Power Play

Prologue

The Republic of Karelia runs from St. Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland all the way north to the Arctic Circle. Half of it is pure forest, the other half mostly water, including 60,000 lakes, two of which, Ladoga and Onega, are the largest in Europe.

Many of its residents are the descendants of prisoners sent by Stalin in the early 1930s to dig the Belomorsk Canal, the inland water route linking Russian rivers and lakes to the White Sea, on the rare occasions when they are not frozen solid.

Petrozavodsk is the capital of Karelia. It stands in the west of the region. And, like so much of this frigid republic, it has a grim history, having been used for centuries by both czars and Bolsheviks as a place of exile, imprisonment, and torture for political troublemakers, a bastion for Stalin's gulag system of brutal banishment.

In the freezing month of February 2018, Petrozavodsk, ice bound on the shores of the frozen Lososinka River, harbored yet another "troublemaker" – not yet captured, not even identified, but a man whose intentions were in direct opposition to those of the quasi-corrupt and ruthless rulers of Russia.

His name was Nikolai Chirkov. He was a thirty-five-year-old kapitan lieutenant in the navy of the Russian Federation, identified by the two-and-a-half gold-braid stripes and gold star on the black cloth cuffs of his uniform. In a Western navy, he'd have been a lieutenant commander.

He was a tall, blond, athletic-looking officer, assigned to the Northern Fleet, and serving in the 9,000-ton Udalov II Class guided-missile destroyer Admiral Chabanenko, currently undergoing minor engineering work in the shipyards of Severodvinsk, nearly 400 miles northeast on the shores of the White Sea. Icebound like almost everywhere else.

Nikolai s present location was in the downstairs bar of the Hotel Severnaya on Lenin Square. Tonight he was in civilian clothes. Despite the relative warmth of the room, he wore his naval greatcoat, collar upturned as he sipped his fruit-flavored vodka. His back was to the long bar and the barmen. His thick fur hat rested on the table beside the armchair. Outside it was snowing like hell.

Six tables away sat a swarthy, thickset English businessman, John Carter, whose six-month mission was to come to this chilly Russian outpost as the representative of an enormous Birmingham paint manufacturer. Petrozavodsk, with its endless, windswept waterfront, more than a thousand islands, and seagoing populace, annually uses more gallons of paint than vodka.

Like Nikolai, Carter still wore his heavy, fur-lined overcoat. Like Nikolai, he was not what he seemed. Despite immaculate travel documents and visa, the "Englishman" was an Israeli, real name Rani Ben Adan, a member of the family of the great Israeli general Bren Adan. An ex-IDF Special Forces officer, Rani was a Mossad field agent and one of the most dangerous combat practitioners in the world, armed or unarmed.

If the Russian authorities had known his true identity, they'd have shot Rani Ben Adan right there in the hotel, no questions asked. Which was why he always sat with his back to the wall, dark glasses shielding deep brown eyes with pure laser vision. Tucked into his leather belt, in the small of his back, was the standard Israeli Special Forces combat knife.

At 6:30 pm Lieutenant Commander Chirkov rose from his chair and headed for the exit. He crossed the hotel foyer and pushed his way through the revolving door. The snow was still falling, but the wind had dropped, and he walked almost silently in his heavy sea boots, heading toward Lake Onega along Marksa Street.

Almost a hundred yards behind him, virtually out of sight, Rani Ben Adan followed. He followed for a distance of five hundred yards before the Russian turned left and used a key to enter a low apartment block. He waited for Rani, and both men joined a young Russian couple in the elevator, before disembarking on the fifth floor.

They did not speak until they were safely inside apartment number 506, a two-bedroom inexpensive residence owned by the Mossad, under the cover of a Russian drama coach at the nearby National Theatre. The coach lived somewhere else when Rani was in town.

This policy of complete separateness was familiar to both men. No one had ever seen them together. They sat far apart at the Severnaya bar, walked alone, and never spoke until they entered number 506.

"Welcome, Mr. Carter," said Nikolai Chirkov.

