Arc Light (91 page)

Sparks flew again as clanging bullets ripped through the metal steps and a soldier in front of Lambert howled and fell, tumbling to the next landing as Lambert was pulled down painfully onto his back from behind by the lieutenant. Soldiers appeared on either side of Lambert with rifles pointed straight down through the gaps around the stairs' railings, but they held their fire. The medic brushed past Razov on the steps below Lambert to tend to the fallen soldier ahead as still more bullets ricocheted up the concrete-encased stairwell, fragments of the wall exploding in puffs of dust at the randomly sprayed automatic fire.

Lambert felt his entire body exposed, suspended there on the thin perforated metal of the staircase as the narrow channel conducted strings of bullets straight up the concrete shaft. Soft flesh and brittle bone would do nothing to stop the high-powered rounds that shattered concrete and clanged unhindered through steel. Another burst tore across the risers just below his feet, holes blown into the metal right before his eyes. One of the paratroopers dropped his rifle and sat down on Lambert's legs, hugging his forearm to his chest as he gathered for a scream.

“Let's go!” Razov said as he pulled Lambert to his feet. They were headed down toward the muzzles of the guns below.

“A-a-a-ah!”
the soldier cradling his shattered arm shouted as Lambert edged past, his eyes squinted shut in the agony of pain, of realization at what had happened to the limb that he held limply in his good hand. More bullets flew by with clangs and the still more ominous
z-z-z-z-i-p
that puffed lightly against Lambert's cheek, the kiss of the bullet's wake deceptively gentle as it tickled the soft hairs of his face above the line of his razor.

Down they went into the hellish depths. Lambert nearly turned an ankle on the puckered hole from a bullet on the metal step as a brilliant flash lit the semidarkness of the shaft. The blast from the concussion grenade pounded Lambert's eardrums, and he instantly
grew woozy. They used concussion grenades, he realized despite the light-headedness, instead of fragmentation grenades.
You don't use frags in a stairwell.
Down they ran into the choking smoke from the grenade's blast, the sounds of fighting now hammering constantly into Lambert's aching ears and head.

By the time they made it to a large landing at the bottom along which lay piles of bodies, the fighting had died down. They rushed past the wounded, leaving them unattended as they sped to catch up with Filipov and came upon soldiers crouching and lying on the floor to fire around corners. The handful of soldiers remaining in Lambert's little group raised their weapons and took up standing positions along the walls by the intersection of passageways. They were the front line now.

On shouted command by the lieutenant, Lambert watched in horrified amazement as four paratroopers leapt into the corridor to be met with a storm of bullets, firing their rifles on full automatic from their hips. Two of the men fell dead or grievously wounded almost instantly, the other two disappeared in a rush into the smoke through which they fired, emptying their magazines as they ran.

Lambert saw now Filipov and another man across the corridor. Filipov shouted “Up!” and the few remaining men rose, two moving slowly and leaving large wet patches of blood where they had lain. They followed the lead men down the hall toward the sounds of their guns, leaving only Razov, Lambert, and the lieutenant. Razov nodded at the corner, and the three of them rushed into the smoke toward the flashes of the guns ahead.

They passed doorway after doorway, most filled with soldiers who stared anxiously back at them, crouching or lying behind map desks, tables, and radios in rooms filled with files or computers, taking no part, no side, in the intramural fighting. The large double doors ahead were kicked open, and light flooded the semidarkness of the hallway. Suddenly seeing the smoke that billowed along the low ceiling, Lambert coughed reflexively.

With the opening of the double doors, the fighting ended, and all fell quiet save the ringing in Lambert's ears.

As Lambert, Razov, and the lieutenant passed the bodies of the last two soldiers from Lambert's little detail and walked briskly up to join Filipov, who stood with rifle leveled in the open double doors ahead, Lambert realized just how close it had been. He stole a glance over his shoulder. They had started down with one hundred men, less the few who were killed up top and the few others left to block the stairwell entrance. They—Filipov, Razov, Lambert, the lieutenant, and three wounded soldiers—had made it with almost no one to spare.

