Rockets' Red Glare (40 page)

“Ah,” Deschin exclaimed, as an idea struck him. “There’s something you should take with you Miss Winslow.” He started down the corridor ahead of them and, calling back, added, “I’ll meet you all outside.”

She watched with trepidation as her father hurried off. Despite all she’d been through to find him, she’d have given anything to be out of there now, out of Russia.

Instead, the head of the KGB had just taken her arm, and was ushering her down the corridor behind Deschin, the group of agents in tow.

Deschin planned to intercept Uzykin, and search Melanie’s travel bag in private. But Uzykin was already crossing the entry hall with it when Deschin entered from the corridor.

“Put that in my car,” Tvardovskiy called out from behind them as he approached.

Melanie’s heart sank at the implication.

Uzykin nodded, continued through the entry hall, and out the door with the bag.

Deschin couldn’t possibly stop him. His mind searched frantically for an alternative plan, and found one. Instead of stopping Melanie, he’d allow her to leave, and have Gorodin intercept her after Tvardovskiy dropped her at her hotel and was long gone.

“Where is it you are staying?” Tvardovskiy asked in clumsy English as they joined Deschin.

“The Berlin,” Melanie replied.

“Ah, I know it well.”

I’ll bet,
Melanie thought. “But I’d prefer to go to the US Embassy first,” she went on with as nonchalant an air as she could muster. “I have to report that we’re postponing the dance exchange.”

Tvardovskiy nodded agreeably.

Deschin shuddered, his mind reeling. There’d be no way to stop her at the Embassy. He’d have to wait until they left to brief Gorodin, which would make it impossible for him to get to the Embassy before they did. And even if Gorodin tailed them closely, Melanie would be out of the Chaika and inside the Embassy gates before Gorodin ever arrived.

Tvardovskiy saw the distant look in Deschin’s eyes. “Aleksei?” he said.

Deschin stared at him blankly.

“You were going to get something?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Deschin replied, coming out of it. He hurried off, forced to play out his charade, agonizing over the painful decision. His country stood on the brink of unchallenged nuclear superiority, of being in the position of ultimate power it had long sought but never enjoyed, a position of being able to actually make demands on the West. And Melanie stood in the way. The only way he could save it now was by sending his daughter to jail. If he didn’t, SLOW BURN would be finished and his chance at the premiership along with it.

Tvardovskiy led the group out of the dacha. Uzykin had put the bag in the Chaika’s trunk. The driver closed it as they approached, then opened the rear door of the car, and gestured Melanie to enter.

Melanie didn’t know what Deschin was up to, but under the circumstances she’d just as soon get the hell out of there before he reappeared. She glanced over her shoulder, dreading his return, then moved quickly to get into the Chaika when she didn’t see him. She had grasped the door frame, and had one foot on the sill when Deschin’s voice rang out.

“Just a minute, Miss Winslow,” he said sharply as he hurried out of the dacha.

Melanie froze, and turned slowly to face him.

He approached carrying a parcel, and handed it to her. His eyes locked onto hers for what seemed like an eternity before he flicked a little glance to the Chaika’s trunk. “Good luck,” he said.

She forced a smile, took a deep breath, and got into the car.

Tvardovskiy joined her.

The black sedan roared off.

The other KGB vehicles followed.

“Well, it’s done,” Gorodin said, relieved.

Deschin tightened his lips in a thin smile and watched the line of cars wind through the trees until they were out of sight.

* * * * * *

Chapter Fifty-one

President Hilliard returned to the White House from his visit to Arlington Cemetery in a gloomy depression. That evening, he picked at a light dinner while watching a Marx Brothers movie in the White House screening room. It gave his spirits a short-lived boost. Now, he was in the Oval Office, nursing a bourbon, pondering the arms control situation.

It was 1:46
A.M.
when the DCI called.

“Hello, Jake,” Hilliard said wearily. “What’s up?”

“Mission accomplished, sir.”

“Pardon me?” Hilliard replied cautiously.

“Station chief in Moscow reports full set of drawings on
VLCC Kira
in hand. Preliminary analysis identifies deployment site.”

