Blue Dawn, 1994

87 – All over bar the shouting


Workers at the Vityaz Plant in the town of Ishimbay, inside the semi-autonomous Republic of Bashkortostan, went on strike back on July 30th: just before the Coalition launched their invasion of the Union. Thousands of them refused to work and brought production there of military equipment to an end. Vityaz makes non-combat military vehicles yet in recent months there has been an effort to see the manufacture of component parts for combat vehicles too in light of wartime need. Due to the civil war, there is a loss of other supplies on the far side of the Urals. The strike was called over safety though, rather than pay or employment terms with regard to the push for production increases. From out of Siberia there had been air strikes throughout Bashkortostan – in addition to neighbouring Tatarstan and nearby regions – by Primakov’s forces against the industrial targets supporting the war effort for Gromov’s regime. A strike against Vityaz is what the workers fear, concerns greatly increased since conflict opened with the Coalition. They want protection from air attack while at work and also in their homes across the Ishimbay too. Such demands are impossible for the Union to fulfil. They cannot guarantee no air strikes will be made nor fully ensure that one won’t get through. Calls for the workers to go back to work and do their patriotic duty for the Motherland have fallen on deaf ears.

Vityaz is where the first strike begun. There are many more of them underway throughout rapidly-shrinking areas of the Union where Gromov’s rule is maintained. These have many causes at the centre of them. The ongoing conflict is the catalyst for the walkouts which have taken place though. The authorities have been demanding the people go to work and this has been refused. Industrial sites were where the initial strikes began but this has spread to almost all sectors of the economy. No one is working. It has become a tidal wave of a shutdown of the country where people refuse to work even in shops and out on farms. Bashkortostan’s authorities were the first to begin to defy the central government with regard to trying to force people back to work. In the middle of the Union, along the course of the Volga between Gorki and the Urals and then down southwards, through territory not under occupation, civilian leaders will not do that. No crackdown is taking place even with the strikes now starting to turn into anti-regime protests. Like neighbouring Tatarstan, Bashkortostan is somewhere that Gromov’s rule has been particularly harsh due to the civil war. Forced conscription has taken place with the Union Armed Forces seemingly sweeping up every able-body man they can find and sending them off to war. This hasn’t happened elsewhere but here near to the frontlines in the Urals, such a thing has occurred. Resentment from the people has joined resentment from the regional authorities. They aren’t Primakov-supporting but neither is the rule of Gromov what they want either when it brings about people out on the streets. Recent protests are growing in number and intensity. These bring fears of open revolt and true chaos.

Bashkortostan and Tatarstan are both oil producing areas. Much of the Union’s vast reserves are located in Siberia or in Southern Russia but these Volga republics have black gold below ground too. The oil is needed to maintain the fight that the Union is mounting against invasion from the west and a simultaneous fight with those in the east. The strikes and protests are bringing an end to the literal fuel that the Union’s war runs on. Extraction and refining comes to a close. There is no one to deliver the oil to where it is needed. The local authorities are instructed once more by Gromov’s regime to force people back to work and get the oil flowing. These demands become increasingly desperate and filled with threats. In contrast comes today’s call from Primakov, now in Moscow, for unity and promises of an amnesty for those who have been on the wrong side of the civil war. He tells the leaders of the small republics within the confines of Russia to end their participation in the civil war and side with his regime, the only legitimate rule and one which can bring an and to the war with the Coalition. Such a request is one which those suffering under the rule of Gromov are now prepared to answer. The leaders of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan talk to each other first before they act (they aren’t willing to strike out on their own) and recognise Primakov’s position as the president of the Union. Not long afterwards, there are similar actions undertaken by other small republics within Russia located nearby. Chuvashia, Mari El, Mordovia and Udmurtia follow the lead set by their larger and more-populous neighbours. The leaders of these republics abandon Gromov too. If it means an end to the fighting with the Coalition before it reaches their territory, they will take the risk. If it means that they can survive in their positions, they will do this. Primakov makes promises to that effect.


