"So we shall, when the time comes. He's been observed to do only one dead-drop over the past week, and we control that one-yes, yes, I know," Sergey added, when he saw the beginnings of Anatoliy's objections. "He isn't the only MSS operative in Moscow, but he's probably the only one on this case. Security considerations are universal. They must worry that one of their officers might be in our employ, after all. There are many wheels in such an operation, and they don't all turn in the same direction, my young friend. You know what I miss?"

"I should imagine it is having the second chief directorate under the same roof. That way the operation would be run cooperatively."

Golovko smiled. "Correct, Anatoliy Ivan'ch. For now, we can only do our job and wait for others to do theirs. And, yes, waiting is never an entertaining way to spend one's time." With that observation, both men resumed staring at the desk phones, waiting for them to ring.

The only reason that surveillance hadn't been tightened any more was that there wasn't enough room for the additional personnel, and Suvorov might take note of the thirty people who followed him everywhere. That day he awoke at his normal hour, washed up, had coffee and kasha for breakfast, left the apartment building at 9:15, and drove his car into the city, with a good deal of elusive company. He parked his car two blocks from Gor'iy Park and walked the rest of the way there.

So did four others, also under surveillance. They met at a magazine kiosk at precisely 9:45 and walked together toward a coffee shop that was disagreeably crowded, too much so for any of the watchers to get close enough to listen in, though the faces were observed. Suvorov/Koniev did most of the talking, and the other four listened intently, and nods started.

Yefremov of the Federal Security Service kept his distance. He was senior enough that he could no longer guarantee that his face was unknown, and had to trust the more junior men to get in close, their earpieces removed and radio transmitters turned off, wishing they could read lips like the people in spy movies.

For Pavel Georgiyevich Yefremov, the question was, what to do now? Arrest them all and risk blowing the case-or merely continue to shadow, and risk having them go forward . . . and perhaps accomplish the mission?

The question would be answered by one of the four contacts. He was the oldest of them, about forty, a Spetsnaz veteran of Afghanistan with the Order of the Red Banner to his name. His name was Igor Maximov. He held up his hand, rubbing forefinger and thumb, and, getting the answer to his question, he shook his head and politely took his leave. His departure was a cordial one, and his personal two-man shadow team followed him to the nearest Metro station while the others continued talking.

On learning this, Yefremov ordered him picked up. That was done when he got off the Metro train five kilometers away at the station near his flat, where he lived with his wife and son. The man did not resist and was unarmed. Docile as a lamb, he accompanied the two FSS officers to their headquarters.

"Your name is Maximov, Igor Il'ych," Yefremov told him. "You met with your friend Suvorov, Klementi Ivan'ch, to discuss partic.i.p.ation in a crime. We want to hear your version of what was discussed."

"Comrade Yefremov, I met some old friends for coffee this morning and then I left. Nothing in particular was discussed. I do not know what you are talking about."

"Yes, of course," the FSS man replied. "Tell me, do you know two former Spetsnaz men like yourself, Amalrik and Zimyanin?"

"I've heard the names, but I don't know the faces."

"Here are the faces." Yefremov handed over the photos from the Leningrad Militia. "They are not pleasant to look upon."

Maximov didn't blanch, but he didn't look at the photos with affection either. "What happened to them?"

"They did a job for your comrade, Suvorov, but he was evidently displeased with how they went about it, and so, they went swimming in the River Neva. Maximov, we know that you were Spetsnaz. We know that you earn your living today doing illegal things, but that is not a matter of concern to us at the moment. We want to know exactly what was said at the coffee shop. You will tell us this, the easy way or the hard way. The choice is yours." When he wanted to, Yefremov could come on very hard to his official guests. In this case, it wasn't difficult. Maximov was not a stranger to violence, at least on the giving side. The receiving side was something he had no wish to learn about.

"What do you offer me?"

"I offer you your freedom in return for your cooperation. You left the meeting before any conclusions were reached. That is why you are here. So, do you wish to speak now, or shall we wait a few hours for you to change your mind?"

Maximov was not a coward-Spetsnaz didn't have many of those, in Yefremov's experience-but he was a realist, and realism told him that he had nothing to gain by noncooperation.

"He asked me and the others to partic.i.p.ate in a murder. I presume it will be a difficult operation, otherwise why would he need so many men? He offers for this twenty thousand euros each. I decided that my time is more valuable than that."

"Do you know the name of the target?"

Maximov shook his head. "No. He did not say. I did not ask."

"That is good. You see, the target is President Grushavoy." That got a reaction, as Maximov's eyes flared.

"That is state treason," the former Spetsnaz sergeant breathed, hoping to convey the idea that he'd never do such a thing. He learned fast.

"Yes. Tell me, is twenty thousand euros a good price for a murder?"

