Countdown (18 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Countdown
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THE JOKE WAS THAT Lt. Col. Bob Rand was at forty-one the world's oldest computer hacker. But of the nonmalicious variety. Once, on an evening two years ago, a number of his friends were at his house in Arlington Heights when he tapped into the bank's computer system for a captain from the Strategic Planning Pool. With a few touches of his keys he transferred an even one million dollars into the captain's checking account.
For a few hours the captain was rich. In the morning, before the bank reopened, Rand retransferred the money out of his account, leaving the bank officials in happy ignorance.
In the main, however, Rand was a loner, had always been a loner, taking his solace in his studies. He had become, at thirty, one of the youngest lieutenant colonels in the Air Force, a rank which ten years later he still held, not because he didn't deserve a promotion but because his superiors understood that Rand was in the perfect job. To promote him would be to lose him.
He had always been a man with a bitter edge. The world had passed him by in looks—he was very short, with a thin, almost emaciated torso, a ridiculously oversized head, and watery, myopic eyes—it had passed him by with women—who would not look twice at him—and even the Air Force had passed him by with promotions.
But he had become a defector in the beginning not because of any dislike for his own government, but merely for, he liked to think, the ultimate in hacking. He told the Russians what they wanted to know about U.S. weapons systems, and in the doing gained rare insights into what the Soviets were most frightened of.
Because of his unique, intimate knowledge of the enemy's fears and weaknesses, he had become the Stephen Hawking of strategic weapons planning.
But now, for the first time in his life, he was frightened. It wasn't a game any longer, and someone was watching him. He had tried two months ago to tap into the FBI's computer system, but had failed to come up with anything specific about himself, except that the Bureau believed there was a Soviet spy within the Pentagon whom they had code-named FELIKS, after the cat he supposed.
Over the following weeks he had come to believe that he was
the
FELIKS they were searching for, and he understood that there was no simple way out for him.
Tonight he was convinced of it. It was nearly ten in the evening. He sat in his tiny office in one of the sub-basements of the Pentagon staring at his computer screen.
Normally he was home by six in the evening, when he would check his computer message service. If he was going to be late, he would bring up his home system on his office machine to see if anything was waiting for him on the amateur network. This evening he had forgotten until now.
There was a message, from a man he knew only as Dr. Jo, at TS Industries in California's Silicon Valley. A complicated series of formulae filled his screen, describing the effects on a computer's bubble memory system as it began to reach absolute zero, where all electrical resistance disappeared. In reality it was a message from his Soviet control officer.
By running the formulae through a complex series of transformations, Rand could come up with a date, time, and grid reference for the city of Washington.
The date was today, and the time was 2230, barely a half hour from now. Rand pulled up the street map of Washington, overlaid the grid reference, and picked out the meeting location.
It was odd, he thought, meeting in a hospital parking lot, but then their meetings had been held at odder places: the Lincoln Memorial, Union Station, Gallaudet College.
No way out, he thought again. He had gotten a kick out of the movie. But in real life things like that simply didn't happen. He'd gotten the latest information they'd wanted, it was stored now in his home computer, and he would give it to his control officer tonight. But he was also going to give the man something else. Something the Russians simply couldn't refuse.
Erasing the incoming message, Rand shut down his computer, pulled on his uniform blouse, and, briefcase in hand, took the elevator up to the security gate.
“Working late tonight, Doc?” one of the guards said as Rand turned in his security badge.
He managed a tight smile and a shrug, laid the briefcase on the counter and opened it. Besides a few computer magazines, and a couple of nonclassified reports, there was a Police Special .38 revolver in a standard military issue holster.
“You going partridge hunting?” the guard asked a little too sharply.
Again Rand managed a little smile. “They want me to qualify by Monday, but I haven't shot the damned thing for two years. Figured I'd go to the range.” He pulled out the orders he had worked up for himself, directing him to the range officer for pistol qualification on 26 June.
The guard relaxed. “Watch out you don't shoot your foot.”
“They'd probably qualify me on the spot,” Rand quipped. “It would be the first thing I'd ever hit.”
Outside in the parking lot, Rand tossed his briefcase into the passenger seat of his panel van and got in. Swiveling his seat toward the back he flipped on the van's computer system, which was connected by cellular telephone to his house, and within seconds the data the Russians had requested from him was being transferred onto a floppy disk.
Reaching over, he opened his briefcase, took the pistol out of its holster, and laid it on the seat next to his right leg.
Oh, yes, he thought, smiling. He was definitely going to give the Russians something they couldn't refuse. When the disk drive stopped, he swiveled forward, started the van and pulled out onto the highway.
Arkady Kurshin stood in the corridor a few feet from the emergency room watching the elevator going up. His car was parked just outside, and no one had given him a second glance as he had entered the hospital through the staff entrance.
He was dressed in surgeon's blue scrubs, including the booties and cap.
Schey was in the fourth-floor ICU. He had gotten that information easily from the hospital switchboard.
