Under the contract he’d written, the Pléiades satellites were scanning large swathes of the world’s oceans, beginning with zones near the Persian Gulf — and then steadily moving to the east and west and north and south with each new orbit. Depending on weather constraints and their space vehicles’ other commitments, the constellation’s commercial managers in Toulouse, France, had estimated they should be able to obtain good quality pictures of around 230,000 square miles of ocean per day.
Hynes whistled.
Fox nodded. “Those numbers do sound impressive,” he agreed coolly. “Unfortunately, they still represent only a fraction of the sea area we need surveyed.” He shrugged. “But without access to our own government’s far more capable spy satellites, this is our best option.”
The former Army enlisted man frowned. “So you’re saying this is still just a crapshoot.”
“Not entirely,” Fox corrected. “Our search patterns are carefully calculated to maximize the odds of our spotting the Gulf Venture. For example, we’re focusing most heavily on stretches of the ocean outside the ordinary sea lanes, since we suspect the Iranians and their Russian allies want to avoid even accidental contact with other passing vessels that could report their presence.”
Sitting between Hynes and Van Horn, Flynn nodded his understanding. He leaned forward. “One thing, Br’er Fox?”
“Yes?”
“I get why we’re renting the Pléiades constellation. But aren’t there other imaging civilian satellites that can cover wider areas?
Fox nodded. “There certainly are, Nick. However, the tradeoff there is that they all produce much lower-resolution imagery. We need high-resolution pictures to have any real hope of positively identifying the Gulf Venture from orbit. At lower resolutions and from hundreds of miles up in space, one AFRAMAX-sized oil tanker looks pretty much like another.”
“So what’s our outside time frame for finding this ship?” Flynn asked quietly.
Fox sighed. “Your guess on that is as good as mine, Nick.” He shrugged. “But one thing is all too clear: if we don’t spot the Gulf Venture before it comes within missile range of whatever target Moscow and Tehran have chosen, it will be far too late.”
Thirty
Pavel Voronin waited patiently while his servants handed around glasses of Champagne to his guests — Russia’s president, Piotr Zhdanov, and a small group of his closest military and intelligence advisers. They were seated around a table that had been moved into the palatial living room for this special event. A large-screen digital display stood at one end of the table. It was currently blank.
When the servants quietly withdrew, closing the doors behind them, he moved to the head of the table and raised his own glass. “Gentlemen,” he said smoothly. “Before we begin, a toast. To our president, a man of courage and vision!”
Voronin noticed one or two of them discreetly rolling their eyes at this bit of gross flattery, but they raised their glasses all the same. Obsequiousness was a survival trait in the highest circles of Russia’s current government. “The president,” deep voices rumbled in response.
Most of them downed the fine sparkling wine, a Perrier-Jouët worth thousands of American dollars per bottle, as though it were the cheapest vodka — the sort bought purely for its high alcohol content. For all their rank and position, he thought coolly, the majority of Zhdanov’s inner circle were still nothing but jumped-up peasants. Where it counted, they were all alike: Kokorin, the elderly minister of defense; Golitsyn and Rogozin, respectively the commanders of the navy and air force; Yumashev, who headed the FSB, Russia’s internal security agency; and Veslovsky and Ivashin, the chiefs of the SVR and GRU. They had education, and even technical competence in their own narrow fields, but they had no real grasp of culture. He’d seen their faces when they first saw the extravagant blend of expensive designer furniture and priceless modernist art that filled this room. Looks of baffled incomprehension had been mixed with scorn at what they apparently considered a display of decadence. But underlying it all had been their clear envy of the tremendous wealth he flaunted.
Voronin knew too that these men, almost all of them nearly twice his age, also despised and feared him because of his obvious and growing influence over Zhdanov. His Raven Syndicate was a source of power completely outside their control — one they saw draining the armed forces, the SVR, and the GRU of their best officers. So far, they had failed to stop his rapid rise, watching from the sidelines with barely veiled hostility while he took his place at the president’s right hand. Inwardly, he shrugged. Perhaps he should feel sorry for them. They were caught on the wrong side of the one of the oldest equations in human history: Ambition coupled with ruthlessness produced wealth. Wealth, in turn, produced power, and this power, wielded relentlessly, yielded even more wealth. It was a synergistic relationship that few Russians understood. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the nation’s new oligarchs, including his dead mentor, Dmitri Grishin, had shown themselves unable to grasp the fundamental truth that money, in and of itself, was useless unless it was coupled with political and military authority. That left them vulnerable to a hard-edged autocrat like Piotr Zhdanov, who’d begun carving out his own path to the presidency while he was still a young officer in the old KGB.
Voronin had no intention of falling into that same trap. His control over the Raven Syndicate made him the master of highly trained soldiers, spies, and assassins beholden to him — and to no one else. At the same time, his new status as Zhdanov’s most trusted counselor gave him nearly unfettered access to the levers of Russia’s state power, its fleets, air units, tank armies, and missiles. The day would come when this indirect exercise of power no longer satisfied him, but it would do for the moment.
Now it was time to show these old men the first steps on the road to their nation’s renewed greatness. Voronin put his own champagne down largely untasted. He turned to Zhdanov. “Mr. President? With your permission, I’ll proceed.”
Zhdanov nodded briefly. His eyes were hooded. He’d agreed with the younger man’s reasons for keeping MIDNIGHT a closely held secret — even from his other most trusted advisers. Now that the moment had come to brief them on the operation, he was plainly somewhat anxious about how they would react. None of them would be happy to learn just how far they’d all been kept out of the loop.
Voronin ignored the older man’s show of nerves. He judged it to be wholly unnecessary. In their hearts, the others Zhdanov had gathered around him were no more than domesticated dogs, not untamed wolves. While they might growl and snap in protest, in the end he knew they would bend to their master’s voice and will.
Instead, he ran his own gaze around the table. “The presentation you’re about to see has been classified at the very highest level, by the direct order of the president himself. Outside this room, there will be no further discussion of the operation code-named MIDNIGHT, except with his written authorization.”
Startled, the senior ministers and military commanders turned as one toward Zhdanov. He nodded slowly, confirming what they’d just been told. They sat back, looking troubled.
Voronin concealed a pleased smile. Now these men knew better who was calling the tune here. And who held the whip. He raised a hand to signal one of his aides. Immediately, the lights dimmed and the large display brightened. “The world is about to change,” he told them with grave satisfaction. “And many of the obstacles to Russia’s rightful place as the globe’s dominant power will be swept away forever.”