Krushkin leaned toward the phone and switched to Russian. “This is Governor Krushkin. Can you hear me well?”
“Yes, Governor,” a younger voice answered.
Must be some admiral’s aide. Vladivostok was in a completely different oblast, but the admirals there understood the Kremlin’s extended power structure, and knew Krushkin’s influential place within it.
“I bring information. Much evidence from Srednekolymsk has arrived by plane at Khabarovsk.” A city a few hundred miles north of Vladivostok. “The regional police forensics laboratory and staff are being augmented by equipment and specialists flying in now from Japan, along with a United States Air Force military attaché stationed in Tokyo. He’s been requested to observe the physical evidence and corpses and monitor the studies done using mass spectrometers and other relevant devices.”
“Why was Vladivostok not used for this?” the old admiral demanded.
“The president has made his decision.”
A power play, Jeffrey told himself. Divide and conquer.
“Then—”
The governor cut the admiral off. “Yes, communications have been reestablished with the Kremlin. The Hot Line will soon be repaired. By that I mean the secure system directly between Moscow and Washington, not some piecemeal roundabout linkage.”
“Oh, good,” Jeffrey said. “That’s what we’ve been waiting for.”
“Nyet.” No. “We will not be participating. The President of Russia insists on speaking exclusively with the President of the United States. There will be no third parties on the call.”
“Then what’s the purpose of this meeting?” Meredov asked. “You flew a thousand kilometers just to tell us that?”
“I flew here to say that this meeting is adjourned. It’s almost four A.M. Too much is at stake to continue working on and on while exhausted, particularly with the hard deadline set for us at local midnight. We will therefore resume at noon, after we have had a chance to sleep. Captain Fuller, you are a guest of the Russian government. I presume this is acceptable to you?”
“Yes, Governor.”
“And you feel under no duress?”
“No.”
“And we appear to be working in good faith to resolve the present situation?”
“So far as I can tell. I suppose we do all need to rest. The forensics will have a chance to progress in the meantime.”
“Vladivostok, did you hear that clearly?”
“Da,” the grumpy admiral said. Yes.
“You have it on the tape?”
“Da.”
“Inform the American consulate in Tokyo accordingly.”
“Can’t an ambassador or an attaché be sent here?” Jeffrey asked. Krushkin switched back to English.
“No. This base is within the frozen zone established around Srednekolymsk by me as governor. The zone is closed to foreign nationals not already present until further notice, and none here may leave. The search for the guerrillas who attacked the missile complex is ongoing within the frozen zone. I’ve declared martial law, and my oblast militia troops will enforce this quarantine using deadly force if necessary.” Besides Russia’s regular army, each governor had a militia, like national guards. “You must surrender any radio or cell phone.”
He hadn’t brought such items, planning to rely instead on borrowed Russian comms gear, assuming that they would cooperate out of necessity, for self-preservation. Now Krushkin was singing the opposite tune, and insisting on a pause of eight hours, a full third of the time until the supposed ironclad Challenger cruise-missile nuclear strike deadline.
“Are you telling me I’m a prisoner?” Jeffrey was angry.
“Nonsense. You’re our honored guest. To be credible, a forensic quarantine must be hermetic. No exceptions can be made. While you rest, experts in the research center of Akademgorodok, well equipped and far outside the area of EMP disruption, will judge the believability of America’s secret new missile shield. As they do that, I’ll review the full recording of your conversation with Rear Admiral Meredov. I see on the whiteboard under ‘Who did it?’ that one potential perpetrator is America. In that case, your missile shield is plainly a hoax. Captain Fuller, I find that a rather fascinating possibility…. Sleep well.”
Chapter 31
In his guest quarters at a hotel-like building on the base, Jeffrey made a quick meal of bottled water and field rations he’d brought in his travel bag, then climbed into bed. The window shade failed to keep out that peculiar Arctic twilight. His mattress was much too soft, and lumpy. He tossed and turned.
He was startled at 11 A.M. by pounding on the door. After Krushkin’s final comment, he expected FSB agents had come to arrest him, or Spetsnaz were ready to lead him to a firing squad.
It was Elmar Meredov. The man was visibly excited, but in a good way. “Get dressed. Skip a shower. They’ve found things!”
Jeffrey hurriedly put on his uniform, and followed Meredov outside. Irina Malenkova and several Army Spetsnaz bodyguards met them, and they drove in a van to the headquarters building. Jeffrey and Meredov rushed up into the conference room. The translator was already there. Governor Krushkin made a grand entrance like minor royalty, as perfectly groomed as ever, and even wearing a different suit and tie; he’d spent the intervening time on his luxurious private jet, staying in touch with Khabarovsk and Akademgorodok and the Kremlin, and catnapping.
Krushkin glanced at the whiteboard with Meredov’s previous jottings. “The list of culprits has narrowed drastically.”
“What’s been happening?” Jeffrey asked, trying to hide the sickening feeling of failure in his stomach.
“I didn’t mention this earlier,” Meredov said, “but I ordered an auxiliary cruiser-icebreaker to retrace the route the intruding submarine took back north while moored to the floe. My deputy, flown out from Pevek, is aboard her, to make sure the job was done right, and to report. They searched the bottom using their active towed array as a side-scan sonar. They found an abandoned German minisub, flooded as if scuttled there, with its top hatch left open.”
“You salvaged it?”
“Not yet. We sent down divers. It’s in shallow water.”
“And?…”
“Completely empty. Including the fuel tanks. We conclude it was abandoned after helping shuttle the big commando team.”
“So the Germans did it after all?”
“All the forensic matches point to that,” Krushkin said. “Bloodwork, metallurgy, never mind the details, but the Khabarovsk lab was definite and your attaché was convinced.”
“Fast work,” Jeffrey said.
“Your president put a lot of pressure on ours. He told him repeatedly about Challenger’s nuclear cruise missile strike scheduled for midnight. Our president passed the pressure down, and it produced results.”
“Is Akademgorodok satisfied that our missile shield is real?”
“The way they put it was that they’d like a year to study the issue properly. But based on design specs provided by Washington, and given the obvious difficulties involved in subjecting your shield to an actual test, our experts deemed it ‘not impossible in concept.’ ”
“What happens now?”
“Things are in flux. Your president told ours to sever all ties with Germany, both diplomatic and economic, today, long before midnight, as a form of reparations for what almost occurred with the missiles from Srednekolymsk. Or else. It certainly seemed that we had many good reasons to do so, only one of them being the threatened devastation from Challenger.”