An ally! Sergetov told himself. “If they put it to a vote, what then?”
“I don’t know, Misha, I wish I did. Too many of us are being swept away by events.”
“Will you speak out against this madness?”
“Yes! I will soon have a grandchild, and he will have a country to grow up in even if it means my life!”
Forgive me, Comrade, forgive me for all the things I have thought of you before.
“Always the early bird, Mikhail Eduardovich?” Kosov and the Defense Minister arrived together.
“Filip and I had to discuss fuel allocations for food transport.”
“You worry about my tanks! Food can wait.” Defense walked past them into the conference room. Sergetov and his compatriot shared a look.
The meeting came to order ten minutes later. The General Secretary began it, immediately turning over discussions to Defense.
“We must make a decisive move in Germany.”
“You have been promising us one of those for weeks!” Bromkovskiy said.
“This time it will work. General Alekseyev will be here in an hour to present his plan. For the moment, we will discuss the use of tactical nuclear weapons at the front and how to prevent a NATO nuclear response.”
Sergetov’s was one of the impassive faces at the table. He counted four who displayed obvious horror. The discussion that followed was spirited.
Alekseyev rode with the division commander for the first few kilometers, past the Indian Embassy and the Justice Ministry. The latter drew an ironic look from the General. How fitting that I should pass that building today! The command vehicle was essentially a radio with eight wheels. Six communications officers rode in the back to allow the commander to run his division right from here. The communications officers were from the front, and loyal to the combat officers who’d brought them back.
Progress was slow. The combat vehicles were designed for speed, but speed also made for breakdowns, and at anything over twenty kilometers per hour the tanks would tear the pavement apart. As it was, they motored along placidly, attracting small knots of people who watched and waved and cheered as the soldiers passed. The procession was not as precise as one of the parades for which the Taman Guards practiced every day. If anything this made the people more enthusiastic. Here were real soldiers going to the front. KGB officers stood along the route, “advising” the officers of the Moscow Militia to let the division pass—they’d explained the reason, the foulup in the eastern rail network, and the traffic policemen were only too happy to make way for the soldiers of the Motherland.
Alekseyev stood up in the gunner’s hatch as the column reached Nogina Square.
“You’ve done well to get your men to this level of training,” he told the divisional commander. “I want to dismount and see how the rest of your troops are doing. I will see you again at Stendal.” Alekseyev told the driver not to stop. He jumped off the command vehicle carrier with the agility of a young corporal and stood in the street, waving the vehicles past, saluting the officers who rode proudly in their vehicles. It was five minutes until the second regiment reached him, and he waited for its second battalion. Major Sorokin was in the battalion command vehicle, and leaned over to grasp the General’s hand and pull him up off the street.
“An old man like you could get hurt that way, Comrade General,” Sorokin warned.
“You young buck!” Alekseyev was proud of his physical condition. He looked at the battalion commander, a man newly arrived from the front. “Ready?”
“I am ready, Comrade General.”
“Remember your orders and keep control of your men.” Alekseyev pulled the flap loose on his holster. Sorokin had himself an AK-47 rifle.
He could see St. Basil’s now, the collection of towers and onion domes at the end of Razina Street. One by one the procession of vehicles turned right past the old cathedral. Behind him the soldiers in the infantry carriers all had their heads up, looking at the sights. This was the oldest model of the BTR, and lacked overhead cover.
There! Alekseyev said to himself. The gate built by Ivan the Terrible that led right to the Council of Ministers building. Just through the gate under the clock tower. The time was ten-twenty. He was ten minutes early for his appointment with the Politburo.
“Are we all crazy?” the Agriculture Minister asked. “Do we think we can gamble with atomic arms like so many firecrackers?”
A good man, Sergetov thought, but he has never been an eloquent one. The Petroleum Minister rubbed sweaty hands over his trouser legs.
“Comrade Defense Minister, you have led us to the brink of destruction,” Bromkovskiy said. “Now you wish us to leap in after you!”
“It is too late to stop,” the General Secretary said. “The decision has been made.”
An explosion gave the lie to that statement.
“Now!” Alekseyev said. In the back of the command vehicle the communications officers activated the divisional radio net and announced an explosion in the Kremlin. A battalion of riflemen under General Alekseyev’s personal command was going in to investigate.
Alekseyev was already moving. Three BTRs ran through the smashed gate, stopping at the front steps of the Council of Ministers building.
“What the hell’s going on here?” Alekseyev screamed at the captain of the Taman Guards.
“I don’t know—you can’t be here, you are not allowed, you must—”
Sorokin cut him down with a three-round burst. He jumped down off the vehicle, nearly collapsing on his bad leg, and raced for the building, with the General in pursuit. Alekseyev turned at the door.
“Secure the area, there is a plot to kill the Politburo!” The order was relayed to the arriving troops. Taman Guard troops were running across the open spaces from the old Arsenal Building. A few warning shots were fired. The Guards wavered, then a lieutenant fired a full magazine from his rifle, and a firefight began within the Kremlin walls. Two bodies of Soviet soldiers, only ten of whom really knew what was happening, began exchanging fire while members of the Politburo watched from the windows.
