Overkill (45 page)

‘If the Russians re-equipped their missiles with the new warhead and simply fired off their ICBMs and other assorted arsenal in the usual Doomsday fashion, the Americans would retaliate
before their missiles were halfway across the Atlantic and the Russians would suffer unacceptable losses. Granted, the loss of life on the American continent might be somewhat greater than our
colonial cousins would have been expecting, but that wouldn’t help a hundred million incinerated Russian citizens. So, there had to be something else.

‘Secondly, the lack of radiation emitted by the new device would favour the West, not the Russians. The balance of terror – Mutual Assured Destruction and all the rest of it –
has always been predicated on the basis that neither side could win a nuclear war. Any significant nuclear exchange would turn both nations into radioactive wastelands, so neither could win in the
conventional sense of the word. If the Russians used the new weapon, it would just cause massive damage and loss of life in America, but not render the country uninhabitable. That simply
didn’t make sense. Using the new weapon would actually benefit the West.’

‘So there was something else?’ Tony Herron asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ Richter said. ‘There was definitely something else.’

8th Arrondissement, Paris

John Westwood’s mobile telephone, supplied by the Embassy in London, rang as he and Miles Turner turned right into avenue de Marigny from avenue Gabriel. Their
appointment at the French Ministry of the Interior was at eleven thirty, and they had decided to walk. ‘Westwood,’ he said, moving to the side of the pavement away from the traffic
noise.

‘John, it’s Roger in London.’

‘Yes, Roger?’ Westwood knew the matter had to be urgent, otherwise Abrahams would have used one of the secure communications links at the Embassy itself. He also knew Abrahams would
have to be circumspect in what he said. Although calls made using digital mobile telephones are effectively scrambled, sophisticated equipment can still decode conversations.

‘I tried you at the office, but I must have just missed you,’ Abrahams said. ‘I have some business news for you. Our English friends think they’ve found the solution to
our problem, and they suggest you contact their chief sales executive, Mr Beatty. He’s in Paris at the moment, and you can reach him through the Paris office of the English
company.’

Westwood nodded. ‘That’s excellent news. Thank you, Roger, I’ll do that. See you.’ Westwood terminated the call and slipped the telephone back into his jacket pocket.

Turner looked at him. ‘News?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Westwood said, glancing round cautiously. ‘Roger says the Brits have found out what the Russians are up to, and they’ve got a man here in Paris now, working out of
the British Embassy. Guy name of Beatty. Do you know him?’

Turner shook his head. ‘Nope, but it could be a work-name.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ll go see the DST now, but I’ll call the Embassy and have them talk to the
local SIS men.’

French Ministry of the Interior, rue des Saussaies, Paris

‘We even looked into the possibility of a co-ordinated satellite-launched attack which would do major damage in America before a retaliatory strike could be ordered.
As I’m sure everyone in this room is aware, the Americans monitor all Russian satellite launches, and then disseminate the information to the British government and other interested parties.
But analysis showed no unusual activity. All we found was a single new communications satellite – or what the Russians said was a communications satellite – in geostationary orbit over
the eastern Atlantic. That could certainly not be construed as a threat to anyone or any country.’

‘So what is it? What are they going to do with the new weapon?’ Lacomte asked.

‘I’ll come to that in a moment. We believed until a few days ago that some kind of action was imminent.’

‘Just a minute,’ Tony Herron interrupted. ‘You said that you believed some kind of action was imminent. Do you mean that it now isn’t imminent, or have you definite
information concerning an attack?’

Richter nodded. ‘Definite information, yes, but not of an attack – at least, not the way you mean it. We decided to return the favour over our man in Moscow, and pulled the SVR
London
rezident
.’

‘Orlov? You pulled Vladimir Orlov?’ Tony Herron sounded appalled.

‘Yes,’ Richter said.

‘What have you done with him? You can’t hold him for ever.’

Obviously word had yet to reach Paris. ‘Comrade Orlov,’ Richter said, ‘did not survive his interrogation. The important thing is that Orlov revealed everything he knew about
the plan.’

‘And?’

