Countdown (36 page)

Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Countdown

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THEY HAD REACHED THE western coast of Cyprus by early afternoon, and Captain Grechko had slowed the boat down, bringing her off her hydrofoils so that she operated as a conventional craft.

In this mode she was capable of speeds around twenty knots, but they would still reach their launch position off the Syrian coast sometime around eleven, giving them plenty of time to set up for the shoot and get free.

The motion aboard was not so comfortable now as it had
been before. The
Stephos
tended to wallow at times in the heavy swells coming from the southwest across the entire fetch of the Mediterranean, but no one was complaining; in less than twelve hours they would be on their way home.

Kurshin had taken over the captain's cabin and after their meeting this morning he had managed to get several hours of deep dreamless sleep so that when he rose a few minutes after three he was fully rested. He stood in the middle of the room, his head cocked, listening to the sounds of the ship. Grechko had brought four KGB crewmen with him: an engineer, a loadmaster, and the two divers who had located the missile and had placed the collar around it. With Captain Makayev and his four-man crew it made ten men aboard besides Kurshin.

Except for Grechko and his engineer, the others were resting. It had been a long two days and nights.

Kurshin picked up the phone and called the bridge. Grechko answered. “How does it look, Ivan Akhminovich?”

“We've got Cape Kormakiti off our starboard now, about fifteen kilometers.”

“We're on schedule?”

“Of course,” Grechko said. “We'll round Cape Andreas after dark. Everything is going as you wished, Comrade Colonel.”

Kurshin heard a hesitancy in the man's voice. “Yes, what is it?”

“It's your submarine drivers. Makayev and the others have been huddled together since before noon. I don't like the smell of it.”

“I'll take care of it,” Kurshin said. He had been expecting trouble from Makayev.

“I'm coming down, we'll talk about it â¦” Grechko started to say, but Kurshin cut him off.

“No. I'll be topside in a minute. I want to check the missile. When I'm finished we'll have our little chat.”

“As you wish.”

“Yes,” Kurshin replied, and he hung up. He stood beside the desk for a moment or two deciding on his options, and on the timing of his moves. Grechko was an ambitious man, he would
go along with whatever happened. Makayev, however, was the weak link. Without his cooperation his missile man, Lieutenant Chobotov, would refuse to do what was necessary to ready the missile for launch.

Now was the time to resolve that issue and get ready for his ultimate solution.

He strapped on his shoulder holster and checked to make certain that his Graz Buyra was ready to fire, then went across the cabin to where he had stuffed his emersion suit in a locker. Pulling it out, he unzippered one of the leg pockets and withdrew the slender cylinder of Labun nerve gas, with its timing device attached to the release valve.

Two had been used aboard the
Zenzero
, and four aboard the
Indianapolis
. Neither Russian crew had bothered to count. It was their mistake.

Handling the deadly cylinder with extreme care, Kurshin removed the safety seal from the valve, checked his watch again and set the timer for eight hours. Pulling the four life jackets from a locker over the door, he gingerly put the cylinder inside and replaced the life jackets.

Before he left the cabin he looked around. At a few minutes after eleven this evening, this place would become a killing chamber. He nodded in silent satisfaction, and a smile crossed his features as he stepped out into the corridor and went topside.

On the foredeck, Kurshin ducked beneath the false crates into the space where the Tomahawk lay cradled in its launch ramp. Electric motors tied now to the ship's power system would raise the ramp to an elevation of twenty degrees, plenty to assure a good launch. Everything was in readiness except for the setting of the timing and firing circuitry, which only Lieutenant Chobotov was capable of doing.

Back out on deck, he looked toward the south where the mountains of the big island of Cyprus rose up in the haze-filled distance. So close now, he thought. And when it was finished he would not only have Baranov's gratitude, he would have the man's patronage â¦ with that, anything was possible. Absolutely anything.

Grechko was alone on the bridge when Kurshin went up. The
ship was being steered by an autohelm unit, her course and position determined by satellite navigation equipment.

“Are they still below?” Kurshin asked, closing the door.

Grechko nodded. “Rimyans is watching them.” Rimyans was one of the divers.

“Are your people armed?”