Alekseyev hated Sorokin for taking the lead, but the major knew whose life was more profitably risked. He encountered a Guards captain on the second-floor landing and killed him. He kept going up, with Alekseyev and the battalion commander behind, remembering the diagram of the building’s fourth floor. Another soldier—this one a major—was there with a rifle. He managed to get one burst off, missing high as his target dove, but the major of paratroops rolled clear and killed him. The conference room was only twenty meters away. They found a colonel of the KGB who held his hands out in the clear.
“Where is Alekseyev?”
“Here!” The General had his pistol in his hand.
“No more Guards alive on this floor,” the chekist said. He’d just killed four with a silenced automatic hidden under his tunic.
“Door.” Alekseyev motioned Sorokin. He didn’t kick it down, it was unlocked, and led into an anteroom. The double oak doors beyond led to the Politburo.
Sorokin went through first.
They found twenty-one old and middle-aged men, mainly standing at the windows watching a small infantry engagement that had about run its course. The Taman Guards stationed throughout the Kremlin grounds were not organized for this sort of assault, and had not the smallest chance of overwhelming a company of experienced riflemen.
Alekseyev came in next, holstering his pistol.
“Comrades, please go back to your seats. Evidently there is a plot to seize the Kremlin. Fortunately, I was just arriving for my appointment when this column of troops passed by. Sit down, Comrades!” the General ordered.
“What the hell is going on here?” the Defense Minister asked.
“When I entered military school thirty-four years ago I swore an oath to defend the State and the Party from all enemies,” Alekseyev said coldly. “Including those who would kill my country because they don’t know what the hell else to do! Comrade Sergeto
v?” The Petroleum Minister pointed to two men. “You Comrades and Comrade Kosov will stay. The others will be leaving with me in a few minutes.”
“Alekseyev, you have signed your own death warrant,” the Minister of the Interior said. He reached for a telephone. Major Sorokin lifted his rifle and destroyed the phone with a single round.
“Do not make that mistake again. We can very easily kill you all. That would be much more convenient than what we have in mind.” Alekseyev waited for a moment. Another officer ran into the room and nodded. “We will now leave, Comrades. If one of you attempts to speak to anyone, you will all be killed immediately. Two-by-two—start moving!” The KGB colonel who had just set off his second Kremlin bomb took out the first group.
After they left, Sergetov and Kosov came up to the General.
“Well done,” said the Director of the KGB. “Things are ready at Lefortovo. The men on duty are all mine.”
“We’re not going to Lefortovo. A change in plans,” Alekseyev said. “They go to the old airport, and after that I helicopter them to a military camp commanded by someone I trust.”
“But I have it all arranged!”
“I’m sure you do. This is my new aide, Major Sorokin. Major Sergetov is at that camp right now, making final arrangements. Tell me, Comrade Director, does Sorokin look familiar to you?”
He did look vaguely familiar, but Kosov couldn’t place him.
“He was a captain—since promoted for bravery—in the 76th Guards Airborne Division.”
“Yes?” Kosov sensed the danger but not the reason.
“Major Sorokin had a daughter in the Young Octobrists. Seventy-sixth Airborne is home-based at Pskov,” Alekseyev explained.
“For my little Svetlana,” Sorokin said, “who died without a face.” All Kosov had time to see was a rifle and a white flash.
Sergetov leaped out of the way and looked to Alekseyev in shock.
“Even if you were right to trust the chekist, I will not take orders from one. I leave you with a company of loyal troops. I must get control of the Army. Your job is to get control of the Party apparatus.”
“How can we trust you now?” Agriculture asked.
“By now we should be on our way to control of the communications lines. All will be done in accordance with our plan. They will announce an attempt to topple the government, prevented by loyal troops. Later today one of you will appear on television. I must go. Good luck.”
Directed by their KGB guides, the motorized battalions headed for the television and radio stations, and the main telephone exchanges. They moved rapidly now, responding to emergency calls to secure the city against an unknown number of counterrevolutionaries. In fact they had not the least idea what they were doing, only that they had orders from a four-star general. That was enough for the officers of the 77th Motor-Rifle. The communications teams had done well. The division political officer appeared at the Council of Ministers building to find four Politburo members on the telephones giving orders. All was not as it should be, but the Party men seemed to have things under control. The other members, he learned, had all been killed or wounded in a vicious attack by the Kremlin Guards themselves! The director of the KGB had detected the plot barely in time to summon loyal troops, but died heroically resisting the attackers. None of this made much sense to the divisional zampolit, but it didn’t have to. His orders made perfectly good sense, and he radioed instructions to the divisional commander.
