"This is an oversimplification in a lot of ways, but put simply, imagine a nuclear-armed submarine that can travel at twice the speed of anything we've got in the water right now. That means twice the distance. It also means that we'd have virtually no warning at all if they decided to park one off the West Coast and launch. They could be there, launch and be on their way home before we'd have a chance to do anything about it except tell the president to get in his bunker and push the button."
Kate was silent for a moment, then said, "Shit."
"That's one way to put it," Denny said. "We need an operative up there and fast. If it's true, it means that the U.S. is going to have to move back toward Cold War footing. Everything changes if the Russians are rebuilding their arsenals."
"They've started doing long-range patrol flights again," Kate said. "Where the hell are they getting the money for all this?"
Denny shook his head. "I don't know. A lot of money has been pouring into Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It's hard to trace it all. Right now, all we really need to know is if they've actually got a sub with this kind of capability. And if they do, we need to have it, too."
The very idea of resuming the arms race made him grit his teeth. There was no win for anyone in that scenario. "Or we need to make sure that it's destroyed," he added.
"I agree," Kate said. "I'll take it before the IIA representatives today, and they'll green-light the mission, even if I have to break arms to get the votes."
"Understood," he said. "Do you want to assign the agent or do you want me to do it?"
"Do you have someone specific in mind?" she asked.
Denny tapped a glowing icon in front of him and a folder appeared. He tapped it again and it opened. "One of our newest recruits," he said. "Jason Siku."
Kate scanned the folder's contents. "Why him?" she asked. "This would be his first official op. Pretty intense work for a newbie."
"Normally, I'd agree with you," he said. "But this guy isn't our usual recruit. He's had a ton of espionage experience, speaks fluent Russian, and with his ancestry, he'll be able to fit right in up there. This isn't a kill assignment — though his final training mission was. This is recon only. If we need to step up to a search-and-destroy, we can reassess the situation then."
Kate nodded. "Do you expect any other complications? We can't afford any mistakes here."
"None," Denny said. "Siku is a straight arrow. He worked for the CIA before he came to us. He has no family and no real ties to anyone. His mission success rate with the Feds was perfect, and he doesn't wander off track. He'll get the job done."
Denny paused, thinking for a moment. "Besides that, we've got an off-radar employee already in the field up there," he said.
"Who's that?" Kate asked.
"A local who translates intercepted Russian communications, that sort of thing. There's some minor weapons smuggling going on up there, and the agent keeps us apprised of that situation, too. It's not a full-on field agent, but we'll know the score and be able to keep an eye on Siku."
"All right," Kate said. "I'll get the ball rolling and get back to you later today. You can expect a mission assignment within four hours."
"I'll be standing by," Denny said.
Kate laughed quietly. "No, you won't. You'll be back out riding your horses and playing cowboy. I'll call you direct and give you the thumbs-up. Go back to your rest and relaxation. Though what you call relaxing, I call being bounced around and risking a broken neck."
"Ah," he said, smiling. "You just haven't ridden the right kind of horse."
"And I'll be keeping it that way, thank you very much," Kate said. "Gotta go."
She signed off and Denny studied the video again. He didn't need to see the biometrics results. The Russian was telling the truth, but the submarine was only part of what made the story disturbing. The very idea of the Cold War starting up again — a war that he'd already survived once — chilled him to his core.
The first Cold War had been a quiet one of buildup, cat-and-mouse games and political posturing. The players in the game now would be far different than those faced before. Sooner or later, the players would include extremists who wouldn't hesitate to use any of the weapons in their arsenals to start a truly global conflict.
And in that kind of war, Denny knew, there were no winners at all.
There was only a world filled with death and ash.
1
Jason Siku slipped the modified shooting glasses over his eyes. From his perspective, the yellow-tinted lenses were more than just a coloration that brought out contrasts in the landscape. The lenses used a tiny microprocessor built into the frames to work in tandem with the high-tech rounds he was testing tonight.
The indoor firing range was almost empty, and Jason was enjoying the relative peace of practicing without the interruption of other people talking and shooting at the same time that he practiced. He dropped an empty clip from his porcelain-framed Glock 17 and slid in a new one. Setting the weapon down, he attached a new human-shaped target sheet to the clips, then moved it out to a distance of fifteen feet. Picking up the gun once more, he set his feet and turned on the laser sight with a tap of his thumb.
A red dot appeared on the target's chest region. He took one steadying breath, then began shooting. A few seconds later, the last round was fired and the slide sprang open. During these sessions, Jason didn't think or reminisce, and he rarely spoke to anyone when he was here. An excellent shooter, he knew, thought of nothing during the moments of pulling the trigger but his weapon and the target. Everything else was a distraction that could prove deadly or cause a miss.
He removed the empty clip and was reaching for the next one when a hand on his shoulder startled him enough to almost cause him to jump. He felt his muscles tense momentarily, then he relaxed them. He turned to see the owner of the range, Jim Miller, staring at the target. Jason pulled off his ear protection and offered a slight smile. "Hi, Jim," he said. "Everything okay?"
Miller continued to gaze at the target. "Fine," he said, then shook his head. "That's…that's some good shooting. Even taking the short range into account, I don't know too many people who can shoot like that."
Jason nodded. "Thanks. I practice at ten, fifteen and twenty feet," he said. "Every once in a while, I'll go out farther, twenty-two or twenty-five feet, but it's really kind of pointless beyond those ranges."
"How's that?" Miller asked.
"Most shootings with a handgun occur inside twenty feet," Jason said. "Being a crack shot at fifty won't help you much if the other guy is ten feet away and shooting back."
"I suppose not," Miller admitted. "Those are some nice patterns, too. Two to the chest, one to the head. You didn't miss once. We've got a couple of shooting-club champions that come here that don't get groupings like that."
Jason smiled. "I practice a lot."
"I've noticed," Miller said. "You've been in here often." He shrugged. "Anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I just wanted to let you know that we're closing in about fifteen minutes."
Jason glanced at his watch. "Thanks for the reminder. I was kind of in a zone."
Miller grinned. "I noticed that, too." He headed back down the firing lane and said, "Have a good night."
"Thanks," Jason said. "You, too."
He considered running a few more rounds through the weapon — it was also new — but he'd already done over five hundred this week. The gun felt comfortable in his hands and his accuracy with it was solid. The fact that the rounds he was using were specially made for Room 59 agents wasn't something anyone needed to know.
Working with information processed by the shooting glasses, the modified rounds were autocorrecting. A tiny microchip tracked the previous round and the shooter's visual response and made adjustments on the fly. If you were off by a half inch with the first shot, the second shot would be dead-on. It was a marvelous modification, but Jason didn't like to count on it, so he'd practiced with the weapon until he felt that he wouldn't need the rounds to adjust for him more than a quarter inch at twenty feet or less.