Seven hours’ later the president was in that room when a knock on the door awoke him. It was an hour before his sleep period was due to end but he had slept solidly until just then. He had not bothered to undress other than to remove his jacket, so he swung his feet to the floor before standing and slipping the jacket back on.
“Come, but if you aren’t a troop of dancing girls with laid back moral values, it will be a very brief interview!”
Terry Jones entered with an apologetic look on his face, behind him was a man whom the president had seen before but could not place the name.
“I foolishly left my tambourine and veils in the office Mr President, sorry about that.”
“I’m not,” replied the president to the CIA Director, and held out his hand to the man who had accompanied him.
“I am sure we have met sir, but I cannot place the name?”
Dark eyed with tiredness, rumpled and unshaven, the man shook the proffered hand.
“Scott Tafler, Mr President… we met last week in the situation room, I explained why I thought we were going to be attacked.”
“Jeez, was it only a week ago, it seems like months.” He gestured to the bed, motioning them to sit whilst pulling up the tubular framed chair that constituted one third of the furniture in the room.
“I presumed that you chose this venue, because you have something particularly sensitive for me, Terry?”
“Sir, I sent Scott to London to contact the Russians who blew the whistle on the bomb plot. He debriefed them but there was nothing more they knew that could assist us. Perhaps I should let Scott explain why we are here now, sir.”
At the president’s nod, Scott began.
“In Russia, they have reformed their intelligence service and again named it the KGB; we know that one of the principle plotters was given the position as its chief, which was Anatolly Peridenko Mr President. However, he only held office for less than a day; the word is that he is dead at the Premiers orders.”
Looking over at Terry Jones, the president raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Peridenko was a resourceful and ambitious man sir, the Premier is the same, and he probably eliminated what he saw as a future threat to his own office.”
“Please carry on Scott; I hope you are going to tell me that one of the Russians who assisted us has been chosen as Peridenko’s replacement?”
“No sir, the new chief is Elena Torneski, a very capable woman who has until now been restricted by the ‘glass ceiling’ of their intelligence community. It is her ability and apparent acceptance of limited promotion that would seem to be why the Premier has chosen her.”
The president nodded,
“I am guessing that you see a possible advantage here. Is she on our pay roll?”
Scott shook his head.
“No sir, but she spent some years recruiting new talent, in fact it was she who recruited Svetlana Vorsoff, one of our friends in England. Miss Vorsoff was originally recruited to be what is known as a ‘Sparrow’, politely speaking, Sparrows use their feminine charm’s for the State in an espionage role. Torneski obviously revised her opinion of Svetlana’s potential and had her transferred to the directorate responsible for deep cover operatives, ‘sleepers’ if you like. I have gotten to know her fairly well over the past few days, and I would agree that as bed-bait for unwary westerners on business in Russia it would have been a great waste of an intelligent and very able young lady. Svetlana states that she and Elena Torneski became friends and that friendship was current until the time this crisis arose, although they have had no contact for over two years. She is confident that Torneski will listen to her and help end this madness.” He removed a folder containing two files from his attaché case and passed it over. The president speed-read the summaries on Torneski and Vorsoff before studying the photographs, his eyebrows shot up and he removed a photograph of Vorsoff as nature intended, holding it up for the two CIA men.
“Scott, next time you stop by, leave this old fart behind and bring her,” he said, inclining his head at the CIA director. He replaced the photo and handed back the folder.
“On second thoughts, don’t. The way my lucks running the First Lady will walk in and my greeting to her will be ‘Darling, it’s not what you think’… anyway, please carry on with what you were saying.”
“Mr President, as you are aware, the Russian Premier has not been seen since the attack started. Obviously he is in a secure location somewhere, and if anyone is likely to know the location, it will be his chief of intelligence, and knowing where he is could be of immense value. He is apparently the driving force behind all this and if we could take him out, we may see a resolution, an end to the war,” added Terry Jones.
“To know that, we have to know who else was involved and who in the military is for and who is against it… you are thinking about engineering a coup, of course.” The chief executive made the remark as a statement rather than a question.
“I can see a hell of a lot of ‘what ifs’ in the offing Terry but I would appreciate you keeping me up to speed with any developments. You came here to speak to me so as to keep this operation black of course?” he said to the CIA chief.
“As pitch, sir.”
“Good,” he remarked. “What do you need?”
Terry Jones put his hand inside his jacket and removed several sheets of paper, which he handed over.
“Hand written,” remarked the president as he took out a pair of spectacles from his pocket, shook them open one handed and put them on.
“Good, let’s keep it this way as much as possible… ” he nodded toward the glowing laptop computer on the nightstand.
“… I swear that things watching me sometimes, ever since they got into the NSA computers I keep wondering what else they’ve done that we don’t know about.”
He was silent as he read both sides of the half dozen sheets. Removing his glasses he handed the pages back.
“You’ve obviously already put a lot of thought into this, right down to anticipating the reluctance of the Air Force cutting loose a Nighthawk crew at a time like this. I like it Terry, who did you have in mind?”
“Actually sir, this is all Scott’s doing. He flew back from London yesterday with his plan and drove all night to get here and pitch it to me.”
The president was impressed.
“No shit… that would account for you looking even more beat up than I am?” he smiled at Tafler.
“I was hoping to get you to stick around, it would have diverted my surgeon’s attention from me. I’ve read your theory, now talk me through it please?”
“It is just an idea right now, but you didn’t laugh in my face when you just read the outline. Obviously the feasibility has to be gone into by someone more qualified than myself, but loading up a 2 megaton warhead on a SRAM into a Nighthawk, and flying it into Russia is going to require refuelling using buddy stores along the way, that means other Nighthawks being involved. The aircraft will have to be virtually full of fuel when it lands there, which means diverting resources from the main effort?”
“Why don’t you let me worry about prying them free for one night, carry on please Scott.”
“Saddam Hussain moved about a hell of a lot during the Gulf War, it made targeting him almost impossible. We know that Russia has at least four hardened shelters for its politburo in time of war, so we have to assume the possibility that the current leadership could be playing Saddam's shell game too. We still have ICBMs, not many but we still have them, I’m guessing that you would not use them against the Premiers shelter even if you were certain he was there?”