“Gee, Curt, let me guess,” Randi said drily. “That’s something you included in JANUS.”
“Yep. That we did.”
“But aren’t there programs designed to wipe deleted files permanently?” she asked after a moment’s thought.
Bennett nodded. “Sure. And a lot of private companies and government agencies use them routinely these days. But almost no one ever bothers going back through their systems to scrub out all the old, supposedly deleted, material that’s been accumulating in various nooks and crannies.”
“Like these ghost files you discovered,” Randi realized.
“Exactly,” the CIA technical expert confirmed. “And that’s how we spotted the way someone inside the BKA has been shielding Wulf Renke. Check out some of his early handiwork.” With a few quick commands, he pulled up a file on one of the computers.
Randi studied the displayed document in silence for a few moments, watching as Bennett clicked from page to page. It was a digitized version of Renke’s official East German government personnel dossier, complete with a black-and-white photograph of the scientist’s face, his fingerprints, a detailed physical description, and brief records of his birth, education, and research. The picture showed a jowly, round-faced man with wavy, dark hair and thick, bushy eyebrows.
“That’s the one the Bundeskriminalamt has in its current archives,” Bennett said flatly. “The data they send out whenever some other law-enforcement or intelligence agency—say us, or the FBI, or MI6—gets interested in tracking down Renke and requests information from the German government.”
“But there’s another version of the dossier?” Randi guessed. “An earlier copy of the original that someone erased?”
Bennett nodded. “Watch this.” Again, his fingers danced across the keys. Another set of digitized images from Renke’s East German personnel file appeared on the second computer screen.
Randi glanced from one to the other, comparing them. Her eyebrows rose in dismay. “Jesus,” she muttered.
The original version of the file showed a different photograph of a very different-looking man, this one much slimmer, with short white hair, and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. The typed physical description matched this photograph, and it was clear, even on a quick inspection, that the fingerprints in this dossier were not the same ones appended to the newer file.
“No wonder no one ever lays a glove on Renke,” Randi said bitterly. “Thanks to that forged dossier, we’ve been looking for the wrong guy, probably somebody who’s been dead since at least 1989. Meanwhile, the real Wulf Renke can waltz in and out of just about any country he chooses, confident that his fingerprints and face won’t set off any warning bells.”
“Yep,” Bennett agreed. He gently patted the side of one of the computers. “And the more we dig into the material you swiped, the more we find evidence of a continuing pattern of protection for Herr Professor Renke. For pretty much the past fifteen years, any genuine sightings of Renke have been routinely altered by the same BKA source. And anyone trying to follow up on those forged reports must have found themselves tearing off on a series of really wild-goose chases.”
For a moment, Randi eyed the shorter man carefully. Then she grinned. “Okay, Curt. I know you’re itching to dazzle me with your knowledge. So spill it. Who is the traitor inside the Bundeskriminalamt? Who’s been covering up for Renke all these years.”
“His name is Ulrich Kessler,” Bennett said matter-of-factly. “Basically, the guy’s electronic fingerprints—his network user ID and his passwords—are all over those deleted files. Plus, he was perfectly positioned to help Renke evade arrest when the Wall went down.”
“How so?”
“Kessler was the ranking BKA officer in charge of the original investigation,” Bennett told her bluntly. “The Renke case was almost entirely his show, right from its promising start all the way to its inglorious and frustrating finish.”
“Swell. Just swell.” Randi stared at the “ghost” dossier for a few seconds more and then shook her head in disgust. “And where is this son of a bitch Kessler stationed now?”
“Right here in Berlin,” Bennett replied. “But he’s been promoted a long way up through the ranks.” He smiled cynically. “Probably as a reward for his first big failure, at least if the Germans work the same way we do.”
Randi snorted. “Go on. Give me the bad news.”
“Ulrich Kessler is one of the BKA’s most senior administrators,” Bennett said quietly. He shrugged. “In fact, he’s basically one of the right-hand men for Germany’s Minister of the Interior.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Strike Force Lead, 164th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment
The twin-tailed Su-34 fighter-bomber raced low over the gently rolling countryside, roaring southwest through the pitch-black night at nearly eight hundred kilometers an hour. The aircraft shuddered and bounced sporadically, buffeted by turbulent currents of warmer and colder air.
