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!US Embassy
Shawcross had been welcomed to the US Embassy just once before since arriving in Oslo a couple of months ago. His opposite number there, a lean Lieutenant Colonel named Lambert Grayson, had bragged that there was five times more of the place under the ground than over and that, when it had first opened back in 2017, it was the most technologically advanced embassy in the world. Shawcross had only been mildly impressed. The US made the same claim every time they opened a newly built embassy. What they didn’t tell you was that from the moment the doors first opened, every one of them was was losing a race against the march of technology and after fifteen years, all those computers, all that cable, all those receivers and transmitters that had looked so futuristic on the blueprints, looked like artefacts from a primitive society.
Shawcross pulled up at the compound’s outer perimeter and dropped the window of his fleet Tesla. The cold of the Norwegian December poured into the warmth of the car interior as the soldier in the booth handed him a wireless scanner, which he gazed into, waited for the ping then handed back, along with his phone so they could check his data against the scan. Satisfied, the soldier handed back his phone and insisted he turn the device off, which Shawcross did, rendering it a single piece of opaque glass. As the barrier rose, Shawcross let the car ease its way up the drive to the car park, got out and and made his way towards the Chancery entrance with a plethora of other guests attending the Embassy’s winter reception.
Inside, the do was in as full swing as these things ever got – the polite chatter between diplomats desperate not to appear too probing as they awaited the Ambassador’s implausibly long speech was matched in volume by the clink of glasses and the string quartet that swallowed all those awkward silences when each of the latter had run dry.
Shawcross bypassed the egg-nog in favour of a flute of champagne and started to wander around the bodies, paying scant attention to whom any of them were. He didn’t like this sort of thing. He knew full well he’d been sent to Oslo to recuperate from what the army shrinks insisted on calling his ‘Syrian experiences’, but in truth he found small talk as much of a strain as anything he’d had to endure in the Middle East. Pleasantries didn’t result in human flesh being torn asunder of course, but listening to senior diplomats reciting what they always first felt the need to inform you was a Very Funny Story (or VFS, to give it its proper TLA) or excavating one’s brain in an attempt to find something to say to their spouses about settling in foreign parts, was its own special kind of purgatory. His state of mind was to be reviewed after six months with a view to getting him back in the saddle after a year. A mere pause in what had thus far been an impressive career trajectory up to Lieutenant Colonel. He could make nice with the Norwegian Army for 12 months without an issue. But he wasn’t certain he’d survive that long massaging relations at receptions like this one.
Feeling his collar tightening, Shawcross headed for the windows and looked out across the snow-bound gardens, glowing blue in the eternal darkness, and sipped his champagne. One glass would see the collar loosen and then he’d start on his duty round.
“Enjoying the party, Martin?”
Shawcross turned to see the upright form of Grayson approaching him.
“Our Russian friends certainly seem to be.”
Everything Grayson said seemed to be tinged with an arch amusement and he threw a nod over his shoulder across the Chancery to where two men in Russian uniforms were standing. Kripov, the Russian DA – around fifty, hatless, with thinning hair and a thick grey moustache – was mid-flow in what Shawcross was certain he’d announced as a VFS to the second man, his Assistant DA Nikolaev. Nikolaev was younger, about the same age as Shawcross, clean shaven and sterner looking. They were in the company of a handful of civilians, men in dinner jackets, women in evening dresses, all of whom appeared more entertained by Kripov’s animated storytelling than was his junior officer.
“One more than the other, I’d say,” Shawcross replied. “So, what’s this year’s speech about, Lambert?”
“I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise for you,” Grayson replied, but due to that manner of his, it was difficult to tell whether he was being sarcastic or not.
Under the circumstances, Shawcross had to assume he was. “The suspense is killing me,” he said flatly.
“Lucky you don’t have long to wait, then.”
Grayson nodded again across the floor, this time towards a civilian in her late sixties stepping from the throng and heading for an empty lectern at the other end of the hall. On his one conversation with Ambassador Rebecca Fitzherbert, Shawcross had found her to be as much a fan of the VFS as anyone, only she dropped the F for E – Earnest – and seemed to employ her tales as a test of endurance, as though she wanted to see just how much inspirational drudgery her audience could bear before deciding their survival was more important than ingratiating themselves with the bore from whom the words were flowing in a slow Texan drawl. On the occasion of Shawcross’s previous encounter with her, no one had interrupted or walked away and the thrilling tale of Fitzherbert’s honourable encounter with Bush Junior was only drawn to a close by the arrival of her PA. The old woman had been twenty-five minutes in and showing no signs of tiring, so it was with a sense of genuine dread that Shawcross now watched her take to the lectern and clear her throat.
But before she could speak, an electronic ping sounded from somewhere in her audience. Fitzherbert grimaced.
“I believe our people cordially requested you keep your phones switched off,” she said into the microphone. “So please, if you wouldn’t min–”
Before she could complete her sentence, another phone sounded, with a wolf-whistle this time. The crimson outrage rising in Fitzherbert’s face was plain to see, but she did not speak further, instead looking to her people standing to one side. If only he had known a phone could render the Ambassador silent, Shawcross could have saved himself from gurning with feigned interest at the touching image of her younger self being anointed by Dubya at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial.
“I thought we’d put a blanket on them,” Grayson said quietly, his words causing Shawcross’s amusement to melt into one of confusion, a state only heightened when he felt his own pocket vibrate momentarily. He took his phone out and looked at the screen, just as Grayson’s own pocket whistled as well.
The opaque glass of Shawcross’s phone had re-illuminated and a small hologram figure was projected over it in a manner that always reminded Shawcross of Princess Leia pleading for Obi Wan’s help. But the figure in this message was no white-clad princess. It was just a head – a skull in fact – and it was aflame, a wizened, mocking tongue hanging limply from its open jaw. Beneath it, in small projected letters, lay the ‘To’, ‘From’ and ‘Message’ fields, which read thus:
//To: The World
From: B.L.Z. Bub
Message: Thirsty? You will be.//
Shawcross looked up at Grayson. His phone was showing the very same thing. Shawcross turned and ran his gaze across the reception. The hologram was sitting in the hands of confused and fearful individuals all over the Chancery.
“I’m assuming this isn’t part of the speech,” Shawcross said to Grayson.
“You assume right,” the American muttered, any trace of amusement gone from his expression.
Assessing the man to whom he was speaking, it was clear to Shawcross that the chances of him, a British Defence Attaché, gleaning anything from anyone there at the embassy was slim, no matter the so-called special relationship. This was an American party, and they’d keep their own counsel until they knew what was going on here. What was more, protocol would surely see the Yanks closing the place down both physically and informationally in the next few minutes. That being the case, what Shawcross needed to do was report to his own people as soon as was feasible what appeared to him to be some kind of cyber attack. He couldn’t use his phone to call it into Whitehall though. Clearly it had been compromised. No, the only place he could make the call securely was at the embassy.
On the other hand, perhaps it wasn’t the Americans from whom he should be trying to gain intelligence here. When he raised his eyes from his phone and looked out over the reception attendees again, he saw that while the general atmosphere remained one of confusion, with most people looking to one another for help as they tried to get their phones up and running, two appeared anything but helpless. Rather, they were conducting a hushed yet clearly heated conversation. More importantly, neither Kripov nor Nikolaev was holding a phone.
[[Head to the UK embassy and report|Section 2a (Shawcross) Leaving]]
[[Remain at the party and see what can be gleaned|Section 2b (Shawcross) Staying]]
Story by Bruno HareCopyright 2018
[[Front Cover|https://www.datadrought.com]]!Head to the UK Embassy and report
Grayson was about to head off towards the Ambassador, already surrounded by people, when Shawcross grabbed him by the sleeve.
“See me out, will you?” he said. “I’ll get to ours. You let me know if you need anything from us.”
“Sure,” Grayson said. “But what makes you think you’ll be any better off than we are?”
The Tesla seemed to be working as normal as Shawcross moved from the west of the city to downtown, which gave him hope that Grayson was wrong and the hack had only hit the cellular networks, possibly even only those phones within the US Embassy, and he pulled up at the UK Embassy confident he would find everything in order.
[[Metzinov]]
<<set $remains = 0>>!Remains at the party
“Excuse me, will you?” Grayson said, and headed off towards the Ambassador, who was already surrounded by people. Shawcross watched him go, then headed into the crowd towards the Russian contingent, wondering just how he was going to go about finding out what it was they were discussing so intently.
[[Metzinov]]
<<set $remains = 1>>!Setting Out
Shifting his gaze from the snow dancing down to cover the tundra that spread out before his window in yet another chill blanket to the photo of Ilia and Viktor standing before the Motherland Calls statue back in Volgograd, Metzinov started to feel the itch not only to send men out to investigate, but to be amongst them himself. To feel his body work as it was intended to work; to challenge it against the elements and experience the satisfaction of it meeting that challenge, as it had so often done in his younger days.
He got to his feet and strode purposefully through the door of his office, to where Simonov was leaning over a touch screen, his neck crooked at an unnatural, uncomfortable-looking angle. He stood immediately.
“Where do you keep your winter uniform, Lieutenant?” Metzinov asked him.
The young man looked as though he was being asked a trick question.
“It’s a simple question, Lieutenant.”
“In quarters, sir,” Simonov replied at last. “In my trunk.”
“Then head back there and change into them.”
“Sir?”
“Right after you’ve told Captain Sinichkin to select half a dozen men from the 8th to be ready and waiting in a TIGRs in twenty minutes.”
“What’s going on, sir?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out, Simonov,” Metzinov beamed. “In person.”
[[Shawcross|Section 3 (Shawcross) Embassy]]
<<set $drones = 0>>!Drones
Shifting his gaze from the snow dancing down to cover the tundra that spread out before his window in yet another chill blanket, to the photo of Ilia and Viktor standing before the Motherland Calls statue back in Volgograd, Metzinov resisted the itch not only to send men out to investigate, but to be amongst them himself. While certain he still had the mental capacity to lead a unit into the field, it was foolish to think that his body was still in a state to meet the challenge of the Arctic winter. Instead, he waved at the glass screen on his desk and Simonov appeared, standing bolt upright at his door, moments later.
“I want UAVs,” Metzinov said grimly. “Out over the border. Report back as soon as we have images.”
[[Shawcross|Section 3 (Shawcross) Embassy]]
<<set $drones = 1>><<if $remains is 0>>
!UK Embassy
It was late as Shawcross approached the concrete monolith which housed the UK Embassy to Norway, past eleven by the time he had gazed up at the cameras and the facial recognition permitted him entry, and he had never known the place to be so quiet. It was never exactly a riotous place, even during the day, but despite the banality of the concrete building’s interior, quiet chatter and the buzz of office life could usually be heard echoing down the corridors – a clatter of teacups on a tray, even the odd burst of laughter. But tonight there was nothing. No-one.
The blue-light glare of the clear glass touch terminal flickering to life as he sat at his desk was a promising sign. As he tapped at the emblem for Rote, the diplomatic service’s in-house group messaging app, Shawcross experienced a bolstering of his expectation that all would be well. His optimism dissipated when he saw that the top eight messages in the embassy’s administrative group all hailed from B.L.Z. Bub, each one of their subject headings a riff on the message the reception guests had received: “Desert ahoy!”, “Parched yet?” and so forth.
Shawcross hit the terminal’s power button, more out of alarm than any sense that it might help. He knew it wouldn’t. They were in – whoever they were – despite the so-called secure connections the embassy was meant to enjoy. Shawcross scoffed at the notion. Damascus had confirmed in experience what he already knew by training about ‘security’ – that it was a word employed when there was a need to imbue people with a feeling of safety; that it was only necessary when people had reason to feel unsafe. When all was well, or at least when they perceived it to be, people were quite happy to exhibit their entire lives on social media. They didn’t care about security then, messaging each other and chatting away on open lines.
Shawcross froze. That was it. Open lines.
He leapt to his feet and dashed out of his office, up the corridor and into a room he’d not been in since his first day at the embassy. It was little more than a store-cupboard really, with stacks of hard copy files and a small desk. And on that small desk, shrouded in a film of dust, stood a Rolodex and an old fashioned landline telephone.
Shawcross lifted the receiver, put it to his ear and, hearing the warm analogue hum of a dial tone, searched through the Rolodex, stopping at the entry for the Ministry of Defence’s duty officer.
He made to punch in the number, but hesitated as his forefinger touched the first button. This attack was broader in scope than he had anticipated, than he had dreamed feasible. What if the attackers had even thought to factor landlines into their plans? Were they, in fact, guiding him towards an unencrypted device from which they could simply harvest all the information they needed? If indeed information was even what they were after. And if not, then what else could it be? Just good old-fashioned chaos?
Shawcross told himself to pull it together. Letting his imagination run riot was not the way to deal with this. He had to decide whether or not using this phone was a risk worth taking if it meant opening a line of communication with London, or if he should try to find an alternative means – a landline less likely to be monitored, maybe. Or a two-way long-wave radio perhaps. God, if he was going that far back in time, he might as well look for a homing pigeon.
[[Use the telephone|Section 4a (Shawcross) On the phone]]
[[Head down to MI6 station|Section 4b (Shawcross) Station]]
<<endif>>
<<if $remains is 1>>
!The Russians
Watching the Russians as he crossed the Chancery, Shawcross couldn’t help calling to mind the old detective’s adage about how to discern which of the three suspects in the holding cells is guilty. You don’t interview them. You just let them sit in their cells and wait, and whoever falls asleep first is your man – the reasoning being that the indignant rage of the falsely accused will keep them awake, whereas the guilty will see that it’s a fair cop and sleep like a baby.
Kripov and Nikolaev weren’t exactly falling asleep, but there was no doubting they were the least confused people at the reception. Not that anyone else seemed to notice. Most were preoccupied with the strange figure being projected by their handsets, while those on duty were too busy striding in and out of the Chancery trying to look as though they knew how to work out and solve what was going on.
“Ladies and Gentlemen.” It was Fitzherbert, going full throttle on the all-knowing maternal Texan. “It seems we have a small technical problem with the signal blanketing system we have in place here at the embassy. I’m not going to pretend I know or even understand the details, but what I am going to do is assure you that our best people are looking into it at this very moment and assure you that it will be dealt with in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. In the meantime, why don’t you fill your glasses, take in the music Zachary and his band are treating us to and of course enjoy the canapés. I have that Brahman imported direct from my ranch back in Lipscomb County.”
It was a valiant effort. As the violinist started his team up again and the waiters circulated with refreshed trays of booze, Shawcross even saw some of the guests shrug, lower their phones and accept a glass. Kripov and Nikolaev weren’t among them. The Russians had retreated to one side of the Chancery, away from the group to whom Kripov had previously been holding forth, and the heated discussion seemed to be morphing from disagreement to planning, with Kripov now doing most of the talking, and Nikolaev nodding as he received and understood his orders. Then, as Kripov returned to his expectant audience sporting an expansive grin, Nikolaev headed towards the exit.
[[Remain and see what he can glean from the Russian DA|Section 4c (Shawcross) Eavesdropping]]
[[Follow Russian Assistant DA|Section 4d (Shawcross) Pursuit]]
<<endif>>!On the Phone
If it meant getting word back to London, Shawcross decided using the telephone was a risk worth taking, and dialled.
The line rang for so long he was about to hang up when a click sounded and Shawcross heard a voice say, “What is it, some kind of radio?”
“My God,” a second, more senior voice said. “How old are you?
“Twenty-two.”
“It’s called a telephone.”
“A telephone? It doesn’t loo--”
“Hello?” Shawcross said, loud and clear. “Can you hear me?”
The young voice gasped and whispered: “I hear a voice, sir. There’s someone there.”
“That’s usually how it works. Respond maybe?”
“Hello?” the younger voice said, muffled and distant.
“You’ve got it the wrong way – here.”
There was a rustle and the older voice grew louder.
“This is the duty officer – and his embryonic assistant.”
“At the Ministry?”
“Last time I checked.”
“Put me through to Ops, will you?”
“It’s... gone ten at night. No-one’s here. Where are you calling from? And why don’t you throw in who you are while you’re at it, and why you’ve had us hunting the second floor for the ringing in our heads.”
“This is Shawcross, DA in Norway. Listen, has anything... happened there?”
“Apart from successfully putting a stop to the ringing, you mean?”
“There’s been some kind of cyber attack here. All other lines of communication have been breached.”
“Excuse me for asking, but have you been drinking, Shawcross?”
“I wish.”
“This isn’t some kind of lark?”
“No, it’s not.”
“Then you better talk to Ops.”
[[Metzinov|Section 3 (Metzinov) Back to Metzinov]]
<<set $phone = 1>>!Station
Shawcross replaced the receiver in its cradle, left the airless confines of the cupboard office and hit the main stairwell. There was no way he could use that phone, even if it meant getting word back to London sooner rather than later. Better to be safe and consult the experts. In this case, the experts were a strange little man called Clive Glibhurst whose office was a floor above Shawcross’s. Glibhurst’s mole-like appearance and the faint odour of halitosis that trailed him everywhere drew attention away from a sharp brain in the order of the new breed that had started to take over secret intelligence. The era of the amoral extrovert adept at manipulating people in person was ebbing, and as the world increasingly communicated remotely, the over-confident raconteurs were being replaced by introverts who understood both the technology and techniques of online socialisation and exploitation. It was all part of the same process that had hit the stockbrokers back at the dawn of digitisation forty or fifty years ago, that had seen the likes of Jobs and Gates become CEOs of the world’s largest companies, and Amazon become the official sponsor of the Democratic Party. And now, finally, the winds of change were sweeping through the stuffy corridors of MI6. If anyone in the building knew by what channels Shawcross should get word back to London, it was Glibhurst – if he was there.
[[Metzinov|Section 3 (Metzinov) Back to Metzinov]]
<<set $station = 1>>!Eavesdropping
Shawcross replaced his glass with a full one and weaved his way through the people that remained. When he arrived in the vicinity of Kripov’s small party, he took up position to one side, pulled out his phone and stood as though intently inspecting it. His Russian was rudimentary, learnt in FCO lessons in the lead up to his posting instead of Norwegian, which was considered unnecessary. But it was sufficient for him to understand the gist of what was being said a few feet away. The DA had returned only to excuse his departure from the reception, indicating his phone as reason, and moments later Kripov bowed to his audience before heading for the very same exit as his junior had.
Shawcross downed the rest of his champagne and followed.
[[Metzinov|Section 3 (Metzinov) Back to Metzinov]]
<<set $evesdrop = 1>>!Pursuit
When the embassy was first built, it had been located on the outskirts of a town of half a million people, but back in 2017 Oslo was already the fastest growing capital in Europe. With the rise of the Populist governments in the Netherlands and Germany, and the crippling tax rates installed by the increasingly Socialist regimes in the rest of Scandinavia, the rate of Oslo’s expansion had accelerated, the result being that it was now the de facto capital of the entire peninsula, a city of more than 2 million people that continued to attract people and businesses from all over the world with its conducive trading environment, a world class health and benefits system and heavy government investment into environmental research and development. And it was all built on the foundations laid by the clever management of winning a geographical lottery that gave such a small country access to untold natural resources. The upshot of all that growth was that the US Embassy was now located right next to a secondary, western centre of the city, into whose uniquely Scandinavian mixture of architecture Shawcross now followed Nikolaev.
Some other reception guests were taking leave of their American hosts in addition to the Russian and British attachés, and the sprinkling of people in evening wear and ceremonial uniforms looked just as out of place amongst the civilians in their winter gear as the modern glass-and-steel structures did amongst the resolutely old-fashioned timber houses the Nordics continued to build. But, as those others found their way home or into driverless G-cabs, and Nikolaev headed into the quieter streets behind the central strip, Shawcross found he was the only other person in sight, and had to drop back, lest the Russian heard the dull crunch of his footsteps in the freshly fallen snow.
Apparently he did well enough, and when Nikolaev stopped and checked his surroundings at the back entrance of an older, wooden building nestled amongst the modern ones, Shawcross just had time enough to hide himself in the shadows before the Russian went inside. As soon as Nikolaev had disappeared from sight, Shawcross hurried up the road towards the door.
[[Metzinov|Section 3 (Metzinov) Back to Metzinov]]
<<set $pursuit = 1>><<if $drones is 1>>
!Images
Two hours later, Metzinov was still sitting in his office thinking how much he’d have liked to have gone out into the snow to investigate the activity in person when Simonov appeared at his door with his Scrablet.
“Images?” Metzinov said.
“Yes, sir,” Simonov replied, pulling the digital scroll from its housing and flicking it rigid. He looked even more sallow than normal. “The UAV was dispatched from Severomorsk an hour ago, as per your orders, and flew out towards the border at ten thousand metres. These are the images it returned.”
Simonov moved forwards cagily, as though afraid Metzinov might attack him, and handed his superior officer the screen.
Metzinov swiped through the images as his adjutant continued.
“Those first show the coastline towards the border. But then things get a bit strange.”
Metzinov looked up from the photo of the snow-covered tundra. “Strange?”
“Our guidance systems had it flying at ten thousand metres, as I said. Then, just before it reached the border proper, it was suddenly reading at an altitude of forty meters, over coordinates 55.75˚N and 37.62˚E.”
“That’s Moscow.”
“It’s Red Square, sir.”
Metzinov moved on to the next photo, and saw an image of Red Square, taken from above, and from each of the onion domes of St Basil’s Cathedral a smiley face grinned up at him.
“That was just before we lost contact with the UAV altogether.”
Metzinov looked up at Simonov again. “What do you mean lost contact?”
“We contacted Moscow and it never came onto the radars there.”
Metzinov looked at the smiley faces again. Had the drone simply disappeared it could feasibly have been due to a technological fault. But this – it was technological, but it was no fault.
“This is some kind of attack,” he said.
Simonov nodded his agreement.
“And our UAV’s still out there somewhere,” Metzinov went on.
“Somewhere, sir,” Simonov said, “but we’ve scanned the skies and it’s no longer airborne.”
“It’s been downed.”
“It would seem so, sir. But if you’ll excuse me for saying so, sir, that’s really the operative word here, isn’t it – seem? Because who knows which of our systems we can still trust.”
“Well it seems deeply coincidental that this should occur at the very moment we’re investigating irregular activity over the border, don’t you think?”
Simonov nodded. “What do you want to do, sir?”
[[Send men out to retrieve drones|Section 4c (Metzinov) A Black Box]]
[[Lead a party to check out the coastal activity in person|Section 4d (Metzinov) Expedition]]
<<endif>>
<<if $drones is 0>>
!At the Coast
As the TIGR made its way along one of the crevices in the snow that passed for roads in the north-west winter, Metzinov, in the middle of the three-seat front of the vehicle, stole a glance first at his driver, Jr Sergeant Grupovkin, then at the second passenger, Captain Sinichkin. He was left in no doubt by their grim expressions that he was the only one of them for whom the rumble and odour of the old Cummins diesel elicited any warmth of feeling. That changed as soon as he ordered Grupovkin to stop the vehicle and made all its nine occupants get out into the snow. Sinichkin suggested Simonov be the man left with the TIGR, to which suggestion Metzinov’s young adjutant looked partial, but Metzinov insisted he come along and instead the Captain elected to leave Grupovkin with the vehicle.
As the rest made their way in snow-camouflage field uniforms towards the border, Metzinov was certain the party would look on the relative warmth and comfort of the personnel carrier’s steel interior with a new respect, not least Simonov, who was about half the size of the rest of the men, and had not, as far as Metzinov knew, seen field service in any way, shape or form since he’d emerged from the Frunze academy two years ago. The snow was falling in minute flakes, the wind whipping it through the air like tiny blades, and the young man kept lagging behind to close the gaps his inexperience left between his face mask and the rubber surround of his tactical goggles. Sinichkin was unhappy with the delay. He had been on edge ever since he’d emerged from his quarters and discovered Metzinov was coming on the recce in person, and now led the way over the ridges that sloped down into the flat, white, frozen waters with a careful, prickling silence.
After about ten minutes, in the dip between two ridges, the Captain brought the company to a full standstill when his Lieutenant, Polovkinin, made to check their location and instead started banging his device with the heel of his palm.
Sinichkin pulled his mask down from his mouth.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” he growled over the whistling wind.
It could have been a trick of the moonglow, but to Metzinov’s surprise, where he would have expected to see ambivalence in Polovkinin’s goggled eyes, he instead saw only amusement.
“According to this, we’re in Moscow,” Polovkinin announced, offering the small location device to his senior officer.
Sinichkin grabbed the device and looked at its screen.
“Maybe some kind of Arctic wormhole?” Polovkinin ventured.
“Probably another government experiment,” Sinichkin said, lobbing the device back to his Lieutenant.
“This doesn’t look like Trubnaya to me,” Polovkinin said, catching it.
“Nor me,” Sinichkin muttered. “Lieutenant, you come with me and the Commander to take a closer look. You too, Kuznetsky. The rest of you stay put.” He turned to Metzinov. “If you’re ready, sir?”
Metzinov nodded. “Let’s go, Simonov,” he said.
“Sir?” Simonov said.
“You’re coming too,” Metzinov announced.
Polovkinin groaned audibly. Seeing Metzinov turning to scold him, Sinichkin dived in ahead in an attempt to prevent Polovkinin stepping out of line.
“Do you have something to say about Simonov’s ability to act effectively in the field, Lieutenant?” he said.
“No, sir,” Polovkinin muttered begrudgingly.
“I didn't think so,” Sinichkin replied. “Now let’s get moving, shall we?”
@@.center;
X X X
@@
Three ridges later, the five of them – Metzinov, Simonov, Sinichkin, Polovkinin and Kuznetsky – were lying belly down in the snow gazing along the coast through heat-vision binoculars. Metzinov was lying next to Simonov and he could feel the young man trying to smother his shivers.
Metzinov focussed on what they were looking at. The ice-free fishery station was a couple of clicks to the west of their position and Metzinov could make out little glowing figures loading what seemed to be crates onto an ice-breaker. It was undoubtedly a civilian vessel, and none of the people in sight were armed, or wearing military uniforms either. But this was more activity than was normal, even during so-called daylight hours. At this time of year it was night time all the time of course, and Metzinov looked at his watch to check. He was right – it really was the dead of night – 23:37 to be precise – and that made any such activity suspicious. A person or two could easily have fitted into each container – Metzinov estimated them to measure approximately two by one by half a metre – so what he was watching could have been the transportation of illegal migrants. Perhaps they had unloaded them for exercise and refreshment before their journey continued, but the crates were also of a shape and size more familiar to Metzinov, of the kind that carried armaments – artillery, shells, ammunition. But at the distance and in the weather, there was simply no way of telling with any certainty what they were or what they contained.
He nodded to Sinichkin and the party reversed down the ridge out of the wind.
Metzinov turned to Polovkinin. “Can you tell me with any certainty on which side of the border we currently lie, Lieutenant?”
Polovkinin looked sheepish. “No, sir,” he said.
“Then call through to the TIGR and find out. They should be tracking us.”
Sinichkin gave Polovkinin the nod and the Lieutenant switched on his comms with a tap to his ear. Metzinov and Sinichkin followed suit to listen in.
“Grupovkin?” Polovkinin barked over the wind. “Do you read me?”
“Hello?” someone said. It wasn’t Grupovkin. It was a female. And she was speaking English.
“Who the hell are you?” Polovkinin said.
“Hello?” the woman said. “Mother?”
“Don’t tell me that’s kaput as well,” Sinichkin said.
Polovkinin shrugged. “Unless Grupovkin was keeping her in the ski box.”
Sinichkin turned to Metzinov.
“That’s locations and comms, sir,” he said. “What do you want to do?”
Metzinov looked at the Captain and went briskly through his options in his head.
Taking a closer look at what was going on at the fishery might lead to vital discoveries, but in this weather he and his men would have to get incredibly close to determine whether or not the activity was benign, and if it wasn’t, the enemy would surely have lookouts stationed. If the unit was spotted, Metzinov knew that would mean an acceleration in enemy operations. With no comms, there would be no way for him to alert the base, let alone Moscow. On the other hand, if they could get in and out without being seen, any intelligence could lead to vital pre-emptive preparations. Heading back just to order further investigations of one sort or another would be nothing but a waste of time. But what if he discovered the activity was benign? If they could get in and out without being seen, there would be no harm done. But if by some chance they were seen? Their crossing of the border might result in a diplomatic incident for which he alone would be responsible.
“Sir?”
[[Return to base|Section 4a (Metzinov) Discretion]]
[[Investigate the activity more closely|Section 4b (Metzinov) Closer]]
<<endif>>
!A Black Box
Metzinov glanced at the bottom right hand corner of the photo he was looking at. As expected, there he saw printed the legend MZ649/316. It told him all he needed to know. The drone sent out was the 316th edition of the MZ 649. It was a model with which he was familiar from his days in Volgograd, and of a vintage that contained an old habit of the Russian army’s engineers that many thought overkill these days – a sealed unit that recorded details of the flight and sent out an analogue tracking signal so it could be easily located. A black box.
“We need to get hold of that drone before anything else,” Metzinov said to Simonov. “It might be able to give us some idea of what and who we’re up against here. If there’s evidence it’s been brought down that’s justification to cross the border and demand to know what the hell’s going on over there.”
“And if there isn’t?”
“Then we’ll have the damn thing, and can dress it anyway we like. Get Captain Sinichkin to ready half a dozen men and retrieve it. Tell him I expect them to be back here within two hours.”
[[Shawcross|Section 5 (Shawcross)]]
<<set $blackBox = 1>>!Expedition
Despite the gravity of the situation, Metzinov was pleased it gave him another opportunity to elect to head out into the open country to investigate the border activity in person. And he wasn’t about to give this one up. Investigating via a ground expedition consisting of a small squadron of marines would be far less likely to be detected than UAVs, after all, and feeling adrenaline course through his muscles, he knew he had been wrong about his condition. So he wasn’t the specimen he’d been as a younger man, but what he lacked in fitness he more than made up for in experience.
He released the screen and the Scrablet snapped back into its tube.
“Where do you keep your winter uniform?” he asked Simonov.
The young man looked as though he was being asked a trick question.
“It’s a simple enough question, Lieutenant.”
“In quarters, sir,” Simonov stammered. “In my trunk.”
“Then head back there and change into it.”
“Sir?”
“Right after you’ve told Captain Sinichkin to select half a dozen men from the 8th and be ready and waiting with a TIGR in twenty minutes.”
“I’m going out with them, sir?”
“We both are.”
[[Shawcross|Section 5 (Shawcross)]]
<<set $expedition = 1>>!Discretion
“We head back,” Metzinov said, to an audible sigh of relief from Simonov, and Sinichkin led the unit through the snow back to the remaining men, and then back to the TIGR, where they found Grupovkin not only without female company, but more or less beside himself with concern. He had been sitting in the driver’s seat of the vehicle awaiting their return, he said, when the systems had started to go haywire – the smart map had suddenly placed them in Moscow and when Grupovkin tried to make contact with Metzinov and Sinichkin, and then with the base, he first got through to some kind of Spaniard, followed by what seemed to be an Indian call centre. Moments after that, everything had died, and not just the locations and comms systems, but the whole vehicle. Even if they managed to bypass the electronic ignition and jump the engine, without power steering there was no way they could manoeuvre eight tons of vehicle back to base.
“We’re going to have to walk, sir,” Grupovkin said.
Sinichkin barged through the small group that had gathered around Grupovkin in the cab and heading to the side of the vehicle where he flipped two tabs holding the bottom-hinged door of a two by one metre compartment closed. It looked like it would contain firearms, and indeed the matching compartment on the other side of the vehicle housed a large family of Nikrovia S14 pulse rifles. This one though was where emergency transport was stored.
“Not walk,” he said, gesturing towards the contents. “Ski.”
[[Shawcross|Section 5 (Shawcross)]]
<<set $discretion = 1>>!Closer
“We need to try to see what they’ve got in those crates,” Metzinov said. “We’re moving closer.”
While Metzinov knew that the risks of moving in to take a closer look at what was going on were worth taking, he was also aware that there was another, more personal reason for his decision to do so. This was an opportunity to delve into ‘enemy’ territory on a covert operation. For a man of his age and in his position, there would not be too many more.
“All of us?” Sinichkin replied.
It was unclear whether the Captain meant the whole party, including those they had left behind, or all five of those present, including Simonov. But Metzinov knew that fewer in was fewer to be spotted.
“We five,” he said. “We move in and we stay in for as long as it takes to gather all the intelligence necessary to put together a suitable response. If the activity is benign, it’s better we’re not seen. But if we establish that what’s going on over there is prelude to an act of aggression, we do everything necessary to ensure our return. And that includes engaging the enemy if we’re spotted, is that clear?”
Sinichkin, Polovkinin and Kuznetsky all looked suitably unfazed at the prospect. Simonov, on the other hand, seemed physically to shrink, but still he did not voice any objections and determinedly kept pace when Sinichkin pointed a silent finger up the ridge and led their party towards the snow-packed fishery station beyond.
[[Shawcross|Section 5 (Shawcross)]]
<<set $closer = 1>><<if $phone is 1>>
!Ops
Ops – in this instance a woman called Burridge – listened to Shawcross’s account of what had occurred at the US Embassy in silence. Even when he concluded with what he had subsequently discovered there at the UK Embassy, she remained entirely quiet. Shawcross was tired and standing there in the airless cupboard office, he had expected her to be more interested in what he had to say, not to mention more forthcoming.
“This is an attack, Susan,” he said shortly. “I need to know what our response is going to be.”
“Before you called,” Burridge said at last, in an even voice, “we received some other reports of something going on in Norway.”
“What kind of reports?” Shawcross said. “I haven’t heard anything. Where are they coming from?”
“I’m not going into that on an open line, Martin. Suffice to say they’re unsubstantiated, but coupled with this–”
“You think it’s the Russians.”
Another pause. Then: “There’s been a COBR,” Burridge said, neither confirming nor denying Shawcross’s suspicions. “And the PM has held discussions with President Bezos. In line with our duties as NATO partners, we’re to start preparing for deployment.” Her voice remained monotone, disinterested, as though she had just told Shawcross to put the kettle on.
“Deployment?” he exclaimed, loudly enough to surprise himself.
“We have marine units stationed in the north of the country, as you know. It’s been decided that we need to be ready to put on a show of NATO unity, and it’s up to you to facilitate our part in it.”
“What do the Norwegians think about that?”
“It’s their sovereignty that’s being violated here.”
“They also have to live with their neighbours.”
“So the situation will call for no small amount of diplomacy on your part,” Burridge said shortly. “Of course we’d rather not step on any Nordic toes of course, but we can’t afford to let malign forces think we’ll just stand by and let them walk into allied territory either. If the Norwegians can’t – or won’t – commit to a firm response, it’s our responsibility to do so for them. Is that understood?”
“It is,” Shawcross replied.
“Good,” Burridge said. “There is one problem, though.”
“And that is?”
“Well, in light of what’s happened, we can’t make contact with the base in Sør Varanger. A NATO response will be expected, of course, but we don’t want to risk feeding details to eavesdroppers. So you’ll have to go up there and coordinate in person. And the sooner the better. Can you find a ride?”
Even in the two months he’d been there, Shawcross had been to enough receptions to know that he’d be able to flag a lift from his hospitable hosts one way or another.
“I’ll manage,” he said.
“And Shawcross?” Burridge’s tone had changed, to one altogether more human and personal.
“What is it?”
“Do you think you’re up to this? I mean after what happened in–”
“This is hardly the Middle East, Susan. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, good luck then.”
“Thank you.”