"I would not know. If you want me to tell you that I have killed for money, no, Comrade Yefremov, I will not say that."

But you have, and you'd probably partic.i.p.ate in this one if the price went high enough. In Russia, E20,000 was a considerable sum. But Yefremov had much bigger fish to fry. "The others at the meeting, what do you know of them?"

"All are Spetsnaz veterans. Ilya Suslov and I served together east of Qandahar. He's a sniper, a very good one. The others, I know them casually, but I never served with them."

Sniper. Well, those were useful, and President Grushavoy appeared in public a lot. He was scheduled to have an outdoor rally the very next day, in fact. It was time to wrap this up.

"So, Suvorov spoke of a murder for hire?"

"Yes, he did."

"Good. We will take your statement. You were wise to cooperate, Igor Il'ych." Yefremov had a junior officer lead him away. Then he lifted his phone. "Arrest them all," he told the field commander.

"The meeting broke up. We have all of them under surveillance. Suvorov is en route back to his flat with one of the three."

"Well, a.s.semble the team and arrest them both."

Feeling better?" Colonel Aliyev asked.

"What time is it?"

"Fifteen-forty, Comrade General," Colonel Aliyev replied. "You slept for thirteen hours. Here are some dispatches from Moscow."

"You let me sleep that long?" the general demanded, instantly angry.

"The war has not begun. Our preparations, such as they are, are progressing, and there seemed no sense in waking you. Oh, we have our first set of reconnaissance photos. Not much better than the American ones we had faxed to us. Intelligence has firmed up its estimate. It's not getting any better. We have support now from an American ELINT aircraft, but they tell us that the Chinese aren't using their radios, which is not a surprise."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Andrey!" the general responded, rubbing his unshaven face with both hands.

"So, court-martial me after you've had your coffee. I got some sleep, too. You have a staff. I have a staff, and I decided to let them do their jobs while we slept," the operations officer said defiantly.

"What of the Never Depot?"

"We have a total of one hundred eighty tanks operating with full crews. Shorter on the infantry component and artillery, but the reservists seem to be functioning with some degree of enthusiasm, and the 265th Motor Rifle is starting to act like a real division for the first time." Aliyev walked over a mug of coffee with milk and sugar, the way Bondarenko preferred it. "Drink, Gennady Iosifovich." Then he pointed to a table piled with b.u.t.tered bread and bacon.

"If we live, I will see you promoted, Colonel."

"I've always wanted to be a general officer. But I want to see my children enter university, too. So, let's try to stay alive."

"What of the border troops?"

"I have transport a.s.signed to each post-where possible, two sets of transport. I've sent some of the reservists in BTRs to make sure they have a little protection against the artillery fire when they pull out. We have a lot of guns in the photos from the M-5, Comrade General. And f.u.c.king mountains of sh.e.l.ls. But the border troops have ample protection, and the orders have gone out so that they will not need permission to leave their posts when the situation becomes untenable-at the company-officer level, that is," Aliyev added. Commissioned officers were less likely to bug out than enlisted men.

"No word on when?"

The G-3 shook his head. "Nothing helpful from Intelligence. The Chinese are still moving trucks and such around, from what we can tell. I'd say another day, maybe as many as three."

So?" Ryan asked.

"So, the overheads show they're still moving the chess pieces on the board," Foley answered. "But most of them are in place."

"What about Moscow?"

"They're going to arrest their suspects soon. Probably going to pick up the control officer in Moscow, too. They'll sweat him some, but he does have diplomatic immunity, and you can't squeeze him much." Ed Foley remembered when KGB had arrested his wife in Moscow. It hadn't been pleasant for her-and less so for him-but they hadn't roughed her up, either. Messing with people who traveled on diplomatic pa.s.sports didn't happen often, despite what they'd seen on TV a few weeks before. And the Chinese probably regretted that one a lot, p.r.o.nouncements on the SORGE feeds to the contrary notwithstanding.

"Nothing from inside to encourage us?"

"Nope." The DCI shook his head.

"We ought to start moving the Air Force," Vice President Jackson urged.

"But then it could be seen as a provocation," Secretary Adler pointed out. "We can't give them any excuse."

"We can move First Armored into Russia, say it's a joint training exercise with our new NATO allies," TOMCAT said. "That could buy us a few days."

Ryan weighed that and looked over at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. "Well, General?"

"It can't hurt all that much. They're already working with Deutsche Rail to get the move organized."

"Then do it," the President ordered.

"Yes, sir." General Moore moved to make the call.

Ryan checked his watch. "I have a reporter to talk to."

"Have fun," Robby told his friend.

