Marshal Budarenko took the envelope, broke the seal, and read the content of the message, which was marked in large letters: TOP SECRET — SENSITIVE — ADDRESSEE ONLY. The Minister finished reading the dispatch and suddenly seemed like a changed man. He looked very pale, beads of sweat appeared on his forehead and his heart beat rapidly. He tried with all his might to calm himself, as if he were on the battlefield. He read the dispatch again, and this time the list of the other recipients at the foot of the letter caught his eye. First on the list was the Party General Secretary. Budarenko clamped his hand on the shoulder of his adjutant, who looked at him in surprise.
“Run out now and halt the distribution of this message. It is false, it is deceit. No one should get it, not even the Party General Secretary. Do you understand? Now run.”
The adjutant rushed out. The Minister lifted the receiver of the red telephone near him.
“Get me Gregory Livkin from Special Forces Base 8749 — at once!”
A few seconds passed, then Gregory’s voice came on the line.
“Mister Minister, Gregory Livkin speaking. How can I be of service, Sir?”
“I want to speak with Colonel Yevgeni at once.” “Yes, Minister, immediately.”
Yevgeni came on the line.
“Mister Minister. This is Colonel Yevgeni speaking.”
“Listen up, Colonel. Apparently your idea with the cruise missile and its interception was so good that even the Americans bought it.”
“Yes, Minister. Actually, the idea was Brigadier General Dimitri’s. I only supported it. But excuse me, Minister, I don’t understand what you meant about the Americans.”
“The American President spoke a few minutes ago to his nation, but he was really speaking to us. He apologized for launching the missile with the bomb and explained that it was done in error, and he even offered to pay compensation to the families of our dead seamen. How do you explain this, Colonel?”
There was a silence on the other end, perhaps a moment too long. The
Minister of Defense was now impatient and angry.
“Why are you keeping your mouth shut, Colonel? Did you swallow your tongue?”
“Sorry, Minister. I was trying to think of the reasons. In my opinion, they’re feeling pressured by the amount of armor that you mobilized against them. They know that they don’t have the conventional capacity to stop such numbers of tanks. Therefore, in an attempt to stop them, they are willing to accept any humiliation, even to assume responsibility for the event in the North Sea. That is my opinion, Mister Minister.”
“Colonel Yevgeni, this is also what I thought until five minutes ago.”
“And what happened five minutes ago, Mister Minister, that changed your mind?”
“I got a telegram from our Intelligence people who intercepted a radio directive in which the American President, as Commander in Chief of the Armed forces, instructs his military to launch tactical nuclear missiles if our tanks move across the Twelfth longitudinal, which is more or less the Elbe River in the German Democratic Republic. What do you have to say to that, Colonel?”
“Mister Minister, may I ask you first how our Intelligence analysts interpret this information?”
“Listen well, Colonel. I don’t care what they think. I want to hear a neutral assessment from you, without your being influenced by what they say. There was a reason I selected you for the team, and you’ve even proved to me here and there in the past few days that I wasn’t wrong.”
“Thank you, Mister Minister”, Yevgeni replied, hiding a shy smile. “I am going over several possibilities.”
“Well, Colonel, do it quickly. I don’t have time to waste. Speak.” “Mister Minister, I believe that what you thought until five minutes ago was correct, and is still valid. In my opinion, the Americans can read their situation very well and they’ve decided to gamble, hoping it might cause you some confusion. In my estimation, they won’t use tactical nuclear weapons, certainly not in the first stage of the war. I think that the President’s order to the missile batteries is fictitious and deceitful and they wanted us to intercept it, have second thoughts, and stop the tanks.”
“I think so too”, replied Marshal Budarenko. “Good, Colonel, thank you.”
Colonel Yevgeni froze. He had never heard the word “thank you” leave the lips of this tough, highly decorated Marshal, whose looming, bullying presence had intimidated many good people. In a split-second decision, Yevgeni addressed the Minister again.
“Mister Minister, with your permission, I’d like to tell you something else, and I apologize in advance if I touch a sensitive point. Do I have your permission to speak?”
“Yes, speak, but do it quickly.”
“I don’t think it’s likely, but we must also consider another possibility. It may be that the Americans are aware of your exact plans and that the Party General Secretary is not privy to the matter. I mean to say that even General Secretary Yermolov is certain that the Americans launched the missile, and now they are apologizing, but also threatening that if our tanks continue to move westward, they will respond with nuclear force. Maybe they hope that this will convince the Secretary to halt the tanks. The more problematic point is that if they really know what the General Secretary does or doesn’t know, then someone should find out how they are doing it. Maybe they have someone here inside the Kremlin, for example?”
Colonel Yevgeni paused, warily awaiting the Minister’s reaction. I may have gone too far, he thought to himself, and now the Minister will pour his wrath upon my head.
The Minister’s voice was heard again, this time loud and clear, sure and decisive.
“Nonsense. I don’t agree with you, Colonel.”
Yevgeni heard the Minister’s receiver slamming down then the line went dead, and he replaced his own receiver on the cradle. Only then did Yevgeni notice, for the first time, that Gregory had been standing behind him the whole time, apparently listening with great interest to his conversation with the Minister of Defense.
Back in the Minister’s office in the war room, the adjutant walked in.
“Mister Minister, I’ve stopped the distribution of the dispatch. No one else has received it besides you.”
“Well done”, the Minister replied curtly.
The red telephone rang, and the adjutant picked up the receiver. Svetlana was on the line.
“The General Secretary of the Party Vladimir Petrovich Yermolov wishes the Minister to come to him immediately for a briefing.”
Before the adjutant even had time to hang up, the Minister addressed him.
“Are you sure that this false and fictitious dispatch has not reached anyone?”
“Yes, Mister Minister, one hundred percent. Minister, the Party General
Secretary requests that you come to him urgently for a briefing.”
The Minister of Defense nodded, got to his feet and left the room, his adjutant following, trying to keep up with his pace.
Party general secretary Vladimir Petrovich Yermolov turned to the head of the KGB, seated across from him.
“I understand that our Minister of Defense is incredibly busy now.”
“Yes, Mister Secretary. He is mostly in Khamovniki, in General Staff Headquarters. Do you remember what I told you of the team that he put together and literally kept locked in the Intelligence Special Forces secret base?”
“Yes, I remember. They were later flown to Murmansk.”
“Exactly. He hasn’t been there for the past two days, but he still continues to speak to the team by phone. All this activity is still not clear to us, but very soon, I believe, we’ll know precisely what they are doing there. By the way, that Colonel Nazarbayev, the Kazakh, is the only one of the secret gang who stayed in Murmansk. It turns out that he was aboard that trawler that was sunk in the North Sea.”