President’s reception office
Grand Kremlin Palace
Moscow, Russia
1603 local time
Russian president Nikita Yermilov felt a youthful vigor he’d not enjoyed for many years—perhaps not since he was a young KGB officer in the service of the mighty Soviet empire. The thought brought a smile to his face, a smile that broadened when his phone rang.
It wasn’t the desk phone.
It was the other one.
He fished the compact sat phone from the inside pocket of his suit coat, grateful that the call had come before the meeting with the delegation from Belarus.
“Da,” he said, taking the call.
“It is in motion. The Belgorod is underway,” said a gruff male voice on the other end.
Yermilov knew this already, of course. He had ordered the Belgorod to put to sea. That wasn’t the detail he needed.
“What about the rest?”
“I received confirmation that everything is in place. We have the right people on board, Nikita. This is a great day,” the old man on the line said, his throat rattling from nearly a century of cigarettes.
There were few men alive whom Yermilov would tolerate addressing him as “Nikita”—in fact, so few that hearing his given name spoken out loud sounded odd. His one-time mentor had earned such a privilege, however.
“It is, indeed,” Yermilov agreed. He had ordered the Belgorod to sea through a very small and compartmentalized chain of command. The order would stoke outrage from both his military and intelligence leadership, but to hell with them. He was the president of Russia, and his word was final. This mission signified a new beginning. “We shall rise like a phoenix—”
“Flowery metaphors are beneath you, Nikita,” the old man said with a chuckle, cutting him off. “When it comes to words, less is more.”
Yermilov felt his face flush red and hot, but before he could rebuke the man, the old general spoke up and returned Yermilov’s dignity as easily as he’d stolen it away.
“I will keep you apprised of all details, President Yermilov.”
“See that you do.”
The line went dead as the phone on his desk chirped.
“Da,” he said, changing handsets.
“I apologize, Mr. President, but Colonel General Andreyev is here demanding an audience,” said Kierra, his tough but always calm executive assistant. “He says it is quite urgent . . .”
“It is an emergency,” he heard Andreyev, the head of NDMC, the National Defense Management Center, say in the background.
Yermilov had expected this, in fact was surprised it took so long, but apparently the colonel general wanted to meet face-to-face. A bold move.
“Thank you, Kierra. Send him in, but he has only a few minutes before I must meet with Lukashenko’s generals.”
“Yes, sir.”
The door opened and an overweight, red-faced man strode in, his officer’s cap crushed beneath his arm. Without looking over, Yermilov sensed his personal security agent, Boris, step forward to stand behind him, mirroring the aggressive posturing of the new arrival.
“What is so urgent, Oleg?” Yermilov asked, privately taking delight in how upset the general appeared. Andreyev was a powerful man who answered only to the chief of the General Staff. And that leader answered to only one man, and that man was Yermilov.
“Did you know? Of course you did!” Andreyev said, spitting as he talked. “How can I be expected to manage our combined forces when assets are mobilized without my knowledge or authorization?”
“Calm down, Oleg,” Yermilov said, crossing his legs at the knee. “Take a seat for a moment, and I am sure we can figure out whatever it is that has you so troubled. Would you like a cup of tea?”
The general looked from Yermilov to the bodyguard Boris and back again, reading the room and reining in his emotions. With seemingly great effort, Andreyev lowered his considerable girth into one of the two high-back chairs facing Yermilov and his opulent desk. He placed his cap in his lap and let out a long breath.
“The Belgorod sailed this morning from Severodvinsk,” Andreyev said with a slow, even tone. “It was my understanding that she would be undergoing continued retrofitting and then be moved to the submarine base at Polyarnyy, but that does not appear to be the case.”
“And only your excellent management allowed her to complete the retrofit so far ahead of schedule, Oleg. You are to be commended for the way you are running the center.”
The general clenched his jaw. “Thank you, Mr. President, but that is hardly the point. How is it that one of my submarines puts to sea and I know nothing about it? I am the director—”
“One of your submarines?” the Russian president said, cutting him off, his voice the black ice he’d perfected in his time at the KGB, before it became the less capable and less feared SVR that it was today. He suddenly almost desperately wanted a smoke. Most Russians still smoked, but Yermilov had worked so hard to quit, to be healthier.
“I simply meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Yermilov said, staring the man in the eyes. “The Belgorod is owned by Russia—by the Russian people. And she is commanded by the duly elected supreme commander in chief of the Russian military, Oleg. That is still me, I believe?”
