lightning military conquest of all of Scandinavia, had been designed to
solidify popular support for the resurrected Soviet government at home
despite the rationing, the purges, and the KGB crackdowns; to cow a
fragmented and weakened NATO already over-extended in the war-ravaged
Balkans; and to remind continental Europe of the might of Soviet arms.
But Rurik’s Hammer had failed … and failed miserably. The vaunted
Baltic and Red Banner Northern fleets had suffered ignominious defeat at
the hands of a single American aircraft carrier battle group operating
off the Norwegian coast, and U.S. Marines had stormed ashore at Narvik,
trapping an entire Soviet army above Trondheim and forcing its
surrender. The twin naval engagements at the Freyen Banks and off the
Lofoten Islands–the Battles of the Fjords, as they were coming to be
called–were already being hailed as two of the classic encounters of
military history. Even now, eight months later, the Red Banner Northern
Fleet had not yet recovered but remained in Port, impotent and all but
useless.
The military fiasco in Norway had led to the collapse of the neo-Soviet
dream, of course. Krasilnikov and his supporters had been forced to
strike shameful deals with Ilya Anatolevich Leonov and his Popular
Russian Democratic Party simply to maintain some voice in Russian
government, and then been made to stand by helplessly and watch the
inexorable disintegration of Mother Russia, the destruction of all that
the glorious Revolution was and could be, begin all over again.
Enough was enough! Not even the legendary patience of the most stolid
of Russian Peasants could endure so much. The coalition of Soviet
marshals and generals, KGB leaders, Communist Party hard-liners, and
pro-Soviet nationalists had begun plotting the coup almost from the
moment the shattered remnants of the Red Banner Fleet had limped into
port at Murmansk. Their plans had culminated early this morning, as
carefully screened, pro-Soviet army and KGB units stormed the Kremlin.
Tanks now controlled every major intersection and boulevard in downtown
Moscow, while crack Spetsnaz forces held all four of Moscow’s
international airports and the complex of military control and
communications centers that ringed the city. This time, there would be
no repeat of the Pathetic half measures and hesitancy of the leaders of
the coup attempt during the summer of 1991. There would be no civilian
mobs rallying at the barricades this time, no army unit defections or
CNN special reports “live from Moscow.”
“Comrade Marshal Krasilnikov,” a smooth, familiar voice said at his
back.
“Dobre den.”
Krasilnikov whirled. Aleksandr Dmitrivich Doctorov stood in the
doorway, hands buried in the pockets of his black trenchcoat, a fur
schapska perched on his balding head.
“Doctorov,” Krasilnikov said, deliberately ignoring the other’s
greeting.
“The bird has flown his cage.”
“So I was informed on my way over here.”
“It would seem we have had a major failure of intelligence.”
The head of the Keomitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti–the infamous
Committee for State Security–stiffened ever so slightly at that
challenge.
Did he hold a gun within his coat pocket? “There was no failure,
Comrade Marshal. Leonov was here. If he escaped, he must have had
advance warning.
Perhaps from one of your officers.”
Krasilnikov was careful to keep his own hand away from his holstered
Makarov. “That is not possible.”
Doctorov stared at Krasilnikov for a moment and then, surprisingly, he
nodded. His hands came out of his pockets and he rubbed them together
briskly, warming them against the bitter Moscow cold that had invaded
the office of the erstwhile Russian president. “Actually, Comrade
Marshal, I suspect that this time my opposite number with the
Upravleniye is to blame.”
“General Suvorov? Why should he-”
“An army helicopter was seen leaving the city twenty minutes before your
men were to move in, Comrade Marshal. The tail number was that of an
aircraft assigned to the GRU command staff.”
Krasilnikov digested that. The Military Intelligence Directorate, the
Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye, was larger and in some ways more
powerful even than the more notorious KGB. Never had there been so much
as a gram’s worth of love lost between the two powerful intelligence
agencies, and their rivalry had caused trouble for Soviet policy and
image more than once in the past. But Krasilnikov had been certain that