Nightwatch
created by Jeff Williams
Simon Litchfield raised his arms over his head and stretched until the vertebrae
in his spine crackled and popped into better alignment. He opened and closed his hands several
times, spreading the fingers as far apart as possible each time and flexing his
wrists. Finally feeling that he had
temporarily banished the stiffness and pain that had begun to plague him more
frequently over the past months, he laid his right index finger on the
fingerprint reader to unlock his office computer.
"Good morning,
Doctor Litchfield," the computer said.
"It is Tuesday, October 22nd, 8:05 AM. The temperature is 59 degrees Fahrenheit,
humidity is 72 percent, and the probability of precipitation is estimated to be
32 percent."
"What's on the
agenda today?" Simon asked. He
could have consulted his handheld computer, but the damned thing hadn't been
picking up wireless updates reliably since his trip to the Amazon -- probably
mold in the works, or dust from the underground lab-cum-slave pens.
"You have no
meetings scheduled," the computer said.
"The scheduled Major Projects Committee meeting has been postponed
due to an emergency situation."
Simon frowned. On the one hand, anything that got him out
of a Major Projects Committee meeting was a blessing. On the other hand, Jared Molinski would not postpone the meeting
unless there was a serious problem somewhere in the world -- one already
involving the Nightwatch Institute or one where its services were likely to be
needed.
"Any
messages?"
"You have 12
messages, none marked urgent. Would you
like to review them now?"
Simon pulled his chair
closer to the desk with its built-in display.
"Might as well."
"The first
message is a voice-only communication from Melvin Squibb."
"Hey, Doctor
Litchfield. I received your request to
have someone take a look at your handheld.
One of my boys will pick it up this afternoon and bring a loaner to
ya. Hope the wireless protocols are
working well enough to dupe your data..."
Simon rolled his
eyes. Squibb was a master of gadgetry
-- procuring it as soon as it was released from exclusive use by intelligence
agencies, manufacturers, and -- for all Simon knew -- little green men. But somehow, his expertise did not cover the
proper use of a microphone. This
message, like every recording of Squibb's voice that Simon had ever heard, was
punctuated by the sounds of Melvin's
breathing, the scraping of the microphone against his clothing or hair,
something that was probably chewing and swallowing ... The remark about using
the handheld's wireless communications capabilities to copy data to the loaner
unit was also a bit ridiculous, since it was the wireless communications that
seemed to be failing. It was
unfortunate that Stephanie Keel's group had given up its role in supporting the
unending stream of new hardware that Squibb kept supplying. Thanks to Stephanie, they were the most
competent bunch of circuit and software jockeys that Simon had ever dealt with.
"Next
message," Simon said.
The following messages
were mostly routine business -- updates on engineering projects that Simon had
overseen on behalf of the Institute on three continents, a few forwarded jokes,
one brief greeting from Morna -- still tinged with a mixture of affection and
contempt, unfortunately. But the final
message was something special.
"The twelfth and
final message is from Erik Stevensson. It
is in video format. Playing
message."
Simon grinned. He hadn't heard from Erik Stevensson in
several years. The Swedish bridge
building specialist had worked on more than one project with Simon and
personnel from UNESCO and other agencies, but had semi-retired almost five
years ago. They'd had some interesting
times together, though -- the big Swede was more than a decade older than
Simon, but had proven himself in more than one of the 'situations' that Simon seemed
to attract.
"Simon, my
friend, greetings from the land of the most beautiful blondes in the
world! When are you coming to Sweden so
I can introduce you to some of my favorites?"
Simon shook his
head. Stevensson was still lean and
fit; his hair was as thick and wavy as ever, although it had probably been
snow-white long before Simon's had even started to turn gray. No doubt he could still charm a roomful of
women -- the bastard had stolen more than one from Simon's clutches.
"If that is not
enough reason to come visit me, maybe this is -- I shot it last week while
hiking in Abisko Park, near Mount Kebnekaise."
Stevensson's image was
replaced by a grainy view of a late-twilight sky. Various digital artifacts suggested that the video had been
enhanced to bring out more detail in the poorly lit landscape.
