No one asked what was happening, though some had their suspicions about what was going to be loaded on their space vehicles.
Safronov was just as he said, an efficient and pragmatic man. He allowed the staff at the processing facility to go free because he did not need them any longer, and he needed his troops guarding the staff at processing to move to the launch silos to protect them from Spetsnaz. And he also knew this show of goodwill would make it more likely the launch control personnel would follow orders.
When he did not need the controllers any longer, however, he would have no incentive to let them live. He would kill them all as part of his statement to the infidels in Moscow.
The ESOC in Darmstadt reported the attack to its counterparts in Moscow, among others, and Moscow notified the Kremlin. After an hour of discussions over the phone, a direct link with the Kremlin was established. Safronov found himself standing in launch control with a headset on, conversing with Vladimir Gamov, the director of the Russian Federal Space Agency, who was at the Kremlin in a hastily organized crisis center. The two men had known each other for as long as Safronov could remember.
“What is going on over there, Georgi Mikhailovich?”
Safronov answered, “You can begin by calling me Magomed Dagestani.” Mohammed the Dagestani.
In the background on the other end of the line Safronov heard someone mumble “Sukin si.” Son of a bitch. This made him smile. Right now it would be sinking into everyone in the Kremlin that three Dnepr rockets were under control of North Caucasus separatists.
“Why, Georgi?”
“Are you too stupid to see? To understand?”
“Help me understand.”
“Because I am not Russian. I am a Dagestani.”
“That is not true! I have known your father since we were at Saint Petersburg. Since you were a child!”
“But you met my father after I was adopted from Dagestani parents. Muslims! My life has been a lie. And it is a lie that I will rectify now!”
There was a long pause. Men mumbled in the background. The director went in a different direction with the conversation. “We understand you have seventy hostages.”
“That is not correct. I have released eleven men already, and I will release another fifteen as soon as they return from the silos, which should be within a half-hour at most.”
“At the silos? What are you doing to the rockets?”
“I am threatening to launch them against Russian targets.”
“They are space vehicles. How will you—”
“Before they were space vehicles they were R-36s. Intercontinental ballistic missiles. I have returned them to their former glory.”
“The R-36 carried nuclear weapons. Not satellites, Safronov.”
Georgi paused for a long moment. “That is correct. I should have been more accurate in my words. I have returned two of these specimens to their former glory. The third rocket does not have a warhead, but it is a powerful kinetic missile nonetheless.”
“What are you saying?”
“I am saying I have two twenty-kiloton nuclear bombs, loaded into the Space Head Modules of two of the three Dnepr-1 delivery vehicles in my possession. The missiles are in their launch silos, and I am in launch control. The weapons, I call them weapons because they are no longer mere rockets, are targeting population centers of Russia.”
“These nuclear weapons you speak of …”
“Yes. They are the missing bombs from Pakistan. My mujahideen fighters and I took them.”
“Our understanding from the Pakistanis is that the weapons cannot detonate in their current state. You are bluffing. If you even have the bombs, you cannot use them.”
Safronov had expected this. The Russians were so dismissive of his people, after all. He would have been stunned if it were any different.
“In five minutes I will send an e-mail to you directly, and the subdirectors of your agency, that is to say, men more intelligent than you. In the file you will see the decoding sequence we used to render the bombs viable warheads. Share it with your nuclear experts. They will attest to its accuracy. In the file you will also see digital photographs of the altimeter fuses we stole from the Wah Cantonment armaments factory. Share them with your munitions experts. And in the file you will also see several possible trajectory plots for the Dnepr rockets, in case you do not believe I can return the payloads to earth wherever I want. Show that to your rocket engineers. They will spend the rest of the day with their calculators, but they will see.”
Safronov did not know if the Russians believed him. He expected more questioning, but instead, the director of the Russian Federal Space Agency just said, “Your demands?”
“I want proof that the hero of the Dagestani revolution, Israpil Nabiyev, is alive. You give me this, and I release several more hostages. When you release Commander Nabiyev, and he is delivered here, I will release everyone else here except for a skeleton crew of technicians. When you remove all Russian forces from the Caucasus, I will take one of the nuclear-tipped Dneprs offline. And when myself, Commander Nabiyev, and my men have safely left the area, I will relinquish control of the other weapon. This situation that you find yourself in can be behind you in a matter of a few short days.”
“I will need to discuss this with—”
“You may discuss this with whoever you want. But remember this. I have sixteen foreign prisoners here. Six are from the United States, five are from Great Britain, and five are from Japan. I will begin executing the prisoners unless I speak with Nabiyev by nine o’clock tomorrow morning. And I will release the missiles unless Russia has quit the Caucasus in seventy-two hours. Dobry den.” Good afternoon.
72
In the beautiful library of Paul Laska’s Newport, Rhode Island, home, the aged billionaire cradled the handset of his telephone at his desk, and he listened to the low ticking of the Bristol mahogany grandfather clock in the hallway.
Time ticking away.