Again Grechko nodded. “Are you expecting trouble over this thing?”

“Very probably.”

“I thought so. What do we do?”

“Get your people up on deck. As soon as they're in place I'm going to call Makayev and his crew up to get the missile ready for firing.”

“Do you think they'll cooperate?”

Kurshin gave him a hard stare. “They're navy, we're KGB. They'll cooperate.”

Grechko's eyes narrowed. “But I think we'll need that lieutenant to launch the missile.”

“Only to set up the firing circuitry,” Kurshin replied. “Afterward he will be expendable. They all will be. Do I make myself clear, Ivan Akhminovich?”

“Perfectly,” Grechko said softly, and he picked up the phone to call his crew.

Kurshin stepped to the forward windows and looked down at the crates strapped to the foredeck. The
Stephos
was an innocent ship on a mission of mercy. No one could tell otherwise without coming aboard. He raised his eyes to the sky. In the distance to the east he could see the contrail of a jet aircraft flying very high. Possibly an airliner, he thought. Possibly the Israeli Air Force. Possibly almost any kind of a jet. But not a spy plane. Those you never saw.

He had given a lot of thought to McGarvey over the past days. But now, for some reason, he was getting an uncomfortable feeling that somehow the man was watching him. Impossible, and yet the notion was there, at the back of his head. It was because of Ramstein, he supposed, that he was becoming jumpy. But McGarvey had managed the impossible then. How about now? He was a devil.

“Give them two minutes,” Grechko said.

Kurshin turned back to him. “Do they understand what is required of them?”

“Yes, Comrade Colonel. As a matter of fact I had already discussed this very possibility with them. They know what to do.”

“Good.”

Grechko crossed the room, opened the door, and stepped out onto the bridge deck. A minute later he waved. “They are in place now.”

Kurshin picked up the telephone and hit the button for Makayev's cabin. It was answered on the first ring by the captain.

“Yes?”

“Send Lieutenant Chobotov topside. I want him to ready the missile.”

“So soon?”

“Yes, now.”

The line was silent for a moment, but then Makayev was back.

“Yes, Comrade Colonel, we'll be right up.”

Kurshin hung up the phone. There was no mistaking Makayev's tone, nor his use of the wordâ
we'll.
It was to be a showdown, and now. Again Kurshin grinned in anticipation.

“They're on the way up,” he said out on the bridge deck.

“All of them?” Grechko asked.

“It would appear so. You cover us from here. But no matter what happens, Lieutenant Chobotov isn't to be harmed.”

“I understand.”

Kurshin reached the main deck just as Makayev and his crew showed up from below. They all carried sidearms. Grechko's men had hidden themselves, which was just as well because Makayev's people drew their weapons and spread out.

“We're taking over this ship,” Makayev said.

“And then what, Niki?” Kurshin asked calmly.

“We're going to dump the missile, and then sail into Limassol on the south side of Cyprus where we'll turn ourselves over to the authorities.”

“Why?”

“What we have done is an act of war, Colonel. We have
decided that we will not compound this insanity by firing a nuclear weapon on any target â¦ military or civilian.”

“Have you lost your nerve then?” Kurshin asked, still grinning.

Makayev ignored the question. He looked up at Grechko standing on the bridge deck. “Where is your crew?”

Grechko smiled. “Shall I call them?”

“Yes.”

“Very well,” Grechko said, and at that moment the other four KGB officers, all of them armed with AK74 assault rifles, appeared on deck.

Makayev's men stepped back in surprise and shock.

“Put your weapons down now,” Kurshin ordered.

Makayev was shaken, but he was a good man and he held his ground, his weapon pointed at Kurshin's chest. “I will kill you.”

“And then you will die,” Kurshin said. “And I think, Niki, that perhaps you love your life more than I do mine.”

Still Makayev hesitated.

“If you cooperate now, you have my word that nothing will be said about this incident. Everything will be as before.”

After several long seconds, Makayev finally uncocked the hammer of his automatic and stuffed the weapon in his holster. “Do as he says,” he told his crew. One by one they holstered their weapons.

“A wise decision, Niki,” Kurshin said.

Makayev looked at the KGB crew who still held their weapons at the ready. “Tell them to put down their guns.”

