A parade celebrating the return of Belarus to the Russian Federation had been announced the same day as the agreement was signed. Exactly one week later, Belarusian President Yatachenko and other Belarusian officials stood on the reviewing stand next to Fedorin, watching as tanks and troops marched by and jet aircraft flew almost dangerously low over the crowd, then spiraled up into spectacular aerobatics.
The moment the massed bands stopped playing, Fedorin almost sprang to the podium. He grabbed the microphone with one hand and leaned forward. “Comrades! Fellow Russians! Our country is larger, stronger, and richer today because our Belarusian brothers have rejoined us! And Belarus is stronger and richer as part of our Federation!”
Cheers would have drowned out whatever he said next, so Fedorin waited until the din had faded.
His exuberant tone mellowed, and he spoke more calmly. “There are many good reasons why Belarus should be part of the Russian Federation. Our common language, our cultures, our shared faiths, all make her return to us seem more than just a good idea.” His voice rose to almost a shout. “But those do not matter as much as the pure joy I feel at part of our fathers’ nation once again in its proper place!”
There was another cheer from the crowd, but Fedorin only waited for a moment before continuing. “Russia will be stronger still as our dismembered motherland rebuilds and heals. Soviet Russia was once the greatest, the richest, the most advanced country on Earth, but our leaders made mistakes, and our enemies seized on them, weakening our beloved nation and finally shattering it.
“Forty years later, we have returned to the world stage, and while I promise you that we will not make the same mistakes as our fathers did, our enemies are already sharpening their knives. They try to stifle us and strangle our country with sanctions and industrial espionage and boycotts and military treaties explicitly aimed at ‘containing’ us once more.”
Fedorin paused and scanned the crowd. “They should be careful.” He smiled wickedly. “We grow stronger while they grow weaker. Some day, perhaps not too long from now, the Russian Federation will be a union once again, with all of our lost peoples rejoined with us in a nation so powerful that the world will not only acknowledge our leadership, they will beg us to lead them.
“I will share my dream with you all, and I beg you all to make it your dream as well. Let us remake our fathers’ Soviet Union, a nation unlike any before it, and still the greatest nation in history. But we will not be satisfied with recreating past glories, but will use them as a starting point to move forward, to do things we can only dream of now.”
The background screen behind Christine Laird showed a constantly shifting montage with videos of President Fedorin and Russian military hardware, along with demonstrations both pro-and anti-Russia. The camera kept the background in view behind Laird as she began her broadcast.
“Fedorin’s latest speech has already received over a million views, and the Russian Foreign Ministry has thoughtfully uploaded versions subtitled in English, French, German, and many other languages, even Malay. European leaders are becoming more open in expressing their concerns about Fedorin’s revanchist policies.
“Senator Tom Emmers from Kentucky is a member of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee. He is sponsoring a resolution calling for President Hardy to be more decisive in opposing Fedorin’s actions. Welcome, Senator.”
Emmers was a large man with thinning brown hair. His round face broke into a wide beaming smile as Laird introduced him. “Thank you, Christine. You know, I had to look up ‘revanchist’ the first time I heard it. It turns out to be derived from a French word, and means wanting to regain territory that was lost, usually through a war or some such misfortune. There’s also an element of revenge, implying that whoever made them lose the territory will suffer payback.”
Laird prompted, “And you think this is an accurate description of Russian President Fedorin’s policies?”
“They could put a picture of him in the dictionary next to the definition,” Emmers asserted, “but while I had it open, I found another word: ‘irredentism.’ This one is from Italian and, boiled down, means people who want to claim territory where some folks with the same language or culture live. It doesn’t have to even be a majority of the people living there. Does that sound like any Russian presidents we know?
“Fedorin believes in the ‘good old days,’ when the Soviet Union was a military superpower. He was barely out of school when everything fell apart over there. His dad and Putin were buddies, back in the day, so it’s no surprise that the young Fedorin started his career in the KGB working for Putin, learning the dark arts from a master. Now he’s in charge, trying to bring back something that’s a mix of old propaganda and wishful thinking. In case the present administration hasn’t figured it out, he wants to revive the good old USSR, and he doesn’t care who suffers getting there.”