The Su-34’s two-man crew sat side-by-side in its large cockpit, with the pilot/commander on the left and the navigator/weapons officer on the right. Both crewmen were sweating now in their G-suits, intensely focused on the mission at hand. Softly glowing multi-function displays allowed each man to monitor the critical systems under his control. But the pilot, a sturdy, middle-aged Russian Air Force major, spent almost every moment peering intently through his infrared heads-up display, or HUD, carefully scanning the sky and ground ahead.
To help avoid detection by enemy radar, they were flying at an altitude of less than two hundred meters—and at this speed that left no room for pilot error or inattention. Small pools of white light, signs of isolated villages and lone farm compounds, streaked toward them out of the green-tinted darkness and then vanished just as quickly astern.
“Twenty kilometers to primary target,” the navigator, a younger captain, announced quietly at last. He pushed a button on one of the displays set at his right knee. “Cue up.”
“Understood,” the major muttered, impatiently blinking away a small droplet of sweat that stung his right eye. A small box appeared on his HUD, above and just a few degrees to the left of the Su-34’s current flight path. The box was a navigation cue supplied by their onboard computer—a visual guide to their primary ground attack target. He pulled back on the stick, climbing steeply to two thousand meters or so and turning slightly until the target box was centered on his display.
The brighter glow of city lights appeared ahead, spreading across the horizon as they closed in. A web of roads and rail lines converged on the growing sea of lights, cutting straight across the darkened landscape. The darker ribbon of a wide river, the Dnipro, came into view to the east. Days and weeks of intensive map study paid off as he recognized the outer eastern suburbs of Kiev, Ukraine’s capital.
“Fifteen kilometers,” the Su-34’s navigator reported. He touched another set of buttons. “Ordnance guidance systems active. Coordinates downloaded.”
Suddenly a warning tone sounded in the major’s headset.
“Search radar spike!” the navigator snapped, scanning his defense displays frantically. “Detection alert! Right rear quadrant!”
“Jam it,” the major growled. They had been picked up by Ukrainian radar, probably those sited at the large air defense complex outside Konotop. He snorted softly in disgust. According to the mission brief, covertly inserted Spetsnaz teams were supposed to have destroyed those radars fifteen minutes ago. So much for the Army’s arrogant, fawned-over commandos, he thought coldly.
Then he shrugged. Even in these days of high-tech combat, of satellites and precision-guided weaponry, the old adage that no plan ever fully survived contact with the enemy was still true. War was always the province of random chance, uncertainty, and human and machine error.
Beside him the navigator was busy with the controls on his console, trying to jam the powerful Ukrainian search radar with the Su-34’s built-in electronic countermeasures systems. It would be a mirac
le if he managed it, but every extra second he bought them was valuable. The range-to-target indicator on the HUD now showed twelve kilometers. The target cue box flashed red. They were almost in range of their primary target, the wartime headquarters for the Ukrainian Defense Council.
A new, shriller tone sounded in the major’s earphones.
“Weapons radar lock-on!” his crewmate warned. “SAM launch detected! Two missiles inbound. Pattern indicates they are S-300s. Commencing active and passive defense measures now!”
“Shit,” the major said under his breath. The S-300 was one of the most modern long-range surface-to-air missiles in the Ukrainian arsenal, the equivalent of the American Patriot missile.
The Su-34 shuddered briefly as onboard chaff dispensers fired. Cartridges popped out and detonated behind the speeding fighter-bomber. Within a second, clouds of thousands of tiny Mylar strips blossomed in the air. Each ultra-thin strip of chaff was precisely cut to match the wavelength used by the enemy radar locked on to them. With luck, the rapidly widening chaff blooms would decoy the incoming SAMs away from them.
“Come on. Come on!” the major heard himself muttering under his breath, still grimly holding his aircraft on course despite the temptation to begin immediate evasive maneuvers. The target box turned green. They were in range.
