Cauldron Read online

  Cauldron

  Larry Bond

  Patrick Larkin

  The author of Red Phoenix and Vortex outdoes himself-with an epic adventure straight out of tomorrow's headlines. When France and Germany unite against America, Britain and the Eastern European democracies, the former Soviet Union is caught in the middle of a trade war that turns into a shooting war.

  Larry Bond, Patrick Larkin

  Cauldron

  To our grandparents, Ruth & Dewey Bond,

  Don, Sr. and Beth Larkin,

  L. A. (Pete) and Mildred (Mil) Peterson,

  and Lawrence and Irene Thornton

  We had a lot of help with this book. We would like to thank:

  Chris Carlson, Don Hill, Jason Hunter, Ferdinand Irizarri, Lt. Col. Jerzy Janas, Polish Army, Don and Marilyn Larkin, Duncan and Chris Larkin, Erin Larkin-Foster, Marshall Lee, Gary C. “Mo” Morgan, John Moser, Bill Paley and Bridget Rivoli, Barbara Patrick, Tim Peckinpaugh and Pam McKinney-Peckinpaugh, Laurel Piippo, Steve St. Clair, Pat Slocomb, Thomas T. Thomas and Irene M. Moran, George Thompson and Dr. Tom Thompson (no relation), and Leonard Wong.

  They all can take some of the credit, and none of the blame.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Cauldron is the third book that Patrick Larkin and I have written in tandem — working from the faintest flicker of a glimmer of an idea to the final draft of a finished manuscript. Collaborations, especially such close collaborations, are not supposed to be easy. This one was.

  Over a period that lasted nearly two years, we plotted out this story, created its characters, and worked together to bring them to life.

  Although our styles sometimes differ, and continue to evolve, we both have strengths and skills that complement our work as a team. Each of us has favorite types of action and settings. Each of us has special areas of expertise.

  Many people write books by themselves, but I cannot understand why anyone would want to. Pat and I spur each other on, bounce ideas around, and help each other out of tight corners. He has been not only my partner in this enterprise but a good friend as well.

  For simplicity, we have used the standard Anglicized spellings and alphabet for Polish and Hungarian place and proper names. For the same reason, we have identified Russian-made military equipment in Polish service with its Russian designation, although the Poles have their own names for them.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  AMERICANS

  Corporal Tim Adams, U.S. Army — radiotelephone operator, Alpha Company, 3/187th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

  Alex Banich, aka Nikolai Ushenko — senior field operative at the CIA’s Moscow Station

  Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Colby, U.S. Army — commanding officer, 3/187th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

  First Sergeant Andy “Steady” Ford, U.S. Army — Alpha Company, 3/187th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

  General Reid Galloway, U.S. Army — chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  Mike Hennessy — CIA field operative assigned to Moscow Station

  Joseph Ross Huntington III — advisor to the President

  Lieutenant Colonel Ferdinand Irizarri, U.S. Army — liaison officer serving with the Polish 11th Mechanized Division

  Colonel Gunnar Iverson, U.S. Army — commanding officer, 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

  Len Kutner — CIA chief of station, U.S. Embassy in Moscow

  John Lucier — Secretary of Defense

  Erin McKenna — analyst and investigator for the U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Export Enforcement, assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow

  Walter Quinn — director of the Central Intelligence Agency

  Captain Michael Reynolds, U.S. Army — commanding officer, Alpha Company, 3/187th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

  Clinton Scofield — Secretary of Energy

  Major General Robert J. “Butch” Thompson, U.S. Army — commanding officer, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

  Harris Thurman — Secretary of State

  Stuart Vance — intelligence officer assigned to the CIA’s Berlin Station

  Vice Admiral Jack Ward, USN — commander, U.S. Second Fleet and later commander of U.S., British, and Norwegian Combined Naval Forces

  GERMANS

  Colonel Georg Bremer — commanding officer, 19th Panzergrenadier Brigade, 7th Panzer Division

