Nimkov took the lead, as Oleg expected he would. In recent months, Oleg had watched as Luganov leaned more and more heavily on the FSB chief and less and less on Defense Minister Petrovsky. Oleg had first seen it on his trip to Vladivostok for the meeting with the North Korean leader. Nimkov had been the president’s confidant, while Petrovsky was kept out of the loop on critical details of Luganov’s meetings.
And Petrovsky hadn’t even been invited to come to Pyongyang on the most recent trip. Nimkov had been, and Oleg had watched the fifty-four-year-old spymaster—operating in a role Luganov himself had once held—not only taking commands from the president but providing counsel that, from Oleg’s vantage point, was being listened to and even heeded. Nimkov, more than any other cabinet member, was emerging as Luganov’s right-hand man. Oleg had even begun to wonder if his father-in-law saw Nimkov as his heir apparent. Both men were ruthless and driven and supremely comfortable with the dark arts of statecraft. And Nimkov knew his place. He was careful to be—or at least appear to be—exceedingly loyal to Luganov. And Luganov always rewarded loyalty.
Nimkov began the briefing by explaining that while the news hadn’t broken in the media yet, Russian intelligence had determined that the Pentagon was in the process of mobilizing and rapidly deploying more than forty thousand combat soldiers and Special Forces commandos along with hundreds of battle tanks, heavy artillery, antiaircraft batteries, and Patriot missile launchers. At the same time, at least a dozen fighter squadrons and four heavy bomber wings had been ordered to be prepared to leave American bases and head for Europe in the next forty-eight hours. Though it wasn’t precisely clear where in Europe they were going, the FSB’s operating presumption was that the squadrons were headed to the Baltics. Meanwhile, the Americans’ Carrier Strike Group 10—with its flagship USS Dwight D. Eisenhower—had just been ordered to move out of the North Atlantic and into the Baltic Sea.
As best they could tell, Nimkov noted, the orders for the American ground forces were to deploy from bases across the American East Coast and Southwest to bases in Poland as part of NATO’s ongoing Enhanced Forward Presence. They weren’t deploying to the Baltics—yet—but twenty teams of American logistical officers had landed overnight in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, strongly suggesting that the U.S. and other NATO forces would be arriving there within four to five days and certainly no more than a week.
Oleg Kraskin fought to keep his head down and his expression neutral. In fact, he was ecstatic. He’d taken a huge, potentially lethal risk, but it appeared to be paying off. He’d read wire service reports that Senator Dayton had canceled his trip to Vilnius and flown all night back to Washington. He’d seen the 60 Minutes interview about Dayton’s “knock-down, drag-out fight” with President Clarke in the Oval Office, in which he said he had urged the president not to be deceived by Luganov but to “send a clear message of solidarity with our Baltic brothers.” He’d also read a New York Times interview with Dayton saying that despite the heated words he and the president had exchanged, he wanted to be crystal clear that he was offering the Clarke administration his full support if the president did come to the aid of NATO’s most vulnerable members and promised to rally patriotic Democrats to make sure the effort was truly bipartisan.
Oleg’s elation, however, was quickly extinguished. Before Nimkov had finished his briefing, Luganov erupted from his chair in a volcanic, profanity-laced tirade.
“One of you is a traitor, maybe more than one!” the president raged.
Stunned silence filled the room.
“Whichever one of you leaked word of my war plans to the Americans will be found and executed for treason.”
A chill ran down Oleg’s spine as the president ordered Nimkov to begin a mole hunt.
But Luganov wasn’t finished.
“You think you have stopped me?” he thundered, scanning the faces of everyone seated around the table. “You haven’t stopped me. I will go forward with the invasion. I will expose Clarke for the fool that he is. The Americans and the rest of NATO cannot possibly amass a force sufficient to deter us. There simply isn’t time.”
Oleg was petrified. This could not be happening.
“Mikhail Borisovich, we will no longer strike on the seventh of October, as planned,” Luganov continued. “I now order you to be ready to move on the first.”
The defense minister looked ashen. “The first of October?” he said. “But, Aleksandr Ivanovich, this is not possible. That is only three days from now. My men will not be ready.”
“They are not your men,” Luganov bellowed. “They are mine. And they will be ready—for the sake of Mother Russia, they will be ready, and they will bring us a great and glorious victory!”
“Please, Your Excellency! The men can be ready by the sixth, maybe by the fifth, but I am not lying when I tell you that the first is simply too soon,” Petrovsky insisted. “Even if we could be ready by the first, we have clearly lost the element of surprise. Moreover, we must now consider the possibility that the FSB has grossly underestimated President Clarke’s ability to change course, to be unpredictable, and I must say this seriously complicates our plans.”
It was astonishing to see the defense minister openly disagreeing with Luganov, especially in the midst of such a tirade. But even as he took dictation of every word being spoken, Oleg found himself secretly cheering for Petrovsky. Someone had to confront this madness. Someone had to move the president off of this catastrophic path.
Before Luganov could respond, Nimkov weighed in. “You are out of line, Mikhail Borisovich,” the FSB chief said. “Your statements show hesitancy—perhaps even cowardice. The president has not made a suggestion. He has given you a direct order. He wants to invade the Baltics on 1 October, and none of us in this room have seen you salute and say yes, have we?”
“I certainly have not,” Luganov fumed. “And I am waiting.” The words nearly vomited from his mouth. He was pacing about the room now, directly opposite Petrovsky but heading in his direction.
“Aleksandr Ivanovich, please,” said his defense minister. “I have been with you on this plan every step of the way. But it was always premised on the element of surprise, on minimal American forces in the theater, on a lightning-fast strike and then holding these states knowing that neither the Americans nor anyone in NATO will risk a nuclear war to drive us out of the lands that are rightfully ours. These are your words, not mine. No one has been more supportive of you than have I. Indeed, I have worked night and day for months to make your plan a reality. But we must be honest with ourselves and concede that the strategic situation has just seriously and sweepingly changed, and not to our advantage.”
“I concede nothing,” bellowed Luganov, still moving toward Petrovsky.
“But, sir, what if we invade now and the Americans decide to fight back? What if Clarke is stronger than the FSB tells us, more determined than we around this table have supposed? What if he does not blink? What if he actually invokes Article 5, and we find ourselves in a nuclear Armageddon with the Americans and all of Europe?”
This impassioned plea literally stopped Luganov in his tracks. The room was silent. Every eye shifted from Petrovsky to the president. Even Oleg forced himself to look up from his notebook to wait for the answer. The defense minister’s logic was sound. His loyalties were unimpeachable. The man was risking not only his career but his very life out of a profound sense of duty and love of country. The contrast between Petrovsky and Nimkov had never been so clear.