It had been five days since Fabrice Bertrand-Morel had reported that Clark had found Kovalenko and learned of Laska’s involvement in the dossier passed to the Kealty administration. In those five days Bertrand-Morel had called every twelve hours with the same story. The grizzled spy has not talked about his contacts, has not revealed whom he told or what he told them. Each time Laska added more questions for the French to ask the man, more things that, if only revealed, could create some sort of leverage for Laska in case the news of his conspiring with the Russians made it into the wrong hands.
It was no longer about defending the Emir, and no longer about destroying Jack Ryan, though Paul hoped for that even now. No, at this point the Czech immigrant was concerned for his own survival. Things had not gone according to plan, the FBI had fucked up the arrest of Clark, and FBM had fucked up the capture of Clark since he had already learned about Laska and passed that info on.
And now, Paul Laska decided, it was time to end this game. He lifted the phone from the receiver and dialed a number written on the blotter in front of him. He’d had the number since the beginning and he had doubted he would ever need to use it, but now it was unavoidable.
Four rings, and then a mobile phone in London was answered.
“Yes?”
“Good evening, Valentin. This is Paul.”
“Hello, Paul. My sources tell me there is a problem.”
“Your sources include your father, I assume.”
“Yes.”
“Then yes, there is a problem. Your father spoke to Clark.”
“Clark should not have made it to Moscow. Your mistake, not mine.”
“Fair, Valentin. I’ll accept that. But let’s deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.”
There was a long pause. “Why did you call?”
“We have Clark, we are holding him in Moscow, trying to find out just what our exposure is on this.”
“That sounds prudent.”
“Yes, well, the men working for us are not interr
ogators. They have fists, yes, but I am thinking you would have some expertise that would be very helpful.”
“You think I torture people?”
“I don’t know if you do or not, though I can imagine it is in your DNA. Many people talked after a few hours in a basement with your father.”
“I am sorry, Paul, but my organization needs to limit its exposure in this enterprise. Your side has lost. The developing situation in Kazakhstan is occupying the concerns of everyone in my nation right now. The excitement about bringing down Jack Ryan has passed.”
Laska fumed. “You cannot just walk away from this, Valentin. The operation is not complete.”
“It is for us, Paul.”
“Don’t be a fool. You are in as deep as I am. Clark gave your name to his contact.”
“My name is, unfortunately, a matter of record in the CIA. He can say what he wants.”
Now Laska could hide his fury no longer. “Perhaps, but if I make one telephone call to The Guardian, you will be the most recognizable Russian agent in Britain.”
“You are threatening to out me as SVR?”
Laska did not hesitate. “You as SVR, and your father as KGB. I’m sure there are still some angry people in the satellites that would love to know who was responsible for the death of their loved ones.”
“You are playing a dangerous game, Mr. Laska. I am willing to forget about this conversation. But do not test me. My resources are—”
“Nothing like my resources! I want you to take custody of Clark, then I want you to find out who he is working for, what his present connection to Ryan is, and then you make him disappear so he cannot speak about what he has learned in the past month.”
“Or what?”
“Or I make phone calls in the United States and in Europe, revealing what you’ve been up to.”
“That is a poor bluff. You can’t reveal your involvement. You have broken laws in your country. I have broken no laws in mine.”
“In the past forty years, I’ve broken laws that you cannot imagine, my young friend. And yet I continue. I will survive this. You will not.”
Kovalenko did not reply.
Laska said, “Make him talk. Cut off all the loose ends. Clean this up and we can all move on.”
Kovalenko started to say something, to grudgingly agree to look into the matter personally, but to make clear that he would not commit to any particular measure.
But Laska hung up the phone. The old man knew Valentin Kovalenko would follow orders.
Georgi knew from the very beginning that the FSB’s Alpha Group would attempt to retake control of the facility. His fertile mind could have guessed as much even if he had not witnessed a mock FSB raid to retake the Soyuz facility from a terrorist organization, just three years prior.
He had no reason to be involved in the Soyuz operation, but he had been in Baikonur at the time on other business, and he was invited by facility officials to witness the exercise. He’d watched it all with incredulous fascination: the helicopters and the overland movement of the camo-clad forces, the concussion grenades and the rappelling from the roof of the building.
He’d talked to some Soyuz engineers after the drill and had learned more about the Russian contingency plan in the unlikely event terrorists ever took control of the complex.
Safronov knew there was also a chance Moscow would simply decide to fight fire with fire, and nuke the entire Cosmodrome in order to save Moscow. Fortunately for his plan, the Dnepr launch site at Baikonur was the original launch site of the R-36, and was therefore built to withstand a nuclear attack. Sites 104, 103, and 109 contained hardened silos from which the missiles launched, and the launch control facility was built with thick reinforced concrete walls and blast-proof steel doors.
At six p.m. on the first day, eight hours after the facility was overtaken by Dagestani terrorists, a pair of Russian FSB Alpha Group Mi-17 helicopters landed on the far side of the Proton rocket facilities, twenty-five kilometers from the Dnepr LCC. Twenty-four operators, three teams of eight, climbed out, each man laden with sixty pounds of gear and covered in white winter camouflage.
Within minutes they were heading east.