The elevator passed the third floor but instead of stopping at the fourth continued up to the fifth. He had punched the buttons for both floors.
They had the elevator blocked on four, which left two stairwells, both of which would be watched. They wanted him to come here. They were waiting for him upstairs. McGarvey was waiting for him. He could almost feel the man's presence in the air.
There had been no other special security from what he had been able to see. But the fourth floor would be different.
Turning, he walked back down the corridor, passed through
the emergency room, and stepped outside into the still warm evening. Checking his watch he saw that it was nearly ten-thirty. HAMMERHEAD would be arriving at any moment.
He crossed the parking lot, stopping in the shadows between a Ford and a van about thirty feet from his own car as a pair of headlights entered the parking lot from the far end, and slowly started down the back row.
HAMMERHEAD had worked out the contact procedures himself some years ago. He was given the meet time and place over his computer message network. A car would be waiting for him with its dome light on. They had used four different color cars: white, blue, red, and black, and license plates from the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware. Each plate began with the same letter: P. Rand was searching now for the white Mercedes with its dome light on and the proper license plate.
At the end of the first row the van turned down the next, passing beneath a light, giving Kurshin a brief glimpse of a lone man behind the wheel.
The van passed the Mercedes, stopped, backed up, and then pulled into the adjacent parking place. The headlights went off, the driver's side door opened, and a man stepped out.
Kurshin, carrying his medical bag loosely in his left hand, stepped out of the shadows and approached Rand who looked up nervously and backed up a step.
“Good evening,” Kurshin said pleasantly.
Rand's eyes flicked from his medical garb to the black bag. He nodded. It was obvious that he was very frightened. A gold seam, perhaps, but an amateur ready to explode.
“Damn,” Kurshin suddenly swore. “Looks as if I've left my dome light on. Probably run down the goddamned battery.”
“It would take at least twenty-four hours to do that,” Rand answered automatically.
“It's only been out here fifteen hours.”
“Then you'll be okay.”
“Yes, I guess I'm safe.”
Rand was shaking his head. “Who the hell are you? I've never seen you before. Where is Thomas?”
Thomas,
for the past couple of years, had been Antipov himself.
“He sends his greetings,” Kurshin replied. “You must know by now that the situation is becoming dangerous for you.”
“You're goddamned right I know it. They're calling me ‘Feliks the Cat,' for Christ's sake. Can you imagine that? I got it off the FBI's machine. Christ.”
“Do you have something for me?”
“You're damned right I do,” Rand said. He was working himself up. “But this time I want something in return.”
“Is this information valid? It has not been compromised?”
Rand waved the questions off. He pulled out a three-and-one-half-inch floppy disk from his pocket and held it in his left hand. His right hand was in his trousers pocket. His nostrils were flaring and his eyes were very wide.
Something was drastically wrong here. Kurshin's gut tightened, but he held himself in check.
“This is our information?”
“Everything you asked for. Current to the next twelve days and untraceable. I mean totally in the blind.”
“You mentioned something in return.”
“I want out,” Rand said.
“What do you mean?”
“I want you to take me to Moscow. I'm going to trade you this data for my passage.”
“I don't think that's possible …” Kurshin started to say when Rand suddenly pulled the .38 Police Special out of his pocket and cocked the hammer.
“Then I'll bag me a goddamned Russian spy,” Rand shouted.
Driven purely by instinct, Kurshin batted the pistol away. Rand's finger jerked on the trigger and the gun went off. Kurshin pulled out his silenced Graz Buyra from the waistband of his scrubs and fired one shot point-blank into Rand's face. As the man was flung backward he fired his gun again, the noise shockingly loud in the parking lot.
 
“Those were gunshots,” McGarvey shouted, racing out of the ICU.
He and Dr. Rabbinoux had been standing beside Schey's bed near the window. When the shots were fired, McGarvey had looked down into the parking lot. But there was nothing to be seen.
Potok had drawn his gun.
“Somewhere outside,” McGarvey snapped.
“He knows we're here, and he's trying to draw us out,” Potok said.
They were in the outer office. Dr. Rabbinoux had snatched up the telephone. McGarvey grabbed it from him. “Get the hell out of here now, Doctor,” he yelled.
“That's my patient in there …”
“Not for the moment. I'm telling you to get out of here. Go to your office and stay there, no matter what you hear.”
Dr. Rabbinoux stepped away from them uncertainly, then turned and hurried out into the corridor, and disappeared.
“I'll take the west stairwell,” McGarvey said. “You stick it out here. Anyone comes through either door, shoot them.”
“What about Schey?”
“I don't give a shit about him. He's served his purpose. It's Kurshin down there, and he's waiting for me.”
“Watch yourself,” Potok said, but McGarvey was already racing down the corridor.
The stairwell was silent. If anyone was coming up they were making absolutely no noise. McGarvey switched the Walther's safety to the off position and started down, taking the stairs two at a time but making as little noise as possible. At the bottom of each course he leaned well over the steel railing which gave him a clear shot at the next two courses below. Nothing moved. No one was there.