  Major Feist — one of the 7th Panzer Division’s staff officers

  Major Max Lauer — commanding officer, 7th Panzer Division’s reconnaissance battalion

  General Karl Leibnitz — commanding officer, 7th Panzer Division

  Jurgen Lettow — Minister of Defense

  Lieutenant Colonel Klaus von Olden — commanding officer, 192nd Panzergrenadier Battalion, 19th Panzergrenadier Brigade

  Special Commissioner Werner Rehling — European Confederation liaison officer with the Hungarian National Police

  Heinz Schraeder — Chancellor

  Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm “Willi” von Seelow — operations officer, later commanding officer, 19th Panzergrenadier Brigade

  Lieutenant Colonel Otto Yorck — commanding officer of the 191st Panzergrenadier Battalion, 19th Panzergrenadier Brigade

  FRENCH

  Nicolas Desaix — director, General Directorate of External Security, or DGSE, later Minister of Foreign Affairs

  Major Paul Duroc — DGSE special operative

  Général de Corps d’Armée Claude Fabvier — commanding officer, EurCon IV Corps

  Admiral Henri Gibierge — chief of staff, French Navy

  Michel Guichy — Minister of Defense

  Général de Corps d’Armée Etienne Montagne — commanding officer, EurCon II Corps

  Jacques Morin — deputy director, later director, DGSE

  Michel Woerner — DGSE special operative

  HUNGARIANS

  Brigadier General Imre Dozsa — commander, National Police

  Colonel Zoltan Hradetsky — police commander, Sopron District, later assigned to headquarters in Budapest

  Oskar Kiraly — aide to Vladimir Kusin

  Vladimir Kusin — opposition leader

  Bela Silvanus — head of administration, National Police Headquarters, Budapest

  POLES

  Major Marek Malanowski — commanding officer, 411th Mechanized Battalion, 4th Mechanized Division

  Major General Jerzy Novachik — commanding officer, 5th Mechanized Division

  Major Miroslaw Prazmo — commanding officer, remnants of the 314th Mechanized Battalion, 11th Mechanized Division

  General Wieslaw Staron — Minister of Defense

  First Lieutenant Tadeusz “Tad” Wojcik — American-born F-15 pilot, assigned to the 11th Fighter Regiment, at Wroclaw

  Lieutenant General Ignacy Zdanski — chief of staff, Polish Army

  RUSSIANS

  Marshal Yuri Kaminov — chief of staff, Russian Army

  Colonel Valentin Soloviev — senior aide to Marshal Kaminov

  Pavel Sorokin — purchasing agent for the Ministry of Defense

  PROLOGUE

  NOVEMBER 1993 — ”EUROPE MIRED IN NEW FINANCIAL MESS,”

  THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

  Torn by wildly variable interest rates and renewed pessimism about the world economy, the turmoil in Europe’s financial markets intensified yesterday. Despite frantic interventions by their central banks, the British pound and the Italian lira continued their free fall against the German mark and the French franc. Angry exchanges between government officials in London, Rome, Paris, and Berlin seemed likely to doom any hope for an early end to the chaos.…

  JANUARY 1994 — ”RACE RIOTS FLARE IN MAJOR EUROPEAN CITIES,”

&nbs
p; WASHINGTON POST

  Angered by a new surge of economic refugees from poverty-stricken Eastern Europe and North Africa, neo-Nazis, skinheads, and radical leftists went on a bloody rampage through industrial towns and cities across western Europe. In day-long rioting that left dozens dead or seriously injured…

  JULY 1994 — ”‘TRADE CRISIS LOOMING,’ U.S. WARNS,”

  LOS ANGELES TIMES

  Recent French and German moves to protect their industries against fair international competition raise the specter of a devastating global trade war, key U.S. officials warned. On Capitol Hill, congressional leaders are already considering legislation to impose retaliatory tariffs and restrictions on goods imported from the two European countries.…

  DECEMBER 1994 — ”EASTERN EUROPE ON THE AUCTION BLOCK,”