"Lieutenant Commander," replied Rani, bowing his head and shaking the snow off his fur hat. "It's been too long."

The apartment was warm and comfortably furnished, several cuts above the average Russian city residence. Both men stayed here in complete anonymity whenever they met, but never for more than thirty-six hours. Rani had arrived in the city after eighteen hours on the train from Moscow. It had been a long and tiresome journey, but these are the hazards of the trade endemic to a Mossad spymaster operating in the Russian Republic.

He had recruited Nikolai Chirkov three years earlier, but took no credit for it. The young Russian Naval officer had presented himself personally at the Israeli Embassy on Bolshaya Ordynka Street, south of the Moscow River. There, after a three-day debriefing, he had declared to two Israeli "defense" attachés an undying allegiance to the US government.

Riven as these matters were apt to be by almost atomic suspicion and lack of trust, the men from the Mossad decided to give the Russian a few months trial as an informant before sharing their prize with the Americans. Even though Mossad and CIA field agents frequently work so closely together, it's not always easy to tell the difference.

Which was precisely where Rani Ben Adan came in. Nikolai Chirkov was placed in his care and would henceforth be "run" by the Moscow-based ex-Israeli Special Forces commando. In the ensuing months, the two men became so close there never seemed a reason to have him reassigned to a US agent where there would be, in any event, a heightened chance of discovery.

This utterly unlikely alliance between Tel Aviv and the Russian Naval officer suited all parties. The Mossad shared with Washington every worthwhile detail of Nikolai's information, but decided against revealing their source, particularly since Nikolai Chirkov was a deeply complicated man, part political thinker, part devoted military commander, Russian to his bootstraps, and absolute traitor to his homeland and its government.

Rani believed Nikolai was a tortured soul. Tutored from an early age by his father, Grigory Ivanov Chirkov, a high-ranking minister in the Department of Foreign Affairs, Nikolai understood more about world trade than most members of the Politburo. He understood with crystalline clarity that Russia was an approximate disaster area without its oil and gas reserves.

He understood too that the oil had to be placed on the world market, especially in America. His father believed the new deepwater tanker base near Murmansk was critical to the nation's survival as an exporting nation. And he could not understand the almost messianic fervor with which the Kremlin sought to antagonize the West, or the childlike way they bridled at everything American. Privately, he thought the Russian administration was probably collectively insane.

Their philosophies, their political compulsions, their disregard for the serious business of making money for the nation, and above all their senseless saber rattling toward their potentially biggest customers struck him as the actions of a confederation of nutcases.

He wanted everything good for his nation. He wanted peace and prosperity. He was devoted to Mother Russia but detested the ignorance of the men who ran the place. He could not understand their support for the plainly unstable Islamic Republic of Iran, with its reckless determination to manufacture nuclear weapons. Of course, the Americans would begin strategic moves to relocate their antiballistic missile system just in case they had to crush a threat from Tehran.

What else would anyone expect the world's most powerful nation to do? But Russia's reaction was always so stridently anti-American – threatening this, threatening that, announcing plans to deploy missiles to the West and South of the country, in readiness to take out the US systems – that it was, in the opinion of Nikolai Chirkov and his venerable father, the ranting of imbeciles.

Did anyone in the modern world really want the fanatical ayatollahs of Iran running around with atom bombs?

Lieutenant Commander Nikolai believed the death knell for modern Russia would be any kind of a military strike against the United States – a guided missile, a clandestine action against a US facility or embassy, an attack on a US warship or naval base, even deliberate cooperation with Iran in its pugnacious threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.

Like many a self-appointed political missionary, he felt he had a pivotal role to play in the devious twenty-first-century game of protecting the people from the ignorance of politicians. Hence the visit to the guarded building behind the high walls in Moscow's Bolshaya Ordynka Street three years ago.

And hence his presence here in this apartment, in snowy Petrozavodsk, meeting with the Mossad spymaster. Rani was, in Nikolai's view, the one man in all of the world who could hold Russia's rulers in check; he had the ear of the CIA in Washington. He could warn the United States and NATO of Russia's erratic intentions. And Rani Ben Adan, a Sabra of the blood, had nothing but respect for the knowledge of Nikolai Chirkov. In three years he'd never been wrong about one single Russian Naval operational plan or program. Both men were, one to the other, priceless.

