This caused the Russian commando's smile to broaden. "I suppose I am a bit insane."
"Yes, well, if you must know, I think we are all a bit touched," Orlov remarked as he turned away.
"Tell me, Colonel," the soldier said, not letting the terse conversation end there, "are we being sent by the chief inmates of our asylum to kill other wretched souls like ourselves? Or have the sane people out there gotten out of hand?"
Unable to pass up this challenge, Orlov backpedaled and faced the soldier again. "Be sure to watch your step when we leave here, Stephonich. It is a dangerously narrow line that you will be walking."
The commando locked eyes with his commander. He knew that the colonel was not speaking of those hazards that are normally associated with an active military airfield. Realizing that he had pushed his luck as far as he dare, the soldier nodded. "Yes, sir. Of course, sir."
As he continued his inspection, Orlov was haunted by the analogy that Stephonich had chosen to use, for even the most dedicated officer he knew considered their struggle to protect the current regime to be illogical. "While we mock those in the Kremlin and call them clowns," a general had casually remarked to Orlov during an unguarded moment, "I believe it is we who are the fools. After all, are we not the ones who are keeping them in power?" Orlov himself entertained such sentiments, making his current mission all the more difficult since he was being sent to eliminate the one man whom soldiers like himself considered to be Russia's last best hope for salvation. Hesitating before continuing his precombat inspections, lie looked off at the rod eastern sky. Red had always been the color of revolution. It had always been his favorite color. Was this, he wondered, a sign? Perhaps the doomsayers were right. Could it be that the advent of the asteroid was not a disaster, but rather, the harbinger of a second coming, the beginning of a new era of revolution and a rebirth of the Soviet Empire? What a shame, he found himself thinking, to be on the wrong side of that monumental event.
Bowing his head. Orlov tried to clear such thoughts from his mind. This was not the time to entertain foolish speculation, he told himself. He had a mission. He had his orders. But as he straightened up and glanced off into the cast again, ho found that none of his doubts had subsided. Perhaps his mission and his orders were not one and the same. Perhaps the paradise Stephonich spoke of in a hall-joking manner lay just beyond the hell into which he would soon be going. Perhaps all that was necessary to roach that paradise was the courage to do what was right, and not that which was expected.
By early evening, it had become obvious that the worst-case scenario the American Central Intelligence Agency and the British Ml 5 had feared was in play. Both agencies, through their contacts within Russia and via electronic surveillance of the Russian strategic command and-control nets, independently came to the same conclusions.
The impact of the primary asteroid at 05:54 Greenwich mean lime, followed quickly by a succession of blows delivered to the Siberian region of Russia by fragments of Nereus 1991 I IWC. had alerted the Perimeter sensors to the fact that, the Motherland was being rocked by a cataclysmic event. This, coupled with a disruption of the national command-and-control network, had initiated the sequence of events that freed field commanders within the Strategic Rocket Force from the fail-safe system controlled from Moscow.
Though military communications had not been affected to the same degree as the civil system had been, the resulting disarray caused the leadership in Moscow to resort to radio and satellite communications rather than to use the more secure landlines that most senior officials in Russia preferred. This reliance on networks that broadcast over the airwaves gave intelligence agencies in the West a glut of information on just about everything that was going on both in Moscow and in Siberia. In some cases, the speed of the CIA's decryption equipment was able to pass messages intercepted and decoded to their analysts before the addressee in Russia was privy to it.
Intelligence, of course, is not an end in itself. It is only a window through which one can freely view the actions and activities of another. More often than not, the picture generated by these captured bits and pieces is not complete. Almost always, the actual intent of the parties observed from afar by electronic means is obscure. It is like walking into a conversation concerning a matter you have no firsthand knowledge of, and having to leave before the parties involved have come to a resolution. It is left up to the analysts to fill in the pieces that are missing and place the pirated message within its proper context and purpose. Quite naturally, the skill of the analyst and the willingness of his superiors to accept the conclusions he derives from the puzzle pieces handed to him for interpretation are critical to this process. In the end, it is the person who has assumed the mantle of command, whether he be a battalion commander in the field or the current occupant of the Oval Office, who must decide how to use the information at his disposal.
Intelligence provides the reason and the target. Plans define the means and the mechanics. But, unlike a machine, these plans never remain fixed or static. This is especially true of plans that are thrown together on the spur of the moment. No matter how gifted the creator of the original draft is, even the best plan can be improved upon. In addition, it is often necessary to make concessions when dealing with allies. Some ideas brought to the table by non-U. S. participants were, in the overall scheme of things, quite beneficial. Others were included in Tempest for no reason other than to gain the support of those nations being asked to pony up some of their best troops for the operation.
As a seasoned staff officer, Major Andrew Fretello understood the rules of the game. He knew that as soon as other NATO planners were brought onboard, they would insist on putting their own imprint upon the plan. In the name of maintaining peace among the world's foremost warriors, Fretello would have to accept a certain amount of give. Thus he found himself engaging in ceaseless revisions to Tempest as a blizzard of changes and alterations were handed down to him by his superiors.
One of the first changes to his plan came as soon as the NATO tasker for aircraft was put out. In Fretello's original plan, each team being inserted would have its own aircraft. This wishful bit of thinking was turned down without a second thought. As an alternative to one aircraft per team, Fretello suggested that the three teams assigned per target would share an aircraft. While this would require the pilot of the transport to make a series of quick turns in a very short period, it would reduce the number of aircraft required for Tempest by two thirds.
This change had no sooner been agreed to by the Military Airlift Command and penciled in by Fretello, when a representative of the intelligence staff pointed out that aircraft slated to carry relief aid into Russia could be used to drop the Special Ops teams as part of their deception plan. In this way, the intelligence officer pointed out, NATO would not be in the difficult position of justifying unscheduled over flights to the Russians. Though the staff judge advocate assigned to the joint planning staff for Tempest worried that using medical supply aircraft as troop carriers could be considered a violation of the Geneva Convention, his concerns were overridden. This change now meant that Andrew Fretello and the Air Force major working with him had to plot new air routes from Scotland into Russia that would permit the dual-purpose transports to overfly their special targets before continuing on to an airfield where relief aid was being sent, without raising undue suspicion.
Not every change to Tempest was greeted with a collective groan by Fretello and those working with him to keep the plan from becoming any more complex and risky than it already was. One addition to the plan actually turned out to be to his liking.