Overkill (28 page)

‘Don’t tell me,’ Simpson interrupted. ‘Let me guess. A major explosion was detected in the Bolshezemel’skaya Tundra.’ Richter nodded. ‘So?’

‘That was the easy bit. The seismic record shows that the Russians detonated a medium-size nuclear weapon way out in the tundra. What doesn’t make too much sense is the rest of the
data. The Seismic Activity pack usually only contains traces from the seismograph recorders plus a summary about the likely source from one of the scientists, but this incident generated a number
of highly technical little notes from the boffins at Aldermaston.’

Simpson looked at his watch. ‘And what do these notes say – briefly?’

‘I’m not a scientist,’ Richter went on, ‘but the gist of the matter seems to be that the nuclear explosion was unlike anything the Russians have detonated before. The
seismic signature doesn’t match anything they are known to have developed for their nuclear arsenal. It also doesn’t correspond to any weapon type developed by the Americans, so the
obvious implication is that the weapon is entirely new.’

Richter paused and Simpson looked at him appraisingly. ‘So what?’ he asked.

‘That’s precisely the point,’ Richter replied. ‘So the Russians have developed a new bomb, but so what?’

Simpson looked at his watch again. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, and stood up. ‘So what have we got?’

‘I still don’t really know,’ Richter said. ‘What I’ve read in the files and what Kemp at JARIC said about the lack of normal post-weapon test traces on the tundra
suggests that the Russians have developed a completely new form of nuclear bomb. What I don’t understand is why that should make the Americans so cagey about telling us.’

‘Well,’ said Simpson. ‘I might be able to tell you that tomorrow, because this extraordinary JIC meeting has been called on behalf of the London CIA Chief of
Station.’

Friday
Hammersmith, London

Richter received a brief call at home just before eight in the morning from Sheila, Simpson’s PA. ‘Committee Room Two at nine, please.’

When Richter reached the third floor, it was clear that he hadn’t been the only operative to receive a summons. The Committee Room seated twenty-four, and there were only five seats spare
once he’d sat down. Simpson was at the head of the table, the Intelligence Director on his right. Simpson looked round the table, checking that everyone was present and correct, nodded to
himself and then began. ‘We have a problem,’ he said, without preamble. ‘To date the only people who have been aware of this matter have been Richter and myself, although the ID
has been consulted about certain aspects of it. Some of you will have heard about the death of Graham Newman, the SIS Head of Station Moscow.’

There were murmurs of sympathy from around the table. ‘What you will not know is that Graham Newman did not die in a car crash. That was, and will remain, the official version.
Richter’s researches indicate that Newman was almost certainly snatched by the SVR, and we have concluded that he died under interrogation in Moscow.’ The murmurs turned to angry
whispering. ‘That is unusual enough, especially in the current climate of better east–west relations, but there is more. Last week a Lockheed SR–71A Blackbird spy-plane was pulled
out of retirement to make a covert flight over north-western Russia. The aircraft was slightly damaged during the flight and was very short of fuel when it cleared Russian airspace. It was unable
to rendezvous with any of its support tankers or to reach its airfield of departure – Mildenhall – and it was forced to land at RAF Lossiemouth.’

The room was entirely silent, everyone hanging on Simpson’s words. ‘The photographic intelligence experts at JARIC analysed copies of the Blackbird films that were supplied –
under a certain amount of duress – by the Americans. They also ran comparisons between KH–12 satellite pictures they had on file and the SR–71A films, but their initial report was
inconclusive. No new installations were detected, and there seemed no adequate reason why the Americans had wanted pictures of the terrain over which the aircraft flew.’ Incomprehension was
showing on a number of faces. ‘Richter visited JARIC to examine the films, and on leaving was attacked by an assassination team, later and posthumously identified as Russian.’ Simpson
looked straight at him, as did everybody else round the table.

‘I was lucky,’ Richter said. ‘They ran out of road.’

‘Quite,’ Simpson said dryly, and continued. ‘Richter is well known for his wide and somewhat eccentric contact list, and he was able to persuade a CIA analyst to give us some
pointers about the Blackbird films, despite their NOFORN caveat. His source stated that it wasn’t what was showing on the films that was important, but what wasn’t. Further study by
JARIC staff showed that a hill deep in the Bolshezemel’skaya Tundra had vanished.