Razov stepped into the brightly lit room past Filipov and one of the wounded soldiers propped against the doorframe. Lambert looked over the shorter Filipov's shoulder at the long conference table and at the men—generals, admirals, older men—who stood to the sides of the room away from the doors that were riddled with stray bullets.

All eyes were on Razov, but Razov's were on the two devices at the end of the table, like bulky portable computers, at which sat two younger Russian Army officers.

“Out!” Razov shouted with one pass of his assault rifle past the group of senior officers.
STAVKA
, Lambert realized as Filipov and his few soldiers herded the men out. They filed past studying Lambert and were led into a room next door to the main conference room as a few additional survivors from the fight filtered down the long corridor. Filipov began his walk down the hallway past the faces of the staff crowding the open doorways shouting in Russian, “General Razov is now in command! Return to your duties at once! General Razov is now in command! Return to your duties at once!” As he met the incoming paratroopers, he issued orders and pointed, sending the men running off.

“Mr. Lambert!” Lambert heard in English from behind and he turned to see Razov opening a thick notebook on the table next to the seated officers. Without looking up he said, “Get your President on the line now!” and jabbed a finger at a row of telephones on a credenza at the side of the room. “Dial nine for an ordinary line.”

Lambert lifted the telephone and dialed 9. Pulling his wallet from his pocket he heard the click and then dial tone. He dialed the telephone number dedicated by AT&T International solely for this one call. After a rapid series of clicks he heard the distant sound of an operator. “Nightwatch.” It was amazingly simple.

“This is Greg Lambert. Let me speak to the President.” It was then that Lambert realized the two devices on the table were the nuclear communicators and that the book through which Razov paged, his pointed index finger running down the page in a search, was a binder torn from the side of the communicators.

“This is Costanzo. Greg, where the hell have you been?”

Lambert quickly told him, keeping his eyes on Razov the entire time.

“What is he doing now?” the President asked.

“He's . . . I don't know,” Lambert replied as Razov frantically searched page after page in the codebook. Lambert lowered the phone and said, “General Razov, I have the President.”

Razov was muttering to himself as his finger traced the page, his eyes and his attention completely focused on the book.

“What the hell is he doing?” Lambert heard the tinny voice come from the phone's earpiece.

“General Razov?” Lambert asked. “What are you
doing?”

Razov did not respond, and Lambert raised the phone. “He's standing behind the . . . the nuclear communicators and looking through a book. General Razov!” Lambert shouted, the officers seated at the devices staring back and forth between the two with wide eyes. Lambert raised the phone to his ear. “Just a second, sir.” He placed the handset down and walked over to Razov.

“I've got the President on the line. What the hell is going on?”

Razov kept repeating under his breath the Russian letters for MSGRMG. Lambert looked down at the book, Razov's finger running down the columns of seemingly random letters and numbers.
Codes,
Lambert realized.

“Answer me, Goddammit! What the
hell
are you doing?” Lambert demanded.

Razov took time off from his mumbling to say,
“Doverayte mnye
—trust me, Mr. Lambert.” His finger then resumed its tracing of codes down the page. He quickly flipped to the next page in the thick book, the columns of twelve-character codes flying by under his finger.

Lambert went back to the phone. “He says trust him. He's searching through what appears to be a codebook.”

“Open the code cases,” Razov said, and Lambert stared as the two officers opened up the covers.

“He's ordered the nuclear communicators activated,” Lambert said into the phone.

“Jesus Christ,” Lambert heard in the background of what presumably was the Nightwatch conference room, the voice sounding like that of the Secretary of Defense. Razov turned the page and his finger ran down the column.

Razov's finger stopped in its track. His lips moved, mouthing the code that his finger now traced horizontally. He read it one more time. “That's it! Enter the following code.”

“He's entering a code, sir. He's entering a code.”

“The letter
M
,” Razov said to the two officers. They each pressed a button.

“He's entering a code, sir!”

“Lambert,” the President said, his voice urgent, “stop him. Stop him, Greg!”