@@.center;
X X X
@@
Hanging up and emerging from the cupboard office, Shawcross knew he had two things to do: Talk to the Norwegian Military Liaison Officer, Colonel Per Rosenborg, about a combined response; and get to Sør Varanger. His inaugural national tour of the country’s bases of British interest, conducted in his third week on the job, had ended up there. He had taken the last flight back down to Oslo from Kirkenes, which, he recalled, then headed back up for the last flight of the night. He looked at his watch. He had an hour until take-off. He could make it, and was confident he’d be able to talk his way onboard, but only if he headed straight to Gardermoen. On the other hand, while Col. Rosenborg would undoubtedly know what was going on – he would have been there somewhere at the US reception – their responses would need to be coordinated, and if communication was being monitored, there would be no way of getting in touch with him from the North. Shawcross would have to inform and ready the British marine units, then come back down south to make sure their manoeuvres worked with anything the Norwegians were planning. If he went to see Rosenborg now, he’d miss the last civilian flight, but it was possible he would be able to offer Shawcross a place on an airforce transport. Then again, Burridge had told him that they were to ensure the Russians were deterred, whatever the Norwegian response turned out to be, so maybe it would be better to get things moving and then inform Rosenborg.
[[Go to see Col. Rosenborg to discuss response|Section 6a]]
[[Head to UK troops stationed at Sør Varanger|Section 6b]]
<<endif>>
<<if $station is 1>>
!Glibhurst
Shawcross entered Glibhurst’s office and found the man himself sitting dressed in a too open lumberjack shirt, his desk a wasteland of fast food boxes and wire-sprouting boxes of tech. The young MI6 station chief was busily working away at the coloured air at his trio of projected terminals, swishing apps in and out of view with the wireless haptics covering both his hands.
“Have they got in here too?” Shawcross said.
“Oh yeah,” Glibhurst said excitedly, glancing at Shawcross. “All the way in. Nice outfit, by the way.”
Shawcross looked down. He’d forgotten he was wearing his dress uniform.
“Looks like I missed the party again,” Glibhurst added.
“And you’d actually have liked this one, too.”
Glibhurst stopped working to look at him this time. “Tell me.”
“See for yourself,” Shawcross said, handing Glibhurst his phone.
Glibhurst placed Shawcross’s phone on a plate connected to a different terminal and watched as data started scrolling on the display in an unidentifiable language that the station chief seemed to read as easily as English.
“And where was tonight’s Glibhurst-free snoozefest?” he said, highlighting a snatch of code, and opening it up to reveal the flaming skull holomessage, which he went about inspecting from all angles. “Don’t tell me? Shrunken heads and shandy with the New-Guineans? Or was it khat and elderflower with the Somalis, or–”
“Actually it was Texan Brahman with the Americans.”
Glibhurst stopped, his face dropping into an expression of complete seriousness. “Say that again.”
“Ambassador Fitzherbert raises it on her ranch in Lipscomb County apparently.”
Glibhurst removed his thick-lensed glasses and pulled the haptic off his right hand, revealing a set of short, hairy fingers, with two of which he proceeded to pinch the bridge of his nose where his eyes met. He started nodding slowly, knowingly.
“What is it, Glibhurst?” Shawcross said.
Only then did Glibhurst lower his hand. Shawcross had supposed the pinch had been a sign of strain or concern, but he couldn’t have been further from the truth, as revealed by the smile into which the station chief’s hairy cheeks were pouched, his little black eyes dancing as they gazed up at Shawcross. He was trying to contain his excitement. And failing.
“I thought this was just a bunch of hacktivist wankers,” he exclaimed.
“It’s not?”
“No. It’s wonderful news is what it is.” He jumped to his feet, rounded his desk at a pace and approached a fourth terminal, this one a more traditional touch screen. “They managed to get in under the American blankets,” he announced feverishly. “That’s military grade cyber, Martin. And there’s only one country that would hit Norway. And that vindicates my entire reason for being here. So tell me. How could that not be wonderful news?”
He tapped rapidly at the screen. “Everyone thought I took Oslo because it was a cakewalk,” he said, to himself as much as Shawcross. “But I knew.”
“What did you know?” Shawcross asked.
He glanced at Shawcross as though remembering he was not alone. “We’ve been sourcing the Russians for cyber all over the world,” he explained. “Ever since they put Trump into the White House twenty-some years ago. A nudge here, a prod there, a few in-roads every now and then. Nothing this big, but a direct hit was inevitable at some point. The only questions were when it would happen – and where. And I put my money on sunny Norway.”
Glibhurst rose from the terminal and presented Shawcross with a greasy looking earpiece. Shawcross looked at it. Apparently he did not manage to mask his disgust. “I’ve just generated a daisy-fresh connection with London.”
“Secure?” Shawcross said.
“As Queen Kate’s unmentionables.” Glibhurst grinned. “By which I mean her crown jewels, of course. It’s connecting to Ops now.”
Shawcross reluctantly put the earpiece in just as a female voice came over the line.
“Glibhurst?” she said. “This had better be good.”
“Don’t worry,” Glibhurst said, donning his own, cleaner looking headset, leaving Shawcross to suspect the grim thing he had in his ear was another example of what the MI6 man thought of as a joke. “It is. And it’s coming to you straight from the battle hardened lips of our dapper Lieutenant Colonel Shawcross.”
“Martin?” the woman said, sounding relieved.
“Hello, Burridge,” Shawcross said.
“What’s going on?”
Shawcross, with Glibhurst in support, told Burridge what had happened, relaying just the facts, nothing further.
“Thank you, Martin,” Burridge said. “Considering what you’ve just told me, you should know that we’ve had reports of an encroachment in the North.”
“An encroachment?”
“It seems a unit of Russian special forces have crossed the border into Norway. The reports are unsubstantiated, and even if they’re true, we don’t yet know their intentions. Coupled to what’s going on there, though… well, they hardly look benign, do they?”
“I should say not,” Shawcross replied.
“There’s already been a COBR about it,” Burridge said. “And the PM has held discussions with President Bezos. Should the reports be confirmed, in line with our duties as NATO partners, we’re to start preparing for the deployment of forces.” Her voice was monotone, disinterested, as though she had just told Shawcross to put the kettle on.
“Deployment?” Shawcross exclaimed, looking at Glibhurst, who was visibly thrilled by the prospect.
“We have marine units stationed in the north of the country, as you know,” Burridge continued. “We don’t want to step on any Nordic toes over there, but we can’t afford to let malign forces think we’ll just stand by and let them walk into allied territory either. It’s been decided that we need to put on a show of unity with the Norwegians here, and it’s up to you to facilitate our part in it.”
“Are the Norwegians on board?”
“It’s their sovereignty that’s being violated here. They’ll fall in.”
“But they also have to live with their neighbours.”
“That’s true. And if they decide they can’t – or won’t – commit to a firm response, it’s our responsibility to do so for them. Is that understood?”
“Of course,” Shawcross said.
“There is one problem, though.”
“And that is?”
“Well, in light of what’s happened in Oslo, we can’t risk making contact with the base in Sør Varanger. A NATO response will be expected, of course, but we don’t want to feed details to eavesdroppers. So you’ll have to go up there and coordinate in person. And the sooner the better. Can you find a ride?”
Even in the two months he’d been there, Shawcross had been to enough receptions to know that he’d be able to flag a lift from his hospitable hosts one way or another.
“I’ll manage,” he said.
“Good. Get to it,” Burridge said. “And Glibhurst? Stay on, will you?”
@@.center;
X X X
@@
Shawcross removed the earpiece and, leaving Glibhurst to Burridge, headed downstairs to the embassy exit. He had two things to do: Talk to the Norwegian Military Liaison Officer, Colonel Per Rosenborg, about a combined response; and get to Sør Varanger to coordinate the British part of that response. His inaugural national tour of the country’s bases of British interest, conducted in his third week on the job, had ended up there. He had taken the last flight back down to Oslo from Kirkenes, which, he recalled, then headed back up for the last flight of the night. He looked at his watch. He had an hour until take-off. He could make it, and was confident he’d be able to talk his way onboard, but only if he headed straight to Gardermoen. On the other hand, while Col. Rosenborg would undoubtedly know what was going on – he would have been there somewhere at the US reception – their responses needed to be coordinated, and if communication was being monitored, there would be no way of getting in touch with him from the North. Shawcross would have to inform and ready the marine units, then come back down south to make sure their manoeuvres worked with anything the Norwegians were planning. If he went to see Rosenborg now, he’d miss the last civilian flight, but it was possible he would be able to offer Shawcross a place on an airforce transport. Then again, Burridge had told him that they were to ensure the Russians were deterred, whatever the Norwegian response turned out to be, so maybe it would be better to get things moving and then inform Rosenborg.
[[Go to see Col. Rosenborg to discuss response|Section 6c]]
[[Establish contact with home via a ‘secure’ phone line and goes to see UK Marines|Section 6d]]
<<endif>>
<<if $evesdrop is 1>>
!Tailing
Outside, it appeared that Nikolaev had taken whatever transport had brought the Russian contingent to the reception, as rather than stepping into a waiting limo, Kripov headed out of the compound on foot.
When the embassy was first built, it had been located on the outskirts of a town of half a million people, but back in 2017 Oslo was already the fastest growing capital in Europe. With the rise of the Populist governments in the Netherlands and Germany, and the crippling tax rates installed by the increasingly Socialist regimes in the rest of Scandinavia, the rate of Oslo’s expansion had accelerated, the result being that it was now the de facto capital of the entire peninsula, a city of more than 2 million people that continued to attract people and businesses from all over the world with its conducive trading environment, a world class health and benefits system and heavy government investment into environmental research and development. And it was all built on the foundations laid by the clever management of winning a geographical lottery that gave such a small country access to untold natural resources. The upshot of all that growth was that the US Embassy was now located right next to a secondary, western centre of the city, from whose uniquely Scandinavian mixture of architecture a steady stream of G-cabs emerged, and it was into one of these that Kripov now hopped.
Shawcross pulled his phone out and switched it on as he watched the driverless vehicle hum through the slush down the hill towards the city-centre. He found his EarWorm and Siri’s voice chimed in his ear. Turning back towards the embassy car park he gave her a name – Glibhurst, Clive – and marched back to the Tesla. He was relieved the phone managed to connect, and was starting up the Tesla when the grumbling voice of the UK Embassy’s young station chief came over the line.
“What do you want, Martin?” Glibhurst said.
“I need you to trace someone,” Shawcross said, waiting for the guards to open the compound gate for him.
“Trace them?”
“You know – tell me where they’re going.”
“I know what it means. But this is Oslo in 2033, not London in 2022. Not to mention nearly midnight.”
Shawcross wasn’t surprised at Glibhurst’s reluctant attitude. He was not of the old guard of MI6 operatives. That is to say he was not an amoral extrovert adept at manipulating people in person. The new breed that was finally blowing the winds of change through the stuffy, cobwebbed corridors of MI6 were customised for a world that communicated remotely, facelessly – introverts who understood techniques of online socialisation and exploitation. Glibhurst, like many of his recruited contemporaries, also had an unholy enthusiasm for and supreme grip on the technology to which his talents were applied. As such, Shawcross knew from their conversations in the embassy kitchen, as the MI6 man fried his full English breakfasts, that Glibhurst was also in possession of unquantifiable amounts of cutting edge government and military hard– and software. Tracing an individual around a town in which he’d lived for a year or more would be a cakewalk.
But with all these supremely useful abilities came a truculence that made him a difficult man to give orders to. Luckily, Shawcross knew a key characteristic of the mole-like young man. Given a safe seat like Norway because diplomacy was not his greatest asset, Glibhurst had accepted the placement not because he saw it as a stroll down Easy Street, as those who had chosen the place for Shawcross saw it, but because the MI6 man saw it as a probable front line. His thinking was straight forward: MI6 had been sourcing the Russians for cyber ever since they put Trump into the White House twenty-some years ago. A nudge here, a prod there, a few in-roads every now and then. A direct hit was inevitable at some point. The only questions were when it would happen and where. Glibhurst had put his money on the Scandinavian Mega City One. It was as close as anyone had got to a fully functioning model of social-minded capitalist democracy, located in a neighbouring country known for its hesitance to engage in anything that might disrupt the status quo, so he had taken the post and had been lying in wait ever since.
“It’s a Russian I’m following,” Shawcross said, turning right out of the gate and guiding the Tesla down the hill after Kripov’s G-cab.
“Why didn’t you say so?” Shawcross heard him grunting and pictured him pulling on a pair of haptic gloves with which he’d control one of the many terminals he doubtless had strewn around his home, or wherever a man like Glibhurst went at night.
“There’s a glitch though,” Shawcross said. “I think my phone’s been hacked.”
“And you just went right ahead and called me.”
“Can’t you do something?”
“Of course I can,” Glibhurst said, and Shawcross heard the echo of taps and swooshes as the MI6 man worked. “That’s not really the point though, is it? All right. That should do it. I’ve created a tunnel between us. Lead lined, so to speak. Now. Where’s this Russian of yours.”
“He just got into a G-cab, number GCN1138.”
It couldn’t have been more than ten seconds before Glibhurst said, “Got him, heading down Sørkedalsveien into town. And there you are, at the other end of the street. The phone number’s a classified one. I have it down as being used by their DA, Kripov.”
“That’s him.”
“Are you going to tell me a little more about what our dear friend Dimitri has done to deserve a trace?”
Shawcross ran briskly over the details of what had occurred at the embassy as he drove down the road wishing he had the ability to push the car beyond the speed limit.
“What have I been telling you?” Glibhurst asked triumphantly.
“I know, I know,” Shawcross said.
“So what’s your plan?”
“Follow him and see what he does.”
“All right,” Glibhurst said, clearly thinking little of Shawcross’s POA.
“You’ve got a better idea, I take it.”
“You know me too well.”
“So? What is it?”
“Well,” Glibhurst said. “If you can get close enough to the mark, I’ll be able to hitch on to his Bluetooth or NFC signal via your phone and excavate his for all it’s worth. We’ll be able to see and hear everything on it instead of having to battle through military grade encryption.”
“That is a better idea.”
“You didn’t call for my conversation.”
“True.”
“You’ll need to get within twenty feet of him,” Glibhurst continued. “Somewhere he won’t notice.”
“Can you hack the speed control on my car? It’s fleet.”
“Not even I can do that. But I think I better stay on the line instead of patching the trace through to your phone, hm.”
“I think so. Shit.”
The traffic lights had turned red up ahead and the brake lights of the cars ahead lit up like a chain of red fairy lights, a sorry attempt at festive cheer in the filthy slush covering the road. Shawcross slammed on his brake pedal and brought the Tesla to a halt.
“What is it?” Glibhurst asked.
“I’ve hit a red,” Shawcross replied.
“Well, Kripov didn’t,” Glibhurst said. “He’s already down at the cemetery. You might want to hurry it up. Because the cab’s slowing down. And... he’s out.”
Shawcross hauled on the wheel, hit the accelerator, then the brake as he nosed the car into a gap between two parked SUVs.
“Come on,” Glibhurst demanded in his ear.
Shawcross jumped out of the car and started running down the street.
“Talk to me, Clive,” he breathed. “Where’s he got to?”
“He’s making his way southwest along the central path in the cemetery. Looks like he’s heading for the embassy over in Frogner, I’d say. You’ll need to get to him before he makes it.”
Shawcross’s dress shoes were skidding all over the place in the slush. It took all his powers of balance to stay on his feet. It got worse when he arrived at the entrance to the expansive graveyard. The paths had been ploughed leaving only an uneven ice covering the ground. As he tried to turn right through the gate and onto the central path, Shawcross skidded four feet wide and only prevented himself from toppling over by grabbing the trunk of one of the pines that lined the walkways.
Shawcross looked up the faintly lit path. There was not a soul upon it. “Where is he?” he gasped.
“He, ah,” Glibhurst stuttered. “He seems to have… well, he seems to have jumped.”
“Jumped?” Shawcross replied.
“I’ve got him in the north-west corner now,” Glibhurst replied.
“What?”
“Up to your left. No. Wait. Now he’s in the south east corner.”
“Come on, Glibhurst. Where is he?”
“I…now he’s back at the entrance. And you’re in the centre, at the crematorium. Ah,” Glibhurst groaned, and it was his turn to say, “Shit.”
“What is it?” Shawcross said.
“His location pulse just turned into a happy face. And you’re a burning skull.”
Before Shawcross could respond, a movement amongst the tombstones caught his eye. It was a person. Two hundred yards in.
“I’ve got him,” he said, and moved ahead, across the snow covered graves. The person was walking briskly – or as briskly as he could – along the icy path. As Shawcross moved across the snow, the figure walked under one of the dull street lights that lit the paths. It was Kripov, struggling along the ungritted path, clutching something in his hand, something emitting light, a torch maybe. A second glance revealed it was his phone.
Shawcross ran towards him, slowing to a walk when he had reduced the distance between them to fifty yards and hit the same path on which Kripov was moving. He stayed off the path and moved from tree to tree along the edge of the path. The superior traction walking on the snow made it an easy job, and he had to slow down even further in order to keep the distance between them down to 25 yards. The crunching of the snow under his feet was not an issue so long as Kripov was scrabbling along on the ice. Nor would the Russian see him so long as he was preoccupied with whatever he was looking at on his phone. But then Kripov slipped and snapped to an abrupt halt in a successful attempt to stay on his feet. Shawcross made it to the next tree and stopped as well, but he was not quick enough. Instead of moving on, Kripov turned and looked back up the path.
Shawcross stood completely still behind the tree.
After a long moment, a low, mocking laughter came to his ears.
“There by the tree, whoever you are, you make your intentions so much clearer by hiding,” came Kripov’s voice. “Thank you.”
Shawcross sighed, and stepped out of the shadows. But he was presented not with the sight of Kripov looking his way, but with that of the Russian running away from him up the slippery path. He was moving at full pelt when he turned right onto another path, skidding wide and disappearing from sight beyond the tombstones.
Shawcross ran after him. A moment later he was taking the same turn as Kripov and he skidded in just the same way. As he did so, his foot hit something, and he went rolling over on the ice.
He landed on his belly and looked back at what he had tripped over.
Kripov was lying on the path, wholly inanimate, his face at rest, a trickle of blood making its way from an abrasion on his forehead.
Shawcross clambered to his feet and approached Kripov’s prostrate form, crouching at his side, feeling for, and finding, a pulse.
It seemed the Russian had slipped over and knocked himself out on the ice either when he had first fallen or when Shawcross himself had come round the corner and kicked his head into the ground. But he was alive.
Shawcross rolled Kripov onto his back. His phone was beneath him, the glass screen fractured. Shawcross picked it up just as the Russian started to groan quietly.
“Glibhurst?” Shawcross rasped, watching Kripov’s face for signs of life.
“I’m here,” Glibhurst said.
Kripov wheezed again. But he was not moving, yet. His eyes remained completely shut.
“But according to my system you’re now somewhere near Lillehammer.”
“I’ve got his phone.”
“How did you manage that?”
“He slipped and knocked himself out,” Shawcross snapped.
“In the same way Trump slipped and fell on the sniper’s bullet?” Glibhurst said sarcastically.
“Can you still pull the data?” Shawcross said, ignoring Glibhurst’s suggestion he’d brought the Russian down himself.
“I can try.”
“Without them being able to tell who did it?”
“It’s a totally different system.”
“Then do it.”
Shawcross looked down at Kripov as he heard Glibhurst get to work.
“All right,” the MI6 man said. “I’m into your phone. And there’s only one other Bluetooth signal. I’m in.”
The Russian’s groans were beginning to sound more human.
“How long?” Shawcross demanded.
“There’s a lot of data here,” Glibhurst said. “About a minute.
“You’ve got thirty seconds.”
Kripov was beginning to move now, very slightly. Shawcross could give Glibhurst more time by delivering another blow, but he didn’t want to. If he did that, the Russian would know someone had been at him and the first thing he’d do when he reached the embassy would be to get his line changed as well as his phone. If, on the other hand, he woke up to find he had fallen over and hit his head on the ground, it was just possible that on finding his possessions in tact, he’d think he’d freaked out about an assailant and, feeling like a fool, he’d get his phone replaced without going into the whole story, meaning his line would simply be transferred to a fresh unit, leaving Glibhurst to view and listen to all future messages and calls. It was a long shot, though. And as Shawcross watched the Russian gradually start to come to life, another possibility occurred to him.
Kripov didn’t know who had been following him – he’d said so. And he’d never need to. So why not take him somewhere and excavate information from the man himself as well his phone?
“That’s it,” Glibhurst announced in his ear. “I’m done.”
[[Take Kripov in for interrogation|Section 6e]]
[[Leave Kripov and head to meet Glibhurst|Section 6f]]
<<endif>>
<<if $pursuit is 1>>
!The Bar
When Shawcross reached the door, he put his ear to it. He could not hear anything from within so tried the knob. It turned but the door was locked, so he headed up the side of the building and found himself in front of a bar that went by the name Knuskroken. Shawcross could tell from the sign alone that this was what was known as a ‘brown pub’, another anachronistic part of Norwegian life – an old-fashioned pub, dark and full of traditional wooden furniture and furnishings that would long ago have been filled with tobacco smoke. Shawcross scanned the place for Nikolaev. The clientele was thin on the ground that evening, and the Russian was not amongst them.
“Nice outfit,” the young barman said, in Norwegian, as Shawcross approached the bar.
Shawcross puffed out his chest and answered in Russian-accented English. “Looks good, yes? I am British officer for fancy dress party. I meet a friend of mine here. You have seen him? Also in uniform.”
The barman smiled and threw a thumb over his shoulder, beyond the bar, to where an additional seating space opened out. It was similarly dark, wooden and sparsely populated, but at a booth over to the left sat a familiarly uniformed figure.
“Will you drink something?” the barman asked Shawcross.
“Vodka, on the rocks,” he said. The accent was absurd but the barman seemed convinced, or indifferent anyway, and Shawcross watched Nikolaev as the young man fetched him the drink.
The Russian was sitting alone on the sofa side of the booth. A tall glass of something clear sat before him. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry, or doing anything at all other than enjoying a slow, solitary drink.
“Anything else?” the barman said, placing Shawcross’s drink on the bar in front of him.
Shawcross shook his head.
“One eighty,” the barman said.
Shawcross looked at the barman, unsure his phone would be in a fit shape to process the payment. The barman pointed at the pay terminal. Shawcross took out his phone and glanced down at the pay reader on the bar. The screen was blank.
“Are you going to ring it up?”
“I already did.” The barman looked at the terminal himself now and tutted. “It’s been wrong all day,” he said. “It comes back on. I will call you over when it’s back, okay?”
“Fine,” Shawcross said, picking up his vodka. He looked through at Nikolaev. He was sipping his drink, just as Shawcross was doing. He also, Shawcross realised, was delving in his jacket with his right hand. When he slid it back out, a movement carefully timed to coincide with the replacing of his glass on the table, it dropped steadily down by his side, to the back off the sofa he was sitting it. It remained there momentarily, working in some manner, as though manipulating something into the crease where the sofa back met the seat.
Shawcross had read about such things of course, even seen them in TV shows on occasion, but he never thought he would see a dead drop happen in the flesh. He never thought there would ever be any need for such a thing. But it made complete sense now, he realised. They were taking out the digital infrastructure and were making a return to the techniques of eighty years ago. Shawcross knew there was a contingent of government operatives who gazed back at the grim old days of the Cold War through wholly pink-glazed sunglasses, but this was ridiculous. He couldn’t deny that it was smoothly done though – unnoticeable unless you were watching for it. Task complete, Nikolaev brought the hand back up as casually as it had dropped and he picked up his glass again, drained it, placed it back on its card mat, and daintily dabbed his lips with a paper napkin. Then he rose and, to Shawcross’s horror, made his way towards the bar.
Shawcross averted his eyes and tried to disappear into his tumbler of vodka. But Nikolaev couldn’t help but see him there in his uniform.
The Russian flicked a minute bow. “Nazdrovje, sir,” he said, placing his glass on the polished mahogany.
Shawcross forced a smile and raised his glass a touch and watched him walk towards the exit in a mirror above the bar. The seconds it took Nikolaev to reach the door was all the time Shawcross had to decide whether he should keep following him or find out what he had left in the sofa. If he followed, it was feasible Nikolaev might go somewhere interesting, but in truth Shawcross thought it likely this would be the most informative stop he made this evening. If he followed and that turned out to be the case, he would call the station chief and meet him at the embassy to make contact with London. On the other hand, what Nikolaev appeared to have secreted in the seat could be vital intelligence that might give Shawcross a deeper understanding of what was going on here.
[[Check out what Nikolaev has left at the dead drop|Section 6g]]
[[Keep following Nikolaev|Section 6h]]
<<endif>>
!Rosenborg
When a Military Attache like Shawcross takes the job, he knows that one of his duties is ‘coordinating military activities’ with his host nation. What this is expected to mean in a country like Norway, other than attending social events like the one at the US Embassy that evening and managing the visits of high ranking officials from Britain, is undertakings such as arranging country and overflight clearances, writing reports on the host nation’s military budgets and expenditure.
What he never expects is to have to coordinate actual military deployment. This was why Shawcross had been given the Norway job in the first place, rather than the Zimbabwe placement that had opened up at the same time. He needed some R & R and Oslo was considered the best available place. Now here he was, at gone midnight, heading to the Norwegian Defence building, located in the brand new downtown complex that was the real legacy of Anders Behring Breivik. In light of his subsequent drug-fuelled massacre of 69 young Labourites on Utøya in 2012, people tended to forget that the calculated lunatic had first sown chaos by bombing the central government building in the middle of Oslo with such effectiveness that its foundations were irreparably compromised, resulting in its total demolition and the massive rebuild, into which the Norwegian government had moved just last year.
It was a labyrinth of reinforced steel and, Shawcross suspected, even more strongly reinforced glass. After some minutes negotiating his way, Shawcross announced himself at the reception of the Defence Department, allowed the whirring full-body scanner to do its work, then rose up in an exposed glass lift to the third floor, where he found the wiry, fifty-something Colonel Per Rosenborg already in place with his entire staff. They were in such a whirl of activity that it was ten minutes before the Norwegian Military Liaison Officer welcomed the British Military Attaché into his office.
“I’m terribly sorry to keep you waiting, Martin,” Rosenborg said. His English was impeccable, though tonight the usual, slightly mechanical accent that went with it sounded a touch more fraught than under usual circumstances. “But things are… well,” he looked at his watch. “It’s past midnight and here we are, at work and with plenty to do.”
“Then let me get right to the point,” Shawcross said.
[[Metzinov|Section 5 Metzinov - TENSION 1]]
<<set $sect6a = 1>>
<<set $tension = 1>>!Sør Varanger
The combination of a uniform and an ID card proving diplomatic status can get you remarkably far, and on showing both at Gardermoen, Shawcross was ushered through security and onto a three-quarters empty Airbus 843 run by SAS-Norwegian.
The flight lasted two hours. Coming down out of the clouds at Kirkenes, the treeless, snow-covered tundra looked like an enormous, poorly iced cake, but the bleak beauty of the environment all but vanished when, following a jarring landing, Shawcross emerged from the airplane. He battled his way across the tarmac to the terminal building through a wind so bitingly cold it cut straight through both the down of his coat and the wool of his uniform to penetrate his bones.
Once again through security at diplomatic high speed, Shawcross walked out into the snow-glowing northern winter, and it took a G-cab 20 minutes to take him to the base entrance. It was 2 am. They were surprised to see him. But once more, he was scanned and allowed to enter and soon enough he was talking to the commander of British units, one Major Rick Dawson.
[[Metzinov|Section 5 Metzinov - TENSION 1]]
<<set $sect6b = 1>>
<<set $tension = 1>>!Rosenborg
When a Military Attache like Shawcross takes the job, he knows that one of his duties is ‘coordinating military activities’ with his host nation. What this is expected to mean in a country like Norway, other than attending social events like the one at the US Embassy that evening and managing the visits of high ranking officials from Britain, is undertakings such as arranging country and overflight clearances, writing reports on the host nation’s military budgets and expenditure.
What he never expects is to have to coordinate actual military deployment. This was why Shawcross had been given the Norway job in the first place, rather than the Zimbabwe placement that had opened up at the same time. He needed some R & R and Oslo was considered the best available place. Now here he was, at gone midnight, heading to the Norwegian Defence building, located in the brand new downtown complex that was the real legacy of Anders Behring Breivik. In light of his subsequent drug-fuelled massacre of 69 young Labourites on Utøya in 2012, people tended to forget that the calculated lunatic had first sown chaos by bombing the central government building in the middle of Oslo with such effectiveness that its foundations were irreparably compromised, resulting in its total demolition and the massive rebuild, into which the Norwegian government had moved just last year.
It was a labyrinth of reinforced steel and, Shawcross suspected, even more strongly reinforced glass. Shawcross announced himself at the reception of the Defence Department, allowed the whirring full-body scanner to do its work, then rose up in an exposed glass lift to the third floor, where he found Per Rosenborg and his entire staff in place and in such a whirl of activity it was ten minutes before the Norwegian Military Liaison Officer welcomed the British Military Attaché into his office.
“I’m terribly sorry to keep you waiting, Martin,” Rosenborg said. His English was impeccable, and the usual, slightly mechanical accent that went with it sounded a touch more fraught than under usual circumstances. “But things are… well,” he looked at his watch. “It’s past midnight and here we are, at work and with plenty to do.”
“Then let me get right to the point,” Shawcross said.
[[Metzinov|Section 5 Metzinov - TENSION 0]]
<<set $sect6c = 1>>
<<set $tension = 0>>!Sør Varanger
The combination of a uniform and an ID card proving diplomatic status can get you remarkably far, and at Gardermoen, Shawcross was ushered through security and onto a three quarters empty Airbus 843 run by SAS-Norwegian. The flight lasted two hours. Coming down out of the clouds at Kirkenes, the treeless, snow-covered tundra looked like an enormous, poorly iced cake, but the bleak beauty of the environment all but vanished when, following a jarring landing, Shawcross emerged from the airplane. He battled his way across the tarmac to the terminal building through a wind so bitingly cold it cut straight through his down coat and wool uniform and penetrated his bones.
Once again through security at diplomatic high speed, Shawcross walked out into the snow-glowing northern winter, and it took a Gcab 20 minutes to take him to the base entrance. It was 2 am. They were surprised to see him. But once more, he was scanned and allowed to enter and soon enough he was in the banal warmth of a military base office talking to the commander of British units in Sør Varanger, one Major Rick Dawson.
[[Metzinov|Section 5 Metzinov - TENSION 0]]
<<set $sect6d = 1>>
<<set $tension = 0>>!Crossing the Line
Shawcross was sweating, even in the freezing night. He knew it wasn’t because of his running. This was a damp, clammy feeling, similar to the sensation of walking into the reception with all of those people and their inane, empty conversation. He looked down at Kripov, beginning to gurgle back to life. If this got out, it would likely cost him his job. Maybe even more than that.
The question was, did he care more about that than re-experiencing the sensation of sitting by and letting things happen when he knew there was something more that could be done? God only knew he had done things by the book in Raqqa, and look how well that had gone. Lives had been lost. And here? He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the cuff of his uniform. Whether or not it was the right one, he knew his answer to the question was no – he couldn’t do less than all in his power. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. He had to act. He had to try and avert crisis.
He looked around, confirming he and Kripov were quite alone there in the cemetery at the dead of night. They were, and, gripping the smooth glass of Kripov’s phone in his perspiring palm, Shawcross whipped it across the back of its owners head. The Russian’s groans ceased immediately.
“Clive?” Shawcross whispered.
“What’s going on, Martin?” Glibhurst replied.
“Do you have a place?”
“A place?”
“Where people can be taken.”
“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
“This is your chance to prove you were right, Clive.”
“It’s a mistake to try to emotionally manipulate an MI6 operative, Lieutenant Colonel. Firstly, you’re terrible at it. Secondly, there’s no need.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Shawcross said, and started hauling Kripov from the cold, hard ground.
“Get him to your car, put him in the boot bound and blindfolded, and I’ll meet you at the main junction at Majorstuen in ten minutes. And, Martin?”
Shawcross heaved Kripov upright and looped the unconscious man’s arm around his neck, as though supporting a drunken friend.
“What is it?” he grunted.
“Leave both your phones in the cemetery.”
[[Metzinov|Section 5 Metzinov - TENSION 1]]
<<set $sect6e = 1>>
<<set $tension = 1>>!Retreat
Shawcross threw the idea from his mind. This wasn’t James Bond. He wasn’t James Bond. Taking Kripov in for interrogation would instantly raise the situation into a major international incident. He would be an embarrassment. He’d be court-martialled and all blame for the entire situation would be placed in his hands. Besides, it was the Russians who were pulling the strings here. They knew exactly where both he and Kripov were. They’d probably have a way of tracing where Kripov went, even without his phone. Especially at a key moment like this, which would have been years in the planning.
Shawcross wiped Kripov’s phone clean of his fingerprints and placed it in the unconscious man’s pocket before rolling him back onto his front, and running back the way he had come.
A hundred yards away he stopped, took up a position behind a tombstone and looked back through the falling snow as the Russian came to.
Shawcross could hear Kripov groaning as he pushed himself up onto his elbows and rubbed at his head. Then he looked about himself and clambered over to a bench where he checked his pockets. He looked around again, but seeing no one, he slowly got to his feet and started to move away.
“Glibhurst?” Shawcross whispered.
“Mm?” the MI6 man replied, his attention elsewhere.
“Get to the embassy.”
[[Metzinov|Section 5 Metzinov - TENSION 1]]
<<set $sect6f = 1>>
<<set $tension = 1>>!Dead Drop
Deciding that it would be far better to look at what Nikolaev had left behind, Shawcross downed the rest of his vodka and headed round the bar. Whatever he found, he could call the station chief immediately afterwards, and when they met at the embassy Shawcross would, hopefully, arrive all the better informed.
He moved from the bar to the booth and shimmied into the sofa with his glass. Nikolaev’s imprint on the seat was yet to fade and Shawcross sat on top. It was still warm. He put down his drink next to Nikolaev’s empty glass and mimicked the Russian’s subtle movements, dropping his hand and sliding his fingers between the sofa back and seat.
But there was nothing there. He moved his hand along the crease, groping around, but still he felt nothing.
Then he realised: Nikolaev had known he was being followed and had acted out the charade of the dead drop just to get Shawcross off his back. It was irritatingly clever, and Shawcross groped for a counter argument. Why, for instance, say anything to the British officer on the way out? Surely the trick would have worked more effectively if Shawcross believed Nikolaev did not know he was being watched. But Shawcross knew this was just the sort of bravado the Russians were famous for. They were forever presenting the world with pieces of misinformation or what used to be known as ‘Fake News’, and by the knowing denial, daring the recipients to doubt its veracity. And here Shawcross had fallen for it again. Damn it. He should have gone after him.
But then he felt it. Deeper in the recess than he’d have expected. A small piece of card – no, paper – folded many times over.
Shawcross excitedly drew it out. Unfolded, the piece of paper was just the size of a drinks coaster. Plenty of room for the small collection of words written upon it.
[[Metzinov|Section 5 Metzinov - TENSION 0]]
<<set $sect6g = 1>>
<<set $tension = 0>>!Onward
Shawcross waited until Nikolaev had left, drained his vodka then made to leave.
“Hey,” the barman said, seeing him heading for the door. “The system is ok now.”
Irritated by the delay, Shawcross marched back to the bar pulling out his phone and swiping it over the scanner.
The barman looked at the terminal and his eyes widened. “Wow,” he said. “That is quite a tip. Thank you.”
But Shawcross didn’t have time to question it. He headed for the door and looked up the street. Nikolaev was stepping into a G-cab. Shawcross hailed another and got in.
“Where to?” the calm female G-voice said.
“Follow that G-cab up ahead, will you?” Shawcross said.
“I’m sorry. That instruction is not verifiable. Please try to speak a little more clearly.”
“Passenger instruct,” Shawcross said, remembering the G-cab protocol. “Drive straight on.”
