“Potemkin can’t authorize a nuclear attack,” Bondarev said.
“No, but Defense Minister Burkhin and Potemkin together can. There’s some sort of shit going down in the Kremlin Yevgeny. My people tell me President Navalny hasn’t been seen or heard from since the American President went on air, and Foreign Minister Kelnikov is under security service guard.”
Bondarev had a sudden flashback to his conversation with Potemkin, about the difference between duty and loyalty. He’d had a feeling Potemkin was feeling him out about something more than just loyalty to his new commander. Now he saw what it was! And with that same realization, came the certainty of where his duty lay. Bondarev’s voice was cold, and calm. “It’s a coup Tomas. This whole thing, sinking the Olympic Tsar, the attack on Alaska, it’s about more than just water resources. I knew something was wrong. It stank a mile away.”
Arsharvin thought hard, “But… they’re going to nuke an American city? Why?”
“Think it through Tomas!” Bondarev’s voice was urgent. “The Americans set off their nuke, the General Staff demand a nuclear response, but President Navalny refuses, Kelnikov refuses. Of course they do! Burkhin has his excuse to take Navalny out and other Generals will back him. I guarantee as soon as our nukes hit, Burkhin will be consolidating power and negotiating a cease-fire. This is not just an attack on Alaska, it is a State coup.”
“The Americans will not allow a nuclear attack on Anchorage to go unanswered,” Arsharvin argued. “There will be all-out nuclear war.”
“The coup plotters are gambling it won’t,” Bondarev said. “The Americans let us take Saint Lawrence. They gave up the airspace over Alaska. If they really wanted to make a point, they could have nuked the Baltic Fleet base in Kaliningrad, but instead, they’re going to vaporize a few square miles of seawater and fish. The political leaders of the US have become piss-weak and Burkhin is betting they’ll take his cease-fire and give him Alaska. He gets the Presidency, and Russia gets its fresh water. He’s suddenly President and a national hero.”
Arsharvin pulled air through his teeth. “I see it now,” he said. Arsharvin had no love for President Navalny or Foreign Minister Kelnikov and their faction of West-leaning, pro-democracy liberals. But neither did he want to bet his future on an insane roll of the dice by some power-crazed madmen in Moscow. “What the hell can we do Yevgeny?”
“We fight for the Rodina, my friend, not for Burkhin and his cronies. Get ready to call in every favor everyone ever owed you,” Bondarev told him. “And back me when the time comes, alright?”
“You know I will,” Arsharvin said. The line went dead. What had he just done? He had either agreed to be a patriot, or a traitor. And he wouldn't know how his country would judge him until tomorrow dawned. If there even was a tomorrow.
Private Zubkhov’s dilemma was how to climb the ladder to the top of the water tank. But escape was so close now he could taste it. All he had to do was get that radio, call his buddy, and he could get off this pile of bird dung and ice. Get himself patched up on the mainland. A drunken argument between hunters, that would be his story. OK, it was a bit weak. He’d work on it while he was on the boat. He hefted the pistol in his left hand. As he remembered the sight of the American soldier jogging away again, he regretted that he hadn’t at least tried to take the shot. But he probably would have missed — nothing had gone to plan since Gambell, nothing at all.
As he stood at the bottom of the ladder, working out how he was going to get up there with only one arm and a bad leg, he heard a voice inside the water tank.
What?
Despite the pain, he dropped into a crouch and lifted his pistol.
“White Bear, can you hear me?” Perri heard a voice saying. “Come in White Bear.”
The voice seemed a long way away, but then he was listening to it through a curtain of pain. All he could think about was how thirsty he was. He’d tried uncurling a little, to see if he could reach any water, but the smallest movement had caused his side to feel like it was going to rip open, so he’d clenched himself even tighter.
“White Bear, come in please. Perri, let me hear your voice son.”
Perri cracked his eyes open. As his vision focused, he saw that Dave had left the radio switched on and the handset right in front of his face. It cost him, but he reached up for the handset and pulled it closer, closing his thumb on the transmitter button. “White Bear,” he whispered with a dry mouth. Then slightly louder, “This is White Bear.”
“Hey, good to hear your voice son,” the Mountie said. “How are you feeling?”
Perri thought about it. “Not so good Sarge.” Perri couldn’t remember, had Dave told him what had happened? It was too much to tell, so Perri just went straight to the bottom line. “I got shot.”
“I know. But it may not be as bad as it feels,” the Canadian told him. “You can pull through this, alright?”
“Yeah.”
“You are one tough sonofabitch, you know that?”
“Yeah.”
“Your friend is going to bring help. You just have to hang on. Can you do that for me?”
“I’ll try.”
“You’ll do more than try. You need to stay alive kid. Thanks to you boys we know everything Ivan has been doing on that island of yours. What, who, how many, where and when. They’re going to want to pin a medal on you one day.”
“Sarge?”
“Yes son.”
“It hurts to talk. Going to stop now.”
“Sure, look….”
“Won’t… die on you.”
“You better not,” the man said. “I’m going to call you every 20 minutes and you better answer, alright?”
“White Bear out.” Perri let the handset drop and returned his arm to his waist. It felt better just trying to hold everything in tight.
He thought you were supposed to pass out when you were in this much pain. Every book he ever read, right about here was when the writer would say about the guy who got shot or clubbed or burned, ‘mercifully, at that moment, he blacked out’. But every time he moved, every time a muscle even twitched in his leg or his stomach, a bolt of searing fire shot through him, jolting him right back into his screwed up reality. How did people manage to pass out with this sort of shit going on?
So he was wide awake when he heard a voice below him say, “Hello in there, American number two.”
Rodriguez heard the line drop out and she cut the call. She kept her rifle on the Russian Major-General.
“Did you understand any of that?” Bondarev asked, looking at his captors.
“I had some language training,” the Australian said. “I got some of it. Like the part about a coup.”
“You heard your Ambassador. There has been a putsch in Moscow. We are on the brink of nuclear war,” Bondarev told them. “I might be able to stop it, but you have to cooperate.”
Rodriguez didn’t take her rifle off him. “Keep talking.”
“In the backpack of one of the men you killed is a radio. I need it to contact my pilots.”
“How about you contact those Spetsnaz up there, and tell them to stay right where they are?” Bunny asked. “How about that for cooperation?”
“I will, after I talk with my pilots,” Bondarev said. “Don’t you understand? We need to work together!”
“Contact your pilots, and tell them what?”
“I need to stop the attack on Anchorage,” Bondarev told her. “Those bombers will be overhead in ten minutes.”