“We considered that, Mr. President. After Pueblo and Ames, we have a protocol for testing and retesting information harvests. We place false information into one of our own compromised networks and wait to see if the message traffic from the State Department mentions that data. A pipeline would never reveal a captured Russian system. But Klugendorf’s servers did. In addition, every item of information on that server was examined and verified. So far, all the data has proved accurate. Not one thing has been fictional.”
“So, when will you insert the worm?”
“On your order, Mr. President, and when the Secretary of State himself opens up a portal we’ve been using, when his laptop shakes hands with his server. We will slip in unnoticed at that point.”
“How long will it take to work?”
“It spreads through their networks slowly to avoid detection. In about six days, Mr. President, it will activate at what we call ‘time zero’ and their networks all shut down simultaneously.”
“What happens if one of their aircraft is in the air when this happens?”
“It falls out of the sky, sir. It crashes.”
“Regrettable, it would cause loss of life,” Vostov said. “Is there any way to let airborne craft land before the worm affects them?”
“I suppose, sir, but it would make the worm less reliable and possibly expose it to detection and defenses. Functionally, doing that could compromise the entire program. If you’ll recall, sir, we ourselves lost three Il-114 aircraft from the American worm coming back to life when we thought we’d killed it. And your orders explicitly stated to design this worm to respond in kind.”
Vostov waved off the director. “It was a passing thought, Vitalik. And does it have a kill switch? It will destroy itself if so ordered?”
“Yes, Mr. President, if you order the worm to self-destruct, we can shut it down. Inside twenty minutes, the American systems will be restored as if chernaya vdova pauk had never been there.”
“Excellent, Vitalik.”
“So, Mr. President, do we have your permission to insert the worm?”
Vostov looked at the gathered ministers. “Any of you have any questions for Director Vinogradov?” The all shook their heads, most of them seeming distracted by other matters. “Insert the worm, Director Vinogradov,” Vostov ordered formally. “Report back to this office when the worm reaches its time zero.”
Vinogradov stood so fast he almost toppled his chair, nodding and bowing to the ministers and Vostov and half running out of the room. When the door shut behind the director, Vostov faced his ministers and frowned. Now, the difficult part of the meeting was about to start.
Four thousand four hundred nautical miles from Vostov’s conference room, in a secure conference room adjoining the CIA director’s office, the transcript of the meeting was pored over by Director Margo Allende. When she got to the line about the Strategic Defense Initiative not working, she called in Angel Menendez, the deputy director of operations, whom she knew was similarly burning the midnight oil.
“Yes, Madam Director,” Menendez said at the door of the conference room.
“Come in, shut the door and take a look at this, Angel,” Allende said.
Menendez scanned the text on her pad computer. “I read it.”
“What’s this about our missile shield not working? I thought we’d gotten Star Wars up and running, finally. It’s just that now it’s top secret. What is Vostov talking about?”
“Oh, it works, all right. But think of nuclear war as a monsoon rain and the missile shield as an umbrella, Madam Director. An umbrella with a lot of holes in it, and a few outright rips. You’d still be well advised to use the umbrella if you absolutely, positively have to go out into the storm, but you’re still going to get wet.”
Allende nodded. “I’d just as soon stay nice and dry inside here,” she said. “I’m heading home. Do you want a ride?”
“Nah, you go ahead, Margo. I drove myself today.”
“Good night, Angel.”
“You too, Madam Director.”
Captain First Rank Georgy Alexeyev had gotten off watch two hours before and ever since having gone to the bathroom after watch, had been pacing his small sea cabin, absolutely furious. He had caught something, and it burned and it hurt to urinate. Goddamn it, he thought, could Natalia be responsible for this? And if she were, what did that mean? He knew he’d been absolutely faithful to her, but this, this reminded him of the venereal disease he’d caught when he’d been partying a bit too hard when his submarine K-154 Tigr had pulled into Havana fifteen years ago. Back then, getting a venereal disease while ashore was practically a badge of honor, but now? Now he was senior leadership, the captain of the submarine. And now he had to go to the ship’s medic and get an examination, a diagnosis and a treatment.
Despite all the claims of medical confidentiality, the idea that the captain had gotten a sexually transmitted disease from his partner would be far too juicy to keep a secret. And how would the crew treat him when they knew? It was humiliating. Alexeyev considered keeping this to himself and waiting to see a private doctor once they arrived back home, but that could be a month from now, and the pain was insistent.
Almost worse was that somehow it had spread to his right eye, which was bloodshot solid red, oozing pus and horribly itching. Was it the same disease or something different, and was this also a gift from Natalia? It had gotten so bad that Alexeyev wanted to tear his own eye out. Finally, after another agonizing minute, he picked up the phone to the central command post.
“Yes, Captain?” First Officer Ania Lebedev answered.
“Send the doctor to my sea cabin,” Alexeyev said. “Immediately.”
“Right away, Captain.”
It took only three minutes for the knock to come at his door. Alexeyev opened it and Chief Ship Petty Officer Arkady Chaykovsky appeared, a worried look on his grizzled face. Chaykovsky’s salt-and-pepper hair was done in a brush cut, a flat-top, over his leathery and sun-damaged face. He was short and slight, but built from his habit of off-watch time spent lifting weights. “Yes, Captain?”
After Chaykovsky examined Alexeyev, the medic had an unconfirmed diagnosis. “It’s most likely syphilis,” he said, opening his bag and withdrawing a syringe, wiping Alexeyev’s arm with a moist antiseptic-smelling gauze square and jabbing him with the needle. “There’s no harm in administering this, and a few days of these injections, and it should clear up. The eye, though, that worries me.”
“What is it, Doc?”
“Could be pink eye, sir. Conjunctivitis. It’s caused by a viral or bacterial infection. But taken together with your urinary symptoms, I suspect it’s caused by the herpes simplex virus.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Alexeyev said. “Herpes?”
“Possibly, sir. It could be caused by the varicella-zoster virus or various other viruses, or allergies or a blocked tear duct. But herpes simplex virus infection is more likely when co-presented with the urinary disease.”