"What a fucking mess," he said.
"The police said they were local hoods. They think somebody hired them to come after us."
"It has to be the Russians. Probably Golovkin."
"Why him?"
"He's covering his ass. He doesn't know what Gutenberg may have told us. He was trying to make sure that anything we learned didn't go any further."
"Do you think he knows about Valentina?"
"I don't know. I guess we have to wait and watch what happens."
"If she gets that recording to Vysotsky, it could make a difference," Selena said.
"It could. Orlov isn't known for his forgiving nature. By convincing him NATO would stay out of the Baltics Golovkin put him in a situation where he can't win. Once he knows Golovkin screwed up, Orlov will make sure he disappears. It depends on whether or not Valentina got the recording to Vysotsky and if he follows through."
"She will," Selena said. "She's a very determined woman."
"I hope you're right."
Selena's voice was full of sadness. "What if they die?"
His voice was flat, hard. "Don't say that. They're both still alive. I'll worry about it if they do."
Nick's satellite phone signaled. He looked at the display.
"Harker," he said to Selena. He turned on the speaker and connected the call. "Yes, Director."
"How are you, Nick?"
"How do you think? I've been better."
Elizabeth let it go. "The German authorities have agreed to let you go. You and Selena are leaving as soon as the weather clears."
"What about Ronnie and Lamont?"
"As soon as they're stable and can be moved they'll be flown here. They're ready for them at Walter Reed."
"Any news from Moscow? Any sign Valentina got through?"
"Not yet."
"What's happening with the war?"
"Which one? The Balkan war is in winter stalemate with everyone bogged down. The weather has been bad. No one can do anything. NATO is trying to negotiate a truce between the Albanians and Macedonia but so far no one is listening. Unless Mitreski wants to take on more than he can handle he's going to have to pull back to his border. He doesn't have the resources or the heart to make a serious effort at conquering Albania and he can't win against NATO. He'll quit. That war is ending with a whimper instead of a bang."
"What about Latvia?"
"That's a different story," Elizabeth said. "The weather has made satellite surveillance difficult. We should be able to get a radar fix through the cloud cover but the Russians have come up with new stealth technology for their tanks. It makes them almost invisible to radar. Hard to track or get a missile lock."
"Where are they now?"
"One of their columns is east of Riga, right on the outskirts."
"And NATO? What are they doing?"
"Rice raised hell and got them off their asses. They're sending troops to Estonia and Lithuania. It's too late to save the Latvian capital. The plan is to go after the Russians on two fronts from the bordering countries. Air strikes will begin as soon as the weather clears if they don't back down. The logistics to support a serious ground operation haven't gotten there yet. NATO wasn't ready for this."
"That figures."
"So far there haven't been any skirmishes between the Russians and NATO but it's only a question of time. Once the air strikes begin things will heat up fast."
"Has Rice talked to Orlov yet?"
"Orlov is refusing all calls. He's stonewalling everyone. Rice is taking it personally. I've never seen him this angry. He's pissed."
"I'll bet he is," Nick said. "Maybe Orlov will change his mind when our missiles start taking out his tanks."
"We'd better hope it doesn't come to that. Our best bet now is Vysotsky." Elizabeth paused.
"Come home, Nick."
CHAPTER 48
Colonel Dimitri Brusilov sat with his crew inside the armored capsule of his tank and studied the terrain in front of him. Condensation from the heat of their bodies ran down the cold steel walls. Resistance along the way had been intermittent and easily overcome and now his tanks were on the outskirts of Riga. Two rows of three-story apartment buildings and a small park lay directly in his path. A rusted swing set and a child's merry-go-round in faded colors of blue and yellow and red sat in the center of the park. Beyond the park a tall church spire painted white thrust upward into a gray-black afternoon sky.
Latvian artillery was targeting his tanks from somewhere a few kilometers away. Rounds were landing close by, too close for comfort. Dimitri had no confirmed target. The Afghanit system that was supposed to intercept the shells and pin down the location of the battery for a counter strike was acting up. The electronic gremlins that had plagued the tank in the past were back. Dimitri swore at the thinking that threw untested weapons systems into combat before they were ready. Testing systems on the factory proving grounds was one thing. Having those systems prove reliable under combat conditions was something entirely different.
Part of the system worked just fine. Alarms on Dimitri's console let him know an artillery shell was coming straight for them.
"Incoming," he said into his microphone. "Hold on."
Now we'll see just how good this armor is, he thought.
The Afghanit system on the T-14 was designed to intercept incoming missiles and artillery rounds with guided missiles targeted by radar and fired by the computer. But the electronic problems interfered. The computer failed to intercept the round. The shell exploded a few yards away from the tank and blew off the tread on the left side. The tank skewed to the left and stopped. Inside, the crew was shaken up but unharmed.
The computer on the Armata was programmed to determine the nature of external threats and take countermeasures against them. It had the capability to correct what it interpreted as errors on the part of the crew. The artillery round had further damaged the erratic electronic system. The computer analyzed the situation, determined that the crew was not responding to threats and decided to fire a missile.
On Sergei's weapons board half the lights were out. He looked at what was still functioning. A cold fear swept over him.
"Commander. The Sprinter tactical missile is being loaded."
"Shut it down! Now!"
Sergei's voice was full of fear. "I can't. The board is not working."
The turret still functioned. The long barrel of the cannon swiveled and rose to its maximum elevation. Dimitri listened to gears meshing as the autoloader chose the missile and fed it into the cannon. The magazine and mechanism were outside the armored crew compartment, behind layers of hardened steel and ceramic plates, inaccessible. With the board out of commission, Dimitri was helpless to stop the sequence. He watched the screen on his console that showed him the outside world.
The missile left the cannon, trailing white smoke behind it, picking up speed as it rose into the air. It carried a one kiloton nuclear warhead that would destroy everything within a half mile radius. No one would survive. The blast wave would continue outward destroying structures as it went. Ground shock would cause major damage to critical infrastructure over a much wider area, as if a large earthquake had struck the region.
Maybe it will fail, Dimitri thought.
He hadn't prayed since he was a boy but he found himself praying now.
Please, let it fail.
His prayers were not answered. The missile turned and twisted high in the air as the damaged computer sought for a target. It reached its maximum height and turned back toward the ground. Dimitri had time to see the outer world vanish in a burst of white light before the blast wave picked up his tank and hurled it through the air like a toy.
In Washington and in Moscow, in every Western capital and in every intelligence agency in the world with the capability to oversee the battlefield in Latvia, the reaction was the same when their instruments registered the explosion.