“You are certain that we have successfully hidden our assets so that the allies cannot be forewarned?” asked Borodin. “Everything depends on surprise.”
“Yes, President Borodin. We have placed decoy units well behind the lines so that any snooping will see them and not the real advance,” the briefer said.
“Good. When will the last riot occur in Poland?” asked Borodin.
“Two days before, Comrade President,” said General Pusko. “Our agent there has done a magnificent job of unsettling the population. I understand he was nearly captured at one time, but managed to escape and continue his mission. After this event, he will change his efforts to help our ground troops,” Pusko said.
“Excellent. So we are in all respects ready to make our moves?” Borodin asked.
“There is one other thing,” said Admiral Sovolov, the Commander of the Naval Forces. “With your approval, we need to change our initial attack just slightly from the original plan,” he said.
Borodin eyed the man with a frown. He didn’t like changing a plan, especially at this late a date. “Tell me what you recommend,” he said.
“I believe we have covered all the major assets of their fleet except for one thing. We allotted three missiles for each of their battleships. For any normal ship, this would be more than sufficient, however, my staff is urging that we increase this coverage to at least five missiles,” he said.
“Five Missiles!” Borodin exclaimed. That would mean an expenditure of thirty five missiles. What reason do they use?”
“Comrade President, these are the most heavily armored ships in the world. On one class alone the steel is more than seventeen inches thick. If you recall during the Korean War one of those ships was hit by three of these type missiles. Not only did the ship survive, but it went in and destroyed the missile battery that fired at them. I have been told that there was not one loss of life. Even our honored Admiral Gorshkov made a statement to the Americans that, and I quote, ‘You do not realize what formidable warships you have in these battleships. We have concluded after careful analysis that these magnificent vessels are in fact the most to be feared in your entire naval arsenal. When engaged in combat we could throw everything we have at those ships and all our firepower would just bounce off or be of little effect. When we are exhausted, we will detect you coming over the horizon and then you will sink us,’ unquote. We re-opened that study and it still holds true. Our best bet is to hurt them as much as we can to delay their deployment and then sink them with our submarines. That is why we ask for the increase in missiles. If we can so damage their upper works, they may be delayed long enough that we will have completed our objectives. In which case, their usefulness will be negated,” Sovolov said.
Borodin thought about that one. He concerned himself with ground wars and not as much as what may happen at sea. But he too had heard about the use of the American battleships. After a moment of thought he nodded at Sovolov. “Admiral, you and your staff are correct in being cautious. Will this hamper our other attacks?”
Sovolov smiled. “Not at all. We had built in a contingency of more weapons just for this purpose. Everything else will go as planned.”
“Then it is approved. We must do whatever we can to make sure the Americans cannot respond. That will leave our troops free to complete the task rapidly. That is the key. The quicker we can take Europe, the better off the Russian people shall be,” he pontificated. “Now what other items must we discuss?”
The meeting lasted just ten more minutes. When the men left, all were glad to get things underway.
Chapter 7
Opening Stages
The crowd was growing rapidly into a mob. On the platform in a small center city park was Ileana Gorski, a mother of four who had lost her husband in what the company had called an unavoidable accident when his rail car was struck by a motorist. It had forced the tram off its rails and over an embankment. Unfortunately, the car had been driven by a Polish nationalist who had been very outspoken against the old Soviet regime. The organizers were using this as meaning ‘anti-Russian.’ The worst part had been that because of a paperwork glitch, it had taken almost a year for her husband’s benefits to kick in and a pension check issued. The family had been forced to move to a shack outside of town for a period of time.
Now she stood angrily denouncing the government for allowing people to discriminate against ethnic Russians. With each sentence, the crowd cheered and screamed for change. Gorski held up her two year old daughter pleading that such things never happen to her children. This built up the crowd to a fever pitch.
Bugayev sat behind a black screen at a partially opened window. He took careful aim with the western made rifle used by the government’s elite state police. Just as Gorski raised her fist in the air to close her remarks, he squeezed the trigger. The rifle was silenced. Barely giving a report, he watched as the bullet tore through Gorski’s chest, splattering blood over her children and the people behind her. One of those behind her slumped over as well and the misshapen round tore into his leg.
Someone screamed, then the whole crowd panicked. In a wild melee everyone tried to escape the confines of the park, pushing people out of the way or down to the ground to be trampled by those behind them. Bugayev squeezed off four more rounds before he quickly tossed the rifle into a state police carrying case and rushed to the stairwell. He didn’t look back to see what his actions had done. Instead, he went down four flights of stairs and entered another floor where he had rented a small room on the opposite side of the building.
It was a close call. The sounds of heavy footsteps could be heard coming up the stairwell and going through the halls. Bugayev removed his shirt and the long plastic gloves he had worn. Placing them both in a sink, he scrubbed them thoroughly, then after wringing the water out of the shirt, hung it up to dry. The gloves he took to the toilet. After shredding them with a knife, he flushed them down the drain. Outside, the screams were still in the air and the sounds of police and ambulance vehicles pierced the late afternoon air.
Bugayev, took his shoes off and lay on his bed. When anyone came, he wanted to be asleep, or at least appear to be so. He lay back and thought about how his job was now essentially complete. The rest would be easy compared to what he had been doing. In a few minutes, he dozed off.
***
Erich Bolin had been the one to find the rifle. Upon arrival at the scene, and looking at where the victims had been standing, it hadn’t taken long to determine which building the shot had come from. After only ten minutes of looking he found the silenced rifle lying partially inside an open case. The fact it had been a state police case made him cringe. This wouldn’t be pretty. Although it had been a good thirty minutes since the shooting he ordered a search of the buildings. Squads of four officers began going from door to door to see who was there and if someone might have seen something. With the first three floors from the scene covered, Bolin and three officers went to the fourth floor down. A housekeeper was sent up to assist and open any doors that were locked. Most of the rooms were empty, however some had occupants. One room had an elderly couple who had the television turned up loudly so they could hear it. They had only seen what was on the news.
Two more rooms had people in them with none having paid any attention until they heard the screaming. Bolin knocked on a door at the rear of the building. These people probably wouldn’t have heard anything anyway, but it had to be checked. No one answered the door. The housekeeper opened the door and Bolin and the officers stepped inside. At first the place looked empty, but a light snoring came from the bedroom. The officers began to grin. The smile stopped on Bolin’s face when he saw Anton Bugayev lying on the bed in front of him.