Red Storm Rising

"Not at all, Dionna. In fact, more than anything they seemed concerned for our safety. In addition to the militia captain, we have a squad of Red Army infantrymen with us now, and their officer was very careful to say that he was here to protect us, not to threaten us. We were not allowed to approach the site of the incident, and of course we were not allowed to leave the area-but we wouldn't have, anyway. The tape was just returned to us a few minutes ago, and we were informed that we'd be allowed to make this live broadcast." The camera shifted to the building. "As you can see, there are roughly five hundred fire, police, and military personnel still here, sorting through the wreckage and looking for additional bodies, and just to our right is a Soviet TV news crew, doing the same thing we are." Toland examined the television picture closely. The one body he could see looked awfully small. He wrote it off to distance and perspective.

"Dionna, what we seem to have here is the first major terrorist incident in the history of the Soviet Union-"

"Since the bastards set themselves up," Toland snorted.

"We know for certain-at least we've been told-that a bomb was detonated in the Council of Ministers building. They're certain it was a bomb, not some kind of accident. And we know for sure that three, possibly more people were killed, and perhaps as many as forty or fifty wounded.

"Now the really interesting thing about this is that the Politburo had been scheduled to hold a meeting here at about that time."

"Holy shit!" Toland set the aerosol can on the night table, one hand still covered in shaving cream.

"Can you tell us if any of them were among the dead or wounded?" Dionna asked at once.

"No, Dionna. You see, we're more than a quarter of a mile away, and the senior Kremlin officials arrive by car-when they do, that is, they come in from the other side of the fortress, through another gate. So, we never even knew that they were here, but the militia captain with our team did, and he kind of blurted it out. His exact words were, 'My God, the Politburo's in there!"'

"Rich, can you tell us what the reaction in Moscow has been like?"

"It's still pretty hard for us to gauge, Dionna, since we've been right here covering the story as it unfolds. The Kremlin Guards' reaction is just what you might imagine-just like American Secret Service people would react, I supposed mixture of horror and rage, but I want to make it clear that that rage is not being directed against anyone, certainly not against Americans. I told the militia officer who's been with us that I was in the U.S. Capitol building when the Weathermen's bomb was set off, back in 1970, and he replied rather disgustedly that Communism was indeed catching up with capitalism, that the Soviet Union was growing a bumper crop of hooligans. It's a measure of how seriously they're taking this that a Soviet police officer would comment so openly on a subject that they're not all that willing to discuss normally. So, if I had to pick one word to describe the reaction here, that word would be 'shock.'

"So, to summarize what we know to this point, there has been a bombing incident within the Kremlin walls, possibly an attempt to eliminate the Soviet Politburo, though I must emphasize we are not certain of that. We have had it confirmed by police at the scene that at least three people are dead, with forty or so other wounded, those wounded being evacuated to nearby hospitals. We will be reporting throughout the day as more information becomes available. This is Rich Suddler, CNN, coming to you live from the Kremlin." The scene shifted back to the anchor desk.

"And there you have it, another exclusive report from Cable Network News." Dionna the anchorperson smiled, and the screen faded again, this time to a commercial for Lite Beer from Miller. Marty stood up and put on a robe.

"I'll get the coffee going."

"Holy shit," Toland said again. He took longer than usual to shave, nicking himself twice as he kept looking in the mirror at his own eyes rather than his jawline. He dressed quickly, then looked in on his sleeping children. He decided against waking them.