The loss of the support of such regions for Gromov is a death blow for his regime… though only one of many coming in a rush now. Azerbaijan is a bigger loss that the small republics within the central part of the Union. Aliyev’s new regime in Baku can defend itself as it has military support; Azerbaijan is also on the territorial fringes of the union whereas the half dozen republics in the middle are surrounded by Gromov supporting territory. Regardless, their switching of sides at a time like this does grave damage. Territorial entities in European Russia are going over to Primakov and there aren’t any Coalition tanks tearing down upon their borders when this happens. They have lost confidence in the Gromov regime and make public declarations of this. Atop of all of this is what is happens today with the army group which is the Urals Front. Defeat on the battlefield yesterday followed by new – and insane – redeployment orders brought about a decision by the commander to break with Gromov too. He acts on that today, pledging his loyalty to Primakov as well once there is an assurance that the amnesty is a real thing and he will not be persecuted for wartime actions. The Urals Front has committed many outrages against pro-Primakov forces on the battlefield under his command. In addition, this general oversaw military trials against FSB and SVR personnel too with their execution. There is now a promise that he will not have to pay for that.

The Urals Front is formed of the remaining heavy combat forces of the Union Army. There are four full field armies on strength in addition to many independent formations. It is half the size it was when the Coalition attacked yet still a large and capable force. The headquarters is located outside of Sarapul, inside Udmurtia with Bashkortostan & Tatarstan both nearby: Sarapul is thus friendly territory now. The Urals Front is put under the command of Primakov’s West Siberian Army Group with this defection. Enemies become allies. The fraternal conflict between brothers separated by mountains and the wills of two stubborn men is over. Orders come out from Sarapul – with the WSAG approving them while issuing similar ones to their own forces – for the guns to fall silent in the Urals. It will take time for word to reach everyone but this battlefield of the civil war, the main one, will see the last shots exchanged long before midnight.

Hundreds of thousands are dead or wounded and officially it hasn’t come to an end, but the civil war is all over bar the shouting now.

88 – On the run


When the Blackhorse Cav’ reached Mulino earlier in the day, they were joined by a detachment of Green Berets, Rangers & military intelligence officers who entered the command facility from where Gromov had been for the past couple of days since his earlier departure from Ryazan. There was no expectation that Gromov would be there: it was known that he had recently departed. The Americans were looking for anyone else left behind (an aide possibly) and also intelligence material. A treasure trove wasn’t found though and neither was there anyone captured of any note after the all of the Union leader’s entourage had also left. Those with the ground team were disappointed. Higher up, for Mulino to turn out to be empty was less of a concern. American and Coalition senior people already knew where Gromov has gone and they were also aware that nothing was left at Ryazan too when elements of the 4th Infantry Division reached there. Mulino being empty was just as anticipated.

Gromov is in the Orenburg Oblast tonight, far from where he had previously been near to Gorki. Resting between Bashkortostan and occupied portions of Kazakhstan, the Orenburg Oblast is a region where Gromov’s regime still has complete control. It is full of soldiers loyal to his leadership and also home to much of the Union’s shrunken strategic nuclear weapons force too. American air activity over the Orenburg Oblast has been minimal and while Gromov cannot feel completely safe here from enemy action, the chances of that are low. Moreover, throughout the conflict with the West, Gromov has been purposefully left alone by Coalition military strikes. They didn’t bomb Ryazan when he was there nor Mulino either. This isn’t because good will is wished to him. Instead, there is the concern over what should happen if he was killed and someone else took charge who might not be willing to leave the most potent weapons that the Union has – nukes – off the table as he has done. His regime is being destroyed around him but at every step, the West is trying not to see that destruction bring about a nuclear exchange as a end result. His particular thinking on the matter of nuclear weapons isn’t something that can be known and is only guessed at. It is assumed that Gromov doesn’t want to kill hundreds of millions and is foolish enough to believe that defeat can be averted by non-nuclear means. This isn’t wrong but it isn’t the whole story either. Throughout the course of first the civil war and then the invasion by the Coalition, Gromov has maintained the support of his senior-most military officers. STAVKA is the body of those men whose membership consist of the service chiefs of the Union’s military branches: he is in power because of them. They have no wish for a nuclear exchange either. The Union will be utterly destroyed in retaliatory fire, STAVKA knows. None of their number wants to do that and they have been ready to refuse to allow Gromov to make a strike if he was to try. The nuclear threat issued to the Coalition last week was one which STAVKA only supported, after initially opposing the GRU’s push to have Gromov make it, when they were able to convince Gromov to leave it deliberately vague. It was never a serious one, not in their collective thinking anyway. The GRU might have had other ideas and been pushing Gromov one way but STAVKA made the important decisions on that. Without telling this to Gromov, there has a pragmatic feeling among them that the Union may lose the war with the West but they want to see their country remaining afterwards. Outsiders might think them mad when they have such weapons as they do, yet this is the course that they have taken and it has brought them to where they are now. They’ve taken the gamble on a conventional fight.