Richter shrugged his shoulders. ‘Really, it’s all a matter of perspective. For years everyone has assumed that any future conflict would be between the superpowers, Russia and
America. ICBMs and other weapons were targeted from one nation to the other. The rest of NATO, and of course the French, followed suit with their own forces. But why should that be the case? What
good would it do Russia to attack America? It would be far more sensible for the Russians to simply neutralize America, to eliminate the States from any conflict—’

Tony Herron interrupted. ‘We never assumed Russia would attack America. We always thought Soviet ground forces would advance on Western Europe.’

‘Yes,’ Richter said, ‘but when allied forces were forced to retreat because of the sheer numerical superiority of the Russian forces, what would happen then? The defence
strategy of every European nation is wholly based on the assumption that if the attacked country can just hold on for a few hours or days, the US cavalry will charge in to the rescue. No cavalry
– no rescue. If there’s not going to be a rescue, what’s the point in fighting?’

‘So what are you saying? That America has been neutralized, and that the Russians are going to take Europe?’ Colonel Lacomte expressed it very well.

‘That’s it exactly,’ Richter said. ‘Russia wants neither a war with America nor a war in Europe. What it wants is Europe without a fight, and the whole purpose of this
scheme is to achieve that.’

The room was silent again as his audience digested this. Finally, Tony Herron spoke. ‘But what about
glasnost
and the liberalization of the USSR? What about that?’

‘We believe that this plan is not, and never was, part of official Russian strategy. Piecing it together from what Orlov revealed, it looks as if the scheme was a strictly private venture,
concocted by the SVR and the GRU, possibly under the auspices of Group
Nord
.’

‘Group
Nord
?’ Lacomte asked.

‘Group
Nord
,’ Richter replied, ‘was formed in the mid-1970s by Yuri Andropov when he was Chairman of the KGB. The Group’s members were the chiefs of all the
KGB’s operational divisions and it met once a month. The declared object of Group
Nord
was to shatter the western alliance, isolate the United States of America, and so weaken or
otherwise disable America that the country would no longer have the will to resist the Soviet Union. “Overkill” has all the hallmarks of a Group
Nord
operation.’

‘Just a moment.’ Colonel Lacomte was looking puzzled. ‘We seem to have missed the main point. You said that America had been neutralized. How?’

‘This information I have not had confirmed,’ Richter said, ‘mainly because the Americans either don’t know or won’t talk about it. However, according to the late
Comrade Orlov, the Russians have spent the last four years carefully installing a selection of high-radiation conventional nuclear weapons in every major city in the United States.’ Tony
Herron gave a gasp of astonishment. Richter carried on. ‘A thoroughly nasty idea. The Americans were spending billions on buying non-weapons-grade plutonium from the Russians, which was
effectively a waste product they pulled out of their nuclear reactors, while the Russians were sending the plutonium the Americans thought they were getting to America, but inside live nuclear
weapons. And you remember the communications satellite I mentioned – the one in geostationary orbit over the Atlantic?’ Lacomte nodded. ‘That’s the firing link. All the
weapons have radio-controlled triggers, which the Russians can pull any time they want.’

‘How the hell did they get them into the States?’

‘A combination of smuggling and misuse of the Diplomatic Bag – it doesn’t have to be a briefcase carried by a Queen’s Messenger, you know. It can be anything from an
envelope to an articulated lorry.’

Tony Herron spoke slowly. ‘I can see why they’re neither confirming nor denying it. But you said those were standard nuclear bombs. What about these high-yield neutron bombs? I
thought that was what this was all about?’

‘It is,’ Richter replied. ‘The American weapons are only half of the story. The problem with taking Europe is that Britain and France have retained their own nuclear deterrent.
That means that, even if America has been taken out of the equation, Russia could still suffer massive losses if her troops were to invade Western Europe. So the problem the SVR and GRU faced was
to eliminate the British and French nuclear deterrents, but still not turn Europe into a nuclear wasteland. And for that, the strategic neutron bombs are tailor-made because of the high yield and
very short-duration radiation. They could detonate a device under the Eiffel Tower and walk down what was left of the Bois de Boulogne five days later. You’d have to step over a lot of
corpses, but you wouldn’t need to wear an NBCD suit or a mask.’