“Geezus!” Hilliard exclaimed, the hair on the back of his neck springing to life.

A half hour ago, at 9:17
A.M. MOSCOW
time, a Marine guard at the US Embassy ushered Melanie into the CIA station chief’s office with the package addressed to Boulton. The Chief notified the DCI immediately. He ordered that the package be pouched to Helsinki. The courier departed Moscow on Aeroflot INT-842 at 10:30
A.M.,
arriving at the Embassy just past noon. CIA personnel set up a digitized satellite transmission to Langley. By 6:32
A.M.
EST, Boulton and the President were in the Oval Office staring at photocopies of the
Kira
drawings. The
highly detailed plans revealed where and how the Soviet missiles were deployed.

“Theodor—you goddamn son of a bitch,” Boulton said bitterly, almost to himself.

The President nodded in agreement. “Right under our noses all along,” he said awestruck.

“Deployment site is nothing short of brilliant.”

“Sure as hell explains why we couldn’t find them. I owe you an apology, Jake.”

The following afternoon at United Nations Palace in Geneva, Soviet negotiator Mikhail Pykonen took his seat at the long table, fully convinced that the threat to SLOW BURN had been ended once and for all.

“Gentleman,” Keating began, “I’m pleased to inform you that I’ve been authorized to accept the Pykonen Proposal in full. However, before I take that action, I have one question for my Soviet counterpart. One which Germany’s deputy minister first put to President Hilliard and myself months ago.”

“Please,” Pykonen replied graciously, concealing contempt for what he assumed would be another delay.

Keating nodded and gestured to Pomerantz.

“Whatever happened to the
Heron,
sir?” she asked.

“The
Heronl”
Pykonen replied, trying not to sound surprised.

“That’s correct. Your SS-16A,” Keating replied.

“I’m quite familiar with the nomenclature, Mr. Keating. The program was discontinued fifteen years ago, as you very well know.”

“In other words, the system was never deployed.”

“I’d say that would be a reasonable conclusion,” Pykonen said, getting irritated. “Please, Mr. Keating, spare us the pain of further stalling tactics.”

“I’m forced to agree with Minister Pykonen,” another delegate replied.”

“Yes,” said a third. “Let’s get on with it, Keating. Unless you can prove what you’re inferring.”

“Oh, I can,” Keating replied, nodding to an aide. “But I’ll let you be the judge.”

The doors to the meeting room opened. A large-screen television was rolled in. The aide turned it on, then put a phone on the table next to Keating. He depressed the blinking button and lifted the receiver. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

All eyes turned to the television.

A sign that read—
138
—filled the screen.

“That transmission is coming via satellite—” Keating said with a dramatic pause.

The image started zooming back, revealing an offshore pumping station—Churchco 138. The camera was mounted in a helicopter that had been on the landing pad and was slowly lifting off.

“—
live
from the Gulf of Mexico,” he resumed.

The image continued widening to include the
Kira.
The supertanker was tied up at a floating offshore wharf. Massive hoses snaked over her side like huge aortas, filling her compartments with crude.

“About fifteen years ago,” Keating continued, “that supertanker, the
VLCC Kira,
was reoutfitted with a unique capability in Leningrad shipyards. And now, you’re going to see it in action.”

Captain Rublyov was on the
Kira’s
bridge. He saw the chopper circling, but thought nothing of it. They were always buzzing around the pumping stations. But he
didn’t
see the team of U.S. Navy divers who were brought in by helicopter the night before. Nor had he seen them at the far end of the massive wharf, in scuba gear and wet suits, as they slipped into the water a short time earlier. Two underwater television cameras that can virtually see in the dark were mounted on their sea sleds.

The television screen appeared to go blank for a moment. A school of pogies swam into view. The image had switched from helicopter to undersea camera.

The divers advanced toward the
Kira
on their underwater sleds.

The section of hull below the water—gradually became visible on the television screen.

The delegates gathered around it intently.