“First I would like Lieutenant Chobotov to ready the missile. I need your fullest cooperation.”

“All right,” Makayev said heavily. “Do it, Aleksei Sergeevich.”

Chobotov hesitated for a beat, but then broke away from the others and went with Kurshin around to the foredeck where they ducked beneath the false crates.

“I want it armed and set to fire at midnight exactly,” Kurshin told him.

“What if something goes wrong, Comrade Colonel? I mean what if we are delayed for some reason in raising the launching ramp?”

“Nothing will go wrong; trust me, Lieutenant.”

“Well, if these crates are not removed and the ramp isn't raised I wouldn't want to be within fifty kilometers of this ship,” Chobotov said. He took a small flashlight from his jumpsuit pocket and handed it to Kurshin. “You will have to hold the light for me, sir.”

“With pleasure,” Kurshin said. “And believe me, you and your captain will get exactly what you deserve for this.”

And very soon, Kurshin thought. Very soon.

It took the young lieutenant less than ten minutes to arm the Tomahawk's firing circuitry and install the timer onto the proper circuit board.

When he was finished, he replaced the access panel with its ten fasteners. “There,” he said, turning around.

Kurshin had taken out his gun and had screwed the silencer tube on the end of the barrel. Chobotov opened his mouth to cry out when he realized what was about to happen, but Kurshin fired a single shot point-blank into his left eye, slamming him backward, his head bouncing off the deck.

Reholstering his gun, Kurshin turned and calmly ducked back out from beneath the false crates and made his way back to the afterdeck where Makayev and the others still stood at gunpoint.

Makayev looked beyond Kurshin. “Where is Aleksei?”

“Dead,” Kurshin said. “Kill them.”

Makayev reached for his gun, but Grechko's men opened fire, and Kurshin began to laugh.

SOSUS CONTROL CENTER, CRETE

TIME WAS RUNNING OUT for all of them. It was nearly six in the evening and still they had come up with nothing concrete. As someone around the situation table growled, the stretch of the Mediterranean they were searchingâfrom the eastern end of Crete to the coasts of Israel, Lebanon, and Syriaâencompassed more than two hundred thousand square miles of water. Heavily trafficked water.

A special circuit had been set up linking the SOSUS center with the National Security Agency's Ft. Meade satellite reconnaissance
service, over which KH-11 photographs came in a steady stream.

An SR-71 spy plane had been dispatched from its base at Prestwick, Scotland, downloading its first batch of photographs through a special satellite link. The second batch, taken two hours later, would show them relative movements when compared to the first, and were due to be transmitted at any minute.

Naval Intelligence units along with local CIA stations throughout Europe had enlisted the cooperation of Interpol in an effort to track down the leasing of any ships within the past few days to a week. Their reports were continuously being added to the growing pile of data.

But this was summer. The Mediterranean was a playground for boaters from nearly every country in the world.

The CVN
Nimitz
and its task force continued to shadow the Russian fleet, of course, and the
Phoenix
and
Baton Rouge
continued to watch the approaches to the Black Sea on the off chance that they had been fooled into believing that the
Indianapolis
had actually gone down. It would be another full twenty-four hours before the ASR
Pigeon
was on station and they could send the submersible down for a firsthand look.

But by then, it would be too late.

Trotter had been on the encrypted telephone with General Murphy all through the late morning and afternoon. The Israelis had been fully assessed of the situation, and they had sent up the U-2 spy plane they had purchased from the U.S. Air Force some years back, and which had proved very effective for them. They had no capability of downlinking such photographs; instead, the U-2 had to be returned to its base, the film canisters unloaded, and the film processed and printed. The results of that first overflight were expected soon.

It had become a gigantic job of collation. Each possible target vessel had to be studied carefully to make certain it was of the proper size. But although the Tomahawk missile was heavy, it was only twenty-one feet long; it wouldn't take a very large boat to handle it. Assuming the missile was going to be fired sometime tonight, and from a spot somewhere within the vicinity of the Syrian or Lebanese coasts, there was another limiting factor. If
the missile had been transferred from the
Indianapolis
in the early morning hours (and there was still no proof of that), then it would take time to cross the nearly eight hundred miles of sea. With each target, once its speed was determined, they extrapolated backward, to see if the vessel could have been off the coast of Greece at the proper moment.

