She was no interrogator, that much she had learned.
Malakhov had fascinated her with his ramblings, and she had gotten just what he had wanted to give her, and no more. She was no field operative, either, in spite of her basic training and her brief service abroad. She didn’t know how to run an agent. Appicella had ended up practically running her. She didn’t know what to do next. What she needed was fresh information, and unless she heard from Emilio Appicella, she was only going to get that at the agency. It both amused and annoyed her that she was, in a way. running her own agent. That was what ops was supposed to be doing, but the current Director of Central Intelligence loved the high tech stuff, and good old Simon. the toady, was egging him on.
She struggled out of bed, determined to get back to the’ office and start looking again. HELDER sat, entranced, and watched Majorov’s presentation to the Politburo unfold. Each man at the conference table had been given a summary of his plan, and they followed carefully through the manuscript as Majorov gave them a dazzling graphic representation of his document from the two slide projectors on two large screens. Helder replaced the slide feeders as they were used up and tried to absorb as much as possible of what Majorov was saying. They were already an hour into the presentation.
“Comrades, on the left hand screen, you see a display of our primary targets for the first six hours of the operation.
They are, not necessarily in order of importance, key military installations, the principal military and civilian air fields, and those gun emplacements in the Swedish Archipelago which lie in our planned corridors of movement.
There are, as I speak, some fourteen hundred handpicked SPETSNAZ operatives already in place on Swedish soil.
They are now carrying out the final survey and planning for assaults on these objectives. Within seven days, with your approval, there will be eighty-two hundred SPETSNAZ troops in Sweden, enough to take twenty-seven percent of our initial objectives without further assistance.
“These would include such targets as the Stockholm Military District Headquarters at Strangnas, to the west of the city, and Stockholm airport. Special squads of these troops will also see to the sequestering of the prime minister and his cabinet, plus some two hundred other key members of the government and civil service. Still other special squads will, upon landing, commandeer the state radio and television services, including several dozen low power emergency radio stations scattered about the country for use in the event of mobilizations, and the national newspapers.”
The Politburo members were as rapt as Helder, turning the pages of their summaries as the slides changed.
“Comrades, you will recall that Sweden claims a trained reserve force of eight hundred thousand, which can be mobilized in thirty-six hours. Their standing forces number less than ten percent of that number, and among our first objectives will be those associated with first, preventing a call-up of these forces, and second, depriving any who are called up of organization, arms and ammunition. There are hundreds of weapons caches located about the country, the locations of which are displayed on the right-hand screen.
Eighty-one percent of these will be secured either before or within the first twelve hours of our operation, and the remainder shortly afterwards.”
A voice rose from the darkness.
“How have you obtained such detailed plans of the Swedish defenses?”
“Comrade,” Majorov responded, “I can now reveal what has, up to this moment, been known only on a strict, need-to-know basis, that we have had, for some time, an operative high in the Swedish government. His code name is Seal, and he has been able to supply us with virtually the entire defense plans of the country. Those plans are what you see on the screens before you, the location of every coastal gun emplacement, every reserve weapons cache, every emergency radio station, every aircraft, tank, and missile installation, and every fuel reserve depot in the country. No invader in the history of modem military operations has ever been so well informed.”
There was total silence in the room.
“As I said earlier,” Majorov said, “at zero hour, we will already have in Sweden some eighty-two hundred crack SPETSNAZ troops, who will have infiltrated in night amphibious landings, and by such conventional means as commercial airline flights and the Helsinki—Stockholm ferries. By zero plus twenty-four hours, we expect to have one hundred eighteen thousand troops in the country. Our principal means of conveyance will be our new fleet of WIGS, our wing-in-ground-effect aircraft. I am pleased to tell you that we now have twenty-two of these superb troop carriers available, each capable of ferrying five hundred troops from our eastern Baltic bases at wave-top altitudes, in less than half an hour’s flying time along corridors scrubbed clean of air cover, surface-to air missiles, and coastal antiaircraft emplacements. They will land at airfields and on stretches of roadway previously secured by our advance parties, supported by amphibious forces landed from troop-carrying submarines.”
“What provisions are you making for the effects of casualties?” someone asked.
“Since we intend operating only in conditions of complete surprise, we anticipate a very low casualty rate.
However, even allowing for a worst-case casualty rate of twenty percent in every unit, we would expect to have secured eighty-four percent of our primary objectives before zero plus twenty-four hours. Well before that time. we will be landing troops in conventional air transports at secured airfields in Sweden.”
For another hour, Majorov ran through summaries of troop movements, supplies, communications, and other logistics. Then. at a signal from him, the curtains were opened, and sunlight once again flooded the room.
“Comrades,” Majorov said, “you have been very patient, and I have only one other brief aspect of our planning on which to make a final report. Our accelerated Swedish studies program in our universities and KGB training establishments have produced a hard core of some twelve hundred men and women who are fluent in the Swedish language, and who have been intensively trained in the administration of the Swedish civil services, both at the national and municipal levels. Within twenty-four hours of the consolidation of our military position, there will be Soviet administrators overseeing the operation of every essential government service and state-owned industry. There will be Soviet editors supervising the content of the radio and television services and the national and local newspapers and magazines. The plan is to be very light-handed in this supervision, since the Swedes are such good administrators, anyway. The editorial content of the news services will be allowed to remain as much as possible as before; we will interest ourselves only in news of the Soviet participation in Swedish society.
