World War III

Gorny gave Rudenski a look of astonishment. “He assumes? Assumes! He organizes a secret brigade, trains them for a special mission at a Siberian outpost, then airlifts them across a forbidden zone and drops them into the United States and he assumes!” Gorny turned and slapped his hand on his desk.

“Does anyone understand what this idiot has done!” He stood in front of Suloff. “Do you, Major?”

Suloff remained silent.

The chairman walked around the desk and stood behind his chair. “For the first time since I was elected to this position, I am avoiding calls from the president of the United States. I have an ambassador in Washington half-crazy with confusion — frightened into a simpering mass of incoherent denials. He thinks he’s been set up by me… deliberately kept out of this so he would appear to be telling the truth.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time, comrade Chairman,” Suloff said softly.

“You are not only impertinent, Major, you are also suicidal!” Gorny roared. “You won’t live to see the war you are trying to push me into! Do you understand?”

The major allowed a tiny smile.

“Get out!” Gorny shouted. He turned to the security officers. “Take this lunatic away!”

When they were gone, he looked at Rudenski. “He is insane, Aleksey. Do you realize that? Does he actually believe his antiparty adventurism has any place—”

“I don’t think comrade Suloff is insane,” Rudenski said. He rose from his seat and paused a moment before the window. “The major is one of the most dedicated patriots I have in the KGB. He—”

“He’s invaded the United States of America!” the chairman shot back bitterly. “I don’t know what he thinks he’s plotting, General, but he will pay for it with his life!”

Rudenski shook his head. “Comrade Chairman, it is no counterrevolutionary plot, no nonsensical Trotskyite brigandage.” He turned to face Gorny. “We are totally Marxist.”

“We…?” The chairman’s eyes opened wide. “My God! You’re behind this!”

“The time has come to face reality, comrade Chairman.”

“You are insane!”

“Pragmatic,” Rudenski said. “I prefer that. A lesser observation would be incorrect and”—he raised an eyebrow—”unwise, if I may say so, comrade Chairman.”

“You threaten me?”

“I have a wide base of support, comrade.”

“You have no support in the Central Committee.”

“Comrade Chairman, you have less.” He moved to Gorny’s desk and stared across it at the party chairman. “The present actions or inactions of the Politburo are a national disaster. We feel our initiatives”—he indicated the map with a nod—”could revive the party.”

“You speak of the party in the same breath as…”

“Look to the streets, comrade. It all started sixty-six years ago in the streets. Have you forgotten? It started in the streets with starving people clawing at walls with bleeding nails.”

“I will not collaborate with insanity.”

“And we will not collaborate with exhaustion and hunger. We’ll not sit on lofty terraces drinking vodka and watching our country whimper itself back to the obscenity of starvation.” Rudenski moved to the map. “In any event, comrade Chairman, President McKenna will hold you personally responsible for this. You might as well study our plan. You may find that it appeals to you. You may even claim it as your own. Even that would be in order, comrade.”

Gorny gave him a sneering look. “Not possibly.”

“Anything in this day and time is possible, comrade. Anything.” He started for the door. “I will have the details of our plan delivered to you within the hour.” At the door he turned back. His face was menacing in the subdued light. “They will not go to war over this, comrade Chairman. The Americans will make a great deal of noise, they will puff themselves up in righteous indignation, they will accuse us of many terrible things, but in the end they will not be stupid. Their generals will not act hastily because they realize that our generals are not insane. There will be no war. I assure you.” Then he left.

Gorny sat at his desk. He stared at the framed photograph of his son for several moments, then withdrew the telegram he’d received from McKenna from a drawer. “Assure him,” he said softly.

PART TWO

PHILIP SMITH RANGE DAWN

There had been a heavy layer of snow in the night. The bivouac area was littered with mounds of it where the men had struck their two-man tents, and piles of snow had collected over the shelters while they slept. Platoon leaders hurried about, giving instructions, forming up the column for the day’s march. The wind was not so strong, Vorashin noticed as he strode toward Major Devenko, but it was still snowing. The major was sitting against the tracks on the lee side of the communications vehicle, eating tuna from a tin. He smiled as he saw his commander approach.

“Sergei, it is time to move. Have you posted the relief point?”