Luck was not with them. The end has come instead.

STAVKA is at Bobrovka Airbase and at Totskoye Airbase Gromov now is. These two military sites in Orenburg are far from where the frontlines of the war are. Gromov is waiting for his service chiefs to join him at Totskoye yet, just after midnight, he discovers that they haven’t left Bobrovka. Communications with him are then cut. It it isn’t American bombing which does this. Without telling him directly, STAVKA gives up on him.

These men love their country. That patriotism of theirs has seen hundreds of thousands of deaths and foreign armies able to run riot across their nation without being stopped by the only weapons which could do that. They spend today receiving better information that Gromov does concerning the evaporation of the Ninth Army, the Americans reaching Gorki & tearing through the Second Army as they get there, Azerbaijan beginning the process of breaking away, internal republics with Western Russia declaring for Primakov and then the Urals Front HQ switching sides. The war was already lost – probably from the moment the Coalition attacked – but after a day like today, it is over with. There is no more fight that can be had… no, that should be had in light of the current situation. The commanders-in-chief of the Union Army, Union Air Force, Union Navy and the Strategic Rocket Forces all agree upon that uncomfortable fact. The defection from Sarapul of the Urals Front is the last straw. The Union Army head relayed Gromov’s order yesterday for the Eighth Tank Army to depart from the Ufa area to head westwards and it is that decision which STAVKA agrees has led to such an action. They rage at the act of betrayal but can understand why it happened. They should have talked Gromov out of it yet instead signed off on the redeployment. The mistake was theirs. In Sarapul, their subordinate there realised before they did that Gromov is doomed and has acted to save himself by throwing himself at Primakov’s mercy.

The men of STAVKA have no love for Primakov. He is a Chekist who they still believe killed Lebed and he has thrown his lot in with the infernal Americans! The Union Navy’s head believes too that Primakov had Kerrey assassinated, framing Gromov – and thus them too – for that. The others aren’t so sure of that with the C-in-C of the Union Air Force believing that rogue elements within the GRU killed the American president without Gromov’s knowledge. Regardless, these men, who like Gromov are forced to hide and cower within the confines of their own country in the midst of a foreign invasion, do not want to suddenly ally with Primakov. Talking amongst themselves at Bobrovka, they realise they have to though. They have no choice. Only Primakov can bring this war to an end now. Their nation will take a turn for what they consider the worst, but at least it will still exist. STAVKA deserts Gromov not for greed or because of any real differences: they do it to save their country. After cutting Gromov adrift, they start issuing orders to military units nationwide and make contact with Sarapul to facilitate an opening to Primakov’s regime through the Urals Front HQ.