Zhigansk, on the west side of the Lena River, had once been a major regional air-defense center for the old Soviet PVO Strany, the Russian air-defense command. It had a larger-than-average airfield with barracks and hangars, and had been largely abandoned by the new Russian military, with just a caretaker staff to maintain the facility in case it might be needed someday. This turned out to be a piece of lucky foresight, because the United States Air Force started moving in that day, mainly transport aircraft from the central part of America that had staged through Alaska and flown over the North Pole to get there. The first of thirty C-5 Galaxy transports landed at ten in the morning local time, taxiing to the capacious but vacant ramps to off-load their cargo under the direction of ground crewmen who'd ridden in the large pa.s.senger area aft of the wing box in the huge transports. The first things wheeled off were the Dark Star UAVs. They looked like loaves of French bread copulating atop slender wings, and were long-endurance, stealthy reconnaissance drones that took six hours to a.s.semble for flight. The crews got immediately to work, using mobile equipment shipped on the same aircraft.

Fighter and attack aircraft came into Suntar, far closer to the Chinese border, with tankers and other support aircraft-including the American E-3 Sentry AWACS birds-just west of there at Mirnyy. At these two air bases, the arriving Americans found their Russian counterparts, and immediately the various staffs started working together. American tankers could not refuel Russian aircraft, but to everyone's relief the nozzles for ground fueling were identical, and so the American aircraft could make use of the take fuel from the Russian JP storage tanks, which, they found, were huge, and mainly underground to be protected against nuclear airbursts. The most important element of cooperation was the a.s.signment of Russian controllers to the American AWACS, so that Russian fighters could be controlled from the American radar aircraft. Almost at once, some E-3s lifted off to test this capability, using arriving American fighters as practice targets for controlled intercepts. They found immediately that the Russian fighter pilots reacted well to the directions, to the pleased surprise of the American controllers.

They also found almost immediately that the American attack aircraft couldn't use Russian bombs and other ordnance. Even if the shackle points had been the same (they weren't), the Russian bombs had different aerodynamics from their American counterparts, and so the computer software on the American aircraft could not hit targets with them-it would have been like trying to jam the wrong cartridge into a rifle: even if you could fire the round, the sights would send it to the wrong point of impact. So, the Americans would have to fly in the bombs to be dropped, and shipping bombs by air was about as efficient as flying in gravel to build roads. Bombs came to fighter bases by ship, train, truck, and forklift, not by air. For this reason, the B-1s and other heavy-strike aircraft were sent to Andersen Air Force Base on Guam, where there were some bomb stores to be used, even though they were a long way from the supposed targets.

The air forces of the two sides established an immediate and friendly rapport, and in hours-as soon as the American pilots had gotten a little mandated crew rest-they were planning and flying missions together with relative ease.

The QUARTER HORSE went first. Under the watchful eyes of Lieutenant Colonel Angelo Giusti, the M1A2 main battle tanks and M3 Bradley cavalry scout vehicles rolled onto the flatcars of Deutsche Rail, accompanied by the fuel and other support trucks. Troops went into coaches at the head end of the train "consists" and were soon heading east to Berlin, where they'd change over to the Russian-gauge cars for the further trip east. Oddly, there were no TV cameramen around at the moment, Giusti saw. That couldn't last, but it was one less distraction for the unit that was the eyes of First Tanks. The division's helicopter brigade was sitting at its own base, awaiting the availability of Air Force transports to ferry them east. Some genius had decided against having the aircraft fly themselves, which, Giusti thought, they were perfectly able to do, but General Diggs had told him not to worry about it. Giusti would worry about it, but not out loud. He settled into a comfortable seat in the lead pa.s.senger coach, along with his staff, and went over maps just printed up by the division's cartography unit, part of the intelligence shop. The maps showed the terrain they might be fighting for. Mostly they predicted where the Chinese would be going, and that wasn't overly demanding.

So, what are we going to do?" Bob Holtzman asked.

"We're beginning to deploy forces to support our allies," Ryan answered. "We hope that the PRC will see this and reconsider the activities that now appear to be under way."

"Have we been in contact with Beijing?"

"Yes." Ryan nodded soberly. "The DCM of our emba.s.sy in Beijing, William Kilmer, delivered a note from us to the Chinese government, and we are now awaiting a formal reply."

"Are you telling us that you think there will be a shooting war between Russia and China?"

"Bob, our government is working very hard to forestall that possibility, and we call on the Chinese government to think very hard about its position and its actions. War is no longer a policy option in this world. I suppose it once was, but no longer. War only brings death and ruin to people. The world has turned a corner on this thing. The lives of people-including the lives of soldiers-are too precious to be thrown away. Bob, the reason we have governments is to serve the needs and the interests of people, not the ambitions of rulers. I hope the leadership of the PRC will see that." Ryan paused. "A couple of days ago, I was at Auschwitz. Bob, that was the sort of experience to get you thinking. You could feel the horror there. You could hear the screams, smell the death smell, you could see the lines of people being led off under guns to where they were murdered. Bob, all of a sudden it wasn't just black-and-white TV anymore.

