The Warbirds (24 page)

“I suppose this is necessary,” the General Secretary grumbled.

“I’ll give him a quick drowning lesson if you wish to be left alone. Even the head of the Defense Council should try the pool waters from time to time.” It was the Tartar’s idea of a joke, but a smile never crossed his Mongolian features.

Rank Ulyanoff was the third most powerful man in the Soviet Union and as head of the Politburo’s Defense Council could demand access to the General Secretary at almost any time. But even he did not wish to antagonize the dwarf-like Tartar who guarded the Communist Party chief. It was rumored that the Tartar had killed numerous men and women with his bare hands, usually breaking their necks with ease, when serving the General Secretary in his rise through the KGB. Ulyanoff waited impatiently until the curtain was held aside for him to enter. Years before, Ulyanoff had made a promise to himself that the Tartar would experience a lingering, most unpleasant old age once the General Secretary was deposed…retired.

“We must talk about Ashkhabad,” Ulyanoff said at once.

The General Secretary looked through him. “And I thought we were going to discuss something urgent. Perhaps a place with more privacy?” He heaved his body off the massage table and slipped his feet into freshly washed slippers.

The Tartar led the two men around the balcony to where it ended at a paneled wall. When he pressed a concealed button the panel swung open into a large room, almost fifty feet to a side. The red damask walls, Persian rugs, inlaid tiles in the floor and heavy furniture reminded the General Secretary of a harem. He did not like or approve of the room, but it was the most secure place for a private conversation in the bathhouse.

A girl rose from one of the chaise longues and walked toward them. On the streets of Moscow, bundled up against the cold, she would have passed unnoticed. But walking across the rugs, blonde hair swaying against her shoulders and hips moving rhythmically to some inner song, the naked girl was indeed breathtaking.

The General Secretary preferred the banya to remain an
all-male institution and looked inquiringly at his bodyguard.

“Part of Comrade Rokossovsky’s traveling furniture,” the Tartar said, motioning the girl to leave. Rokossovsky was the youngest voting member of the Politburo and one of the four members of the Defense Council, well inside Ulyanoff’s pocket.

The General Secretary found a wing chair near the fire-place and sat down. “Please be comfortable,” he told the older man. “Enjoy the fire.”

Ulyanoff did not take the invitation but paced the floor. “Why are you directing a buildup of forces in Turkmen around Ashkhabad? I’ve also learned that the arms shipments to Iraq are being redirected there. All this, sir, is not part of our policy.” Ashkhabad was at the head of a mountain pass that led through the Kopet mountains into northern Iran. The border was less than twenty miles away. A buildup there, Ulyanoff reasoned, could only mean…

“A minor adjustment of our forces. Nothing more. This could have waited for our next meeting.”

“To sustain such a buildup on the southern edge of the Tsentralnyye Desert is foolish. A waste of resources.”

The General Secretary was silent for a moment. “You don’t think Comrade Kalin-Tegov would approve?”

The mention of the Communist Party’s theoretician and Ulyanoff’s most powerful supporter on the Politburo didn’t faze Ulyanoff. “You know Kalin-Tegov,” Ulyanoff said, “three steps forward, two steps backward.” He was clearly upset.

“Perhaps this time we’ll take only one step back.”

“The alignment of our defenses falls to the Defense Council.” Ulyanoff had to restrain himself not to shout.

“The Iraqis are proving to be poor allies,” the General Secretary said. “They don’t continue to press for victory against the Iranians.”

Ulyanoff was near-speechless. At last he saw a complete pattern before him. “You can’t desert the Iraqis now. Let them carry out our goals in the Persian Gulf. An invasion of Iran out of Ashkhabad would be suicidal. The Americans would intervene. It would lead to World War Three…That’s it, isn’t it? Kalin-Tegov approves of this adventur
ism.” Ulyanoff saw a pit before him. Kalin-Tegov had always favored a more aggressive policy in the Persian Gulf and now had thrown in with the General Secretary. Which to Ulyanoff meant his own position on the Politburo was crumbling. He left the room without another word, needing privacy to calculate how best to shore up his defenses…

The Tartar drew a cup of hot water from a samovar, dropped in a bag of Earl Grey tea, which the General Secretary preferred, and carried the steeping tea to him.

