The Doomsday Box (12 page)

W
e can't travel to the USSR!” Danny gasped.

Michael glanced at him in surprise. Danny usually took problems in his stride and was game for more or less anything. But now he'd actually gone pale. All the same . . . “I'm afraid Danny may be right, Mr. Stratford.” He looked around at the others. “Do any of you speak Russian? I certainly don't.” They shook their heads.

“You won't reach the USSR without help, that's for sure,” Stratford said. “How important is your mission?”

“Very,” Opal said promptly. “It has to do with—”

Stratford held up his hand quickly. “No details. I'm carrying enough secrets already, and yours I don't need to know. What I'm asking is whether it's worth taking risks. Like you said, everybody expected you'd meet up with Cobra in a nice comfy office at Langley and chat with him for half an hour, then go home. Everybody including your controller. What I'm asking is, would Mr. Carradine expect you to put yourselves in danger to complete this mission?”

They looked at one another, turned back to Stratford, and slowly nodded. Even Danny reluctantly agreed.

“Okay,” Stratford said. “Then we got a situation here. To complete your mission, you have to go to Russia. But you can't just climb on a plane and fly to Moscow. This is 1962, and the Cold War looks like hell freezing over. Russia isn't exactly a tourist trap. You'll need papers, special visas. I can probably get you over there, but frankly that's only the start of your problems. Any of you will be marked the minute you get into the country. Walk down the street to buy your morning paper and you're under KGB surveillance. Talk to the wrong people, make a suspicious move, and they'll haul your butts into jail. Cobra's working undercover in Moscow, I can tell you that, but I can't tell you where to find him yet. Tracking him down would be difficult for an experienced Russia hand. For four kids who haven't been there before—you haven't, have you? Thought not—it's going to be close to impossible.”

Opal said, a little frostily, “You keep calling us kids, Agent Stratford, but we do have some espionage experience.”

“Yeah, I know, and I know you aren't kids really, but you're not middle-aged men and women either, and since you're operating on your own, believe me, you're going to attract even more attention than the average Westerner, and they get plenty.”

“What's your situation, Mr. Stratford?” Michael asked suddenly.

“What do you mean, what's my situation?”

“Mr. Carradine described you as ‘our man in 1962.
'
So while you appear to be working for the CIA in this time period, you're actually working for Project Rainbow, am I right?”

Stratford gave a small smile. “Not just Rainbow. If you don't know this already, I never mentioned it, but Rainbow's only part of a whole secret CIA operation. What are you getting at, Mike?”

“I'm just trying to be clear,” Michael said. “Do I take it that apart from your work as a time agent—for Project Rainbow or whatever—you function as a normal CIA agent in this time frame?”

“As a cover, yeah.”

“So you have access to CIA backup, even though the CIA in 1962 might not know you're using it to do your job as a time agent?”

“You know I do, Mike.” Stratford nodded toward the table. “Where do you think that cash came from—my salary? Or this house? I told you this was a CIA safe house.”

Before Michael could say anything else, Opal put in quickly, “We're very grateful, Mr. Stratford, we really are. And I'm sure Mr. Carradine would want us to press on. You think you can arrange papers and get us on a flight to Moscow?”

“Not a direct flight,” Stratford said. “Don't have them in 1962. You'll have to go via London, but that's okay. What I have in mind is to get you to the American embassy in Moscow. If you're embassy kids you'll be closely watched, but you'd be closely watched anyway, and you'll be a bit safer if you're known to have official backing. Besides, it will give you somewhere to live and protection if things go wrong, assuming you can get back to the embassy building. You'll need a cover story for the ambassador, but we'll work that out. You'll need papers, like we said, but I can get those forged for you by this time tomorrow.”

“We're British,” Danny said suddenly. “They'll know we're not Americans the minute we open our mouths.”

“I thought of making it the British embassy,” Stratford said. “Could probably arrange that, but it's going to take a lot more time.”

“I'm not sure we have a lot more time,” Opal told him.

“Listen,” Stratford said firmly, “neither embassy is perfect, but on balance you'll be better off in the U.S. embassy. Pretend you're Americans educated in England or call yourselves Brits. Won't matter. Heck, we're supposed to be allies, aren't we? Think the Russians will care? Embassy staff won't either, 'specially if you keep to yourselves as much as possible. The ambassador will know you're agents, so nobody's going to make a fuss.”

“Time agents?” Michael asked.

“No, not
time
agents. I already told you, that's the one secret you take to your graves, pardon the expression. You'll be CIA special agents on a special CIA mission with me as your official controller. That's all the ambassador needs to know, all he will know. This doesn't have to be a James Bond mission. If you work it right, we get you into Russia, you find Cobra, have your little chat, then we get you out again, nobody any the wiser; no fuss, no muss.”

“How do we find Cobra?” Opal asked.

“Leave that to me, Miss Harrington,” Stratford said. “I'll try to help you any way I can. He's undercover, so it won't be easy, but I should be able to set up a meeting for you by the time you get to Moscow.”

“I suppose it would be against the rules if you came with us?” Michael asked him suddenly.

Stratford shook his head. “You'll want to move as fast as possible, and I have stuff I have to do here. You're on your own. But I can teach you some tricks of the trade before you go.”

“What sort of tricks?” Michael asked, suddenly curious.

“How to lose surveillance when the KGB starts tailing you might be useful,” Stratford said. “One or two other simple bits and pieces.” He peeled off his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. “Let's get started.”