In fairness, Nikolai's information had never been of a pressing nature. But it had been steady and reliable, especially in data about the construction of new and improved Russian warships and state-of-the-art sonar systems. This latest summons to the diabolically cold North, however, was edged with urgency: a coded text message, transmitted on a cell phone, which had been instantly hurled into the ship's garbage crusher on board the Admiral Chabanenko.

1800. FEBRUARY 18th

Hotel Bar, Czar Nicholas, Lenin Square

As mass confusion goes, that was more or less as bewildering as it gets. Czar Nicholas II had been dead these hundred years, and there's more Lenin Squares in Russia than snowballs in Siberia. Lieutenant Commander Nikolai laid a mean and mystical trail. Rani knew exactly where to go, what time to be there, and how to travel.

His own training was military to the most infinitesimal degree. Born in Tel Aviv, Rani was only three years old when his mother died during the opening days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Along with thousands of other young Israeli women, she had raced to the forbidding slopes of the Golan mountains to join the human chain passing shells and ordnance up to the tank commanders on the heights, as they fought to hurl back the marauding army of Syria.

It was stray mortar that did it, screaming onto the upper escarpment and blasting seventeen Israeli girl soldiers to death. Farther up, Rani's father, Moyshe, fought with the legendary Sayeret Golan Brigade, Israel's elite Special Force commandos.

They made the summit of Mount Hernon by midnight and, after a ferocious battle, raised the flag of Israel on the heights shortly after dawn. More than fifty of their number died up there, including their forward commander, Captain Vinnick, who was mortally wounded in the opening engagement but continued to direct his commandos until they carried his body down the mountain on a stretcher.

With the Syrians flung back, and Israeli tanks charging toward Damascus, they promoted the valorous Lieutenant Moyshe Adan in the field. It was two days more before he discovered his beloved wife, Rebecca, was no more. All this was mere folklore to the young Rani, as was the breathtaking raid on July 4, 1976, when his father's Sayeret landed and stormed Entebbe Airport in Uganda and rescued almost a hundred mostly Jewish hostages.

The operation commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathon Netanyahu, the bravest of the brave, last man out of the building, was the only Israeli to die, shot in the back, in the dark, by a Ugandan sniper on the roof. Jonny passed away in the C-130 Hercules on the way home, in the arms of a heartbroken Major Adan. This was folklore written in blood and glory. Rani Ben Adan, to no ones' surprise, joined his father's old Sayeret Golan Brigade as soon as he was big enough to lift a machine gun.

He was the youngest Israeli trooper ever to complete the make-or-break fifty-mile initiation march under full packs and rifles. They selected only twelve new Golan commandos from that initial intake of four hundred. When the Israeli Special Forces use the word "elite", they do not joke.

Rani rose to command rank very swiftly. By the age of twenty-one, he was in an Israeli commando battalion that fought with the Americans in Operation Desert Storm. In the second Gulf War, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Rani commanded one of the most secretive battalions ever formed – Israeli frogmen, fighting alongside the Americans, capturing one of Saddam Hussein's most prized possessions, the huge seventy-foot oil rig that towered above the waters of the Persian Gulf

This was probably Iraq's darkest night of the war. But the ten US and Israeli troops on top of the rig had to jump for their lives, right on time, to escape the forthcoming naval bombardment. It was a long way down, and two of them just froze. Rani seized a US combat officer and hurled him off the rig, holding his arm as they plummeted ever downward, crashing with shuddering force into the waves.

Rani was knocked senseless. And, in the end, they saved each other, the Israeli kept afloat by one of the finest underwater swimmers in the US Navy, before the young American Zodiac crewmen hauled them both to safety.

Like all military friendships forged on the anvil of imminent death, Rani and his American buddy stayed in touch through the years, joined forever by that unspoken bond of utter trust. You have to be a combat warrior to understand the aching, unforgettable grandeur of such camaraderie.

