Night of the Hawk, page 57
part #4 of Patrick McLanahan Series
“What about the COBRA VENOM units that are already in Smorgon?” General Kundert asked. “I thought we were going to have air support for them as well.”
“Yes, sir, we will,” Elliott replied. “We have two Megafortresses in reserve. While the four primary birds are withdrawing, the two spares will proceed inbound. They are configured for air-to-air combat as well as ground attack. They will be able to help cover the primary group’s withdrawal, and they will establish contact with the Marine Special Operations teams within Byelorussia. Together, their task is to locate and destroy Voshchanka’s command-and-control system, including his nuclear-weapon-control network.”
“That is absolutely essential, gentlemen,” Preston emphasized. “We can knock back Voshchanka’s tanks and infantry all we want, but if he follows through on his threats and pops off a few nuclear missiles, we’ve lost the battle.”
“Sir, we need all the help we can get to locate those nuclear missiles,” Curtis said to Preston. “Secretary of State Danahall indicated that some State Department or embassy staffers from Moscow are trying to help. Is there any indication on their progress?”
“Well, our embassy’s political affairs officer, Sharon Greenfield, is probably the best Company operative we have. And she’s got a strong line into Boris Dvornikov, the former Moscow bureau chief of the KGB, but I wouldn’t count on any help from Moscow,” Preston said. “The President is counting on your Special Operations Marines and General Elliott’s bombers to knock out Voshchanka’s headquarters. If we miss, we could be looking at a full-scale nuclear war in Europe within a couple of hours.
HOTEL LATVIA, RIGA, LATVIAN REPUBLIC
13 APRIL, 1921 HOURS (1321 ET)
“A messenger from Moscow, sir,” the doorman said on the intercom. “It is marked urgent, eyes only.”
General Viktor Gabovich hesitated. He had relocated to the twelfth floor of the Hotel Latvia in downtown Riga, once a run-of-the-mill Soviet-run Intourist hotel and a former KGB safe house, now converted into a rather lavish joint-venture Western-style hotel run by companies from Sweden and Germany as well as Latvia itself. Gabovich had left the confusion and danger of Lithuania and had escaped to Latvia to wait out the results of the Byelorussian invasion and to try to get a reading on Voshchanka’s actions from the Commonwealth ministers. Absolutely no one should have known that he was there. But he did expect that former KGB officers from around the Commonwealth would try to contact him, to try to get in ‘me for their piece of the new communist republic that Voshchanka was forming, so the message was not totally unexpected. Gabovich pressed the intercom button. “Bring the message up.”
“The messenger insists that he deliver it to you personally, sir.”
“Who is the messenger?”
“He has no name, sir, but his credentials are in order.”
That was the typical response for a KGB officer: no name, no identity. A KGB officer appearing somewhere in person would not want to identify himself to anyone not known to him personally or to anyone of lower rank, especially a doorman or guard—Gabovich would have been suspicious if the stranger had given a name. He said, “Very well. Show him upstairs.” Gabovich wished the hotel had a video security system, but Western-style hotels did not have such things, and Latvia and the rest of the Baltic states were becoming more and more Western every day.
Gabovich drew a Beretta automatic pistol from a shoulder holster when he heard the knock at the door—four knocks, then one lower on the door, a standard KGB entry code. Pistol at the ready, Gabovich opened the door.
“Greetings, General Gabovich,” came the hearty greeting.
Gabovich did not know whom to expect, but one person he never would have guessed would appear was General Boris Georgivich Dvornikov, the former director of the Moscow Central office of the KGB and once the highest-ranking field officer in the entire service. Dvornikov was now a top-level official with the Moscow City Police, though Gabovich knew from his own sources that Dvornikov did more than just handle police affairs. Rumor had it that he kept his hands in many pies after the collapse of the USSR, and his contacts were considered to be far superior and more loyal than even Gabovich’s own. It was also known that Dvornikov could be duplicitous at will and had on more than one occasion bent over backwards to help out the Americans. It was said he had a hard-on for the U.S. Embassy’s political affairs officer in Moscow, Sharon Greenfield. Gabovich could only imagine what a sadist like Dvornikov wanted to do to Greenfield…
“Well, Viktor Josefivich, aren’t you going to invite me in, or will we talk out here in the hallway?”
