A half hour later, the plane took off, bound for Russia. Because of the darkness, no one on the ground or in the aircraft saw the thin stream of black smoke curling from the port engine as the Gulfstream pushed skyward.
TWENTY-ONE
Monday, 12:30 A.M., Washington, D.C.
Over lunch ordered from the commissary, Lowell Coffey, Martha Mackall, and their aides worked in the attorney’s wood-paneled office, picking through the legal minefield that was a part of every Striker mission.
Finland’s President had approved a multinational Striker landing to examine radiation readings in the gulf, and Coffey’s deputy, Andrea Stempel, was on the phone with the Interpol office in Helsinki arranging to get a car and fake visas for three team members to enter Russia. Nearby, on a leather couch, Stempel’s assistant, paralegal Jeffrey Dryfoos, went over the wills of the Striker commandos. If the paperwork was not in order, reflecting up-to-date changes in marital status, children, and assets, documents would be faxed to the aircraft for signing and witnessing en route.
Coffey and Mackall themselves were looking at a computer monitor on the desk, drafting the “finding,” the lengthy final-draft document that Coffey would need to present to the joint eight-person Senate and Congressional Intelligence Committee before Striker landed. They had already negotiated the kinds of weapons that could be used, exactly what type of operation would be run, the duration, and other constraints. Coffey had been involved with some findings that had gone so far as to specify which radio frequencies could be used and what time, to the minute, the team would exit and enter. After all was said and much was done, approval from the committee to enter Russia did not actually give them the right to do so under international law. But without it, if captured, the Striker team would be disavowed without approval and left to twist in the wind. With it, the U.S. would work quietly through diplomatic channels to arrange for their release.
Down the hall, past the offices of Mike Rodgers and Ann Farris, was Bob Herbert’s tidy command center. The narrow, rectangular room consisted of several banks of computers on a small table, with detailed world maps on three walls and a dozen television monitors on the far wall. Most of the time the screens were dark. Now, however, five of them were aglow with satellite images of Russia, Ukraine, and Poland. Old pictures morphed into new ones every .89 seconds.
There was a long-standing debate in intelligence circles about the value of ELINT/SIGINT spies in space as opposed to reliable data gathered from HUMINT personnel on the ground. Ideally, agencies wanted both. They wanted the ability to read the odometer on a jeep from a satellite fifty miles in space, and ears on the ground to report on conversations or meetings held behind closed doors. Satellite spying was clean. There was no chance of getting captured or interrogated, no risk of double agents feeding false information. But it also didn’t have the capacity of an intelligence officer on the ground to distinguish between real and false targets.
Satellite surveillance for the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI, and Op-Center was managed by the highly secretive National Reconnaissance Office in the Pentagon. Run by the meticulous Stephen Viens, a college buddy of Matt Stoll, it consisted of banks of television monitors set in ten rows of ten. All of them watched different sectors of the earth, each generating an image every .89 seconds providing a total of sixty-seven live black-and-white images a minute at various levels of magnification. The NRO was also responsible for testing the new AIM-Satellite, first in a series of orbiting audio-imaging monitors designed to provide detailed pictures of submarine and aircraft interiors by reading the sounds and echoes of sounds produced by people and instruments therein.
Three of the NRO’s satellites were watching troop movements on the border of Russia and Ukraine, while two kept an eye on forces in Poland. Through a source at the United Nations, Bob Herbert had heard that the Poles were getting antsy with the Russian buildup. Though Warsaw had not yet authorized the mobilization of troops, leaves had been canceled and the activities of Ukrainians living and working in Poland, near the border, were being monitored by Warsaw. Viens agreed with Herbert that Poland deserved watching, and had the photos sent directly to his office, where Op-Center’s surveillance analysis team was studying them as they appeared.