‘We considered the possibility that the hill hadn’t been a hill at all – that it had been some sort of camouflaged installation – but we have concluded that this was not
the case. Richter’s informant was quite specific in stating that the object removed was both completely worthless and very old, and none of the satellite photographs on file at JARIC showed
any sign of activity at the location. So, we have to conclude that the hill was just a hill.’

Simpson poured himself a glass of water. ‘Yesterday Richter checked the seismic recordings. These showed that on the second of last month seismic activity of an unusual sort was detected
in the vicinity of the hill. I don’t pretend to understand the technicalities of it, but the boffins here got quite excited. The hill was apparently destroyed by a nuclear weapon, but one
without a known signature. In other words, a new type of bomb.’

He changed tack. Simpson had always given good briefings – short, concise and precisely to the point. Nobody ever fell asleep when he was talking. ‘Last night I attended an
extraordinary meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which was extraordinary in more than one sense of the word. First, it was called by the CIA Chief of Station – Roger Abrahams
– who was accompanied by a man called John Westwood. He’s the Head of the CIA Foreign Intelligence Staff – a Langley big wheel. Secondly, it was a meeting without minutes. All
secretarial staff were excluded, and restrictions were placed on all attendees.

‘Roger Abrahams and John Westwood took the chair, as it were, and told us a very interesting story. It’s a story at the moment without an ending, which is why you’re all here
now. The CIA needs our help, for reasons which will become clear later.

‘First, a history lesson, which I’ll keep as brief as possible. Following the accession to power of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the entire fabric of Russian society changed. The nation
opened up to the West and to Western ideas, but this actually created more problems than it solved with, for example, member states of the former USSR breaking away to try to do their own thing.
Names like Chechnya, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan entered the languages of the world, usually associated with violent protests against Moscow and Russia.

‘Obviously nobody anticipated the Westernization of Russia would proceed without difficulties, but there were actually far more obstacles than anyone expected. Instead of the optimism that
might have been expected, a significant proportion of the peoples of the Confederation of Independent States began protesting against the new regime. Their argument, reduced to its simplest form,
was that although things had been bad under Communist rule, at least everybody knew where they were and what was going on. Under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the situation was entirely new, and they felt
cut adrift, their normal points of reference removed. This mood led to the attempted
coup
against the new leaders.

‘That,’ Simpson said, ‘is the history. The CIA has maintained intense surveillance of Russia throughout this period, and has come up with some interesting data. First, overt
defence spending in the former USSR has slowed considerably. The CIA and all other Western intelligence services have noted a reduction in the build rate of combat aircraft, submarines and ships,
and a lot of building has stopped entirely. This should have freed significant amounts of capital into the general economy, but neither the CIA nor anyone else has been able to detect any evidence
of this. The queues outside the shops in Moscow are just as long – in fact, most of them are a lot longer – and the food shortages are just as apparent. What the CIA has been trying to
find out is where the “spare” money has been going.’

Simpson glanced round the table again. ‘The CIA has come up with a controversial hypothesis. If it is assumed that actual defence spending is the same as previously, then the secret
development of a new weapon is a real probability. Further, if this hypothetical new weapon is sufficiently unusual that it makes existing weapons obsolete or nearly so, then it is possible that
glasnost
is just a front to lull the West into a false sense of security, and that Russia is actually planning some kind of first-strike against us.’

American Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London

‘We’ve heard from SIS,’ Roger Abrahams said, closing the briefing room door behind him.

‘And?’ John Westwood looked up from the file open in front of him.

‘And nothing. Officially, the Secret Intelligence Service regrets that it is unable to assist, but requests that we keep Piers Taylor fully informed.’

Westwood considered this. ‘“Unable to assist” – does that mean that they can’t, or that they just won’t?’

Abrahams shrugged. ‘Whatever. It could be either, but my guess is that they can’t. Either way, we’re going nowhere here. Do you want me to keep Taylor in the loop?’

