For Honor, page 20
part #17 of Tom Clancy's Op-Center Series
Yuri lowered the weapon.
“Do you really intend to turn these warheads over to Iran?” Bolshakov asked.
“Those are my orders.”
“Simple orders, part of a clean plan,” his father said thoughtfully. “We sell to Iran and make a great deal of money. The United States is forced to move against the ayatollahs, which means that they buy more weapons from us. The generals take bribes, arms become a profit center, and you, Yuri, are complicit in a large-scale program like the one I ran. The only difference is that you are selling to a foreign power and it is all government sanctioned. Morally, it’s no better … arguably worse, if you consider the scope of the destruction.”
“We form alliances to protect Russia. You sold weapons that killed Russians. You have no moral standing. You have only—and this remains to be determined—only a slight chance at redeeming your honor in the eyes of the Kremlin.”
“And in your eyes?”
Yuri was utterly cold and still, as if he were an outcrop of the bunker itself.
The gun was still pointed down but his face began to contort—to Bolshakov it happened so slowly that it appeared to be clay melting in the hot sun. And then the young man screamed, a high-pitched cry that sounded more boy than man. Bolshakov wanted to go to him but remained where he was, squeezing the bar so tightly that it crumbled.
When it stopped, Yuri panted and stared and looked like he wanted to jump at the older man—but sounds coming through the air vent stopped them. Both men were instantly free of the past; they were present and alert.
The van, Bolshakov thought. Someone has seen it. The voices were too muted for them to hear what was being said, only to determine that there were at least two individuals above.
As quickly as Yuri had gone from man to child and back, he turned into something else—something feral. He grabbed his heavy overcoat, and moved toward the hatch.
“You will let me out, and then in,” he quietly ordered his father.
“Yuri, think about this—”
“About what, the mission? Is this it, then? Your patriotic return?”
“Son, if you chase them away others may come. If you kill them, others will come. They cannot move the van, you saw to that. And they have to know someone will be returning—”
“Let me out. Then let me back in.”
“Please, don’t go out like this. What if they are police—?”
Yuri went to the hatch and opened it. He glared behind him as he buttoned his coat and slipped the gun in his right pocket. “Now.”
Bolshakov had nothing vested in the mission, only in his son. He did not agree with what Yuri was doing but the time for being a disciplining parent was dead. Bolshakov had killed it. Guilt and yearning were compelling him to be the supportive father. He knew that neither, however, was right. There was another way.
He came forward, stepping halfway into the shaft and lightly taking Yuri by the arm. The younger man looked as if he wanted to hit something.
“Yuri, I have a better idea,” Bolshakov said quietly.
He then proceeded to explain something Rear Admiral Merkassov had taught him decades before: how to undermine an enemy.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Havana, Cuba
July 2, 1:32 A.M.
“Who are you and why did you lie back there? About everything?”
As soon as they left the station, Dr. Bermejo hooked her hand in McCord’s free arm. He did not know whether that was for support or to keep him from running off. She also asked the question in English. McCord wondered if that was for his sake or so that the occasional passerby might not understand what they were discussing.
He hefted his bag with his free arm, buying himself a moment to consider his answer. He did not want to scare her into silence. He also did not want to flatter her; she did not seem like someone who needed or would fall for that.
“My name is Roger McCord,” he said. “I lied to get into Cuba, said I was here to scull with rowers I know, and I saw no reason to change course.”
She was silent for a moment, then laughed a single, explosive “Ha! An honest liar!”
“I did not just happen to be there,” he said carefully, but also aware of the investigation that would continue at the Comandancia General.
“Of course not,” Adoncia said. “Who would be?”
“I would like to help your friend Mr. Sanjulian.”
“Do you know him?”
“Never met him,” McCord admitted.
“How would you help him?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But I am sure I can do something.”
“I see. I gather, Mr. McCord, that you don’t want the Russians here any more than he does,” she said. “Though not for the same reason.”
“That is correct,” McCord said.
She squeezed his arm in a small show of affection. “I appreciate what you did for me back there, but I am not interested in swapping one taskmaster for another. The Russian conscripts—they are here for women and drink. The Americans I have known were here for money and a military footprint. What are you here for?”
“Help,” he said. “With a word.”
She looked at him for the first time. “A word? What word?”
“Anadyr,” he replied.
Adoncia stopped walking. They were within sight of McCord’s hotel. “How did you hear of it?”
“It keeps showing up in people’s—in their travel plans,” McCord said. “Not Cubans, just Russians and others.”
Adoncia considered this and resumed walking. She was still holding on to McCord.
“It is a very funny coincidence, if you think about it that way,” she said.
“What is?”
“This is the second time today a man has come to me with something that I did not ask to be involved in,” Adoncia replied. “That’s a lot to ask of a woman who is eighty-three and very set in her ways.”
“The first man was Cuban,” McCord observed. “That made it easier for you to help.”
“Very much so.”
“I’m sorry to impose on you,” he said. “Truly.”
“But you do so, reluctantly, because your cause is righteous,” she said, raising her unlit cigar with a flourish.
