it and the concept behind it amusing. Certainly the Western intelligence agencies had psychological profiles of him—he’d read one, in fact—so he found it entertaining to be largely basing their most ambitious operation on a profile of their own.
Kealty was the consummate politician, which in American politics was taken as synonymous for leader. How and when this ignorance had started he didn’t know. Nor did he care. The American people had chosen for themselves the politician who had most ably portrayed himself as a leader, never asking whether the image matched the character behind it. CASCADE said it did not, and the Emir agreed. Worse still—or better still, depending on your perspective—Kealty had surrounded himself with sycophants and favor-holders who did nothing to improve his credentials.
So what happens when a weak man of flawed character is faced with a cascade of catastrophes? He crumbles, of course—and with him, the country.
As promised, their charter boat was waiting for them. The captain, a local fisherman named Pyotor Salychev, sat in a lawn chair at the end of the deserted plank pier, smoking his pipe. Bobbing in the black, cold water was a twelve-meter wide-beamed British Halmatic trawler. Salychev grunted as he rose to his feet.
“You’re late,” he said, then stepped off the pier onto the afterdeck.
“Bad weather,” Adnan replied. “You’re ready?”
“Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”
During their first negotiations, Salychev had asked few questions about who they were or why they wanted to go to the island, but Adnan, playing the role of an ecological zealot, had dropped several hints during their conversation. Watchdog groups had long been coming here to document the ravages of the Cold War, Salychev had replied with a shrug. As long as they paid and as long as they didn’t hazard him or his boat, Salychev was happy to take anyone to that godforsaken place. “No accounting for stupidity,” he’d told Adnan.
“It’s smaller than I’d imagined,” Adnan said, nodding at the boat.
“You were expecting a battleship? She’s tough enough. One of the only good things the British ever built, the Halmatic. I’ve had her lying on her beam and she still snaps to. You worry about yourself. Come on, then, we push off in ten minutes.”
The rest of Adnan’s men finished unloading their gear from the truck, then hurried down the pier and started loading it onto the afterdeck as Salychev barked orders about where and how to place everything. Once satisfied all was in order, Salychev cast off the lines, propped a foot on the pier, and pushed the Halmatic off. Seconds later he was in the wheelhouse, turning over the engine. With a belch of black smoke from the manifolds, the diesel engine roared to life and water frothed at the stern.
“Next stop,” Salychev called over his shoulder, “hell.”
Two hours later the island’s southern headlands appeared through the fog off the starboard bow. Adnan stood amidships, watching the coastline through a pair of binoculars. Salychev had assured him military patrols would be no trouble, and Adnan could see none.
“They’re out there,” he called from the pilothouse, “but they’re not so bright. You could set your watch by ’em. Same patrol routes, every day at the same time.”
“What about radar?”
“Where?”
“On the island. I heard there was an air base. ...”
Salychev chuckled. “What, you’re talking about Rogachevo? Not really, not anymore. Not enough money. Used to have an interceptor regiment there, the 641st, I think, but nowadays it’s just a few cargo planes and helicopters.
“As for the boat patrols, they got dinky navigation sets, and like I said, they’re predictable anyway. Once we’re inshore, we’re safe. As you might imagine, they try to keep their distance.”
Adnan could understand why. While his men knew little about the nature of their mission or their destination, Adnan had been fully briefed.
Novaya Zemlya was indeed a hell on earth. According to the last census, the island was home to 2,500 people, mostly Nenetses and Avars living in Belushya Guba settlement. The island itself was in reality two islands—Severny in the north, and Yuzhny in the south—each separated from the other by the Matochkin Strait.
It was a shame, really, Adnan thought, that all the world knew of Novaya Zemlya was its Cold War history. The Russians and Europeans had known about it since the eleventh century, first through Novgorod traders, then through a steady string of explorers—Willoughby, Barents, Liitke, Hudson. . . . They’d all visited here hundreds of years before it was annexed by the Soviets in 1954, renamed the Novaya