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There were about thirty trucks, but only three drove straight into the parking area of the main building. It was a huge structure, the base five stories high and three hundred yards wide, with two main entrances; an upper superstructure a hundred yards wide with eighteen stories. Normally eight thousand people would work in it, but on New Year’s Eve there were fewer than five hundred to ensure the service continued through the night.

Armed men clad in black jumped out of the three parked trucks and ran straight into the two reception areas. Within seconds the frightened lobby staff were lined up against the back wall at gunpoint, clearly visible from the outer darkness. Then Monk watched them ushered away out of sight.

Inside the main building, guided by a terrified porter, ;the point unit made straight for the switchboard room, surprising the operators while one of their number a former Telekom technician, disconnected all lines in and out.

One of the Black Guards emerged and signaled with his flashlight to the rest of the convoy, which then rolled forward to fill the parking lot and surround the office building in a defensive ring. Hundreds more Guards poured out and jogged inside.

Though Monk could see only vague shapes in the windows of the upper floors, the Guards according to their plan were fanning out through floor after floor, removing all mobile phones from the terrified night staff and hurling them into canvas carryalls.

To Monk’s left there was a smaller secondary building, also part of the TV complex, reserved for accountants, planners, executives, all at home celebrating. It was shuttered in darkness.

Monk reached to the car phone and dialed a number he knew by heart.

“Petrovsky.”

“It’s me.’’

“Where are you?”

“Sitting in a very cold car out at Ostankino.”

“Well, I’m in a reasonably warm barracks with a thousand young men on the verge of mutiny.”

“Reassure them. I’m watching the Black Guards take over the entire TV complex.”

There was silence.

“Don’t be a bloody fool. You have to be wrong.”

“All right. So a thousand armed men in black, arriving in thirty trucks with dipped headlights, were supposed to invade Ostankino and hold the staff at gunpoint. That’s what I’m watching from two hundred yards away through my windshield.”

“Jesus Christ. He’s really doing it!”

“I told you he was mad. Maybe not so crazy. He might win. Is anybody in Moscow sober enough to defend the state tonight?”

“Give me your number, American, and get off the phone.”

Monk gave it to him. The forces of law and order would be too busy to start tracing moving cars.

“One last thing, General. They won’t interrupt the scheduled programs—not yet. They’ll let the recorded stuff go out as usual until they’re ready.”

“I can see that. I’m watching Channel One right now. It’s the Cossack Dance Troupe.”

“A recorded show. They’re all recorded until the main news. Now, I think you should get on the phone.”

But Major General Petrovsky had just disconnected. Although he did not then know it, his barracks would be under attack within sixty minutes.

It was too quiet. Whoever had planned the takeover of Ostankino had planned well. Up and down the boulevard there were blocks of apartment houses, mostly with lights lit, their inhabitants down to shirtsleeves glasses in hand, watching the same TV that was being hijacked in silence barely yards away.

Monk had spent his time studying the road map of the Ostankino district. To emerge onto the main boulevard now would be asking for trouble. But behind him lay a network of back streets between the housing projects that eventually led southward to the center of the city.

The logical way would have been to cut through to Prospekt Mira, the main road to the center, but he suspected that highway too was no place tonight for Jason Monk. Without putting on his lights, he hung a U-turn in the road, climbed out, crouched, and emptied a magazine of his automatic straight at the trucks and the TV building.

At two hundred yards a handgun sounds like a firecracker, but the bullets carry that distance. Three windows in the building shattered, a truck windshield broke apart, and a lucky shot caught a Black Guard in the ear. One of his companions lost his nerve and sprayed the night with his Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Because of the bitter cold, double-glazed windows are vital in Moscow; with them, and with the television blaring, many residents still heard nothing. But the Kalashnikov shattered three apartment windows and panic-stricken heads began to appear. Several then disappeared to run for their telephones and call the police.

Black Guards were beginning to form up and head toward him. Monk slipped into his car and sped away. He put on no lights, but the guards heard the roar of the engine and fired further bullets after him.