Pasternak was almost done giving the daily brief when a gleaming black limo arrived and two men emerged, both wearing suits, both hurrying up the stairway, then a second staff SUV pull up, with another two men egressing and going to the stairs. The second pair were also wearing suits, but seemed to move much slower — both were much older.
The phone on the table trilled and Pasternak answered it. She said, “very well, send them back. You have permission to depart,” and hung up. “Everyone’s on board, sir.”
“Anything else in the briefing?” Vostov asked.
“Two things, sir,” Pasternak said, flashing up a satellite photo taken of a drydock with a submarine in it, the sub surrounded by scaffolding. “The GRU military intelligence people reported that a key U.S. Navy project submarine, the USS
“Good,” Vostov said, a tone of bitterness in his voice. “It was too bad their crew all survived. What was the second thing?”
“The GRU reports that they’ve picked up intelligence that American frogmen have placed nuclear mines in our major ports. They claim that the mines are two megaton hydrogen bombs. At least two dozen of them.”
“Yeah, right,” Vostov said, shaking his head. “Remind me to order Mikhail to find one of these and dredge it up as proof. This all has the ring of pipelined disinformation to me. Something to make us afraid, not something real.”
Vostov looked up as a knock came at the door and four men entered the room, the first the defense minister, Marshal Radoslav Mikhail Konstantinov, the elder statesman of the military. He walked in slowly, with a quiet dignity. The man had to be in his late seventies, Vostov thought, his full head of hair completely gray, his face ruddy. Mikhail’s hand shook with palsy as he reached to shake hands with Vostov, who stood to greet him. Rumor had it that Mikhail had Parkinson’s disease, and that his treatments were starting to fail. Pasternak had wondered aloud about Vostov appointing a replacement for him, and they’d both toyed with the idea of Mikhail nominating his own successor, but the rising opposition to Vostov’s governance made them both cautious, and they’d postponed the decision.
“Good morning, Mikhail,” Vostov said, his voice deep and gravelly. “Sorry to roust you out so suddenly for this trip.”
Konstantinov just smiled, his face lighting up when he smiled, his eyes shrinking to horizontal slits. “I’m glad to be with you on this trip, Mr. President. I was going to suggest we move this up in the schedule anyway, since the mission is vital.”
The room grew louder as the aircraft’s jets spooled up to full power. Vostov waved the men to their seats. Outside the windows, the runway and the Moscow surroundings blurred by, the plane shaking with vibrations as the aircraft sped up on the runway, but in a few seconds the cabin inclined upward and the vibrations disappeared, the groan of the landing gear retracting loud for a moment. When the cabin quieted, the deck seemed to get steeper for a few minutes with the engine noise easing somewhat as the plane flew over Moscow’s center city and then over the outskirts, the jet throttling back up as it flew over Moscow Ring Road.
Vostov looked over at Mikhail’s deputy, short and barrel-chested General Osip Prokopiy. Vostov had never approved of Prokopiy. He insisted on keeping his hair too long, a thick beard gracing his face, obscuring the knot of his necktie. He was an Orthodox Christian and insisted the beard and hairstyle were part of his religious practice. He was a quiet man, diffident and reserved, but — according to Mikhail — the smartest mind in the ministry. Vostov had his doubts, but he’d pay attention to what Prokopiy had to say on this voyage.
Vostov nodded over at the pair from FSB, Gennadi Sevastyan and Avdey Ozols. When the Soviet Union fell, the magnificent and successful KGB, the
