads of lovely grandchildren.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before.” If he lived long enough, Swanson would be the sole heir to what had become a sizable fortune. Cornwell had created a weapons development company after he was forced to retire for medical reasons from the Special Air Services, in which he was a colonel. He broke a leg during a training jump and it did not heal enough for the SAS doctors to risk him doing it again. His little company came of age as the big dollars flowed in the War on Terror, and the springboard to that success was the mighty sniper rifle known as the Excalibur. While recovering from a wound of his own, Swanson had been loaned to Cornwell by the Marine Corps to help develop the state-of-the-art weapon, and the strong relationship with Pat and Jeff grew from there. Once the company became a known quantity in defense contracting circles, Cornwell discovered a genius for business in a variety of fields and the business was now worth billions. Kyle Swanson was executive vice president when he wasn’t operating in the dark world as a master sharpshooter for the CIA.