Whirlwind? Zhdanov darted a questioning glance at Rogozin. The general shrugged helplessly, as if to confirm this was nothing he’d ever heard of before, either.

On-screen, the recorded image of Alexei Petrov kept talking. “Very shortly, I will take off from this hidden airfield,” he told them. “Once safely airborne, I will fly a stealthy course deep into American airspace.” He smiled grimly. “There, approximately five hours from now, I will launch the twelve long-range, nuclear-armed stealth cruise missiles that you, perhaps foolishly, have entrusted to my care.”

That drew startled gasps from around the room. All along, the prospect of a rogue commander in control of live nuclear weapons had been their worst nightmare—a fear that had faded only when it seemed Petrov was more interested in money than in sparking a nuclear holocaust.

“These missiles will be targeted on American military command and control centers in and around the Washington, D.C., area, their B-2 bomber base in Missouri, their B-52 bomber bases in Louisiana and North Dakota, and the U.S. Navy’s ballistic missile submarine bases at Kitsap, Washington, and Kings Bay, Georgia,” Petrov said calmly, apparently wholly unconcerned that he was announcing the probable deaths of hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of people, soldiers, airmen, sailors, and civilians alike. “They will be carefully timed to arrive and detonate simultaneously.”

Zhdanov saw Rogozin’s head nod slowly. What the colonel proposed was technically possible. It was simply a matter of setting the necessary navigation points so that missiles aimed at closer targets would fly somewhat longer, more circuitous paths to arrive at their chosen destinations. While that increased the chances that the Americans might detect some of the incoming attacks, the risk was minimal. Their ability to spot stealth weapons fired from so deep inside their national territory was negligible.

Petrov reached out and tapped the display. The digital map of the United States blanked and then disappeared. “My attacks will decapitate America’s political and military leadership,” he said bluntly. “They will also wipe out its strategic bomber force and sink much of its ballistic missile submarine fleet in port.”

“My God,” Zhdanov muttered, seeing in his mind’s eye fire-laced mushroom clouds towering above American ports, airfields, and its national capital. It was the old dream so often pictured by Soviet strategists during the long Cold War. And, at the same time, the old nightmare of those who understood the risks involved.

Petrov’s mouth thinned. “Even men of limited imagination, like yourselves, should be able to see the opportunity offered by the chaos and confusion this bolt-from-the-blue strike will create,” he went on. “Perhaps even to realize that an immediate follow-on attack by Russia’s strategic rocket forces could destroy the remaining American ICBMs in their silos . . . before any of the dazed survivors can order a retaliatory launch.”

Again, Zhdanov saw Rogozin nod his head in agreement, though almost unwillingly now. With Washington, D.C., in radioactive ruins and the American president and his top military leaders dead, the Americans simply would not be able to react in the thirty short minutes between the time Russia’s own ICBMs rippled out of their silos and off their mobile launchers and the lethal moment their hundreds of multiple nuclear warheads detonated over U.S. missile fields.