He noticed Golitsyn’s aide whispering to the admiral again. “You have something to contribute, Nikolai?”

Golitsyn bobbed his head. “Yes, Mr. President.” His aide leaned forward to enter a few commands on the keyboard in front of his superior.

A new image appeared, inset on the digital map showing northern Russia, the Arctic Ocean, Alaska, and northern Canada. It showed a large humpbacked nuclear submarine berthed beside a pier.

“This is Podmoskovye, one of our Delfin-class SSBNs, which the Americans called Delta IVs,” Golitsyn explained. “Several years ago, we stripped out her ballistic missile tubes and converted her instead to carry commandos and unmanned minisubmarines.”

“If you’re suggesting using this submarine to carry a Spetsnaz team to the North American coast, that still leaves our men faced with a rather long walk,” Zhdanov said wryly, holding his temper in check with difficulty. He’d long known the admiral wasn’t that bright. But he’d hoped Golitsyn’s younger, more educated subordinates would make up for their commander’s shortcomings.

“No, sir, that’s not my plan,” the admiral assured him earnestly. His aide typed frantically, and now the photograph disappeared, replaced by a schematic showing all of Podmoskovye’s compartments. Besides her twin 180-megawatt nuclear reactors, the most noticeable was a very large compartment immediately aft of her sail. A label on the diagram indicated that was a hangar where the submarine’s autonomous, unmanned minisubs were usually housed, enabling them to be launched secretly while below the surface. “What we can do is leave Podmoskovye’s smaller submersible vehicles behind and use this space instead to store collapsible bladders of helicopter aviation fuel. Then a high-speed run under the polar ice cap would bring the submarine to a point not far off the enemy coast, somewhere in the Beaufort Sea. Once there, she could break through the ice sheet and establish an improvised refueling point. In case it proves necessary to send in a Spetsnaz raiding party.”

Zhdanov considered the plan and asked, “How long would it take your submarine to reach its destination?”

Once again, Golitsyn held a short, hushed consultation with his aide. “A minimum of four days.”

Four days? That might as well be an eternity in the present circumstances, Zhdanov thought wearily. Then again, what other options did he have? He nodded. “Very well, Admiral. Issue the necessary orders to the Northern Fleet and Podmoskovye’s captain.”

At last, he turned his attention to two men seated just beyond Golitsyn. One, Sergei Veselovsky, headed the Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR. The other, Aleksandr Ivashin, led the nation’s military intelligence agency, the GRU. Each man looked more like a boring, middle-aged civil servant than a spymaster responsible for orchestrating the espionage and covert operations aimed at Russia’s rivals around the globe. That was good cover, Zhdanov supposed. As it was, he made it a habit to keep a very close eye on the pair of them. Overly ambitious intelligence chiefs and secret policemen were always a potential threat to any Russian ruler. “Veselovsky! Ivashin!” he barked. “Listen up!” Caught off guard, they stiffened.