Page 31 of Tom Clancy Line of Sight
“Still, you must try. I know you have unofficial connections in Brussels.”
“And I will do everything in my power to persuade them. But one way or another, my government will do what is necessary to protect the people of Bosnia, and our Muslim brothers here, just as we are elsewhere in the world.” It was no secret that the Turks were expanding their military presence in the Caucasus, the Middle East, and Africa.
The deputy director nodded. “This I know well, Kemal. You have always been a good friend, and Turkey our great, strong brother.”
Topal closed the file in front of him and slid it back across the desk. The deputy director reached out his hand to slide it toward himself, but Topal’s hand didn’t release it.
“One thing occurs to me,” Topal said.
“Yes?”
“The Serbians may, indeed, be taking a page from the Russian playbook. But have you considered the other possibility?”
The intelligence bureaucrat frowned. “What possibility?”
“That it’s actually the Russians who are behind all of this.”
Judging by the deputy director’s ashen face, Topal guessed that he had not.
17
BELGRADE, SERBIA
General Sevrov, the stocky deputy commander of Russia’s Electronic Warfare (EW) Forces, stood at the lectern, where his laptop computer was located. He stole a glance at the double-headed white eagles adorning the Serbian national and army flags that hung from the tall, wood-paneled walls of the auditorium. They were flanked by oil portraits of mustachioed Serbian generals from wars long past, glaring down at him with martial ferocity.
Sevrov’s commanding voice thundered with the technical authority of a man with three advanced degrees in electrical engineering, but the fruit salad of medals and parachutist’s jump wings on his barrel chest reminded the assembled audience of Serbian military staff and field officers that he was also an accomplished combat commander.
Sevrov’s mission today was twofold. Certainly it was to convey his country’s most recent advances in EW, but even moreimportant was the political goal of stiffening the spines of the soldiers and politicians in the room, including a delegation from the Republika Srpska, representing the most nationalist elements among the Serb population in Bosnia.
To Sevrov’s shame, some of the people in this room didn’t trust his country to defend them during a crisis. He couldn’t blame them entirely. The Serbs had expected the Russians to protect them against NATO intervention during the war, but his government made the strategic decision to leave the Serbs to their own devices, primarily out of weakness, having just emerged from the fall of communism.
Sevrov was a junior lieutenant at that time, and felt personally betrayed that his own government would allow NATO to kill Slavs in order to protect Muslims. Many of the men in this room had also been active in the war. Having experienced both NATO military prowess and Russian weakness, they were entitled to their doubts about the ability and willingness of his government to protect them in a time of crisis.
Sevrov intended to dispel those doubts today, once and for all.
Today’s briefing, coupled with the ongoing Slavic Sword and Shield special ops exercises, was also meant to solidify the growing Russian–Serbian military alliance. Tomorrow morning, Sevrov himself would jump with five hundred other Serbian, Russian, and Belarusian paratroopers in the opening spectacle for the joint Serbian–Russian civilian air show being held at Batajnica Air Base.
Sevrov killed the lights as a giant projector screen slid into view.
“I don’t need to remind anyone sitting in the room of NATO’s power and reach across Europe,” Sevrov began. “Or its abuses.”
He used a laser/presentation combo remote to flip to the first PowerPoint image, a familiar sight to anyone of a certain age who lived in Belgrade. It was a picture of the former Yugoslavian Ministry of Defense building burning in the night. Despite their painful familiarity with the subject matter, there was still an audible gasp in the room.
Sevrov advanced to another picture of the same building taken last year. It still stood in the heart of Belgrade, a shattered remnant of its former glory.
The architecturally significant building had been smashed by NATO fighters in 1999 in response to Serbian aggression in Kosovo. Officially, the Serbian government left the remains of the ruined building standing as a monument to the unjust “cruelty and suffering” inflicted upon the Serbian people by NATO. Critics of the government said that the bureaucrats in Belgrade were either too poor or too incompetent to manage a proper demolition and reconstruction of the massive edifice, a view not shared by any of the nationalist patriots in this particular room.
Sevrov let the image of the bombed-out building linger on the screen to allow the moment to soak in, another reminder of the shame, humiliation, and outrage Serbians felt at the time—and still did.
The general then clicked through a series of short videos of NATO tanks, planes, missile launchers, and self-propelled howitzers in action.
“Nor do I need remind any of you of the history of NATO’s combined-arms AirLand Battle doctrine.”
He then flipped to an animated graphic representing the same battle systems, but now all connected to one another by electronic signals transmitting to and from satellites circling over Europe.
“The AirLand Battle doctrine has now evolved into NCW—Network Centric Warfare—which, of course, is merely following the lead of the Americans, who also use the term NCO—Network Centric Operations.” Sevrov grinned and wagged his head. “But you know how the Americans are. They always have to put their own little spin on things, don’t they?”
A smattering of laughter rippled through the room.
