The on-site temporary command center for all Russian security forces for the Baikonur situation had been set up in the Sputnik Hotel in the town of Baikonur, well to the south of the Cosmodrome. Here Russian military and intelligence personnel, Federal Space Agency officials, Baikonur management, and other parties had set up camps both outside in heated tents and trailers and inside in the rooms, the restaurant, and the conference facilities. Even the Luna Disco off the main lobby had been taken over by a team of Army nuclear experts brought in from Strategic Rocket Forces.
At four p.m. local time a General Lars Gummesson stepped into the conference room, leading two younger men. The combat fatigues of all three were generic, without any marking or insignia. They sat down at a long table across from Russian politicians and diplomats and military leaders.
Gummesson was the leader of Rainbow, a secret international force of counterterror paramilitaries, chosen from the best tier-one military units on earth. He and his men had been requested by the Russian and Kazakh governments within an hour of the failure of the Alpha commandos, and he was returning to the command center to deliver his report on the situation and Rainbow’s readiness to engage.
“Gentlemen. My team leaders and I have spent the last four hours going over an operation plan to retake the Dnepr launch control center and the two launch silos. Taking the lessons learned by last night’s mission by the Russian Army into account, as well as our own capabilities at present, I regret to say that, although we feel confident that if we marshal all of our efforts on the LCC we have an eighty percent chance of success of retaking the building and rescuing the majority of the hostages there, it is a heavily fortified bunker and Mr. Safronov is entrenched there, he is highly skilled, and very motivated. We therefore feel there is a fifty-percent chance that he and the men there will have time to launch one ހvehicle, and a twenty-percent chance they will be able to launch both.”
The Russian ambassador to Kazakhstan looked at General Gummesson for a long moment. In highly accented English he said, “So. That is it? All your men with guns, and you say it is fifty-fifty whether or not Moscow is destroyed?”
“I am afraid so. Our training funds have been cut in the past year or so, and the men rotating into service with us have not had the coordinated experience that Rainbow used to offer, back when we were called on more often. I am afraid our readiness has suffered.”
“This is not simply an aversion to risk on your part, General Gummesson?”
The Swedish military officer showed no annoyance at the implication. “We have looked at the situation, and it is grim. We have no idea how many men Safronov has remaining with him. Interviews with men from the processing facility who were let go yesterday morning suggest the number could be over fifty. Presumably some were killed in last night’s Spetsnaz attack, but we have no way of knowing how many there are remaining. I will not send my men into the unknown like this, no matter the stakes. My force and I will be returning to Britain immediately. Gentlemen, good afternoon, and good luck.”
Gummesson stood, turned to leave, but a Spetsnaz colonel at the far end of the table stood quickly. “Excuse me, General Gummesson.” This man’s accent was even thicker than the ambassador’s. “Could I ask you to remain here in Baikonur? At least for a few hours?”
“For what purpose, Colonel?”
“I will speak with you about it privately.”
“Very well.”
Clark had been given time alone to “think.” His shattered hand remained under a dirty towel, but the pain from the swelling and soft tissue damage, and from broken bones in his hand and ribs that moved every time John tried to find a more comfortable position, was sheer and utter agony.
Sweat poured off of John’s face and down his neck, even in the meat-locker cold of the warehouse, his shirt was soggy from the perspiration and this gave him chills.
His mind had gone numb, though his body had not. He wanted relief from the pain, but more than this he wanted relief from the worry that this stupid kid might actually break him if the barbarity continued.
Clark knew he could have lied, could have made up false relationships, told a complicated story that would take days to confirm. But he worried that any obfuscation on his part could be detected with fact-checking or a little legwork on the part of Kovalenko’s people. And if he was caught in a lie, if he delayed for too long, then perhaps Valentin would come back with some SP-117, the truth serum that, according to some reports, was light-years ahead of the unreliable sodium pentothal of the past.
No, Clark told himself, as much misery as he was in right now, he would take his lumps in the hope that his brutal torturers went a bit too far and killed him.
Better that than fucking with his mind and turning him into a one-man wrecking crew for The Campus and President Jack Ryan.
“Time is short, everyone back to work!” Kovalenko shouted as he reappeared in the light hanging above Clark’s head. Valentin leaned in close and smiled, reinvigorated, apparently, from the smell of his breath, by strong coffee and a Russian cigarette. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine. How are you holding up?” Clark said dryly.
“Any desire to talk and stop the pain from continuing? We have some wonderful medicine we can give you to make it go away. And we will drop you off at a local hospital. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Valentin,” Clark said, “whatever you do to me, my people will find out. And whatever you do to me, they will do to you. Just keep that in mind.”
