Oleg knew, naturally, that you roll the dice when you bomb the ice because the awakened giant of WAIS, well, it could become chaos theory in action. Only this time it wouldn’t be a butterfly flapping its wings in China, but a Trident II in Antarctica persuading those reluctant Arctic countries to leave the oil and gas fields on the top of the world.
They’d have to, anyway, because they’d all be in crisis.
But not Russia.
The strongest men in the Kremlin privately, quietly, had long ago given the go-ahead to certain Russian explorers to claim the entire Arctic for the motherland. The rest of the world laughed when Artur Chilingarov sailed a submersible to the floor of the Arctic Ocean, planted a titanium Russian flag in the seabed, and claimed all of the Arctic for the Russian Federation. To make his point even clearer, the intrepid Chilingarov rose from the ocean floor with words that were cheered by the country’s true patriots: “The Arctic is Russian. We must prove the North Pole is an extension of the Russian landmass.”
What the rest of the world didn’t know was that with another wink and a blink, the same powerful men had also let it be known to an intrepid hacker named Oleg Dernov that his project was viewed most favorably from on high. Never a direct word — and wholly hands off — but Oleg’s project had been blessed just as the minor efforts of lesser hackers had long been.
With the WAIS in the ocean — and massive emergencies all over the planet — who could possibly stop the Russians from exploiting the wealth that was properly theirs? They would sell the gas and oil to pathetic, broken countries, while having the technological capacity to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Russia could raise and lower temperatures to reward friends and punish foes.
It wouldn’t be the Russians’ fault that history and destiny had seen to their safety and security. The rest of the world would be so preoccupied with simple survival that they’d scarcely have a moment to notice Russian extraction of gas and oil in the north.
“So when? When!” Uno asked.
“When I say. You have twenty-four hours to get ready. Go to work. Report back. Then you can launch the missile with the single warhead.”
So Florida, get in your boats. Amsterdam, pull on your boots. Washington, break out your ditch bags.
And that would be just the beginning.
Oleg signed off with Uno but undertook some more direct hacking of his own. Nothing so challenging as trying to hack into the White House network. Now he was just tracking down Alexandra’s deadbeat dad so he could put his fund-raising idea into action.
It didn’t take Oleg long to find him, or to fill out the online form for a life insurance policy that would benefit the girl if something “unforeseen” should happen to her father. A really big policy with a special accident clause.
Oleg knew the little love of Galina’s life needed the money. So the big love of her life would provide it.
“Always be generous to the women you love,” PP had often said.
With a final click, Oleg prepared to follow his sage advice.
But there was something else PP had always said about girls. It was even more important, if Oleg remembered correctly. That’s it, he recalled with a smile. PP had called it “the key to happiness.” The old man had been dandling Oleg on his knee when he whispered these wise words into his ear for the first time: “The secret to a really happy life, firstborn son, is to always tip the really hot chicks.”
It hadn’t meant much to the six-year-old, but PP had repeated it every year on Oleg’s birthday until finally, when he turned fourteen, PP’s generosity found genuine meaning.
Before calling it a day, Oleg turned his attention back to Uno, finding that his protégé and his onboard help were maintaining command of the Delphin’s Missile Control Center.
Oleg studied the scene in the Center of Submarine Control, COC, located in the upper level of the Operations Compartment. He couldn’t help but admire the dazzling computer touch screens and the green, orange, and blue glow from the Attack Center, Ballast Control, and other displays reflecting on the faces of the sailors who stared so intently at them — the pure dynamism of America’s weaponry. Like Disneyland for death! Or, as Uno had put it, “a very exciting video game.”
Oleg knew that with all those dazzling technologies now under his command, there would be little to stop him from launching a direct hit on the WAIS. Massive fireworks would light up the Frozen Continent and unprecedented flooding would devour much of the world.
CHAPTER 7
Lana had shed her elegant heels to keep running from the National Cathedral, and now had the Prius in sight when one of Holmes’s aides texted that the deputy director was calling an emergency session at NSA headquarters in an hour. She had assumed they’d be meeting tonight: a threat of unprecedented magnitude demanded immediate action.
When she’d received the message about the threat she should have turned right around and told Emma that she might bed down at Fort Meade tonight.
Too late for that now. Text her.
Lana slowed just enough to put her digits to work—“Working late. Don’t want u home alone. Ask Tanesa to stay with u.”
Holmes’s aide sent another text with a detailed map of Antarctica and a color-coded view of the WAIS that highlighted the ice sheet’s most vulnerable point. It lay just west of the Transantarctic Mountains, which ran roughly north and south like a fragile spine.
Even staring at the announced target, Lana could not help but experience a measure of comfort. At least the aim wasn’t to vaporize Washington, New York, Paris, Berlin, London, or any other major city.
But that first flush of relief faded quickly. While she was glad to know that mass incineration of citizens wasn’t on some terrorist agenda — if the hackers’ communiqué about bombing Antarctica could actually be trusted — she also recalled that a slow-motion catastrophe, by thermonuclear standards, would be triggered if the WAIS were hit.
She wasn’t an expert on Antarctica, but knew that scientists worldwide already considered it one of the major worries of climate change: if the whole ice sheet were cleaved from the continent by the warming, or a massive bomb, seas would rise by a staggering eleven feet, in a matter of days.
WAIS was such a looming topic for the U.S. Task Force on Climate Change that it was slated as the subject of next month’s meeting in Annapolis, which now sounded like an academic exercise with the real threat of a nuclear missile strike — or strikes—on the planet’s southernmost region.
Lana threw herself behind the wheel, wondering what an eleven-foot rise in the waters of Chesapeake Bay would mean. She was tempted to do the research then and there but weightier concerns saw her speeding out of the car park.
Not for long. She had to hit the brakes quickly, then fought traffic for blocks, noting the unworried faces of so many drivers and pedestrians, including the young couples, hand in hand, who were crossing at streetlights blissfully unaware of the impending peril.
If they only knew.
This was so unlike last year, when the whole country became aware of the attack with the speed of a blackout. That assault had come with no warning, taking down the grid and setting off a nationwide power outage on a balmy September morning. No couples had strolled hand in hand with traffic jams seizing virtually every intersection. Then train derailments began across the country, along with pipeline explosions and a vicious array of other cyberattacks, all of which were brutally visible, even if the cyberterrorists themselves had been wholly absent to the eye.