"They said what?" The Defense Minister almost screamed.
"Our fraternal socialist comrades of the German Democratic Republic have informed us that they can only view the use of chemical munitions inside their territory as a matter of the gravest national concern." The Foreign Minister spoke dryly. "Moreover, they have forwarded to us intelligence reports which show clearly that the use of such weapons would only serve to harden NATO resolve-and possibly open the door to other weapons of ma.s.s destruction."
"But they are part of the plan!" Defense objected.
"Comrades," Sergetov observed. "We all know that the use of chemical munitions will have calamitous effects on civilians-wouldn"t this compromise our political maskirovka? Aren"t we saying that our quarrel is with the West German government? How might it look then if on the first day of the war we coldly exterminate many thousands of civilians?" How many more innocents shall we slaughter? he thought.
"And there is another question," said Bromkovskiy. Old and frail though he was, he was still an experienced man from the last war against the Germans, and his views on defense affairs still commanded respect. "If we use these weapons against all the NATO armies-and how can we restrict them to German formations? -America and France have made it clear that they consider gas as a weapon of ma.s.s destruction, to which they would respond in kind."
"The American chemical a.r.s.enal is a joke," replied Defense.
"I have seen studies from your ministry that suggest otherwise," Bromkovskiy shot back. "And perhaps you will laugh at their nuclear weapons! If we kill many thousands of German civilians, their government will demand the use of atomic weapons against targets in our territory. If our gas weapons kill some thousands of American soldiers, do you think the American President will refrain from using his own weapons of ma.s.s destruction? Comrades, we have discussed this before. This war against NATO is a political operation, no? Do we cast away our political camouflage by using a weapon like this? We have the a.s.surance now that at least one NATO country will not join in a Russian-German war. This is a great victory for our political policy. The use of chemical weapons will cast away that advantage and open political dangers from more than one direction.
"I feel that we should retain control of these weapons in the Politburo. Comrade Defense Minister, are you telling us that we can win only if weapons of ma.s.s destruction are used?" The old man leaned forward and spoke with harsh determination. "Has the situation changed? You will remember telling us that if strategic surprise were lost, our armies could be recalled. Has surprise been lost?"
The Defense Minister"s face went rigid for a moment. "The Soviet Army is ready and able to carry out its mission. It is now too late to retreat. This is also a political question, Petya."
"NATO is mobilizing," Sergetov said.
"Too late, and too halfheartedly," replied the Director of the KGB. "We have split one country from the NATO alliance. We are working on others, and are hard at work throughout Europe and America spreading disinformation about the bomb attack. The will of the people in the NATO countries is low. They will not want to fight a war for German murderers, and their political leaders will find a way to disa.s.sociate themselves from the conflict."
"But not if we slaughter civilians with gas." The Foreign Minister nodded. "Petya and young Sergetov are correct: the political cost of these weapons is simply too high."
WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.
"But why? Why are they doing this?" the President demanded.
"We simply do not know, sir." The Director of Central Intelligence was clearly uncomfortable with the question. "We know that this Kremlin Bomb Plot was a complete fabrication-"
"Did you see what the Post said this morning? The press says that this guy Falken has "agency" or its German equivalent written all over him."
"Mr. President, the truth of the matter is that Herr Falken was almost certainly a Soviet sleeper agent under KGB control. The Germans have been unable to uncover very much about him. It"s as though he just sprang into being thirteen years ago, and he"s been quietly running his import-export business for the last twelve years. Sir, every indication we have is that the Soviets are prepared for an attack against NATO. There is no indication, for example, that they are demobilizing their conscripts who are at the end of their enlistment periods, nor any evidence of preparations for the new "cla.s.s" of conscripts that should have begun to arrive several days ago. Finally, there"s the case of this Spetznaz major the Germans picked up. He was infiltrated into the Federal Republic before the bomb plot, with orders to attack a NATO communications base. As to why-Mr. President, we simply do not know. We can describe what the Russians are doing but not the reason for it."