The printout of the day’s activities of the soldiers in Belgorod indicated nothing unusual to Bob Herbert and his team of analysts. For nearly two days, the routine had been the same:
Time Activity
0550 First Call
0600 Reveille formation
0610-0710 Physical training
0710-0715 Make Beds
0715-0720 Inspection
0720-0740 Orders of the day given
0740-0745 Wash
0745-0815 Breakfast
0815-0830 Cleanup
0830-0900 Preparation for duty
0900-1450 Training
1450-1500 Prepare for lunch
1500-1530 Lunch
1530-1540 Tea
1540-1610 Personal time
1610-1650 Care and cleaning of weapons and equipment
1650-1840 Cleaning camp and general sanitation
1840-1920 Secure perimeter
1920-1930 Wash hands
1930-2000 Dinner
2000-2030 Watch TV news
2030-2130 Personal time
2130-2145 Evening formation
2145-2155 Evening inspection
2200 Retreat
While Herbert and his people stayed on top of the military developments, they also tried to collect information for Charlie Squires and his Striker commandos about the situation at the Hermitage. Satellite reconnaissance turned up no unusual traffic, and Matt Stoll and his technical staff weren’t having much luck working up programs to enable the AIM-Satellite to filter out the noise in the museum itself. The lack of personnel on the ground compounded their frustration. Egypt, Japan, and Colombia had agents in Moscow, but none in St. Petersburg-and, in any case, Herbert didn’t want to tell them that something was brewing at the Hermitage, lest they side with Russia. Old loyalties weren’t necessarily changing in the post-Cold War world, but new ones were constantly being forged. Herbert didn’t intend to help any of those along, even if it meant allowing extra time so Striker could study the site firsthand before defining their mission.
Then, at ten minutes after noon-8:00 P.M. in Moscow-the situation changed.
Bob Herbert was called to Op-Center’s radio room in the northwest comer of the basement. Wheeling over, he headed toward Radio Reconnaissance Director John Quirk, a taciturn giant of a man with a beatific face, a soft voice, and the patience of a monk. Quirk was seated by a radio/computer unit, UTHER-Universal Translation and Heuristic Enharmonic Reporter-which was capable of producing a virtually simultaneous written translation of everything that was being said by over five hundred different voice types, in over two hundred languages and dialects.
Quirk removed his headset as Herbert arrived. The three other people in the room continued working at their monitors, which were trained on Moscow and St. Petersburg.
“Bob,” Quirk said, “we’ve intercepted transmissions indicating that equipment is being collected at air bases from Ryazan to Vladivostok for shipment to Belgorod. ”
“Belgorod?” Herbert said. “That’s where the Russians have been holding maneuvers. What kind of equipment are they sending over?”
Quirk turned his blue eyes toward the screen. “You name it. Automated communications trucks, vehicle mounted radio relay stations, a helicopter-mounted retransmission station, Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants trucks and trailers, along with full maintenance companies and field kitchen trucks.”
“They’re setting up a communications and supply route,” Herbert said. “Could be a drill of some kind.”
“I’ve never seen one this sudden.”
‘What do you mean?” Herbert asked.
“Well,” Quirk said, “this is clearly an engagement build-up, but before the Russians engage there’s always a great deal of communication about the expected time of the encounter and the anticipated size of enemy forces. We’ll pick up their calculations on speed-of-movement scales, and there’ll be conversations between frontline forces and headquarters about tactics-envelopment, turning movement, combined, that sort of thing. ”
“But you didn’t get any of that,” Herbert said.
‘Zero. This is as sudden as anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Yet when everything’s in place,” Herbert said, they’ll be ready for something big … like a move into the Ukraine.”
“Correct.”
“Yet the Ukrainians are doing nothing,” Herbert said.
“They may not know anything’s up,” Quirk said.
“Or they may not he taking it seriously,” Herbert said. “NRO photos show that they’ve got reconnaissance personnel close to the border-but not deep reconnaissance companies. Obviously, they don’t expect to have to operate from behind enemy lines.” Herbert drummed his leather armrests. “How soon before the Russians are ready to move?”
“They’ll be in position by tonight,” Quirk said. “By aircraft, it’s just a short hop to Belgorod.”
“And there’s no chance that these are bogeys?” Herbert asked.
Quirk shook his head. “These communications are real, all right. The Russians use a combination of Latin and Cyrillic characters when they want to confuse us. The letters shared by the alphabets are supposed to throw us off because it’s tough to know which alphabet they mean.” He patted the computer. “But Uther manages to sniff them out.”