On the third floor two nurses were talking at their station, and on the second an attendant was pushing a man in a wheelchair through a set of swinging doors. Nothing out of the ordinary.
At the bottom, McGarvey pulled out his FBI identification, clipped it to his lapel pocket, and stepped out into the corridor.
A knot of people had gathered near the front desk, staring and gesticulating down the broad corridor toward the emergency room entrance.
Two Marine guards came pounding up the hall, and when they spotted McGarvey, they split up, dropping into shooter's stances.
“Halt! Halt!” one of the Marines shouted as McGarvey started to turn toward them.
He raised his hands above his head so that his gun was in plain sight. “FBI!” he shouted.
The Marines were well trained but they were young and inexperienced. They hesitated, their weapons trained on McGarvey. Behind him he could hear that the people who'd been standing near the front desk were scattering, trying to get out of the line of fire.
“Look at my badge,” McGarvey yelled. “I'm FBI!”
One of the Marines straightened up and cautiously approached, his eyes switching nervously from McGarvey's gun to the badge on his lapel.
“I'm Special Agent McGarvey. FBI. You can check it out, but we heard shots down here.”
“Call Captain Schiller,” the Marine called back to his partner. “On the double.”
The other Marine jumped up and rushed down the corridor back into the emergency room.
“What the hell happened?” McGarvey demanded. “I heard two shots, somewhere outside.”
The Marine was still uncertain. “We'll just wait …”
“Goddamnit,” McGarvey shouted. “You people know what's going on up on the fourth floor. It's why I'm here. Now what the hell happened out there?”
The Marine finally backed down a little. He lowered his weapon, and McGarvey slowly lowered his hands.
“It's an Air Force officer. He was shot out in the parking lot.”
“Who did it?”
“We don't know, sir. He apparently drove up, shot the officer and drove off. The police have been notified …”
“How did you know this, exactly? Did you see it yourself?”
“No, sir. It was the doctor who …”
“What doctor?”
“A surgeon, I think. Blue scrubs. He saw everything, called for the emergency room team, and got him inside.”
“Christ,” McGarvey swore. “It's him!”
“Sir?”
“That doctor is the killer! He's Russian! KGB!” McGarvey pushed past the Marine and raced down the corridor to the emergency room.
The kid caught up with him almost immediately. Together they burst through the swinging doors and into the waiting room filled with people.
“He's in here,” the Marine shouted, swinging left and rushing into the examining room area.
McGarvey was right behind him.
A team of doctors and nurses were working frantically on a man lying flat on his back on an examining table. Kurshin was not among them. The Air Force officer had been shot in the face.
“Where is the doctor who brought this man in?” McGarvey shouted.
One of the nurses looked over her shoulder at McGarvey and the Marine standing there, guns in hand, then glanced at the team members and shook her head. “I think he's on seven getting an operating room ready,” she said and went back to her work.
 
Arkady Kurshin nodded tiredly at the three nurses on the fifth-floor duty station as he picked up the telephone and dialed the three-digit number for the fourth-floor ICU. Rand's blood had splattered the front of his scrubs. It made him look as if he had just come from an operating theater.
“Tough night, Doctor?” one of the nurses asked.
“You wouldn't believe it if I told you,” Kurshin said, injecting a note of deep tiredness into his voice.
The nurse smiled solicitously and moved off so that he could have a little privacy for his telephone call. It was ringing.
Potok answered. Kurshin did not recognize his voice, but he knew it wasn't McGarvey.
“This is security,” Kurshin snapped, keeping his own voice just low enough so that the nurses couldn't hear what he was saying. “We've got him on the second floor.”
“What? Who is this?”
“Security, goddamnit. The Russian, we've got the bastard cornered on the second floor. Is McGarvey there?”
“No, he went down just a couple of minutes ago.”
Shit, Kurshin swore to himself. “Well, we need help, goddamnit. Either find McGarvey or get your ass down here on the double.”
“What about Schey?”
“We've got the goddamned Russian cornered, didn't you hear me?” Kurshin snapped. The nurse was looking at him. He smiled tiredly, and she gave him a knowing look.
“On my way,” Potok said.
“Good,” Kurshin said and he hung up the telephone. The elevator was still on the fifth floor. Except for McGarvey's absence, his luck was holding. But if the bastard had gone downstairs, he would know by now what was going on. There still could be a chance.
“The nights keep getting longer,” the nurse said.
“Isn't that the truth,” Kurshin replied and he went down the corridor and stepped out into the stairwell. He could hear someone rushing down the stairs below as he pulled out his gun and hurried down, his bootied feet making absolutely no noise.
The fourth-floor corridor was deserted. Nothing moved, there were no sounds.
Kurshin hurried down the corridor, his every sense alert that this was a trap.
He pushed open the ICU doors and went into the unit itself. Schey was the only patient. He had regained consciousness, and his eyes were open. He spotted Kurshin and he went wild, thrashing around in the bed, pulling IV tubes out of his arms.

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