Emmers sat up a little straighter, and his tone harshened. “I’m sending a dictionary to President Hardy with those two definitions highlighted. It tells him everything he needs to know about Fedorin, and will be much more than he knows now. The president did nothing to interfere with Fedorin’s takeover of Belarus, and doesn’t appear to be doing anything now that it’s happened. If ‘not doing anything’ was going to be Hardy’s foreign policy, he should have warned us before the election, so we could all start taking Russian lessons.”
Laird referred to a paper on her desk. “Press Secretary Andrews read a statement today saying that they’re continuing to quote, ‘monitor the Russian actions for any violations of international law—’”
“‘Monitor’ is a word that means ‘watching without acting,’” Emmers interrupted angrily. “And we already know what Fedorin thinks about international law. The only thing he cares about, or understands, is raw power, and until this administration grows a spine, the Russians will keep steadily reclaiming the old Soviet client states, and causing lots of damage along the way.
“Every state that used to be in the Soviet Union has suffered violent demonstrations and hacking attacks. There are even some ‘accidental’ deaths that this administration ought to be investigating. Even countries like Poland and the Czech Republic, which are both members of NATO, by the way, report incidents of cyber hacking, sabotage, and Russian economic sanctions.”
The senator took a breath, and Laird quickly interjected, “You make some bold assertions, Senator, but isn’t it true that everyone was caught by surprise by the sudden turnaround in Belarus? The universal response from the European Union countries certainly paints that picture, and if I may, neither your committee, nor any other in the House or Senate seems to have anticipated this development. Just what would you like the administration to do differently?”
Emmers grimaced briefly; he didn’t like being challenged by this young upstart. Ignoring her jab, he went straight to answering the question. “We need to get some skin in the game. Get more troops over there, on a permanent basis. Help upgrade the military forces of our allies. How about some stronger economic sanctions? Don’t wait for the Russians to do something. By then, it’s too late. Hit Fedorin and his stooges in their wallets. And how about some decent intelligence briefings?” Emmers shrugged with an air of sarcasm. “Does the CIA know more and they’re just not sharing? Or is this it? The Russians are busy all over Europe. What’s their next move?”
They still read together in bed before sleeping, although it now sometimes included watching recorded video. Hardy thumbed the control and the flat-screen went dark. “Why did Dwight think you needed to see that?” asked Joanna. There was irritation in her voice. She jealously guarded their “quiet time” together and the CNN clip was nothing but an ugly intrusion. “Emmers is going to criticize you no matter what you do or say.”
Hardy scowled for a moment, then answered, “Emmers is a horse’s patoot, but he’s also right. We don’t have enough intelligence to predict where Fedorin will move next. By the time we’d doped out what was going to happen in Belarus, it was too late.”
“Maybe even Fedorin doesn’t know,” Joanna suggested. “He could just sit there and stir the pot until he sees an opening, and then act.”
Hardy nodded agreement. “Being a dictator does let him move more quickly. But without taking the analogy too far, he has more than one bubbling pot on the stove, and there’s lots of different things he can do: build up the fire or put in different ingredients, and we don’t even know the recipes he’s trying to make.”
“But you do know,” she insisted. “He’s trying to make borscht, every time.” Her husband’s annoyed frown caused her to chuckle. She held up a hand, smiling. “Okay, I’m sorry. I broke your metaphor. I understand that you need more information, and that Fedorin has the initiative. He can choose the time and place, and all you can do is react. But you also know his goals.”
“And Ray Peakes is working that angle, as he tries to improve our intelligence collection and analysis capabilities on Russia. We’ve been spread pretty thin with most of our attention being in the Middle East and Asia for the last couple of decades, as you well know, my dear. We need to essentially rebuild our Russian analytical cadre. You just can’t order decent analysts online. They need to be recruited, trained, and grown. But this takes time, something that our allies, and my critics, don’t get.”
“Meanwhile, Emmers and his allies will snipe at you.”
“I’m not worried about that; I’m already developing a thick hide. But Fedorin is not our friend, and wants to do us harm.”
“He’s trying to take over entire countries,” Joanna persisted. “He can’t do that entirely out of sight.”
“Perhaps not. But, we’re still depending far more on luck than I’d like.”
