Inside they found a rusted spiral staircase leading to an expansive concrete bunker that looked like it dated back to at least the Soviet era. Power cables snaked in every direction and stacks of generators and batteries obscured one wall. Chairs and desks had a thrift store look, though the computers and the twentysomethings manning them all looked state-of-the-art.
General Markuss Strazds was barely recognizable in his civilian clothing. The stoic expression that Rapp associated with him had been replaced by one of stunned resignation. Not surprising. Rapp had thwarted more terrorist attacks that he could count, but he’d never been faced with the sudden end of America. Organizations like al Qaeda could do a hell of a lot of damage, but they weren’t likely to sail up and annex the East Coast.
“You were right,” Strazds said. “It’s begun.”
He was referring to the cyberattack that everyone assumed would be Russia’s first wave.
“What’s that say?” Rapp asked, pointing to a set of computer screens mounted to the wall. Each one had gone dark with the exception of a few lines of illegible script at the center.
“It’s a ransomware message. Hackers demanding the equivalent of a million U.S. dollars in bitcoin to unfreeze our system. In this case the grid that powers the northeastern portion of the country.”
“It’s what I’d do,” Rapp said. “If the attacks were traceable to the Kremlin it’d telegraph their intentions. Krupin knows you want to believe it’s not them and they’re giving you a reason to.”
“If it weren’t for your warning that’s exactly what our politicians would be doing. Burying their heads in the sand, delaying action until Russian tanks were traveling our streets.”
Despite the fact that they were underground, the dull wail of an air raid siren suddenly became audible.
“We’re beginning the evacuation of the cities,” Strazds explained. “Cellular and the Internet are down, but we’ve managed to keep cable television and most of the radio stations running. Within twelve hours, our major population centers should be all but abandoned.”
“Power?” Coleman asked.
“About twenty percent of the population is currently without electricity, but we’ll have that down to ten percent in the next hour. I imagine that piece of shit Maxim Krupin will be pissing himself. Based on the malware we’ve found, he would have been expecting most of the country to be dark.”
“How long until you can get Internet back online?” Rapp asked.
“We’re not sure. The newer and more sophisticated equipment is the most vulnerable.”
“Cell service?” Rapp said.
“We’re not anticipating getting cellular back. By the time we get the servers rebooted, we assume that the Russians will be actively jamming signals. It won’t cripple us as badly as they think, though. Come, let me show you.”
As he led them toward the back of the bunker, everything went dark. Noisy swearing rose up from the kids behind the computers, quieting again when the generators kicked on.
Strazds continued through the dim emergency lighting, ushering them through an archway that looked like it had been built by the Romans. What they found on the other side wasn’t that much more modern. Women in headphones, many who seemed to have been snatched from nursing homes, were seated at an enormous board tangled with cables. All were talking into headsets and making physical telephone line connections. Along the opposite wall was a man sorting through hundreds of deteriorating wires that occasionally showered his greasy overalls with sparks.
“Ludvigs!” the general shouted. “Why do I have no power?”
The man pivoted on a bad leg. “I’ve been doing this since before you were born, Markuss! You should show me respect!”
“I can’t show you anything because you’re half-blind and there isn’t enough light!”
The man shook a fist in their direction before going back to work.
“Latvia didn’t modernize as quickly as the West,” Strazds explained. “Some of this equipment was in use as recently as twenty-five years ago and many of the people who operated it are still alive. There was never any real reason to go through the trouble of getting rid of it, and when we began planning for a potential Russian invasion we were grateful we hadn’t.”
“This stuff’s completely impervious to cyberattacks,” Coleman said, picking up on the general’s thought. “The whole country is full of wire and physical switches that have been refurbished. It may not be fast and it may not be sexy, but the only way the Russians can take it out is to blow it up. And that assumes they can find it. Most of the schematics for this stuff were never digitized. It was all just rotting away in basements of old government buildings.”
“How are Estonia and Lithuania doing?” Rapp asked.
“As well as can be expected,” Strazds said. “The Estonian president was still skeptical and they were reluctant to fully commit. But now I’m told they’re doing everything they can to make up for lost time.”
The old man trying to get the power back on grabbed hold of a switch that belonged in a ’50s horror film. A quick yank got the lights going again but left him patting flames on his sleeve.
“If you want out of Latvia, now’s the time,” Strazds said. “I have a plane that can evacuate you to Sweden.”
Rapp looked over at Coleman’s hopeful expression and shook his head. “If I made Scott leave now, he’d never forgive me.”
CHAPTER 34
SALEKHARD
RUSSIA
DESPITE his wool coat and hat, Azarov could feel the cold beginning to penetrate him. The blood on the floor had been simple to sop up but there was no practical way to get rid of the body. It was still lying in the middle of the floor where it had fallen. The problem had become delaying decay as long as possible. While the apartment building already smelled of mold, cigarettes, and urine, it was nowhere near strong enough to mask the stench of a rotting corpse.
Azarov reached for the pack of cigarettes on the table but remembered he’d smoked the last one hours ago. It was 3 a.m. and there was nothing to keep him company but the wet breeze flowing through the open window and the dead man staring at his back. He shaded his phone with a hand, holding it low so it didn’t illuminate him when he checked the screen. Still nothing from Kennedy saying that she’d received the package he’d sent for Cara. The only communication he’d received in the last twenty-four hours was a brief text from Joe Maslick saying that cyberattacks had begun. But not on Ukraine. On the Baltics.
A direct confrontation with NATO was an action so extreme that even Azarov found himself stunned. In retrospect, though, he probably shouldn’t have been. The combination of Krupin’s weakness and Andrei Sokolov’s involvement should have made this move obvious. Perhaps even inevitable.
He leaned back in his chair, examining the silent outline of the house across the street. The interesting question was whether Krupin’s Baltic gambit would be remembered as madness or as one of the most brilliant strategic moves in history. The West had become lost—struggling to remember what it was and losing sight of what it aspired to be. Did it still have the cohesiveness and sense of purpose necessary to enter a fight of this magnitude?
The sound of a motor became audible over the wind and Azarov slid the chair back, ensuring that he would be invisible from the street.
When he saw that it was an ambulance with its emergency lights dark, his heart rate rose—something that rarely happened to him unless Krupin or Cara was involved. He remained motionless as it glided to a stop and four men in paramedic uniforms stepped out.