"I told the country last night that we would be able to control this situation through diplomatic means . . ."
"We still might. We need to communicate directly with the Soviets," the President"s national security adviser said. "Until they respond positively, however, we have to show that we mean business, too. Mr. President, a further call-up of reservists is necessary."
NORTH ATLANTIC.
The Julius Fucik was rolling ten degrees with a beam sea. It made life hard on the soldiers, Captain Kherov noted, but they were doing well for landsmen. His own crewmen were dangling over the sides with sprayguns, painting over the s.h.i.+p"s Interlighter markings, preparatory to replacing them with the Lykes Lines emblem. The soldiers were cutting away parts of the superstructure to conform with the silhouette of the Doctor Lykes, a U.S.-flag Seabee carrier remarkably similar to the Fucik. The Soviet s.h.i.+p had been built years before in Finland"s Valmet yard from plans purchased in America. Already the elevator winch area aft had been painted completely black to match the American line"s house colors, and a black diamond had been painted on both sides of the superstructure. Gangs of men were changing the shape and colors of the two funnels with prefabricated parts. The hardest job remaining was the paintwork on the hull. The Interlighter markings were made of twenty-foot letters. Replacing them called for the use of canvas templates, and the lettering had to be neat and exact. Worst of all, there was no way to check the workmans.h.i.+p short of launching a s.h.i.+p"s boat, something he had neither the time nor the inclination to do.
"How long, Comrade Captain?"
"Four hours at least. The work goes well." Kherov couldn"t hide his concern. Here they were, mid-Atlantic, far from the usual sea lanes, but there was no telling- "And if we are spotted by an American aircraft or s.h.i.+p?" General Andreyev asked.
"Then we will find out how effective our damage-control drills have been-and our mission will be a failure." Kherov ran his hand along the polished teak rail. He"d commanded this s.h.i.+p for six years, taken her into nearly every port on the North and South Atlantic. "We"ll get some way on. The s.h.i.+p will ride more easily on a bow sea."
MOSCOW, R.S.F.S.R.
"When are you planning to leave?" Flynn asked Calloway.
"Soon, Patrick. I hope you"ll be coming with me?" The unmarried children of both men were in college, and both had sent their wives west the day before.
"I don"t know. I"ve never run away before." Flynn scowled at the empty stage at the end of the room. He had the scars to prove it. "They pay me to report the news."
"You"ll be reporting no b.l.o.o.d.y news from inside Lefortovo Prison, my friend," Calloway observed. "Isn"t one Pulitzer Prize enough?"
Flynn laughed. "I thought n.o.body but me remembered. What do you know that I don"t, Willie?"
"I know I wouldn"t be leaving without a d.a.m.ned good reason. And if it"s good enough for me to leave, Patrick, it"s b.l.o.o.d.y good enough for you." He"d been told only the night before that a peaceful resolution of this crisis was now less than a 50-percent probability. For the hundredth time, the Reuters correspondent blessed his decision to cooperate with the SIS.
"Here we go." Flynn took out his notepad.
The Foreign Minister entered from the usual door and moved to the lectern. He looked uncharacteristically frazzled, his suit rumpled, his s.h.i.+rt collar dingy, as though he"d been up all the previous night laboring to resolve the German crisis through diplomatic means. When he looked up, his eyes squinted through his reading gla.s.ses.
"Ladies and gentlemen, a year that has gone so well for East-West relations has turned to ashes in the mouths of us all. The United States, the Soviet Union, and the other nations that accepted our invitation to Vienna are within weeks of a comprehensive agreement on the control of strategic nuclear arms. America and the Soviet Union have agreed upon and implemented a grain sales agreement with unprecedented speed and cooperation, and even as we speak, deliveries are being made in Odessa on the Black Sea. Western tourism within the Soviet Union is at an all-time high, and this is perhaps the truest reflection of the spirit of detente-now our peoples are finally beginning to trust one another. All this effort, the efforts of East and West to bring about a just and lasting peace, have been brought to ruin by a handful of revanchist men who have not taken the lessons of the Second World War to heart.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the Soviet Union has received irrefutable evidence that the government of the Federal Republic of Germany exploded its bomb in the Kremlin as part of a plot to bring about the reunification of Germany by force. We have in our possession cla.s.sified German doc.u.ments which prove that the West German government planned to bring down the Soviet government and use the resulting period of internal confusion to achieve their aim of remaking Germany into the princ.i.p.al continental power in Europe yet again. All Europeans know what that would mean to world peace.