“That is, if they're going to fire the missile from that close,” Ainslie said.

McGarvey looked up from the situation table and rubbed his eyes. None of them had gotten any rest, and all of them were becoming edgy. Ainslie had been talking to Admiral DeLugio, who looked and acted like a wounded bear on the verge of going on a rampage.

“What are you saying to me, Mal?” the admiral growled.

“Just this, Admiral. We've got no guarantee that McGarvey is right. If I were this Kurshin, I would be getting rid of the missile at the first possible opportunity. They've been within firing range the whole time.”

“They might have doubled back, is that it?”

“Yes, sir. By now they could be anywhere. Anywhere at all. And once it gets dark we're not going to have a chance in hell of finding them.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Convince the president to go public,” Ainslie said after a brief hesitation. “Gorbachev wouldn't dare go ahead with it.”

“It wouldn't work,” McGarvey said.

They looked over at him. “Why not?” DeLugio demanded.

“Because Gorbachev and the Politburo know nothing about it, that's why. This is a Baranov plot. It doesn't go beyond him. And you can bet he's got his alibis. Whatever happens or doesn't happen, his hands are going to be clean.”

“Bullshit,” Ainslie swore. “You've got this Baranov sonofabitch on the brain. The man is the head of the KGB, and a Politburo member. Responsible men do not do these kinds of things.”

McGarvey laughed tiredly. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“It's a goddamned vendetta. I've seen the report, McGarvey. You fucked up two years ago, and although you managed to
stop the missile launched in Germany, you fucked up again by not stopping this Kurshin you're so hot to go after. And less than two months ago you fucked up again, nearly getting yourself killed in the process.”

“Besides, his target is Israel, not the States, is that it?” McGarvey said tightly. He was beginning to lose his temper.

“Get out of here, McGarvey. We don't need your kind. You're nothing but a hired gun, and from where I'm standing it doesn't look like you're even worth a damn at that.”

Trotter, who had been talking on the phone across the room, put it down. “Kirk,” he called in warning.

“Admiral, call Admiral O'Malley,” Ainslie said. “He can take this to the president. Before it's too late. And order this maniac out of here. This is a Navy matter. The CIA will just fuck it up.”

McGarvey was around the big table in three steps. He grabbed a handful of Ainslie's uniform blouse with his left hand, the big Graz Buyra he had taken from the Grosser MÃ¼ggelsee boathouse in his right, the barrel pressed into the soft flesh beneath the man's chin.

“Stand down, mister,” DeLugio roared.

“I've come up against this sonofabitch before, Ainslie, and you're right, I did fuck up,” McGarvey said through clenched teeth. “He wants to unseat Gorbachev and become party secretary himself. If Kurshin pulls this off for him, Baranov just may succeed, and then you and the Navy will definitely have a problem.”

“Mister, that's a direct order,” DeLugio was shouting, but McGarvey ignored him.

“But he's counting on assholes like you to help him do his work. Going public with this now will only delay our search, giving him plenty of time to do what he's set out to do.”

Admiral DeLugio had snatched a .45 automatic from one of the Marine guards and he jammed the barrel into the back of McGarvey's head. “Lower your weapon now,” he said.

McGarvey cocked the Graz Buyra's hammer. “Let me get on with my job, Admiral.”

“We'll talk about it. First put down your weapon.”

“He very nearly succeeded in Ramstein, and this time he
managed to steal one of your submarines and kill her crew. He won't stop.”

“Kirk,” Trotter shouted again from across the room.

McGarvey did not divert his stare from Ainslie's bulging eyes. “We're not giving this up, John.”

“Killing him won't do any good,” a familiar voice said.

McGarvey glanced toward the door. Lev Potok and his number two, Abraham Liebowitz, both of them dressed in battle fatigues, stood there.

“Who in hell let them in here?” DeLugio bellowed.

“I did,” Trotter said. “They're Mossad.”

“Kirk, I know where your missile is,” Potok said. “Or at least I think I do. We've got a chance now to stop him.”

“The U-2 flight?”