“Dr. Bermejo, tell me it is not, tell me there is nothing to be concerned about, and I’ll leave you,” McCord said.
The woman lowered her arm. “I have lived in the shadow of ‘concern’ for most of my life. Not enough to eat, not enough ammunition, too much ammunition in the wrong hands, America imperialists, Russian imperialists, my personal safety.… Why should I take on your problems, Mr. McCord? You only took on mine because you needed me, yes?”
“That’s right. But I didn’t do it for me.”
“No,” she said as she considered his answer. “You did it for—your government? Your military, which still occupies a corner of my land? Both?”
McCord was not going to debate her points. She wasn’t wrong and there wasn’t time.
“Dr. Bermejo, I can’t answer for the past or the future. All I’m concerned about is the threat facing the present.”
“So, you are an altruist?”
McCord didn’t know what was talking here: her anti-imperialism, the alcohol, or just inherent stubbornness. There wasn’t time for him to weave through that, either.
“No,” he replied. “I’ll tell you what I am. I’m a retired U.S. Marine. I was a company commander in Fallujah and a battalion exec in Ramadi. I was wounded twice, the second time with a leg injury so bad it ended my combat career. The people around me in the hospital? Many were worse. Most were. I’m sure you’ve seen that in your career.”
She was silent, listening. Remembering.
“That second time I was laid up for months and decided to read Ivan Denisovich. I wonder if you can figure out why.”
“Solzhenitsyn was a bitter soldier,” she replied quietly.
“And a political prisoner,” McCord said. “It was irrelevant to me that he was Russian. Or that Boris Pasternak was Russian. Or that Ernest Hemingway was an American. That novel is by a man who was still a patriot but not a nationalist, if that makes any sense. His home was still his home but his vision had been broadened.” McCord laughed sincerely. “I’m no Solzhenitsyn, Dr. Bermejo. For one thing, I can’t write a passable sentence. For another, I am not quite so jaded. Not yet. But I will tell you that if it is possible to save any life, anywhere, at any time, I will do so. Even if you choose not to help me, if you ask, I will walk back in there and help you free Enrich Sanjulian this minute. I also believe in the words of another author, Mark Twain, who wrote, ‘Do what’s right.’”
“How precious to know what ‘right’ is,” she said quietly. Her shoulders relaxed in a way that silently signified trust. “I’m still searching. But, yes. Life first. If we do not secure that, there can be no further discussion.” Her eyes, which had been fixed on some elusive vision, came back to McCord. “This has troubled me, too, if you must know.”
“What has?”
“What you ask about. Perhaps you’re right.” She took a moment to retrieve the matches from her hip pocket and lit her cigar.
McCord used the delay to remember the woman’s face. The face of a humanist, not a Cuban. Unlike him, she was about to betray a trust.
“All those years ago,” she said, over smoke, “not all the missiles were sent to Cuba. And none of those other warheads was recalled.”
“Anadyr,” McCord said, his fears made real.
“Anadyr,” she repeated.
CHAPTER FORTY
Outpost N64, Anadyr, Russia
July 2, 6:36 P.M.
It was not a weapon of mass destruction that emerged from the hatch. It was Konstantin Bolshakov, his face immediately feeling the drop in temperature and passing it along to his chest. His arms shivered as he stepped out, the nighttime sun contributing little warmth.
“Hello,” he said, his voice cutting through the brittle cold.
Two men stood on either side of the car, near the front. One was tall, one was short, both wore heavy parkas with hoods. The hood of the car was upraised.
Neither man answered his greeting. He stepped to the surface, careful not to make any sudden moves. Their pockets bulged ominously. Both men were wearing gloves but he knew, from experience, that those could come off in an instant.
“My name is Konstantin,” Bolshakov said. “My team and I are doing maintenance here. That is our car.”
From the corner of his eye he saw their own truck on the road, behind the gate. Bolshakov recognized it immediately, an old four-by-four two-ton GAZ-63. Produced at the Gorky Automobile Plant, it was the workhorse out here during their stay. He suspected it was sold when the military departed, marked officially as scrapped.
The men conversed in low voices, then came toward him around opposite sides of the vehicle.
“No one comes out here anymore,” the taller man continued. “Why are you here?”
“As I said—”
“We know what you said,” the shorter man cut him off. “But what would need ‘maintenance’ in an abandoned military facility? There have always been rumors about this place. Talk of weapons. We’d like to go down and see.”
“That won’t be possible,” Bolshakov told them.
The taller man pulled back his hood so he could get a clearer look at Bolshakov. He was bald with a tattoo on his scalp. He was most likely a gang member, one of the many pro-Russia thugs who operated with the consent of Moscow and the local communities.
“You’re a grandpa!” the man marveled.
“I’m not alone, I assure you,” Bolshakov said.
“Then maybe we can all help one another,” said the shorter man as they cleared the rental van. They were now just a few feet from the hatch. “You let us see what is down there, then perhaps we can help with your ‘maintenance.’”
Bolshakov shook his head sadly. “Even if you go down there, you cannot get in.”
