nearest black metal cliff rising by the concrete pier. “This is your
vessel, is it not?”
“He is, Comrade Admiral.” Chelyag stiffened with evident pride. “It is
my great honor to command Lenin’s Invincible Truth.
At thirty-nine, Chelyag was young for such an important command, but his
father was Vice Admiral Gennadi V. Chelyag, a senior staff officer
serving now with the Baltic Fleet and a personal friend of the Minister
of Defense. Such was the time-honored way of patronage within the
fleet.
“Hmm. Where are you from, Comrade Captain?” Karelin asked, suddenly
curious. Having studied the dossiers of all command officers in the
division, he knew precisely where Chelyag had been born and raised, but
he wanted to hear what the man would say with his own ears.
“Kuybyshev, Comrade Admiral.” The man sounded suddenly defensive,
cautious, as though the question masked some unseen trap. His eyes
turned private and flicked once to the KGB men and the MVD guards. “But
… I’ve not been back there for a long time.”
“Kuybyshev? I thought the city’s name was now Samara.”
“I still think of it as Kuybyshev, sir.”
“Ah, I see.” Kuybyshev, named in the 1930s for a leader of the October
Revolution, was one of the hundreds of former Soviet cities and towns
that had resumed their old, Czarist names during the Soviet collapse of
the early 1990s. “The city is deep within rebel territory, Captain. And
they persist in calling it Samara.”
“Y-yes, Comrade Admiral. But I assure you that my total and complete
loyalty is to-”
“Tell me, Captain. Were I to give you the order to incinerate Samara
now, this moment, what would be your response?”
“I would instantly and without question carry out my orders, Comrade
Admiral. I have trained all my life in the service of the Rodina. My
home now is Party, Motherland, and Navy.”
“The proper answer, Captain. But what would you feel about such an
order, eh?”
Chelyag had difficulty meeting Karelin’s eyes. “I … I would be
unhappy about it, of course. Kuybyshev is a magnificent city, and an
important port on the Volga. It has a population of almost a million
and a half people, and I sincerely doubt that more than a fraction of
them are Blue counter revolutionaries. I certainly would not want them
all to die. But I would follow orders. Sir.”
“And your family?”
“My wife and child,” Chelyag said slowly, “live in Severomorsk. Both my
parents are now in St. Petersburg … in Leningrad, I mean. There is
nothing to tie me to Kuybyshev, or to any other rebel city.”
Relenting at last, Karelin reached out to clap the young PLARB captain
on the shoulder. “Relax, Anatoli Gennadevich. I was not doubting you.”
Chelyag looked as though his knees were about to give way, and his face
was pale. “Thank you, Admiral.”
“Nor would such a terrible burden as the destruction of your own home be
laid upon your shoulders. But the destruction of our enemies, of the
Rodina’s enemies, will demand the utmost in loyalty and dedication from
every one of us.”
Now it was Karelin’s turn to glance briefly at the stolid, central Asian
faces of his escort. Few Asians in the MVD even spoke Russian, but
Karelin was not about to jeopardize the unit’s morale with the
information that their home cities were about to become nuclear targets.
Somehow, he did not think they would understand.
Chances were, they’d not even been told that Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan,
and the other Asian republics had sided with the rebels … as had been
inevitable from the beginning, of course. They were barbarians,
fighting with one another incessantly, hating only the Great Russians
more than they hated one another. If Moscow decided to loose
nuclear-tipped missiles against her own territory, the Union would be
well rid of dissidents’ hives like Tashkent and Alma-Ata.
“So, Captain, if you will,” he said, gesturing toward the back of the
cavern. “Let us proceed to your Operations Building. I have important
business to discuss with Rear Admiral Marchenko.”
“At once, Comrade Admiral. This way, if you please.”
The party made its way deeper into the cavern, leaving the waterfront