Speechless with surprise, Gabovich motioned for Dvornikov to enter.
“It has been a long time since I’ve stayed at the Hotel Latvia,” Dvornikov said casually as he removed his black leather gloves and glanced idly around the apartment. “Not anything like it was when Intourist ran the place, is it? The Ministry of the Interior and we in the KGB knew nothing of running hotels.” He noticed Gabovich’s hand in his right front pocket, smiled, and said, “Are you still carrying around those delightful little Italian automatics? You always did go for the best.”
Gabovich withdrew the pistol from his pocket and placed it back in his holster, snapping the securing band tightly. “This… this is a surprise, Comrade General …”
“Please, no more rank, Viktor,” Dvornikov said in mild protest. “At least not until the Union is restored—and then I will probably be inferior in rank to yourself. Only you have had the vision to actually do something positive to restore the Union to its former glorious position.” He hesitated, watching Gabovich’s eyes brighten with a smile. Yes, Gabovich was truly proud of his deeds these past few weeks. Never mind that he could be pushing the entire world to the brink of war—that wasn’t his concern. Dvornikov added, “I assume that is what you are doing regarding this pact you have made with General Voshchanka and the other berserkers in Byelorussia, no?”
Gabovich was clearly relieved. His plan, and so far its successful progress, had been noticed by one of the highest-ranking, most powerful men in the former Soviet Union. Dvornikov was actually deferring to him! “Y-yes, that is precisely what my plan was, Comrade General,” Gabovich said proudly. “I’m very glad you approve.”
“I should like to hear more, Comrade,” Dvornikov said. He motioned to a portable bar set up in the salon. “Perhaps we can toast your triumph.” Gabovich motioned to a chair in the living room, and Dvornikov took a seat. Gabovich poured him a snifter of brandy, and before he could say anything else, Dvornikov raised it to him. “To you and your operation, much success.”
“To the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” Gabovich said confidently. He drained his entire snifter, not noticing that Dvornikov barely wet his lips with his.
“Yes, it is quite a feat you have accomplished, Viktor Josefivich,” Dvornikov smiled. “Getting that pig Voshchanka to mobilize his troops against both Lithuania and Russia in the Kalinin oblast was a stroke of genius. Frankly, I’m surprised the old goat understood what you were telling him.”
“I think Voshchanka may have some dim inkling of the idea of a new communist state and the reunion of the fraternal Soviet republics under one government,” Gabovich said, “but what I knew he believed in was power. He was obsessed with it. Nothing was going to stop him. All he needed was the right tool, the right spark—”
“And you provided that,” Dvornikov said. “As director of security of Fisikous, you had much to tempt Voshchanka’s appetite, didn’t you? One prays for such an array of weapons to offer for sale or exchange— especially nuclear warheads. The KR-11 was a Fisikous product, if I’m not mistaken, along with the X-27 air-launched cruise missile. That is what you offered him, was it not?”
Gabovich was not surprised that Dvornikov had figured out or discovered his plan—he had a ten-year reputation of such unerring data collection. “Yes, it was,” he replied. “Not only the weapons, Comrade Dvornikov, but the command-and-control. systems as well. A simple system, really, highly automated and—”
“How many warheads did you transfer to him?”
“Three,” Gabovich replied, “with technicians to modify his existing nuclear-tipped SS-21 missiles to interface with the command-and-control system. Voshchanka has an option for nine more, as well as—”
“How many SS-21 missiles with nuclear warheads does Voshchanka have in the field?” Dvornikov asked, idly running his finger around the lip of his brandy snifter.