Commander Louis Weiss strolled slowly into the control room, carefully cradling his extra large mug. He wasn’t completely awake yet and he didn’t want to spill a drop of the precious hot black liquid. Although the mug was capable of holding twenty ounces, Weiss had only filled it to the “sea line,” which meant a mere sixteen. A gift from his wife, it was a simple, sturdy design adorned with the ship’s patch and motto, Semper Optima—“Always the Best.”
Pausing to look around control, he found everything running smoothly, despite the fact that their deployment had taken a hard left turn. Two days earlier the boat had rendezvoused with the Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star at Smith Bay, a remote ice-infested cove at the top of Alaska. Polar Star had hightailed it from Anchorage, on the other side of the state, after stopping just long enough to pick up a navy detachment and their cargo that had been flown into Elmendorf Air Force Base. It took nearly six days for the Coast Guard ship to reach the northern bay; thick broken ice slowed them down a little as they rounded Barrow.
By comparison, Jimmy Carter had it easy. Weiss was able to bring her in submerged until they were well within sight of land. Once tied up alongside Polar Star, navy and coast guard personnel quickly transferred the supplies, spare parts, mission data, and mail. Commodore Mitchell had promised the last item as compensation for what promised to be a long deployment. Five hours later, Jimmy Carter slipped back beneath the Arctic Ocean.
Acknowledging the officer of the deck’s greeting, Weiss wandered over to the plotting tables. His executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Joshua Segerson was hunched over the port table, studying a chart of the Severnaya Zemlya area.
“Good morning, Skipper,” hailed Segerson without looking up.
“Morning, XO. So how’s the search plan coming along?”
“Nav finished it about half an hour ago, he was up all night tweaking the damn thing. I had him hit the rack.”
Weiss nodded his understanding; the ship’s navigator, Lieutenant Commander Kurt Malkoff, was a perfectionist. “Yeah, well, Kurt can get pretty focused when he thinks he needs to.”
“Which is all the time,” noted Segerson with confidence. “But still, after thirty-some hours staring at this chart I figured there was a distinct risk of us ending off of Australia, so I booted him out.” The executive officer stood up straight, rolled the chart up and offered it to Weiss. “I’ve just finished looking it over, and it is one finely polished cannonball. It’s ready for your review, sir.”
“Thanks, I’ll study it when I grab my second mug,” said Weiss as he stuffed the chart under his arm. “But what’s the bottom line, XO? How long does Kurt think it’ll take to find Toledo?”
Segerson shook his head. “I asked him the same thing, Skipper, and I got a typical answer. If we’re really lucky, about a week, if we’re really unlucky, never, and then there is everything in between.”
“I just hope we find her, Josh. There’s a lot of attention on this mission. A lot of presidential attention.”
“I’d say that’s normal when a boat goes missing.”
Weiss shook his head vehemently. “No, no, XO, it goes way beyond that. You see, the new president, our squadron commodore, and Toledo’s skipper all served together on Memphis. From what I heard, that wardroom got really tight during their last mission — a SPECOP in Russian waters.”
Segerson whistled softly, then said, “No pressure.” He hadn’t been aware of that little fact.
“You got that right, Josh.” Weiss paused to take a stiff drink of his coffee and then motioned toward the navigation chart. “We’re still good, position-wise?”
“Yes, sir. We’ll be in the search area in a little less than twenty-four hours. Then the real fun begins. I take it you still intend to make a quick pass of the area, get the lay of the land, in a manner of speaking?”
Weiss nodded. “Yes, XO, and we go in at battle stations. I don’t know what happened to Toledo, but I’m not taking any chances.”
Vice Admiral Nikolai Vasil’evich Gorokhov steadied himself against the biting wind as he peered through his binoculars out into the Laptev Sea. He didn’t like what he was seeing. Theoretically it was summer, theoretically. But at the far end of Cape Baranova he was nearly thirteen degrees north of the Arctic Circle, and while the current temperature of minus one degree Celsius was balmy by comparison to the frigid cold of a typical Arctic winter, it still wasn’t all that cozy. The blustery northwest wind didn’t help matters, coming in from over the polar ice pack with gusts of up to twenty-five knots. The wind-chill factor wasn’t horrible; he’d experienced much worse while stationed in the Northern Fleet. No, his concern was the large ice floes the wind was pushing into his construction area.