The General Secretary accepted the cup and settled into thought. “Did Ulyanoff know the girl was here?” he asked the Tartar.

“No. The look on his face gave him away. Ulyanoff agrees with you about banyas. It’s the
only
point where he agrees with you. He didn’t even know who she belonged to.”

“That was a mistake.”

“Rokossovsky is making many mistakes over her.”

“Then Comrade Rokossovsky is fond of the blonde nymph?”

“I would say he dotes on her.”

The General Secretary smiled. “Send her to a place where she can be of better use to our people.”

“Abyy on the Yana River would be suitable.”

“Not bad,” the General Secretary said, amused. The small village of Abyy was isolated in a remote river valley of the Khrebet mountain ranges of northeastern Siberia, well above the Arctic Circle. “As soon as she is established, issue her a temporary visa to return to Leningrad. Contingent on her good behavior, of course. Let us find out if Comrade Rokossovsky’s duties require his presence in places other than Moscow.” The General Secretary smiled. Ulyanoff was about to lose another of his supporters on the Politburo, thanks to Comrade Rokossovsky’s hard-on.

“Why did Ulyanoff choose this place to confront you with his discoveries?”

“If we met privately in the Kremlin everyone would know immediately. Ulyanoff wanted news of this conversation delayed as long as possible. You know how difficult
it is to keep anything secret from the Politburo. He wants time to maneuver.”

“Has Kalin-Tagov switched his support to you?”

The General Secretary smiled and shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Ulyanoff is right about one thing,” the Tartar said, an astute observer as well as a bodyguard, and secure in his position with the General Secretary. “An invasion of Iran would certainly risk a major war.”

“And / am not going to be the one to start it. We can achieve what we want, piece by piece, and using our surrogates wherever and however possible…”

13 January: 1333 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 0833 hours, Washington, D.C.

“Director, Mr. Cagliari is on line one.” Like everyone in the CIA, the secretary used the title that the Director of the CIA preferred. There was also a joke circulating through the Agency about how he had originally insisted on being called M but the British Secret Intelligence Service had filed a copyright infringement against him.

The Director picked up the line. To hear himself addressed as “Freddy” by the National Security Adviser. It was a name he hated. “Freddy,” Cagliari was saying, “the Chief wants an update on the Gulf and the Gulf area. Situation Room, two o’clock this afternoon. You’re the star attraction.” Cagliari didn’t have to tell the Director he was in trouble. The grapevine had already forwarded that message to him.

At 1:55
P.M.
the Director walked into the Situation Room followed by a team of six specialists. Cagliari was waiting for him. “Sorry, Freddy. Just you.”

The Director did not like his team being dismissed, but was not about to show it. He told his people to lay out the photos and documents they were toting and leave. A stack of photos was placed in front of each position around the table. Each photo was stamped
TOP SECRET RUFF
, the code name indicating they were obtained by a satellite system—in this case the CIA’s latest Keyhole-12 multi-mode reconnaissance satellite. The team was exiting the room as
the President entered, sat down and lit a cigar, ignoring the photos.

“Well, Freddy, talk to me.”

“Mr. President, the situation in the Gulf is unchanged. Each pair pf photos here shows a major military storage or marshaling area in Iran and Iraq. The first photo was taken four weeks ago; the second is less than thirty-six hours old. You will notice there has been little change over the past month in each area. Much of the same equipment is still in place. We have only monitored some movement out of the areas and none in. This seemed rather too good to be true, so we have been looking for other storage areas. So far we haven’t found a thing. My analysts are of the opinion that the Russians have curtailed their support of Iraq and that the Iranians are more concerned with internal economic problems.”

The President tapped a cigar ash into an ashtray his ten-year-old daughter had made for him and that he kept in the Situation Room. “You say you haven’t found other storage areas. What about Ashkhabad, Freddy?”

The Director frowned, both at the repeated use of the name he hated and at his realization that his staff had scarcely mentioned that city in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Turkmen when they prepared the briefing for the President. Thank God he had a good memory. “Mr. President, we
have
monitored some unusual activity on the outskirts of Ashkhabad. If you will look at the last photo…”

“I’ve already seen it, Freddy.”