Soon, a hairline of light split the undersea darkness and began to widen. The
Kira’s
bulbous bow had cracked open on its centerline, like the halves of a gigantic mussel shell. The one-hundred-foot long sections slowly hinged apart, exposing the lower missile assembly deck— the deck which Lieutenant Jon Lowell never saw.

The
Kira
had been taking on crude for days. But missile deployment couldn’t commence until her holds were at least two thirds full to insure the hull was low enough in the water to be concealed when it opened.

The water rolled up into the massive bow cavity with a tumultuous gurgling, and engulfed a missile launching tube. A Soviet SS-16A
Heron
was sealed inside.

The tube was six feet in diameter and thirty feet long. The interior launch apparatus—though fitted with a self-contained steam generator and hi-band receiver for remote activation—was identical to those used
on nuclear submarines. But the exterior had been substantially reinforced, and fitted with sharp-edged planes that spiraled around it from a pointed base, giving the launch tube the look of an undersea auger— which it was. It perched at the end of a hydraulic arm, like a gargantuan dentist’s drill.

The hydraulic arm was gyro-gimbaled to hold its position in the sea while it moved to the precise commands of a motion-control computer. Like a long-necked sea monster, it lowered the augered launch tube from the bowels of the ship into the water. Then it began bending at the elbow, bringing it into a vertical position beneath the
Kira’s
hull. When fully extended, it had positioned the augered tube’s drill point thirty feet above the floor of the Gulf.

In a control room in the
Kira’s
bow, technicians sat at instrument consoles monitoring the deployment. The chief missile technician evaluated the data, then pressed a button initiating phase two of the operation.

The hydraulic arm began telescoping downward in response. It stopped when the drill point pressed against the surface of the continental shelf eighty feet beneath the
Kira’s
hull.

Another signal started the augered tube turning slowly. The sharp blades began drilling a cylinder into the muddy sediment that, in this area, covers the Earth’s basalt mantle to depths of a hundred feet. Powerful air jets in the drill point helped loosen the ooze. High velocity vacuums on the hydraulic arm sucked up the debris to prevent it from surfacing.

Since being reoutfitted, the
Kira
had taken on crude from thirty-six Churchco offshore pumping stations. And each time, it left a
Heron
behind in the muddy sea bottom. The high concentration of metal created by the storage tanks and docking facilities was responsible for the missile base being virtually impervious to detection. The multispectral scanners and thermal and infrared sensors in KH-11 satellites would have immediately detected a concentration of metal in open sea—where there had been none before; but couldn’t detect a relatively minuscule addition to the high concentration already present at a drilling or pumping station—a concentration which tended to vary widely as tankers and support vessels arrived and departed, compounding the detection problem.

The delegates watched with growing astonishment as the augered launch tube gradually screwed its way into the sea bottom. When it was fully seated, the hydraulic arm disengaged, and began retracting into the
Kira’s
hull. The launch tube’s watertight hatch that explodes open on missile-launch was concealed beneath a soft mound of silt.

The delegates were aghast.

Keating let the impact register, then said, “Should one of those hatches become exposed, and be noticed—by maintenance divers for, example—
this
covered it.” He passed out copies of a Churchco memo which Boulton had procured. It was signed by Theodor Churcher, and authorized installation of underwater environmental control sensors that monitored seismic activity, and the chemical content of the seawater. The affixed specification sheet depicted a disc-shaped unit which looked exactly like a launch tube hatch.

“It’s a hoax,” Pykonen scoffed, gesturing to the television where the hull of the
Kira
could be seen slowly closing. “Totally lacking in credibility.”

“I agree, it
is
very hard to believe,” Keating replied. He exchanged smiles with Pomerantz, then leaning to the phone, said, “Quite a show, gentlemen. May we have verification now?”

Moments later, one of the Navy divers came into view. He swam toward the camera until his mask filled the television screen, then displayed a plastic-wrapped copy of the Communist party newspaper,
Pravda.

“That’s today’s edition,” Keating said to the delegates. He looked to Pykonen, adding, “President Hilliard thought you’d find his selection of newspapers especially appropriate under the circumstances.” He didn’t have to remind Pykonen that
Pravda
means truth.

* * * * * *