“We expect to resume international flights to and from Sweden within seven days of taking control, and many Swedes, especially those connected with export sales, will be allowed to travel much as before. We believe that reasonably free travel by a large number of Swedish citizens will help to assuage fears of domination, and we want to encourage whatever flow of foreign currency into the country that we can. But I don’t want to go into detail, now. Tomorrow, we will have a full-scale presentation by the KGB of our plans for Swedish life in a post-invasion society. I think you will find it fascinating. If there are no questions…”?”
“Viktor Sergeivich,” a voice said, and from the movement of every head and body, Helder knew it was that of the Chairman, “we have heard you mention worst-case casualty estimates; we do not wish to hear of worst-case estimates. We have made our position very clear on this operation from the very beginning of its planning, during the tenu reship of our beloved Yuri Andropov: unless this invasion can be conducted with total surprise and without any general mobilization order from the Swedish government, it will not be conducted at all. We have carefully calculated the political liabilities of this affair, and they are monumental, even in the best of circumstances. But if the Swedes are alerted even minutes before the operation begins, if they are able to broadcast a mobilization order, then we are immediately faced with the prospect of hot and bloody resistance, and a holocaust of world opinion. I will not preside over the humiliation of the Soviet State in such circumstances, and I tell you once again, in the presence of these comrades, that the final order to invade will come only from me, when I am satisfied that we can move with total confidence of absolute surprise. Is that clearly understood?”
“It is most clearly understood. Comrade Chairman,”
Majorov said, with considerable humility.
“And now, before adjournment. I would like to introduce to you a Soviet naval officer who has just returned from a most important mini submarine mission in Swedish waters, which you have no doubt been reading about in your intelligence summaries today. Comrades, may I introduce Captain Second Grade Jan Helder.”
Helder stood stiffly to attention. To his astonishment, the entire group then stood and roundly applauded him.
When they had finished, they remained standing, and the Chairman spoke.
“Captain,” he said gravely, “on behalf of my colleagues in the Party, I wish to express the deep gratitude of the Soviet nation for your heroic efforts. I know that you, as we. were saddened by the loss of your fellow officer.
Captain Lieutenant Sokolov, and I assure you that, at an appropriate time, she will receive the public gratitude of the people.”
“Thank you. Comrade Chairman,” Helder managed to say.
The men began to file out of the room behind the Chairman, and Majorov motioned Helder into the waiting room.
“Now, Helder, you will proceed back to Malibu by the car and aircraft which brought you here. Rest yourself.
I will be back in a couple of days. and we will discuss your further part in this enterprise. You have only begun to win glory, I can promise you. I need hardly tell you that you are to discuss your Swedish mission or today’s meeting with no one.” He shook Holder’s hand, then returned to the conference room.
In the car on the ride to the airport, Helder examined the leather upholstery and fine appointments of the Zil in minute detail. He was a lover of cars, though he had never owned one. On the plane ride to Liepaja, he slept soundly.
He arrived at Malibu after midnight, and went straight to his quarters, hoping Trina would be there. He let himself into the room. and groped for the bedside lamp. There was a rustle of sheets.
“No.” she said, “no lights.”
He sank to the bed and reached for her. As his arms went around her and brought her close, she gave an involuntary gasp of pain.
“What is it?” he asked.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, Jan,” she whimpered.
“I didn’t think you would be back so soon. I didn’t expect you for at least a couple of days. I just wanted to sleep in your bed.”
He touched her face and she recoiled with a little cry.
“What on earth is the matter?” he asked.
“I’m back, Trina.” He found the lamp and switched it on, then stared.
One side of her face was badly bruised, and she turned it from him.
“I didn’t want you to see me this way,” she said. There was another bruise on her bare shoulder.
He grasped the bedsheet and pulled it away.
“My God,” he gasped, “what has happened to you?” There were more bruises, and she tried to cover herself with her hands.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“I can’t make love to you. I want to so, but I can’t. I hurt too much.”
“What happened?” he demanded.
“I want to know right now.”
“It was Majorov,” she said, “and the others.”
“What?”
“There was a party two nights ago, and he insisted I come. He said it would cheer me up. There was a general and some of the other girls. I didn’t want to make love to them. They beat me, then Majorov forced me… from behind… then the others… oh, Jan, it was horrible.” she sobbed, clinging to him.
“I thought it would never end.”
“Oh, Trina,” he said, holding her gently.
“I used to like the parties,” she said, trying to stern the sobs.
“Then you came here, and they weren’t the same, anymore. Majorov stopped making me come after a while, after he gave me to you, but I think he thought you weren’t coming back from your mission, that it didn’t matter anymore.” She began crying again.
“I was so frightened. He killed a girl, once. I heard about it.”
Helder stroked her hair and tried not to think of what had happened to her, tried to contain the anger growing inside him. He forced it away from him and tried to give all his thoughts to her, but he could not. The mission, the promotion, the Kremlin meeting bled away. All he could think of was her pain and his own betrayal by his benefactor, this monster.
He held her until she was asleep, but he, himself, did not sleep for hours. APPICELLA felt a tingle of excitement the moment he first laid eyes on Malibu. It had been an extremely boring flight on Aeroflot from Vienna to Leningrad, and an even more boring flight to wherever he was. since the second plane had had its windows blacked out. He did not know where he was, but the sea glinted in the distance as the car descended the hill toward what seemed like a town nestled against a lagoon separated from the sea by a narrow strip of land.