"In this century, Germany has invaded my country twice. Over forty million Soviet citizens died repelling those two invasions, and we do not forget the deaths of so many millions of our fellow Europeans who were also the victims of German nationalism-Polish, Belgian, Dutch, French, English, and American men and women labored as our allies to safeguard the peace of Europe. After the Second World War, we all thought that this problem was completely at an end. Such was the reasoning behind the treaties which divided Germany and Europe into spheres of influence-remember that these spheres were ratified further by the Helsinki Accords in 1975-whose balance would serve to make a European war impossible.
"We know that the rearming of Germany by the West, supposedly a defensive measure against the imagined threat from the East-despite the fact that the Warsaw Pact was not even formed until well after the NATO alliance was formed-was the first step in the West"s own plan to unify Germany as a p.a.w.n to counterbalance the Soviet Union. That this was a foolish and unnecessary policy is now manifestly clear. I ask you if there is anyone in Europe who truly wants a unified Germany. The NATO countries themselves stopped agitating for this years ago. Except, of course, for some Germans who remember the days of German power in rather a different light from those of us who were its victims.
"The Federal Republic of Germany has evidently turned the tables on her Western allies, and plans to use the NATO alliance as a s.h.i.+eld behind which to launch her own offensive operations, the objective of which can only upset the power balance that has safeguarded the peace in Europe for two generations. Although we can fault the West for creating this situation, the government of the Soviet Union does not-I repeat, does not-hold America or her NATO allies responsible for this. My country, too, has learned the bitter lesson that allies can turn on their supposed friends, much as a dog can turn on his master.
"The Soviet Union has no wish to cast away the dramatic progress made this year in foreign relations with the West." The Foreign Minister paused before going on. "But the Soviet Union cannot ignore, cannot set aside the fact, that a deliberate act of aggression has been made against the Soviet Union, on Soviet soil.
"The government of the Soviet Union will today deliver a note to the Bonn government. As a price of our forbearance, as a price of keeping the peace, we demand that the Bonn government immediately demobilize its army to a level consistent with maintenance of the civil peace. We further call upon the Bonn government to admit its aggressive action, to dissolve and call for new elections, so that the German people themselves may judge how well they have been served. Finally, we demand and expect that full reparations be paid to the government of the Soviet Union, and to the families of those so callously murdered by the revanchist German nationalists who hide in their city on the west bank of the Rhein. Failure to meet with these demands will have the gravest possible consequences.
"As I have already said, we have no reason whatever to believe that any other Western nation had the slightest complicity in this act of international terrorism. This crisis is, therefore, a matter between the government of the Soviet Union and the government in Bonn. It is our hope that this crisis can be resolved through diplomatic means. We call on the Bonn government to consider the consequences of its actions with the greatest care and to act to preserve the peace.
"That is all I have to say." The Foreign Minister gathered his papers and left. The gathered reporters did not even attempt to shout questions at the receding form.
Flynn tucked his notepad back into his pocket, and screwed his pen closed. The AP correspondent had stayed behind at Phnom Penh to see the arrival of the Khmer Rouge, almost at the cost of his life. He"d covered wars, revolutions, riots, and been wounded twice as a result of his devotion to his business. But covering wars was a young man"s game.
"When are you planning to leave?"
"Wednesday at the latest. I already have two tickets reserved, SAS to Stockholm," Calloway answered.