The Director could hear the tone in the President’s voice. Clearly some son of a bitch had been back-dooring information to the President. The Keyhole-12 belonged to the CIA, but the National Reconnaissance Office managed the satellite. Could that bastard who ran the NRO be out to get him? Or had the Defense Intelligence Agency been siphoning off Keyhole-12 imagery as it was downlinked through the Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center at Fort Meade? Well, two could play this game.

“The information we have is fragmentary at this point, Mr. President. What we are seeing is a temporary storage area the Soviets are using as they withdraw from Afghanistan. At this juncture, nothing more. Our analysis will be
confirmed when the buildup we are currently monitoring at Ashkhabad draws down.”

“That could explain the trucks. But where did the two hundred new T-72 tanks and three squadrons of MiG-23s come from? Those are reinforced squadrons, Freddy. That is one big air regiment, over a hundred aircraft. Just what the
hell
is going on?”

The room was silent. The Director tried to form an answer. It was increasingly obvious the President had been briefed by another source. Only the Air Force could provide that depth of analysis. He made a mental promise to even the score. “Sir, it’s necessary to keep this minor buildup in perspective. True, it is noteworthy but not critical—”

“Freddy, how many times have I told you I do not like surprises? I also do not like repeating myself. I want to know why those tanks and MiGs are there. Tell me, what would the Russians do in a situation like this?”

The question surprised the Director. “Ah, I suppose they would direct their Humint resources at the problem.”

“Humint…human intelligence,” the President said. “A fancy word for old-fashioned spies. Well, what does our Humint tell you?”

“We don’t have agents in that area. It’s incredibly difficult to sustain—”

“Freddy, the taxpayers of this country think the Company costs them approximately a billion dollars a year. That’s the published figure. Everyone in this room knows the real number is closer to three billion. That’s a lot of black money we hide for you. The taxpayers, and the President, are not getting their money’s worth. Get me some answers.”

After the Director left the room, the President drew on his cigar. “I want his resignation on my desk by tomorrow.”

“Sir,” Cagliari said, “that will really upset the Agency. Do we need that kind of turmoil now?”

“Why not? Maybe better now than later. The Company is just too politicized with Freddy running it. There’s too much front and too little substance. We need some answers, and fast…”

2 February: 1000 hours, Greenwich Mean Time 1000 hours, Stonewood, England

Bill Carroll stood in front of the situation map of the Persian Gulf that he had tacked up on the wall of the biggest room in Intel. The two lieutenants and six sergeants manning intelligence had been delighted when Carroll asked them to dig out the current intelligence summaries on the situation in the Gulf for an update briefing to the wing. For the first time in months they were acting like an Intelligence section, passing information down to the crews.

Morgan and Gomez came into the room now, followed by the three squadron commanders, and sat down in the seats arranged in front of the briefing map. Carroll called the room to attention when Waters entered. “Please be seated,” Waters said. “What have you got for us, Bill?”

“Sir, the 45th is earmarked for combat operations in the Gulf under Operations Plan ELK GROVE. Right now the Pentagon is looking for a deployment base for us to use. They’re going to have to find one pretty quick if we’re to be used there because the situation in the Gulf is getting worse every day. The Navy is predicting that attacks on oil tankers will heat up in the next few weeks, the head ayatollah’s health is failing and Israeli intelligence has reported huge Soviet arms shipments out of Ashkhabad into Iran. They say it’s all being shipped into southern Iran, but we don’t know
where
the arms are going and
who
is getting them. We do know that large numbers of SAMs and Triple A for air defense have reached the Iranians. That’s all I’ve got for now.”

Waters turned to the men. “Get this out to the squadrons so they know what’s coming at them.” He turned to his weapons-and-tactics man. “Bull, I’m worried about the SAMs and Triple A. We’re an air-to-mud attack wing, and air defenses like Bill just mentioned can chew us up good. What can we do about it?”

Bull Morgan’s chin dropped onto his chest, as though illustrating what followed. “Low levels, Colonel. The crews are going to have to get down on the deck to get under the search-and-guidance radars and go at warp eight.
Five hundred feet ain’t low and four hundred knots ain’t fast if you’re trying to avoid SAMs and Triple A.”