Collateral (Tier One #6)

The Situation Room

The White House

Washington, DC

0624 Local Time

Jarvis, along with the rest of the National Security Council members, stood the moment President Warner entered the room. The President said nothing, just waved them all to be seated as he took his place at the head of the table.

“This situation is the most treacherous and perilous any of us will face in our careers. A foreign power has assassinated the Vice President of the United States, and I hold all of you personally responsible for this intelligence failure.” Warner dragged his laser beam eyes across everyone at the large conference table, his gaze eventually settling on Jarvis. “Not the Secret Service . . . but you, each and every one of you in this room. You are my National Security Council, and in case you’ve forgotten, that means you’re responsible for national security.”

“Yes, sir,” Jarvis said, having no choice but to answer for the collective. “And we accept full responsibility for this tragedy.”

Warner shook his head and looked down at his hands, which were balled into fists on the table. “Satellite imagery shows Russian armor and troop carriers repositioning along Ukraine’s southeastern border, correct?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” General McMillan, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said.

“And the Russian Navy has parked a small armada of ships off the coast of Mariupol in the Sea of Azov?”

“That’s correct, sir. And the guided-missile frigate Admiral Grigorovich appears to be steaming toward Odessa in the Black Sea. Three Kilo-class submarines moored at Sevastopol have also gotten underway and submerged.”

Warner nodded. “The question I want everyone in this room to ask themselves is, why would the Russian military reposition both land and naval assets in such a manner? The pro-Russian separatists in the eastern oblasts already won their autonomy. Why would Petrov take such actions unless he’s planning to capitalize on the chaos and use this as an opportunity to invade Ukraine?”

“Mr. President, if I may?” Secretary of State Baker interjected.

“You may not,” Warner said with an admonishing glare, then looked from Baker to the Secretary of Defense. “Bob, I don’t know how else to say this other than make preparations for war. I will not, under any circumstance, allow Russia to invade Ukraine. Petrov’s dream of Novorossiya dies today.”

At first, the SecDef, Robert Frank, didn’t react. But then, very slowly, he began to nod. “Yes, Mr. President. Is it premature to brief the Gang of Eight?”

Warner thought for a moment. “No, and I’m going to need Congress on my side for this. Go ahead and start a dialogue with Senator Rutledge. He’s a hawk. We’ll let him take point.” The President turned to his Chief of Staff and said, “David, who’s that reporter at the Post who’s always a pain in my ass?”

“Well, sir, there are several: Greg Olsen, Christina Morales, Ben Bradshaw—”

“Bradshaw, that’s the one. Why don’t you send him a Black Sea maritime-activity status report and include a note about a previously unannounced Russian military exercise that appears to be unfolding along Ukraine’s southeastern border. When he connects the dots, tell him my administration is gravely concerned about these developments. If he presses you, tell him, off the record, that we believe a Kremlin-directed clandestine operation is underway to further destabilize Ukraine following the tragic death of President Zinovenko. I want to get ahead of this in the press and I want to control the narrative.”

“And what do we want in return?” Warner’s Chief of Staff asked.

“Nothing, other than his verbal assurance that he will report on the situation with the same tenacity he’s used to scrutinize my presidency.”

This comment momentarily broke the tension in the room, giving the assembled powerbrokers something to chuckle about in a situation that otherwise warranted no levity.

The President turned his attention back to the Secretary of Defense. “Bob, get to work with the Joint Chiefs. I want containment scenarios and options on my desk by eighteen hundred hours. It’s going to be a late night, people. The first of many. Clear your calendars and hug your kids, because you’re living here for the foreseeable future. Meeting adjourned.”

After a moment of hesitant silence, the room buzzed to life with commotion as a half-dozen side conversations fired up between various principals, and a legion of staff personnel—aides, deputies, and directors—scrambled from the “cheap seats” along the perimeter to find and support their bosses. And so it was with Jarvis; when he slid his chair back from the table and turned, he was met by Petra and Mike Casey.