Shortly after eight o’clock in the evening, an Antonov An-124 transport aircraft landed at Yubileinaya Airfield northwest of the Baikonur Dnepr facility. The An-124 was the largest cargo aircraft on earth, and the Russian military needed every inch of the cabin space and cargo hold for the ninety-six Spetsnaz assault troops and all their gear, including four assault vehicles.
Four more Mi-17 helicopters arrived an hour later along with a refueling aircraft.
The twenty-four men in the white camo had been traversing the Baikonur steppes throughout the evening, first in heavy four-wheelers handed over by the Kazakhs, but as they got closer they left the vehicles behind and marched through the snow-covered grassland in the dark.
By two a.m. they were in position, waiting for a go code from their leadership.
Safronov had spent a busy afternoon giving orders to his gunmen, as well as the launch control engineers. After loading the nuclear devices into the Space Head Modules, he’d released the rest of the processing team. This decision, and his decision to have the foreign hostages brought to the LCC, allowed him to consolidate his men.
He had four Jamaat Shariat men at the crossroads bunker, four at silo 109, ten each at silos 103 and 104, and fifteen at the LCC. He ordered his men to sleep in shifts, but he knew even those men sleeping would do so with one eye open.
He expected the attack to come in the middle of the night but did not know if it would be this evening orˀ the next. He knew that, before the attack itself, he would be contacted by the Russians in order to occupy his attention at that critical moment.
So when he was awoken by a ring and a flashing light on the comms control board to which his headset was attached, his heart began to pound. Sitting on the floor against the wall with his AK in his lap, he leapt to his feet.
Before he answered the call he reached for his radio. He broadcast to all of his Dagestani brethren, “They are coming! Be ready!” and then he screamed at all the prisoners in the launch control room, most of whom were sleeping on the floor. “Everyone to your positions! I want 109 ready to launch in five minutes or I start shooting! Onboard telemetry up! Separation systems armed! LV pyro armed!”
“Yes, sir!” replied several of the launch control directors as they executed the commands, their hands trembling.
Bleary-eyed men in rumpled clothing scrambled to their seats as Dagestani gunmen waved rifles at them.
While this was going on, Georgi Safronov grabbed his headset and placed it to his ear. In a sleepy voice that he found hard to fake with the adrenaline in his bloodstream he said, “Yes? What is it?”
The twenty-four men who had spent the last eight hours humping overland hit the LCC on three sides, corresponding to the main entrance, the rear entrance, and an equipment loading bay.
Each entryway was protected by three Dagestani rebels, and they had warning from their leader that the attack was coming. The men at the front entrance started firing into the night as soon as the call came, a mistake that benefited them greatly, as it gave the Alpha Group men, still just at the far edge of the snow-covered parking lot, the false impression that they had been spotted. All eight men took cover behind cars and fired back at the open doorway, effectively pinning down both forces.
The rear door was breached by the second Russian team, they tossed flash-bangs through the doorway before entering, but they found themselves facing a long narrow corridor of reinforced concrete walls. At the far end of the corridor three terrorists, men wholly unaffected by the blasts, fired AKs at the men in the white camo. Even though much of the automatic fire came from Jamaat Shariat men simply reaching around a blind corner with their guns and holding the triggers down, the wayward bullets banged off the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling. The ricochets pulverized the attacking force.
Two men wen
t down within seconds, two more fell when they tried to pull their mates out of the hall. The four remaining Alpha Group men pulled back, outside the building, and began hurling hand grenades up the hall.
By then, however, the three terrorists had pulled back through an inner iron door, where they waited safely while the grenades exploded.
This entrance had turned into a stalemate for both parties, much like the front door.
The Alpha men at the loading dock had better luck. They managed to take out all three of the Dagestanis with the loss of only one of their own. They pushed into the downstairs lobby, but there they triggered a booby-trapped door. The projectile from an RPG had been rigged into an improvised exploding device, another lesson from the Haqqani network, and the ensuing devastation killed three Russians and injured three more.
One of the Mi-17 helos from Yubileinaya Airfield arrived over the roof ofˀ the LCC, and men fast-roped to the concrete. Then they headed for the door in a tight stack. This door had been rigged to blow as well, but the Russians anticipated this, and stood clear of the doorway after the breach.
But while the IED did not kill the men on the roof, it slowed them down, and gave the men on the first and second floors time to respond to the sound of a helicopter above.
The stairwell to the roof exit became a third stalemate area at the LCC. Four Jamaat Shariat men had good cover on the second-floor landing behind an iron doorway and a blast-proof wall, and the eight Alpha Group men had the high ground above. Grenades bounced down the stairs only to explode harmlessly on the landing, and AK rounds sliced the air through the stairwell only to miss their targets tucked around the sides of the doorframe.
Within a minute of the start of the assault, Russian helos attacked the three launch silos. Sites 103 and 104 each had ten defenders, and they were well spread out and under good hardened cover. Site 109 had only four men guarding it, and it was also the first to be reached by the helos. The Mi-17 fired 12.7-millimeter machine guns, raking the site, but the fire was ineffective because the gunner did not have the thermal optics that would have allowed him to easily pick out his targets at the frozen location.