“Why is that?” the taller man asked.
“You don’t know how.”
“You’ll tell us.”
Bolshakov shook his head again.
“I think you will,” the shorter man said, drawing a 9 × 18mm Makarov handgun from his pocket. That, too, was a remnant from the bunker’s past.
“We know this place,” the taller man said with a sweep of his arm. “We have been coming here since boyhood. We figured that this is the only way in or out, which means that no one inside will ever get out unless you cooperate. Either you let us in or we close the hatch and roll your car over it. Then,” he warned, “we set a fire over by the vent that is deep in the grasses—”
He turned and jerked a thumb toward the grate that Bolshakov had uncovered. Yuri was standing in the opening, his 9 × 18mm Makarov held straight ahead, his left hand supporting his right.
The shorter man turned to see what had stopped his companion. Both men stood very still, twisted backward at the waist.
Bolshakov stepped out of the line of fire. He knew that the next move was a purely tactical decision, not a moral one. Kill them and they would be missed; others would come. Release them and they would certainly return with fellow gang members. Take them prisoner and security would be breached when the Iranians left.
“Drop your gun and turn around,” Yuri told them.
The men obeyed. Bolshakov collected the shorter man’s gun, patted the other man’s pocket and removed a second weapon. He tossed them aside. He did not look at the two men. He knew which course his son would choose.
Yuri walked over and shot both men in the back of the head in quick, accurate succession. Bolshakov’s shoulders sagged as the shots were swallowed by the wind. The shooting was execution-style, the method preferred by gang members. When the bodies were eventually discovered, this would be considered an attack by rivals.
“Go back inside,” Yuri told his father. “I will take care of this.”
“What will you do with the truck?”
“Over the seawall,” Yuri replied, tucking his gun in his pocket and grabbing one man by the top of his blood-spattered hood. “With luck, they won’t be found for several days.”
Bolshakov nodded and went back into the hatch. It felt good to get out of the wind, though he felt colder now than he had before.
The art of distraction, he thought. He wondered what Rear Admiral Merkassov would think, knowing that his student had used it to kill.
“You are on assignment for the motherland,” he could hear the man’s voice in his head. “Nothing is a higher priority than success.”
But the Russia of today was not the Soviet Union of 1962, and tasks blindly followed when he was in his twenties were fiercely questioned now that he was in his eighties. This mission was a fuzzy version of patriotism. Iran wasn’t Cuba, it was a powerful nation that could one day threaten Moscow. To provide them with operational nuclear warheads—
The tone Bolshakov had taken during the ride out here was perhaps too belligerent. He would try talking to Yuri one more time—not to change the young man’s mind but to understand it.
Killing—he never had a problem sleeping after that. He always slept better, in fact, after debts were paid in blood. There was nothing halfway or uncertain about a bullet to the head. The calculation was ethical as well as logistical. But murder, mass destruction … that was something else.
Especially, he thought, when you have the power to prevent it.…
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Op-Center Headquarters, Fort Belvoir North,
Springfield, Virginia
July 2, 1:44 A.M.
After his last conversation with McCord, to tell him about Mauricio’s Russian wife, Chase Williams had eased onto the leather sofa for a quick nap. The phone was on the coffee table; when it woke him, he had no idea whether one minute or one hour had passed.
A half hour, he saw. Enough to take the edge off.
“Yeah, Roger,” he said.
“Nukes,” he said.
“At that location,” Williams said.
“That’s right. Fifty-six years old, apparently still functional.”
With, it appeared, a Russian arms dealer and possibly an Iranian military representative headed to that location.
“What are you going to do?” Williams asked.
“I had to lie to the police to get the information—they’ll probably come looking for me. I’ll have to lay low somewhere.”
It was over five hundred miles to Guantanamo, so seeking sanctuary there was probably out of the question. “Did you make any friends there?”
“Possibly,” McCord told him. “I’ll be in touch.”
Williams hung up. He reluctantly pushed McCord’s situation from his mind to deal with the larger issue. While he brought up a map on his tablet, he put in a call to Mike Volner.
“Yes, sir,” Volner answered at once.
“I need your team at Elmendorf AFB.” The base was located in Anchorage, the nearest staging area to whatever was going on in Anadyr.
“Roger,” Volner replied. “I’ll have Moore airborne ASAP. My orders?”
“I’m looking up commercial flights; I don’t see how I can get you there in time.” A military flight over Russian airspace was out of the question.
“Is there an ECP?” Volner asked.
An exit choke point was the place where leaders fled a failed operation, typically a public airport or train station; it could also be a safe haven, such as a friendly city where they could become lost in a crowd. It was always easy to spot a player who was running for his life: he was the one weaving and running faster than everyone else.
“Tehran, probably. Moscow, possibly. No place that helps us.”
Williams knew that Volner would never stall a mission just so he could be at the controls. He looked quickly at the last month of JSOC drills.
“Then let me do this,” Volner said. “I’ll stay put and work out the plans for the team, get it to them soon after takeoff. Are we looking at land or sea?”