The repeated questions, and especially the last one, irritated Gabovich—and Gabovich also noticed that Dvornikov had not touched his brandy. This, he thought, was starting to take on the form of an interrogation. “Is there some problem, Boris Georgivich? Everything is proceeding according to plan. In just a few days Lithuania will fall. The Commonwealth will have no choice but to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Voshchanka and Svetlov.”
“What were you going to get out of all this, Viktor Josefivich?” Dvornikov asked. “Fisikous has fallen to U.S. Marines and to Dominikas Palcikas—surely you know that by now—and the scientists there have been arrested by the Lithuanians. You could not have possibly expected Fisikous to stay intact once the invasion was on, especially after the massacre Voshchanka’s troops engineered there—Palcikas made Fisikous Lithuania’s equivalent of the Alamo or the Bastille. What did you hope to accom—” And then he stopped, finally realizing what Gabovich wanted, and it had nothing at all to do with Fisikous.
“I think you have guessed what I want—and I think you agree with me, Boris Georgivich,” Gabovich said. “This damned Commonwealth, the weak-kneed Russian bureaucrats in Moscow, the pathetic sheep in the Council of Ministers in Minsk—they all know what will happen, what has to happen. The Commonwealth cannot survive. It will eventually tear itself apart. Riots in the Nagorno-Karabakh, civil war in Georgia, the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the eventual incorporation of Armenia and Turkmenistan into Iran and the incorporation of Moldova into Romania, absolute poverty all over the countryside, even the breakup of the Russian Federation itself—how can the Commonwealth hope to survive …?”
“I agree,” Dvornikov said, nodding. “The Commonwealth must eventually fail. But giving a megalomaniac like Voshchanka nuclear warheads? You know he will do only one thing with them.”
“Yes. Use them,” Gabovich said simply. “Against the Commonwealth armies, against the Russians, against Minsk, against anyone who dares attack him. And when that first warhead explodes, chaos will break out in all of Europe. The Commonwealth will rip apart.”
“And you are here in Riga because … you expect Voshchanka to target Minsk as well as the Russian and Commonwealth armies?”
“Of course he will,” Gabovich said matter-of-factly. “He has no military apparatus in Minsk—everything has been moved to Smorgon, and will soon be moved to Kaunas.”
“Because Vilnius…” Dvornikov prodded. “He intends on destroying Vilnius as well?”
“All remnants of Russian influence will be destroyed, including in his own country,” Gabovich said. “But he will have most of his one-hundred-thousand-man army and air force with him, deployed safely to western Lithuania and Kaliningrad.”
“The Russians will crush him.”
“Do you think Voshchanka believes that? He does not. He thinks he is invincible. He thinks God will guide his sword, deliver him from evil, and all that mythological crap. It doesn’t matter if it’s logical or tactically wise, Comrade, he will do it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he has rolled a few missiles into Russia and has targeted Moscow.”
“What about Riga? Latvia is almost as Russian as St. Petersburg.”
“I think he harbors some thoughts about taking Latvia and Estonia,” Gabovich explained. “In any case I am monitoring his SS-2 1 unit’s movements. So far none of those units are within range of Latvia, except perhaps Daugavpils.”
“So you know where the nuclear-tipped missiles are?” Dvornikov asked. “You can pinpoint their location?”
“Of course,” Gabovich said, pouring another snifter of brandy. “I was very concerned that the old war-horse would try to come after me. I think he believes I am in Minsk, which is why he has moved all three nuclear-capable missiles to the pre-surveyed launch point in Kurenets—that is, within optimal range for both Minsk and Vilnius for the SS-21.”
“And so you think that by killing several million persons and destroying two European capitals, the Commonwealth will end and the Union will be restored?” asked Dvornikov.
“Of course it will be restored,” Gabovich said testily. “Russia will certainly occupy Belarus after the attack. After that, Russia will have no choice but to subdue all the other republics that still have nuclear weapons—the Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. The Commonwealth will end, to be replaced by a strong, dominant Russia—as it should be.”
Dvornikov studied the dark amber liquid in his glass for a moment; then: “And the deaths of millions of people, including your fellow Russians, don’t concern you?”
