“Oh,” McCloskey said, bowing his head. “Oh, my God. Those poor people. Thank you for that message, Mr. President. I didn’t think I could-”
“Tom. I think you should go upstairs to the Residence and tell the children their mother’s coming home in time for Christmas.”
McCloskey rose unsteadily from his seat and headed for the door.
“Merry Christmas, everyone,” the vice president said in a strangled voice as he left the room.
ALONE IN THE Oval Office, snow falling gently beyond the windows, McAtee quietly sat at his desk staring at the phone. He’d done all he could do. If the Russians were determined to have a war, by God, they’d get one. But there was something he was missing here. A critical piece of the Russian puzzle buried deep within his brain years ago, during the Cold War, back in the days when he’d chaired the Senate Arms Committee.
He stared at his phone until his eyes lost focus. It wouldn’t come.
And then it did.
The Brits had once had a mole deep inside the Kremlin. Not a high-level mole but a very effective one, as McAtee remembered. He was military originally, a colonel or perhaps even a general. Then, later, KGB. What the hell was his name? He’d been very helpful during the Korean Airlines incident, and that was the last McAtee had ever heard of him. He’d gone off the screen. But if he was still alive, and still an insider…
He picked up the phone and called Sir David Trulove’s home number. It was almost seven in the morning, U.K. time. Surely he’d be up and about, even though it was Sunday.
“Hello?” said a sleepy voice at the other end.
“David, it’s Jack McAtee.”
“Good morning.”
“You’ve heard the good news about the airship?”
“Yes. I received a call from Bermuda a few moments ago. The sub and all of the survivors are en route there now. Good show, I daresay. My heartfelt congratulations.”
“I want to thank you for Red Banner’s leadership on that one. Your man Alex Hawke did one hell of a job. Especially considering the fact that no one on earth had ever done anything like it before. And this woman-what is her name? The passenger who managed to get the hatch open for our boys?”
“Fancha is the name I was given by my chief of station. Not one of the passengers, apparently, a shipboard entertainer.”
“That’s it. Must be quite an amazing woman. Took enormous courage to do what she did. Well done all around.”
“Mr. President, I think the lion’s share of credit has to go to your young SEAL teams. Magnificent job, from what I understand. Very few casualties at our end. If transoceanic airships are the coming thing, and they may well be, we now have a textbook scenario for any future hostage crisis.”
“David, I called about another urgent matter. Now that we’ve taken the airship out of play, I’m determined to remove these damn Zeta machines from the table as well. You’re aware of these things I assume?”
“Indeed, I am. The FBI shared all of that information with MI-5, MI-6, and New Scotland Yard during the night. Tens of millions of bombs, all connected? It’s frankly unbelievable but apparently quite true. This new Kremlin fellow is absolutely mad. My chaps are hard at it as we speak. It’s a bloody nightmare, all right, but there has to be some way to take out those things.”
“I’ve been sitting here thinking about that. We have to assume Korsakov, or someone close to him, has to have some kind of detonator. A nuclear football, for want of a better term. Agree?”
“I certainly do. A unified way to trigger countless small bombs simultaneously. Like Salina but on a grander scale.”
“Exactly. So, we need to find and neutralize that damn detonator before Korsakov or someone else can use it. He gave us twenty-four hours before he takes out a Western city of one million souls.”
“Good God. Well, best luck on that. So far, we’re absolutely stumped around here. I’ve got a crisis team on this specifically as well. We just have to crack it, that’s all there is to it.”
“David, bear with me a moment. You had an asset inside the Kremlin during the eighties. I can’t remember his name, but-”
“Stefanovich Halter? A don at Cambridge?”
“No, no. I know Professor Halter. This man I’m thinking of was ex-military. KGB. Tough, smart, Teutonic bastard, a German-Russian, almost neo-Nazi, as I recall, but if you threw enough money at him, he’d play ball. Helped us with that Korean airliner they shot down, the one that strayed into Soviet airspace. I dealt with him directly through the CIA. Greedy bastard, but he delivered the goods.”
“Sounds like most of the chaps Ivan Korsakov surrounds himself with. You’re looking for someone extremely close to the Tsar, I take it. A trusted confidant of long standing.”
“Exactly.”
“I see where you’re going with this. Good thought. I’ll get on this immediately. See if we can’t sort out your man. Determine if he’s still alive, and if so, if he’s any kind of key player in the Tsar’s new regime.”
“How quickly can you get back to me, David?”
“As you will remember, we had more than a few KGB doubles on MI-6 books for a while way back when. We had numbered accounts for them in Zurich or Geneva, some offshore in the Caymans and elsewhere. Shouldn’t take me too long to get someone onto this, see if there are still some active accounts on the books.”
“One minute sounds good to me.”
“We’ll do our best. I warn you, though, we haven’t used these fellows since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. As I say, I’m not even sure if any of them are still alive. Red Banner’s charge is to rebuild the old Moscow network. Just begun scratching the surface there, I’m afraid.”
“Is there anyone at all on your side who could find out quickly? Every second counts from here on in.”
“Stefan Halter might actually recall the fellow you’re after. He’s deep cover in Moscow right now, but he’s spent time in Bermuda recently, briefing Hawke and Red Banner on dormant Moscow assets. I’ll ring him post haste.”
“Do that. Sir David, I don’t need to stress how vitally important this is. I need a reliable asset deep inside the Kremlin, and I need him now. Someone who can help us get close enough to Korsakov to neutralize his goddamn worldwide web of death machines. The CIA says Korsakov’s private airship arrives in Stockholm in twelve hours. He shows up at the Stockholm Concert Hall two hours later to accept his Nobel. I’d like your Red Banner boys on him the second he lands. Got any ideas? Hawke would be ideal.”
“Alex Hawke? May need a bit of a rest-up after Energetika and this Bermuda operation, I’m afraid.”
“No time for rest-ups, David. I’d appreciate it if you could get your man Hawke on the next thing smoking to Stockholm. That’s where Korsakov is headed, and that’s where we need him. We’ll provide transportation. Agreed?”
“I’ll ring him now.”
“And David, tell your Mr. Hawke one thing directly from the American president’s lips to his ears, will you, please?”
“Certainly.”
“Everything is riding on this. Everything.”
“Got it. I’ll ring you back as soon as I have something definite on your Kremlin question. Cheerio.”
Cheerio?
Did they still say that over there?
64
The tiny village of Kungsholm was roughly one hour by car from the center of Stockholm. As it was nearly buried within a deep, dark wood, Hawke had found it rather difficult to locate. The limbs of gnarled old trees on either side of the lane were laden with freshly fallen December snow and threw long black arms across the scene. The quaint cottages glimpsed now and then on either side of the narrow thoroughfare seemed supernaturally quiet.
No movement, save a delicate mist wafting across the road and into the thrusting, yearning tangle of the woodland fringe. Perfect stillness. It was as if some evil wizard had recently waved his wand above all the rooftops, sprinkling fairy dust that put the village’s few inhabitants to sleep for an eternity.