He took off his helmet, gazed around him and breathed deeply. He had cheated death. But he was pissed. Oh boy, was he pissed.
1900 hours, Friday, May 12, 2017
“NO, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH, the American pilot landed in Ukraine. He was shot down inside Ukrainian airspace. As was the other American pilot, who was killed.”
Komarov stood before the President’s desk. He had been practicing judo in the President’s private gym when the call had come through. As instructed, Russian TV news was saying that a Russian aircraft had been shot down, but not before it had first destroyed two American aircraft, which had attacked it.
Komarov had quickly put on a track suit, hastened to the Kremlin’s situation center, been briefed by a senior air force general and was now briefing the President.
“Damn,” said the President. “Never mind. It is enough. We are telling the world the Americans opened fire on our pilots first and, thankfully, the wreckage of the Sukhoi fell behind our lines. That proves it was shot down over our airspace. Our friends are saying that this is not only naked aggression by America, it is also NATO attacking Russia. Russia is justified in defending herself. The only response is war. Get me Merkulov on the telephone. Now.”
“He’s on hold already, Vladimir Vladimirovich.” Komarov had thought ahead and warned the Director of the FSB—the successor to the KGB—to be on standby.
Merkulov, a career KGB operative and old colleague of the President, was too crafty a beast to be caught out by a surprise phone call. Furtive, with the expression of an animal looking warily out of its lair for predators, he was ruthless and deadly. He was ready for the President and prepared for his order when he came on the line.
“Lavrentiy Pavlovich, it is time for you to start stirring up our ethnic Russian comrades in the Baltic states. We need to get them back where they belong. Under Russia. But first, the ceasefire in Ukraine must be broken… And it must be the Ukrainians who are seen to do it.”
“With pleasure, Vladimir Vladimirovich,” said Merkulov reflectively.
0500 hours, Saturday, May 13, 2017
COLONEL “BEAR” SMYTHSON ran with the smooth, effortless rhythm of a natural track athlete, despite being a big, broad-shouldered wrestler. Although it was still an hour before sunrise, it felt good to be out and running hard on such a lovely spring morning. There was enough dawn light to pick out the Iwo Jima Memorial with its heroic depiction of marines raising Old Glory, while on his left shoulder, as he headed back toward his married quarter in Fort Myer, the myriad crosses on the green slopes of Arlington Cemetery gleamed white.
Bear needed this time to himself. Not only was his early morning run around Arlington Cemetery the only exercise his job permitted, but it also gave him time to think, to plan his day, and to get things into perspective before the tsunami of work hit him in the office. As Executive Assistant to the US National Security Adviser, he was a busy man in a key post. Today might be a Saturday, but most Saturdays were working days. Sundays too, when needs required.
While some of his predecessors had found the pressure too much and been quietly “returned to unit,” Bear flourished on the challenge. A tank commander by background, he had been noticed not only as an inspirational leader in combat, but also as a highly capable staff officer, a rare combination in any army. He had spent much of the previous decade fighting America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, on his left wrist he wore a silver bracelet with the names of the soldiers killed in action under his command, an ever-present reminder of the human consequences of war.
As an African American, Bear had had his own mountain to climb in the US Army. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, he may have grown up after the segregation era, but he had never forgotten the humiliation of waiting for the white boys to finish on the fairground rides before the black boys were allowed their turn. He might be a “bird” colonel, who wore a Silver Star for valor proudly on his chest, but when he went to visit his mother in her care home in Atlanta, the few whites he saw in the area looked as if they still expected to push in front of him to get to the fairground rides. There might have been a black president for the previous eight years, but sometimes it still felt as if he was back in Atlanta in the 1970s. The secret to success, he had discovered, was never to let anyone see the hurt it inflicted.
Suddenly he focused on the voice in his earpiece: “We are just picking up news from the BBC’s correspondent in Ukraine of an attack on a primary school in Donetsk, capital of the separatist republic in eastern Ukraine… It appears that over eighty children have been killed in a rocket attack, which the Kremlin is claiming was fired by the Ukrainians. The Russians are saying that this is a direct attack on their people and must be punished. This places the ceasefire in Ukraine in serious jeopardy…”
Bear did not need to hear more. First he slowed to a gentle jog, getting his breath back as he did so. It was never a good move to sound anything but measured and in control when he spoke to his boss. Next he punched a name in the Favorites list on his phone.
Moments later, Abe MacWhite, the President’s National Security Adviser, answered. “Got it, Bear,” was his drawled response. “I’ve heard the news from Ukraine. I’ll be in the office by 0600 hours. I’ll want to see the CIA and NSA reports and who they think is responsible when I get in.”
“Roger, Sir,” said Bear. As he started to run back home, he called the duty officers in America’s two principal overseas intelligence agencies, the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, followed by the White House car pool. Calls finished, he accelerated into a sprint, relishing the pain in his legs and the burning in his lungs. If this incident in Ukraine developed as he thought it might, it could well be many days before he next had the luxury of an early morning run.
Forty-five minutes later, after a quick shower and a change into his day uniform, crisply pressed by him the night before, a hurried farewell kiss to his wife Tonia, still drowsy in bed, a look at his still-sleeping children and a rapid dash by car into the White House, Bear was at his desk in the West Wing with his first coffee of the day. As he sipped it, he studied the CIA and NSA reports on the attack on the school in Donetsk, conscious that the time for quiet reflection would end the moment his boss arrived.
Then General Abe MacWhite walked into the outer office where Bear was sitting. A four-star general and Commander-in-Chief, Special Operations Command before retiring from active military duty and in his younger days, a feared Delta Force operative, MacWhite was well over six foot tall, as rangy as a Wyoming cowboy.
Bear braced to attention, as the man described by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as “perhaps the finest warrior and leader of men in combat I ever met” nodded a good morning, but said nothing. He knew the man would have already run ten miles before dawn and would eat but one vegan meal later in the day. Bear was in awe of him but, he acknowledged, he had no desire to be anything like him.
MacWhite picked up the CIA and NSA reports and scanned them. Only when he had finished did he speak.
“Morning, Bear.” The tone was quiet, laconic and full of authority. “How was your run?” There was a glint of amusement in MacWhite’s eyes and Bear grinned back. “A bit more of a sprint than usual, Sir… and yours?”