D
anny knew he would die within the next five minutes. Flying London to New York in a modern jet had been bad enough, but the 1962 Aeroflot plane from London to Moscow looked like it might have been tied together with string. The seats needed cleaning, the flight attendants were thick-set and brooding—although probably great at tramping to civilization across a snowfield when the plane actually crashed. One really strange detail, though, was that the meals were served with sterling silver cutlery in place of the usual plastic knives and forks. Not that Danny had any appetite. The food was disgusting, and a combination of fear and worry locked his stomach. Not that it mattered. In five minutes, max, the plane would drop out of the sky and all his worries would be over. He wondered vaguely if he'd spend the afterlife in his astral body.

The engine gave a brief, disturbing howl as Fuchsia slipped into the seat beside him. The scary flight attendants had allocated each of them separate seats because of the numbering on their tickets even though the flight was almost empty. Danny—and the others, presumably—had even been told by a uniformed woman who looked like a wrestler that it was “forbidden by regulations” to change seats. But now the flight attendants had all moved to the back of the plane. None of them was looking at the passengers when Fuchsia seized her chance.

“Are you all right, Danny?” Fuchsia asked anxiously. “I know you don't like flying.”

“Fine,” Danny muttered through clenched teeth. “Glad to see you, though.”

“Yes, I know,” Fuchsia said. She settled into the seat. “Wasn't the food ghastly?”

It was the perfect opportunity. He'd wanted to talk to her earlier, but it had proved incredibly difficult to get her alone. Now . . . Danny licked his lips. “I want you to do me a favor.”

Fuchsia glanced past him through the window. They were flying through cloud. “Yes, of course, Danny.”

“That thing you do, you know, your precog talent, could you switch it on again?”

“I expect so,” Fuchsia said. “You want to know if the plane's going to crash, don't you?”

“No. Well, yes, but . . .” Actually he wanted to know if the plane
wasn't
going to crash, but even above the fear of flying he had another worry that was eating him alive since they'd left their own time. He looked at Fuchsia with her trusting gaze and came to a sudden decision. “I need to tell you something.”

“You can tell me anything, Danny,” Fuchsia said.

The plane hit some mild turbulence and rocked. Danny closed his eyes, but for once it wasn't in terror. He opened them again to look at Fuchsia. “Did you ever wonder what would happen if Cobra doesn't agree to forget his germ warfare samples?”

Fuchsia considered the question thoughtfully, then said, “No. I wondered what would happen if we couldn't find him, but I never wondered that.”

“Suppose he doesn't? Suppose he decides he's going to send them through anyway?”

“Why would he?” Fuchsia asked. “You know what Mr. Carradine said: he's not crazy.”

Danny dropped his voice. “Listen, Fuchsia, Cobra isn't involved in germ warfare yet. Would you agree not to do something you aren't doing anyway just because you were asked to by four kids who said they were
time travelers
? You'd think they were nuts, wouldn't you?”

“Why?” Fuchsia asked. “Cobra knows all about time travel—that's how he got the samples of Black Death in the first place.”

“Cobra
doesn't
know all about time travel,” Danny told her urgently. “The future Cobra does, but we're looking for the young Cobra who's working for the CIA but hasn't joined Project Rainbow yet, doesn't know a thing about Montauk because it's not even built. He may or may not have heard a rumor going round the CIA that somebody, somewhere might be experimenting with time travel, and that's the most he has to go on.”

Fuchsia frowned. “When you put it like that, you have to wonder if Mr. Carradine thought this whole thing through properly.”

“Oh, Mr. Carradine thought it through, all right,” Danny told her sourly. “Look at this. . . .” He glanced around to make sure none of the flight attendants was looking in their direction, then cautiously pulled the ring box Carradine had given him an inch or two from his pocket.

Fuchsia peered at it. “What's that?” Danny eased it out a fraction farther, and her eyes widened. She grinned mischievously. “Good heavens, Danny, this is so sudden!”

“It's not a ring,” Danny said sourly. “Well, it is, but it's not an engagement ring.” He flipped open the box, glanced round to make sure nobody was watching them, then leaned across to whisper in Fuchsia's ear. “It's a poison ring.”

Fuchsia bent to stare into the box. “Poison?”

Danny nodded. “If you push a little catch, the amethyst pops up and you've got poison in a cavity underneath. Cyanide. I don't want to open it, in case it spills.”

“No, of course not,” Fuchsia said. “Cyanide's pretty lethal, isn't it?”

“Kills you in ten seconds or something,” Danny said.

“Where did you get it?”

“Mr. Carradine gave it to me before we left.”

“Why?”

“He wants me to kill Cobra,” Danny told her miserably. He closed the ring box and slipped it back into his pocket. When he looked at Fuchsia, she was staring at him, appalled.

“Why does he want you to kill Cobra?” she demanded. “We're supposed to tell him not to send through the germ warfare samples.”

“In case he won't listen. If he won't listen, Mr. Carradine wants me to poison him.”

“You can't. You can't go around poisoning people.” The shock on Fuchsia's face was almost comical. “I won't let you.”

“I don't think I can either,” Danny said.

“Then why did you bring the silly ring with you?” Fuchsia hissed.

“I don't know.” Danny shook his head in despair. He turned away to look at the fog through the window, only to find they'd broken out of the cloud so that he was looking at clear sky. He turned back to Fuchsia. “He said it was one life against millions of lives. I can see that too. We have to stop those vials getting through.”

“Did you agree? Did you say you would do it?”

Danny shook his head. “I told him no. I told him I wouldn't.”