“Let’s go grab one of the small rooms before somebody else does,” Jarvis said, chopping a hand toward the exit like he was on an op back in the day. “We need to talk.”

Petra spun on a heel and led the way, parting the sea of bodies like a fast boat cutting through the surf. Casey followed her, with Jarvis bringing up the rear, as she strode at a brisk pace to one of the nearby breakout rooms. She snagged it a split second before Secretary Baker’s aide could, tossing her notebook on the table like she was planting a flag on virgin ground and claiming sovereign territory. Baker’s aide shot Petra an irritated look, turned on a heel, and went for another room. Casey shut the door behind Jarvis and they both grabbed seats at the table.

“This is an open session,” Jarvis said. “I want to hear everything on your minds, unfiltered. There are no stupid ideas, no stupid theories. Petra, you first.”

“I talked to the CIA station chief in Kiev this morning and picked his brain in preparation for this meeting,” she said, resting her hands on the table. “He confirmed there’s no love between Ultra and Russia. Ultra is an organization whose stated mission is to fight for a strong and independent Ukraine, free from Russian influence. They are ultranationalists, many of them veterans of the war in Donbas, where their brothers died fighting the Russian army. Any narrative proclaiming that Ultra is somehow a puppet of the Kremlin is not based in fact.”

“What else did he have to say?” Jarvis asked.

“As of five hours ago, Ultra is still denying responsibility for the attack.”

“That means nothing,” Jarvis said. “Does CIA have embedded assets in any of the far-right nationalist groups in Ukraine?”

“No,” Petra said. “I asked him that specifically.”

“What are his snitches in Kiev saying?”

“The consensus on the street is still that Ultra was behind the strike, but he’s got nothing concrete.”

Jarvis blew air through his teeth. “Look, the President wants ironclad confirmation of who was behind this attack, and we need to find a way to give it to him. Petra, I want you to contact CIA Director Hartigan’s office and give them a heads-up we’re going to be coordinating with his Chief of Station to run ISR on Ultra in Kiev. Ember has to start somewhere, and I think Ultra is the logical choice.”

“Roger that,” she said, jotting a note with his pen.

He turned to Casey, who was now fully read in on Ember. “Mike, give Baldwin the green light to raid Ultra’s base of operations, pick up some guys, and see what we can learn.”

“Timeline?” Casey said.

“ASAFP,” Jarvis replied, then returned his attention to Petra.

“I know that look,” she said. “You think Russia was behind this, don’t you?”

He shrugged. “It does have the hallmarks of a Zeta false flag operation—well orchestrated, plausible deniability, and massive geopolitical stakes for Russia. Vice President Tenet’s stance on Russia was the same as Warner’s. Had he been elected, he would have continued the Warner doctrine of targeted sanctions against Russia and a hard stance on rebuffing Russian expansionism. And when you factor in Zinovenko’s recent statements indicating Ukraine’s intention to seek membership in the EU following the Donbas treaty signing . . . well, let’s just say the future wasn’t looking so bright from Petrov’s perspective.”

“I hear you, but Russian Prime Minister Vavilov was also killed in this attack. Would Petrov really task Arkady with an operation to murder Russia’s parliamentary head of state just for the sake of plausible deniability? That seems highly unlikely to me, even for a man as vicious and power hungry as Petrov.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he said, flexing his fingers below the table. “Ever since we lost Shane, I see Arkady’s fingerprints everywhere I look. Maybe I’ve lost my objectivity on the matter.”