The driverless vehicle hummed and started to drive after Nikolaev’s at the 20km/h limit, and the two moved at exactly the same pace through the slush-ridden roads all the way to Sørkedalsveien. There, Shawcross was four vehicles behind Nikolaev’s when the traffic signal ahead turned red and the brake lights of the cars between them lit up like a chain of crimson fairy lights, a sorry image of festive cheer in the filthy road. His G-cab halted, but Nikolaev’s continued.
Shawcross immediately jumped out of the cab without waiting to hear the fare and looked down the street after Nikolaev. To his great relief, he saw Nikolaev’s car pulling up not far ahead. The occupant got out, closed the door and headed through a gate out of sight. But Shawcross recognised this place. It was the cemetery. What on earth Nikolaev would be doing in there on a night like this? And who he would be meeting?
[[Metzinov|Section 5 Metzinov - TENSION 0]]
<<set $sect6h = 1>>
<<set $tension = 0>>!Initiative
Once he had made his decision, Metzinov knew that really there had been no other option. Acting first and decisively was the only way to disrupt whatever was being planned over the border and put Russia in the driving seat on this thing. If he had selected to act more passively and the situation escalated, Russia would be firmly on the back foot, and he, Metzinov, would be held responsible.
He called Simonov in and pointed at the new set up.
“Lieutenant?” he said, holding up the radio receiver for inspection. “How do we get through to Severomorsk on this thing?”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 2]]
<<set $stress = 2>>!Caution
It was the right play. If an international incident could be averted, it should be. But if NATO chose to attack first, not only would Russia be able to make public relations gold out of it on the international stage, they would also win – Metzinov could be certain of that. They had the wherewithal to operate at the lowest possible technological level of course, but there was a further reason Metzinov was so certain of this. Even though NATO (that is to say, America) had been training elite units in Norway’s harsh conditions for years now, they suffered from what Metzinov’s father had told him was called the Laudrup Syndrome. Michael Laudrup had been a hugely talented football player when Metzinov Sr had been a boy in the 1980s. He played for Barcelona under the Dutch master Johan Cruyff, who claimed Laudrup was the most naturally gifted player he had ever come across. But while he had the raw talent necessary to become the world’s greatest player, Cruyff said it would never happen purely by virtue of where Laudrup was born and brought up. Had that been a Rio favela or a Buenos Aires slum, Laudrup would, like Pele or Maradona, likely have possessed the hunger and drive needed to reach the top. Even a Parisian banlieue would have done. He was, in fact, a middle class Dane, and subsequently knew that both his family and the state were rich and organised enough to take care of him, whatever happened to his footballing career. The West suffered from the same plight. Even though they knew the territory, especially the Norwegians, they were already rich and comfortable. They did not need to win. The Russians on the other hand… well, most countries were built on suffering, but only Metzinov’s was populated by a people who positively thrived on it.
He called Simonov in and pointed at the new set up.
“Lieutenant?” he said, holding up the radio receiver for inspection. “How do we get through to Severomorsk on this thing?”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 1]]
<<set $stress = 1>>!Approach
“We move in, weapons drawn,” Metzinov said. “If we meet resistance – by which I mean military resistance – we claim we were on a training exercise when our systems broke down and we don’t know where we are in relation to the border. But if we get there without interception, then we board the ship. Understood?”
The four men nodded and Sinichkin led them south along the sound. They did not see any lookouts or encounter anyone on the east side. Coming up the west and approaching the warehouse from the south, they had to drop to the ground suddenly when they saw three men in civilian all-weather clothing come down the gangplank. They waited for the men to disappear into the warehouse, then rose and crept up the gangplanks and headed up the gangway towards the bridge.
Metzinov had hoped it would be empty. It wasn’t. Two more men, also in civilian all-weather outfits, were in there and decidedly surprised to see them. They started jabbering in Norwegian until Sinichkin raised his pulse rifle, instantly silencing them.
“Take us to the cargo hold,” Metzinov said, in heavily accented English.
The two men looked at one another, then the older one of the two nodded. The younger one pointed down a ladder, and Sinichkin went first, followed by Metzinov. Polovkinin gestured the younger one to follow, and came after him, then Simonov and lastly Kuznetsky. A little further into the ship, past the galley, a mess and some narrow bedded quarters, they came to a dogged bulkhead door. Sinichkin nodded at the wheel and the younger of the sailors stepped forward, unwound the wheel, before shouldering open the door and standing aside.
The cargo hold inside was freezing. Ice caked the walls, floor and ceiling. The crates were stacked four high, each stack bound tightly to the bulkheads, each box covered in a film of frost. Sinichkin approached one and wiped a portion clear. The writing below was in Norwegian. But the image printed below it was easily understood. It was a fish.
Sinichkin cut the webbing with his field knife and Kuznetsky helped him lift the top crate down. It was heavy and they dropped it with a loud crash before undoing the buckles and flipping open the lid. Metzinov approached and looked inside.
“Bloody hell,” he said.
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 2]]
<<set $stress = 2>>!Initiative
Once he had made his decision, Metzinov knew that really there had been no other option. Acting first and decisively was the only way to disrupt whatever was being planned over the border and see Russia move into the driving seat on this thing. If he had selected to act more passively and the situation escalated, whomever it was strengthening their positions and hitting them with the cyber attack would be far more likely to come out on top. Then not only would Russia be on the back foot, but he, Metzinov, would be held responsible.
He called Simonov in and pointed at the new set up.
“Lieutenant?” he said, holding up the radio receiver for inspection. “How do we get through to Severomorsk on this thing?”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 2]]
<<set $stress = 2>>!Approach
“The Captain, Polovkinin and I will head in, weapons drawn. Kuznetsky, you and Simonov stay here. If we’re not back within the hour, assume we’ve been captured and treat that fishery as a military installation. Head back to the TIGR, report to Dubynin. We move in,” Metzinov said. “If we meet resistance – by which I mean military resistance – we claim we were on a training exercise when our systems broke down and we don’t know where we are in relation to the border. But if we get there without interception, then we board the ship. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” a relieved looking Simonov said.
Kuznetsky was not so pleased, and was ready to remonstrate, but Sinichkin silenced him with a raised hand. He knew it was the sensible play here.
But they continued onwards, clambering over the rises, and down into the troughs between, their winter camouflage and the swirling snow reducing their figures to blurs on the blue-white landscape. They saw no sign of lookouts stationed anywhere, no sign of any life at all beyond glimpses through the blizzard of the docked boat, that grew slowly larger with each ridge passed. Finally they reached the shore of the ice-free sound at which the boat was moored, by when the cold was beginning to penetrate through the layers of space grade insulation in Metzinov’s uniform. He flexed his hands in his gloves. His fingers were beginning to numb. From there they headed south along the shore, and still they saw no-one. Coming up the west and approaching the warehouse from the south, they had to drop to the ground suddenly when they saw three of the men in civilian all-weather clothing come down the gangplank. They waited the for the men to disappear into the warehouse, then rose and crept up the gangplanks and headed up the gangway towards the bridge.
Metzinov had hoped it would be empty. It wasn’t. Two more men, also in civilian all-weather outfits, were in there and decidedly surprised to see them. They started jabbering in Norwegian until Sinichkin raised his pulse rifle, instantly silencing them.
“Take us to the cargo hold,” Metzinov said, in heavily accented English.
The two men looked at one another, then the older one of the two nodded. The younger one pointed down a ladder, and Sinichkin went first, followed by Metzinov. Polovkinin gestured the younger one to follow, and came after him. A little further into the ship, past the galley, a mess and some narrow-bedded quarters, they came to a dogged bulkhead door. Sinichkin nodded at the wheel and the younger of the sailors stepped forward unwound the wheel, before shouldering open the door and standing aside. The cargo hold inside was freezing. Ice caked the walls, floor and ceiling. The crates were stacked four high, each stack bound tightly to the bulkheads, each box covered in a film of frost. Sinichkin approached one and wiped a portion clear.
The writing below was in Norwegian. But the image printed below it was easily understood. It was a fish.
Sinichkin cut the webbing with his field knife and Polovkinin helped him lift the top crate down. It was heavy and they dropped it with a loud crash before undoing the buckles and flipping open the lid. Metzinov approached and looked inside.
“Bloody hell,” he said.
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 2]]
<<set $stress = 2>>!Fall In
Metzinov looked at his men, each one awaiting his orders in the blowing snow; Sinichkin and his two able-bodied soldiers, plus Simonov, still shivering, rubbing his arms and stamping his feet.
“We head back,” he said.
“Back?” Polovkinin exclaimed. It was the response Metzinov had expected. “But we only just got here, sir.”
“And all I see is a fishery, Lieutenant,” Metzinov said.
“From here,” Kuznetsky said.
“We could head closer in and take a look, sir,” Sinichkin suggested.
“That’s true, we could,” Metzinov replied. “And if it turns out that all those crates are full of munitions and those men are wearing uniforms under their all-weather gear, how many more of them do you think are waiting in that warehouse to take us out or haul us in? And then what? We won’t be in a position to relay any intelligence at all. They, meanwhile, will be able to claim that we made a move into Norwegian territory and subsequently use it as an excuse for whatever it is they’re planning. And what if we head over there and it is just a fishery? We leave, the crew there reports us to NATO and we’re responsible for a major diplomatic screw-up.”
“What about continuing to observe?” Sinichkin said.
Metzinov nodded. “We could dig in,” he said. “That’s true. We’ve got a day’s rations and shovels in our packs. But it’s minus forty out here. None of us would last long. And even if things do get interesting before we have to leave, we still don’t have any way of relaying the information. And if all this is prelude to some kind of attack, we need be able to inform Moscow of what’s going on immediately so a national response can be coordinated in time. And we can do that – if we head back. We’ve got all the old kit back at the base. Long wave radio packs. Diesel transports, snow scooters and mechanical weaponry. I’ll issue it to patrols and get Severomorsk in line. No-one will be able to move to within a mile of the border without us knowing about it. I just hope they’ve still got all that stuff in Moscow too, and someone to think of using it. Then if NATO forces are planning something, not only will our entire country be ready, we’ll be able to turn their behaviour into public relations gold on the international stage. The Chinese would like nothing better than a legitimate reason to point the finger at America. It would excuse everything from the Crimea to Taiwan. But if you want stay here, Lieutenant, and find yourself a homing pigeon, be my guest. Otherwise, get on your feet and fall in.”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 1]]
<<set $stress = 1>>!Stand Down
It was the right play. If an international incident could be averted, it should be. But if NATO chose to attack first, not only would Russia be able to make public relations gold out of it on the international stage, they would also win – Metzinov could be certain of that. They had the wherewithal to operate at the lowest possible technological level of course, but there was a further reason Metzinov was so certain of this. Even though NATO (that is to say, America) had been training elite units in Norway’s harsh conditions for years now, they suffered from what Metzinov’s father had told him was called the Laudrup Syndrome. Michael Laudrup had been a hugely talented football player when Metzinov Sr had been a boy in the 1980s. He played for Barcelona under the Dutch master Johan Cruyff, who claimed Laudrup was the most naturally gifted player he had ever come across. But while he had the raw talent necessary to become the world’s greatest player, Cruyff said it would never happen purely by virtue of where Laudrup was born and brought up. Had that been a Rio favela or a Buenos Aires slum, Laudrup would, like Pele or Maradona, likely have possessed the hunger and drive needed to reach the top. Even a Parisian banlieue would have done. He was, in fact, a middle class Dane, and subsequently knew that both his family and the state were rich and organised enough to take care of him, whatever happened to his footballing career. The West suffered from the same plight. Even though they knew the territory, especially the Norwegians, they were already rich and comfortable. They did not need to win. The Russians on the other hand… Well, most countries were built on suffering, but only Metzinov’s was populated by a people who thrived on it.
He called Simonov in and pointed at the new set up.
“Lieutenant?” he said, holding up the radio receiver for inspection. “How do we get through to Severomorsk on this thing?”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 1]]
<<set $stress = 1>>!Fall In
Metzinov looked at his men, each one awaiting his orders in the blowing snow; Sinichkin and his two able-bodied soldiers, plus Simonov, still shivering, rubbing his arms and stamping his feet.
“We head back,” he said.
“Back?” Polovkinin exclaimed. It was the response Metzinov had expected. “But we only just got here, sir.”
“And all I see is a fishery, Lieutenant,” Metzinov said.
“From here,” Kuznetsky said.
“We could head closer in and take a look, sir,” Sinichkin suggested.
“That’s true, we could,” Metzinov replied. “And if it turns out that all those crates are full of munitions and those men are wearing uniforms under their all-weather gear, how many more of them do you think are waiting in that warehouse to take us out or haul us in? And then what? We won’t be in a position to relay any intelligence at all. They, meanwhile, will be able to claim that we made a move into Norwegian territory and subsequently use it as an excuse for whatever it is they’re planning. And what if we head over there and it is just a fishery? We leave, the crew there reports us to NATO and we’re responsible for a major diplomatic screw-up.”
“What about continuing to observe?” Sinichkin said.
Metzinov nodded. “We could dig in,” he said. “That’s true. We’ve got a day’s rations and shovels in our packs. But it’s minus forty out here. None of us would last long. And even if things do get interesting before we have to leave, we still don’t have any way of relaying the information. And if all this is prelude to some kind of attack, we need be able to inform Moscow of what’s going on immediately so a national response can be coordinated in time. And that can happen – if we head back. We’ve got all the old kit back at the base. Long wave radio packs. Diesel transports, snow scooters and mechanical weaponry. I’ll issue it to patrols and get Severomorsk in line. No-one will be able to move to within a mile of the border without us knowing about it. I just hope they’ve still got all that stuff in Moscow too, and someone to think of using it. Then if NATO forces are planning something, not only will our entire country be ready, we’ll be able to turn their behaviour into public relations gold on the international stage. The Chinese would like nothing better than a legitimate reason to point the finger at America. It would excuse everything from the Crimea to Taiwan. But if you want stay here, Lieutenant, and find yourself a homing pigeon, be my guest. Otherwise, get on your feet and fall in.”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 1]]
<<set $stress = 1>>!Prelude
Metzinov relayed all the details of what had occurred and proposed that positive action needed to be taken.
The line was silent as Dubynin digested the information. Then finally he spoke.
“I agree, Lieutenant Colonel. Mobilise the men you have in your command, and be sure to make a show of their readiness,” he said. “If this activity across the border is prelude to an assault on Russian territory, we will be ready, but first the world will see that we do all we can to protect the international status quo for as long as was possible. Then, if NATO chooses to attack, not only will we make public relations gold out of it on the international stage, we shall also win.”
“But sir, with all our technology dropping, are you certain we can afford to wait and just hope that—”
“They are fools if they doubt our ability to operate at the lowest possible level of technology, Lieutenant Colonel,” Dubynin interrupted him. “But I possess further reason for my certainty in our victory, come what may. Tell me, Vladimir. Are you a soccer fan?”
Metzinov was nonplussed by the question. “I… Hockey was my game, sir.”
“Then you will not know that there was once a hugely talented footballer, far back in the 1980s, by the name of Michael Laudrup,” the General said. “The Dutch master Johan Cruyff was his coach and said Laudrup was the most naturally gifted player he had ever come across. But while Laudrup had the raw talent necessary to become the world’s greatest player, Cruyff said it would never happen, purely because of where he was born and brought up. A Rio favela or a Buenos Aires slum, even a Parisian banlieue, and Laudrup would, like Pele or Maradona, have possessed the hunger and drive to reach the very pinnacle of his sport. But he was a middle class Dane, and knew that both his family and his country were rich enough to take care of him, whatever happened to his footballing career. It is the same with the West. Even though they know the territory up there, especially the Norwegians, they are already rich and comfortable. They did not need to win. We Russians on the other hand. Well, most countries are built on suffering, Vladimir. Only ours is populated by a people who positively thrive on it, hmm? Now get to work.”
“Yes, sir,” Metzinov said, and waited for Dubynin to hang up before calling in Simonov and pointing at the new comms set up.
“Lieutenant?” he said, holding up the radio receiver for inspection. “How do we get through to Severomorsk on this thing?”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 1]]
<<set $stress = 1>>!Investigation
Metzinov relayed all the details of what had occurred and proposed that further investigation was required before any action was taken.
The line was silent as Dubynin digested the information. Then finally he spoke.
“I agree, Lieutenant Colonel. We must be certain of NATO’s intentions before we start rattling our cutlasses. Ensure your men are ready, but do nothing unless provoked,” he said. “If this activity across the border is prelude to an assault on Russian territory, we will be ready, but first the world will see that we do all we can to protect the international status quo for as long as was possible. Then, if NATO chooses to attack, not only will we make public relations gold out of it on the international stage, we shall also win.”
“But sir, with all our technology dropping—”
The General tutted. “They are fools if they doubt our ability to operate at the lowest possible level of technology, Lieutenant Colonel,” Dubynin said. “But I possess further reason for my certainty in our victory, come what may. Tell me, Vladimir – are you a soccer fan?”
Metzinov was nonplussed by the question. “I… Hockey was my game, sir.”
“Then you will not know that there was once a hugely talented footballer, far back in the 1980s, named Michael Laudrup,” the General said. “The Dutch master Johan Cruyff was his coach and said Laudrup was the most naturally gifted player he had ever come across. But while Laudrup had the raw talent necessary to become the world’s greatest player, Cruyff said it would never happen, purely because of where he was born and brought up. A Rio favela or a Buenos Aires slum, even a Parisian banlieue, and Laudrup would, like Pele or Maradona, have possessed the hunger and drive to reach the very pinnacle of his sport. But he was a middle class Dane, and knew that both his family and his country were rich enough to take care of him, whatever happened to his footballing career. It is the same with the West. Even though they know the territory up there, especially the Norwegians, they are already rich and comfortable. They did not need to win. We Russians on the other hand. Well, most countries are built on suffering, Vladimir. Only ours is populated by a people who thrive on it, hmm? Now get to work.”
“Yes, sir,” Metzinov said, and waited for Dubynin to hang up before calling in Simonov and pointing at the new comms set up.
“Lieutenant?” he said, holding up the radio receiver for inspection. “How do we get through to Severomorsk on this thing?”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 0]]
<<set $stress = 0>>!Fall In
Metzinov looked at his men, each one awaiting his orders in the blowing snow; Sinichkin and his two able-bodied soldiers, plus Simonov, still shivering, rubbing his arms and stamping his feet.
“We head back,” he said.
“Back?” Polovkinin exclaimed. It was the response Metzinov had expected. “But we only just got here, sir.”
“And all I see is a fishery, Lieutenant,” Metzinov said.
“From here,” Kuznetsky said.
“We could head closer in and take a look, sir,” Sinichkin suggested.
“That’s true, we could,” Metzinov replied. “And if it turns out that all those crates are full of munitions and those men are wearing uniforms under their all-weather gear, how many more of them do you think are waiting in that warehouse to take us out or haul us in? And then what? We won’t be in a position to relay any intelligence at all. They, meanwhile, will be able to claim that we made a move into Norwegian territory and subsequently use it as an excuse for whatever it is they’re planning. And what if we head over there and it is just a fishery? We leave, the crew there reports us to NATO and we’re responsible for a major diplomatic screw-up.”
“What about continuing to observe?” Sinichkin said.
Metzinov nodded. “We could dig in,” he said. “That’s true. We’ve got a day’s rations and shovels in our packs. But it’s minus forty out here. None of us would last long. And even if things do get interesting before we have to leave, we still don’t have any way of relaying the information. And if all this is prelude to some kind of attack, we need be able to inform Moscow of what’s going on immediately so a national response can be coordinated in time. And we can do that – if we head back. We’ve got all the old kit back at the base. Long wave radio packs. Diesel transports, snow scooters and mechanical weaponry. I’ll issue it to patrols and get Severomorsk in line. No-one will be able to move to within a mile of the border without us knowing about it. I just hope they’ve still got all that stuff in Moscow too, and someone to think of using it. Then if NATO forces are planning something, not only will our entire country be ready, we’ll be able to turn their behaviour into public relations gold on the international stage. The Chinese would like nothing better than a legitimate reason to point the finger at America. It would excuse everything from the Crimea to Taiwan. But if you want stay here, Lieutenant, and find yourself a homing pigeon, be my guest. Otherwise, get on your feet and fall in.”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 1]]
<<set $stress = 1>>!Observation
Metzinov turned to Kuznetsky. “The Captain, Polovkinin and I will dig in and watch from here. Kuznetsky, you’re going to take Simonov and return to the TIGR. When you’re back there, Simonov, make contact with the base and work out what’s happened to our comms out here. Once it’s been sorted, get me a connection with Moscow. Is that understood?”
“W…what if that’s not possible, sir?” Simonov said, his teeth chattering.
“Then you unload the TIGR of rations, ammo, and you Simonov head back to base with Grupovkin and work it out. Without comms, it’s not worth our being here. Is that understood?”
“Yes sir,” Simonov said.
Kuznetsky looked to Sinichkin, who responded with the most cursory of nods.
“Sir,” Kuznetsky said.
“All right men. Move out.”
Metzinov watched as Kuznetsky started guiding Simonov back the way they had come.
“That leaves only three of us, sir,” Sinichkin said from behind him.
“I can count, Captain. What’s your point?”
“It’s not so many if we run into trouble, sir.”
“It’s a fishery, Captain. On foreign soil. We’re not going to be heading in there to start a war.”
“But what if they come here to start one?”
“Then two more soldiers weren’t going to make much difference.”
“One of them certainly wasn’t,” Polovkinin grunted.
Metzinov’s eyes narrowed in irritation, but he let the comment go.
“All right, Lieutenant,” he said, turning to look out over the sound towards the ship. “You’ve got a shovel in that pack of yours. Start using it. I’ve got a feeling this is going to be one long arctic night.”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 0]]
<<set $stress = 0>>!Deeper
Knowing they had lost precious time locating the drone and bringing its contents back to base, Simonov had Moscow on the line in under a minute, and Metzinov had recounted the entire episode to Dubynin a couple more after that.
“You were right to inform me before doing anything further, Vladimir,” Dubynin said. “Civilian services have also been affected by the attack. A yellow smiling face emblem has been seen across services on VGTRK.”
If they had managed to infiltrate military systems, it should not have come as a surprise to Metzinov that the hack had hit the national broadcaster, but the news that the attack affected more than just his base and his systems made the situation all the more acute.
“And we have also received reports of irregular systems behaviour from other bases across the country,” Dubynin expanded. “Our technicians and engineers have eliminated the possibility of satellite error and are working on leads suggesting we are dealing with activists. However, we cannot dismiss the possibility that those leads have been deliberately placed. It’s no secret how the West envies the richness of our northern shores, after all.”
It was true. Following the Big Melt, the northern shores of the Federation were largely ice-free for much of the year and Russia, lucky enough to have the longest stretch of Arctic coastline of any country, was in a position to take full advantage. This meant newly accessible lodes of oil and gas. But fossil fuels were old news these days, of course. Four thousand miles of virtually unoccupied coastline had led to massive investment in tidal power generation technology. And between the two lay what now were, due to the increased planetary warmth, the world’s most plentiful fishing waters. The knowledge, in a world of depleted resources and rising temperatures, that this made the northern reaches of the country highly desirable territory had been the reason behind the formation of the Border Reaction Force in the first place. Bases like the one in which Metzinov was stationed – pre-existing, known to the West, but whose new raison d’être remained classified to the highest degree – had been set up all along the eastern and northern seaboards, even down towards the Baltic states.
But Metzinov could think of another, just as feasible, alternative.
“Or perhaps the activists left the leads knowing we would consider it unlikely they would do so,” he ventured.
“These are uncertain times indeed, Vladimir,” Dubynin replied. “Those responsible for these actions are trying to starve us of the information upon which we have come to rely to make decisions. We must be vigilant. But whoever it is, they forget we are Russians, hmm? That the more we are pushed onto the back foot, the deeper we dig it into the ground.”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 1]]
<<set $stress = 1>>!Observation
Metzinov looked up from the Scrablet to Simonov, standing on the other side of his desk awaiting his commanders response.
“Lieutenant, if I were to call Moscow and relay all that has occurred, what do you suppose our orders would be?”
“To mobilise?” Simonov said.
Metzinov nodded. “And yet,” he said. “Are we any the wiser as to what is going on on the other side of the border than we were a few hours ago?”
“No sir,” Simonov said. “The drone images are reason to be suspicious, though.”
“But why would NATO want to invade?”
“The richness of our northern shores are a point of envy, sir.”
Following the Big Melt, the northern shores of the Federation were largely ice-free for much of the year and Russia, lucky enough to have the longest stretch of Arctic coastline of any country, was in a position to take full advantage. This meant newly accessible lodes of oil and gas. But fossil fuels were old news these days, of course. Four thousand miles of virtually unoccupied coastline had led to massive investment in tidal power generation technology. And between the two lay what now were, due to the increased planetary warmth, the world’s most plentiful fishing waters. The knowledge, in a world of depleted resources and rising temperatures, that this made the northern reaches of the country highly desirable territory had been the reason behind the formation of the Border Reaction Force in the first place. Bases like the one in which Metzinov was stationed – pre-existing, known to the West, but whose new raison d’être remained classified to the highest degree – had been set up all along the eastern and northern seaboards, even down towards the Baltic states.
Metzinov ruminated on Simonov’s words.
“That’s true,” he said at last. “But not only to the West. And that doesn’t tell us why they are choosing now. One last question, hmm?”
“Of course, sir.”
“If you were going to invade a country, and had the power to disrupt services in the way our services are being disrupted, would you not guide attention away from your activities?”
“Are you suggesting someone somewhere is trying to make us create an incident, sir?”
“Diligence is what I’m suggesting, Simonov. We still have long wave radios here, don’t we? And people who know how to use them?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dig them out, will you – the equipment and the men? And send a trio of patrols to the border. Tell them to observe this fishery and report back on any and all activity.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I hope so, Lieutenant,” Metzinov said.
Simonov retreated, and Metzinov looked from the picture of his two boys in Volgograd to the tumultuous snow outside his window. It looked like a riot of disorder, but he knew each flake was a collection of perfect crystals and that all of them were dancing to the mathematical tune of nature.
“I do hope so.”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 0]]
<<set $stress = 0>>!Fall In
Metzinov looked at his men, each one awaiting his orders in the blowing snow; Sinichkin and his two able-bodied soldiers, plus Simonov, still shivering, rubbing his arms and stamping his feet.
“We head back,” he said.
“Back?” Polovkinin exclaimed. It was the response Metzinov had expected. “But we only just got here, sir.”
“And all I see is a fishery, Lieutenant,” Metzinov said.
“From here,” Kuznetsky said.
“We could head closer in and take a look, sir,” Sinichkin suggested.
“That’s true, we could,” Metzinov replied. “And if it turns out that all those crates are full of munitions and those men are wearing uniforms under their all-weather gear, how many more of them do you think are waiting in that warehouse to take us out or haul us in? And then what? We won’t be in a position to relay any intelligence at all. They, meanwhile, will be able to claim that we made a move into Norwegian territory and subsequently use it as an excuse for whatever it is they’re planning. And what if we head over there and it is just a fishery? We leave, the crew there reports us to NATO and we’re responsible for a major diplomatic screw-up.”
“What about continuing to observe?” Sinichkin said.
Metzinov nodded. “We could dig in,” he said. “That’s true. We’ve got a day’s rations and shovels in our packs. But it’s minus forty out here. None of us would last long. And even if things do get interesting before we have to leave, we still don’t have any way of relaying the information. And if all this is prelude to some kind of attack, we need be able to inform Moscow of what’s going on immediately so a national response can be coordinated in time. And that can happen – if we head back. We’ve got all the old kit back at the base. Long wave radio packs. Diesel transports, snow scooters and mechanical weaponry. I’ll issue it to patrols and get Severomorsk in line. No-one will be able to move to within a mile of the border without us knowing about it. I just hope they’ve still got all that stuff in Moscow too, and someone to think of using it. Then if NATO forces are planning something, not only will our entire country be ready, we’ll be able to turn their behaviour into public relations gold on the international stage. The Chinese would like nothing better than a legitimate reason to point the morality finger at America. It would excuse everything from the Crimea to Taiwan. But if you want stay here, Lieutenant, and find yourself a homing pigeon, be my guest. Otherwise, get on your feet and fall in.”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 1]]
<<set $stress = 1>>!Digging In
Metzinov turned to Kuznetsky. “The Captain, Polovkinin and I will dig in and keep watching from here. Kuznetsky, you’re going to take Simonov back to the TIGR. When you’re back there, Simonov, you make contact with the base and work out what’s happened to our comms out here. Once it’s been sorted, get me a connection with Moscow. Is that understood?”
“W…what if that’s not possible, sir?” Simonov said, his teeth chattering.
“Then you unload the TIGR of rations, ammo, and you Simonov head back to base with Grupovkin and work it out. Without comms, it’s not worth our being here. Is that understood?”
“Yes sir,” Simonov off said.
Kuznetsky looked to Sinichkin, who responded with the tiniest of nods.
“Sir,” Kuznetsky said.
All right men. Move out.”
Metzinov watched as Kuznetsky started guiding Simonov back the way they had come.
“That leaves only three of us, sir,” Sinichkin said from behind him.
“I can count, Captain. What’s your point?”
“It’s not so many if things keep going awry, sir.”
“It’s a fishery, Captain. On foreign soil. We’re not going to be heading in there to start a war.”
“But what if they’re coming over here to start one?”
“Then two more soldiers weren’t going to make much difference.”
“One of them certainly wasn’t,” Polovkinin grunted.
Metzinov’s eyes narrowed in irritation, but he let the comment go.
“All right, Lieutenant,” he said, turning to look out over the sound towards the ship. “You’ve got a shovel in that pack of yours. Start using it. I’ve got a feeling this is going to be one long arctic night.”
[[Shawcross|Shawcross 7 The End - STRESS 0]]
<<set $stress = 0>>/*####################################*/
/* LOW STRESS */
<<if $stress is 0>>
<<if $sect6c is 1>>
!Conclusion
“Immigrants?” Glibhurst said with amused disbelief.
The last twenty four hours had been revealing ones. American and British cyber defence experts had successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. The attack had been claimed by a third-party collective calling themselves Ranzidios who announced that they were out to sow chaos amongst the world’s power-brokers.
As this was happening, it had become clear that the Russians had a bee in their bonnet about suspicious activity at a fishery near the border in the North. They thought they were about to be attacked by NATO, so Norwegian civilian authorities had been sent to investigate. There in the warehouse associated with the fishery, police found sixty-two men, women and children who had travelled to the north-west of Russia from various war-torn nations across the globe in order to get into a box and make the short journey from East to West. They were to be transferred to holding somewhere else in Norway, where they would be housed and fed while their cases were heard.
Despite wishing he had moved north to re-enter a military environment, with the comms returning back to normal and tensions across the entire situation easing, there was, unfortunately, no longer any need for Shawcross to go up there. He was, he had to admit, better positioned remaining in Oslo, where he could more easily continue his interaction with his opposite numbers across fellow NATO countries. He was not revelling in the prospect and was instead currently at the embassy. While it would certainly have been a stretch to call him a breath of fresh air, Shawcross appreciated the injection of chaos Glibhurst brought to the staid Ambassadorial world, and tended to gravitate towards the obdurate young station chief’s way for conversation.
“That’s funny,” the MI6 man reflected.
“They didn’t think so.”
Glibhurst groaned theatrically. “I mean it’s funny how a small coincidence can take modern society to the brink as soon as you throw in a bit of cyber terrorism.”
“I suppose so,” Shawcross said. “Do you think we’ll ever find out who they are?”
“They managed to penetrate military, government and civilian systems. Not a chance. And if anyone does, they’ll be on the payroll faster than you can say Frank Abagnale. And no, I won’t explain that one to you.”
“So what happens now?” Shawcross said.
“Now we’ve got the systems back up and running and we know who wasn’t responsible, you mean?”
Shawcross nodded. “Yeah.”
“We all shake hands and go back to suspicion, probing and disruption with no-one ever actually pointing the finger,” the MI6 man said.
“Business as usual, then,” Shawcross said.
“Business as usual.” Glibhurst grinned. “And brother – business is a-boomin'.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6d is 1>>
!Conclusion
“Immigrants?” Glibhurst said with amused disbelief.
The last twenty four hours had been revealing ones. American and British cyber defence experts had successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. The attack had been claimed by a third-party collective calling themselves Ranzidios who announced that they were out to sow chaos amongst the world’s power-brokers.
As this was happening, it had become clear that the Russians had a bee in their bonnet about suspicious activity at a fishery near the border in the North. They thought they were about to be attacked by NATO, so Norwegian civilian authorities had been sent to investigate. There in the warehouse associated with the fishery, police found sixty-two men, women and children who had travelled to the north-west of Russia from various war-torn nations across the globe in order to get into a box and make the short journey from East to West. They were to be transferred to holding somewhere else in Norway, where they would be housed and fed while their cases were heard.
Despite revelling in a return to the military environment, with the comms returning back to normal, Shawcross had been ordered back down to Oslo, where he could better interact with representatives of both NATO in general and more specifically the Norwegian Military Liaison Officer, Colonel Per Rosenborg, to whom he would have to explain heading north without even trying to see him first to coordinate responses. It was not a meeting he was looking forward to, and he was currently at the embassy, delaying his trip to the Ministry of Defence. While it would certainly have been a stretch to call him a breath of fresh air, Shawcross appreciated the injection of chaos Glibhurst brought to the staid Ambassadorial world, and tended to gravitate towards the obdurate young station chief’s way for conversation.
“That’s funny,” the MI6 man reflected.
“They didn’t think so.”
Glibhurst groaned theatrically. “I means it’s funny how a small coincidence can take modern society to the brink as soon as you throw in a bit of cyber terrorism.”
“I suppose so,” Shawcross said. “Do you think we’ll ever find out who they are?”
“They managed to penetrate military, government and civilian systems. Not a chance. And if anyone does, they’ll be on the payroll faster than you can say Frank Abagnale. And no, I won’t explain that one to you.”
“So what happens now?” Shawcross said.
“Now we’ve got the systems back up and running and we know who wasn’t responsible, you mean?”
Shawcross nodded. “Yeah.”
“We all shake hands and go back to suspicion, probing and disruption with no-one ever actually pointing the finger,” the MI6 man said.
“Business as usual, then,” Shawcross said.
“Business as usual.” Glibhurst grinned. “And brother – business is a-boomin'.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6f is 1>>
!Conclusion
The next were a revealing twenty-four hours in the British embassy in Oslo.
Glibhurst confirmed that there was nothing on Kripov’s phone to suggest he, or anyone he was in contact with, knew anything about the cyber hit. Moreover, with the Russian DA’s line remaining in place, it also became increasingly apparent that the Russians had been struck as well, possibly even more acutely.
Glibhurst successfully recorded conversations about everything from Russian satellites and drones to transports and locations systems going on the fritz. They thought they were being attacked by NATO, and had a bee in their bonnet about suspicious activity at a fishery near the border in the North. Glibhurst passed on the news that Norway was about to be invaded because of some late-night fishermen and local authorities were dispatched to the site, where it was found that the station was acting on an unusually large order, which took them significantly over quota, which was why they are processing it at night and at their most remote station. Meanwhile, the Americans and GCHQ located the cyber breaches and measures were now being taken to patch them up and bring systems back to normal. It seemed those responsible were a third party collective out to sow chaos amongst the world’s power-brokers.
“Do you think we’ll ever find out who it was?”
Shawcross was at the embassy, in Glibhurst’s tip of an office. The obdurate young station chief was sitting behind a desk-bound wasteland of fast food boxes and wire-sprouting boxes of tech in a too-open lumberjack shirt working away at the coloured air his trio of terminals were projecting, swishing apps in and out of view with the wireless haptics covering both his hands. A faint odour of halitosis followed Glibhurst wherever he went, so while it would be a stretch to say he was a breath of fresh air, Shawcross appreciated the injection of chaos he brought to the staid Ambassadorial world, and tended to gravitate his way for conversation.