Surviving nuclear forces of the Gromov regime are many. There are tactical nuclear weapons – aircraft-delivered bombs, warheads on short-range ballistic missiles, artillery shells, torpedoes and more – in the extensive Union arsenal that has remained unused throughout the war. Weapons of a strategic note include some aboard the few remaining missile boats at sea (those the Americans have yet to sink), a couple of long-range bombers armed with cruise missiles scattered about in hiding places and a good few hundred ICBMs too. Those land-based ballistic missiles capable of a worldwide strike are either sitting in silos or mobile weapons. The former are spread between the missile fields at Dombarovsky in the Orenburg Oblast and those at the Tatishchevo field near to the city of Saratov along the Volga. ICBMs in the latter category are more numerous than ones at fixed sites. Road- & rail-mobile ICBMs are far away from their garrisons and hiding out in the wilderness. Mobility for those housed within disguised railcars is gone as the national rail network has collapsed while moving the wheeled launchers by road is no easy feat too. These ICBMs remain hidden even if they can’t move though. Command-and-control over these weapons is fully centralised. Independent use is possible in certain circumstances but since the civil war began, STAVKA, and especially the C-in-C of the Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN), has tightened that to quite the degree. The fear had been then that there may be use within Union territory against Primakov’s side. General Igor Sergeyev – the head of the RVSN – warned his comrades of that danger. None wanted to see that. With the Coalition invading, that central control has been even tighter due to more dire warnings from Sergeyev. No one wants to allow for the accidental use leading to a death spiral of response and counter-response with the end result being the atomising of cities.

Gromov’s entourage which is with him at Totskoye tonight includes four officers in RVSN uniform who have in their possession ‘little black suitcases’. These are nuclear communications terminals giving control over the Union’s nuclear weapons. Release codes, targeting information and the ability to fire missiles are contained within them. Sergeyev sends a coded communication to his people with Gromov at Totskoye just ahead of communications being cut. His instructions are at once obeyed by loyal men who do as ordered without knowing the big picture. The nuclear communicators have a self-destruct feature (Gromov doesn’t know this: few do) that is irreversible. There is no outward sign of this to anyone else though. If Gromov – or someone else – were to try to use them to employ the Union’s nuclear arsenal via a remote launch, all would appear correct but no nuclear use would be possible. Should Gromov go crazy, he will not be able to fire the ICBMs housed at Dombarovsky and Tatishchevo nor send instructions to any other nuclear units. Sergeyev changes wider verification codes and sends messages in STAVKA’s name to RVSN field commanders. Control of such weapons is to be handed over to the Primakov, the leader of the Union that STAVKA is now handing everything else over to as well.

Upon realising what has happened with his military chiefs deserting him, Gromov doesn’t go crazy and try to launch a suicidal nuclear strike. What would be the point? He is fast in contact with the new head of the GRU – the Americans snatched that organisation’s chief near Rybinsk the other day – and Gromov asks if STAVKA has been eliminated in an American attack. His new spy chief informs him that it is treachery instead. They’ve gone over to Primakov as almost everyone else is doing. The game is up, the house of cards has come down. Gromov is urged to flee. Totskoye is exposed to attack and the GRU no longer believes that the Americans will not target Gromov in such a situation. From here Gromov will leave in the early hours of August 11th.

He is on the run with a smaller entourage than before, though that includes those officers with the now-worthless little black suitcases, as he makes his escape into the unknown.


And, only now at this particular time, do the Americans finally understand who exactly killed their president back on Independence Day. New evidence has come to light and the truth has finally been revealed. Primakov is at the height of his power with a civil war won but in the White House, the successor of the man he had murdered knows that the man American troops have put into the Kremlin is responsible for the most heinous of crimes.

Ah… How about that?


End of Part Five

Interlude


89 – Mala fides


Following his capture in Operation Screwdriver, the head of the GRU, General Nikitin, has been held aboard a ship operated by the CIA. The SS Chestnut is in the Baltic with Nikitin and a few other high-value prisoners (HVPs) in international waters outside the territorial limit of the Union’s Kaliningrad Oblast. Ownership of the Chestnut is complicated and surrounded in mystery: plausible deniability of its existence and purpose makes matters easier due to the things being done aboard. Other HVPs have been subject to interrogation methods that the CIA would not want anyone to know about but with Nikitin, this has yet to happen. Since he has been here, he has been talking freely to his captors. Information hasn’t been squeezed out of him using methods that would send those concerned with human rights law and international agreements on the non-use of torture into a rage. Instead, since his arrival, Nikitin has defied all expectations and cooperated fully. What questions the CIA has for him, he has answered. He has spilled secrets that the CIA haven’t prompted him to divulge too. Intelligence provided by Nikitin has been confirmed to be correct and has had important implications when that has been put to use. The Americans aren’t happy with him despite this. The snatch mission to seize him and hold him in secret with other HVPs here aboard the Chestnut was to get him to tell them something else than what he has though.