“I’m not so sure,” Casey said. “Since when has sacrificing their brethren in the name of country ever bothered the Russians? The Red Army suffered eight-point-six million casualties in World War Two. Some historians estimate an additional twelve million Russian civilians died in the war against the Nazis. After the war, Stalin branded millions of his countrymen dissidents and had them executed. Millions more were sent to die in labor camps to cement his grip on power. Let’s not forget, Petrov had his main political rival gunned down on the streets of Moscow in plain sight. Why is it so inconceivable to imagine he’d dispatch his Prime Minister to Kiev knowing the man would die? Remember, in two thousand seventeen there was speculation that Vavilov was going to run for President against Petrov. Vavilov denied it, but early polling showed he had a higher approval rating than Petrov. From what I understand, Petrov got spooked and offered Vavilov the Prime Minister job to preempt a Presidential bid.”

“I think the one thing we can all agree on is that Petrov will do anything to cement his power and promote Russian hegemony in the region,” Jarvis said, his mind going back to Buz Wilson saying something similar about the Russian mindset on the day he’d recruited the old spook for Ember. “Politics and power for Petrov is a zero-sum game. For him to rise, others must fall. Tenet, Zinovenko, and Vavilov all threatened his reputation, agenda, and grip on power in different ways . . . How he would outmaneuver all of them in the coming years certainly had to be on Petrov’s mind.”

“Agreed,” Petra said.

“Mike, give me your thoughts on the Black Sea and these naval movements General McMillan mentioned,” Jarvis said, turning to his Deputy Chief of Staff.

The former submarine captain retrieved a notebook computer from his bag and flipped open the screen. He clicked on a mapping application and pulled up satellite imagery of arguably the world’s most strategically important captive body of water.

“As you know, access to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean is controlled via the Turkish straits—the Dardanelles on the Aegean side and the Bosporus on the Black Sea side. The straits and the body of water between them, the Sea of Marmara, are sovereign territorial waters of Turkey. Since the nineteen thirty-six Montreux Convention, Turkey has exercised full control over the straits. The agreement guarantees free passage of civilian vessels in peacetime, but grants Turkey exclusive power to restrict and control the transit of warships not flagged under one of the Black Sea countries—Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, and Turkey. There’s no governing treaty between those countries that limits how many naval ships they can maintain and deploy from Black Sea home ports.”

“Do we have any ships in the Black Sea now?” Petra asked.

“Yes, two ships, in fact. Historically, Ankara has limited US Naval presence to one combatant vessel at a time, but right now 6th Fleet is conducting a training exercise with the Romanian Navy, and so the USS Oak Hill and the USS Donald Cook are there. The Oak Hill is carrying a detachment of Special Operations–capable Marines, as well as supporting air assets—namely AH-64 attack helicopters and their UH1s. The Donald Cook is an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, homeported out of Rota, Spain.”

“Is that for the annual Sea Breeze exercises?” Jarvis asked.

“Exactly,” Casey said. “The Oak Hill is docked in Odessa for liberty and the Donald Cook is running around with a couple of Ukrainian fast boats and their flagship, the late Soviet-era frigate Hetman Sahaydachniy.”

“Ukraine’s flagship is a frigate?” Petra asked.

“Yeah, and it’s their only frigate at that,” Casey said with a pitying expression. “What most people don’t understand is that when Ukraine forfeited Crimea to Russia in two thousand fourteen, it lost more than just a chunk of land—it lost its status as the dominant naval power on the Black Sea.”

“Go on,” Jarvis said.

“Petrov didn’t want Crimea, he wanted Sevastopol. Eighty percent of Ukraine’s naval personnel and sixty percent of its maritime assets—ships, amphibious craft, aircraft, and helicopters—were stationed on the Crimean peninsula, with the lion’s share operating out of Sevastopol. When Petrov annexed Crimea, he took everything. In one fell swoop, Russia neutered the Ukrainian Navy and ripped up the two thousand ten Kharkov Agreement, which was preventing Russia from growing and modernizing its Black Sea fleet. Petrov gained an ice-free deep-water harbor and shipyard and took control of the land mass on both sides of the Kerch Strait—the only passage connecting the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea.”

“Didn’t Petrov recently blockade the Kerch Strait?” Petra asked.

