THIRTY-THREE

Dr. Korstikoff was driving a midsized loaner. It had been rented by a third party with an absolutely clean background check who then handed over the keys to the Russian physicist. Korstikoff had flown into Richmond International Airport to avoid Reagan National as well as Dulles, where security was usually ramped up.

He was now heading north on Interstate 81, up the western edge of Virginia. The rounded peaks of West Virginia were on his left, and in the distance to his right were the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. In between, straight up the valley where he was cruising in his Ford sedan, was the Shenandoah Valley. The land was green and rolling, dotted with farms, small towns, and horses grazing along wooden fences.

It was perfect in its bucolic isolation. The whole county had less than fifty thousand inhabitants in its five hundred square miles of woods and meadows — minimizing the risk of nosey neighbors. And there were only small local police forces. The state patrol would stick to the interstate and wouldn’t be likely to venture into the countryside.

Perfect for the final phase of the deadly operation.

Korstikoff flipped his turn signal and moved onto an exit ramp. After making a careful stop at the traffic sign, he clicked his stopwatch and drove till he came to a small county road. He turned left and drove two and a half miles until he saw a sign that read “Mountain Pass Machine Parts Co.” hanging from a post. He turned onto the dirt and gravel drive. A quarter mile down the road, he came to a security fence. He reached out the window and tapped in the security code on the pad; the gate opened. Korstikoff drove through a wooded area for a hundred yards until he came to a metal barn in the middle of a clearing. Several cars and a rental truck were parked outside. Off to the side were two long trailers with sleeping quarters. When Korstikoff slowed his rental car to a stop at the barn, he clicked his stopwatch off. He read the elapsed time. Eight minutes and forty seconds from Interstate 81 to the place of assembly. Perfect.

He smiled and walked into the barn that housed the assembly shop.

They were all there waiting. The Muslim Pakistani scientist who had worked on his own country’s nuclear weapons program and had been apprenticed to the notorious A. Q. Khan, the dreaded arms dealer. There was the Canadian transplant from Iraq who had once been in charge of an electrometallurgical plant, which had been a useful cover for Saddam’s fledgling WMD program. Also several technicians who were the “nuts, bolts, and wrenches” guys who would finally clamp together the updated version of the RA-115 portable nuclear bomb and help load it onto the truck.

Last but not least, there were four Middle Eastern men with automatic weapons assigned to drive the completed weapon to its final destination.

The team broke into applause when Korstikoff entered.

He smiled and shook hands all around. He stepped over to the empty metal shell that would soon contain the nuke. He placed his hand on the titanium steel casing.

In his deep Russian baritone, he began singing loudly and mockingly, in celebration of their deadly project and the quiet valley where it would be prepared:

The room erupted in coarse laughter. When it subsided, everyone found themselves looking with excitement at the mechanical nightmare that lay on the floor — the nuclear weapon that was awaiting final assembly.

In her office in the West Wing, Vice President Tulrude was reading the recent fed-secure-telex message from the secretary of energy. It read:

Within the hour, Ambassador Andrea Portleva was escorted into the Yellow Oval Room of the White House where Tulrude had decided to entertain her guest. It was a classy room, beautifully historic.

When the Russian ambassador entered, she flashed a gracious smile and shook Tulrude’s hand. She took a sweeping look around at the gold-tinted china on display and the graceful, arching walls. “Such a wonderful room,” she said with a smile. “And it was, I believe, first used by your president John Adams, correct? Whose own son was an ambassador to Russia!”

“You’re an astute historian!”

Inwardly Tulrude was muzzling some mild resentment. The younger, glamorous Portleva was even more beautiful than her pictures. Tulrude didn’t spend much time dwelling on her own looks, except to take the advice of Teddy, her dresser, so she could look “both competent and feminine,” in his words. She knew she’d never win a beauty contest. But there was another contest she planned on winning, and Portleva was going to help her win it.

After some chitchat and a cup of tea, Tulrude suggested that they meander over to the Treaty Room. “Let’s discuss,” she said, “the possibility of increased shipments of oil from Russia to the United States.”

As they walked in, Portleva pointed out the obvious, that Russia had already been generous in diverting certain increased petroleum allotments to help the beleaguered U.S.

“Certainly,” Tulrude acknowledged, “but not enough. Unlike your country, we’ve been unable to expand offshore drilling platforms.”

Portleva nodded. She understood all too well. “Yes, ever since your British Petroleum disaster in the Gulf so many years ago, followed by all of those most unfortunate political squabbles, and another oil spill …”

Tulrude had calculated that the Treaty Room would send a message to her visitor, since it was the president’s private study. Clearly Virgil Corland wouldn’t be meeting with Portleva that day. Tulrude would meet with her instead. Corland had no “scheduling problem.” He was having another one of his attacks and had blacked out. When Tulrude first heard about the president’s illness, and that she’d have to meet with Portleva that day, she looked up at the sky and uttered a pronouncement: “There is a God!”

Of course, she didn’t really believe that, but she did feel as if some supernatural force was putting the wind to her back and aiding her advancement. Now, if she could wrangle enough oil from Russia to lift the rationing order on American consumption, she’d be on her way to becoming a national hero.

And all that would make her earlier conversation with Attorney General Hamburg even more important. She’d asked him at the time about Corland’s absurd order to investigate a possible Russian conspiracy against the U.S.

Hamburg had asked her, “Where did Corland’s order come from? His fear about the Russians, I mean?”

Tulrude didn’t waste time spitting it out. “It came from that nutcase defense contractor, Joshua Jordan. He met with Corland personally, filled his head with some crazy scenario.”

“How’d you find out?”

Tulrude was not about to share the fact that she was using the president’s own chief of staff as a spy. “Reliable source, Cory. Trust me.”

“On the other hand,” said Hamburg, “I don’t want to be accused of countermanding the president …”

“You aren’t. You can just say that the supposed Russian plot has been looked into and found totally wanting in substance. Period.”

Now, as Tulrude sat in the president’s chair in the Treaty Room, with Portleva in the armchair across the antique oak table from her, she was proud of herself, that she had defused any embarrassing investigation into the Russians. She was free now to really push the oil issue.

“Ambassador, we need a substantial increase in oil imports. We need evidence of further goodwill from Russia.”

Portleva smiled. They talked some more, and when the meeting ended, they shook hands, with the ambassador promising to recommend to Moscow that Tulrude’s demands be “fully met.” All the while, Tulrude was thinking about her political future. It was bright and beautiful.

At that moment, Jessica Tulrude certainly wasn’t thinking about history. If she had, she might have realized that this was the very same room where, in 1941, President Roosevelt had received an urgent bulletin.

Telling him Pearl Harbor had just been attacked.