“Concern me? Comrade, I am counting on it,” Gabovich said. “What better way to begin a fresh start than with a nuclear release? What better way to purge the land of reformists, reactionaries, nationalists, imperialist, and capitalists? Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no liberals after a nuclear explosion. Imagine the ramifications: higher prices for Russian oil; newer, stronger military to counter the West, which will certainly want to rearm against the ‘new Soviet threat’—the list is endless. The people will realize that a divided union will only lead to more chaos. Everything will be as it once was, with Russia regaining the respect and power and authority it once had, with the foreign influences removed and with the central government firmly in command.”
Dvornikov realized now he was sitting across from a very cool, very collected, but totally insane man. Gabovich’s reputation as a tough, no-nonsense officer had preceded him for years, but there had been hints, strong hints, that he was more than just that. He was, in fact, probably many times more mad than Voshchanka. And yet… there was a spark of logic in what Gabovich was saying. Was it possible that Gabovich’s twisted plan could actually work? He wondered …
“I see your plan now, Comrade,” he said finally. “I was very concerned about you for a while: I believed you were actually selling out to Voshchanka, selling out the Union—”
“Never!” Gabovich retorted.
“I realize that,” Dvornikov said. “But how can you be sure that Voshchanka will turn the keys? He may be committed to his plan, but we have seen that he is not the most intelligent commander that ever got off the shitter. To say he’s primitive is being kind. Where is his command center at Smorgon? Can he communicate with his forces and send a launch message via radio or data link to his command center?”
“Of course,” Gabovich said smugly. “The Fisikous command network is the world’s most sophisticated system. But I don’t think you need to worry about Voshchanka pulling the trigger—he will do it. We will get a report in just a few hours that a weapon has been launched.”
“I wish I had your confidence that all will proceed normally, Viktor Josefivich. I like to be sure.”
“I doubt that. You want to know where the command center is because you really want to stop him from launching those missiles,” Gabovich surmised. “But why? Why do you want to stop him? Don’t you care about the Union, Comrade? You were a powerful man in the old Soviet Union, Boris Georgivich—would you like to see it come back?”
“I would feel better if those weapons were in your hands rather than a nut case like Voshchanka’s, that’s all.”
Gabovich regarded him warily. The flattery didn’t suit Dvornikov. It had, in fact, blown him completely. “Don’t try and placate me,” Gabovich snarled. “You’re lying. You no more want me to have charge of those weapons than Voshchanka. You think I’m crazy, don’t you? Fool! You don’t want them launched at all, do you? You care nothing about the future! The glorious future that will be ours—mine!”
Gabovich reached for the pistol in his holster, but he was far, far too late. From his greatcoat pocket Dvornikov withdrew a Walther P-4 automatic pistol fitted with a large cylindrical suppressor that was longer than the gun itself and fired twice into Gabovich’s heart from close range. The heavily suppressed, small-caliber subsonic rounds made virtually no noise. Gabovich stumbled backwards, his eyes wide with surprise and insanity; he was dead before he hit the floor.
“You had the power of life and death in your hands, you stupid bastard,” Dvornikov said to the corpse, “and you screwed it up. I only hope Voshchanka goes through with his plan now, or all this will turn into nothing but an incredible waste.”
Dvornikov holstered his gun and began rifling through Gabovich’s papers. The fool had an entire stack of information on the weapons, including their location, in his briefcase—I could have had the floor mother steal this stuff for God’s sake! He removed the files, ripped them into several pieces, tossed them into a metal garbage can, and dropped a match onto the papers. Well, he thought wryly, Gabovich wasn’t much of a spy anyway, but his plan was going to go forward despite his stupidity. He was going to be sure that—
“Freeze, Boris. Raise your hands and get away from that desk.”
Dvornikov stopped ripping papers, dropped them, and raised his hands. “Well, well, Sharon,” he said. Despite her warning, he turned and faced CIA agent Sharon Greenfield with his usual disarming smile. “At last we are alone, and in more pleasant surroundings.”