Nikitin denies that the GRU killed President Kerrey. He tells the CIA the opposite.

According to his account, there was a spying mission underway inside the United States against Kerrey. It was a matter of great importance and very secretive. The GRU was seeking to know if the United States was willing to enter the civil war within the Union. Nikitin briefed Gromov on this ahead of its launch and gave him updates on how the mission was progressing. Operatives were trailing Kerrey seeking a manner of access to gain intelligence to provide warning ahead of time should American support be given to the Primakov regime. Nikitin claims that there never was any intention of assassinating Kerrey and no such thing was ordered by him nor anyone else within the pro-Gromov side of the Union. It is his contention that the murder was done by Primakov’s FSB who hi-jacked his operation and gave false orders to his people for the purposes of framing Gromov so that the United States would intervene in the civil war just as feared. Nikitin cannot give proof of this. He says it is what he believes truly occurred though.

The CIA people aboard the Chestnut have instructions from Langley to get Nikitin to say the opposite. He has been taken captive so that he can confess that the GRU killed Kerrey and did so to on Gromov’s orders. Nikitin saying the reverse isn’t what those back at CIA headquarters, the Director of Central Intelligence especially, want to hear.


The DIA has been unable to talk with Nikitin. The Screwdriver mission was one conducted by military assets but overseen by the CIA and the NSA working in concert. Delta Force operators handed Nikitin over to the CIA once out of enemy territory and there has been a successful frustration to stop the DIA from finding out where he has been held since then. Only when the matter was brought all the way to President Robb via National Security Advisor Powell has the DIA been given access to what he has been saying… even then only with written reports rather than transcripts, video tapes or anything of real substance. The briefing notes handed over have been heavily redacted too where there has been real effort made to hide what Nikitin is saying about the Kerrey assassination.

While they don’t have Nikitin, the DIA does still have General Orlov in their custody. Held at a secure location within Poland yet in American custody, the then deputy head of the Western Military District defected weeks before war began. This senior Union Army officer was never an insider with Gromov’s people but he was in a high-ranking post before he fled. Orlov’s confessions of knowledge of an assassination plot signed off by Gromov and his explanation of the reasoning behind the murder were instrumental in the push for war. The DIA supported what he said back in July when there was no position at this agency of the US Intelligence Community of there being any doubt of Gromov’s guilt. Orlov did what (the DIA doesn’t know) Nikitin is doing now to the CIA in establishing his bona fides back then. The DIA’s captive was responsible for the fantastic intelligence material delivered that allowed for Operation Flaming Phoenix to get off to the flying start that it did with regard to invading the Union. The shocking low state of military readiness Orlov revealed and defensive plans were all exposed to made use of so successfully. Because that was all true, what he said about the Union assassinating the American president was believed to be true too. He hasn’t been telling the truth though on the latter matter.

At the ‘undisclosed location’ where Orlov is being held, the DIA has been re-interrogating him since they became aware of the very real possibility that the United States – and most of the world – has been conned. The methods employed aren’t what the CIA has been doing to HVPs held alongside Nikitin aboard the Chestnut, but there are dubious justifications for their legality. What is done to Orlov occurs on Polish soil too. Poland is a firm ally but the CIA wouldn’t take the risk on such a thing considering how the future might one day go: the DIA’s deniability might not one day hold up in front of a Congressional inquiry whereas the CIA’s might. Regardless, the DIA do what they do and Orlov confesses that actually a lot of what he said was just fantasy. He made it up to please the Americans so as to curry favour and secure a future for himself. Bona fides it wasn’t: it was in fact mala fides.