“Yes. I've brought the photographs with me. But we need your information to make sure. And it will be dark very soon. We don't have much time.”

McGarvey slowly lowered his weapon, uncocked the hammer, and holstered it. “Stay the hell out of my way, Ainslie,” he said. “And put that goddamned gun down, Admiral.”

DeLugio lowered the .45 after a beat.

Ainslie had staggered backward, rubbing at his throat. “Arrest this man! Now!”

“Shut the fuck up,” Admiral DeLugio snapped. He turned to Potok and Liebowitz. “As you say, gentlemen, we don't have much time. Let's see what you've got.”

A space was cleared on the situation table. Potok unsnapped his briefcase and quickly laid out a batch of photographs that the U-2 had taken on her overflight of the coastlines of Syria and Lebanon.

McGarvey picked up a magnifying glass and studied the images of a large boat with a white hull. A red cross had been painted on each side of her sleek hull. The foredeck was littered with crates. In one photograph he could make out the lettering.

Lieutenant Newman had picked up another magnifying glass and he too studied the photographs. When he looked up he shook his head. “Won't wash,” he said.

“Why?” Potok asked.

“This is the Motor Vessel
Stephos
, right?”

Potok nodded.

“That's the Red Cross ship out of Athens that your people checked out, wasn't it?” Newman asked Ainslie.

At first the man said nothing, but a look from DeLugio got him started. “Yes. It's a legitimate Red Cross vessel.”

“Did you have a chance to find out where she was sailing to?” Potok asked.

“No,” Ainslie admitted. “She was a legitimate ship, and there just wasn't enough time to mess with it.”

“Besides,” McGarvey said, “we discounted her because of the timing. At twenty knots or so she wouldn't have been able to make it from the Greek coast, where we think the missile was transferred, this far east.”

“At twenty knots,” Potok said. He turned again to Ainslie. “Did your people tell you what kind of a ship this was?”

Ainslie was confused. “No â¦ just â¦”

“It's a hydrofoil, Kirk,” Potok said. “She is capable of doing fifty knots over reasonably calm seas, which is exactly what we have now.”

“We didn't show that kind of speed.”

“No, she probably got the hell out of there in a big hurry to put as many miles between her and the pickup point as possible, and when she was well clear she slowed down to normal speed.”

“Christ,” McGarvey swore softly.

“What we need to know is your best guess for the time of transfer. When was the missile taken off your submarine?”

“Sometime between midnight and two in the morning, as best we can figure from the track of the
Indianapolis
before she was spotted,” DeLugio said.

Newman had snatched up a pair of dividers, and quickly walked them across the chart, starting from a spot between the Greek bays of Messini and Lakonia, where they figured the missile had been offloaded, to the Syrian coast where the
Stephos
was now heading.

He looked up. “Bingo,” he said.

Again McGarvey studied the photographs. “Still doesn't nail it down solid.”

“Your missile is twenty-one feet long, is that right?” Potok asked.

DeLugio nodded.

“The pile of boxes on the
Stephos
's foredeck would just hold it.”

“Marked Lebanese Relief Organization. Still could be legitimate â¦” McGarvey started to say.

“We've checked on it, Kirk. They know nothing about it,” Potok said.

McGarvey thought about it for a moment. It was just the kind of ploy Kurshin would be using. The man had been called the chameleon. He was always out in the open in plain sight, only you were never quite certain what you were seeing.

“How sure are you of this, Lev?” McGarvey asked.

“Now, just about one hundred percent. The Air Force is standing by. We can make a surgical strike â¦”

“No,” DeLugio cut him off. “In the first place, if you hit the missile's fuel tanks and they blow, you'd be spreading radioactive material into the sea.”

“And in the second place,” McGarvey picked it up, “Kurshin will be waiting for something like that to happen. He might just decide to blow the missile the moment your jets came over the horizon.”

“Killing himself,” Potok said.

“I don't think he cares.”

Potok started to say something, but then he nodded. “We've both seen him in action. You're right.”

“We can have a unit of SEALS there within ninety minutes,” the admiral said.

McGarvey and Potok were looking into each other's eyes.

“My people will do it,” the Israeli said. “We've got the bigger stake â¦”