The brass ship’s chronometer resting on Donnegan’s desk struck eight bells, oh six hundred local time. The admiral spun in his big office chair to gaze out the window behind him. Washington was still asleep across the Potomac, but the Pentagon bustled with activity. The parking lot outside his E-ring office was half-full, even at this hour. With troops and ships spread all over the globe and on high alert, with the precarious international situation since the carnage beneath the Barents, there were even more people than usual here to watch and direct.

Donnegan turned back toward the open door and yelled through to the outer office, “Schwartz, get in here! I’ve got something for you to do.”

The admiral went back to reading Bill Beaman’s latest message about what he had seen from his overlook above the Polyarnyy Submarine Base in Russia. Ambushes and firefights inside the base. President Gregor Smitrov taken prisoner. All of it happening in broad daylight with a sizeable contingent of the world press less than a mile away. It was all unbelievable, but the admiral did not doubt Beaman’s report. They even had video of most of it that they could bring out with them.

Donnegan rubbed his chin as he pondered what it all meant and what should be done about it.

His first reaction was to assume no one inside Russia knew what was going on yet. He could get on the horn to one of his counterparts inside Russia, get the word to the government some way, and let them take it from there. He dismissed that idea. He would have to reveal how he came to know such a thing had even happened. That would mean admitting he had sent combat troops into Russia. There was no way, either, to know how deep Durov’s poison had seeped into the Russian military, who could be trusted and who couldn’t.

He could do nothing and allow Durov’s scheme to play out for a while longer. The United States could feign ignorance like the rest of the world when the coup was inevitably made public.

No, that wasn’t an option, either. There was far too much chance that the wily old fox might get away with whatever it was that he was doing. With someone in charge who was as insane as Durov, the havoc he might set loose in the meantime could be catastrophic.

Only one plausible idea remained, and Tom Donnegan shivered at the very thought of it. He could send Bill Beaman and his SEAL team in to rescue the Russian president from his captors. That would thwart Durov and his coup attempt, help to stabilize the Russian government, and bring some just end to this submarine disaster.