The bad faith which their captive has previously acted in puts the DIA in quite the pickle. They backed Orlov in support of the war with the Union because he confirmed then what everyone wanted to hear. Now, the DIA has found out he is a liar yet that lie is what is now wanted to confirm the truth. The result of the Orlov confession is far from what the agency’s director wants to hear.


Two of the three members of the assassination team caught have been held by the Secret Service since early July. The gunman himself, Voronin, and one of the two who helped make it all possible, Nazarov, are detained in secure facility at Quantico where the Secret Service has its academy. The corpse of the third GRU officer is in the morgue still. He cannot physically talk though the other two can but have refused to do so. They haven’t been tortured in any manner – actual infliction of pain or any form of mental stress – and there is no intention for this to happen by anyone within the Intelligence Community nor the government either. These men are held pending a federal trial at a later date: doing them any harm would be a bad idea.

Questioning has come though. The Secret Service has sat them down and tried to get them to talk. That neither Nazarov nor Voronin will do. Each has stayed completely silent throughout their captivity despite everything said to them. They haven’t asked for legal representation, claimed immunity from civilian justice due to being military officers or anything along those lines. They have just kept their mouths shut for more than a month.

Yet, out of the blue, Nazarov decides to open his mouth when a picture is put in front of him. A Secret Service investigator shows him an image of Fursenko, that FSB man who disappeared from hospital in Siberia after talking with the deceased Bob. Nazarov is asked if this is the man who came to Hagerstown and told him & his fellow GRU officers to assassinate Kerrey. Without hesitation, Nazarov says that Fursenko did that. He briefly provides details on exactly when and where they met on July 3rd in that Maryland town as well as what was said. Fursenko was claiming to be a GRU superior of theirs, Nazarov confirms, and had the bono fides to that effect. The kill mission then sprung into action with the ‘success’ coming the next day. Nazarov shuts up after this confession. He will say nothing else. The same photograph is shown to Voronin and he is told about the confession from Nazarov. Voronin does what he has done throughout custody: he keeps his mouth shut and gives his interrogators a disinterested stare.

Nazarov said what he did after he was shown recorded news footage of Moscow falling to the armies of the Coalition and Primakov back in the Kremlin (Voronin was shown the same thing with no reaction) as well. The Secret Service has tried many things and there wasn’t that much hope that this would work. They are rather taken aback that it has. Nazarov then shutting down again throws a spanner into the works of where they might have hoped to go with him talking afterwards though. However, it is the first time that they have gotten anything from either captive. Quickly, what Nazarov has to say is reported by the chain-of-command all the way to the agency’s new director (the last one left his post July 31st). He oversaw the Kerrey investigation and secured his appointment on the back of that where Gromov’s Union was officially blamed for the assassination. What Nazarov has said is the last thing that he wants to hear.


What the CIA, DIA and Secret Service each have is now brought to the attention of the president and his inner circle. There is a lot of internal drama within the agencies ahead of this with the three directors under a lot of strain. Consideration is made into keeping things back, to hiding what they have uncovered. That isn’t done though. There are too many questions being asked. The waters are muddled a bit and a spin is put on the tale but, at the end of it all, the president and his advisers gain an full understanding of the current situation with everything revealed.

The CIA has the head of the GRU in custody who says his people didn’t kill Kerrey.

The DIA have their defector confirming that there was no GRU plot either.

The Secret Service has one of the assassination team confirming an FSB man gave the green light.

Profanities come aplenty during the meeting in the Situation Room below the White House. They realise how they have been had. They have been tricked and deceived in the worst way imaginable.

Robb has his head in his hands. Powell is dumbfounded. Nunn is raging. Blanchard (in Moscow, present via a teleconference link) breaks the ‘phone. Graham is finger-jabbing. McPeak goes pale.

Imaginations come of Primakov sitting in the Kremlin laughing his behind off at the stupidity of those here. Those are followed by thoughts of the reactions from the American people finding out about this all.

Now what do they do!?

No problem James G.