“
S
,” Razov read from just above his fingertip, and the officers entered the code.

Lambert set the phone down and raised his rifle, clicking the selector switch on full auto.

The two officers looked up at him in shock.

“
G
,” Razov said, not looking up. “G!” he snapped when the men did not respond. Tentatively they each punched another key.

“General Razov,” Lambert said, “step away from the table.” The rifle was leveled at him.

“Faster, faster!” Razov said, intentionally not looking at Lambert. “Zero!”

“Razov!” Lambert shouted, shouldering the rifle and aiming at his head.

“Goddammit, Greg, don't let him enter that code!” he heard faintly from the telephone.

The officers punched another key.
How many digits was that?
Lambert tried to remember as Razov said, “Six!”—still hunched over the book.

Lambert pulled the trigger, the rifle exploding with hammering blows into his shoulder as the plaster walls above the three men's heads showered dust and debris down onto them.

The two seated men ducked, their faces frozen in terror as they stared at Lambert. Razov's finger remained planted firmly on the page but he looked up at Lambert. “Zero.” When the seated men hesitated, still staring at the rifle in Lambert's hands, Razov said, “Faster! Zero!”

“Don't move, Greg,” Lambert heard as the officers punched the keys on their devices. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Filipov, his own rifle raised to his shoulder and pointed straight at Lambert's head.

“Greg! What's going on? Are you there?” the President shouted.

“The letter
R
!” Razov said, and the two men punched the letter
R
in, the seventh character of the twelve-character code. “
M
!” Lambert watched through the fixed iron sight of the rifle as the eighth digit was entered.

“Put down the rifle, Greg,” Filipov said. “Put it down right now.”

“
G
!” The ninth digit went into the two communicators as Greg heard the President shouting, “Is that a launch code? Is he entering a launch code? Greg, are you still there?”

“Zero!” The tenth.

“Greg, for the love of God, if you're there stop that bastard!”

Razov said, “Five,” and then looked up. “I'm trying to save the world. Do you trust me, Mr. Lambert?” Lambert looked over at Filipov, who shouted, “Greg! I'm warning you, put down that rifle! Now!”

Lambert looked back at Razov. “It is your choice, Mr. Lambert. Your choice.” He looked back down at his fingertip. One of
the officers seated below him closed his eyes. “Six,” Razov said calmly.

The officers raised their fingers to press the keys and Lambert's finger tightened on the trigger. The twelfth character was punched into the devices.
“Kommanda podana,”
the two officers both said in unison. “Code accepted.”

Lambert lowered his rifle, and Filipov skirted the credenza to jerk it from his hands, holding his own rifle one-handed and pointed at Lambert's chest the entire time. Greg's jaw hurt from its grinding clench, and his heart skipped a beat as his tongue probed his lower rear molar for any taste of bitterness or numbness. The crown seemed intact.

“Let me speak to the President,” Razov said walking over to the telephone.

“I have just entered a code, Mr. President,” Razov's voice came over the speaker, “that was first input into the code banks on orders of Soviet President Gorbachev after the abortive coup against him in August of 1991. During the coup, his nuclear code case and that of Defense Minister Yazov both came under the plotters' control. In the final stages of the coup's collapse, Yazov threatened use of nuclear weapons against the Soviet air base from which General Shapashnikov organized the military resistance to the plotters.”

Thomas saw the President's eyes shoot over to the director of the CIA, who shrugged and shook his head, rising to his feet to walk over to the President's side.

“The code was maintained as a secret from the military and passed from Gorbachev to Yeltsin upon collapse of the Soviet Union. Upon the arrest of President Poltavsky in the military coup earlier this year—which I personally undertook, as you know—Poltavsky asked for a moment in private with me. He disclosed to me the code, which is perpetually on a long list of ‘reserved' codes that are set aside for use by our system and are ordinarily for various command, communications, and training purposes. ‘Reserved' codes are excluded from the set of codes available to be randomly generated every day to serve as the active launch codes.”