“Yeah, but not just once—five times in the last twelve months. Which is a major problem for Ukraine because its two largest seaports—Odessa and Mariupol—are on opposite sides of the strait. Eighty percent of Ukraine’s maritime traffic is between these two cities. Petrov knows this and he’s using his Black Sea fleet to create chaos. The US Naval Institute estimates Mariupol maritime-related revenues were down fifty percent last year entirely due to Russian maritime interference.”

“I don’t think Congress, the American people, or the media ever understood the strategic implications of annexing Crimea,” Petra said. “The news reports focused on the bogus election and Moscow’s sob story about native Russians in Crimea wanting to be part of the motherland again. Never once, did I hear anyone explain that this coup was all about the Black Sea.”

“That’s exactly right, and since two thousand fourteen, the size and capabilities of the Russian Black Sea fleet have increased dramatically.” Casey pulled up a list of ships, with the dramatic post-Crimea additions highlighted in yellow. “And I haven’t even touched on the aviation assets relocated and the missile batteries they’ve installed all across the Crimean peninsula. They’ve got supersonic antiship missiles, ballistic missiles, antiaircraft missiles, submarine-launched cruise missiles—basically, every type of missile imaginable—and their Air Force recently stood up a squadron of Sukhoi Su-30s in Sevastopol. In other words, all of the Black Sea and every country that borders it are well inside their strike radius. From a military standpoint, Russia dominates the Black Sea, and there’s absolutely nothing anybody, including the United States, can do about it.”

“Mike, let’s pretend for a minute that I’m President Petrov and you’re my chief strategist,” Jarvis said, rubbing his chin. “We took Crimea and that worked out great. With Ukraine in chaos, I’m ready for my next land grab. Walk me through the sequence of events.”

“Novorossiya?” Casey clarified.

Jarvis nodded.

“Okay, Mr. President,” Casey said with a wry grin. “Kinda has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“Not hardly,” Jarvis grumbled and glanced at Petra. She smiled and shook her head, knowing better than anyone how much he loathed politics. “Never gonna happen.”

“All right, Novorossiya,” Casey said, turning his attention back to the computer. He centered the map over southern Ukraine and the upper half of the Black Sea. “First, we deploy a couple hundred professional dissidents to Mariupol and start stirring up unrest. We launch a propaganda campaign, the same one we used for Crimea, only this time we’re much better at it because we know how to exploit social media. Then, the Kremlin issues a statement of concern about instability in the local government and Ukraine’s failure to ensure the safety of native Russian speakers, not only in Mariupol, but in all of southern Ukraine. We organize riots and protests and make sure plenty of shots are fired, killing some civilians. At the same time, we harass Ukrainian merchant traffic, prompting the Ukrainian Navy to deploy patrol ships. When they show up, we manufacture an incident in the Sea of Azov and blockade the Kerch Strait. We have lots of practice doing that now, so we go one step further and claim the Sea of Azov as Russian territorial waters. The next day, we declare a state of emergency in Mariupol and send Russian ‘peacekeeping’ troops into the city. At the same time, we declare an Economic Exclusivity Zone everywhere north of the forty-fifth parallel and blockade all maritime traffic in and out of Odessa. We then move our dissidents from Mariupol to Odessa and stir up trouble over there. Some Russian peacekeepers unfortunately are going to have to die in Mariupol, but when they do, we roll armor across the border and move west. We take control of the M14 roadway from Nova Kakhovka, just north of Crimea, all the way to Mariupol—cutting off all east-west ground traffic—and we blockade the Dnieper River there as well, halting all north-south river traffic . . . Then, we pause and assess, before making the decision to move peacekeeping troops into Odessa and start holding secession votes for the occupied oblasts to leave Ukraine and join Russian—supervised at gunpoint, of course—like we did in Crimea.”

Jarvis shot Petra an impressed look, then said to Casey, “A reasonable plan, comrade. I will take it under consideration.”

Casey chuckled. “Or not . . . Feel free to do as you wish, Mr. President.”