Kovalenko just stared at the American. “Just tell me who they are, and there will be nothing more for me to do.”
Clark looked away.
Kovalenko nodded. “I swear I wish my father was here now. The old ways were best for this, I am certain. Anyway, John, you have lost a hand already, but I am just getting started. You will leave here a crippled old man. I am about to destroy you.”
He waited for John to ask how, but John just sat there.
“I will have my friends here shove a scalpel into your eyes, one at a time.”
Clark stared Kovalenko down. “And my people will do the same to you. Are you prepared for that?”
“Who are your people? Who?”
John said nothing.
A big Slav grabbed John’s head from behind and held it perfectly still. Clark’s eyes watered, tears dripped down his face, and he blinked rapidly. “Fuck you!” he screamed through a jaw held tight with a meaty hand, and the headlock tightened.
The other Spetsnaz goon stepped in front of John. A stainless-steel scalpel in his hand glinted in the light from above.
Valentin stepped back, turned away so that he could not see. “Mr. Clark. This… right now… is your very last chance.”
Clark could tell by the resignation in the young man’s voice. He would not back down.
“Fuck you!” was all that came out of the American’s mouth. He took a deep breath and held it.
Kovalenko shrugged dramatically. While facing toward the wall he said, “Votki emu v glaz.”
Clark understood. Put it in his eye.
Through the fish-eye effect of the water in his eyes, Clark saw the scalpel come closer to his face as the man knelt in front of him. Beyond that, he saw Kovalenko step away. He thought the Russian just had no stomach for what was about to happen, but in another instant John realized Valentin was reacting to a noise outside.
The sounds of a helicopter echoed through the warehouse. The thumping came fast and frantic, as if the aircraft was falling straight down out of the sky. It landed outside; Clark could see the lights shining through the walls, creating wicked shadows that wiped back and forth over everyone. The man with the scalpel stood up quickly and turned around. Over the incredible noise, noise that told John there was more than one helicopter in the mix — the other one likely hovering just feet above the tin roof — Valentin Kovalenko yelled orders to his security men around the perimeter. Clark caught a glimpse in the sweeping lights of the SVR assistant rezident. He looked like a panicked, cornered animal.
The helicopter above began circling slowly.
Shouting voices now. Barking orders and yelled threats. John tucked his head into his neck , there was nothing else he could do strapped to the chair, but it felt right to do something. His hand hurt like a motherfucker, so the new activity in the building gave him something to think about, at the very least.
Red laser lights appeared like fireflies shooting across the surfaces of the floors, the table, the men standing around, and John Clark himself. In the cold dusty air John could see the needle-thin lines of the red lasers as they swept around. He was then bathed in white light, and he shut his eyes tightly.
When he opened them he realized the overhead hanging light fixtures, two stories above him on the ceiling of the warehouse, had been turned on, and the big room was awash in light now.
Valentin Kovalenko was the smallest figure in the building. In front of him, facing him, black-clad gunmen with HK MP5 submachine guns.
These were Spetsnaz troops, and they were led by a man in civilian dress. Kovalenko and his men — there were eight in total, John could now see — all raised their hands.
Who the fuck was this new clown? Clark wondered. Out of the frying pan, then into the fire, but now what? Could it get any fucking worse?
Valentin and his crew were led out of the warehouse with just a few gruff comments from the man in street clothes, who then left the warehouse with several, but not all, of the paramilitaries. The helicopter took off a minute later.
The chopper that had been hovering above peeled away.
Behind the Spetsnaz soldiers remaining in the room a lean man in his late fifties walked into the cold cellar. The man had a short crew cut, narrow wire-rimmed glasses, and bright intelligent eyes on his deeply creased face. He looked like he ran five miles before breakfast every morning.
John Clark felt like he could be looking at a mirror image of himself, only in a Russian suit.
Except it wasn’t a mirror. Clark knew the man in front of him.
The man stood over the American and he ordered one of the men to cut away Clark’s bindings. While doing so the older man said, “Mr. Clark. My name is Stanislav Biryukov. I am—”
“You are the director of the FSB.”
“I am, indeed.”
“Is this just a changing of the guard, then?” Clark asked.
The FSB man shook his head emphatically. “Nyet. No, of course not. I am not here to continue with this madness.”
Clark just looked at him.
Biryukov said, “My country has a serious problem and we find ourselves needing to call on your expertise. At the same moment, we realize that you are here, right here in Russia, and you seem to have a bit of a problem yourself. It is fate that brings us together today, John Clark. I am hoping the two of us can come to a quick and mutually beneficial agreement.”
