Red Hammer 1994

In retrospect, that wonderful period in American history had been an aberration. It started with the brilliant Desert Storm victory romp through Kuwait and Iraq. The Soviet Union had been relegated to a bit player, a helpless onlooker, struggling to stay in one piece. The United States had emerged as the undisputed master of the universe. After years of procrastination, the START I treaty was successfully negotiated and later amended by START II for even deeper reductions. The treaties promised massive cuts in the superpower nuclear arsenals, the first ever. Conventional forces were dissolving on both sides of the quickly forgotten Iron Curtain. Fledgling democratically elected governments in Eastern Europe struggled for life, but the atmosphere was electric. Anything seemed possible. Even the bankrupt and beaten Soviets—now Russians—appeared on the tortuous road to real economic reform and the beginnings of some sort of democracy. The once frightening prospect for a major East/West confrontation was proscribed from acceptable Washington cocktail party chitchat, and the threat of a nuclear showdown ranked up there with the probability of a comet striking the earth. Even the antinuclear movement gave up the ghost, convinced that mankind was on the golden road to reason and universal nuclear disarmament. The Cold War was clearly over; the ranting of a few surviving anticommunist curmudgeons in the Capitol was no matter. Their days were numbered.

Then the clumsy Soviet coup attempt by Stalinist dreamers momentarily turned the world on its head. At first it seemed as if the clock had been instantly rolled back ten years. Faceless Soviet hard-liners made ridiculous pronouncements that presaged an instant return to the Cold War. Battered Marxist/Leninist holdout regimes around the world cheered, but just as quickly the hapless conspirators were behind bars. The party was disgraced, and the military ran for cover, wearing their apparent indifference to the plotters as a sign of fidelity. The abortive coup unleashed decades of pent-up resentment and hatred, accelerating the Soviet state dismemberment to breakneck speed.

The triumphant reformers turned to dismantling the Kremlin-centered power structure overnight. The stated goal was a loose confederation of sovereign states with all the trappings, but the result was a ridiculous hodgepodge of squabbling ethic groups that could never get their collective act together. The experiment was doomed from the start, despite the forced shows of mutual support by all the key players and bold pronouncements giving birth to the new Commonwealth.

Over time, the miraculous transformation had collapsed, despite the heroic efforts of the popularly elected Russian president. The sick, socialist economy, originally in a tailspin, crashed and burned and never recovered. That’s when Nikolai Laptev came on the scene. The disgraced reformers had been discredited by empty shelves and a bone-weary population that craved stability at any price. With Laptev, they got it.

Like following a bad script, the State Department launched repeated fresh diplomatic initiatives to calm the turbulent seas. The military fell back on the tried and true—aggressively pushing exotic weapons systems and exploiting the United States’ technological edge to the hilt. In reality, no one had the foggiest notion how to approach this mysterious, ultranationalist beast led by Nikolai Laptev.

Laptev rode a wave of recrimination, hate, and nationalist fervor. His Liberal Democratic Party controlled the State Duma, and Laptev controlled the coveted presidency, much to the horror of the West. At first, they had tried to ignore the man, as they had when he blustered and raved as leader of the opposition in the Duma, passing off his more egregious and outrageous ranting as political food for local consumption. But eventually the clearer heads realized they would have to deal with the man. Doing so had proven nearly impossible. The vitriolic native of Saint Petersburg held sway over a disillusioned and desperate Russian people. The irony was not lost on Thomas—a democratically elected neo-fascist armed with thousands of nuclear weapons. Time would tell what Nikolai Laptev had in mind. Until then, the West, led by the United States, stumbled, loath to fully engage the despicable Russian president, but terrified of the alternative. The constant, gut-wrenching tension didn’t make for sound foreign policy.

Thomas rubbed the back of his neck. He thought again of Project Shooting Star. When it came to operational security, he was a born cynic. He’d seen more than one plan screwed up by overconfidence and both hardware and lives lost. Not to mention careers. Lingering doubts played on Thomas’s mind. He prayed they had played this one right.

CHAPTER 5