Jarvis steepled his fingers. “In all seriousness, is that something you just threw together off the cuff, or have you been thinking about this?”

“I have some experience war-gaming from my time at the War College,” Casey said. “And as a submarine CO, I suppose I know a little something about what-if scenarios.”

“Sure, sure,” Jarvis said, no stranger to war-gaming in his own right. “And if I asked you to game this scenario out, what do you predict the most likely outcome to be, assuming US intervention?”

“With Warner at the helm—hot, bothered, and acting unilaterally?”

“Yes.”

“World War Three,” the submariner said, all the humor gone from his voice now.

“That’s what I thought,” Jarvis said. “Hey, Mike, do you mind giving us the room for a moment?”

“Sure,” Casey said, closing his computer screen and stuffing the laptop into his bag. As he slid his chair back from the table, he said, “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Jarvis said, with an easy smile. “I just need a couple of minutes alone with Petra.”

“Yes, sir.” And with a dutiful nod, Casey excused himself.

“What do you think of Mike?” Jarvis asked once the door to the breakout room was closed.

“With each and every engagement, he continues to impress me,” she said. “He’s sharp, well-informed, and best of all, doesn’t beat everyone to death with a big ego. What about you? What do you think?”

“I think he’s outstanding. Which is why, I’m afraid, I have no choice but to fire him.”

“What?” Petra screwed up her face.

“Yeah, as much as I’d like to keep him for myself, I think his talents could be put to better use elsewhere.”

“By elsewhere, you wouldn’t happen to mean in a trailer in Tampa?”

He nodded.

“When you told me to find you candidates for Deputy Chief of Staff with command experience, I wondered if the real reason was so you could vet for Shane Smith’s replacement.”

“Great minds think alike,” he said, grabbing her hand and giving it a squeeze. “At first, when you brought me a sub driver, I balked.”

“I remember,” she said.

“That’s because while submarine operations have both tactical and strategic components, sub driving and leading direct-action missions in the field are completely different animals.”

“But at Ember, he’s not going to be leading the missions. That’s Dempsey’s job.”

“Exactly,” Jarvis said. “Listening to Casey war-game out that Novorossiya invasion scenario, I realized that he checked all the boxes . . . plus one or two I hadn’t considered.”

“Hold on, someone else thought of something before you did?” she said, her voice ripe with sarcasm. “Has the human supercomputer met his match?”

“I probably deserve that,” he said with a chuckle, downplaying what was actually a new and troubling personal development he’d yet to discuss with her. Ever since he’d started taking antitremor meds for Parkinson’s, his synesthesia and the perceptual insights he gleaned from the rich sensory cross-pollination in his mind had been dramatically suppressed. The analytical part of his brain seemed unhampered by the drugs, but his ability to perceive novel and creative connections across disparate datasets was disturbingly diminished. In his youth, he’d viewed his synesthesia as a curse. As an adult, he’d embraced it for what it really was . . . a gift, and now that gift had been taken from him.

“Kelso, did you hear what I said?” Petra asked, with a characteristic tilt of her head.

“Sorry, zoned out there for a moment. How do you think Baldwin is going to take Casey coming in as Ember’s Director? I hope it doesn’t cause him to shut down on us.”

“Are you kidding me?” she said with a laugh. “He’s going to be elated.”

“You think so?”

“Oh my God, Kelso. I can see it in his face and hear it in his voice every time I talk to him. Ian doesn’t want to be Director of Ember. He accepted the promotion out of devotion and respect for you and love of country. This has been very difficult for him.”

“I know . . . and probably more than I should have asked of him. But he was the least worst alternative.”

“Agreed,” she said, giving his hand one final squeeze before letting go. “But not anymore. Mike is exactly what Ember needs at the time it needs him most.”

“All right, then it’s settled,” he said, loosening his necktie, then taking it off completely. “If you don’t mind, why don’t you call him back in here so I can give him the bad news.”