“Weapons away!” he snarled, punching the release button on his stick. Immediately, the Su-34 jolted upward, several thousands of kilos lighter as four precision-guided bombs tumbled away from under its wings. Without waiting any longer, the colonel yanked the stick hard left, rolled the aircraft upside down, and dove for the ground in a tight, hard, multiple-G turn.
He rolled out of the dive barely a hundred meters off the deck—so close to the ground that trees, barns, houses, and electric power pylons appeared out of the darkness and disappeared almost before they even registered as solid objects in his vision. The warning tone in his headphones fell silent.
“Radar lock broken!” his navigator confirmed, breathing easier. “We’re below their horizon.”
The major yanked his head around, craning his neck to look through the clear canopy behind them. A succession of dazzling white flashes cascaded across the horizon, momentarily turning the black night into brilliant day.
“Bomb impact,” the navigator said quietly. “The computer predicts that all weapons hit the designated target.”
Suddenly everything outside the Su-34’s cockpit went black.
A new voice sounded in their headsets. “Attack simulation complete. Stand-by.”
With a shrill hydraulic whine, the canopy swung up, revealing a cavernous hangar filled with several other large box-like Su-34 flight simulators. The other machines were still in motion, twisting and tilting rapidly while computer-driven displays provided crews with realistic views of the sky and ground outside their wildly maneuvering aircraft.
The major frowned, thinking back over the events of the past hour. “Reset the mission, Controller,” he said, speaking into his throat mike. “This time I want to try a slightly different flight path to see if we can avoid detection from Konotop when we pop up to drop our bombs.”
His navigator glanced across the cockpit at him with a weary grin. “That was our fifth time through this attack run today, Sergei Nikolayevich. We’ve been in the simulators twelve hours a day for three days now, running through every possible permutation and wrinkle. Couldn’t we take a break for a bit, at least just to stretch our legs?”
The major shook his head. “Not yet, Vladimir,” he told the other man firmly. He shrugged. “You’ve seen the warning orders from Moscow. We’ve only got two more days to train here before the whole regiment deploys to Bryansk. And I don’t buy any of the nonsense about this being just a so-called emergency readiness exercise.”
The Su-34 squadron commander looked seriously at his subordinate. “Remember, if we do wind up carrying out this air strike on Kiev, there won’t be any room for serious mistakes or miscalculations. There won’t be any second chances if we screw up during the real mission. We’d better be damned ready, or we’re going to end up dead.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Kremlin
Russian President Viktor Dudarev maintained his private office in the central section of the triangular, yellow-and-white Senate building. In sharp contrast to the incredibly ornate ceremonial audience chambers that were scattered throughout the other Kremlin palaces, this small, rectangular room was furnished simply and practically, with only a few touches of classical elegance.
The elaborate coat of arms of the Russian Federation hung on the wall behind Dudarev’s malachite-topped desk. Two flags flanked the desk—on the left, Russia’s white, blue, and red national banner, and on the right, the more intricate and colorful Presidential Standard. These banners were the only traces of bright color in the entire office, which was otherwise marked by dark oak paneling, a high molded ceiling painted in muted yellows and eggshell whites, and the faded green, red, and ochre geometric designs of a centuries-old Astrakhan rug. Along the interior walls stood bookcases filled with rare volumes and up-to-date reference works. Between the room’s two windows stood a long oak table surrounded by straight-backed chairs.
Konstantin Malkovic occupied one of those chairs. He glanced across the table at Dudarev and then quickly at the stocky, gray-haired man seated next to the Russian president. The Serbian-born billionaire hid a frown. The unexpected presence of Alexei Ivanov, the dour head of the FSB’s Thirteenth Directorate, at this critical meeting disturbed him.
He sensed the same uneasy mood in the man sitting on his own right, Erich Brandt. Before they arrived at the Kremlin, the former Stasi officer had notified him that Ivanov was likely to make trouble for them over HYDRA’s unfortunate security lapses. Studying the Russian spy chief’s sternly impassive face, Malkovic decided Brandt was probably correct. Something about Ivanov’s hooded look reminded him of a big cat—a tiger or a leopard—lazily eyeing those whom it considered potential prey.