The MI6 man shrugged. “Any signposts left by people who can do what these guys did will have been placed to sow disinformation,” he said without taking his eyes from his work. “You know what I’m wondering about, though?”
“What?”
“Where the fish was heading.”
“It was one of the Emirates, wasn’t it?” Shawcross said.
“The house of Prince Mahmoud Bin Al Q’rami,” Glibhurst confirmed.
“So?”
“So the big order was for a banquet celebrating the purchase of a bunch of Chengdu J-90 fighter jets from the Chinese.” Glibhurst dropped his hand and the light colouring the air between him and Shawcross died. A wide grin split the young station chief’s hairy face. “And who was it who just happened to move into contested South Sea territories while everyone else was busy Beelzebubbing?”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6h is 1>>
!Conclusion
Shawcross ran towards the cemetery, the smooth soles of his dress-shoes skidding all over the place in the snow. It took all his powers of balance to stay on his feet and it only got worse when he arrived at the entrance to the expansive graveyard. The paths had been ploughed leaving only an uneven ice covering the ground. As he tried to turn right through the gate and onto the central path, he slipped to one side and only prevented himself from toppling over by grabbing the trunk of one of the pines that lined the walkways. Steadying himself, he gazed up the faintly lit path and saw Nikolaev. He was further up the path, looking down at his phone, his face aglow from the light. Shawcross edged forwards, moving after him as quietly as he could.
Nikolaev stopped at the central confluence of paths and looked up. There was another person there, also in uniform and holding an illuminated phone. He was large, with a walrus moustache. It was Kripov.
Shawcross moved a little closer, but stopped when he saw a third uniformed figure entering the fall of the dim street lights. The man was tall and thin, and, like the Russians, held his phone in his hand. Lt Col Grayson looked beyond Nikolaev, directly at Shawcross.
“Hello, Martin,” the American said. “Your map doing it too, is it?”
“What?” Shawcross said, pulling his phone from his pocket and ordering it to open the map. On it, where usually he was represented by a pulsating blue dot, he was now a tiny flaming skull. Meanwhile, in the centre of the graveyard, another much larger skull was throbbing. This one wasn’t on fire though. In place of the flames, it instead wore an old fashioned teacher’s mortar-board, and in place of the deranged grin, it was frowning, lending it an air of disapproving disappointment.
“You have the same?” Shawcross said, approaching the other three men.
“Yes,” Kripov said. “The same.”
At that moment, four different phone alerts sounded, and each man looked down at his handset. A message had arrived. Shawcross opened it and the skull appeared, in its new, teacherly form, now with a bony hand at its side, wagging a finger. The message was from B.L.Z. Bub once again and addressed to The World.
“All you have to do is trust one another, talk to each other, and the world will be a much better place…” it read. “…Do not do this and next time the drought will be permanent and you will be left to slug it out in the desert that remains.”
*
“Do you know what I find strange?” Shawcross said.
He was in the embassy, in the office of the MI6 station chief, a young, mole-like man called Clive Glibhurst. Glibhurst was of the new breed that had started to take over secret intelligence. The era of the amoral extrovert adept at manipulating people in person had ebbed in a world where people communicated more remotely and the over-confident raconteurs had been replaced by people like Glibhurst, introverts who understood both the technology and techniques of online socialisation and exploitation. He was obdurate and a faint odour of halitosis followed him wherever he went, so while it would be a stretch to say Glibhurst was a breath of fresh air, Shawcross appreciated the injection of chaos he brought to the staid Ambassadorial world, and tended to gravitate his way for conversation.
“What?” the young station chief said without looking up.
“This message reads as though written by a child.”
Glibhurst shrugged. “It probably was. Probably some teenager sitting in his pants in his parents’ basement.”
“Do you think we’ll ever manage to find out?” Shawcross asked.
“The sort of outfit that can penetrate military grade blankets, government systems, mobile networks? I’m hearing they even got into Russian drones. Not a chance. This was all about sowing chaos. Any sign posts left will have been left on purpose.”
“It was certainly effective, I’ll give them that. According to Kripov, their people in the North were getting a bee in their bonnet about suspicious activity at a fishery station. Thought NATO had hit them with the cyber attack and were getting ready to invade or something. The Norwegians went to take a look and found a lot of illegals being brought over.”
“That’s funny.”
“They didn’t think so.”
Glibhurst shrugged again.
“So what happens now the systems are back up and running?” Shawcross said.
“Now we know who wasn’t responsible, you mean?”
Shawcross nodded.
“You shake hands with your friends the Rooskies, and we all go back to suspicion, probing and disruption with no-one ever actually pointing the finger.”
“Business as usual, then,” Shawcross said.
“Business as usual.” Glibhurst grinned. “And brother – business is a-boomin'.”
----
<<endif>>
<<endif>>
/*####################################*/
/*####################################*/
/* MED STRESS */
<<if $stress is 1>>
<<if $sect6a is 1>>
!Conclusion
“You know what I’ve been thinking about, Martin?”
Twenty-four hours after Shawcross had arrived at the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, the picture had shifted significantly. Russian troops had taken up positions along the border and while no incursions had yet been made, with Moscow claiming both to have been hit by a NATO cyber attack and to have observed covert NATO operations taking place at a nearby fishery, forces at Sør Varanger, as well as other bases in the North, had been moved to a state of readiness. Britain, the US and Norway were all threatening to expel diplomats in light of Russia’s aggressive behaviour and, if President Zligov didn’t order a step-down, an increase in sanctions would follow.
Meanwhile, American and British cyber defence experts had successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. During their work, signposts suggesting Russia was responsible had been found. That being the case, if the Russians too had suffered an attack, it was thought highly likely that they had hit their own systems in order to justify the chest beating at the border. Quite why they would want to create the situation in the first place remained a mystery, however. So far the best guess was that it was part of their century-long strategy of maskirovka.
Despite wishing he had moved north to re-enter a military environment, with the comms returning back to normal, there was no call for Shawcross to go up there. He was better positioned remaining there in Oslo, where he could better continue his interaction with his opposite numbers from fellow NATO countries.
Now though, at the end of another long day, he was in the company of the British Embassy’s station chief, a young man called Clive Glibhurst, enjoying what both considered a well-earned drink in one of Norway’s idiosyncratic ‘brown’ pubs—bars housed in centuries-old wooden structures that had stood the test of time as well as the rising of the glass and concrete monoliths that commanded the skyline of Oslo in the 2040s.
Glibhurst was of the new breed that had started to take over secret intelligence. The era of the amoral extrovert adept at manipulating people in person had ebbed in a world where people communicated more remotely and the over-confident raconteurs had been replaced by people like Glibhurst – introverts who understood both the technology and techniques of online socialisation and exploitation. He was obdurate and a faint odour of halitosis followed him wherever he went, so while it would be a stretch to say Glibhurst was a breath of fresh air, Shawcross appreciated the injection of chaos he brought to the staid Ambassadorial world, and tended to gravitate his way for conversation.
The MI6 man had just returned from the bar with two more bottles of beer.
“I dread to think,” Shawcross replied and took a sip.
“Fish,” Glibhurst announced.
“Do I really want to hear this, Clive?”
The MI6 man grinned. “Just bear with me.”
“I always do.”
“Touché, Private.”
“Get on with it, will you?”
“So, we’re working on the understanding that the Russians hit both us and themselves, right?”
“That seems to be the situation, yes.”
“Because of evidence found in the hack that suggested Russian authorship, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what if I said to you that any outfit with the chops to penetrate military, governmental and civilian systems the way this B.L.Z. Bub did would never be stupid enough to leave a trail behind.”
Shawcross shrugged. “And yet, experts at both GCHQ and the Pentagon say they did.”
“And they won’t be wrong, right?” Glibhurst said giddily.
“And they won’t be wrong.”
“So you put those two facts together and what do you learn?”
“That you’re wrong?” Shawcross said.
“Or…?” Glibhurst’s eyes widened behind his thick specs as he held his hands up as though weighing a couple of moons against one another.
Shawcross shook his head. “I don’t know, Clive,” Shawcross said. “Look, I’ve got to get to the Ministry of Defence, all right?”
“God,” Glibhurst exclaimed. “How did you ever become an officer, man? It tells you that they left the trail on purpose, of course.”
“What?” Shawcross said, his mind already on his meeting. “Why would the Russians… oh, I see.” He smiled. “You don’t think it was the Russians who left the trail. You think it was someone else… what? Setting them up?”
“Isn’t that more likely?”
Shawcross didn’t answer, instead asking: “It doesn’t have anything to do with fish, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Aha—but it does. You’re just thinking too conventionally,” Glibhurst announced. “If the hack can’t be trusted, and let’s face it, even the conventional thinkers of central government might make that leap, how are you meant to find out who’s behind it?”
“You’re the one paid to be unconventional around here.”
“You look at the bigger picture and see who stood to benefit. Look. No one seems to know why the Russians did all this. The best guess so far is that it’s just an extension of their ongoing maskirovka campaign, right?” Glibhurst took a swig of his beer, then drew a small circle in the air with it as he added, “But spin that globe around a second, and who is it that chose the very moment everyone else on the world power-broker scene was busy Beelzebubbing to move into contested South Sea territories? Hmm?”
“You think China was behind this?” Shawcross scoffed.
Glibhurst frowned. It was what he had been leading up to. His big announcement. The culmination of his theory. Shawcross’s sceptical tone left him frosting over like the coming of the Norwegian winter.
“I’m sorry, Clive,” Shawcross said. “I… I guess I was just enjoying being back on a base, and now here I am back here having to deal with all the bloody diplomacy again. I still don’t see what this has got to do with fish, though.”
The grin returned to Glibhurst’s hairy face. “It’s got everything to do with fish,” he said. “Because fish is what they deal with at a fishery. And it was a fishery where Moscow thought NATO troops were gathering. But the suspicious activity wasn’t NATO troops, it was fishermen. Nothing too suspicious about that. Only these fishermen were processing a catch in the middle of the night and at their most remote station. That was because they were going way over quota to meet a special order. And where do you think that special order was going? The house of Prince Mahmoud Bin Al Q’rami, that’s where. The Prince is laying on a banquet, apparently. Celebrating his recent purchase of half a dozen Chengdu J-90 fighter jets from Beijing.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to pass your theory on to the Norwegians,” Shawcross said.
“I’m sure it’ll help them sleep soundly at night to know their national security is just a pawn move in the chess game of Chinese foreign policy,” Glibhurst said.
“I’m sure it will.”
Shawcross raised his bottle.
“Cheers.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6b is 1>>
!Conclusion
“You know what I’ve been thinking about, Martin?”
Twenty-four hours after Shawcross had arrived in the North, the picture had shifted significantly. Russian troops had taken up positions along the border and while no incursions had yet been made, with Moscow claiming both to have been hit by a NATO cyber attack and to have observed covert NATO operations taking place at a nearby fishery, Sør Varanger had been moved to a state of readiness. Britain, the US and Norway were all threatening to expel diplomats in light of Russia’s aggressive behaviour and, if President Zligov didn’t order a step-down, an increase in sanctions would follow.
Meanwhile, American and British cyber defence experts had successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. During their work, signposts suggesting Russia was responsible had been found. That being the case, if the Russians too had suffered an attack, it was thought highly likely that they had hit their own systems in order to justify the chest beating at the border. Quite why they would want to create the situation in the first place remained a mystery, however. So far the best guess was that it was part of their century-long strategy of maskirovka.
Despite revelling in a return to the military environment, with the comms returning back to normal, Shawcross had been ordered back down to Oslo, where he could better interact with representatives of both NATO in general and more specifically the Norwegian Military Liaison Officer, Colonel Per Rosenborg, whom he was not looking forward to meeting, as he would have to explain heading north without even trying to see him first to coordinate responses.
But that was tomorrow’s joy. Now, at the end of another long day, he was in the company of the British Embassy’s station chief, a young man called Clive Glibhurst, enjoying what both considered a well-earned drink in one of Norway’s idiosyncratic ‘brown’ pubs – bars housed in centuries-old wooden structures that had stood the test of time as well as the rising of the glass and concrete monoliths that commanded the skyline of Oslo in the 2040s.
Glibhurst was of the new breed that had started to take over secret intelligence. The era of the amoral extrovert adept at manipulating people in person had ebbed in a world where people communicated more remotely and the over-confident raconteurs had been replaced by people like Glibhurst – introverts who understood both the technology and techniques of online socialisation and exploitation. He was obdurate and a faint odour of halitosis followed him wherever he went, so while it would be a stretch to say Glibhurst was a breath of fresh air, Shawcross appreciated the injection of chaos he brought to the staid Ambassadorial world, and tended to gravitate his way for conversation. The MI6 man had just returned from the bar with two more bottles of beer.
“I dread to think,” Shawcross replied and took a sip.
“Fish,” Glibhurst announced.
“Do I really want to hear this, Clive?”
The station chief grinned. “Just bear with me.”
“I always do.”
“Touché, Private.”
“Get on with it, will you?”
“So, we’re working on the understanding that the Russians hit both us and themselves, right?”
“That seems to be the situation, yes.”
“Because of evidence found in the hack that suggested Russian authorship, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what if I said to you that any outfit with the chops to penetrate military, governmental and civilian systems the way this B.L.Z. Bub did would never be stupid enough to leave a trail behind.”
Shawcross shrugged. “And yet, experts at both GCHQ and the Pentagon say they did.”
“And they won’t be wrong, right?” Glibhurst said giddily.
“And they won’t be wrong.”
“So you put those two facts together and what do you learn?”
“That you’re wrong?” Shawcross said.
“Or…?” Glibhurst’s eyes widened behind his thick specs as he held his hands up as though weighing a couple of melons against one another.
Shawcross shook his head. “I don’t know, Clive,” Shawcross said. “Look, I’ve got to get to the Ministry of Defence, all right?”
“God,” Glibhurst exclaimed. “How did you ever become an officer, man? It tells you that they left the trail on purpose, of course.”
“What?” Shawcross said, his mind already on his meeting. “Why would the Russians… oh, I see.” He smiled. “You don’t think it was the Russians who left the trail. You think it was someone else… what? Setting them up?”
“Isn’t that more likely?”
Shawcross didn’t answer, instead asking: “It doesn’t have anything to do with fish, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Aha – but it does. You’re just thinking too conventionally,” Glibhurst announced. “If the hack can’t be trusted, and let’s face it, even the conventional thinkers of central government might make that leap, how are you meant to find out who’s behind it?”
“You’re the one paid to be unconventional around here.”
“You look at the bigger picture and see who stood benefit. Look. No one seems to know why the Russians did all this. The best guess so far is that it’s just an extension of their ongoing maskirovka campaign, right?” Glibhurst took a swig of his beer, then drew a small circle in the air with it as he added, “But spin that globe around a second, and who is it that chose the very moment everyone else on the world power-broker scene was busy Beelzebubbing to move into contested South Sea territories? Hmm?”
“You think China was behind this?” Shawcross scoffed.
Glibhurst frowned. It was what he had been leading up to. His big announcement. The culmination of his theory. Shawcross’s sceptical tone left him frosting over like the coming of the Norwegian winter.
“I’m sorry, Clive,” Shawcross said. “I… I guess I was just enjoying being back on a base, and now here I am back here having to deal with all the bloody diplomacy again. “I still don’t see what this has got to do with fish, though.”
The grin returned to Glibhurst’s hairy face. “It’s got everything to do with fish,” he said. “Because fish is what they deal with at a fishery. And it was a fishery where Moscow thought NATO troops were gathering. But the suspicious activity wasn’t NATO troops, it was fishermen. Nothing too suspicious about that. Only these fishermen were processing a catch in the middle of the night and at their most remote station. That was because they were going way over quota to meet a special order. And where do you think that special order was going? The house of Prince Mahmoud Bin Al Q’rami, that’s where. The Prince is laying on a banquet, apparently. Celebrating his recent purchase of half a dozen Chengdu J-90 fighter jets from Beijing.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to pass your theory on to the Norwegians,” Shawcross said.
“I’m sure it’ll help them sleep soundly at night to know their national security is just a pawn move in the chess game of Chinese foreign policy,” Glibhurst said.
“I’m sure it will.”
Shawcross raised his bottle.
“Cheers.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6c is 1>>
!Conclusion
“Do you know what I’ve been thinking about, Martin?” Glibhurst said, returning from the bar with two more beers.
Twenty-four hours after Shawcross had arrived at the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, the picture had shifted significantly. Russian troops had taken up positions along the border and while no incursions had yet been made, with Moscow claiming both to have been hit by a NATO cyber attack and to have observed covert NATO operations taking place at a nearby fishery, forces at Sør Varanger, as well as other bases in the North, had been moved to a state of readiness. Britain, the US and Norway were all threatening to expel diplomats in light of Russia’s aggressive behaviour and, if President Zligov didn’t order a step-down, an increase in sanctions would follow.
Meanwhile, American and British cyber defence experts had successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. During their work, signposts suggesting Russia was responsible had been found. That being the case, if the Russians too had suffered an attack, it was thought highly likely that they had hit their own systems in order to justify the chest beating at the border. Quite why they would want to create the situation in the first place remained a mystery, however. So far the best guess was that it was part of their century-long strategy of maskirovka.
Despite wishing he had moved North to re-enter a military environment, with the comms returning back to normal, there was no call for Shawcross to go up there. He was better positioned remaining there in Oslo, where he could better continue his interaction with his opposite numbers from fellow NATO countries.
Now though, at the end of another long day, he was back in the company of the British Embassy’s young station chief, enjoying what both considered a well-earned drink in one of Norway’s idiosyncratic ‘brown’ pubs—bars housed in centuries-old fashioned wooden structures that had stood the test of time as well as the sprouting all around of the glass and concrete monoliths that dominated the skyline of Oslo in the 2040s.
“I dread to think,” Shawcross replied, taking a swig from his bottle.
“Fish,” Glibhurst announced.
“Do I really want to hear this, Clive?”
The MI6 man grinned. “Just bear with me.”
“I always do.”
“Touché, Private.”
“Get on with it, will you?”
“So, we’re working on the understanding that the Russians hit both us and themselves, right?”
“That seems to be the situation, yes.”
“Because of evidence found in the hack that suggested Russian authorship, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what if I said to you that any outfit with the chops to penetrate military, governmental and civilian systems the way this B.L.Z. Bub did would never be stupid enough to leave a trail behind.”
Shawcross shrugged. “And yet, experts at both GCHQ and the Pentagon say they did.”
“And they won’t be wrong, right?” Glibhurst said giddily.
“And they won’t be wrong.”
“So you put those two facts together and what do you learn?”
“That you’re wrong?” Shawcross said.
“Or…?” Glibhurst’s eyes widened behind his thick specs as he held his hands up as though weighing a couple of moons against one another.
Shawcross shook his head. “I don’t know, Clive,” Shawcross said. “Look, I’ve got to get to the Ministry of Defence, all right?”
“God,” Glibhurst exclaimed. “How did you ever become an officer, man? It tells you that they left the trail on purpose, of course.”
“What?” Shawcross said, his mind already on his meeting. “Why would the Russians… oh, I see.” He smiled. “You don’t think it was the Russians who left the trail. You think it was someone else… what? Setting them up?”
“Isn’t that more likely?”
Shawcross didn’t answer, instead asking: “It doesn’t have anything to do with fish, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Aha—but it does. You’re just thinking too conventionally,” Glibhurst announced.
“If the hack can’t be trusted, and let’s face it, even the conventional thinkers of central government might make that leap, how are you meant to find out who’s behind it?”
“You’re the one paid to be unconventional around here.”
“You look at the bigger picture and see who stood benefit. Look. No one seems to know why the Russians did all this. The best guess so far is that it’s just an extension of their ongoing maskirovka campaign, right?” Glibhurst took a swig of his beer, then drew a small circle in the air with it as he added, “But spin that globe around a second, and who is it that chose the very moment everyone else on the world power broker scene was busy Beelzebubbing to move into contested South Sea territories? Hmm?”
“You think China was behind this?” Shawcross scoffed.
Glibhurst frowned. It was what he had been leading up to. His big announcement. The culmination of his theory. Shawcross’s sceptical tone left him frosting over like the coming of the Norwegian winter.
“I’m sorry, Clive,” Shawcross said. “I think I’m just bored of having to deal with all the bloody diplomacy instead of being out there, you know.” He took another mouthful of beer. “I still don’t see what this has got to do with fish, though,” he added.
The grin returned to Glibhurst’s hairy face. “It’s got everything to do with fish,” he said. “Because fish is what they deal with at a fishery. And it was a fishery where Moscow thought NATO troops were gathering. But the suspicious activity wasn’t NATO troops – it was fishermen. Nothing too suspicious about that. Only these fishermen were processing a catch in the middle of the night and at their most remote station. That was because they were going way over quota to meet a special order. And where do you think that special order was going? The house of Prince Mahmoud Bin Al Q’rami, that’s where. The Prince is laying on a banquet, apparently. Celebrating his recent purchase of half a dozen Chengdu J-90 fighter jets from Beijing.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to pass your theory on to the Norwegians when I see them in the morning,” Shawcross said.
“I’m sure it’ll help them sleep soundly at night to know their national security is just a pawn move in the chess game of Chinese foreign policy,” Glibhurst said.
“I’m sure it will.”
Shawcross raised his bottle.
“Cheers.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6d is 1>>
!Conclusion
“Do you know what I’ve been thinking about, Martin?” Glibhurst said, returning from the bar with two more beers.
Twenty-four hours after Shawcross had arrived in the North, the picture had shifted significantly. Russian troops had taken up positions along the border and while no incursions had yet been made, with Moscow claiming both to have been hit by a NATO cyber attack and to have observed covert NATO operations taking place at a nearby fishery, Sør Varanger had been moved to a state of readiness. Britain, the US and Norway were all threatening to expel diplomats in light of Russia’s aggressive behaviour and, if President Zligov didn’t order a step-down, an increase in sanctions would follow.
Meanwhile, American and British cyber defence experts had successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. During their work, signposts suggesting Russia was responsible had been found. That being the case, if the Russians too had suffered an attack, it was thought highly likely that they had hit their own systems in order to justify the chest beating at the border. Quite why they would want to create the situation in the first place remained a mystery, however. So far the best guess was that it was part of their century-long strategy of maskirovka.
Despite revelling in a return to the military environment, with the comms returning back to normal, Shawcross had been ordered back down to Oslo, where he could better interact with representatives of both NATO in general and more specifically the Norwegian Military Liaison Officer, Colonel Per Rosenborg, whom he was not looking forward to meeting, as he would have to explain heading north without even trying to see him first to coordinate responses.
But that was tomorrow’s joy. Now, at the end of another long day, he was in the company of the British Embassy’s young station chief, enjoying what both considered a well-earned drink in one of Norway’s idiosyncratic ‘brown’ pubs—bars housed in centuries-old wooden structures that had stood the test of time as well as the rising of the glass and concrete monoliths that commanded the skyline of Oslo in the 2040s.
“I dread to think,” Shawcross replied, taking a swig from his bottle.
“Fish,” Glibhurst announced.
“Do I really want to hear this, Clive?”
The MI6 man grinned. “Just bear with me.”
“I always do.”
“Touché, Private.”
“Get on with it, will you?”
“So, we’re working on the understanding that the Russians hit both us and themselves, right?”
“That seems to be the situation, yes.”
“Because of evidence found in the hack that suggested Russian authorship, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what if I said to you that any outfit with the chops to penetrate military, governmental and civilian systems the way this B.L.Z. Bub did would never be stupid enough to leave a trail behind.”
Shawcross shrugged. “And yet, experts at both GCHQ and the Pentagon say they did.”
“And they won’t be wrong, right?” Glibhurst said giddily.
“And they won’t be wrong.”
“So you put those two facts together and what do you learn?”
“That you’re wrong?” Shawcross said.
“Or…?” Glibhurst’s eyes widened behind his thick specs as he held his hands up as though weighing a couple of moons against one another.
Shawcross shook his head. “I don’t know, Clive,” Shawcross said. “Look, I’ve got to get to the Ministry of Defence, all right?”
“God,” Glibhurst exclaimed. “How did you ever become an officer, man? It tells you that they left the trail on purpose, of course.”
“What?” Shawcross said, his mind already on his meeting. “Why would the Russians… oh, I see.” He smiled. “You don’t think it was the Russians who left the trail. You think it was someone else… what? Setting them up?”
“Isn’t that more likely?”
Shawcross didn’t answer, instead asking: “It doesn’t have anything to do with fish, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Aha—but it does. You’re just thinking too conventionally,” Glibhurst announced. “If the hack can’t be trusted, and let’s face it, even the conventional thinkers of central government might make that leap, how are you meant to find out who’s behind it?”
“You’re the one paid to be unconventional around here.”
“You look at the bigger picture and see who stood benefit. Look. No one seems to know why the Russians did all this. The best guess so far is that it’s just an extension of their ongoing maskirovka campaign, right?” Glibhurst took a swig of his beer, then drew a small circle in the air with it as he added, “But spin that globe around a second, and who is it that chose the very moment everyone else on the world power broker scene was busy Beelzebubbing to move into contested South Sea territories? Hmm?”
“You think China was behind this?” Shawcross scoffed.
Glibhurst frowned. It was what he had been leading up to. His big announcement. The culmination of his theory. Shawcross’s sceptical tone left him frosting over like the coming of the Norwegian winter.
“I’m sorry, Clive,” Shawcross said. “I… I guess I was just enjoying being back on a base, and now here I am back here having to deal with all the bloody diplomacy again. “I still don’t see what this has got to do with fish, though.”
The grin returned to Glibhurst’s hairy face. “It’s got everything to do with fish,” he said. “Because fish is what they deal with at a fishery. And it was a fishery where Moscow thought NATO troops were gathering. But the suspicious activity wasn’t NATO troops, it was fishermen. Nothing too suspicious about that. Only these fishermen were processing a catch in the middle of the night and at their most remote station. That was because they were going way over quota to meet a special order. And where do you think that special order was going? The house of Prince Mahmoud Bin Al Q’rami, that’s where. The Prince is laying on a banquet, apparently. Celebrating his recent purchase of half a dozen Chengdu J-90 fighter jets from Beijing.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to pass your theory on to the Norwegians when I see them in the morning,” Shawcross said.
“I’m sure it’ll help them sleep soundly at night to know their national security is just a pawn move in the chess game of Chinese foreign policy,” Glibhurst said.
“I’m sure it will.”
Shawcross raised his bottle.
“Cheers.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6e is 1>>
!Conclusion
“You’re a lucky man, Shawcross.”
Once Shawcross had dropped Kripov, out cold and blind-drunk, in a suburban park, he took a roundabout route and met Glibhurst at the embassy. There, the MI6 man connected them to London via a freshly generated secure line and, despite the need they both felt to be on the ground in Norway, the pair had been ordered to take a seat on the next British transport plane out of Scandinavia and make their way to Whitehall. By the time they left, the Russians had stopped short of crossing the border, and were instead making a hullabaloo about the kidnapping of one of their diplomats. It seemed Glibhurst’s attempt at Russian-accented English had sufficiently confused the situation, as no fingers were yet being pointed directly at the British, and the anonymous tip off that the Russian had been found suffering from the effects of too much vodka in a park seemed to put the Russian Embassy on the back foot. Meanwhile, the American and British cyber defence experts successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. On this occasion, though, the powers-that-be did not want to risk any form of communication other than person-to-person. So it was that Shawcross and Glibhurst, one in his army uniform, the other in a lumberjack shirt and jeans, were to be found outside a room in the Foreign Office waiting for a personal audience with the Minister himself.
An hour passed before a bespectacled civil servant ushered them through the doors into a large state room. It was an impressively lavish setting for a meeting between three people.
The Foreign Secretary was standing by one of the windows, and welcomed them back to London as his assistant retreated. The Minister was a small man in his sixties known for his glassy blue eyes and a quiet obstinacy that had seen him serve, in various capacities, in three successive governments. He asked the two men to retell the story of what they had discovered over the previous couple of days.
“I know, sir.”
“Cloning his phone would have done the job.”
“We didn’t know that at the time, sir. A decision had to be made on the spot, and I made it. That Mr Kripov subsequently cracked and revealed the extent of the plan you can put down to Glibhurst’s singular interrogation skills.”
“Very effective, Mr Glibhurst,” the Minister said, “if unconventional.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“That wasn’t a compliment, Clive.”
“No, sir.”
“So the Russians engineered the entire episode, eh?” the Minister reiterated.
“So it transpired, sir,” Shawcross said. “Hit their own forces as well as ours so they could claim provocation for the trouble they caused up there. And all as a smokescreen to keep us busy while they moved further into Kazakh territory.”
“They have Petropavlovsk now,” Glibhurst said.
“I’m well aware of the state of international foreign affairs, thank you, Clive,” the Minister said. “You might even say it’s my job to know.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Minister addressed Shawcross. “And they even ordered the fish.”
“It was an especially large order, sir,” Shawcross explained. “It took the fishing company well over quota, which ensured they would process the catch at night and at their most remote station.”
“Bloody elaborate,” the Minister mused.
“Maskirovka, sir,” Glibhurst said.
“Bless you.”
“You do so many disparate things that the playing field is fogged,” Glibhurst expanded. “Your opposition don’t know what your real intentions are until the fog’s settled, by when it’s too late.”
“It’s a tactic, sir,” Shawcross said.
The Minister’s face dropped. “And mine was a joke, gentlemen,” he said.
“Are you sure?” Glibhurst said.
“Very good, sir,” Shawcross interceded. “Sir, if you don’t mind my asking, what happens now?”
“Well, we’ll be working in line with the Americans as normal. Upping the sanctions I should think, expelling a few diplomats, probably your friend Kripov amongst them.”
“With all due respect, sir, I meant what about us.”
“Aha, well that’s another question, isn’t it?” The Minister’s eyes lit up at the thought. “Much as you ought to be removed from Oslo, to do so would be tantamount to admission. So as long as the Russians are accusing all and sundry, you stay firmly in place. For the time being anyway, because it seems to me that you make rather an effective team. As such there are places your direct approach is more likely to prove useful than Scandinavia.”
Shawcross and Glibhurst looked at the Minister questioningly. “Sir?” Shawcross said.
“We’re having what’s being called a reshuffle in Beijing,” the Minister explained. “But between you and me it’s more of a clean out really. You two are heading out there in exactly three weeks time.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6f is 1>>
!Conclusion
The next were a revealing twenty-four hours in the British Embassy in Oslo.
The contents of Kripov’s phone proved a goldmine of information and, it turned out, disinformation. Moreover, the line associated with the Russian DA remained in place, as Shawcross had hoped would be the case, and several conversations Kripov subsequently conducted offered further valuable intelligence. In light of all this, despite their desire to be on the ground in Norway, both Shawcross and Glibhurst had been ordered to take a seat on the next British transport plane out of Scandinavia and make their way to Whitehall. By the time they left, government cyber defence had successfully penetrated the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back, but on this occasion the powers-that-be did not want to risk any form of communication other than person-to-person. So it was that the two men, one in his army uniform, the other in a lumberjack shirt and jeans, were to be found outside a room in the Foreign Office waiting for a personal audience with the Minister himself.
An hour passed before a civil servant ushered them through the doors into a large state room. It was an impressively lavish setting for a meeting between three people.
The Foreign Secretary was standing by one of the windows, and welcomed them back to London as his assistant retreated. The Minister was a small man in his 60s known for his glassy blue eyes and a quiet obstinacy that had seen him serve, in various capacities, in three successive governments. He asked the two men to retell the story of what they had discovered over the previous couple of days. He listened attentively, then reiterated.
“So the Russians were behind it, and hit their own forces as well as ours so they could claim provocation for the trouble they caused up there.”
“Yes, sir. They’ve still got forces on the border waiting for us to make the wrong move.”
“And the fish?”
“Was an especially large order, also made by the Russians, that took the fishing company over quota and ensured they would process the catch at night and in their most remote station.”
“But we haven’t a clue why they did all this.”
“No, sir,” Shawcross said. “Not yet. And we may never. It could be they were hoping we’d make the first move and use it as a springboard for something else. Maybe it would give President Zligov a chance to look protective of his people. A show of strength without being the aggressors. He isn’t exactly the bear-wrestling type, after all.”
“My money’s on maskirovka, for what it’s worth,” Glibhurst said.
“Who?” the Minister said.
“It’s a tactic, sir,” Shawcross said. “You do so many different things the opposition doesn’t know what your real intent is. In this case, as usual, that’s us and the rest of NATO.”
“Slippery buggers, aren’t they?”
“I guess we all are, sir,” Glibhurst said.
The Minister looked at him questioningly.
“We still have ears on the phone,” Shawcross clarified.
“Ah, yes. Point taken.”
“Sir, if you don’t mind my asking,” Shawcross said. “What happens now?”
The Minister’s eyebrows rose wearily. “Oh, we’ll work in line with the Americans as usual,” he said, “I should think we’ll probably up the sanctions against them for the cyber attack. Have the Norwegians expel some diplomats. That sort of thing.”
He sighed, the strain of the situation finding its way into creases around his baby blues. “Tensions are higher than we’d like, Martin,” he said. “But they’d have been a measure higher had you two not brought this intelligence in. It seems Oslo’s not the mountain retreat you were after, hmm?”
“With all due respect, sir, it wasn’t me who was after it.”
“No. Quite. Well, it seems you’re in pretty good working order to me. I should think we’ll have you back in the saddle before long, hmm?”
“Thank you, sir. I’d like that.”
“For the time being though, it’s coordinating with the Norwegians.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” he said. “But I admire your optimism. That’ll be all, gentlemen.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6g is 1>>
!Conclusion
‘Outside. Now.’ was all that was written on the paper.
Shawcross scrunched it into a ball and immediately got to his feet and walked towards the exit.
“Hey,” the barman said, seeing him heading for the door. “The system is ok now.”
Irritated by the delay, Shawcross marched back to the bar pulling out his phone and swiping it over the scanner.
The barman looked at the terminal and his eyes widened.
“Wow,” he said. “That is quite a tip. Thank you.”
But Shawcross didn’t have time to question it. He made for the door and headed outside.
He looked left and right for Nikolaev, but the frozen street was more or less deserted. A few G-cabs were humming along the way, but Shawcross could see that they were empty. Nikolaev was nowhere to be seen.
Shawcross swore under his breath and turned to re-enter the bar, when he heard a sound coming from the alley-way up the side of Knuskroken. It could have been a cat hunting in the dustbins, but it was followed by a low and very human clearing of the throat. The narrow street was swallowed in darkness. Even as he approached, Shawcross could see nothing; no-one. But as he reached the mouth of the path, an arm appeared and he was hauled into the shadows.
He struggled to break free, and did so easily. He was by far the stronger, and grabbed his assailant by the collars and pushed him against the wall. It was Nikolaev. He was shivering.
“We couldn’t talk in there,” he said.
“Talk about what?” Shawcross said, relaxing his grip slightly. “What’s going on, Dimitri?”
“Let go of me and I’ll tell you everything.”
*
“So I let him go, and he told me.”
As soon as Shawcross had parted ways with Nikolaev less than five minutes later, he went to the British Embassy. The MI6 station chief, a young mole-like man called Glibhurst, had heard about the cyber attack and was already on site. Glibhurst was of the new breed that had started to take over secret intelligence. The era of the amoral extrovert adept at manipulating people in person was ebbing, and as the world increasingly communicated remotely, the over-confident raconteurs were being replaced by people like Glibhurst, introverts who understood both the technology and techniques of online socialisation and exploitation. It was all part of the same process that had hit the stockbrokers back at the dawn of digitisation forty or fifty years ago, that had seen the likes of Jobs and Gates become CEOs of the world’s largest companies, and Amazon become the official sponsor of the Democrat Party.