Colonel Lacomte shook his head. ‘This is unbelievable,’ he said.

‘It is,’ Richter agreed, ‘but it’s nevertheless true.’

‘Assuming for the moment that it is,’ Lacomte continued, ‘what can we do about it? And how far have the Russians got with the scheme?’

‘What we can do,’ Richter replied, picking up the ‘Overkill’ file, ‘is stop them delivering the last neutron bomb – which is destined for London –
because that will stalemate the situation and keep the British independent nuclear deterrent as a counter-threat. And the reason it’s your problem as well as our problem is that, according to
Orlov, the Paris, Toulouse, Nice and Bordeaux devices are already in place.’

Tuesday
French Ministry of the Interior, rue des Saussaies, Paris

The knock at the door sounded unnaturally loud in the silence that followed. Lacomte gestured to one of the DST men who walked over and opened it. He held a brief
conversation with someone outside, then walked back and murmured to Lacomte. The colonel looked up at Richter and Herron, then spoke briefly to the DST officer, who immediately left the room.
Lacomte smiled briefly. ‘We have some visitors,’ he said, ‘who may be able to corroborate some of what you are saying.’

‘Who?’ Herron asked, looking at Richter.

‘Two gentlemen from the American Central Intelligence Agency,’ Lacomte replied, as the door opened to admit John Westwood and Miles Turner.

Westwood stopped just inside the door as his eyes swept the room and then settled on Richter. ‘Paul?’ he said, his voice uncertain.

‘John Westwood,’ Richter said. ‘Long time no see. How the hell did you get here?’

Rozvadov, Czechoslovakia

The convoy came to a halt just west of the town of Rozvadov, about a mile short of the German border and at the end of the queue of vehicles waiting to cross. Most, Modin
noted, were lorries, which probably meant delays while their loads or manifests were inspected and approved by the German Customs officers.

‘We cannot, I suppose,’ Bykov asked, ‘attempt to get across any quicker, because of our diplomatic status?’

Modin shook his head. ‘No,’ he said flatly, ‘not across the German border. Don’t forget, Viktor, the lorry is supposed to be carrying furniture and fittings for our
London Embassy. It would be difficult to argue that these goods constitute any kind of a priority load. We wait, and we take our turn.’

French Ministry of the Interior, rue des Saussaies, Paris

‘Any questions on any of that?’ Richter asked.

‘No, not at the moment. Thank you for recapping,’ Westwood said. He and Turner had paled noticeably when Richter described the placement of the nuclear weapons in American cities.
Richter’s second explanation had been much briefer than his first, and the Americans had already known at least some of the background data, which helped.

‘Would they have the ability to construct these devices – I mean the bombs back home and these new neutron devices – and get that satellite into orbit?’ Miles Turner
asked.

‘Yes, without question,’ Richter said. ‘The GRU has an almost unlimited budget, and the SVR – like the KGB before it – is still the nation’s biggest single
employer. We know they’d have the resources to do it. The Kremlin relies on the SVR, just as it used to rely on the KGB, to tell it what’s going on in the country. If the SVR
doesn’t tell the Kremlin, the Kremlin probably won’t find out, because it’s got very few other sources of information. As long as this plot has been conceived at a high enough
level it wouldn’t be too difficult to keep it quiet.

‘We believe that somebody – probably somebody in Group
Nord
– looked at Western Europe four or five years ago and saw the answers to all the problems of their nation.
The fields of France could feed the world, if the political will existed to organize it. The German industrial machine could dominate the global economy, if it was given sufficient muscle. The
resources were there; all that was necessary was to devise a plan to take them. We believe that the originator of this operation planned to annex most of Western Europe, incorporate it into an
expanded Soviet bloc, and then continue with the age-old dream of Communist expansion throughout the world. They probably thought that by seizing Europe’s assets they could at last make the
Communist system work, and demonstrate to the world that Lenin, Marx and all the rest of them had been right all along. We know better, of course. Given Communist management, or rather
mismanagement, Germany would be a subsistence economy within five years, France in two.