"The dark lump in
the middle is Mount Kebnekaise," Stevensson's voice said. "You can make out a few stars, too --
the air is very clean in Sweden, compared to your cities -- and especially
above the Arctic Circle. But it is not
the mountain or the stars that will interest you, my friend. Watch the upper right corner of the picture
-- now!"
At the indicated
moment, two pinpricks of light appeared, brightening until they overwhelmed the
camera's contrast circuitry and the picture dissolved into a chaotic pattern of
black and white rectangles. Just before
the image broke up, Simon thought he had seen the specks elongating, stretching
from points into streaks of brilliance like sunlight penetrating a scratched
piece of smoked glass.
Stevensson's face
reappeared. "Whatever that was, it
almost ruined my camera," he said.
"Maybe you remember the stories of 'ghost rockets' over Sweden near
the end of the Second World War, and again in 1947 -- this reminded me of those
stories."
Simon grimaced. "Maybe you remember them, my friend -- I'm not quite that old." On the other hand, he was talking to a recording.
"The rockets
observed during the war were early versions of the V2," Stevensson
said. "The Swedish government even
traded the remains of one to the British for other military materiel. But the ones from 1947 were never
explained. Some theorized that they were
Russian rocket experiments, performed with the help of captured German
scientists from Peenemunde."
"Bloody
fascinating, Erik, but why would you think I'd care?"
"You are
interested in strange occurrences, as I recall," Stevensson said, almost
as if he had heard Simon's question.
"For some kind of rockets to be flying over Sweden is strange, but
maybe not strange enough for you. But
there is more."
Simon frowned. Now that he thought about it, the sudden
appearance of the rocket exhaust in mid-air was peculiar. An aircraft going to afterburners would not
have generated light anywhere near as bright as what he had just seen; on the
other hand, any chemical rocket would have been visible as a moving spot or
streak of light from the moment of launch until engine shutdown.
"I think I
captured images of rockets carried to high altitude using balloons,"
Stevensson said. "That way, there
would be no visible trace until the engines were ignited."
"The Canadian
daVinci Project entry in the Ansari X Prize competition was like that,"
Simon said to himself. "Odd that
someone would be recycling the idea now, but --"
"What is
especially strange is that neither the hypothetical balloons nor the rockets
ever showed up on radar," Stevensson said. "I have contacts in the Swedish Air Force who checked for
any reports of unusual activity, and they came up with no unidentified radar
tracks at the time of the recording."
"Stealth
balloons? Stealth housings on the
rockets as well?"
"So, my friend
who enjoys mysteries -- why would someone be launching rockets in the far
north, and making them as close to invisible as possible? Something to think about!"
"End of
message," the computer said.
"Draft reply to
message just played," Simon said.
"Voice only. Message start:
Erik, you old bastard, you've captured my interest. I don't think I'll be able to come to Sweden to tramp around the
frozen north hunting more of your ghost rockets -- at least not right away --
but I would like to follow up on the ones you saw. If you can, please send me as much info as possible on the
location where you shot that video -- map coordinates from your GPS, the exact
time and date, and the approximate bearing.
No, scrap that last -- if you provide your GPS coordinates, we can
calculate the bearing from the image of Mount Kebnekaise."
"The only reason
I can imagine for someone using stealthed
balloons to launch stealthed rockets
is that they wanted to keep the launches secret -- and failing that, they
wanted to disguise the origin of the rockets.
That's not a good sign, as I'm sure you guessed."
"Hope to hear
from you soon. Save me a blonde or two
-- depending on what I can uncover, maybe I will make it there for a
visit. I've got cold weather gear, but
a warm blonde beats a parka any day.
End message. Transmit."
Simon absently
massaged the knuckles of his right hand, trying to lessen the stiffness that
was already creeping back in after his morning exercises. Did he need to involve Callow and the Lower
Echelon in this? Perhaps not -- from
the sound of things, they were likely to be occupied with whatever the crisis
of the day turned out to be. In fact,
once they had decided on a course of action, Callow would probably call on
Simon to go forth and risk his impeccably clad butt yet again.