He gave the man a cold smile and leaned back in his chair. God, how he needed a smoke. Such theatrics were so much more visceral inside a cloud of blue cigarette smoke.
“Da, Mr. President. I serve at your pleasure, but to do my job effectively—”
“You must, first and foremost, respect the chain of command, Colonel General Andreyev. It was my intent to brief you personally on this highly compartmentalized operation later today, but since you have seen fit to come all the way over here from Znamenka 19, I will give you a short primer now.”
He rose and paced around his desk, standing over the man with the desired effect, as Andreyev leaned back, away from him.
“The Belgorod is the jewel of the Northern Fleet, Oleg. In addition to its special mission modifications, the engineers have made it supremely quiet and stealthy—quieter perhaps than the American Block III Virginia-class submarines. Your diligence in overseeing this work is commendable.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“But the Americans have become belligerent and are challenging our efforts in both Syria and Eastern Europe. They view what they have seen in Ukraine as weakness—as our decline. They are wrong, and, to maintain the balance of power, we must change this perception.”
“Which is why we are conducting Operation Hurricane with our flagship and aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, taking center stage. This is what you told me, Mr. President, to coordinate and conduct our largest naval exercise in a decade. Which I have done.”
“Operation Hurricane is important. It will remind the Americans and the British of our naval might and our ability to project power. But it will also serve another goal, which is to keep them distracted and their attention diverted from my true objective.”
“You’re talking about K-329’s underway?”
“Da. In consultation with Defense Minister Volkolov, I have ordered a bold test of K-329’s capabilities. First, the Belgorod will slip past the American submarines who patrol our shores with unbridled hubris. Then it will drill with our Northern Fleet, and we will catalog potential weaknesses should a future conflict with the Americans occur, something I feel is inevitable. To change that inevitability, we must give the Americans pause. We must remind them that our submarine force is something to be feared. Which is why at the conclusion of the exercise, the Belgorod will conduct a covert operation in the North Atlantic—one that I will brief you on at the appropriate time.”
He stood now behind the flag officer, who squirmed in his seat. They both knew the brutality of the Soviet Union had not disappeared, but simply moved to the shadows.
Andreyev nodded, letting out a long sigh through his nose. “I regret, Mr. President, that you did not feel you could confide in me about the exercise and subsequent operation. I have found my working relationship with Minister Volkolov to be quite effective over this year. We were classmates years ago, close comrades. If I have done something to lose your confidence, sir, I regret it immensely.”
It was difficult to put a measure on how very much Yermilov enjoyed seeing the pain in the man’s face. The truth was, Andreyev was an excellent director and his performance had been far from disappointing. Perhaps it was simply the old KGB man still stirring inside Yermilov who enjoyed the power of these moments. In any case, for the master plan to work, there was simply no room for Andreyev at the intimate table that he and the old man had set. And time would tell whether there would be room for him in the New Russia that was coming.
“You have no need to feel regret, Oleg. You are an excellent officer and director and I am pleased with how you run your command. But for this plan to be maximally effective, those who are read into the nature of our operation must, by necessity, be quite small. I was quite sincere when I told you I intended to brief you on the exercise later today. That is a sign of my respect for you, as it will make you one of only a few people in all of Russia who will know what we will do after.”
“I see,” Andreyev said, taking the gift of implied respect and clinging to it.
“I will have the full brief for you in the SCIF at Znamenka 19 later today. It will be the three of us—Sergey, you, and myself.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. I am honored by your trust. And I apologize if—”
Yermilov waved a hand, shooing the apology away. “Don’t be ridiculous, Oleg. Your irritation is understandable and your apology unnecessary. Now, I have a delegation from Belarus arriving, so you must go.”
Andreyev stood and straightened his uniform coat. “Yes, sir. I look forward to our meeting this afternoon, Mr. President.” With that, the colonel general snapped around on a heel and strode for the door, closing it behind him.
Yermilov smiled and gave a nod to Boris, who moved again into the shadows of the room.
Perhaps Andreyev would be read into the final part of the plan, perhaps not. Time would tell. When the Belgorod completed its special operation, he would have a weapon in place to ensure victory for Russia, should American belligerence persist.
But for the plan to work, the circle had to remain small . . .
Because the Americans have spies everywhere.
In his excitement, the thought of meeting with Belarusian military bureaucrats seemed not only unbearable, but also beneath him. He forced himself to run over the agenda in his head. The rest of the world had it wrong. Russia was not getting weaker; it was getting stronger. His will was absolute. It was only a question of time. Once again the Russian Federation would be the mightiest empire in the world, and he alone would be the man calling the shots.