Glibhurst connected Shawcross to London via a freshly generated secure line and, despite the need he felt to be on the ground in Norway, Shawcross had been ordered to take a seat on the next British transport plane out of Scandinavia and make his way to Whitehall. By the time he left, government cyber defence had successfully penetrated the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back, but on this occasion the powers-that-be did not want to risk any form of communication other than person-to-person. Thus, less than twenty-four hours after hearing what Nikolaev had to say in the cover of night in that deserted snowbound cemetery, Shawcross was outside a room in the Foreign Office waiting for a personal audience with the Minister himself.
An hour passed before a civil servant ushered him through the doors into a large state room. It was an impressively lavish setting for a meeting between two people.
The Foreign Secretary was standing by one of the windows, and welcomed Shawcross back to London as his assistant retreated. The Minister was a small man in his 60s known for his glassy blue eyes and a quiet obstinacy that had seen him serve, in various capacities, in three successive governments. He asked Shawcross to retell his story of the previous evening and had listened attentively.
“They did their research, sir,” Shawcross said. “They knew that if they made an order big enough, the company wouldn’t be able to resist, despite going way over quota. So they’d process it at night and at their most remote station. Then the Russian cybers hit both sides, creating the confusion that gave the Chinese the opportunity to move their carriers into the South Seas. America and the rest of us were too busy with Russia to notice.”
“And now they’ve claimed the straits, it’ll be hard to remove them,” the Minister murmured.
“You have to hand it to them.”
The Minister’s face twitched. Shawcross got the feeling he didn’t like handing anything to anyone.
“And your chap…?”
“Nikolaev.”
“He just told you all of this, did he?” he said circumspectly.
“He didn’t like Russia being a puppet, sir,” Shawcross said.
“But Russia’s been on Beijing’s leash for thirty years or more.”
Shawcross shrugged. “He’s young,” he said. “And I think they keep their military on a need-to-know basis. This was the first he’d learned of it. Kripov, the DA, gave him the note at the reception and told him to make the drop. He didn’t like the plan a bit. That’s what they were arguing about at the reception.”
“An idealist.”
“God forbid, sir.”
“Quite.”
“But also a soldier, and Kripov pulled rank. Then Nikolaev spotted me at the bar, saw his chance to avert an international incident and took it.”
The Minster nodded slowly and the two men were quiet for a moment, but before it got awkward, Shawcross said, “Sir, if you don’t mind my asking, what happens now?”
The Minister’s eyebrows rose wearily. “Oh, we’ll work in line with the Americans as usual,” he said, “supporting all those smaller, friendly countries in the east, you can be sure of that. And we’ll keep our eyes open in the Arctic, too, of course, the borders well-patrolled – just in case your chap wasn’t spreading a little disinformation of his own, hmm? He and the DA will be asked to leave, I should think, maybe some other so-called diplomats. And we’ll probably up the sanctions for the cyber attack.”
He sighed, the strain of the situation finding its way into the creases around his startling eyes. “Tensions are higher than we’d like, Martin,” he said. “But they’d have been a measure higher had you not brought this intelligence in. It seems Oslo’s not the mountain retreat you were after, hmm?”
“With all due respect, sir, it wasn’t me who was after it.”
“No. Quite. Well, it seems you’re in pretty good working order to me. I should think we’ll have you back in the saddle before long.”
“Thank you, sir. I’d like that.”
“For the time being though, it’s coordinating with the Norwegians.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” he said. “But I admire your optimism.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6h is 1>>
!Conclusion
Shawcross ran towards the cemetery, the smooth soles of his dress-shoes skidding all over the place in the snow. It took all his powers of balance to stay on his feet and it only got worse when he arrived at the entrance to the expansive graveyard. The paths had been ploughed leaving only an uneven ice covering the ground. As he tried to turn right through the gate and onto the central path, he slipped to one side and only prevented himself from toppling over by grabbing the trunk of one of the pines that lined the walkways. Steadying himself, he gazed up the faintly lit path. There was not a soul upon it. No-one.
But then, from behind him, he heard a voice speak in Russian-tinged English.
“I see you got my message, Shawcross,” Nikolaev said.
*
As soon as Shawcross had parted ways with Nikolaev less than five minutes later, he went to the British Embassy. The MI6 station chief, a young mole-like young man called Glibhurst, had heard about the cyber attack and was already on site. Glibhurst was of the new breed that had started to take over secret intelligence. The era of the amoral extrovert adept at manipulating people in person was ebbing, and as the world increasingly communicated remotely, the over-confident raconteurs were being replaced by people like him, introverts who understood both the technology and techniques of online socialisation and exploitation. It was all part of the same process that had hit the stockbrokers back at the dawn of digitisation forty or fifty years ago, that had seen the likes of Jobs and Gates become CEOs of the world’s largest companies, and Amazon become the official sponsor of the Democrat Party. Glibhurst connected Shawcross to London via a freshly generated secure line and, despite the need he felt to be on the ground in Norway, Shawcross had been ordered to take a seat on the next British transport plane out of Scandinavia and make his way to Whitehall. By the time he left, government cyber defence had successfully penetrated the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back, but on this occasion the powers-that-be did not want to risk any form of communication other than person-to-person. Thus, less than twenty-four hours after hearing what Nikolaev had to say in the cover of night in that deserted snowbound cemetery, Shawcross was outside a room in the Foreign Office waiting for a personal audience with the Minister himself.
An hour passed before a civil servant ushered him through the doors into a large state room. It was an impressively lavish setting for a meeting between two people.
The Foreign Secretary was standing by one of the windows, and welcomed Shawcross back to London as his assistant retreated. The Minister was a small man in his 60s known for his glassy blue eyes and a quiet obstinacy that had seen him serve, in various capacities, in three successive governments. He asked Shawcross to retell his story of the previous evening and listened attentively.
“They did their research, sir,” Shawcross said. “They knew that if they made an order big enough, the company wouldn’t be able to resist, despite going way over quota. So they’d process it at night and at their most remote station. Then the Russian cybers hit both sides, creating the confusion that gave the Chinese the opportunity to move their carriers into the South Seas. America and the rest of us were too busy with Russia to notice.”
“And now they’ve claimed the straits, it’ll be hard to remove them,” the Minister murmured.
“You have to hand it to them.”
The Minister’s face twitched. Shawcross got the feeling he didn’t like handing anything to anyone.
“And your chap…?”
“Nikolaev.”
“He just told you all of this, did he?” he said circumspectly.
“He didn’t like Russia being a puppet, sir,” Shawcross said.
“But Russia’s been on Beijing’s leash for thirty years or more.”
Shawcross shrugged. “He’s young,” he said. “And I think they keep their military on a need-to-know basis. This was the first he’d learned of it. He didn’t like the plan a bit. That’s what the argument I saw between him and Kripov at the reception was about.”
“An idealist.”
“God forbid, sir.”
“Quite.”
The pair were quiet for a moment, but before it got awkward, Shawcross said, “Sir, if you don’t mind my asking, what happens now?”
The Minister’s eyebrows rose wearily. “Oh, we’ll work in line with the Americans as usual,” he said, “supporting all those smaller, friendly countries in the east, you can be sure of that. And we’ll keep our eyes open in the Arctic, too, of course, the borders well-patrolled – just in case your chap wasn’t spreading a little disinformation of his own, hmm? He and the DA will be asked to leave, I should think, maybe some other so-called diplomats. And we’ll probably up the sanctions for the cyber attack.”
He sighed, the strain of the situation finding its way into creases around his baby blues. “Tensions are higher than we’d like, Martin,” he said. “But they’d have been a measure higher had you not brought this intelligence in. It seems Oslo’s not the mountain retreat you were after, hmm?”
“With all due respect, sir, it wasn’t me who was after it.”
“No. Quite. Well, it seems you’re in pretty good working order to me. I should think we’ll have you back in the saddle before long.”
“Thank you, sir. I’d like that.”
“For the time being though, it’s coordinating with the Norwegians.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” he said. “But I admire your optimism.”
----
<<endif>>
<<endif>>
/*####################################*/
/*####################################*/
/* HIGH STRESS */
<<if $stress is 2>>
<<if $sect6a is 1>>
!Conclusion
“With the Russians crossing the border into Norwegian territory, it was assumed they were responsible for the B.L.Z. Bub attack, Lieutenant Colonel. Given their behaviour over the last decade and more, we couldn’t reasonably take them at their word when they claimed to have been similarly hit. They could easily be saying one thing while using the cover of the attack to do another. You know what they’re like.”
“I do, sir,” Shawcross said.
“As far as we can tell, they’re claiming that they were led to believe NATO troops were gathering near their border with Norway. That wasn’t true of course, at least not until they invaded the sovereign territory of a NATO country. But to be quite honest the data stream has become so muddied we can’t tell what’s coming from where. There’s just no way of telling. All we know is we need to keep pinning them back and I’m sure you’ll understand when I say I’m not comfortable divulging the details of how we’re doing that over this line. I’m reluctant to compromise our position up there in any way.”
Twenty-four hours after Shawcross had met with Col. Rosenborg, the picture had shifted significantly. Following reports of a unit of Russian soldiers moving on a fishery, troops in Sør Varanger had been mobilised and stationed along the border. This had resulted in a number of skirmishes with Russian troops, with some injuries but no casualties. In addition, a NATO cyber offensive, led by the Americans, had begun, to which the Russians had responded in kind overnight. Systems were reporting the arrival and departure of armaments and troops every five minutes and communications were going haywire, all of which meant that it was difficult for any side to make any movement with any amount of certainty. And it was not only the military who had suddenly arrived at this sense of stalemate. The stock markets in the US, Britain and Russia had all been suspended as well.
And that was about the entirety of Shawcross’s knowledge of the situation; that is to say, not enough, in his opinion, for a man who was supposed to be coordinating military operations in the country where it was all happening. He would, he thought, be far better off heading north, to Sør Varanger. He would be able to get a stronger sense of what was actually going on and disseminate the information accordingly. He’d made this point, without mentioning the fact that he would welcome the opportunity of returning to a military environment instead of pussy-footing around with diplomats and politicians, but the Minister, to whom by necessity he was talking to over an unsecure, civilian network line, had declined his request. For the time being he would remain in Oslo to discuss with other representatives of NATO their state of helpless ignorance.
So it was with a sense of pent up frustration that he now exclaimed, “For God’s sake.”
The Minister did not respond.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Shawcross said, pulling himself together. “But how am I supposed to coordinate anything if I don’t know what’s going on? I thought we were meant to be winning the tech race.”
“Oh, we are, Lieutenant Colonel,” the Minister replied. “And everyone in NATO is hitting them with cyber attacks that make the mind boggle. But I’m afraid being technologically backwards has actually benefited the Russians in this case. They still have one foot in the past, as I’m sure you know, and that means they still have the old tech and people trained to operate it. We simply do not have those resources any more.”
“So being Luddites is actually helping them.”
“Or being paranoid and poor, relatively speaking,” the Minister said. “Yes. But don’t worry. Us Brits are nothing if not resourceful.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“We’ve had our people scouring around for a method of communication that’s both secure and accurate, and we think we’ve found one. It’s slower than has become customary in recent times, but we think accurate and reliable is more important than fast, and this a technique that has served our country incredibly well over the years.”
“It sounds promising,” Shawcross said.
“Oh, it is,” the Minister confirmed. He was clearly excited.
“I’m listening.”
“Pigeons.”
Shawcross spluttered. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I thought you just said pigeons.”
“Oh, I did, Lieutenant Colonel,” the Minister said excitedly. “It transpires there’s a club of Norwegian enthusiasts. They breed the birds themselves and send letters to one another all over the country. It’s that marvellous?”
“Marvellous, sir,” Shawcross said flatly.
The line was quiet for a moment—apparently the Minister was thrown by the lack of enthusiasm in Shawcross’s tone. Shawcross himself, meanwhile, was wondering how best to put what he wanted to say. He decided he’d had it with diplomacy.
“You do realise that world peace is on the verge of collapse, don’t you, Minister?”
“Now, Lieutenant Colonel, let’s leave the hyperbole to the red tops, hmm?”
“And you’re proposing to hand over its fate to a bunch of... hobbyists?”
“It’ll be like Dunkirk, don’t you think?”
Shawcross sighed. “I can hardly wait, sir,” he said.
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6b is 1>>
!Conclusion
“With the Russians crossing the border into Norwegian territory, we had to assume they were responsible for the B.L.Z. Bub attack, sir. Given their behaviour over the last decade and more, we couldn’t reasonably take them at their word when they claimed to have been similarly hit. They could easily be saying one thing while using the cover of the attack to do another. You know what they’re like.”
“I do indeed.”
Twenty-four hours after Shawcross had arrived in the North, the picture had shifted significantly. Following reports of a unit of Russian soldiers moving on a fishery, troops in Sør Varanger had been mobilised and stationed along the border. This had resulted in a number of skirmishes with Russian troops, with some injuries but no casualties. In addition, a NATO cyber offensive, led by the Americans, had begun, to which the Russians had responded in kind overnight. Systems were reporting the arrival and departure of armaments and troops every five minutes and communications were going haywire, all of which meant that it was difficult for any side to make any movement with any amount of certainty. And it was not only the military who had suddenly arrived at this sense of stalemate. The stock markets in the US, Britain and Russia had all been suspended as well.
Despite all this, or maybe because of it, Shawcross was delighted to be back on the front line. It was a colder version of a world he knew well, so much more appealing than decking himself up in dress uniform for bullshit and canapés at the Oslo embassies. Even talking to the powers-that-be in London was better than that, as he was now doing, especially in light of the fact that it was a conversation having to be conducted on an unsecure, civilian network line.
“As far as we can tell,” Shawcross continued, “they’re claiming that they were led to believe NATO troops were gathering near their border with Norway. That wasn’t true of course, at least not until they invaded the sovereign territory of a NATO country. But to be quite honest the data stream has become so muddied we can’t tell what’s coming from where. There’s just no way of telling. All we know is we need to keep pinning them back and I’m sure you’ll understand when I say I’m not comfortable divulging the details of how we’re doing that over this line. I’m reluctant to compromise our position up here in any way.”
“For God’s sake,” the Minister said with violent frustration. “I thought we were meant to be winning the tech race.”
“Oh, we are sir,” Shawcross replied. “And I understand everyone in NATO is hitting them with cyber attacks that make the mind boggle. But I’m afraid being technologically backwards has actually benefitted the Russians in this case. They still have one foot in the past, as you know sir, and that means they still have the old tech and people trained to operate it. We simply do not have those resources any more.”
“So being Luddites is actually helping the bastards.”
“Well, being paranoid and poor, sir, relatively speaking,” Shawcross said. “But don’t worry. We’re nothing if not resourceful.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“We’ve had people scouring for a method of communication that’s both secure and accurate, and we think we’ve found one. It’s slower than has become customary in recent times, but we think accuracy and reliability are more important than speed, and this is a combination of techniques that has served our country well over the years.”
“It sounds promising.”
“Oh, it is,” Shawcross confirmed.
“I’m listening.”
“Well, sir, it happens that there’s still a cable running from Stavanger to Aberdeen.”
“A cable?”
“Telegraph, sir,” Shawcross expanded. “The communications museum in Bergen have a man who can connect one of their exhibits, and use it too. A real old-fashioned enthusiast, sir. He’s heading down there as we speak and we’ve got people in Scotland looking for the same.”
“You’re talking about morse code.”
“It’s not quite ones and zeroes, sir, but we’ve got to adapt to the playing field on which we find ourselves. Now that’ll take information from the west coast of Norway to Britain, sir, but not Norway’s border with Russia up here in the North down to Stavanger.”
“You mean the Vikings didn’t lay cable there?”
“Very droll, sir,” Shawcross said. “No, there’s no cable. And civilian systems here have been hit as hard as any. The Russians know what they’re doing. So, somehow, we have to get the information over a thousand plus miles of mountains in the grip of the Arctic winter.”
“Don’t tell me,” the Minister said. “Olympic skiers.”
“Pigeons.”
The line fell silent for a moment. Then the Minister said, “I’m sorry. I thought you just said pigeons.”
“I did, sir,” Shawcross stated. “There’s a club of—”
“Don’t tell me—enthusiasts?”
“Yes, sir. They breed the birds themselves and send letters to one another all over the country.”
The line was quiet again, then the Minister said, “You do realise that world peace is on the verge of collapse, don’t you, Lieutenant Colonel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’re proposing we hand over its fate to a bunch of... hobbyists?”
“Yes, sir. Just like Dunkirk, sir. And with any luck you’ll have a full report by Thursday.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6e is 1>>
!Conclusion
“I suppose our superiors should have known better, but really, what on earth were you thinking, Shawcross?”
US and British cyber defence teams found the breach by which the B.L.Z. Bub hack had penetrated systems less than twenty-four hours after Shawcross had taken Kripov to Glibhurst’s ‘safehouse’. On learning that the attack had been sourced to a known third-party collective of activists called Ranzidio, the pair, who had failed to extract any information pertaining to the cyber attack from Kripov, were left with a grave decision to make. Kripov had spent his time in their hands bound and blindfolded, and Glibhurst had masked his Lancashire accent when interrogating him, yet there was no way of knowing if the Russian had ascertained the true nationality of his captors. If he had and they released him, it would have led to massive international recriminations, especially given the fact that the Russians were now considered to have had nothing to do with the entire episode. The alternative course of action was equally repugnant, but under the developing circumstances, Shawcross considered a totally unexplained disappearance to be less likely to escalate the situation.
The disappearance of a Russian diplomat had not gone unnoticed, however, and despite NATO’s insistence that they had nothing to do with the cyber attack – offering up Ranzidio as culprits – the Russians refused to believe them. They claimed that both Kripov’s disappearance and the cyber attack were conducted in conjunction with clandestine military activity at a fishing station within spitting distance of their border with Norway. On investigation, Norwegian local authorities found this activity to pertain to the transportation of illegal immigrants over the border into the EEA, but the Russians also refused to believe this, and had not only started their own cyber offensive, but also initiated a military conflict on the northern border. Skirmishes were ongoing.
Shawcross should have been coordinating British military interests in Norway with the rest of NATO. Instead he was in London, having been picked up by Norwegian forces, delivered to a British transport plane and delivered directly to the Ministry, where he was now being debriefed by Intelligence, who took the form of a humourless fellow Lieutenant Colonel named Featherstone. MI6, it transpired, kept their facilities in Oslo wired.
“It was a mistake,” Shawcross replied.
“You’ve noticed.”
“But once we had him…” Shawcross passed his gaze across the small, featureless office in which his demise was taking place. “Well, things would have got much worse if we’d let him go.”
“I’d rather not know how you managed to work that one out,” Featherstone said. “You were in one of the world’s most developed cities. Not some pile of rubble left to rot in the middle of a desert. You’ve managed to create an international incident out of a fishery. It’s quite a feat.”
“I was presented with a set of circumstances in which a decision had to be made and I made it,” Shawcross said. “As it happens, it was the wrong one.”
“As it ha—” Featherstone stopped himself and instead shook his head. “Well, you gave them what they were looking for, that’s for certain.”
“Who?”
“The activists of course. They were looking for disruptions and now, because of your cock-up, all hell’s breaking loose. Sides are being taken round the globe. This could easily escalate into full blown chaos. It’s more than they could ever have hoped for.”
“You’ll work it out.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence.”
“So what happens now?”
“Now? Well, we could simply hold up our hands to the whole affair and give you over, but as much as you deserve it, that wouldn’t help matters at all. No, we’ll continue to deny all knowledge of the episode and work the back channels in an attempt to clear up this mess. Your friend Glibhurst and his devious comrades-in-arms are already putting together the finer details of a hitherto unknown gambling habit from which your Russian friend suffered. I’m told this led to relations and, I’m afraid, not a little debt with some Turks of questionable repute. The Norwegians are more than keen to help bring the story to life at such time as is deemed suitable for the body’s discovery. That being the case, you’ll stay on in Oslo for the next month or two – though clearly relieved of the responsibilities you have so amply shown yourself incapable of shouldering. Then, when the time is right, you’ll be moved here for a yet-to-be-determined period of time, after which you’ll decide upon an early retirement, brought on, I suspect, by what I understand get referred to as your ‘Syrian experiences’.”
Featherstone gazed at Shawcross for response. When he received none, he looked down, picked up a pen and started jotting something down on a pad.
“Of course,” he said, “were you to mention any of this to anyone, things would be…” He looked up and smiled. “Well, much worse, let’s leave it at that, shall we? Off you go, then. I believe there’s work in Norway you need to pretend to be doing.”
Shawcross stood and went to the door, but hesitated before he opened it and tuned back to address Featherstone.
“Just tell me one thing, will you?” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Have there been any casualties?”
“Other than world peace, you mean?” Featherstone said and went back to his notes. “Goodbye, Lieutenant Colonel.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6g is 1>>
!Conclusion
//
‘Hello Martin. I am a dead drop. Pleased to meet you.’
//
Shawcross groaned. What kind of a fool did you have to be to think that anyone would be making a dead drop in this day and age.
He squeezed Nikolaev’s note into a ball and threw it in the empty glass on the table.
“Hey.”
Shawcross looked up. It was the barman.
“The system is okay now,” he said. “You can pay.”
Shawcross dragged himself to his feet and headed to the bar where he pulled out his phone and swiped it over the scanner.
The barman looked at the terminal and his eyes widened.
“Wow,” he said. “That is quite a tip. Thank you.”
Shawcross grunted and headed for the exit.
Outside, he looked up and down the icy street, but Nikolaev was nowhere to be seen.
With his breath forming crystals in the freezing air, Shawcross pulled up the lapels of his dress uniform and headed into the night.
*
Shawcross decided the blind alley into which he had followed Nikolaev need not be mentioned when, the following day, he returned to his sterile office in the UK Embassy and took a call from the Minister. He felt foolish enough without having to relive the entire episode, and anyway, the situation had developed over-night and there were more pressing issues to discuss, amongst which were the reasons the two were speaking over a non-secure, civilian line.
Following reports of a unit of Russian soldiers moving on a fishery, NATO troops stationed at a base at Sør Varanger had been mobilised and positioned along the border. This had resulted in a number of skirmishes with Russian troops, with some injuries but no casualties. In addition, a NATO cyber offensive, led by the Americans, had begun overnight, to which the Russians had already responded in kind. Systems were reporting the arrival and departure of armaments and troops every five minutes and communications were going haywire, all of which meant that it was difficult for any side to make any movement with any amount of certainty. And it was not only the military who had suddenly arrived at this sense of stalemate. The stock markets in the US, Britain and Russia had all been suspended as well.
And that was about the entirety of Shawcross’s knowledge of the situation; that is to say, not enough, in his opinion, for a man who was supposed to be coordinating military operations in the country where it was all happening. He would, he thought, be far better off heading north, to Sør Varanger. Up there, he would be able to get a far better idea of what was actually going on and disseminate the information accordingly. He’d made this point to the Minister, without mentioning the fact that he would welcome the opportunity of returning to a military environment instead of pussy-footing around with diplomats and politicians, but the politician had declined his request. For the time being, therefore, he would remain in Oslo in order to discuss with other representatives of NATO their state of helpless ignorance.
“With the Russians crossing the border into Norwegian territory,” the Minister said, “it was assumed they were responsible for the B.L.Z. Bub attack, Lieutenant Colonel. Given their behaviour over the last decade and more, we couldn’t reasonably take them at their word when they claimed to have been similarly hit. They could easily be saying one thing while using the cover of the attack to do another. You know what they’re like.”
“I do, sir,” Shawcross said.
“As far as we can tell, they’re claiming that they were led to believe NATO troops were gathering near their border with Norway. That wasn’t true of course, at least not until they invaded the sovereign territory of a NATO country. But to be quite honest the data stream has become so muddied we can’t tell what’s coming from where. There’s just no way of telling. All we know is we need to keep pinning them back and I’m sure you’ll understand when I say I’m not comfortable divulging the details of how we’re doing that over this line. I’m reluctant to compromise our position up there in any way.”
“For God’s sake,” Shawcross exclaimed, all his frustration at the situation uncontrollably bursting from him in that one statement.
The line was completely silent. Shawcross thought momentarily that it had been cut, but then, on hearing a a quiet clearing of the throat from the other end, realised the Minister was waiting for Shawcross to gather himself.
Shawcross did so, slowly exhaling a long, deep breath. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “But how am I supposed to coordinate anything if I don’t know what’s going on? I thought we were meant to be winning the tech race.”
“Oh, we are, Lieutenant Colonel,” the Minister replied. “And everyone in NATO is hitting them with cyber attacks that make the mind boggle. But I’m afraid being technologically backwards has actually benefitted the Russians in this case. They still have one foot in the past, as I’m sure you know, and that means they still have the old tech and people trained to operate it. We simply do not have those resources any more.”
“So being Luddites is actually helping them.”
“Or being paranoid and poor, relatively speaking,” the Minister said. “Yes. But don’t worry. Us Brits are nothing if not resourceful.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“We’ve had our people scouring around for a method of communication that’s both secure and accurate, and we think we’ve found one. It’s slower than has become customary in recent times, but we think accurate and reliable is more important than fast, and this a technique that has served our country incredibly well over the years.”
“It sounds promising,” Shawcross said.
“Oh, it is,” the Minister confirmed. He was clearly excited.
“I’m listening.”
“Pigeons.”
Shawcross spluttered. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I thought you just said pigeons.”
“Oh, I did, Lieutenant Colonel,” the Minister exclaimed. “It transpires there’s a club of Norwegian enthusiasts. They breed the birds themselves and send letters to one another all over the country. It’s that marvellous?”
“Marvellous, sir,” Shawcross said flatly.
The line was quiet for a moment—apparently the Minister was thrown by the lack of enthusiasm in Shawcross’s tone. Shawcross himself, meanwhile, was wondering how best to put what he wanted to say. He decided he’d had it with diplomacy.
“You do realise that world peace is on the verge of collapse, don’t you, Minister?”
“Now, Lieutenant Colonel, let’s leave the hyperbole to the red tops, hmm?”
“And you’re proposing is handing over its fate to whom, as I understand it, are a bunch of... hobbyists?”
“It’ll be like Dunkirk, don’t you think?”
Shawcross sighed. “I can hardly wait, sir,” he said.
----
<<endif>>
<<endif>>
!Metzinov
Apparently the Norwegians complained about the fact that road signs on the other side of the border were written in Russian as well as their native language. They were scared, as they always seemed to be, that it signalled some form of clandestine encroachment – that the Russians were secretly coming to take over. Countless speculative novels had been written and TV shows made on the subject over the last few decades. The Norwegians were a paranoid bunch and as is always the case for those with such tendencies, they never seemed to consider the view from the other side of the border, from where Lt Col Metzinov sat looking out from his desk over the haggard, weather-pummelled buildings of the Sputnik base towards the tundra of the Kola Peninsula beyond. From there, and the entire country that lay east of him, from Moscow to Vladivostok, it was the righteous west, with the EU and of course the ever-exceptionalist, evangelising USA, who were the ones pushing their agenda – and with ever greater fervour too, now China were a matching world force.
But that was exactly the way of the West. They never looked at things from any view but their own. Which was why former president Putin had been driven to take the Crimea twenty-some years ago. It was also why the West, with the sadly short-lived exception of Trump, always ended up on the wrong side of a sense of virtuous outrage when the countries they pushed to the brink felt they had no choice but to push back. If only Trump had managed to continue into his third term and beyond, there might never have been any need to revitalise the base in Sputnik. But, as things transpired, the nation had fallen to the Capitalist Liberalism championed by President Bezos and his cronies and the base became the home of the Border Reaction Force for the north-west.
It was for these many reasons and more that Metzinov had been so willing to move his family from the relative comfort of Volgograd up to the Murmansk Oblast four years ago. He’d had no choice in the matter of course, but even if that had not been the case, he’d have volunteered to come and command the base. People said three things mattered in life after all, and in a specific order: God, country, family. Metzinov was an atheist, but here in the far north-west he could serve his country and ensure his two sons, Viktor and Ilia, became the men he and his wife, Klara, thought the boys’ early youth had promised they could become.
Sadly, ‘thought’ was the operative word, and, for children who had turned into teenagers, life in Zaozyorsk, the small closed town established in the ‘50s to house military families, was not the wholesome idyll of hiking, skiing, hunting and fishing Metzinov Sr had imagined it would be. In fact the opposite had turned out to be true and the combination of the long, dark winters with improved digital connections had rendered his sons slaves to precisely the type of VR games their father had hoped to avoid in moving to such a place. And when he returned, weekly, from Sputnik to Zaozyorsk and tried to point this out to his boys, they were only too happy to retort, with the gleeful sarcasm of youth, that he was a fine one to talk: the great warrior, at forty-eight rendered immobile and soft from sitting behind a desk, conducting meetings and reading reports like the one Lieutenant Simonov, Metzinov’s pale young adjutant, now came in to deliver.
Simonov was scarcely older than Viktor, but would never have dared address Metzinov the way his own sons did. But Metzinov did not scold his boys for their insolence, because he could not deny the truth in their words: perhaps if he was still the man they knew as young lads, they would now be the young men he wished them to be.
“This just through, sir,” Simonov said, handing his senior officer the paper thin screen of his Scrablet. “From Border Patrol.”
Metzinov took the digital scroll. He received reports from various departments every single day. The ones from Border Patrol, like many others, varied little from report to report, the only regular differences being the date and sometimes the weather. But now he saw immediately that the layout of the text was denser, and on reading it discovered why.
Radar warning systems had detected irregular coastal activity on the Norwegian side of the border, which lay just 8km away. Beyond that, the information contained in the report was irritatingly vague. The winter darkness made it impossible to identify the nature of the movements and the report did not state in which direction they were being made, which would have gone some way to determine what was going on. If moving west it was probably migrants making a break for the EEA. But eastward movement would render any activity altogether less benign. As commander of the closest base, it fell to Metzinov to decide how best to investigate. He considered illegal migrants to be the most likely explanation. Despite the increased security on both sides of the checkpoint, once a group had managed to make the journey from whichever sunbaked country God had so clearly forsaken, all the way up to the very roof of the world, it was unlikely anything as anodyne as a manned checkpoint was going to stop them crossing over to the hallowed ground of the world’s most generous welfare state. Even so, it was his duty to see it looked into. Just in case. The key, though, was that the activity, whatever it was and in whatever direction it was moving, was taking place on the other side of the border. In sovereign territory.
Metzinov looked out into the swirling snow as he considered his options. Any drones dispatched to fly over the border to more effectively picture the scene would doubtless be spotted, but the state’s dedication, dating back to the Putin era, to maskirovka, had seen Russian flights, both manned and unmanned, ‘drifting’ into foreign airspace with fair frequency over the years. They had always been explained away, come the inevitable outrage, as innocent miscalculations. Today would be no different, assuming the activity was as Metzinov predicted. On the other hand, investigating via a ground expedition consisting of a small squadron of marines would be far more discreet than UAVs. Depending on what was found, it might also prove more effective, were they able to observe without themselves being observed. But were they spotted or, by some unfortunate turn of events, chanced upon, their appearance on Norwegian soil would constitute an entirely inexplicable incursion onto foreign soil.
[[Travel short distance to the coast and investigate in person|Section 2a (Metzinov) Setting Out]]
[[Send drones to check on irregular activity|Section 2b (Metzinov) Drones]]<<if $sect6a is 1>>
!Conclusion
“With the Russians crossing the border into Norwegian territory, it was assumed they were responsible for the B.L.Z. Bub attack, Lieutenant Colonel. Given their behaviour over the last decade and more, we couldn’t reasonably take them at their word when they claimed to have been similarly hit. They could easily be saying one thing while using the cover of the attack to do another. You know what they’re like.”
“I do, sir,” Shawcross said.
“As far as we can tell, they’re claiming that they were led to believe NATO troops were gathering near their border with Norway. That wasn’t true of course, at least not until they invaded the sovereign territory of a NATO country. But to be quite honest the data stream has become so muddied we can’t tell what’s coming from where. There’s just no way of telling. All we know is we need to keep pinning them back and I’m sure you’ll understand when I say I’m not comfortable divulging the details of how we’re doing that over this line. I’m reluctant to compromise our position up there in any way.”
Twenty-four hours after Shawcross had met with Col. Rosenborg, the picture had shifted significantly. Following reports of a unit of Russian soldiers moving on a fishery, troops in Sør Varanger had been mobilised and stationed along the border. This had resulted in a number of skirmishes with Russian troops, with some injuries but no casualties. In addition, a NATO cyber offensive, led by the Americans, had begun, to which the Russians had responded in kind overnight. Systems were reporting the arrival and departure of armaments and troops every five minutes and communications were going haywire, all of which meant that it was difficult for any side to make any movement with any amount of certainty. And it was not only the military who had suddenly arrived at this sense of stalemate. The stock markets in the US, Britain and Russia had all been suspended as well.
And that was about the entirety of Shawcross’s knowledge of the situation; that is to say, not enough, in his opinion, for a man who was supposed to be coordinating military operations in the country where it was all happening. He would, he thought, be far better off heading north, to Sør Varanger. He would be able to get a stronger sense of what was actually going on and disseminate the information accordingly. He’d made this point, without mentioning the fact that he would welcome the opportunity of returning to a military environment instead of pussy-footing around with diplomats and politicians, but the Minister, to whom by necessity he was talking to over an unsecure, civilian network line, had declined his request. For the time being he would remain in Oslo to discuss with other representatives of NATO their state of helpless ignorance.
So it was with a sense of pent up frustration that he now exclaimed, “For God’s sake.”
The Minister did not respond.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Shawcross said, pulling himself together. “But how am I supposed to coordinate anything if I don’t know what’s going on? I thought we were meant to be winning the tech race.”
“Oh, we are, Lieutenant Colonel,” the Minister replied. “And everyone in NATO is hitting them with cyber attacks that make the mind boggle. But I’m afraid being technologically backwards has actually benefited the Russians in this case. They still have one foot in the past, as I’m sure you know, and that means they still have the old tech and people trained to operate it. We simply do not have those resources any more.”
“So being Luddites is actually helping them.”
“Or being paranoid and poor, relatively speaking,” the Minister said. “Yes. But don’t worry. Us Brits are nothing if not resourceful.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“We’ve had our people scouring around for a method of communication that’s both secure and accurate, and we think we’ve found one. It’s slower than has become customary in recent times, but we think accurate and reliable is more important than fast, and this a technique that has served our country incredibly well over the years.”
“It sounds promising,” Shawcross said.
“Oh, it is,” the Minister confirmed. He was clearly excited.
“I’m listening.”
“Pigeons.”
Shawcross spluttered. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I thought you just said pigeons.”
“Oh, I did, Lieutenant Colonel,” the Minister said excitedly. “It transpires there’s a club of Norwegian enthusiasts. They breed the birds themselves and send letters to one another all over the country. It’s that marvellous?”
“Marvellous, sir,” Shawcross said flatly.
The line was quiet for a moment—apparently the Minister was thrown by the lack of enthusiasm in Shawcross’s tone. Shawcross himself, meanwhile, was wondering how best to put what he wanted to say. He decided he’d had it with diplomacy.
“You do realise that world peace is on the verge of collapse, don’t you, Minister?”
“Now, Lieutenant Colonel, let’s leave the hyperbole to the red tops, hmm?”
“And you’re proposing to hand over its fate to a bunch of... hobbyists?”
“It’ll be like Dunkirk, don’t you think?”
Shawcross sighed. “I can hardly wait, sir,” he said.
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6b is 1>>
!Conclusion
“With the Russians crossing the border into Norwegian territory, we had to assume they were responsible for the B.L.Z. Bub attack, sir. Given their behaviour over the last decade and more, we couldn’t reasonably take them at their word when they claimed to have been similarly hit. They could easily be saying one thing while using the cover of the attack to do another. You know what they’re like.”