Rani Ben Adan, now in the frozen heart of the Russian Republic, knew why Lieutenant Commander Nikolai Chirkov wished to talk. If the matter had been non­urgent, or involved a wide-ranging international subject, they would have met in Moscow. Only when the matter involved the United States would they both travel to a secret destination to discuss their business. The Russian Secret Police, masters of the black arts, were twenty times more alert for practitioners of espionage if America was in any way involved.

Rani walked into the kitchen and fired up the kettle, reached for the jar of instant coffee, and took a brand-new carton of milk from the refrigerator. There were no servants, orderlies, batmen or butlers in this game. The watchword was a relentless FYEO (for your eyes only), and that included ears, brains, and, if necessary, hearts. He made the coffee very black and tipped a shot of vodka into both mugs, mostly because he suspected a few exposed nerves might need steadying after Nikolai had spoken.

When he returned to the living room, he finally shed his topcoat and sat down on the deep and luxurious sofa. "Okay, old comrade, lay it on me," he said in almost flawless Russian. "To what do I owe this long and arduous journey across the barren wastes of your homeland?"

Nikolai took a sip of his vodka/coffee. "Rani," he said, "you are going to be very cross with me. But not as cross as you would be if I had not contacted you. You see, I do not know what is going on. But I do know something very important is taking place right here in Karelia. And it involves action against the United States of America – in my view, very serious action. I stumbled upon it by mistake, and the security is beyond fireproof."

Rani stayed very cool. He crossed his legs, rebalancing his drink. "Aha," he said. "I know you would not be here if there was nothing."

"Indeed not," replied the Russian officer. "It's more trouble for me to get here from Severodvinsk than it is for you."

"But less dangerous," replied Rani.

"Perhaps so, but what I am about to reveal could get me shot."

"They'd shoot me for breathing if they knew who I was," said Rani. Both men smiled. And then Lieutenant Commander Chirkov stated, "Rani, I think the Russian government is planning a controlled strike against the USA. Not Armageddon, but a fast missile attack, small and aimed at some kind of critical building in the US defense system."

"You mean like the goddamned Pentagon…?"

"Hell, no. You couldn't fire an air rifle at that without being gunned down… I mean something far less significant. But extremely important."

"Okay, Nikolai lets go through our usual procedures. Walk me through the phases of your gathered intelligence – like always."

"No problem. And while I speak, remember these truths – the collapse of the old Soviet Union had nothing to do with Russian disarmament. That never happened. They still have thousands of land-based ICBMs, sea launched, air launched, and God knows what else, all armed and targeted at the USA – as if anyone's ever heard of anything that stupid…"

"Is security still bad?"

"Christ, yes. Hopeless. A determined terrorist could get hold of a nuclear missile from Russia in about ten minutes, if he had the cash. The Moscow politicians turn a blind eye to the most rampant proliferation of missile technology this world has ever seen. From any angle, Russia's ballistic arsenal is the single biggest strategic threat to the United States of America."

"Washington knows that."

"Well, why aren't they kicking up a fuss about the new Topol-M SS-27? There's almost fifty of them already onstream, and the sonofabitch has a 7,000-mile range with a reported 550-kilo ton-yield nuclear warhead. They've got the sea-based version nearly ready – it's supposed to be near impossible to detect, capable of evasive maneuvers at hypersonic speed, with carbon shielding to combat US space-based lasers.

"The whole idea is to penetrate the US missile defenses. And they probably could do it. At least that's what I hear. In the old days, any Russian missile could be crippled by a US nuclear warhead within seven miles of its trajectory. Not anymore. Not with this little bastard. Darn thing's electromagnetic fireproof."

"Okay, let's get right to the point. What are you telling me?"

"Rani, I intercepted an internet communication confirming the imminent arrival of two missile scientists from North Korea – specialists in medium-range rockets. Russia has given help in developing North Korea's newest missile, modeled on standard Russian SS-N-6 submarine-launched technology.

