“Would it have been?” Smith inquired.

“In the spring of 1953, yes,” Valentina answered. “The West would have had a decisive edge in any nuclear exchange. By then, the United States and Great Britain possessed several hundred atomic weapons and even a couple of prototype hydrogen bombs. The Soviets had only a couple of dozen low-yield Hiroshima-grade nukes in their arsenal. Even with the first-strike advantage and augmented by biological and chemical warfare, it wouldn’t have been enough to deliver a finishing blow to NATO.

“More critically, the West had the superior delivery systems. The Soviets only had their poor old B-29skis, while the United States Air Force had the big B-36 Peacemaker, with range enough to hit any target in the USSR. The first generation of NATO jet strike aircraft like the B-47 and the Canberra were also coming into service in considerable numbers.

“Western Europe would have been made a thorough mess of,” Valentina concluded, “and the United States would have been badly hurt. But Russia and the Warsaw Pact states would have been A-bombed into a radioactive wasteland.”

Smyslov scowled and sipped his tea. “As I said, a clique within the Politburo fully recognized this reality. They also recognized there is only one way to impeach a dictator of Stalin’s kind. I regret to tell you, Professor, that history will never know the name of the individual who held the pillow over Stalin’s face until he ceased to struggle. It was most carefully not documented.”

“That’s all right, Gregori. It could only have been one of three men, and I can make an educated guess.”

Smyslov shrugged. “The clique was not able to act and secure power until after the first-strike wave was actually airborne and en route to their targets. These were the America bombers with the greatest distance to fly over the Pole. The attack was successfully recalled before it was detected by the North American air defenses, and all of the aircraft returned safely to base. All except for one biological weapons platform, the Misha 124.”

Smyslov emptied his cup. “The great konspiratsia of silence concerning the March Fifth Event began then and has continued to this day.”

“Why did they have to hold it a secret?” Smith asked. “They’d just saved the world from a nuclear holocaust, and it wasn’t as if any sane individual would weep any crocodile tears over Joseph Stalin, not even in the Soviet Union.”

Smyslov shook his head. “You do not understand the Russian mind, Colonel. Had Stalin’s killers been true liberators, this might have been the case, but they were merely tyrants killing another tyrant to save their own lives and to secure their own power base. Beyond that, the Soviet state still existed, and the mythology of the state demanded that Stalin be revered as a hero of the Revolution. Even after the Soviet Union fell, its fears and paranoias lingered.”

His lips quirked ruefully, and he set his empty cup aside. “Besides that, we Russians have something of a social inferiority complex. We pride ourselves as being profoundly civilized, and murdering one’s national leader in his sickbed is simply not kulturny.”

Smith snapped back into wakefulness, straightening out of his dozing slouch against the ice wall. Ignoring the stabbing barrage of protests from his collection of bruises, he listened, questing with all his senses.

He wasn’t sure how long he had slept; it must have at least been a couple of hours, but there was still a patch of full blackness in the entrance air vent. The sun had yet to rise, but the wind had died. The only sound from the outside was the distant creak and crack of the shifting pack ice. Inside the little cavern he could hear the deep, weary breathing of his sleeping teammates.

And a soft moan. “Sophie?”

Smith scrambled to the rear of the cave. Snapping on the lantern, he flipped down the hood flap of the combined sleeping bags that held Randi and Valentina.

In the lantern’s light Randi’s face was relaxed, and the color had returned to her skin, barring a single pale patch of frostnip on one brow and the shadows under her eyes. The dreadful gray flaccidity had passed. Her breathing was easy and uncongested, and when Smith lightly touched her throat, her heartbeat was even and strong and the flesh was warm.

As he had hoped, Randi Russell was rebounding.

At his touch, she grumbled softly and her eyes snapped open, blank at first, then questioning, then aware with the wonderment of still being alive. “Jon?”

Relief flooded through him. It wouldn’t be today after all. “You made it, Randi. You’re with us and you’re going to be all right.”

She looked at him almost in puzzlement, lifting her head. “Jon…I called.”

“And I heard you.”

The puzzlement lingered in her dark eyes for a moment more; then she smiled. “I guess you did.”

Valentina yawned and stretched, coming up on her elbow. “Good morning, all. Apparently somebody’s back with us.”

Startled, Randi twisted around in the sleeping bag, finding herself naked and not alone. “What in the hell!” she yelped.

“It’s perfectly all right, darling,” Valentina replied, propping her head on one slim wrist. “Nobody waits until after they’re married anymore.”

Chapter Forty-four

The White House, Washington, DC

President Castilla rose from the head of the long mahogany conference table. “Gentlemen, if you will excuse me for a moment, there’s a call I have to take.”

Castilla strode from the conference room, following his sober-featured Marine aide. The liaison officers from the Central Intelligence, Defense Intelligence, and National Security Agencies; the FBI; and the Office of Homeland Security exchanged silent glances, wondering what might be critical enough to preempt the morning’s national intelligence briefing.

In the Oval Office, Castilla lifted the internal phone from its cradle without bothering to seat himself behind the big mesquite-wood desk. “Castilla here.”

“Mr. President, this is the Operations Room. Please be advised, the Wednesday Island relief mission has launched and is airborne at this time.”

Castilla glanced at his desk clock. Twenty after. Major Saunders would have gotten his last weather update on the quarter hour, and true to his word, he’d been airborne within five minutes.

“Has Director Klein been notified?”

“Affirmative, Mr. President. He is monitoring the situation.”

“Do we have an ETA over the objective?”

“Roughly six hours, depending upon the weather conditions encountered en route.” The operations officer sounded faintly apologetic. “They’ve got over two thousand miles to fly, sir.”

“I understand, Major. Wednesday Island is one of those places you can’t get to from here. Keep me advised as things develop.”

“Will do, Mr. President. Please be advised, the Russian Special Liaison to the Wednesday Island Operation is still unavailable. Do you wish to inform the Russians of the relief operation?”

Castilla scowled at the bars of morning sunlight cutting across the rich reds and blues of the Navaho rug on the office floor. “Negative, Major. It’s apparent they have nothing more to say to us, and we have nothing more to say to them.”