Primary Threat. Джек Марс

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      “What news from our friend?” the man named Marmilov said.

      He sat at his desk in a windowless basement office, smoking a cigarette. A ceramic ashtray was on the green steel desk in front of him. Although it was early in the morning, there were already five spent cigarette butts in the ashtray. A cup of coffee (with a splash of whiskey—Jameson, imported from Ireland) was also on the desk.

      In the morning, the man smoked and drank black coffee. It was how he started his day. He wore a dark suit and his thinning hair was swooped over the top of his head, hardened and held in place by hairspray. Everything about the man was harsh angles and jutting bones. He seemed almost like a scarecrow. But his eyes were sharp and aware.

      He had been around a long time, and had seen many things. He had survived the purges of the 1980s, and when the change came, in the 1990s, he had survived that as well. The GRU itself had come through largely intact, unlike its poor little sister, the KGB. The KGB had been broken apart and scattered to the winds.

      The GRU was as large and as powerful as it ever was, perhaps more so. And Oleg Marmilov, fifty-eight years old, had played an integral role in it for a long time. The GRU was an octopus, the largest Russian intelligence agency, with its tentacles in special operations, spy networks around the globe, communications interception, political assassinations, destabilizing governments, drug trafficking, misinformation, psychological warfare, and false flag operations, not to mention the deployment of 25,000 elite Spetsnaz troops.

      Marmilov was an octopus living inside the octopus. His tentacles were in so many places, sometimes a subordinate would come to him with a report, and he would draw a blank for a moment before thinking:

      “Oh yes. That thing. How is it going?”

      But some of his activities were right on the top of his mind.

      Bolted to the top of his desk was a television monitor. To an American of the right age, the monitor would seem similar to the coin-operated TVs that once graced intercity bus stations across the country.

      On the screen, live footage from security cameras cycled through. The man assumed there was a delay in the feed, possibly as much as half a minute. Otherwise, the footage was up to the moment.

      It was dark in the footage, night had fallen, but Marmilov could see well enough. An iron stairwell climbing the side of an oil rig. A cluster of battered, corrugated aluminum huts on a cold and barren plot of land. A tiny port facility on a frozen sea, with a small, rugged ice cutter ship docked. There didn’t appear to be any people in the footage.

      Marmilov looked up at the man standing in front of his desk.

      “Well? Any news?”

      The visitor was a younger man, who, while wearing a drab, ill-fitting civilian business suit, also seemed to stand at military attention. He stared at something in a far imaginary distance, instead of at the man sitting just a few feet before him.

      “Yes, sir. Our contact has relayed the message that a group of commandos has been chosen. Most of them are already amassing at the airfield in Deadhorse, Alaska. Several more, who represent the civilian oversight of the project, are en route by supersonic airplane and will arrive within the next few hours.”

      The man paused. “From then, it will likely be a very short time before the assault force is deployed.”

      “How reliable is this intelligence?” Marmilov said.

      The man shrugged. “It comes from a secret meeting held at the White House itself. The meeting could of course be a ruse, but we don’t think so. The President was in attendance, as were members of the military command.”

      “Do we know the method of attack?”

      The man nodded. “We believe they will deploy frogmen who will swim to the artificial island, emerge from beneath the ice, and mount the attack.”

      Marmilov thought about that. “The water must be quite cold.”

      The man nodded. “Yes.”

      “It sounds like quite a difficult assignment.”

      Now the young man showed the ghost of a smile. “The frogmen will be wearing cumbersome underwater gear designed to shield them from the cold, and our intelligence suggests they will carry their weapons in sealed packages. They are hoping for the element of surprise, a sneak attack by highly trained elite divers. The weather is forecast to be very poor, and flying will become difficult. As far as we understand, no simultaneous attack by sea or by air is planned.”

      “Can our friends repulse them?” Marmilov said.

      “Given advance warning of their approach, and knowing the method of attack, it’s possible that our friends can be waiting for them, and kill them all. After that…”

      The man shrugged. “Of course the Americans will bring the hammer down. But that won’t be our concern.”

      Oleg Marmilov returned the young man’s smile. He took another deep drag on his cigarette.

      “Exceptional,” he said. “Keep me informed of developments.”

      “Of course.”

      Marmilov gestured at the monitor on his desk. “And naturally, I am a great fan of sport. When the action starts, I will watch every moment of it on the TV.”

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      12:45 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (8:45 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time, September 4)

      The skies above the Upper Peninsula

      Michigan