Clark wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Keep talking.”
“There has been a terrorist incident in Kazakhstan involving our space launch facility at Baikonur.”
Clark had no idea what was going on beyond his field of view. “A terrorist incident?”
“Yes. A terrible thing. Two rockets tipped with nuclear bombs are in the hands of terrorists from the Caucasus, and they have the manpower and k now-how to launch the rockets. We have asked for assistance from your former organization. I am not speaking of the CIA, I am speaking of Rainbow. Unfortunately, the men leading Rainbow at the moment find themselves unprepared for the magnitude of this problem.”
“Call the White House.”
Biryukov shrugged. “We did. Edward Kealty sent four men with laptop computers to save us. They are at the Kremlin. They did not even go to Kazakhstan.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“Rainbow is positioned there right now. Forty men.”
Clark just repeated himself: “What are you doing here?”
“I have asked my president to appeal to Rainbow to let you take temporary command of the organization for the Baikonur operation. Russian Spetsnaz forces would assist you in any way you wish. The Air Force, as well. In fact, you will have the entire Russian military at your disposal.” He paused, then said, “We will need to take action by tomorrow evening.”
“You are asking me to help you?”
Stanislav Biryukov shook his head slowly. “I am begging you, Mr. Clark.”
Clark raised an eyebrow as he looked up at the head of the FSB. “If you are appealing to my love of all things Russian in order to stop the attack on Moscow, well, sorry, comrade, but you’ve caught me on a bad day. My first inclination is to root for the guy with his finger on the button over there in Kazakhstan.”
“I understand, in light of present circumstances. But I also know that you will do this. You will want to save millions of lives. That is all that you will require to accept this role, but I have been authorized by President Rychcov to offer you whatever you want. Anything.”
John Clark stared at the Russian. “Right now I could use a goddamn bag of ice.”
Biryukov acted as if he had just noticed the swollen, broken hand. He called out to the men behind him, and soon a Spetsnaz sergeant with a medical kit came over and began unwrapping the towel. He placed cold gel packs on the horrific injuries, and he slowly moved the two twisted fingers back into place. He then began to wrap the entire hand and ice packs with compression bandages.
While he did this, Clark spoke through winces of pain. “Here are my demands. Your people talk to the press about how Kovalenko conspired with Paul Laska to bring down the Ryan administration with fabrications about me. The Russian government distances themselves from the allegations completely, and hands over any evidence they have on Laska and his associates.”
“Of course. Kovalenko has brought shame and embarrassment on us all.”
The two men looked at each other in silence for a moment before Clark said, “I’m not going to take your assurances. There’s a guy at The Washington Post. Bob Holtzman. He’s tough but fair. You can have your ambassador meet with him, or you can call him yourself. But this needs to happen before I do anything to help you out of that little fix you are in at the spaceport.”
Stanislav Biryukov nodded. “I will contact President Rychcov’s office and see that it happens today.” He then looked around at the torture implements on the table. “Between you and me, between two old men who have seen a lot more than many of the young people who have risen to the top ranks today… I would like to apologize for what the SVR has done. This was not an FSB operation at all. I hope you will tell your new president that personally.”
Clark responded to this request with a question: “What will happen to Valentin Kovalenko?”
Biryukov shrugged. “Moscow is a dangerous place, even for an SVR leader. His operation, his rogue operation, I will say, has been an embarrassment for my country. He will make important people angry when it is found out what he has done. Who’s to say he might not meet with an accident?”
“I am not asking you to kill Kovalenko on my behalf. I am just suggesting that he will have a problem when he finds out I’ve been freed by the FSB.”
Biryukov smiled. Clark could tell the man was not in the least bit concerned about Valentin Kovalenko. “Mr. Clark. Someone has to shoulder Russia’s responsibility in this unfortunate affair.”
John shrugged it away. He wasn’t going to worry about saving Kovalenko’s ass right now. There were innocent people out there who actually deserved his help.
John Clark and Stanislav Biryukov climbed into a helicopter five minutes later. Heavily armed commandos helped John walk, and the medic applied cold packs and compression bandages around his broken ribs. As the helo lifted off into the night sky the American leaned over to the head of the FSB. “I need the fastest plane to Baikonur, and a satellite phone. I need to call a former colleague from Rainbow and get him here. If you can speed up his visa and passport process, it would be very helpful.”
“Just tell your man to get himself on the way to Baikonur. I will contact the head of customs authority of Kazakhstan personally. There will be no delays getting him in the country, I can promise you. You and I will meet him there. By the time we land, Rychcov will have negotiated authority for you to lead Rainbow once again.”