"Carpe diem," Simon said. "If I want answers on this, I'd best
pursue them myself while I have the time."
While he waited for a
reply from Erik, Simon researched the park that the Swedish engineer had
mentioned. It was, indeed, above the
Arctic Circle, somewhere only Erik would go in winter for 'fun'. The whole of Sweden, of course, was tantalizingly
close to former Soviet territory -- the southern coast was a few hundred
kilometers from the old Riga base, while the northern portion was separated
from the Northern Fleet base at Murmansk by only four or five hundred
kilometers. Dirigibles had crossed the
Atlantic nearly a century ago -- the distance from former Soviet borders to
Sweden was tiny by comparison.
Of course, as Alexei
Yakonov had pointed out in Afghanistan only a few months ago, Soviet hardware
and expertise had been for sale to anyone with enough money since the early
90's. And money -- especially hard
currency, euros or American dollars -- could buy cooperation from governments
struggling to function without the collective economic and military clout of
Mother Russia behind them.
So -- postulate a
group, not necessarily affiliated with any
government, with the money to buy Soviet stealth and booster technology, able
to operate from somewhere within dirigible range of Sweden. What
were they launching? Not missiles
-- at least not yet. There had been no
reports of large-scale explosions attributable to any kind of high-yield
warhead.
If the boosters were
powerful enough, they could put fair-sized payloads into orbit -- polar orbit,
anyway, like some of the ERTS mapping satellites. Polar orbits rather sucked for military or surveillance purposes;
they passed over areas of interest for only a tiny fraction of the time. But why hide the launches if they didn't
have some military or nefarious (he loved that word, and sadly, did get to use
it a lot, working for Callow) purpose?
Maybe once he received
a reply from Erik, he'd have enough to feed to his friends at the NSA and
CIA. Stealthy or not, the ignition of
rocket boosters at altitude had almost certainly been detected by the web of
launch-detection satellites still orbiting from the good old days when ICBM
attacks had been the expected mechanism for the start of Armageddon...
"Incoming
message," the computer said.
"Origin?"
"Mr. Callow's
office," the computer replied.
"Message is in text format.
Message follows: Dr. Litchfield, please meet me in the usual place in
ten minutes. End of message."
"Thus endeth my
free time," Simon grunted. He
stood, brushing the wrinkles from his crisp khaki trousers and jacket, and
headed for the library.
####
On the way to the library, where Callow
insisted on holding his semi-clandestine briefings, Simon found Stephanie
standing outside the room that housed the Institute's main file servers. She had a handheld computer in one hand, and
a few crumpled pages of some arcane report in the other, but her gaze was
directed -- elsewhere.
"Stephanie, my dear, you look a bit
lost," Simon said.
Startled, Stephanie took a step backward,
exhaling sharply as her back hit the wall.
"What?
I -- no, I was just thinking --"
"She's not dead," Simon said. "Celinde Gryphius is not dead. There was no body, and not even much blood
anywhere near the spot where we found you."
Stephanie looked at him sharply. "I wasn't thinking about that," she said. "I -- she deserved to die, anyway --
the things she did to those people, the things she planned to do --"
Simon laid one hand on her shoulder. "You have to let it go, Stephanie. Celinde was a monster -- is a monster -- like her husband. Someday, she will emerge from hiding, and we
will deal with her then. But you can't
let what she did, or what you tried to do, take over your life."
"I
tried to kill her," Stephanie said.
"Whether she's alive or not, I tried
to kill her, put at least three bullets into her. After all the times I've criticized you for -- for --"
"For taking lives," Simon said. "Don't imagine for a moment that I ever
take a life gladly, or that I ever forget what I have done. I am an engineer, when Callow lets me be one
-- my business is building things, fixing things, making life better for
people. But there are times when
innocent lives are in the balance, or my own life -- I haven't counted myself
as 'innocent' in a long, long time. And
at those times, sometimes taking one life, or even several, is the least of the
available evils."