"It came to me then that there is no excuse at all for the government of a country, any country, to engage in killing for profit. Ordinary criminals rob liquor stores to get money. Countries rob countries to get oil or gold or territory. Hitler invaded Poland for Lebensraum, for room for Germany to expand-but, d.a.m.n it, there were already people living there, and what he tried to do was to steal. That's all. Not statecraft, not vision. Hitler was a thief before he was a murderer. Well, the United States of America will not stand by and watch that happen again." Ryan paused and took a sip of water.

"One of the things you learn in life is that there's only one thing really worth having, and that's love. Well, by the same token there's only one thing worth fighting for, and that is justice. Bob, that's what America fights for, and if China launches a war of aggression-a war of robbery-America will stand by her ally and stop it from happening."

"Many say that your policy toward China has helped to bring this situation about, that your diplomatic recognition of Taiwan-" Ryan cut him off angrily.

"Bob, I will not have any of that! The Republic of China's government is a freely elected one. America supports democratic governments. Why? Because we stand for freedom and self-determination. Neither I nor America had anything to do with the cold-blooded murders we saw on TV, the death of the Papal Nuncio, Cardinal DiMilo, and the killing of the Chinese minister Yu Fa An. We had nothing to do with that. The revulsion of the entire civilized world came about because of the PRC's actions. Even then, China could have straightened it out by investigating and punishing the killers, but they chose not to, and the world reacted-to what they did all by themselves."

"But what is this all about? Why are they ma.s.sing troops on the Russian border?"

"It appears that they want what the Russians have, the new oil and gold discoveries. Just as Iraq once invaded Kuwait. It was for oil, for money, really. It was an armed robbery, just like a street thug does, mugging an old lady for her Social Security check, but somehow, for some reason, we sanctify it when it happens at the nation-state level. Well, no more, Bob. The world will no longer tolerate such things. And America will not stand by and watch this happen to our ally. Cicero once said that Rome grew great not through conquest, but rather through defending her allies. A nation acquires respect from acting for things, not against things. You measure people not by what they are against, but by what they are for. America stands for democracy, for the self-determination of people. We stand for freedom. We stand for justice. We've told the People's Republic of China that if they launch a war of aggression, then America will stand with Russia and against the aggressor. We believe in a peaceful world order in which nations compete on the economic battlefield, not with tanks and guns. There's been enough killing. It's time for that to stop, and America will be there to make it stop."

"The world's policeman?" Holtzman asked. Immediately, the President shook his head.

"Not that, but we will defend our allies, and the Russian Federation is an ally. We stood with the Russian people to stop Hitler. We stand with them again," Ryan said.

"And again we send our young people off to war?"

"There need be no war, Bob. There is no war today. Neither America nor Russia will start one. That question is in the hands of others. It isn't hard, it isn't demanding, for a nation-state to stand its military down. It's a rare professional soldier who relishes conflict. Certainly no one who's seen a battlefield will voluntarily rush to see another. But I'll tell you this: If the PRC launches a war of aggression, and if because of them American lives are placed at risk, then those who make the decision to set loose those dogs are putting their own lives at risk."

"The Ryan Doctrine?" Holtzman asked.

"Call it anything you want. If it's acceptable to kill some infantry private for doing what his government tells him, then it's also acceptable to kill the people who tell the government what to do, the ones who send that poor, dumb private out in harm's way."

Oh, s.h.i.t, Arnie van Damm thought, hovering in the doorway of the Oval Office. Jack, did you have to say that?

"Thank you for your time, Mr. President," Holtzman said. "When will you address the nation?"

"Tomorrow. G.o.d willing, it'll be to say that the PRC has backed off. I'll be calling Premier Xu soon to make a personal appeal to him."

"Good luck."

We are ready," Marshal Luo told the others. "The operation commences early tomorrow morning."

"What have the Americans done?"

"They've sent some aircraft forward, but aircraft do not concern me," the Defense Minister replied. "They can sting, as a mosquito does, but they cannot do real harm to a man. We will make twenty kilometers the first day, and then fifty per day thereafter-maybe more, depending on how the Russians fight. The Russian Air Force is not even a paper tiger. We can destroy it, or at least push it back out of our way. The Russians are starting to move mechanized troops east on their railroad, but we will pound on their marshaling facility at Chita with our air a.s.sets. We can dam them up and stop them to protect our left flank until we move troops in to wall that off completely."

"You are confident, Marshal?" Zhang asked-rhetorically, of course.

"We'll have their new gold mine in eight days, and then it's ten more to the oil," the marshal predicted, as though describing how long it would take to build a house.

"Then you are ready?"

"Fully," Luo insisted.

"Expect a call from President Ryan later today," Foreign Minister Shen warned the premier.

"What will he say?" Xu asked.