  THE ECONOMIST

  Desperate for the foreign monetary and food aid they need to stay afloat through the winter, several of Eastern Europe’s newly installed military regimes have signed pacts that give French- and German-owned corporations a stranglehold over their trade and economic development. So-called Governments of National Salvation in Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, and Romania were among the first to mortgage their future to Paris and Berlin.…

  FEBRUARY 1995 — ”NATO ALLIANCE DISSOLVES,”

  BALTIMORE SUN

  An era of unprecedented international defense cooperation came to an end today in rancor, bitterness, and suspicion. Outraged by French and German policies they blame for the continuing world recession, the United States, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Norway formally withdrew from the NATO Alliance.…

  SEPTEMBER 1996 — ”WORLDWIDE SLUMP WORSENS,”

  DALLAS MORNING NEWS

  With whole segments of international trade at a complete standstill, the global economic downturn worsened last month. As unemployment rose to near-record levels in all major industrialized countries and famine spread throughout the third world, many economists are now labeling this a depression.…

  COMMENTARY, ABC NEWS

  “Poverty. Despair. Rising ethnic and national hatreds. Fear. This is Europe today.” Grim images flashed across the screen in time with the somber words. Pictures of miles-long unemployment lines, hollow-cheeked, hungry children, and twisted corpses scattered through burning villages. “A Europe in shambles, bleak, bitter, and adrift.

  “A divided continent where old and dangerous ambitions the world thought safely buried are on the march again.” More pictures told the story. National flags of different designs and colors waved above a dozen different, strutting crowds in a dozen interwoven news clips.

  The veteran journalist’s voice took on a sad, wistful edge. “When we won the cold war against communism, the world’s democracies had a fleeting opportunity to secure a lasting peace founded on free trade and prosperity. We did not lose this historic opening by chance or simple bad luck. We threw it away.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Provocation

  AUGUST 1, 1997 — EUROCOPTER ROTOR-FABRICATION PLANT, NEAR SOPRON, HUNGARY

  The two men lay quietly on a thinly wooded hillside overlooking their target. Clouds covered the night sky above them, rolling slowly eastward in an ever-thickening band that promised rain before morning.

  Down in the valley below, dim yellow lights outlined vague shapes in the darkness — huge aluminum-sided warehouses and factory buildings, a concrete and glass administration center, and boxcars waiting empty on a railroad siding. Other lights were strung at widely spaced intervals along a wire fence enclosing the whole compound. A single wooden guardhouse blocked an access road leading to the Budapest-Vienna highway and the Austrian border.

  Nothing moved. Money and energy were both too scarce in the wreckage of Europe’s economy to warrant around-the-clock manufacturing. Too scarce even for the high-tech tilt-rotor assemblies built by the French-owned Sopron plant.

  Major Paul Duroc glanced at his companion. “Ready, Michel?”

  “Yes.” The big man’s guttural French tagged him as an Alsatian — a man born in one of the twin provinces torn back and forth between France and Germany for centuries. He was half a head taller and massed at least ten kilos more than Duroc, extra weight and extra height that often came in handy for the physical side of their work. He slipped a pair of night-vision goggles over his eyes and quickly scanned the darkened factory compound. “Still clear.”

  Duroc tapped the transmit button on the tiny walkie-talkie clipped to his web gear. Two soft clicks sounded in his earphones. The other members of his team were in place and alert. Perfect.

  He flipped his goggles down, rose to his feet, and moved downhill. Michel Woerner followed close behind — cat-quiet despite his size. Neither man had any trouble avoiding the trees, thorn-crowned clumps of underbrush, and moss-covered stumps in their path. Their goggles magnified all available light, turning the nighttime world into an eerie array of sharp-edged blue-green images.