“I do indeed.”
Twenty-four hours after Shawcross had arrived in the North, the picture had shifted significantly. Following reports of a unit of Russian soldiers moving on a fishery, troops in Sør Varanger had been mobilised and stationed along the border. This had resulted in a number of skirmishes with Russian troops, with some injuries but no casualties. In addition, a NATO cyber offensive, led by the Americans, had begun, to which the Russians had responded in kind overnight. Systems were reporting the arrival and departure of armaments and troops every five minutes and communications were going haywire, all of which meant that it was difficult for any side to make any movement with any amount of certainty. And it was not only the military who had suddenly arrived at this sense of stalemate. The stock markets in the US, Britain and Russia had all been suspended as well.
Despite all this, or maybe because of it, Shawcross was delighted to be back on the front line. It was a colder version of a world he knew well, so much more appealing than decking himself up in dress uniform for bullshit and canapés at the Oslo embassies. Even talking to the powers-that-be in London was better than that, as he was now doing, especially in light of the fact that it was a conversation having to be conducted on an unsecure, civilian network line.
“As far as we can tell,” Shawcross continued, “they’re claiming that they were led to believe NATO troops were gathering near their border with Norway. That wasn’t true of course, at least not until they invaded the sovereign territory of a NATO country. But to be quite honest the data stream has become so muddied we can’t tell what’s coming from where. There’s just no way of telling. All we know is we need to keep pinning them back and I’m sure you’ll understand when I say I’m not comfortable divulging the details of how we’re doing that over this line. I’m reluctant to compromise our position up here in any way.”
“For God’s sake,” the Minister said with violent frustration. “I thought we were meant to be winning the tech race.”
“Oh, we are sir,” Shawcross replied. “And I understand everyone in NATO is hitting them with cyber attacks that make the mind boggle. But I’m afraid being technologically backwards has actually benefitted the Russians in this case. They still have one foot in the past, as you know sir, and that means they still have the old tech and people trained to operate it. We simply do not have those resources any more.”
“So being Luddites is actually helping the bastards.”
“Well, being paranoid and poor, sir, relatively speaking,” Shawcross said. “But don’t worry. We’re nothing if not resourceful.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“We’ve had people scouring for a method of communication that’s both secure and accurate, and we think we’ve found one. It’s slower than has become customary in recent times, but we think accuracy and reliability are more important than speed, and this is a combination of techniques that has served our country well over the years.”
“It sounds promising.”
“Oh, it is,” Shawcross confirmed.
“I’m listening.”
“Well, sir, it happens that there’s still a cable running from Stavanger to Aberdeen.”
“A cable?”
“Telegraph, sir,” Shawcross expanded. “The communications museum in Bergen have a man who can connect one of their exhibits, and use it too. A real old-fashioned enthusiast, sir. He’s heading down there as we speak and we’ve got people in Scotland looking for the same.”
“You’re talking about morse code.”
“It’s not quite ones and zeroes, sir, but we’ve got to adapt to the playing field on which we find ourselves. Now that’ll take information from the west coast of Norway to Britain, sir, but not Norway’s border with Russia up here in the North down to Stavanger.”
“You mean the Vikings didn’t lay cable there?”
“Very droll, sir,” Shawcross said. “No, there’s no cable. And civilian systems here have been hit as hard as any. The Russians know what they’re doing. So, somehow, we have to get the information over a thousand plus miles of mountains in the grip of the Arctic winter.”
“Don’t tell me,” the Minister said. “Olympic skiers.”
“Pigeons.”
The line fell silent for a moment. Then the Minister said, “I’m sorry. I thought you just said pigeons.”
“I did, sir,” Shawcross stated. “There’s a club of—”
“Don’t tell me—enthusiasts?”
“Yes, sir. They breed the birds themselves and send letters to one another all over the country.”
The line was quiet again, then the Minister said, “You do realise that world peace is on the verge of collapse, don’t you, Lieutenant Colonel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’re proposing we hand over its fate to a bunch of... hobbyists?”
“Yes, sir. Just like Dunkirk, sir. And with any luck you’ll have a full report by Thursday.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6e is 1>>
!Conclusion
“I suppose our superiors should have known better, but really, what on earth were you thinking, Shawcross?”
US and British cyber defence teams found the breach by which the B.L.Z. Bub hack had penetrated systems less than twenty-four hours after Shawcross had taken Kripov to Glibhurst’s ‘safehouse’. On learning that the attack had been sourced to a known third-party collective of activists called Ranzidio, the pair, who had failed to extract any information pertaining to the cyber attack from Kripov, were left with a grave decision to make. Kripov had spent his time in their hands bound and blindfolded, and Glibhurst had masked his Lancashire accent when interrogating him, yet there was no way of knowing if the Russian had ascertained the true nationality of his captors. If he had and they released him, it would have led to massive international recriminations, especially given the fact that the Russians were now considered to have had nothing to do with the entire episode. The alternative course of action was equally repugnant, but under the developing circumstances, Shawcross considered a totally unexplained disappearance to be less likely to escalate the situation.
The disappearance of a Russian diplomat had not gone unnoticed, however, and despite NATO’s insistence that they had nothing to do with the cyber attack – offering up Ranzidio as culprits – the Russians refused to believe them. They claimed that both Kripov’s disappearance and the cyber attack were conducted in conjunction with clandestine military activity at a fishing station within spitting distance of their border with Norway. On investigation, Norwegian local authorities found this activity to pertain to the transportation of illegal immigrants over the border into the EEA, but the Russians also refused to believe this, and had not only started their own cyber offensive, but also initiated a military conflict on the northern border. Skirmishes were ongoing.
Shawcross should have been coordinating British military interests in Norway with the rest of NATO. Instead he was in London, having been picked up by Norwegian forces, delivered to a British transport plane and delivered directly to the Ministry, where he was now being debriefed by Intelligence, who took the form of a humourless fellow Lieutenant Colonel named Featherstone. MI6, it transpired, kept their facilities in Oslo wired.
“It was a mistake,” Shawcross replied.
“You’ve noticed.”
“But once we had him…” Shawcross passed his gaze across the small, featureless office in which his demise was taking place. “Well, things would have got much worse if we’d let him go.”
“I’d rather not know how you managed to work that one out,” Featherstone said. “You were in one of the world’s most developed cities. Not some pile of rubble left to rot in the middle of a desert. You’ve managed to create an international incident out of a fishery. It’s quite a feat.”
“I was presented with a set of circumstances in which a decision had to be made and I made it,” Shawcross said. “As it happens, it was the wrong one.”
“As it ha—” Featherstone stopped himself and instead shook his head. “Well, you gave them what they were looking for, that’s for certain.”
“Who?”
“The activists of course. They were looking for disruptions and now, because of your cock-up, all hell’s breaking loose. Sides are being taken round the globe. This could easily escalate into full blown chaos. It’s more than they could ever have hoped for.”
“You’ll work it out.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence.”
“So what happens now?”
“Now? Well, we could simply hold up our hands to the whole affair and give you over, but as much as you deserve it, that wouldn’t help matters at all. No, we’ll continue to deny all knowledge of the episode and work the back channels in an attempt to clear up this mess. Your friend Glibhurst and his devious comrades-in-arms are already putting together the finer details of a hitherto unknown gambling habit from which your Russian friend suffered. I’m told this led to relations and, I’m afraid, not a little debt with some Turks of questionable repute. The Norwegians are more than keen to help bring the story to life at such time as is deemed suitable for the body’s discovery. That being the case, you’ll stay on in Oslo for the next month or two – though clearly relieved of the responsibilities you have so amply shown yourself incapable of shouldering. Then, when the time is right, you’ll be moved here for a yet-to-be-determined period of time, after which you’ll decide upon an early retirement, brought on, I suspect, by what I understand get referred to as your ‘Syrian experiences’.”
Featherstone gazed at Shawcross for response. When he received none, he looked down, picked up a pen and started jotting something down on a pad.
“Of course,” he said, “were you to mention any of this to anyone, things would be…” He looked up and smiled. “Well, much worse, let’s leave it at that, shall we? Off you go, then. I believe there’s work in Norway you need to pretend to be doing.”
Shawcross stood and went to the door, but hesitated before he opened it and tuned back to address Featherstone.
“Just tell me one thing, will you?” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Have there been any casualties?”
“Other than world peace, you mean?” Featherstone said and went back to his notes. “Goodbye, Lieutenant Colonel.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6f is 1>>
!Conclusion
//
‘Hello Martin. I am a dead drop. Pleased to meet you.’
//
Shawcross groaned. What kind of a fool did you have to be to think that anyone would be making a dead drop in this day and age.
He squeezed Nikolaev’s note into a ball and threw it in the empty glass on the table.
“Hey.”
Shawcross looked up. It was the barman.
“The system is okay now,” he said. “You can pay.”
Shawcross dragged himself to his feet and headed to the bar where he pulled out his phone and swiped it over the scanner.
The barman looked at the terminal and his eyes widened.
“Wow,” he said. “That is quite a tip. Thank you.”
Shawcross grunted and headed for the exit.
Outside, he looked up and down the icy street, but Nikolaev was nowhere to be seen.
With his breath forming crystals in the freezing air, Shawcross pulled up the lapels of his dress uniform and headed into the night.
@@.center;
X X X
@@
Shawcross decided the blind alley into which he had followed Nikolaev need not be mentioned when, the following day, he returned to his sterile office in the UK Embassy and took a call from the Minister. He felt foolish enough without having to relive the entire episode, and anyway, the situation had developed over-night and there were more pressing issues to discuss, amongst which were the reasons the two were speaking over a non-secure, civilian line.
Following reports of a unit of Russian soldiers moving on a fishery, NATO troops stationed at a base at Sør Varanger had been mobilised and positioned along the border. This had resulted in a number of skirmishes with Russian troops, with some injuries but no casualties. In addition, a NATO cyber offensive, led by the Americans, had begun overnight, to which the Russians had already responded in kind. Systems were reporting the arrival and departure of armaments and troops every five minutes and communications were going haywire, all of which meant that it was difficult for any side to make any movement with any amount of certainty. And it was not only the military who had suddenly arrived at this sense of stalemate. The stock markets in the US, Britain and Russia had all been suspended as well.
And that was about the entirety of Shawcross’s knowledge of the situation; that is to say, not enough, in his opinion, for a man who was supposed to be coordinating military operations in the country where it was all happening. He would, he thought, be far better off heading north, to Sør Varanger. Up there, he would be able to get a far better idea of what was actually going on and disseminate the information accordingly. He’d made this point to the Minister, without mentioning the fact that he would welcome the opportunity of returning to a military environment instead of pussy-footing around with diplomats and politicians, but the politician had declined his request. For the time being, therefore, he would remain in Oslo in order to discuss with other representatives of NATO their state of helpless ignorance.
“With the Russians crossing the border into Norwegian territory,” the Minister said, “it was assumed they were responsible for the B.L.Z. Bub attack, Lieutenant Colonel. Given their behaviour over the last decade and more, we couldn’t reasonably take them at their word when they claimed to have been similarly hit. They could easily be saying one thing while using the cover of the attack to do another. You know what they’re like.”
“I do, sir,” Shawcross said.
“As far as we can tell, they’re claiming that they were led to believe NATO troops were gathering near their border with Norway. That wasn’t true of course, at least not until they invaded the sovereign territory of a NATO country. But to be quite honest the data stream has become so muddied we can’t tell what’s coming from where. There’s just no way of telling. All we know is we need to keep pinning them back and I’m sure you’ll understand when I say I’m not comfortable divulging the details of how we’re doing that over this line. I’m reluctant to compromise our position up there in any way.”
“For God’s sake,” Shawcross exclaimed, all his frustration at the situation uncontrollably bursting from him in that one statement.
The line was completely silent. Shawcross thought momentarily that it had been cut, but then, on hearing a a quiet clearing of the throat from the other end, realised the Minister was waiting for Shawcross to gather himself.
Shawcross did so, slowly exhaling a long, deep breath. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “But how am I supposed to coordinate anything if I don’t know what’s going on? I thought we were meant to be winning the tech race.”
“Oh, we are, Lieutenant Colonel,” the Minister replied. “And everyone in NATO is hitting them with cyber attacks that make the mind boggle. But I’m afraid being technologically backwards has actually benefitted the Russians in this case. They still have one foot in the past, as I’m sure you know, and that means they still have the old tech and people trained to operate it. We simply do not have those resources any more.”
“So being Luddites is actually helping them.”
“Or being paranoid and poor, relatively speaking,” the Minister said. “Yes. But don’t worry. Us Brits are nothing if not resourceful.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“We’ve had our people scouring around for a method of communication that’s both secure and accurate, and we think we’ve found one. It’s slower than has become customary in recent times, but we think accurate and reliable is more important than fast, and this a technique that has served our country incredibly well over the years.”
“It sounds promising,” Shawcross said.
“Oh, it is,” the Minister confirmed. He was clearly excited.
“I’m listening.”
“Pigeons.”
Shawcross spluttered. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. “I thought you just said pigeons.”
“Oh, I did, Lieutenant Colonel,” the Minister exclaimed. “It transpires there’s a club of Norwegian enthusiasts. They breed the birds themselves and send letters to one another all over the country. It’s that marvellous?”
“Marvellous, sir,” Shawcross said flatly.
The line was quiet for a moment—apparently the Minister was thrown by the lack of enthusiasm in Shawcross’s tone. Shawcross himself, meanwhile, was wondering how best to put what he wanted to say. He decided he’d had it with diplomacy.
“You do realise that world peace is on the verge of collapse, don’t you, Minister?”
“Now, Lieutenant Colonel, let’s leave the hyperbole to the red tops, hmm?”
“And you’re proposing is handing over its fate to whom, as I understand it, are a bunch of... hobbyists?”
“It’ll be like Dunkirk, don’t you think?”
Shawcross sighed. “I can hardly wait, sir,” he said.
----
<<endif>><<if $sect6a is 1>>
!Conclusion
“You know what I’ve been thinking about, Martin?”
Twenty-four hours after Shawcross had arrived at the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, the picture had shifted significantly. Russian troops had taken up positions along the border and while no incursions had yet been made, with Moscow claiming both to have been hit by a NATO cyber attack and to have observed covert NATO operations taking place at a nearby fishery, forces at Sør Varanger, as well as other bases in the North, had been moved to a state of readiness. Britain, the US and Norway were all threatening to expel diplomats in light of Russia’s aggressive behaviour and, if President Zligov didn’t order a step-down, an increase in sanctions would follow.
Meanwhile, American and British cyber defence experts had successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. During their work, signposts suggesting Russia was responsible had been found. That being the case, if the Russians too had suffered an attack, it was thought highly likely that they had hit their own systems in order to justify the chest beating at the border. Quite why they would want to create the situation in the first place remained a mystery, however. So far the best guess was that it was part of their century-long strategy of maskirovka.
Despite wishing he had moved north to re-enter a military environment, with the comms returning back to normal, there was no call for Shawcross to go up there. He was better positioned remaining there in Oslo, where he could better continue his interaction with his opposite numbers from fellow NATO countries.
Now though, at the end of another long day, he was in the company of the British Embassy’s station chief, a young man called Clive Glibhurst, enjoying what both considered a well-earned drink in one of Norway’s idiosyncratic ‘brown’ pubs—bars housed in centuries-old wooden structures that had stood the test of time as well as the rising of the glass and concrete monoliths that commanded the skyline of Oslo in the 2040s.
Glibhurst was of the new breed that had started to take over secret intelligence. The era of the amoral extrovert adept at manipulating people in person had ebbed in a world where people communicated more remotely and the over-confident raconteurs had been replaced by people like Glibhurst – introverts who understood both the technology and techniques of online socialisation and exploitation. He was obdurate and a faint odour of halitosis followed him wherever he went, so while it would be a stretch to say Glibhurst was a breath of fresh air, Shawcross appreciated the injection of chaos he brought to the staid Ambassadorial world, and tended to gravitate his way for conversation.
The MI6 man had just returned from the bar with two more bottles of beer.
“I dread to think,” Shawcross replied and took a sip.
“Fish,” Glibhurst announced.
“Do I really want to hear this, Clive?”
The MI6 man grinned. “Just bear with me.”
“I always do.”
“Touché, Private.”
“Get on with it, will you?”
“So, we’re working on the understanding that the Russians hit both us and themselves, right?”
“That seems to be the situation, yes.”
“Because of evidence found in the hack that suggested Russian authorship, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what if I said to you that any outfit with the chops to penetrate military, governmental and civilian systems the way this B.L.Z. Bub did would never be stupid enough to leave a trail behind.”
Shawcross shrugged. “And yet, experts at both GCHQ and the Pentagon say they did.”
“And they won’t be wrong, right?” Glibhurst said giddily.
“And they won’t be wrong.”
“So you put those two facts together and what do you learn?”
“That you’re wrong?” Shawcross said.
“Or…?” Glibhurst’s eyes widened behind his thick specs as he held his hands up as though weighing a couple of moons against one another.
Shawcross shook his head. “I don’t know, Clive,” Shawcross said. “Look, I’ve got to get to the Ministry of Defence, all right?”
“God,” Glibhurst exclaimed. “How did you ever become an officer, man? It tells you that they left the trail on purpose, of course.”
“What?” Shawcross said, his mind already on his meeting. “Why would the Russians… oh, I see.” He smiled. “You don’t think it was the Russians who left the trail. You think it was someone else… what? Setting them up?”
“Isn’t that more likely?”
Shawcross didn’t answer, instead asking: “It doesn’t have anything to do with fish, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Aha—but it does. You’re just thinking too conventionally,” Glibhurst announced. “If the hack can’t be trusted, and let’s face it, even the conventional thinkers of central government might make that leap, how are you meant to find out who’s behind it?”
“You’re the one paid to be unconventional around here.”
“You look at the bigger picture and see who stood to benefit. Look. No one seems to know why the Russians did all this. The best guess so far is that it’s just an extension of their ongoing maskirovka campaign, right?” Glibhurst took a swig of his beer, then drew a small circle in the air with it as he added, “But spin that globe around a second, and who is it that chose the very moment everyone else on the world power-broker scene was busy Beelzebubbing to move into contested South Sea territories? Hmm?”
“You think China was behind this?” Shawcross scoffed.
Glibhurst frowned. It was what he had been leading up to. His big announcement. The culmination of his theory. Shawcross’s sceptical tone left him frosting over like the coming of the Norwegian winter.
“I’m sorry, Clive,” Shawcross said. “I… I guess I was just enjoying being back on a base, and now here I am back here having to deal with all the bloody diplomacy again. I still don’t see what this has got to do with fish, though.”
The grin returned to Glibhurst’s hairy face. “It’s got everything to do with fish,” he said. “Because fish is what they deal with at a fishery. And it was a fishery where Moscow thought NATO troops were gathering. But the suspicious activity wasn’t NATO troops, it was fishermen. Nothing too suspicious about that. Only these fishermen were processing a catch in the middle of the night and at their most remote station. That was because they were going way over quota to meet a special order. And where do you think that special order was going? The house of Prince Mahmoud Bin Al Q’rami, that’s where. The Prince is laying on a banquet, apparently. Celebrating his recent purchase of half a dozen Chengdu J-90 fighter jets from Beijing.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to pass your theory on to the Norwegians,” Shawcross said.
“I’m sure it’ll help them sleep soundly at night to know their national security is just a pawn move in the chess game of Chinese foreign policy,” Glibhurst said.
“I’m sure it will.”
Shawcross raised his bottle.
“Cheers.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6b is 1>>
!Conclusion
“You know what I’ve been thinking about, Martin?”
Twenty-four hours after Shawcross had arrived in the North, the picture had shifted significantly. Russian troops had taken up positions along the border and while no incursions had yet been made, with Moscow claiming both to have been hit by a NATO cyber attack and to have observed covert NATO operations taking place at a nearby fishery, Sør Varanger had been moved to a state of readiness. Britain, the US and Norway were all threatening to expel diplomats in light of Russia’s aggressive behaviour and, if President Zligov didn’t order a step-down, an increase in sanctions would follow.
Meanwhile, American and British cyber defence experts had successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. During their work, signposts suggesting Russia was responsible had been found. That being the case, if the Russians too had suffered an attack, it was thought highly likely that they had hit their own systems in order to justify the chest beating at the border. Quite why they would want to create the situation in the first place remained a mystery, however. So far the best guess was that it was part of their century-long strategy of maskirovka.
Despite revelling in a return to the military environment, with the comms returning back to normal, Shawcross had been ordered back down to Oslo, where he could better interact with representatives of both NATO in general and more specifically the Norwegian Military Liaison Officer, Colonel Per Rosenborg, whom he was not looking forward to meeting, as he would have to explain heading north without even trying to see him first to coordinate responses.
But that was tomorrow’s joy. Now, at the end of another long day, he was in the company of the British Embassy’s station chief, a young man called Clive Glibhurst, enjoying what both considered a well-earned drink in one of Norway’s idiosyncratic ‘brown’ pubs – bars housed in centuries-old wooden structures that had stood the test of time as well as the rising of the glass and concrete monoliths that commanded the skyline of Oslo in the 2040s.
Glibhurst was of the new breed that had started to take over secret intelligence. The era of the amoral extrovert adept at manipulating people in person had ebbed in a world where people communicated more remotely and the over-confident raconteurs had been replaced by people like Glibhurst – introverts who understood both the technology and techniques of online socialisation and exploitation. He was obdurate and a faint odour of halitosis followed him wherever he went, so while it would be a stretch to say Glibhurst was a breath of fresh air, Shawcross appreciated the injection of chaos he brought to the staid Ambassadorial world, and tended to gravitate his way for conversation. The MI6 man had just returned from the bar with two more bottles of beer.
“I dread to think,” Shawcross replied and took a sip.
“Fish,” Glibhurst announced.
“Do I really want to hear this, Clive?”
The station chief grinned. “Just bear with me.”
“I always do.”
“Touché, Private.”
“Get on with it, will you?”
“So, we’re working on the understanding that the Russians hit both us and themselves, right?”
“That seems to be the situation, yes.”
“Because of evidence found in the hack that suggested Russian authorship, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what if I said to you that any outfit with the chops to penetrate military, governmental and civilian systems the way this B.L.Z. Bub did would never be stupid enough to leave a trail behind.”
Shawcross shrugged. “And yet, experts at both GCHQ and the Pentagon say they did.”
“And they won’t be wrong, right?” Glibhurst said giddily.
“And they won’t be wrong.”
“So you put those two facts together and what do you learn?”
“That you’re wrong?” Shawcross said.
“Or…?” Glibhurst’s eyes widened behind his thick specs as he held his hands up as though weighing a couple of melons against one another.
Shawcross shook his head. “I don’t know, Clive,” Shawcross said. “Look, I’ve got to get to the Ministry of Defence, all right?”
“God,” Glibhurst exclaimed. “How did you ever become an officer, man? It tells you that they left the trail on purpose, of course.”
“What?” Shawcross said, his mind already on his meeting. “Why would the Russians… oh, I see.” He smiled. “You don’t think it was the Russians who left the trail. You think it was someone else… what? Setting them up?”
“Isn’t that more likely?”
Shawcross didn’t answer, instead asking: “It doesn’t have anything to do with fish, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Aha – but it does. You’re just thinking too conventionally,” Glibhurst announced. “If the hack can’t be trusted, and let’s face it, even the conventional thinkers of central government might make that leap, how are you meant to find out who’s behind it?”
“You’re the one paid to be unconventional around here.”
“You look at the bigger picture and see who stood benefit. Look. No one seems to know why the Russians did all this. The best guess so far is that it’s just an extension of their ongoing maskirovka campaign, right?” Glibhurst took a swig of his beer, then drew a small circle in the air with it as he added, “But spin that globe around a second, and who is it that chose the very moment everyone else on the world power-broker scene was busy Beelzebubbing to move into contested South Sea territories? Hmm?”
“You think China was behind this?” Shawcross scoffed.
Glibhurst frowned. It was what he had been leading up to. His big announcement. The culmination of his theory. Shawcross’s sceptical tone left him frosting over like the coming of the Norwegian winter.
“I’m sorry, Clive,” Shawcross said. “I… I guess I was just enjoying being back on a base, and now here I am back here having to deal with all the bloody diplomacy again. “I still don’t see what this has got to do with fish, though.”
The grin returned to Glibhurst’s hairy face. “It’s got everything to do with fish,” he said. “Because fish is what they deal with at a fishery. And it was a fishery where Moscow thought NATO troops were gathering. But the suspicious activity wasn’t NATO troops, it was fishermen. Nothing too suspicious about that. Only these fishermen were processing a catch in the middle of the night and at their most remote station. That was because they were going way over quota to meet a special order. And where do you think that special order was going? The house of Prince Mahmoud Bin Al Q’rami, that’s where. The Prince is laying on a banquet, apparently. Celebrating his recent purchase of half a dozen Chengdu J-90 fighter jets from Beijing.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to pass your theory on to the Norwegians,” Shawcross said.
“I’m sure it’ll help them sleep soundly at night to know their national security is just a pawn move in the chess game of Chinese foreign policy,” Glibhurst said.
“I’m sure it will.”
Shawcross raised his bottle.
“Cheers.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6c is 1>>
!Conclusion
“Do you know what I’ve been thinking about, Martin?” Glibhurst said, returning from the bar with two more beers.
Twenty-four hours after Shawcross had arrived at the Norwegian Ministry of Defence, the picture had shifted significantly. Russian troops had taken up positions along the border and while no incursions had yet been made, with Moscow claiming both to have been hit by a NATO cyber attack and to have observed covert NATO operations taking place at a nearby fishery, forces at Sør Varanger, as well as other bases in the North, had been moved to a state of readiness. Britain, the US and Norway were all threatening to expel diplomats in light of Russia’s aggressive behaviour and, if President Zligov didn’t order a step-down, an increase in sanctions would follow.
Meanwhile, American and British cyber defence experts had successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. During their work, signposts suggesting Russia was responsible had been found. That being the case, if the Russians too had suffered an attack, it was thought highly likely that they had hit their own systems in order to justify the chest beating at the border. Quite why they would want to create the situation in the first place remained a mystery, however. So far the best guess was that it was part of their century-long strategy of maskirovka.
Despite wishing he had moved North to re-enter a military environment, with the comms returning back to normal, there was no call for Shawcross to go up there. He was better positioned remaining there in Oslo, where he could better continue his interaction with his opposite numbers from fellow NATO countries.
Now though, at the end of another long day, he was back in the company of the British Embassy’s young station chief, enjoying what both considered a well-earned drink in one of Norway’s idiosyncratic ‘brown’ pubs—bars housed in centuries-old fashioned wooden structures that had stood the test of time as well as the sprouting all around of the glass and concrete monoliths that dominated the skyline of Oslo in the 2040s.
“I dread to think,” Shawcross replied, taking a swig from his bottle.
“Fish,” Glibhurst announced.
“Do I really want to hear this, Clive?”
The MI6 man grinned. “Just bear with me.”
“I always do.”
“Touché, Private.”
“Get on with it, will you?”
“So, we’re working on the understanding that the Russians hit both us and themselves, right?”
“That seems to be the situation, yes.”
“Because of evidence found in the hack that suggested Russian authorship, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what if I said to you that any outfit with the chops to penetrate military, governmental and civilian systems the way this B.L.Z. Bub did would never be stupid enough to leave a trail behind.”
Shawcross shrugged. “And yet, experts at both GCHQ and the Pentagon say they did.”
“And they won’t be wrong, right?” Glibhurst said giddily.
“And they won’t be wrong.”
“So you put those two facts together and what do you learn?”
“That you’re wrong?” Shawcross said.
“Or…?” Glibhurst’s eyes widened behind his thick specs as he held his hands up as though weighing a couple of moons against one another.
Shawcross shook his head. “I don’t know, Clive,” Shawcross said. “Look, I’ve got to get to the Ministry of Defence, all right?”
“God,” Glibhurst exclaimed. “How did you ever become an officer, man? It tells you that they left the trail on purpose, of course.”
“What?” Shawcross said, his mind already on his meeting. “Why would the Russians… oh, I see.” He smiled. “You don’t think it was the Russians who left the trail. You think it was someone else… what? Setting them up?”
“Isn’t that more likely?”
Shawcross didn’t answer, instead asking: “It doesn’t have anything to do with fish, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Aha—but it does. You’re just thinking too conventionally,” Glibhurst announced.
“If the hack can’t be trusted, and let’s face it, even the conventional thinkers of central government might make that leap, how are you meant to find out who’s behind it?”
“You’re the one paid to be unconventional around here.”
“You look at the bigger picture and see who stood benefit. Look. No one seems to know why the Russians did all this. The best guess so far is that it’s just an extension of their ongoing maskirovka campaign, right?” Glibhurst took a swig of his beer, then drew a small circle in the air with it as he added, “But spin that globe around a second, and who is it that chose the very moment everyone else on the world power broker scene was busy Beelzebubbing to move into contested South Sea territories? Hmm?”
“You think China was behind this?” Shawcross scoffed.
Glibhurst frowned. It was what he had been leading up to. His big announcement. The culmination of his theory. Shawcross’s sceptical tone left him frosting over like the coming of the Norwegian winter.
“I’m sorry, Clive,” Shawcross said. “I think I’m just bored of having to deal with all the bloody diplomacy instead of being out there, you know.” He took another mouthful of beer. “I still don’t see what this has got to do with fish, though,” he added.
The grin returned to Glibhurst’s hairy face. “It’s got everything to do with fish,” he said. “Because fish is what they deal with at a fishery. And it was a fishery where Moscow thought NATO troops were gathering. But the suspicious activity wasn’t NATO troops – it was fishermen. Nothing too suspicious about that. Only these fishermen were processing a catch in the middle of the night and at their most remote station. That was because they were going way over quota to meet a special order. And where do you think that special order was going? The house of Prince Mahmoud Bin Al Q’rami, that’s where. The Prince is laying on a banquet, apparently. Celebrating his recent purchase of half a dozen Chengdu J-90 fighter jets from Beijing.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to pass your theory on to the Norwegians when I see them in the morning,” Shawcross said.
“I’m sure it’ll help them sleep soundly at night to know their national security is just a pawn move in the chess game of Chinese foreign policy,” Glibhurst said.
“I’m sure it will.”
Shawcross raised his bottle.
“Cheers.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6d is 1>>
!Conclusion
“Do you know what I’ve been thinking about, Martin?” Glibhurst said, returning from the bar with two more beers.
Twenty-four hours after Shawcross had arrived in the North, the picture had shifted significantly. Russian troops had taken up positions along the border and while no incursions had yet been made, with Moscow claiming both to have been hit by a NATO cyber attack and to have observed covert NATO operations taking place at a nearby fishery, Sør Varanger had been moved to a state of readiness. Britain, the US and Norway were all threatening to expel diplomats in light of Russia’s aggressive behaviour and, if President Zligov didn’t order a step-down, an increase in sanctions would follow.
Meanwhile, American and British cyber defence experts had successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. During their work, signposts suggesting Russia was responsible had been found. That being the case, if the Russians too had suffered an attack, it was thought highly likely that they had hit their own systems in order to justify the chest beating at the border. Quite why they would want to create the situation in the first place remained a mystery, however. So far the best guess was that it was part of their century-long strategy of maskirovka.
Despite revelling in a return to the military environment, with the comms returning back to normal, Shawcross had been ordered back down to Oslo, where he could better interact with representatives of both NATO in general and more specifically the Norwegian Military Liaison Officer, Colonel Per Rosenborg, whom he was not looking forward to meeting, as he would have to explain heading north without even trying to see him first to coordinate responses.
But that was tomorrow’s joy. Now, at the end of another long day, he was in the company of the British Embassy’s young station chief, enjoying what both considered a well-earned drink in one of Norway’s idiosyncratic ‘brown’ pubs—bars housed in centuries-old wooden structures that had stood the test of time as well as the rising of the glass and concrete monoliths that commanded the skyline of Oslo in the 2040s.
“I dread to think,” Shawcross replied, taking a swig from his bottle.
“Fish,” Glibhurst announced.
“Do I really want to hear this, Clive?”
The MI6 man grinned. “Just bear with me.”
“I always do.”
“Touché, Private.”
“Get on with it, will you?”
“So, we’re working on the understanding that the Russians hit both us and themselves, right?”
“That seems to be the situation, yes.”
“Because of evidence found in the hack that suggested Russian authorship, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what if I said to you that any outfit with the chops to penetrate military, governmental and civilian systems the way this B.L.Z. Bub did would never be stupid enough to leave a trail behind.”
Shawcross shrugged. “And yet, experts at both GCHQ and the Pentagon say they did.”
“And they won’t be wrong, right?” Glibhurst said giddily.
“And they won’t be wrong.”
“So you put those two facts together and what do you learn?”
“That you’re wrong?” Shawcross said.
“Or…?” Glibhurst’s eyes widened behind his thick specs as he held his hands up as though weighing a couple of moons against one another.
Shawcross shook his head. “I don’t know, Clive,” Shawcross said. “Look, I’ve got to get to the Ministry of Defence, all right?”
“God,” Glibhurst exclaimed. “How did you ever become an officer, man? It tells you that they left the trail on purpose, of course.”
“What?” Shawcross said, his mind already on his meeting. “Why would the Russians… oh, I see.” He smiled. “You don’t think it was the Russians who left the trail. You think it was someone else… what? Setting them up?”
“Isn’t that more likely?”
Shawcross didn’t answer, instead asking: “It doesn’t have anything to do with fish, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Aha—but it does. You’re just thinking too conventionally,” Glibhurst announced. “If the hack can’t be trusted, and let’s face it, even the conventional thinkers of central government might make that leap, how are you meant to find out who’s behind it?”
“You’re the one paid to be unconventional around here.”
“You look at the bigger picture and see who stood benefit. Look. No one seems to know why the Russians did all this. The best guess so far is that it’s just an extension of their ongoing maskirovka campaign, right?” Glibhurst took a swig of his beer, then drew a small circle in the air with it as he added, “But spin that globe around a second, and who is it that chose the very moment everyone else on the world power broker scene was busy Beelzebubbing to move into contested South Sea territories? Hmm?”
“You think China was behind this?” Shawcross scoffed.
Glibhurst frowned. It was what he had been leading up to. His big announcement. The culmination of his theory. Shawcross’s sceptical tone left him frosting over like the coming of the Norwegian winter.
“I’m sorry, Clive,” Shawcross said. “I… I guess I was just enjoying being back on a base, and now here I am back here having to deal with all the bloody diplomacy again. “I still don’t see what this has got to do with fish, though.”
The grin returned to Glibhurst’s hairy face. “It’s got everything to do with fish,” he said. “Because fish is what they deal with at a fishery. And it was a fishery where Moscow thought NATO troops were gathering. But the suspicious activity wasn’t NATO troops, it was fishermen. Nothing too suspicious about that. Only these fishermen were processing a catch in the middle of the night and at their most remote station. That was because they were going way over quota to meet a special order. And where do you think that special order was going? The house of Prince Mahmoud Bin Al Q’rami, that’s where. The Prince is laying on a banquet, apparently. Celebrating his recent purchase of half a dozen Chengdu J-90 fighter jets from Beijing.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to pass your theory on to the Norwegians when I see them in the morning,” Shawcross said.
“I’m sure it’ll help them sleep soundly at night to know their national security is just a pawn move in the chess game of Chinese foreign policy,” Glibhurst said.
“I’m sure it will.”
Shawcross raised his bottle.
“Cheers.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6e is 1>>
!Conclusion
“You’re a lucky man, Shawcross.”