"Hardly a fit subject for discussion in
the hallway, Dr. Litchfield," Callow said.
Stephanie seemed to retreat into herself,
almost cringing, and Simon was torn between comforting her and breaking
Callow's jaw.
"I was just on my way to see you,
Callow," Simon said. He reached
for Stephanie's hand, but she turned and vanished through the door of the
server room.
"You should leave the psychotherapy to
your friend Dr. Weldon," Callow said.
"He knows far more than he should about our affairs, but that makes
him a suitable resource for dealing with problems like Ms. Keel's."
"That's quite enough, Callow," Simon
said. "Let's get your little
briefing out of the way."
The Popular Culture section of the Nightwatch
Institute library was empty, as usual.
The bookcases and racks of magazines and discs formed a self-contained
alcove near the rear of the room, insulated by distance and snobbery from the
more frequented areas. Simon suspected
that Callow had special sound-deadening materials built into the floor,
ceiling, walls, and the bookcases themselves -- anything short of a shouting
match would be unintelligible from more than a few meters away.
Callow had his handheld computer and a large
fold-out display set up on the table as he had often done. There was a large, muscular man standing by
the table, apparently standing guard; he left the area when he saw Callow
returning.
"That's new," Simon said. "You've never posted a guard over your
little home theater before."
"If you will please take a seat, you'll see that we've never faced a threat like
this before, either," Callow said.
Grimacing, Simon complied. "So what is this 'threat'? Does it have anything to do with the
emergency that made Jared cancel this morning's meeting?"
Callow said nothing, but tapped the screen of
his handheld computer and gestured toward the larger screen.
An image appeared -- a satellite view of --
"Alaska?" Simon asked.
Callow nodded, but said nothing.
A dark silhouette filled the center of the
screen, blotting out most of the satellite image. Then an electronically generated voice began to speak.
"You do not know us. You do not need to know us. What you do need to know is this: we have
the means to cause devastating earthquakes in the state of Alaska and adjacent
areas. This will destroy pipelines and
refineries that provide a major part of the petroleum and natural gas supply of
the Western United States. It will also
trigger tsunamis -- tidal waves --
that will cause hundreds of billions, if not trillions, in damage to coastal
areas around the northern Pacific. I
need not mention that thousands of lives will also be lost."
Simon shook his head. "Is this from some straight-to-download spy movie?"
"Shut up, Dr. Litchfield. And watch, and listen."
The voice continued, "Gradual thawing of
the permafrost in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic has already caused minor
seismic events. We will accelerate this
process a thousandfold, causing subsidence of the soil on a massive scale. Imagine the shock wave caused by a mass
equal to that of the island of Manhattan dropping perhaps half a meter..."
The screen showed footage from the California
earthquake of 1989 -- collapsed and burned out buildings, the top level of the
Cypress viaduct of Interstate 880 pancaked onto the roadway below. Then the scene changed, showing news footage
of quake damage in China, India, Mexico City ... Finally, a view appeared of an
intact city that Simon recognized as Fairbanks, the largest city in Alaska.
"We will carry out this plan unless a fee
of one trillion euros is deposited in the following accounts..."
Callow tapped his screen, pausing the
playback. "The few experts who are
cleared for this information say that the threat is plausible."
"Plausible? Exactly how would they melt a few trillion tonnes of frozen
ground 'a thousandfold' faster than global bloody warming is already
doing?"
"We don't know," Callow said. "But watch this next part." He tapped his screen again, and the video
playback resumed.
"... Naturally, you doubt our ability to
do what we have said. Accordingly, we
will trigger a small seismic event -- approximate Richter magnitude 3.2 -- at
68 degrees 21 minutes north by 147 degrees 13 minutes west, at precisely 3 PM,
Pacific Standard Time, on the date you receive this message "
"Those coordinates fall just east of the
National Petroleum Reserve," Callow said.
"It's almost 3 PM Eastern Time,"
Simon said. "I guess we'll know in
a few hours whether the threat is real."