  Duroc paused at the edge of the woods, carefully studying the narrow band of open ground separating them from the factory’s wire fence. There weren’t any signs that Sopron’s security personnel had set up new motion sensors, video cameras, or other detection devices to cover this part of the perimeter. The single camera assigned to monitor this stretch of fence scanned slowly back and forth in a regular, dependable pattern. Men who knew the pattern in advance, and who moved quickly enough, could avoid its unblinking gaze. He allowed himself a quick, cold grin that flitted across a narrow face quite unused to smiling. For once the mission planners had been right. The Eurocopter complex was wide open. The fence, the lights, and the rest would keep out thieves, but not professionals with access to detailed information on the factory’s security systems and routines.

  He nodded once to Woerner and loped across the open ground, dropping prone next to the fence. The other man slid into place beside him a second later, already reaching for the wire cutters he carried in a pocket of his equipment vest. Duroc slipped the razor-edged jaws of his own cutters over the lowest strand of barbed wire and waited for his subordinate to do the same. Six short, powerful snips cut through three strands in rapid succession, opening a gap just wide enough for them to wriggle through. They were past the first barrier.

  The two men scrambled upright and headed deeper into the darkened factory complex. Despite the continued silence, they moved cautiously, skirting pools of light and staying out of sight of the main gate guardhouse. Both men were veterans of more than a dozen “special” operations conducted in half a dozen countries around the world. And professionals never took unnecessary chances.

  Duroc led the way, picking a roundabout path through the man-made maze of warehouses, assembly lines, and loading docks. The hours he’d spent studying detailed maps and photographs were repaid with every surefooted step. Ten minutes after they’d cut through the security fence, he crouched beside the waist-high rear wheels of a tractor-trailer truck — surveying the deserted parking lot and empty lawn surrounding the plant’s administration center and an adjacent staff canteen. Near the main walkway, a large, floodlit billboard proclaimed “Safety Comes First” in French, German, and Hungarian. His lips twitched upward at the irony. That might almost be his own motto.

  A low rumbling and the distant, mournful blast of a train horn drifted down the valley — the sounds of the midnight freight express lumbering toward Vienna. They were still on schedule.

  Duroc tapped his radio’s transmit button again. His hands were already busy with a final equipment check when the response came. Three clicks this time. The others were ready for Phase Two. He looked at Woerner and found the big man’s expressionless, pale blue eyes staring back. There were enough lights on around the factory headquarters to make their vision gear unnecessary.

  Duroc pushed his own goggles further up his forehead and lowered his hand, frowning at the sight of the black camouflage paint smeared on his fingertips. Annoyed, he wiped them off on his sleeve. It was a cool night. He shouldn’t be swea
ting.

  He drew in a quick breath, held it briefly, and then breathed out. “Now.”

  They scuttled out from behind the truck and sped across the grass, angling away from the lighted walkway and toward concealing shadows at the base of the administration building. Duroc felt his heart speeding up, racing in time with his feet. Every noise they made seemed a hundred times too loud. Each footfall on the soft, dew-soaked grass sounded like an elephant crashing through dead brush. And every hushed, panting breath echoed dangerously through the quiet night air.

  They merged with the shadows and stood still, waiting uneasily for the shout or clanging alarm klaxon that would tell them they’d been spotted. None came. Just the fading thunder of the freight train vanishing in the distance.

  Duroc’s pulse slowed and he swallowed hard to clear the sour taste in his mouth. The Frenchman shook his head, coldly irritated by the lingering remnants of his own fear. Maybe he was getting too old for this sort of caper. He’d seen it happen to others in the secret services. Every field operative had only a limited reservoir of courage. When it was used up, you were finished, fit only for a sterile, useless desk job.

  He snorted in self-contempt as Woerner touched his arm. Precious seconds were slipping away while he wasted time in absurd self-analysis. Action would burn through the fear. It always did.

  Bent low to stay below eye level of anybody inside looking out onto the grounds, they edged around the corner of the building. Duroc counted windows silently. Three. Four. There. He stopped. The architects who’d designed the Sopron plant’s ultramodern headquarters had been thinking of esthetics, not security. Waist-to-ceiling picture windows made every outside room and hallway seem larger and lighter on sunny days. But they also left them exposed and unguarded.