Once Shawcross had dropped Kripov, out cold and blind-drunk, in a suburban park, he took a roundabout route and met Glibhurst at the embassy. There, the MI6 man connected them to London via a freshly generated secure line and, despite the need they both felt to be on the ground in Norway, the pair had been ordered to take a seat on the next British transport plane out of Scandinavia and make their way to Whitehall. By the time they left, the Russians had stopped short of crossing the border, and were instead making a hullabaloo about the kidnapping of one of their diplomats. It seemed Glibhurst’s attempt at Russian-accented English had sufficiently confused the situation, as no fingers were yet being pointed directly at the British, and the anonymous tip off that the Russian had been found suffering from the effects of too much vodka in a park seemed to put the Russian Embassy on the back foot. Meanwhile, the American and British cyber defence experts successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. On this occasion, though, the powers-that-be did not want to risk any form of communication other than person-to-person. So it was that Shawcross and Glibhurst, one in his army uniform, the other in a lumberjack shirt and jeans, were to be found outside a room in the Foreign Office waiting for a personal audience with the Minister himself.
An hour passed before a bespectacled civil servant ushered them through the doors into a large state room. It was an impressively lavish setting for a meeting between three people.
The Foreign Secretary was standing by one of the windows, and welcomed them back to London as his assistant retreated. The Minister was a small man in his sixties known for his glassy blue eyes and a quiet obstinacy that had seen him serve, in various capacities, in three successive governments. He asked the two men to retell the story of what they had discovered over the previous couple of days.
“I know, sir.”
“Cloning his phone would have done the job.”
“We didn’t know that at the time, sir. A decision had to be made on the spot, and I made it. That Mr Kripov subsequently cracked and revealed the extent of the plan you can put down to Glibhurst’s singular interrogation skills.”
“Very effective, Mr Glibhurst,” the Minister said, “if unconventional.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“That wasn’t a compliment, Clive.”
“No, sir.”
“So the Russians engineered the entire episode, eh?” the Minister reiterated.
“So it transpired, sir,” Shawcross said. “Hit their own forces as well as ours so they could claim provocation for the trouble they caused up there. And all as a smokescreen to keep us busy while they moved further into Kazakh territory.”
“They have Petropavlovsk now,” Glibhurst said.
“I’m well aware of the state of international foreign affairs, thank you, Clive,” the Minister said. “You might even say it’s my job to know.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Minister addressed Shawcross. “And they even ordered the fish.”
“It was an especially large order, sir,” Shawcross explained. “It took the fishing company well over quota, which ensured they would process the catch at night and at their most remote station.”
“Bloody elaborate,” the Minister mused.
“Maskirovka, sir,” Glibhurst said.
“Bless you.”
“You do so many disparate things that the playing field is fogged,” Glibhurst expanded. “Your opposition don’t know what your real intentions are until the fog’s settled, by when it’s too late.”
“It’s a tactic, sir,” Shawcross said.
The Minister’s face dropped. “And mine was a joke, gentlemen,” he said.
“Are you sure?” Glibhurst said.
“Very good, sir,” Shawcross interceded. “Sir, if you don’t mind my asking, what happens now?”
“Well, we’ll be working in line with the Americans as normal. Upping the sanctions I should think, expelling a few diplomats, probably your friend Kripov amongst them.”
“With all due respect, sir, I meant what about us.”
“Aha, well that’s another question, isn’t it?” The Minister’s eyes lit up at the thought. “Much as you ought to be removed from Oslo, to do so would be tantamount to admission. So as long as the Russians are accusing all and sundry, you stay firmly in place. For the time being anyway, because it seems to me that you make rather an effective team. As such there are places your direct approach is more likely to prove useful than Scandinavia.”
Shawcross and Glibhurst looked at the Minister questioningly. “Sir?” Shawcross said.
“We’re having what’s being called a reshuffle in Beijing,” the Minister explained. “But between you and me it’s more of a clean out really. You two are heading out there in exactly three weeks time.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6f is 1>>
!Conclusion
The next were a revealing twenty-four hours in the British Embassy in Oslo.
The contents of Kripov’s phone proved a goldmine of information and, it turned out, disinformation. Moreover, the line associated with the Russian DA remained in place, as Shawcross had hoped would be the case, and several conversations Kripov subsequently conducted offered further valuable intelligence. In light of all this, despite their desire to be on the ground in Norway, both Shawcross and Glibhurst had been ordered to take a seat on the next British transport plane out of Scandinavia and make their way to Whitehall. By the time they left, government cyber defence had successfully penetrated the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back, but on this occasion the powers-that-be did not want to risk any form of communication other than person-to-person. So it was that the two men, one in his army uniform, the other in a lumberjack shirt and jeans, were to be found outside a room in the Foreign Office waiting for a personal audience with the Minister himself.
An hour passed before a civil servant ushered them through the doors into a large state room. It was an impressively lavish setting for a meeting between three people.
The Foreign Secretary was standing by one of the windows, and welcomed them back to London as his assistant retreated. The Minister was a small man in his 60s known for his glassy blue eyes and a quiet obstinacy that had seen him serve, in various capacities, in three successive governments. He asked the two men to retell the story of what they had discovered over the previous couple of days. He listened attentively, then reiterated.
“So the Russians were behind it, and hit their own forces as well as ours so they could claim provocation for the trouble they caused up there.”
“Yes, sir. They’ve still got forces on the border waiting for us to make the wrong move.”
“And the fish?”
“Was an especially large order, also made by the Russians, that took the fishing company over quota and ensured they would process the catch at night and in their most remote station.”
“But we haven’t a clue why they did all this.”
“No, sir,” Shawcross said. “Not yet. And we may never. It could be they were hoping we’d make the first move and use it as a springboard for something else. Maybe it would give President Zligov a chance to look protective of his people. A show of strength without being the aggressors. He isn’t exactly the bear-wrestling type, after all.”
“My money’s on maskirovka, for what it’s worth,” Glibhurst said.
“Who?” the Minister said.
“It’s a tactic, sir,” Shawcross said. “You do so many different things the opposition doesn’t know what your real intent is. In this case, as usual, that’s us and the rest of NATO.”
“Slippery buggers, aren’t they?”
“I guess we all are, sir,” Glibhurst said.
The Minister looked at him questioningly.
“We still have ears on the phone,” Shawcross clarified.
“Ah, yes. Point taken.”
“Sir, if you don’t mind my asking,” Shawcross said. “What happens now?”
The Minister’s eyebrows rose wearily. “Oh, we’ll work in line with the Americans as usual,” he said, “I should think we’ll probably up the sanctions against them for the cyber attack. Have the Norwegians expel some diplomats. That sort of thing.”
He sighed, the strain of the situation finding its way into creases around his baby blues. “Tensions are higher than we’d like, Martin,” he said. “But they’d have been a measure higher had you two not brought this intelligence in. It seems Oslo’s not the mountain retreat you were after, hmm?”
“With all due respect, sir, it wasn’t me who was after it.”
“No. Quite. Well, it seems you’re in pretty good working order to me. I should think we’ll have you back in the saddle before long, hmm?”
“Thank you, sir. I’d like that.”
“For the time being though, it’s coordinating with the Norwegians.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” he said. “But I admire your optimism. That’ll be all, gentlemen.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6g is 1>>
!Conclusion
‘Outside. Now.’ was all that was written on the paper.
Shawcross scrunched it into a ball and immediately got to his feet and walked towards the exit.
“Hey,” the barman said, seeing him heading for the door. “The system is ok now.”
Irritated by the delay, Shawcross marched back to the bar pulling out his phone and swiping it over the scanner.
The barman looked at the terminal and his eyes widened.
“Wow,” he said. “That is quite a tip. Thank you.”
But Shawcross didn’t have time to question it. He made for the door and headed outside.
He looked left and right for Nikolaev, but the frozen street was more or less deserted. A few G-cabs were humming along the way, but Shawcross could see that they were empty. Nikolaev was nowhere to be seen.
Shawcross swore under his breath and turned to re-enter the bar, when he heard a sound coming from the alley-way up the side of Knuskroken. It could have been a cat hunting in the dustbins, but it was followed by a low and very human clearing of the throat. The narrow street was swallowed in darkness. Even as he approached, Shawcross could see nothing; no-one. But as he reached the mouth of the path, an arm appeared and he was hauled into the shadows.
He struggled to break free, and did so easily. He was by far the stronger, and grabbed his assailant by the collars and pushed him against the wall. It was Nikolaev. He was shivering.
“We couldn’t talk in there,” he said.
“Talk about what?” Shawcross said, relaxing his grip slightly. “What’s going on, Dimitri?”
“Let go of me and I’ll tell you everything.”
@@.center;
X X X
@@
“So I let him go, and he told me.”
As soon as Shawcross had parted ways with Nikolaev less than five minutes later, he went to the British Embassy. The MI6 station chief, a young mole-like man called Glibhurst, had heard about the cyber attack and was already on site. Glibhurst was of the new breed that had started to take over secret intelligence. The era of the amoral extrovert adept at manipulating people in person was ebbing, and as the world increasingly communicated remotely, the over-confident raconteurs were being replaced by people like Glibhurst, introverts who understood both the technology and techniques of online socialisation and exploitation. It was all part of the same process that had hit the stockbrokers back at the dawn of digitisation forty or fifty years ago, that had seen the likes of Jobs and Gates become CEOs of the world’s largest companies, and Amazon become the official sponsor of the Democrat Party.
Glibhurst connected Shawcross to London via a freshly generated secure line and, despite the need he felt to be on the ground in Norway, Shawcross had been ordered to take a seat on the next British transport plane out of Scandinavia and make his way to Whitehall. By the time he left, government cyber defence had successfully penetrated the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back, but on this occasion the powers-that-be did not want to risk any form of communication other than person-to-person. Thus, less than twenty-four hours after hearing what Nikolaev had to say in the cover of night in that deserted snowbound cemetery, Shawcross was outside a room in the Foreign Office waiting for a personal audience with the Minister himself.
An hour passed before a civil servant ushered him through the doors into a large state room. It was an impressively lavish setting for a meeting between two people.
The Foreign Secretary was standing by one of the windows, and welcomed Shawcross back to London as his assistant retreated. The Minister was a small man in his 60s known for his glassy blue eyes and a quiet obstinacy that had seen him serve, in various capacities, in three successive governments. He asked Shawcross to retell his story of the previous evening and had listened attentively.
“They did their research, sir,” Shawcross said. “They knew that if they made an order big enough, the company wouldn’t be able to resist, despite going way over quota. So they’d process it at night and at their most remote station. Then the Russian cybers hit both sides, creating the confusion that gave the Chinese the opportunity to move their carriers into the South Seas. America and the rest of us were too busy with Russia to notice.”
“And now they’ve claimed the straits, it’ll be hard to remove them,” the Minister murmured.
“You have to hand it to them.”
The Minister’s face twitched. Shawcross got the feeling he didn’t like handing anything to anyone.
“And your chap…?”
“Nikolaev.”
“He just told you all of this, did he?” he said circumspectly.
“He didn’t like Russia being a puppet, sir,” Shawcross said.
“But Russia’s been on Beijing’s leash for thirty years or more.”
Shawcross shrugged. “He’s young,” he said. “And I think they keep their military on a need-to-know basis. This was the first he’d learned of it. Kripov, the DA, gave him the note at the reception and told him to make the drop. He didn’t like the plan a bit. That’s what they were arguing about at the reception.”
“An idealist.”
“God forbid, sir.”
“Quite.”
“But also a soldier, and Kripov pulled rank. Then Nikolaev spotted me at the bar, saw his chance to avert an international incident and took it.”
The Minster nodded slowly and the two men were quiet for a moment, but before it got awkward, Shawcross said, “Sir, if you don’t mind my asking, what happens now?”
The Minister’s eyebrows rose wearily. “Oh, we’ll work in line with the Americans as usual,” he said, “supporting all those smaller, friendly countries in the east, you can be sure of that. And we’ll keep our eyes open in the Arctic, too, of course, the borders well-patrolled – just in case your chap wasn’t spreading a little disinformation of his own, hmm? He and the DA will be asked to leave, I should think, maybe some other so-called diplomats. And we’ll probably up the sanctions for the cyber attack.”
He sighed, the strain of the situation finding its way into the creases around his startling eyes. “Tensions are higher than we’d like, Martin,” he said. “But they’d have been a measure higher had you not brought this intelligence in. It seems Oslo’s not the mountain retreat you were after, hmm?”
“With all due respect, sir, it wasn’t me who was after it.”
“No. Quite. Well, it seems you’re in pretty good working order to me. I should think we’ll have you back in the saddle before long.”
“Thank you, sir. I’d like that.”
“For the time being though, it’s coordinating with the Norwegians.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” he said. “But I admire your optimism.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6h is 1>>
!Conclusion
Shawcross ran towards the cemetery, the smooth soles of his dress-shoes skidding all over the place in the snow. It took all his powers of balance to stay on his feet and it only got worse when he arrived at the entrance to the expansive graveyard. The paths had been ploughed leaving only an uneven ice covering the ground. As he tried to turn right through the gate and onto the central path, he slipped to one side and only prevented himself from toppling over by grabbing the trunk of one of the pines that lined the walkways. Steadying himself, he gazed up the faintly lit path. There was not a soul upon it. No-one.
But then, from behind him, he heard a voice speak in Russian-tinged English.
“I see you got my message, Shawcross,” Nikolaev said.
@@.center;
X X X
@@
As soon as Shawcross had parted ways with Nikolaev less than five minutes later, he went to the British Embassy. The MI6 station chief, a young mole-like young man called Glibhurst, had heard about the cyber attack and was already on site. Glibhurst was of the new breed that had started to take over secret intelligence. The era of the amoral extrovert adept at manipulating people in person was ebbing, and as the world increasingly communicated remotely, the over-confident raconteurs were being replaced by people like him, introverts who understood both the technology and techniques of online socialisation and exploitation. It was all part of the same process that had hit the stockbrokers back at the dawn of digitisation forty or fifty years ago, that had seen the likes of Jobs and Gates become CEOs of the world’s largest companies, and Amazon become the official sponsor of the Democrat Party. Glibhurst connected Shawcross to London via a freshly generated secure line and, despite the need he felt to be on the ground in Norway, Shawcross had been ordered to take a seat on the next British transport plane out of Scandinavia and make his way to Whitehall. By the time he left, government cyber defence had successfully penetrated the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back, but on this occasion the powers-that-be did not want to risk any form of communication other than person-to-person. Thus, less than twenty-four hours after hearing what Nikolaev had to say in the cover of night in that deserted snowbound cemetery, Shawcross was outside a room in the Foreign Office waiting for a personal audience with the Minister himself.
An hour passed before a civil servant ushered him through the doors into a large state room. It was an impressively lavish setting for a meeting between two people.
The Foreign Secretary was standing by one of the windows, and welcomed Shawcross back to London as his assistant retreated. The Minister was a small man in his 60s known for his glassy blue eyes and a quiet obstinacy that had seen him serve, in various capacities, in three successive governments. He asked Shawcross to retell his story of the previous evening and listened attentively.
“They did their research, sir,” Shawcross said. “They knew that if they made an order big enough, the company wouldn’t be able to resist, despite going way over quota. So they’d process it at night and at their most remote station. Then the Russian cybers hit both sides, creating the confusion that gave the Chinese the opportunity to move their carriers into the South Seas. America and the rest of us were too busy with Russia to notice.”
“And now they’ve claimed the straits, it’ll be hard to remove them,” the Minister murmured.
“You have to hand it to them.”
The Minister’s face twitched. Shawcross got the feeling he didn’t like handing anything to anyone.
“And your chap…?”
“Nikolaev.”
“He just told you all of this, did he?” he said circumspectly.
“He didn’t like Russia being a puppet, sir,” Shawcross said.
“But Russia’s been on Beijing’s leash for thirty years or more.”
Shawcross shrugged. “He’s young,” he said. “And I think they keep their military on a need-to-know basis. This was the first he’d learned of it. He didn’t like the plan a bit. That’s what the argument I saw between him and Kripov at the reception was about.”
“An idealist.”
“God forbid, sir.”
“Quite.”
The pair were quiet for a moment, but before it got awkward, Shawcross said, “Sir, if you don’t mind my asking, what happens now?”
The Minister’s eyebrows rose wearily. “Oh, we’ll work in line with the Americans as usual,” he said, “supporting all those smaller, friendly countries in the east, you can be sure of that. And we’ll keep our eyes open in the Arctic, too, of course, the borders well-patrolled – just in case your chap wasn’t spreading a little disinformation of his own, hmm? He and the DA will be asked to leave, I should think, maybe some other so-called diplomats. And we’ll probably up the sanctions for the cyber attack.”
He sighed, the strain of the situation finding its way into creases around his baby blues. “Tensions are higher than we’d like, Martin,” he said. “But they’d have been a measure higher had you not brought this intelligence in. It seems Oslo’s not the mountain retreat you were after, hmm?”
“With all due respect, sir, it wasn’t me who was after it.”
“No. Quite. Well, it seems you’re in pretty good working order to me. I should think we’ll have you back in the saddle before long.”
“Thank you, sir. I’d like that.”
“For the time being though, it’s coordinating with the Norwegians.”
“Very good, sir.”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” he said. “But I admire your optimism.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6c is 1>>
!Conclusion
“Immigrants?” Glibhurst said with amused disbelief.
The last twenty four hours had been revealing ones. American and British cyber defence experts had successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. The attack had been claimed by a third-party collective calling themselves Ranzidios who announced that they were out to sow chaos amongst the world’s power-brokers.
As this was happening, it had become clear that the Russians had a bee in their bonnet about suspicious activity at a fishery near the border in the North. They thought they were about to be attacked by NATO, so Norwegian civilian authorities had been sent to investigate. There in the warehouse associated with the fishery, police found sixty-two men, women and children who had travelled to the north-west of Russia from various war-torn nations across the globe in order to get into a box and make the short journey from East to West. They were to be transferred to holding somewhere else in Norway, where they would be housed and fed while their cases were heard.
Despite wishing he had moved north to re-enter a military environment, with the comms returning back to normal and tensions across the entire situation easing, there was, unfortunately, no longer any need for Shawcross to go up there. He was, he had to admit, better positioned remaining in Oslo, where he could more easily continue his interaction with his opposite numbers across fellow NATO countries. He was not revelling in the prospect and was instead currently at the embassy. While it would certainly have been a stretch to call him a breath of fresh air, Shawcross appreciated the injection of chaos Glibhurst brought to the staid Ambassadorial world, and tended to gravitate towards the obdurate young station chief’s way for conversation.
“That’s funny,” the MI6 man reflected.
“They didn’t think so.”
Glibhurst groaned theatrically. “I mean it’s funny how a small coincidence can take modern society to the brink as soon as you throw in a bit of cyber terrorism.”
“I suppose so,” Shawcross said. “Do you think we’ll ever find out who they are?”
“They managed to penetrate military, government and civilian systems. Not a chance. And if anyone does, they’ll be on the payroll faster than you can say Frank Abagnale. And no, I won’t explain that one to you.”
“So what happens now?” Shawcross said.
“Now we’ve got the systems back up and running and we know who wasn’t responsible, you mean?”
Shawcross nodded. “Yeah.”
“We all shake hands and go back to suspicion, probing and disruption with no-one ever actually pointing the finger,” the MI6 man said.
“Business as usual, then,” Shawcross said.
“Business as usual.” Glibhurst grinned. “And brother – business is a-boomin'.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6d is 1>>
!Conclusion
“Immigrants?” Glibhurst said with amused disbelief.
The last twenty four hours had been revealing ones. American and British cyber defence experts had successfully located the breach opened by the B.L.Z. Bub hack and systems were well on their way back to normal. The attack had been claimed by a third-party collective calling themselves Ranzidios who announced that they were out to sow chaos amongst the world’s power-brokers.
As this was happening, it had become clear that the Russians had a bee in their bonnet about suspicious activity at a fishery near the border in the North. They thought they were about to be attacked by NATO, so Norwegian civilian authorities had been sent to investigate. There in the warehouse associated with the fishery, police found sixty-two men, women and children who had travelled to the north-west of Russia from various war-torn nations across the globe in order to get into a box and make the short journey from East to West. They were to be transferred to holding somewhere else in Norway, where they would be housed and fed while their cases were heard.
Despite revelling in a return to the military environment, with the comms returning back to normal, Shawcross had been ordered back down to Oslo, where he could better interact with representatives of both NATO in general and more specifically the Norwegian Military Liaison Officer, Colonel Per Rosenborg, to whom he would have to explain heading north without even trying to see him first to coordinate responses. It was not a meeting he was looking forward to, and he was currently at the embassy, delaying his trip to the Ministry of Defence. While it would certainly have been a stretch to call him a breath of fresh air, Shawcross appreciated the injection of chaos Glibhurst brought to the staid Ambassadorial world, and tended to gravitate towards the obdurate young station chief’s way for conversation.
“That’s funny,” the MI6 man reflected.
“They didn’t think so.”
Glibhurst groaned theatrically. “I means it’s funny how a small coincidence can take modern society to the brink as soon as you throw in a bit of cyber terrorism.”
“I suppose so,” Shawcross said. “Do you think we’ll ever find out who they are?”
“They managed to penetrate military, government and civilian systems. Not a chance. And if anyone does, they’ll be on the payroll faster than you can say Frank Abagnale. And no, I won’t explain that one to you.”
“So what happens now?” Shawcross said.
“Now we’ve got the systems back up and running and we know who wasn’t responsible, you mean?”
Shawcross nodded. “Yeah.”
“We all shake hands and go back to suspicion, probing and disruption with no-one ever actually pointing the finger,” the MI6 man said.
“Business as usual, then,” Shawcross said.
“Business as usual.” Glibhurst grinned. “And brother – business is a-boomin'.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6g is 1>>
!Conclusion
The next were a revealing twenty-four hours in the British embassy in Oslo.
Glibhurst confirmed that there was nothing on Kripov’s phone to suggest he, or anyone he was in contact with, knew anything about the cyber hit. Moreover, with the Russian DA’s line remaining in place, it also became increasingly apparent that the Russians had been struck as well, possibly even more acutely.
Glibhurst successfully recorded conversations about everything from Russian satellites and drones to transports and locations systems going on the fritz. They thought they were being attacked by NATO, and had a bee in their bonnet about suspicious activity at a fishery near the border in the North. Glibhurst passed on the news that Norway was about to be invaded because of some late-night fishermen and local authorities were dispatched to the site, where it was found that the station was acting on an unusually large order, which took them significantly over quota, which was why they are processing it at night and at their most remote station. Meanwhile, the Americans and GCHQ located the cyber breaches and measures were now being taken to patch them up and bring systems back to normal. It seemed those responsible were a third party collective out to sow chaos amongst the world’s power-brokers.
“Do you think we’ll ever find out who it was?”
Shawcross was at the embassy, in Glibhurst’s tip of an office. The obdurate young station chief was sitting behind a desk-bound wasteland of fast food boxes and wire-sprouting boxes of tech in a too-open lumberjack shirt working away at the coloured air his trio of terminals were projecting, swishing apps in and out of view with the wireless haptics covering both his hands. A faint odour of halitosis followed Glibhurst wherever he went, so while it would be a stretch to say he was a breath of fresh air, Shawcross appreciated the injection of chaos he brought to the staid Ambassadorial world, and tended to gravitate his way for conversation.
The MI6 man shrugged. “Any signposts left by people who can do what these guys did will have been placed to sow disinformation,” he said without taking his eyes from his work. “You know what I’m wondering about, though?”
“What?”
“Where the fish was heading.”
“It was one of the Emirates, wasn’t it?” Shawcross said.
“The house of Prince Mahmoud Bin Al Q’rami,” Glibhurst confirmed.
“So?”
“So the big order was for a banquet celebrating the purchase of a bunch of Chengdu J-90 fighter jets from the Chinese.” Glibhurst dropped his hand and the light colouring the air between him and Shawcross died. A wide grin split the young station chief’s hairy face. “And who was it who just happened to move into contested South Sea territories while everyone else was busy Beelzebubbing?”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $sect6h is 1>>
!Conclusion
Shawcross ran towards the cemetery, the smooth soles of his dress-shoes skidding all over the place in the snow. It took all his powers of balance to stay on his feet and it only got worse when he arrived at the entrance to the expansive graveyard. The paths had been ploughed leaving only an uneven ice covering the ground. As he tried to turn right through the gate and onto the central path, he slipped to one side and only prevented himself from toppling over by grabbing the trunk of one of the pines that lined the walkways. Steadying himself, he gazed up the faintly lit path and saw Nikolaev. He was further up the path, looking down at his phone, his face aglow from the light. Shawcross edged forwards, moving after him as quietly as he could.
Nikolaev stopped at the central confluence of paths and looked up. There was another person there, also in uniform and holding an illuminated phone. He was large, with a walrus moustache. It was Kripov.
Shawcross moved a little closer, but stopped when he saw a third uniformed figure entering the fall of the dim street lights. The man was tall and thin, and, like the Russians, held his phone in his hand. Lt Col Grayson looked beyond Nikolaev, directly at Shawcross.
“Hello, Martin,” the American said. “Your map doing it too, is it?”
“What?” Shawcross said, pulling his phone from his pocket and ordering it to open the map. On it, where usually he was represented by a pulsating blue dot, he was now a tiny flaming skull. Meanwhile, in the centre of the graveyard, another much larger skull was throbbing. This one wasn’t on fire though. In place of the flames, it instead wore an old fashioned teacher’s mortar-board, and in place of the deranged grin, it was frowning, lending it an air of disapproving disappointment.
“You have the same?” Shawcross said, approaching the other three men.
“Yes,” Kripov said. “The same.”
At that moment, four different phone alerts sounded, and each man looked down at his handset. A message had arrived. Shawcross opened it and the skull appeared, in its new, teacherly form, now with a bony hand at its side, wagging a finger. The message was from B.L.Z. Bub once again and addressed to The World.
“All you have to do is trust one another, talk to each other, and the world will be a much better place…” it read. “…Do not do this and next time the drought will be permanent and you will be left to slug it out in the desert that remains.”
@@.center;
X X X
@@
“Do you know what I find strange?” Shawcross said.
He was in the embassy, in the office of the MI6 station chief, a young, mole-like man called Clive Glibhurst. Glibhurst was of the new breed that had started to take over secret intelligence. The era of the amoral extrovert adept at manipulating people in person had ebbed in a world where people communicated more remotely and the over-confident raconteurs had been replaced by people like Glibhurst, introverts who understood both the technology and techniques of online socialisation and exploitation. He was obdurate and a faint odour of halitosis followed him wherever he went, so while it would be a stretch to say Glibhurst was a breath of fresh air, Shawcross appreciated the injection of chaos he brought to the staid Ambassadorial world, and tended to gravitate his way for conversation.
“What?” the young station chief said without looking up.
“This message reads as though written by a child.”
Glibhurst shrugged. “It probably was. Probably some teenager sitting in his pants in his parents’ basement.”
“Do you think we’ll ever manage to find out?” Shawcross asked.
“The sort of outfit that can penetrate military grade blankets, government systems, mobile networks? I’m hearing they even got into Russian drones. Not a chance. This was all about sowing chaos. Any sign posts left will have been left on purpose.”
“It was certainly effective, I’ll give them that. According to Kripov, their people in the North were getting a bee in their bonnet about suspicious activity at a fishery station. Thought NATO had hit them with the cyber attack and were getting ready to invade or something. The Norwegians went to take a look and found a lot of illegals being brought over.”
“That’s funny.”
“They didn’t think so.”
Glibhurst shrugged again.
“So what happens now the systems are back up and running?” Shawcross said.
“Now we know who wasn’t responsible, you mean?”
Shawcross nodded.
“You shake hands with your friends the Rooskies, and we all go back to suspicion, probing and disruption with no-one ever actually pointing the finger.”
“Business as usual, then,” Shawcross said.
“Business as usual.” Glibhurst grinned. “And brother – business is a-boomin'.”
----
<<endif>>
<<if $discretion is 1>>
!Orders
Despite enjoying the challenge of the ski back to base, Metzinov couldn’t help wishing it was one that had led in the opposite direction, taking him further into action, rather than a retreat that would necessarily lead to his making another report. Despite this, returning to base was unquestionably the right move, and not only because of the state in which they had found the TIGR. Simonov had started to struggle in the first half of the journey and only really managed to keep going, Metzinov suspected, because he knew that he’d have been left digging into the tundra with one of Sinichkin’s men had he given up.
While Metzinov was disappointed that he was not at the front line of intelligence-gathering, if it was drama he desired, he need not have worried. The Border Reaction Base at Sputnik was not part of the Northern Fleet – the naval department under whose authority the north-west of the country predominantly fell – so once he had removed his skis and ensured Simonov was taken to quarters to recover, it was not Severomorsk that he contacted on returning to Sputnik. Rather, from his position as commander of the base, the upward chain of command led directly to the Ministry of Defence in Moscow. Therefore, on entering his office, he immediately ordered a call to be put through to the building on Frunzenskaya Embankment to speak to his senior officer, Lieutenant General Arkady Dubynin.
This took longer than was normal, as the usual channels of communication between the base and the capital were proving as unreliable as the TIGR and all the rest of the equipment that had gone wrong on the excursion. The Sputnik base was not a new base, however, having served a similar purpose for many years during the Cold War. While the place usually operated to wholly modern standards, the installation of digitised systems did not mean the old world technology had been done away with. On the contrary, due to what could have been conscious nostalgia, intense paranoia or just good sense – or, more probably, a combination of all three – it had been retained. Furthermore Metzinov had at his disposal engineers trained in its use, and so it was that he found himself reporting the border activity to Dubynin over that stalwart of analogue communication, the Long Wave radio.
“Civilian services have also been affected,” Dubynin said. “A yellow smiling face emblem has been seen across services on VGTRK.”
If they had managed to infiltrate military systems, it should not have come as a surprise to Metzinov that the hack had hit the national broadcaster, but the news that the attack affected more than just his base and systems made the situation all the more acute.
“And we have received reports of irregular systems behaviour from other bases across the country, too,” Dubynin expanded. “At first our technicians found evidence it was a case of satellite error. When they dug deeper, they found leads that suggested domestic activists. But our people have reported suspicious behaviour on the part of the British Defence Attache in Oslo. Now with your news, we see that what we suspected is true.”
Dubynin stopped speaking. Metzinov wasn’t sure if he did so to ruminate or because he expected Metzinov to respond to the suggestion he had left hanging in the air.
“And that is, sir?” Metzinov said at last.
“We both know how the West envies the richness of our northern shores, Lieutenant Colonel,” Dubynin said.
The Lieutenant General was right, Metzinov did know. Following the Big Melt, the northern shores were largely ice-free for much of the year and Russia, lucky enough to have the longest stretch of Arctic coastline of any country, was in a position to take full advantage.
This meant newly accessible lodes of oil and gas. But fossil fuels were old news these days, of course. Four thousand miles of virtually unoccupied coastline had led to massive investment in tidal power generation technology. And between the two lay what were now, due to the increased planetary warmth, the world’s most plentiful fishing waters. The knowledge, in a world of depleted resources and rising temperatures, that this made the northern reaches of the country highly desirable territory had been the reason behind the formation of the Border Reaction Force in the first place. Bases like the one in which Metzinov was stationed – pre-existing, known to the West, but whose new raison d’être remained classified to the highest degree – had been set up all along the eastern and northern seaboards, even down towards the Baltic states.
“No activists capable of this sort of attack would leave signposts,” Dubynin continued. “No, the real culprits were hoping we would be so confused by the audacity of their attack, so busy trying to fix the technical breach, that we would forget to look out of our windows. Because that is what they would do. So once again the West’s inability to see the world from any perspective but their own will lead to their failure.”
This time Metzinov knew he was not expected to speak. Dubynin had been building up to his next words over the entirety of his monologue.
“You are to mobilise the men you have in your command, Vladimir,” he said. “How you deploy them, we leave to your judgement. But you have permission to take all measures you consider necessary in order to protect the sovereignty of Russian soil. Severomorsk is on standby to provide support. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Metzinov replied.
“Then get to work. And Vladimir?”
“Sir?”
“Do not disappoint us.”
Despite the glaring error he knew he had made in taking Simonov on the excursion to the border, the quality of Metzinov’s judgement was one of the main reasons he had been put in charge of such a sensitive enterprise in the first place. Effective field soldiers were ten a penny, Dubynin had told him when he had been summoned to Moscow to be informed of his new placement. Those with the capacity to make the right decision when it came to the broader, more diplomatic questions of border security were not. Metzinov knew the next decision he made would be the most important one he was ever likely to make. Should he behave as though the activity over the border was prelude to an assault on Russian sovereignty and seize the initiative, moving to secure the major crossing points without care for the consequences from such a manoeuvre? Or should he protect the international status quo for as long as was possible, as well as Russian soil, and instead set the forces at his disposal at a more passive stance, firmly their own side of the border?
[[Seize the initiative and move to secure major border crossing points|Section 6ai]]
[[Put forces at a more passive stance, firmly on Russian side of border|Section 6bi]]
<<endif>>
<<if $closer is 1>>
!Snow
Metzinov and his four man unit had not travelled another fifty yards before the snow started to fall in larger flakes. In the wind, the blizzard reduced visibility to half that, and walking into it, their pace slowed, particularly that of Simonov. The wait at each small ridge formed by the snow-laden waves of rock sloping into the ice grew longer and longer, in inverse proportion to the tempers of those pausing for him to catch up.
“Have him stay here and wait for us, sir,” Sinichkin said to Metzinov as they watched Simonov’s slight form tumble and push through the weather. “We’ll pick him up on the way back.”
Metzinov shook his head. “He’d be dead within the hour,” he said.
“Not if he remembers his training,” Sinichkin countered.
“And what’s the guarantee we’ll return by the same route?” Metzinov said.
“I’m sure he serves his purpose at base one way or another, sir, but you’re not going to find out what’s going on over there at the fishery if we’re waiting for him every ten metres.”
Sinichkin’s tone was dripping with disdain.
“What are you implying, Captain?” Metzinov demanded.
“That he’s not made for this kind of work, sir. And while you may want him to be, I’m not willing to put the lives of my men at risk in order to teach him.”
Sinichkin nodded at the pitiful figure now crawling towards them through the snow, and Metzinov knew the Captain was right. Bringing Simonov along had been a mistake. Metzinov’s desire to turn the young Lieutenant into the man he wished his sons would become had clouded his judgement, the quality of which was one of the main reasons he had been put in charge of such a sensitive enterprise in the first place. Effective field soldiers were ten a penny, he’d been told. Those with the capacity to make the right decision when it came to the broader, more diplomatic questions of border security were not. He should have left Simonov at the TIGR, but now, watching his adjutant struggle towards them, he wasn’t even sure the young man could be trusted to make it back to the transport alone. There was less than a kilometre of open territory between their location and the rest of the men, but Metzinov was no more willing to risk the life of one man just because of an irate Captain than the irate Captain was to risk the lives of his men because of the one man.
Metzinov turned to Kuznetsky and was about to order him to take Simonov back while the remaining three of them continued on to investigate, when, over the whistling wind, a radio crackled to life. It was Polovkinin’s. Metzinov put out his hand. Polovkinin handed him the receiver.
“Hello?” Metzinov called into the radio, but he knew immediately it was no good. He could not hear a thing over the wind, so he moved a few metres away, to lower ground, and crouched down in an attempt to shelter the receiver. But even then, all he could hear was the crackling of a broken line.
“Is…zinov, over?”
“Hello?” he called. “This is Metzinov, over.”
“This…ynin…copy?”
“To whom am I speaking, over?”
“Lieut…eral Duby…opy?”
The voice was unclear and distorted, but he’d caught enough of the name to know who it was. From his position as commander of the base at Sputnik, the upward chain of command led directly to the Ministry of Defence building on Frunzenskaya Embankment in Moscow, along the grandiose corridors to an office door marked Lieutenant General Arkady Dubynin, a harsh and experienced soldier who had risen up the ranks during the Putin reign.