"I don't know when these characters are coming, or where they're going. But I do know the navy has requested assistance from the state rocket center. That's the V. P. Makeyev Design Bureau – they're the main manufacturers of both land-based and sub-launched ballistics…"

"Is that Viktor's crowd?"

"Absolutely. Viktor Petrovitch Makeyev, father of Russia's modern guided-missile industry. They named the fucking factory after him—"

"Yeah," interjected Rani. "Probably for inventing SCUD-B – the one Saddam slammed into Tel Aviv over and over in 1991, murdering my people… blasting women and children to hell… for no reason. One of my closest friends lost his mother and sister… Don't mention that bastard's name to me, unless you must."

"I must," replied Nikolai, "because that manufacturing plant is heavily involved in whatever's going on. They're located in the southern Urals, town called Miass, about six hundred miles east of Moscow. And everything fits – the postal code, 456300; the telephone dial code, +7-3513. For all I know, the Koreans are going straight to the factory. But I got something else – maybe in error. It sounded like they were all going to a monastery."

"A WHAT?"

"A monastery. The Russian word's monastyr. It could have been a misprint, I guess."

"You got a copy of the download?"

"Are you crazy? Someone traces that to my computer, I'm a dead man."

"I like you better alive, Nikki. No downloads."

"Anyway, then I intercept a new communiqué, usual way, through the ships link to the Russian Navy's most classified network. Its secure and mostly protected, but if someone gets in, they cannot trace. They can find out and change the codes, but they are not able to locate the hackers. Anyway, I'm cleared for access, because of my work in upgraded sonars."

"Okay. What did you find out?"

"I discovered the Iranians are right in the middle of the plot."

"Surprise, surprise. What happens now? We got the Muslim ayatollahs in the monastery with the Christians, right? All praying for the same atom bomb."

"You joke, Rani, but I'm telling you this is very serious. There are three Iranian scientists coming into Russia this week – the guys who built and refined those Shahab-3 and Shahab-4 medium-range ballistic missiles. They used a lot of Russian technology and systems. But they became experts in their own right."

"I remember, Nikki, the Shahab missile uproar, right after the second Gulf War. Didn't the United States sanction those guys – Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian companies – for exporting nuclear stuff to Iran?"

"Correct. The Russians also helped other rogue states, Iraq and Syria, with nuclear programs."

"Well, what's this new Russian-Korean-Iranian parlez all about?"

"I picked up a shred of conversation between the naval high command and the Kremlin. Took me hours to get in using a cell phone I had to destroy. But one phrase was clear in my mind: 'We'll show these Yankee bastards who's really in charge – kick their nuclear football right out of the stadium, huh?'"

"Pretty fucking droll, for a Russian," muttered Rani. "The Slavic literal mind gone into overdrive."

"I'm sure there's a lot more happening than I know so far. The strange thing is, I have a distinct suspicion that whatever's happening is centered up here in the North. My own ship, the Admiral Chabanenko, seems to be involved, moored there on the White Sea."

"I thought you said the action was in the Makeyev factory in the Urals."

"No monastery there, right?"

"I should forget that bit, Nikki. It's obviously a mistake. I just can't see a medium-range missile in the cloisters."

Lieutenant Commander Chirkov permitted himself a deep chuckle. Both men took a couple more swigs of the vodka/coffee.

"Do you have any semblance of a plan?" asked the man from the Mossad.

"Only that I think there is a lot going on, and I seem to have a way to tap into it. I'm returning to my ship tomorrow, and I suggest you stay right here. There's no point going back to Moscow when we may already be in a major Russian black-ops area."

"Okay. I'll park myself here till the end of the week. I have my laptop and two cell phones. Will I see you again this trip?"

"I aim to be back on Friday."

"We got anything to eat?"

"Yup. I bought a few cartons of Tex-Mex at the Sanches Saloon. I've had it before, tacos and stuff. Its good. We can zap it in the microwave. I've got a guy coming in tomorrow to clean up. So you'd better be gone by 09:00 and check into the Severnaya, soon as I've shipped out. You're fine there as long as you're not with me."