It was an image he found unsettling.
When he had first opened negotiations with the Russians, the German had warned him of the potential dangers, reminding him that, “When you try to ride the tiger, sometimes the tiger eats you.” At the time, Malkovic had dismissed Brandt’s concerns, judging them far too pessimistic. Now, sitting across the table from the grim head of the Thirteenth Directorate, the billionaire began to understand his subordinate’s warnings.
With an effort, Malkovic forced those unwelcome thoughts away. Perhaps his nerves were only playing tricks on him. This was a moment of imminent triumph, the payoff for years of risky, expensive research and intricate planning. This was not a time to fret. He turned his attention back to the large screen set up at the head of the table. Colonel Piotr Kirichenko, Dudarev’s military aide stood there, using a hand-held controller to display the different map slides and charts that comprised this Most-Secret briefing.
“The tank, motor rifle, Spetsnaz, and combat aviation units earmarked for Operation ZHUKOV continue to deploy from their peacetime bases to their designated war concentration areas,” Kirichenko said, using the controller to highlight key points along Russia’s borders with Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. “So far, there are no indications that the United States or its allies have detected the magnitude of these troop transfers. Or that they understand their real significance.”
“The West’s ignorance is thanks largely to HYDRA, the special weapon I have supplied,” Malkovic interjected. Whatever Ivanov’s purpose here today, it was always best to remind these Russians of just how much they owed him. “By killing so many of their best intelligence analysts, my agents have made it almost impossible for the CIA, MI6, or any of their counterparts to pierce the more conventional veil of secrecy you have drawn over these movements.” He smiled pleasantly. “Naturally, the same holds true for the countries which are your intended victims. Once HYDRA has run its course, too few of their key military commanders and polit
ical leaders will remain alive to coordinate any effective opposition to your operations.”
“Yes, it is quite clear that this viral assassination weapon of yours has proved its worth…thus far,” Dudarev agreed coolly.
Ivanov simply shrugged. His broad face showed no real emotion.
The Russian president nodded to Kirichenko. “Continue, Piotr.”
“Sir.” The colonel obeyed. “Once ZHUKOV commences, our long-range aviation regiments will conduct simultaneous strikes against a wide range of targets—command and control facilities, air defense sites, airfields, and enemy troop concentrations.” He touched a button on the controller. Dozens of red stars appeared on the map, identifying targets scattered widely across the former Soviet republics slated for reconquest.
“At the same time, our tanks and motorized infantry units will advance, moving rapidly to secure their designated objectives,” Kirichenko went on enthusiastically. Arrows slashed across the map, driving hundreds of kilometers deep into hostile territory to secure important cities, bridges, road and rail junctions, and vital industrial areas. Whole swathes of the map turned red, indicating their planned occupation and forcible return to Russian control—all of Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, and the entire eastern half of Ukraine.
Malkovic nodded, paying less and less attention as Dudarev’s aide began a detailed appreciation of the precise units involved, their strengths and equipment, and their specific orders. To his way of thinking, these were mere tactical details, important only to the generals and other military men involved. He was more interested in the bigger picture, in contemplating how this operation would shift the balance of power around the globe.
The ZHUKOV plan made excellent strategic, political, and economic sense. For Russia, it meant securing more defensible borders, reclaiming vast regions rich in natural resources and heavy industry, and bringing tens of millions of ethnic Russians back under the Kremlin’s authority and protection. In the long run, it would mark the beginning of a grand effort to reclaim Russia’s rightful place as one of the world’s great powers, as an imperial nation whose strength would someday again rival that of the United States. In the short term, crushing the most successful of the new democracies surrounding Russia was vital to Dudarev’s own political survival. For now, a majority of Russia’s citizens supported his authoritarian rule, but there were signs of rising discontent—discontent he blamed on the democratic examples set by its onetime subject peoples.