Westwood nodded his head. ‘Yes. The directive from Langley was clear enough about that,’ he said. He slapped the file closed and looked at his watch. ‘I’d better talk to
Langley, and now I’ll have to go see the French. Signal the Paris Chief of Station that I’m coming, and then get me on a flight to Paris tomorrow morning.’

Hammersmith, London

There were sharp intakes of breath around the table and two people started to ask questions. Simpson stopped them. ‘Questions later. I should say that I don’t
personally subscribe to this first-strike theory, and I would normally assume that it’s just the usual CIA paranoia. However, the killing of Newman, the attempted assassination of Richter,
and the vaporization of a hill in the tundra have to be considered. We can ignore none of these. Something is definitely going on, and we are going to find out what. The Americans have come to the
same conclusion as us about the bomb used to vaporize the hill, according to John Westwood. They believe it’s a new weapon, but not one offering an unusually high yield. That appears to be
the limit of their knowledge. They don’t know how it works or what its significance is.

‘The final point is the most important, and is the real reason why Westwood is here in Britain. The CIA has acquired a high-level source in Russia, and this source claims that some form of
covert assault against the West has actually been launched by Russia.’ In the silence which followed, Simpson held up his hand, and began ticking points off on his fingers. ‘To save
time, I’ll run through the obvious questions, and what we believe the answers are.

‘First, the “first-strike” option. I don’t believe – and I don’t think the CIA really believes – that this actually is an option, despite this covert
assault business. Whatever the type of bomb, it still has to be delivered, and all Western defence systems are designed to detect not only weapon launches, but all the build-up beforehand. We
simply could not fail to be aware of the increased ballistic missile submarine activity, higher alert states at bomber airfields, missile bases and so on that would have to be a precursor to a
first-strike. So, if the Russians are planning something sneaky, it has to involve an unconventional delivery system.

‘Second, the bomb itself. A bomb is a bomb. It goes bang and causes damage; everything else is a question of degree. The seismograph records – both the ones we have seen and those
acquired by the CIA – indicate that although this weapon has some unusual characteristics, its yield is about the same as a small to medium-sized conventional nuclear bomb, around five to
seven megatons, so it’s difficult to see what advantage could be gained by its use, rather than a weapon which already exists.’

Richter put his hand in the air. Simpson looked at him, then nodded. ‘The other thing my CIA source emphasized was that the radiation detectors on the Blackbird gave nil results,’
Richter said. ‘Whatever the weapon was that the Russians used, it didn’t emit the fall-out that a conventional nuclear bomb would have generated.’

After a short silence, Simpson nodded and spoke again. ‘Oddly enough, neither Roger Abrahams nor John Westwood mentioned that, and they really should have known about it, shouldn’t
they?’

‘If my source knows,’ Richter replied, ‘they know, no question. I know John Westwood,’ he added, ‘and he’s sharp and very competent. If he didn’t tell
you, it’s because he didn’t want you to know.’

The Intelligence Director stirred uncomfortably and offered a contribution. ‘That data, if substantiated, could radically influence any subsequent actions taken by the Russians.’ He
always talked as if he was delivering a lecture to a class of university students. ‘MAD – Mutual Assured Destruction – was predicated on the twin premises that any aggressive
action would be matched by retaliation in kind, and that no nation could survive the nuclear winter that would follow any significant exchange of nuclear weapons. The nuclear winter, of course,
would be caused primarily by the radiation products of the weapons themselves. If you remove the radiation, to some extent you remove the nuclear winter.’

Simpson nodded agreement. ‘True enough, but that somewhat misses the point. If the Russians have developed a radiation-free weapon with a yield equivalent to a normal fission or fusion
weapon – a kind of strategic neutron bomb, in fact – and if they equipped their armoury with it, that could actually encourage the West to launch a pre-emptive attack. If we take that
scenario to its logical conclusion, the West would be able to lob bombs willy-nilly on to the Russian landmass, rendering it uninhabitable for possibly centuries to come, whilst the Russians would
only be able to retaliate by launching what would amount to very large conventional weapons. In other words, if Richter’s informant is correct, the development and deployment of such a weapon
would actually disadvantage the Russians.’ Simpson paused and drummed his fingers on the table. ‘We’re missing something here, and I don’t mind admitting that I don’t
know what it is.’