FOUR DAYS LATER

Severnaya Hotel Bar Petrozavodsk

Rani Ben Adan had been waiting for almost four hours since the appointed time of 16:00. It was now almost eight o'clock, and the bar was beginning to thin out as people headed to the dining room. The Mossad agent was worried. Nikolai had never been late. And when people fail to turn up in the espionage trade, it often means something very sinister, like exposure, capture or death – even all three.

Rani debated making a break for it, checking out of the hotel, and catching the midnight express back to Moscow. Every time someone entered the room, he half-expected FSB (old KGB) officers direct from the Lubyanka to come striding up to him and demand to see his passport and travel documents.

He did not look suspicious. Rani knew that. His dark complexion and trimmed black hair gave him the look of a Georgian or even someone from southern Ukraine. His clothes were purchased in the West, and his English passport was immaculate. He carried business cards and other literature pertaining to the paint industry in a slim black briefcase. The "factory" that "employed" him as head salesman had an excellent website, which included phone numbers. A check call by the Russian police seeking John Carter s credentials would be routed directly to special operators in the basement of the Israeli Embassy in London.

While Rani sat sipping coffee, Nikolai Chirkov was on one of those interminable Russian train journeys, almost 450 miles from the station at Archangel, all along the southern coast of the White Sea, and then north for the train change at Belomorsk. That's only about halfway, and he still had another 200 miles to go.

The train was late from Belomorsk, and the weather was terrible. When Nikolai finally entered the downstairs bar at the hotel, at almost eight thirty, having run four blocks and a 1,000 yards through the snow from the Petrozavodsk train station, he was mightily relieved to see Rani still waiting patiently on the far side of the room, his back to the wall.

They went through their deliberate routines, taking care to show no sign of recognition of one another. A half hour later they were back in apartment number 506, where a traditional Karelian meat casserole with potatoes and cheese was awaiting them. Whoever had prepared it was long gone.

Rani scooped the meal onto a couple of plates and zapped them both in the microwave. There was some Russian bread in the warming oven and chilled vodka in the refrigerator. As Russian dinners go, it was pretty good, especially for Nikolai, who'd had nothing all day. Rani had never grown accustomed to the tough meat in what he called "this gastronomic wasteland" and thought constantly of his favorite Tel Aviv steak house on Allenby Street and the fabulous fresh fruits grown in Israel's northern farmlands, especially the pale, sweet peaches of Hebron.

But right now he had bigger matters on his mind. "Okay, Nikki, what's new?" he asked.

"Plenty," replied the Russian officer. "The navy is planning a hit on the USA. I'm not sure of the exact target, because they have not yet tested the missile. I found out it has a range of twenty-five hundred kilometers, and they expect it to be perfected within a few months. They called the missilemen in from North Korea and Iran because right now they're having problems with the navigation systems."

"God knows why they want advice from the Koreans," said Rani. "The last four long-range rockets they tested ended up on the beach about a mile and a half from where they were fired. If these ex-Soviets think they can hit any target in the USA without being identified, they're even more stupid than we think they are. The US nuclear defensive shield is lightyears ahead of them."

"There's more. The missile scientists from North Korea and Iran have arrived, and they're staying right here in Russia. A new laboratory has been set up somewhere, and so far as I can tell they're working on a new, slimmed-down rocket with a nuclear warhead and a guidance system that makes it almost impossible to track. It's land based, by the way."

"Any idea where they plan to launch from?" said Rani. "If it's land based, it's got a hell of a way to go from anywhere in Russia."

"How about a launch from Canada or Central America?"

"Well, Canada's out of the question. But I guess there might be some banana republic willing to turn its back on a local rocket launch in return for a few pesos. It's very interesting, Nikki, but right now it's pretty vague… a phantom strike on the USA, launch site unknown, target unknown, with a missile not yet invented."

"I know that's what it sounds like, Rani. But I have spent half my life in the Russian Navy – and I know there's something big happening, and it's gathering steam. The sheer volume of communiques would surprise you. I picked up that word monastyr again, three times. It could be anywhere, but the foreign scientists are already in it, wherever the hell it is."