“Sir?” Metzinov said. “I can’t–”
But then the voice broke through.
“–Dubynin,” it said. “Do you read me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then listen to me, Lieutenant Colonel, and carefully. We’re uncertain how long this line will remain open.”
Dubynin sounded edgy, strained, in a way Metzinov had never heard, though in truth he had only ever encountered the General once before, in Moscow when he was being informed that he was being sent to the northern territory.
“We’ve managed to intercept NATO communications, even in all this mess,” he said. “The British and Americans appear to be mobilising their troops in Norway. We’re certain the activity you’re investigating is to do with it. I want you to immobilise it. Is…lear?”
The line started crackling again.
“Sir?”
“Metz… I ca… do…copy?”
“Copy, sir,” Metzinov said.
“Goo…out.”
The voice left the line and all Metzinov heard was static. He lowered the radio and looked up to his men. Simonov had finally arrived. He was shivering, but the foursome were in conversation. He climbed back through the snow towards them.
“That was Moscow,” he said. “Lieutenant General Dubynin.”
All four of them were looking at him with the exact same expression. It seemed to be one of apologetic suspicion.
“What is it?” he said to Simonov.
“S–s–sir,” he said, or, more accurately, tried to say. “W–w–we w–w-were w–w–won–d–d–dering–”
“Your adjutant here,” Sinichkin interrupted, “was wondering how anyone could get through, let alone a ministry man a thousand kilometres away, when we can’t even reach our own base. And he has a point, even we have to admit it.”
“Are you suggesting it was someone purporting to be the Lieutenant General?”
“I’m not suggesting anyone’s purporting anything. I’m just wondering how we can be sure of anything. And if we can’t be sure, then what is it we should be doing?”
Dubynin was not someone any soldier would want to let down. And it was in no way beyond reason to think Moscow had managed to get through to him, even when his own base could not. The government would have their very best people working on this. And Metzinov would undoubtedly be one of the first points of call if the border with Norway was where it was all going to kick off. And if that was the case, then what was going on less than 500 metres away had, surely, to be key. So the orders stood to reason. Whatever the threat, it had to be neutralised, and promptly.
Yet Metzinov could not deny that it was awfully convenient that the radio signal had settled just long enough for Dubynin to get his orders across. Nor that the man on the other end of the line had sounded strangely unlike his commanding officer. And if it wasn’t him, if somehow the enemy were mimicking him, then the orders would undoubtedly be in their interest rather than Russia’s. Maybe having Russian soldiers cross the border and approach was exactly what they wanted. If they headed back to base, they could establish this one way or the other and then act. Sputnik was only a few kilometres away. The journey would not take long. But still it would be enough time for the picture to shift.
Either way, Metzinov needed to make a decision immediately. The ship was fifty metres away across open water thick with cold. To approach in any way, they would have to move to the end of the sound, perhaps two hundred meters to the south, then back up the other side. In the weather, that would take time. And the boat was getting ready to move.
“All right,” Metzinov said. “This is what we’re going to do.”
[[Take communication at word and approach ship with weapons ready.|Section 6ci]]
[[Communique cannot be trusted, head back to base|Section 6di]]
<<endif>>
<<if $blackBox is 1>>
!Top Brass
Andrei Milanovich Zligov had received much attention when he finally took his mentor’s place at the pinnacle of the country’s power structure. Despite all efforts, President Putin had aged like everyone else and rather than let the country, or the world, see him grow frail, the richest individual on the planet had passed the crown and Zligov had been duly elected President of the Russian Federation. This of course should have been sufficient to fill the pages of the world’s news sites. What the West seemed to concentrate on though was the portrait Zligov had commissioned of himself in advance of his jubilee, which was revealed on his first entering the Kremlin following the election. It showed him sitting astride a rearing horse wearing the regal ermine gown of a king. But for the sham of democracy, the western journalists said, it seemed the charade was finally being dropped and Russia was finally accepting the return of the Tsars.
It was this very image that Metzinov was looking at on the extended screen of Simonov’s Scrablet. Only on this version, Zligov’s sharp features had been covered by a yellow, circular smiley face, its cheeks coloured rose pink with embarrassment. The image was the only additional piece of data Captain Sinichkin and his men had gathered when MZ649/316’s homing signal had led them to the drone’s crash site, just west of Lake Nyasyukkyayarvi. That was on the very border with Norway, and on his return, Sinichkin reported to Metzinov that he was unable to say whether or not he and his men had, in fact, entered Norwegian territory. He told a story of locations equipment placing them all over the world, while comms had them talking to Indian service centres and Brazilian housewives.
Metzinov looked up from the image when Simonov entered with two additional men carrying a large, metal unit. The Border Reaction Base at Sputnik was not a new one, having served a similar purpose for many years during the Cold War. So, while the place usually operated to wholly modern standards, the installation of digitised systems did not mean the old world technology had been done away with. On the contrary, due to what could have been conscious nostalgia, intense paranoia or just good sense – or, more probably, a combination of all three – it had been retained, and furthermore Metzinov had at his disposal engineers trained in its use. So it was that, he pointed the men to a table by the wall, and they spent some minutes setting up and tuning that stalwart of analogue communication, the Long Wave radio.
The Border Reaction Force was not part of the Northern Fleet – the naval department under whose authority the north-west of Russia predominantly fell. Rather the upward chain of command from Metzinov’s position as commander of the Force led directly to the Ministry of Defence building on Frunzenskaya Embankment, to the office of an experienced and harsh Lieutenant General named Arkady Dubynin. So, instead of connecting him to Severomorsk, when one of the engineers held out the radio’s old-fashioned telephone receiver, he announced, “We have Moscow on the line, sir.”
“Civilian services have also been affected,” Dubynin said, once Simonov had retreated with the engineers and Metzinov had taken the General through what had happened. “A yellow smiling face emblem has been seen across services on VGTRK.”
If they had managed to infiltrate military systems, it should not have come as a surprise to Metzinov that the hack had hit the national broadcaster, but the news that the attack affected more than just his base and his systems made the situation all the more acute.
“And we have also received reports of irregular systems behaviour from other bases across the country,” Dubynin expanded. “At first our technicians deduced that it was a case of satellite error. When they dug deeper, they found leads that suggested domestic activists. But our people have reported suspicious behaviour on the part of the British Defence Attache in Oslo. Now with your news, we see that what we suspected is true.”
Dubynin stopped speaking. Metzinov wasn’t sure if he did so to ruminate or because he expected Metzinov to respond to the suggestion he left hanging in the air.
“And that is, sir?” he said at last.
“No activists capable of this sort of attack would leave signposts,” Dubynin said. “And we both know how the West envies the richness of our northern shores, Lieutenant Colonel.”
The Lieutenant General was right, Metzinov did know. Following the Big Melt, the northern shores were largely ice-free for much of the year and Russia, lucky enough to have the longest stretch of Arctic coastline of any country, was in a position to take full advantage. This meant newly accessible lodes of oil and gas. But fossil fuels were old news these days, of course. Four thousand miles of virtually unoccupied coastline had led to massive investment in tidal power generation technology. And between the two lay what now were, due to the increased planetary warmth, the world’s most plentiful fishing waters. The knowledge, in a world of depleted resources and rising temperatures, that this made the northern reaches of the country highly desirable territory had been the reason behind the formation of the Border Reaction Force in the first place. Bases like the one in which Metzinov was stationed – pre-existing, known to the West, but whose new raison d’être remained classified to the highest degree – had been set up all along the eastern and northern seaboards, even down towards the Baltic states.
“The real culprits were hoping we would be so confused by the audacity of their attack, so busy trying to fix the technical breach, that we would forget to look out of our windows. Because that is what they would do. So once again the West’s inability to see the world from any perspective but their own will lead to their failure.”
This time Metzinov knew he was not expected to speak. Dubynin had been building up to his next words over the entirety of his monologue.
“You are to mobilise the men you have in your command, Vladimir,” he said. “How you do so, we leave to your judgement. But you have permission to take all measures you consider necessary in order to protect the sovereignty of Russian soil. Severomorsk is on standby to provide support. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Metzinov replied.
“Then get to work. And Vladimir?”
“Sir?”
“Do not disappoint us.”
The quality of Metzinov’s judgement was one of the main reasons he had been put in charge of such a sensitive enterprise in the first place. Effective field soldiers were ten a penny, Dubynin had told him when he had been summoned to Moscow to be informed of his new placement. Those with the capacity to make the right decision when it came to the broader, more diplomatic questions of border security were not. Metzinov knew the next decision he made would be the most important one he was ever likely to make. Should he behave as though the activity over the border was prelude to an assault on Russian sovereignty and seize the initiative, moving to secure the major crossing points without care for the level of tensions that would arise from such a manoeuvre? Or should he protect the international status quo for as long as was possible, as well as Russian soil, and instead set the forces at his disposal at a more passive stance, firmly on their own side of the border?
[[Seize the initiative and move to secure major border crossing points|Section 6ei]]
[[Put forces at a more passive stance, firmly on Russian side of border|Section 6fi]]
<<endif>>
<<if $expedition is 1>>
!Disorientation
As the TIGR made its way along one of the crevices in the snow that passed for roads in the north-west winter, Metzinov, in the middle of the three-seat front of the vehicle, stole a glance first at his driver, Jr Sergeant Grupovkin, then at the second passenger, Captain Sinichkin, and was left in no doubt by their grim expressions that he was the only one of them for whom the rumble and odour of the old Cummins diesel elicited any warmth of feeling. That changed as soon as he ordered Grupovkin to stop the vehicle and made all eight men get out into the snow. Sinichkin suggested Simonov be the man left with the TIGR, to which suggestion Metzinov’s young adjutant looked partial, but Metzinov insisted he come along and instead Sinichkin elected to leave Grupovkin with the vehicle.
As the rest made their way in snow-camouflage field uniforms towards the border, Metzinov was certain the party would look on the relative warmth and comfort of the personnel carrier’s steel interior with a new respect, not least Simonov, who was about half the size of the rest of the men, and had not, as far as Metzinov knew, seen field service in any way, shape or form since he’d emerged from the Frunze academy two years ago. The snow was falling in minute flakes, the wind whipping it through the air like tiny crystal blades, and the young man kept lagging behind to close the gaps his inexperience left between his face mask and the rubber surround of his tactical goggles. Sinichkin was unhappy with the delay. He had been on edge ever since he’d emerged from his quarters and discovered Metzinov was coming on the recce in person, and now led the way over the ridges that sloped down into the flat, white, frozen waters with a careful, prickling silence.
After about ten minutes, in the dip between two of the ridges, the Captain brought the company to a full standstill when his Lieutenant, Polovkinin, made to check their location and instead started banging his device with the heel of his palm.
Sinichkin pulled his mask down from his mouth.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” he growled over the whistling wind.
It could have been a trick of the moonglow, but to Metzinov’s surprise, where he would have expected to see fear in Polovkinin’s goggled eyes, he instead saw amusement.
“According to this, we’re in Moscow,” Polovkinin announced, offering the small location device to his senior officer.
Sinichkin grabbed the device and looked at its screen.
“Maybe some kind of Arctic wormhole?” Polovkinin said.
“This doesn’t look like Trubnaya to me,” Sinichkin said, lobbing the device back to his Lieutenant.
A whine of static sounded from the pack of another of Sinichkin’s men, Fedorov.
Fedorov dropped his pack, opened the canvas lid and revealed a decidedly old fashioned looking piece of equipment. The Border Reaction Base at Sputnik was not a new one, having served a similar purpose for many years during the Cold War. So, while the place and its residents usually operated to wholly modern standards, the installation of digitised systems did not mean the old world technology had been done away with. On the contrary, due to what could have been conscious nostalgia, intense paranoia or just good sense, or, more probably, a combination of all three, it had been retained, and furthermore Metzinov had at his disposal engineers trained in its use. Fedorov was trained in analogue communications, and the old-fashioned telephone-style receiver he briefly placed to his ear before handing it to Metzinov belonged to a Long Wave radio.
“It’s Moscow, sir,” he said.
Militarily speaking, most of the north-west of Russia came under the authority of the Northern Fleet, but this was not the case with the Border Reaction Force. Rather the upward chain of command from Metzinov’s position as commander led directly to the Ministry of Defence building on Frunzenskaya Embankment, and more precisely to the office of an experienced and harsh Lieutenant General named Arkady Dubynin, whose voice Metzinov now heard over the swirling wind. He was not a man for pleasantries.
“Civilian services have been affected, Lieutenant Colonel,” Dubynin said. “A yellow smiling face emblem has been seen across services on VGTRK.”
If they had managed to infiltrate military systems, it should not have come as a surprise to Metzinov that the hack had hit the national broadcaster, but the news that the attack affected more than just his base and his systems made the situation all the more acute.
“And we have also received reports of irregular systems’ behaviour from other bases across the country,” Dubynin expanded. “At first our technicians found evidence it was satellite error. When they dug deeper, they found leads that suggested domestic activists. But our people have reported suspicious behaviour on the part of the British Defence Attache in Oslo. Now with your news, we see that what we suspected is true.”
Dubynin stopped speaking. Metzinov wasn’t sure if he did so to ruminate or because he expected Metzinov to respond to the suggestion he left hanging in the air.
“And that is, sir?” he said at last.
“No activists capable of this sort of attack would leave signposts,” Dubynin said. “And we both know how the West envies the richness of our northern shores.”
The Lieutenant General was right – Metzinov did know. Following the Big Melt, the northern shores were largely ice-free for much of the year and Russia, lucky enough to have the longest stretch of Arctic coastline of any country, was in a position to take full advantage.
This meant newly accessible lodes of oil and gas. But fossil fuels were old news these days, of course. Four thousand miles of virtually unoccupied coastline had led to massive investment in tidal power generation technology. And between the two lay what now were, due to the increased planetary warmth, the world’s most plentiful fishing waters. The knowledge, in a world of depleted resources and rising temperatures, that this made Russia’s northern reaches highly desirable territory had been the reason behind the formation of the Border Reaction Force in the first place. Bases like the one in which Metzinov was stationed – pre-existing, known to the West, but whose new raison d’être remained classified to the highest degree – had been set up all along the eastern and northern seaboards, and even down towards the Baltic states.
“No, the real culprits were hoping we would be so confused by the audacity of their attack, so busy trying to fix the technical breach, that we would forget to look out of our windows. Because that is what they would do. So once again the West’s inability to see the world from any perspective but their own will lead to their failure.”
This time Metzinov knew he was not expected to speak. Dubynin had been building up to his next words over the entirety of his monologue.
“You are to mobilise the men you have in your command, Vladimir,” he said. “How you choose to deploy them, we leave to your judgement. But you have permission to take all measures you consider necessary in order to protect the sovereignty of Russian soil. Severomorsk is on standby to provide support. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Metzinov replied.
“Then get to work. And Vladimir?”
“Sir?”
“Do not disappoint us.”
@@.center;
X X X
@@
Three ridges later, all members of the unit were lying belly down in the snow gazing along the coast through heat-vision binoculars. Metzinov was lying next to Simonov and he could feel the young man trying to smother his shivers. Metzinov focussed on what they were looking at. The ice-free fishery station was a couple of clicks to the west of their position and Metzinov could make out little glowing figures loading what seemed to be crates onto an ice-breaker. It was undoubtedly a civilian vessel, and none of the people in sight were armed, or wearing military uniforms either. But this was more activity than was normal, even during so-called daylight hours. At this time of year it was night time all the time of course, and Metzinov looked at his watch to check. He was right – it really was the dead of night – 23:37 to be precise – and that made any such activity suspicious. A person or two could easily have fitted into each container – Metzinov estimated them to measure approximately two by one by half a metre – so what he was watching could have been the transportation of illegal migrants. Perhaps they had unloaded them for exercise and refreshment before their journey continued. The crates were also of a shape and size more familiar to Metzinov though, of the kind that carried armaments – artillery, shells, ammunition. But at the distance and in the weather, there was simply no way of telling with any certainty what they were or what they contained.
He nodded to Sinichkin and the party reversed down the ridge out of the wind.
Metzinov turned to Polovkinin. “Can you tell me with any certainty on which side of the border we currently lie, Lieutenant?”
Polovkinin looked sheepish. “No, sir,” he said.
Metzinov turned to Fedorov. “Call through to the TIGR and find out. They should be tracking us.”
Fedorov turned once more to the LW radio. The news, delivered moments later, was not good. “Sir,” he said. “Grupovkin has us in Cape Town.”
Sinichkin turned to Metzinov. “What do you want to do, sir?” he said.
Metzinov looked at the Captain for a moment.
Taking a closer look at what was going on might lead to vital discoveries, but in this weather Metzinov and his men would have to get incredibly close to determine whether or not the activity was benign, and if it wasn’t, the enemy would surely have lookouts stationed. If the unit was spotted, enemy operations would accelerate. Moscow could be alerted of course, but it would strain any attempts at easing the situation diplomatically. On the other hand, if they could get in and out without being seen, any intelligence could be vital to pre-emptive preparations. But that would take time. The alternative was to assume that they would not make it to the fishery and instead head back to base right now to mobilise more men. Metzinov could send out patrols to cover the entire border, and get Severomorsk to cover the seaboard. No-one would be able to come close without being seen.
Either way, the decision needed to be made immediately. The ship was fifty metres away across open water thick with cold. To approach in any way, they would have to move to the end of the sound, perhaps two hundred meters to the south, then back up the other side. In the weather, that would take time. And the boat was getting ready to move.
“All right,” Metzinov said. “This is what we’re going to do.”
[[Approach the ship|Section 6gi]]
[[Head back to base|Section 6hi]]
<<endif>><<if $discretion is 1>>
!Reporting Back
Despite enjoying the challenge of the ski back to base, Metzinov couldn’t help wishing it was one that had led in the opposite direction, taking him further into action, rather than a retreat that would necessarily lead to his making another report. Despite this, returning to base was unquestionably the right move, and not only because of the state in which they had found the TIGR. Simonov had started to struggle in the first half of the journey and only really managed to keep going, Metzinov suspected, because he knew that he’d have been left digging into the tundra with one of Sinichkin’s men had he given up.
While Metzinov was disappointed that he was not at the front line of intelligence gathering, if it was drama he desired, he need not have worried.
Communications within the base were proving as unreliable as those in the TIGR. The Sputnik base was not a new base, however, having served a similar purpose for many years during the Cold War. While the place usually operated to wholly modern standards, the installation of digitised systems did not mean the old world technology had been done away with. On the contrary, due to what could have been conscious nostalgia, intense paranoia or just good sense, or, more probably, a combination of all three, it had been retained, and furthermore Metzinov had at his disposal engineers trained in its use, and so it was that contact with the outside world had been established via that stalwart of analogue communication, the Long Wave radio. The Border Reaction Base was not, however, part of the Northern Fleet – the naval department under whose authority the north-west of the country predominantly fell – so the call he received on his return was not from Severomorsk. Rather, from his position as commander of the base, the upward chain of command led directly to the Ministry of Defence in Moscow and the call he took on entering his office, hailed from the building on Frunzenskaya Embankment, and his commanding officer, Lieutenant General Arkady Dubynin.
Sputnik, it seemed, was not the only place to have been hit.
“Civilian services have been affected, too,” Dubynin said. “A yellow smiling face emblem has been seen across services on VGTRK.”
If they had managed to infiltrate military systems, it should not have come as a surprise to Metzinov that the hack had hit the national broadcaster, but the news that the attack affected more than just his base and his systems made the situation all the more acute.
“And we have also received reports of irregular systems behaviour from other bases across the country,” Dubynin expanded. “Our technicians and engineers have eliminated the possibility of satellite error and are working on leads suggesting we are dealing with activists. However, we cannot dismiss the possibility that those leads have been deliberately placed. It’s no secret how the West envies the richness of our northern shores, after all.”
It was true. Following the Big Melt, the northern shores of the Federation were largely ice-free for much of the year and Russia, lucky enough to have the longest stretch of Arctic coastline of any country, was in a position to take full advantage. This meant newly accessible lodes of oil and gas. But fossil fuels were old news these days, of course. Four thousand miles of virtually unoccupied coastline had led to massive investment in tidal power generation technology. And between the two lay what now were, due to the increased planetary warmth, the world’s most plentiful fishing waters. The knowledge, in a world of depleted resources and rising temperatures, that this made the northern reaches of the country highly desirable territory had been the reason behind the formation of the Border Reaction Force in the first place. Bases like the one in which Metzinov was stationed – pre-existing, known to the West, but whose new raison d’être remained classified to the highest degree – had been set up all along the eastern and northern seaboards, even down towards the Baltic states.
But Metzinov could think of another, just as feasible, alternative.
“Or perhaps the activists left the leads knowing we would consider it unlikely they would do so,” Metzinov ventured.
“These are uncertain times indeed, Vladimir,” Dubynin replied. “Those responsible for these actions are trying to starve us of the information upon which we have come to rely to make decisions. We must be vigilant. But whoever it is, they forget we are Russians, hmm? That the more we are pushed onto the back foot, the deeper we dig it into the ground. You are being issued with reserve forces from the interior and will step up border patrols while we ascertain the source and intent of the attack. Severomorsk will be doing the same along the coast. You are to coordinate with Admiral Mirisch.”
“Yes, sir. And sir?”
“What is it, Lieutenant Colonel?”
Metzinov paused to choose his words. How he reported what he had seen occurring across the border would affect the response strategy of the entire country. Put one way, it would likely lead to mobilisation and the escalation of the situation, potentially to the point of conflict. Put another, and it could lead Dubynin to ignore what could be a key piece of information concerning an imminent attack.
[[Report cross border activity as definitely suspicious|Section 6aii]]
[[Report cross border activity as potentially suspicious and worthy of further investigation|Section 6bii]]
<<endif>>
<<if $closer is 1>>
!Snow
Metzinov and his four man unit had not travelled another fifty yards before the snow started to fall in larger flakes. In the wind, the blizzard reduced visibility to half that, and walking into it, their pace slowed, particularly that of Simonov. The wait at each small ridge formed by the snow-laden waves of rock sloping into the ice grew longer and longer, in inverse proportion to the tempers of those pausing for him to catch up.
But they continued onwards, clambering over the rises, and down into the troughs between, safe in the knowledge that their winter camouflage and the swirling snow reduced them to mere blurs on the blue-white landscape. They saw no sign of lookouts stationed anywhere, no indication of any life at all beyond glimpses through the blizzard of the docked boat, that grew slowly larger with each ridge passed. Finally Sinichkin drew them to a halt on the shore of the ice-free sound at which the boat was moored, by when the cold was beginning to penetrate through the layers of space-grade insulation in Metzinov’s uniform. He flexed his hands in his gloves. His fingers were almost numb.
He gazed back towards Simonov’s slight form tumbling and pushing through the weather.
“I’m sure he serves his purpose at base one way or another, sir,” Sinichkin said, his tone dripping with disdain, “but you’re not going to find out what’s going on over there at the fishery if we’re waiting for him every ten metres.”
“What’re you implying, Captain?” Metzinov demanded.
“That he’s not made for this kind of work, sir. And while you may want him to be, I’m not willing to put the lives of my men at risk in order to teach him.”
Sinichkin nodded at the pitiful figure now crawling towards them through the snow, and Metzinov knew the Captain was right. Bringing Simonov along had been a mistake. His desire to turn the young Lieutenant into the man he wished his sons would become had clouded his judgement, the quality of which was one of the main reasons he had been put in charge of such a sensitive enterprise in the first place. Effective field soldiers were ten a penny, he’d been told. Those with the capacity to make the right decision when it came to the broader, more diplomatic questions of border security were not. He should have left Simonov at the TIGR, but now, watching his adjutant struggle towards them, he wasn’t even sure the young man could be trusted to make it back to the transport alone. There was less than a kilometre of open territory between their location and the rest of the men, but Metzinov was no more willing to risk the life of one man just because of an irate Captain than the irate Captain was to risk the lives of his men because of the one man.
“If we’re going to move any closer, you better tell him stay here and wait for us, sir,” Sinichkin said. “We’ll pick him up on the way back.”
Metzinov shook his head. “He’d be dead within the hour,” he said.
“Not if he remembers his training,” Sinichkin countered.
“Sir?”
It was Polovkinin. He was looking out through the falling snow and over the water towards the fishery. It was just possible to see what was going on. The workers seemed to be finishing up with the loading of the crates. They were battening down the cargo holds. And in the lulls in the wind voices could be heard calling to one another.
“That’s Norwegian, sir,” Polovkinin said.
Sinichkin pulled his mask down from his mouth. “How do you want to do this, sir?” he said.
They had crossed an international border to observe irregular activity. That was one thing. For armed soldiers to head around the sound and approach the fishery was quite something else. Nothing they had yet observed suggested this was anything but late night fish packing. If the activity really was innocent, or even if the crates were filled with illegal immigrants, heading in would without a doubt create a major incident that would result in yet more anti-Russian sentiment on the international stage. And if they were full of munitions, and those sailors turned out to be wearing uniforms under their all-weather gear, there would be a whole platoon waiting for them in that warehouse, maybe even a company. If Metzinov and his men were captured, all their efforts at intelligence gathering will have been in vain.
There was also the systems breakdown to consider, of course, but even if that was linked to what was going on here, Metzinov knew well that cyber was conducted in a different manner to conventional warfare. Every country attacked other countries, probed and disrupted, but it was never allowed to lead to physical battle. He wasn’t about to break that unwritten rule without first consulting Moscow. All of which left two options: head back to Sputnik immediately and consult with his commanding officer at the Ministry of Defence, or stay and observe in the hope that they could discern what exactly was going on over there.
Metzinov looked at his men, each one awaiting his orders in the blowing snow; Sinichkin and his two able-bodied soldiers, plus Simonov, still shivering, rubbing his arms and stamping his feet.
“All right,” Metzinov said. “This is what we’re going to do.”
[[Head back to base|Section 6cii]]
[[Continue to observe the fishery|Section 6dii]]
<<endif>>
<<if $blackBox is 1>>
!Top Brass
Andrei Milanovich Zligov had received much attention when he finally took his mentor’s place at the pinnacle of the country’s power structure. Despite all efforts, President Putin had aged like everyone else and rather than let the country, or the world, see him grow frail, the richest individual on the planet had passed the crown and Zligov had been duly elected President of the Russian Federation. This of course should have been sufficient to fill the pages of the worlds news sites. What the west seemed to concentrate on though was the portrait Zligov had commissioned in advance of his jubilee, which was revealed on his first entering the Kremlin following the election. It showed him sitting astride a rearing horse wearing the regal ermine gown of a king. But for the sham of democracy, the western journalists said, it seemed the charade was finally being dropped and Russia was finally accepting the return of the Tsars.
It was this very image that Metzinov was looking at on the extended screen of Simonov’s Scrablet. Only on this version, Zligov’s sharp features had been covered by a yellow, circular smiley face, its cheeks coloured rose pink with embarrassment. The image was the only additional piece of data Captain Sinichkin and his men had gathered when MZ649/316’s homing signal had led them to the drone’s crash site, just west of Lake Nyasyukkyayarvi. That was on the very border with Norway, and on his return, Sinichkin reported to Metzinov that he was unable to say whether or not he and his men had, in fact, entered Norwegian territory. He told a story of locations equipment placing them all over the world, while comms had them talking to Indian service centres and Brazilian housewives. They had brought the unit back to base for further investigations, but the engineers did not seem hopeful. The MZ649 had lost all electronic power the moment after it had received the picture of President Zligov. While there was no evidence why this occurred, they were working on the assumption that the source of the picture was also the source of the kill switch command. They were hopeful that they might be able to trace that source, but expected it to be a phantom. Surely any outfit skilled enough to hack into the operation of a military drone would also know to cover their tracks. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth doing. In the meantime there was the issue of the activity over the border. It seemed unlikely to Metzinov that the two weren’t linked. The drone, after all, had gone haywire just as it was making its approach.
“Sir?” Simonov said. Metzinov had forgotten that he was still standing on the other side of his desk, just above the photo of Victor and Ilia. “What’s our approach to be?”
Metzinov gazed at the young man a moment as he considered his options.
From his position as commander of the Border Patrol Force for the north-west, the upward chain of command led directly to the Ministry of Defence building on Frunzenskaya Embankment in Moscow, along the grandiose corridors to an office door marked Lieutenant General Arkady Dubynin, a harsh and experienced soldier who had risen up the ranks during the Putin reign. The question Metzinov was asking himself as his adjutant awaited a response was whether he wanted to contact Dubynin now and give his commanding officer an incomplete report of occurrences thus far, or whether he should wait until he could provide him with more information and a fuller context in which to make what could be a very consequential decision indeed. The latter would give him the chance to send out a unit to investigate the suspicious activity while his technicians attempted to trace the source that had intercepted his drone. The former would take any say in how to proceed completely out of his hands.
“Lieutenant Colonel, sir?” Simonov said.
[[Report all occurrences thus far|Section 6eii]]
[[Wait and investigate further|Section 6fii]]
<<endif>>
<<if $expedition is 1>>
!Party of Five
As the TIGR made its way along one of the crevices in the snow that passed for roads in the north-west winter, Metzinov, in the middle of the three-seat front of the vehicle, stole a glance first at his driver, Jr Sergeant Grupovkin, then at the second passenger, Captain Sinichkin, and was left in no doubt by their grim expressions that he was the only one of them for whom the rumble and odour of the old Cummins diesel elicited any warmth of feeling. That changed as soon as he ordered Grupovkin to stop the vehicle and made all eight men get out into the snow. Sinichkin suggested Simonov be the man left with the TIGR, to which suggestion Metzinov’s young adjutant looked partial, but Metzinov insisted he come along and instead Sinichkin elected to leave Grupovkin with the vehicle.
As the rest made their way in snow-camouflage field uniforms towards the border, Metzinov was certain the party would look on the relative warmth and comfort of the personnel carrier’s steel interior with a new respect, not least Simonov, who was about half the size of the rest of the men, and had not, as far as Metzinov knew, seen field service in any way, shape or form since he’d emerged from the Frunze academy two years ago. The snow was falling in minute flakes, the wind whipping it through the air like tiny crystal blades, and the young man kept lagging behind to close the gaps his inexperience left between his face mask and the rubber surround of his tactical goggles. Sinichkin was unhappy with the delay. He had been on edge ever since he’d emerged from his quarters and discovered Metzinov was coming on the recce in person, and now led the way over the ridges that sloped down into the flat, white, frozen waters with a careful, prickling silence.
After about ten minutes, in the dip between two of the ridges, the Captain brought the company to a full standstill when his Lieutenant, Polovkinin, made to check their location and instead started banging his device with the heel of his palm.
Sinichkin pulled his mask down from his mouth.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” he growled over the whistling wind.
It could have been a trick of the moonglow, but to Metzinov’s surprise, where he would have expected to see fear in Polovkinin’s goggled eyes, he instead saw amusement.
“According to this, we’re in Moscow,” Polovkinin announced, offering the small location device to his senior officer.
Sinichkin grabbed the device and looked at its screen.
“Maybe some kind of Arctic wormhole?” Polovkinin said.
“This doesn’t look like Trubnaya to me,” Sinichkin said, lobbing the device back to his Lieutenant.
“Nor me,” Polovkinin said.
“Polovkinin, “ Sinichkin announced, “you come with me and the Commander. You too, Kuznetsky.” He turned to Metzinov. “If you’re ready, sir?”
Metzinov nodded. “Let’s go, Simonov,” he said.
“Sir?” Simonov said.
“You’re coming too,” Metzinov announced.
Polovkinin groaned audibly. Seeing Metzinov turning to scold him, Sinichkin dived in ahead in an attempt to prevent Polovkinin stepping out of line.
“Do you have something to say about Simonov’s ability to act effectively in the field, Lieutenant?” he said.
“No, sir,” Polovkinin muttered begrudgingly.
“I didn’t think so,” Sinichkin replied. “Now let’s get moving shall we?”
@@.center;
X X X
@@
Three ridges later, the five of them – Metzinov, Simonov, Sinichkin, Polovkinin and Kuznetsky – were lying belly down in the snow gazing along the coast through heat-vision binoculars. Metzinov was next to Simonov and he could feel the young man trying to smother his shivers. Metzinov focussed on what they were looking at. The ice-free fishery station was a couple of clicks to the west of their position and Metzinov could make out little glowing figures loading what seemed to be crates onto an ice-breaker. It was undoubtedly a civilian vessel, and none of the people in sight were armed, or wearing military uniforms either. But this was more activity than was normal, even during so-called daylight hours. At this time of year it was night time all the time of course, and Metzinov looked at his watch to check. He was right – it really was the dead of night – 23:37 to be precise – and that made any such activity suspicious. A person or two could easily have fitted into each container – Metzinov estimated them to measure approximately two by one by half a metre – so what he was watching could have been the transportation of illegal migrants. Perhaps they had unloaded them for exercise and refreshment before their journey continued, but the crates were also of a shape and size more familiar to Metzinov, of the kind that carried armaments – artillery, shells, ammunition. But at the distance and in the weather, there was simply no way of telling with any certainty what they were or what they contained.
He nodded to Sinichkin and the party reversed down the ridge out of the wind.
Metzinov turned to Polovkinin. “Can you tell me with any certainty on which side of the border we currently lie, Lieutenant?”
Polovkinin looked sheepish. “No, sir,” he said.
“Then call through to the TIGR and find out. They should be tracking us.”
Sinichkin gave Polovkinin the nod and the lieutenant switched on his comms.
“Grupovkin?” Polovkinin barked into the receiver over the wind. “Do you read me?”
“Hello?” someone said. It wasn’t Grupovkin. It was a female. And she was speaking English.
“Who the hell are you?” Polovkinin said.
“Hello?” the woman said. “Mother?”
“Don’t tell me that’s gone south as well,” Sinichkin said.
Polovkinin shrugged. “Unless Grupovkin was keeping her in the ski box.”
Sinichkin turned to Metzinov. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but that’s locations and comms, sir,” he said. “What do you want to do?”
Metzinov looked at the Captain for a moment.
Taking a closer look at what was going on might lead to vital discoveries, but in this weather he and his men would have to get incredibly close to determine whether or not the activity was benign, and if it wasn’t, the enemy would have lookouts stationed. If they were spotted, enemy operations would accelerate. With no comms, there would be no way for Metzinov to alert the base, let alone Moscow. On the other hand, if they could get in and out without being seen, any intelligence could lead to vital pre-emptive preparations. But what if the activity was benign and still they were spotted? Then their crossing of the border would result in a diplomatic incident for which Metzinov alone would be responsible. Alternatively, an option that carried with it less risk of escalating the situation into a diplomatic incident, they could return to base and report occurrences to Moscow and formulate a way ahead from there.
“How do you want to do this, sir?” he said.
They had crossed an international border to observe irregular activity. That was one thing. For armed soldiers to head around the sound and approach the fishery was quite something else. Nothing they had yet observed suggested this was anything but late night fish packing. If the activity really was innocent, or even if the crates were filled with illegal immigrants, heading in would without a doubt create a major incident that would result in yet more anti-Russian sentiment on the international stage. And if they were full of munitions, and those sailors turned out to be wearing uniforms under their all-weather gear, there would be a whole platoon waiting for them in that warehouse, maybe even a company. If Metzinov and his men were captured, all their efforts at intelligence gathering will have been in vain. If it wasn’t just fish packing, which at the moment was what it looked like. All of which left two options: head back to Sputnik immediately and consult with his commanding officer at the Ministry of Defence, or stay and observe in the hope that they could discern what exactly was going on over there.
Metzinov looked at his men, each one awaiting his orders in the blowing snow; Sinichkin and his two able-bodied soldiers, plus Simonov, still shivering, rubbing his arms and stamping his feet.
“All right,” Metzinov said. “This is what we’re going to do.”
[[Head back to base|Section 6gii]]
[[Continue to observe|Section 6hii]]
<<endif>>