When ail was set, Orlov reached across the table for his assault rifle that had been sitting there like a loyal dog waiting for its master. As with everything else in his life, he took things in priority. Though he didn't anticipate any interruptions, a man in his position could never be sure of when a priority call or an unexpected development would force him to drop what he was doing and rush off to deal with a new crisis.
The weapon before him was an AKR submachine gun. This particular weapon was a derivative of the AKM, which itself is a modified AK-74. All of these weapons were descendants of the infarr. C's Kalashnikov AK-47. The latest reincarnation of this legendary assault rifle fired a 5.45mm cartridge that was noted for causing particularly nasty wounds. Unlike the standard AKM, Orlov's weapon was quite stubby. Its barrel was all but nonexistent. The Y-shaped metal folding stock, which Orlov never used, was almost as long as the submachine gun itself.
This reduction in barrel length, as can be expected, affects the accuracy of the AKR. But marksmanship was not a primary concern for the Russian colonel. Reliability and cyclic rate were what held his interest. As the senior officer of a unit, his primary function was command and control. To carry out these critical tasks, he had to refrain from engaging in combat. A soldier firing his weapon tends to focus on his target, resulting in tunnel vision and a reduction in situational awareness. Since the type of operations Orlov's unit participated in moved with a speed almost incomprehensible to ordinary people, he could not afford a lapse in his ability to view and assess the overall tactical situation. So he always placed himself where he could look, quite literally, over the shoulders of the men under his command, who were the designated killers.
Still, those same missions placed the Russian colonel in situations that had the potential of going south in a heartbeat. He needed to be prepared to either defend himself or, if the occasion really went to hell, step up onto the firing line himself and finish the job his unit had been dispatched to execute. That's why Orlov preferred the AKR. It had a good volume of fire, it used the same cartridge as his PRI pistol, and it was small and light, allowing him to easily sling it over his shoulder onto his back and out of his way.
Carefully, he broke his submachine gun down into its primary functional groups. As he removed each component, he placed it upon the cloth in the order in which he came to it. By the time he was finished with field-stripping the weapon, his mind was already turning toward other issues.
In the West, the question of loyalty to a unit commander or the nation is seldom a concern of a commanding officer. Part of being a professional soldier is commitment, without question, to the country and the organization to which the Western soldier belongs. Even in the Legion, a unit composed entirely of non-French, there is a dedication to the unit and a legionnaire's comrades that is beyond question. A member of a special-operations unit in the United States, Britain, France, or any other NATO nation, may not always agree with the mission to which he is assigned, or may not get along with the officers selected to lead it, but his reliability is never suspect.
The same could not be said for the armed forces of the Russian Republic. Though the end of the Cold War swept away the old Communist government and many of the systems that had run the country since the 1917 Revolution, there was never a break in the continuity within the Red Army. Everything, with the exception of the flag under which it served, remained as it had. What changes were introduced, such as uniforms, organization of combat units, and unit designations, were implemented by the same officers, operating within the existing framework that was built upon the traditions, customs, and practices of the once-proud Red Army. Some critics of the present Russian regime were fond of drawing a parallel between the current conditions in Russia and the German Weimar Republic of the 1920's and its Army. There were some who even whispered that given time, General Igor Likhatchev would legally assume power in much the same way Hitler had.
The concerns that kept many a politician in Moscow awake at night made Orlov's task of commanding a unit used to dealing with internal disorders a nightmare. On more than one occasion, the special-response team that Orlov led had been sent to deal with insubordinate or rebellious units from which many of his own men had been recruited. It was not at all unusual for a member of his command to have served under the very officers they were ordered to eliminate. This created tension within the unit over and above that normally associated with combat operations. Even more important, however, was the stress that it created between Orlov and his men, and even between the soldiers in the ranks themselves. Though he never spoke of it to anyone, the Russian colonel often wondered if the day would come when one of his own would turn in the midst of a firefight or at a critical juncture of an operation and declare for the opposition. Hence the necessity of keeping his personal weapons, designed for close-in work, well cared for, functional, and ready for any contingency.
Finished with the receiver group of his AK, Orlov returned it» o its proper place on the off-white cloth and picked up the bolt. Before he did anything else, he wiped away the light coat of oil that remained on it from its last cleaning. Lifting it up, he carefully studied the assembly. Turning it this way and that, Orlov inspected every square millimeter of the bolt for rust, wear, and damage. Though all was in order, he lowered it back down to table level. With his free hand, he picked up a small clump of extra-fine steel wool and began to gently work on an imaginary blemish on the side of the bolt. All the while, he looked over at far end of the table, where there was a pile of maps, diagrams, copies of messages, and intelligence reports.
Nowhere in that pile was there any sort of directive assigning Orlov and his men the mission they were preparing for. The Russian colonel never received written orders for any of his missions. While the Minister of Defense explained that the reason for this was in the interest of operational security, since written orders could be copied or read by unauthorized personnel. Orlov knew better. Written orders needed to be prepared by someone. Should the operation that those orders launched go bad, or actions taken by those executing those orders prove to be unpopular, the government official who originated them would be held accountable. Without such orders, the only person who could be held accountable was the one who actually led the action. In operations that required the use of the special response team, this meant Demetre Orlov.
While this added another element of risk to every mission he was given, Orlov preferred working without hard orders. It gave him a greater degree of freedom than he would have otherwise had. It also gave him an out. should he be brought to account for his actions later. The blame game, after all, could be played both ways.
None of this meant that the Russian colonel didn't lack for guidance or advice from his superiors on how to accomplish his mission. The Minister of Defense had wanted Orlov to deploy his team to Siberia before the impact of the asteroid so the outfit would be in place and ready to respond as soon as General Likhatchev made his move against the government in Moscow. Colonel Orlov, however, did not care for this idea. When he pressed the team of scientists and experts who were advising the government on the technical aspects of the pending collision between Earth and asteroid, he had quickly come to the conclusion that no one knew for sure what exactly would happen when the moment came. Some believed that the asteroid would burn up as it hit the atmosphere. Others felt that it would skip off the dense layer of air that surrounded the planet like a stone across water. A few, after studying the object as it grew closer, thought that the asteroid would break up, just as Shoemaker Levy did before hitting Jupiter. To a man, none could muster up the nerve to state categorically where in Siberia the thing would actually impact. "There is," one frustrated astronomer confessed, "no way of knowing for sure what will happen. There are simply too many variables and not enough facts."