Immediately in front on his desk was his favoured, elegant, calf brown briefcase, its gold combination lock glinting. He shifted in his low-backed leather armchair, a bit like a captain’s chair but without the swivel. As he leant back to read a memo, the contents of which made him smile, the chair creaked under his weight. He placed the memo back down on the desk and checked his metal bracelet wristwatch: five minutes until he was joined by his Head of KGB. He knew the man would arrive at exactly ten; he was always on time.
Born into a Russian working family, Baskov started his career as an engineer in the iron and steel industry before being conscripted into the army. During the Great Patriotic War, World War Two, he served with distinction, leaving as a major-general. He then soon played a key role in Russian politics, becoming a member of the Central Committee in 1952. By 1964, he had succeeded Nikita Khrushchev as first secretary, finally inheriting the mantle of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At seventy-four years old, he was the most powerful man in one of the most powerful countries in the world. There was a knock at the door and his secretary stepped through into the office.
“Comrade Aleksandrov is here, Comrade General Secretary. Shall I show him in?”
Baskov checked his watch and smiled. It was ten o’clock exactly. “Yes please, and some drinks.”
“Right away, Comrade General Secretary.”
The secretary left the room and was immediately replaced by the Chairman of the KGB, Yuri Aleksandrov, who strode across the room towards the desk where Baskov had risen from his seat and come round to greet his fellow Politburo comrade. They hugged, kissed cheeks and shook hands.
“Take a seat, Comrade Yuri.”
The Head of the KGB, (the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti), or the Committee for State Security, was probably the second most powerful man in the Soviet Union, controlling over twelve directorates. From the First Chief Directorate responsible for Foreign Operations (Espionage) to the Operations and Technology Directorate, the research laboratories, covering such items as recording and surveillance devices, and the fearsome Laboratory 12, dealing in poisons and drugs.
Aleksandrov pulled out a seat from the meeting table and sat down as Baskov went round the other side, picking up a model of an artillery piece as he did so. He sat opposite his Chief of the KGB.
Baskov inserted a shell into the gun and pulled the lanyard, but it didn’t fire. “I must get some spares for this from the Egyptians,” he said, looking up at Aleksandrov from beneath his bushy eyebrows. “Well, Comrade Yuri, you have some concerns about our American foes?”
The sixty-six year-old politician, with his heart-shaped face and his heavily receding, steel-grey hair, looked back and nodded slowly. Aleksandrov was the son of a railway official Vladimir Aleksandrov, and his mother Lilya Brashmakov, the daughter of a wealthy Muscovite business man. Initially educated at the Water Transport Technological College in Rybinsk, he too ended up being conscripted into the army. A Russian World War Two war hero, he took part in partisan guerrilla activities in Finland. After the war, he was elected as Second-Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, Soviet Socialist Republic. He later held the position of Ambassador to Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 where he played a key role in crushing the revolt by convincing Khrushchev to use military intervention. The Hungarian leaders were later arrested and executed. As Khrushchev’s protégé, he quickly rose through the Communist Party ranks. After serving in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee, he was appointed Head of the KGB in 1967. Six years later, he became a full member of the Politburo.
Yuri and Leonid looked at each other across the table. Both dressed in plain suits. Aleksandrov’s was grey with a metal pin in the shape of a Soviet flag in his left lapel, whereas his leader wore a black flannel suit with a white shirt and polka-dot tie, and a display of medals pinned across his broad chest.
“Yes, Comrade General Secretary. I recommend that we increase our intelligence efforts if we are to establish any contingency plans President McKinley’s Administration may have to launch a nuclear strike against our motherland.”
Baskov continued to pull at the lanyard, but the artillery piece still wouldn’t fire. “You are suspicious of everyone, Yuri.” The squarish, jowly face continued to smile as he persisted with tugging in frustration at the lanyard. Before Aleksandrov could answer, Baskov held his hand up as his secretary knocked on the door and proceeded to bring in a tray with china cups and saucers, a decorated, slender coffee pot and a small plate of biscuits. They sat silently as she poured their drinks, adding milk and sugar in the quantities she knew they liked, and placed the cups and saucers in front of them. Baskov thanked her as she left the room, and he indicated that Aleksandrov should help himself to the biscuits.
“Is there something particular that has you so concerned, Yuri?”
“There are a few things, Comrade Secretary. We know they are sneaking around the Greenland-Iceland-United-Kingdom-Gap. We are also aware of their incessant clandestine activity around the Norwegian, Black, Barents and Baltic Seas.”
Baskov crunched on a biscuit and took a sip from his cup, pulling at the lanyard yet again. This time it went off with a loud bang, making them both jump. Baskov laughed. “It was originally designed to fire paper caps, like you find in children’s toy guns. But they wouldn’t work, so they developed these blank shells for me. Anything else?”
“They’re getting too close to some of our key military bases. Their forces are obviously testing our detection systems and seeing how quickly we react, and, more importantly, if we react.”
“Do we respond well?”
There was a pause before Aleksandrov replied. “They respond as best they are able, Comrade General Secretary.”
“Is there more?” Baskov got up and grabbed some more shells from his desk then returned to his seat.
“They have started to fly squadrons of bomber aircraft directly towards our airspace, peeling off at the last minute. It’s a very provocative act, Comrade Secretary.”
“Ah, I see how this works now. You have to pull this lever.”
Aleksandrov smiled. “It won’t help us stop a US nuclear strike, Comrade Secretary.”
“Very true, Yuri, very true.” Baskov pushed the artillery piece aside and started to fiddle with his signet ring. He pointed to it. “It says on the inside To Leonid Baskov from Novorissisk. It is a memento of a full year I spent there: three hundred days of battle with no retreat. We were allies with the West then. It does sound ominous, Yuri, but surely they are just testing our systems and reactions yet again?”
Aleksandrov put his coffee cup down and leant forward. “But are they covering for something else, Comrade General Secretary?”
“What are you proposing?”
“Operation RYAN.” RYAN, or RYan, was an acronym for Raketno-Yadernoe Napadenie, or Nuclear-Missile Attack.
“What will this involve, my old friend?”
“The First Directorate will take control. Every one of our agents, our residents abroad, will be tasked with monitoring all American personnel who are associated with the launch of a nuclear weapon, and any facility that is associated with nuclear launch sites.”
Baskov frowned for the first time. “That will require a huge amount of resources.”
“If they are preparing for a nuclear war, Comrade General Secretary, we must know when they plan to launch. RYAN will be the most comprehensive intelligence-gathering operation in our history.”