Callow snorted. "Perhaps I should have mentioned that the message was
received yesterday. We were called in because the predicted seismic event
happened on schedule. It was a 3.1, not
a 3.2, but that hardly matters."
"My God," Simon said. "What is being done? Are the governments in the affected
countries raising the ransom?"
"They are trying," Callow said. "Obviously, a trillion euros is a
rather significant sum, even for the United States or the European Union. The major part of the burden is falling upon
the United States and Japan, as the two nations with the most to lose, but
other Pacific Rim nations are contributing -- somewhat."
"They can't be using land-based equipment
to do this," Simon said. "I
can't think of anything that could affect that broad an area that wouldn't be
screamingly obvious to even crude detection methods."
"Yet there are no orbiting facilities with
anything resembling the specialized capabilities required for this,"
Callow said. "And a suitcase nuke
would be a threat in itself, not something you would use to melt
permafrost."
"Shit.
There are no known orbiting
facilities," Simon said. "Let
me tell you about a message I just received from a friend of mine in
Sweden..."
####
"I don't know what to do, Tom,"
Stephanie said. "I'm almost afraid
to close my eyes, because every time I do, I'm back in the jungle. I can feel the gun jump in my hand, smell
the smoke, hear the crack of each shot as I pull the trigger again and
again. And I see her --"
Stephanie had called Tom Weldon as soon as she
had finished her work in the Nightwatch Institute file server room -- something
that had taken at least twice as long as it should have. Tom had agreed to see her immediately,
rescheduling his afternoon appointments, and Stephanie had made the drive from
Georgetown to Arlington before the worst of the afternoon rush turned the 395
into a parking lot. That, too, had
taken longer than usual; all Stephanie's skills as a driver seemed to have been
swept away by the rising maelstrom of guilt and anxiety. But finally, she had reached the L'Enfant
Building and the safe haven of Tom's office.
Stephanie sat in one of the guest chairs, her
hands gripping the carved wood of the armrests hard enough to make the tendons
in her wrists stand out. Tom was in his
big, battered leather captain's chair, the only piece of furniture in the room
that looked sturdy enough to support his heavily muscled frame. Two cups of brandy-fortified coffee occupied
the table between them, next to the not-quite-antique intercom box.
Stephanie took a cautious sip from her cup,
wary of the amount of brandy that Tom had added. As she had suspected, the coffee to brandy ratio was perilously
close to one to one.
Tom sighed.
"Simon mentioned that you seemed agitated and distracted this
morning," he said. "It's been
several weeks now since we got back from Brazil. I thought you were coming to terms with what happened there --
but apparently I'm not as smart as I like to think I am."
He took a drink from his own cup, closing his
eyes as the warmth of the brandy snaked its way through his body. After a moment, he said, "It would be
more understandable if you had actually killed Celinde -- taking a life under
any circumstances goes against conditioning that is deeply-ingrained in all of
us. Except for psychopaths, of course,
like Celinde and her not-so-dearly-departed husband."
Stephanie shook her head, hard enough to
dislodge the pins holding her hair back.
"I keep telling you, and Simon too -- what matters to me is that I tried to kill her. That cardenio somehow gave her the strength
to escape even with three or four bullets in her doesn't matter -- I pulled the trigger. I
tried to end her life. I was close
enough to see what each bullet did to her, saw the blood spray, saw her body
jerk with each impact, but I kept firing..."
"You knew what she had done," Tom
said. "She had enslaved the
Parumami, was working them to death, and was killing without conscience anyone
who got in her way. God knows what
kinds of hell her test subjects endured -- I suspect that the victims we found
were only the latest in a long series.
And you knew what she planned to do, selling the secrets of cardenio and
other unique and dangerous drugs to the highest bidder. Any court on the planet would condemn her to
death, or at least to life in prison."
"It doesn't matter!" Stephanie
said. "I trained -- after Simon
got me out of William Gryphius's clutches, I spent months learning to fight, to
shoot -- Ora Namir, a female Mossad agent, taught me krav maga, taught me to
use pistols, submachine guns, knives.