"I"m going to cable New York to shut down the Moscow office tomorrow. I"ll stick around until you leave, but, Willie, it"s time to go. If I cover any more of this story, it"ll be from a safer place."
"How many wars have you covered, Patrick?"
"Korea was my first. Haven"t missed many since then. d.a.m.ned near bled to death at a place called Con Thien. Caught two mortar fragments in the Sinai in "73."
USS PHARRIS.
DEFCON-2. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT OPTION BRAVO NOW IN EFFECT. THIS MESSAGE IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD AS A WAR-WARNING, Morris read in the privacy of his stateroom. HOSTILITIES BETWEEN NATO AND THE WARSAW PACT ARE NOW TO BE CONSIDERED AS LIKELY BUT NOT CERTAIN. TAKE ALL MEASURES CONSISTENT WITH THE SAFETY OF YOUR COMMAND. HOSTILITIES COULD INITIATE WITHOUT RPT WITHOUT WARNING.
Ed Morris lifted his phone. "Call the XO to my stateroom."
He was there in under a minute.
"I hear you got a hot message, skipper."
"DEFCON-2, ROE Option Bravo." He handed over the terse message form. "We start maintaining round-the-clock Condition-Three steaming at once. The ASROC and torpedo tube directors are to be manned at all times."
"What do we tell the men?"
"I want to go over this with the wardroom first. Then I"ll speak to the crew. We haven"t got specific operations orders yet. I figure we head either to Norfolk or New York for convoy duty."
USS NIMITZ.
"Okay, Toland, let"s hear it." Baker sat back in his chair.
"Admiral, NATO has increased its alert level. The President has authorized DEFCON-2. The Naval Defense Reserve Fleet is being mobilized. Reforger will begin at 0100 Zulu. The commercial jets are already being taken into military service. The Brits have enacted Queen"s Order Two. A lot of airports in Germany are going to be busy as h.e.l.l."
"How long to complete Reforger?"
"Eight to twelve days, sir."
"We may not have that long."
"Yes, sir."
"Tell me about their satellite reconnaissance," Baker ordered.
"Admiral, they currently have one radar ocean reconnaissance satellite up-Kosmos 1801. It"s paired with Kosmos 1813, an electronic intelligence bird. 1801 is the nuclear-powered radar bird, and we think it may have a photographic capability to back up the radar system."
"I never heard that before."
"NSA detected indications of a video signal several months ago, but that information was never released to the Navy because it was unconfirmed." Toland didn"t say that it had been decided at the time the Navy didn"t need-to-know this. They needed to know now, Toland judged. I"m here now. "I"d expect that Ivan has another of his radar satellites ready for immediate launch, probably a few more in the barn. They"ve been launching an unusual number of their low-alt.i.tude communications birds, plus a lot of electronic intelligence satellites-ordinarily they have six or seven of them up, but now the total is ten. That gives them awfully good ELINT coverage. If we make electronic noise, they"ll hear it."
"And not a G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing we can do about them."
"Not for a while, sir,".Toland agreed. "The Air Force has its antisatellite missiles, six or seven as I recall, but they"ve only been tested once against a real satellite, and there"s been a moratorium on the ASAT tests since last year. The Air Force can probably dust them off and try to reactivate the program, but that"ll take a few weeks. Their first priority is the radar satellites," Toland concluded hopefully.
"Okay, our orders are to rendezvous with Saratoga at the Azores and escort our Marine Amphibious Unit to Iceland. I suppose the Russians will watch us all the way up! Hopefully by the time we get there, the Icelandic government will allow us to land them. I just learned that their government can"t decide if this crisis is real or not. G.o.d, I wonder if NATO will hold together?"
"Supposedly we have proof that it"s all a put-up job, but we don"t need to know what that evidence is. The problem is that a lot of countries are buying this charade, at least publicly."
"Yeah, I love that. I want you to refine your estimate of the threat from Soviet subs and aircraft on a continuous basis. I want information about the smallest change in what they have at sea the moment you get it."
15.
The Bastion Gambit