Sergetov was surprised at how easy it was. The number of people who actually knew what had happened was under two hundred. The fighting had all taken place within the Kremlin walls, and while many had heard the noise, the cover story explained it well enough for the moment. He had several friends in the Central Committee, and they did what they were told in the emergency. By the end of the day, the reins of power were shared among three Party men. The other Politburo members were under armed guard outside the city, with Major Sorokin in charge of their care. Without instructions from the Minister of the Interior, the MVD troops took their orders from the Politburo, while the KGB wavered leaderless. It was the final irony of the Soviet system that, headless, it could not save itself. The Politburo’s pervasive control of all aspects of Soviet life prevented people now from asking the questions that had to be asked before any organized resistance could begin, and every hour gave Sergetov and his clique more time to consolidate their rule. He had the aged but distinguished Pyotr Bromkovskiy to head the Party apparatus and act as Defense Minister. Remembered in the Army as a commissar who cared about the men he served with, Petya was able to anoint Alekseyev as Deputy Defense Minister and Chief of the General Staff. Filip Moiseyevich Krylov retained Agriculture and acquired Internal Affairs. Sergetov would be acting General Secretary. The three men formed a troika, which would appeal to their countrymen until more of their people could be brought in. One paramount task remained.
43
A Walk in the Woods
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
There is no more natural fear than of the unknown, and the greater the unknown, the greater had to be the fear. SACEUR had four intelligence reports side by side on his desk. The only thing they agreed on was that they did not know what was happening, but that it might be bad.
For that I need an expert? SACEUR thought.
A snippet of information from a ferret satellite had given him the word that there was some fighting in Moscow, and told him of the movement of troops to communications centers, but State television and radio had kept to a normal schedule for twelve hours until a news broadcast at five in the morning, Moscow time, had broken the official word.
An attempted coup d’ état by the Defense Minister? That would not be good news, and the fact that it had been put down was only marginally better. The monitoring stations had just heard a brief speech by Pyotr Bromkovskiy, known as the last of the Stalinist hard-liners: maintain calm and keep your faith in the Party.
What the hell did that mean? SACEUR wondered.
“I need information,” he told his intelligence chief. “What do we know about the Russian command structure?”
“Alekseyev, the new Commander-West, is evidently not at his command post. Good news for us, since we have our attack scheduled in ten hours.”
SACEUR’s phone buzzed. “I told you no calls—go ahead, Franz . . . Four hours? Potsdam. No reply yet. I’ll be back to you in a little while.” He hung up. “We just received an open radio message that the Soviet Chief of Staff urgently wishes to meet with me in Potsdam.”
“ ‘Urgently’ wishes, Herr General?”
“That’s what the message said. I can come by helicopter and they’ll provide a helicopter escort to a meeting place.” SACEUR leaned back. “You suppose they want to shoot me down because I’ve done such a great job?” The Supreme Allied Commander Europe allowed himself an ironic smile.
“We have their troops massing northeast of Hannover,” the Chief of Intelligence pointed out.
“I know, Joachim.”
“Don’t go,” the intel Chief said. “Send a representative.”
“Why didn’t he ask for that?” SACEUR wondered. “That’s the way it’s normally done.”
“He’s in a hurry,” Joachim said. “They haven’t won. They haven’t really lost anything yet, but their advance has been stopped and they still have their fuel problems. What if a wholly new power bloc has taken over in Moscow? They shut down the news media while they try to consolidate power, and they will want to terminate hostilities. They don’t need the distraction. A good time to push hard,” he concluded.
“When they’re desperate?” SACEUR asked. “They still have plenty of nukes. Any unusual patterns of Soviet activity, anything that even looks unusual?”
“Aside from the newly arriving reserve divisions, no.”
What if I can stop this damned war?
“I’m going.” SACEUR lifted his phone and informed the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Council of his decision.
&nbs
p; It was easy to be nervous with a pair of Russian attack choppers flying in close formation. SACEUR resisted the temptation to look out the windows at them, and concentrated instead on the intelligence folders. He had the official NATO intel dossiers for five senior Soviet commanders. He didn’t know who it might be that he was meeting. His aide sat across from the General. He was looking out the windows.
POTSDAM, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
Alekseyev paced the ground, nervous to have to be away from Moscow, where the new Party bosses—but Party bosses nonetheless, he reminded himself—were trying to pull things together. That idiot asked how they could trust me! he thought. He reviewed the briefing information on his NATO counterpart. Age fifty-nine. Son and grandson of a soldier. Father a paratroop officer killed by the Germans west of St. Vith during the Battle of the Bulge. West Point, fifteenth in his class. Vietnam, four tours of duty, last as commander of the 101st Airborne; regarded by the North Vietnamese as an unusually dangerous and innovative tactician—he’d proved that, Alekseyev grunted to himself. University masters degree in international relations, supposed to be gifted in languages. Married, two sons and a daughter, none of them in uniform—someone decided that three generations was enough, Alekseyev thought—four grandchildren. Four grandchildren . . . when a man has grandchildren . . . Enjoys gambling with cards, only known vice. Moderate drinker. No known sexual deviations, the report said. Alekseyev smiled at that. We’re both too old for that nonsense! And who has the time?
The sound of helicopter rotors filtered through the trees. Alekseyev stood in a small clearing next to a command vehicle. The crew was in the trees, along with a platoon of riflemen. It was unlikely, but NATO could seize this opportunity to attack and kill—no, we’re not that crazy and neither are they, the General told himself.