The old woman knew the numbers. She read the Western papers that wrote stories about her country, because Russian papers were under the control of the Mafia and printed lies. She was one of the seven major chiefs in the Moscow Mafia. She had gotten where she was by being smart and by being farsighted. And that vision told her they were milking the cow to death. Even the Russian people, dulled as they were by centuries of oppression and hardship, could not bear up under the weight of such crime much longer. The last time it had gotten this bad, there had been a revolution in the midst of a world war and three quarters of a century of Communism. But there were other cows to be milked, beyond Russia’s borders, and that was where her sight was aimed.
The woman adjusted her bifocals as she scanned the documents that Barsk had gotten from Colonel Seogky.
“This is exactly what we wanted,” she said.
“But— ” Barsk was surprised. “But that talks of something old, decades old. I don’t— ”
“Do you think I would have sent you on a wild-goose chase?”
Barsk straightened. “No, Oma.” The word was the Russian familiar for grandmother, and the woman behind the highly polished desk was indeed related in that way to Barsk. But she was called that by all in her inner circle, a sign of respect in the Russian matriarchal society; and in the dark and brutal world of the Russian Mafia, it was a word spoken with deep respect and fear.
Oma held the papers up. “Do you think that whatever killed Colonel Seogky would have done so if these were worthless? Or given up Dmitri to you?”
Barsk shook his head. “No, Oma.”
Oma sighed. “Grandson, I have tried to teach you, but you are thickheaded. You must understand that where there is smoke, there is fire. None of those things would have happened if these papers were not very important. The GRU turned Dmitri and there was a reason for that.”
“You knew about Dmitri?” Barsk asked.
Oma looked over the rim of her glasses. “Of course. But he was your responsibility.”
“He could have killed me!” Barsk objected.
“He could have. It was a risk but I felt it was a good learning point for you. One cannot learn from words. Experience is the best teacher. If one does not survive the experience, then that is also best.”
Barsk bowed his head to hide his anger. “Yes, Oma.”
She turned to a specific page. “This is what we want. The phased-displacement generator.”
“What is it, Oma?”
“Part of a very powerful weapon in the right hands.”
“Part of?” Dmitri asked.
Oma put the papers down on the desk. “What do you think it was that attacked Seogky and killed Dmitri?”
Barsk swallowed. “I don’t know, Oma.”
The old woman smiled, revealing steel-capped teeth, ruining the matronly image. “You’ve thought about it on the drive back here. Tell me your best guess.”
“A devil— a Chyort as Seogky said— such as my mother used to tell me about,” Barsk said.
“A Chyort?” Oma did not laugh. “Your mother was a good woman but prone to flights of fancy. I kept her well insulated from the real world. However, you are not far off.” She tapped the papers with a finger. “These give information about the location of a piece of a weapon that will give us power beyond anything you can imagine. I want you to prepare a mission to the site listed in these papers and recover the phased-displacement generator.”
Barsk had already been reprimanded once. He knew better than to risk twice, even though he knew the difficulty in executing what she had just ordered. “Yes, Oma.”
“This is very important, Barsk,” Oma said. “I will give you more than enough support to accomplish this.”
“Yes, Oma.”
“I will send Leksi with you. Listen to him.”
Barsk’s jaw tightened. Leksi was his grandmother’s chief assassin. A man with no soul. Barsk had seen and dealt much death, but every time he was in Leksi’s presence he felt a chill in his heart. “Yes, Oma.”
She interlaced her fingers on her lap as she sat back in the deeply padded leather chair. “Barsk, you must understand some things. You thought you were going after information that would lead you to nuclear weapons, did you not?”
Barsk hesitated, then nodded.
“Nuclear weapons are another piece of the puzzle we need, but Leksi is in charge of doing that and he is close to achieving it,” Oma said. “I anticipate, if all goes well, having nuclear warheads under my control shortly.”
Barsk kept his face expressionless, although his stomach was churning at the implications. “Yes, Oma.”
“The problem here in Russia has never been getting the nuclear bombs. There are many left over from the Cold War. The problem has been, what is the point in having them if you cannot do anything with them? There have been thousands of nuclear weapons here in Russia. Have the Americans ever been truly afraid of them? During the Cold War, yes, but not recently. Because the biggest bomb in the world here in Russia is not a threat. But the smallest bomb, in the United States, that is a threat, yes?”
“Yes, Oma.”
“That is what you are looking for. A means for us to be able to use the bombs once we have them. Do you understand?”
Barsk shook his head. “No.”
Oma smiled. “Good. You are learning. Just do as I ask.”
“This phased-displacement generator,” Barsk said. “It can fire a nuclear bomb to America?”
Oma shook her head. “Not by itself. But it is a necessary piece.”
“But how?”
“That is beyond you.” She slid the papers and CD across to him. “Have you wondered how I knew to contact Seogky and how I knew he had access to these highly classified papers?”
Barsk shook his head. “No, Oma.”
“You lie.” The words were said lightly, with an edge of humor. Oma smiled. “You’ve thought about it and you assumed my information came in the usual way. From a spy, from a paid informant.” She leaned forward. “But this information did not come to me in the usual way.”
“How did you find out, Oma?”
“Why, from the Chyort you met in the park, of course.”
Chapter Six
In all directions, white-coated mountains covered the countryside below the helicopter. Seated in the cargo bay of the Blackhawk, Dalton leaned back and took in the sights, every now and then spotting a ski slope he’d visited over the course of the last few years.
He had not only skied the mountains they were flying over, he had spent many days and nights traversing them. Part of the Trojan Warrior program had consisted of long, overland movements to put some of the theories they had learned to the test. Dalton had participated in the training for two reasons— one was the same reason he was on board this chopper: to make sure the men were taken care of. The other was because the limited information they had received beforehand about the content of the training had interested him.
The six months of intensive work had been interesting and frustrating. Some of what they were taught by the various instructors clearly had a connection to their war-fighting mission. But other subjects, such as the bio-cybernetics, had seemed more radical. That training had concentrated on mental alertness, strength of concentration and focus, and control of the body’s voluntary and involuntary systems, all while getting feedback from various machines they were hooked to. They had learned to do such things as mentally increasing the blood flow to their extremities, which was of some use during winter warfare training, but at the time had not seemed worth the amount of time they had invested. They’d also learned to reduce levels of muscle tension.