But I never, never wanted to learn to kill."
"You're a long way from being a pacifist,
Stephanie," Tom said. "Since
I've known you, you've probably done more damage than I have --"
Stephanie laughed bitterly. "Only a fool or an egomaniac would pick
a fight with you," she said.
"I, on the other hand, am just
a woman, so a lot of people figure I'm an easy target. That's what William Gryphius saw when he
picked me to join his little menagerie -- just
a woman, someone he could overpower and abuse at will."
Tom smiled.
"Nobody makes that mistake anymore. At least not more than once."
Suddenly Stephanie's face crumpled and she
began to cry. "It wasn't a mistake
then. It wasn't."
Tom stood and walked around the table and took
Stephanie in his massive arms. He and
Simon were among the very few men whom Stephanie would allow to hold her
without asking permission.
"This isn't just about Celinde,
Steph," Tom said. "I see that
now. It's about everything that's
happened to you over the past few years.
It's about control of your life -- William Gryphius took it away from
you for a time, and Celinde Gryphius made you give it away, made you go against your most sacred beliefs out of
rage and -- fear. God knows she scared
the hell out of me -- I can take a
punch, but she dropped me with one shot."
Stephanie laughed again, and this time it
sounded more like the woman he knew -- allowing for the runny nose and the
muffling effects of his shirt, of course.
Stephanie put her hands on Tom's chest and
pushed him away, gently. She frowned,
peering closely at his shirt, then laughed again.
"I think I left a little snot on your
shirt," she said.
Tom winced, gingerly tugging at his damp
shirtfront to unstick it from his chest.
"I'll add the cleaning bill to your account," he said.
While Tom returned to his seat, Stephanie took
a longer drink of her now-cooling coffee.
"Do you think it's true?" she asked. "Are my nightmares about shooting Celinde tangled up with
memories of what William did to me?"
"I think it's worth exploring," Tom
said. "Having feelings you had
safely buried exhumed on the trip down to Brazil, and then finding new horrors
linked to another Gryphius -- I can't imagine how hard that must have been for
you."
"I thought I had it under control,"
Stephanie said. "But Kevin getting
shot, the Parumami, the dead infant -- who might have been an adult before
Celinde started working on him -- I was afraid, and angry, and lost. And when Celinde jumped me, all I could
think of was lashing out at her, making it all stop."
"And you had a gun in your hand, so
'lashing out' turned into pulling a trigger," Tom said. "If you had been unarmed, you probably
would have tried to fight Celinde hand-to-hand. With her unnatural strength and speed against your training, I
don't know who would have won -- but I'm betting that you would not be feeling
as guilty as you do now. Assuming that
you survived, of course -- Celinde wouldn't have hesitated to kill you."
Stephanie said nothing, so Tom continued. "You didn't set out to kill
Celinde. She attacked you, and you
reacted instinctively. With your stress
levels already off the scale, maybe one might say you overreacted -- but there was only one killer in that dust-up, and
it wasn't you."
"I lost control," Stephanie said
slowly. "I let Celinde -- and the
situation -- overwhelm me."
"I think that's part of what is causing
you so much pain," Tom said.
"After William Gryphius, you did everything you could to make
yourself strong, so nobody could control you or abuse you again. Trying to kill Celinde seemed to show that
you were weaker than you thought you were, weak enough to abandon your
principles under pressure."
"That makes sense, I guess,"
Stephanie said. "If I'm weak, then
I have cause to be afraid again."
"You're not weak, Steph," Tom
said. "You're one of the strongest
people I know, in every sense of the word.
You've been on missions that Navy SEALs would turn down, faced danger
and just plain weirdness that would turn most people into permanent basket
cases. But everybody has limits, and at
Pico Neblina, you had too much land on you at once. I'd bet my life that you'll be as effective as ever once you get
your head around that fact. Failing
once doesn't mean that you'll fail again -- it just means that you're
human."
Stephanie sighed, then drained the last of the
brandy-laced coffee from her cup.
"Thanks, Coach, she said.
"I feel a little better.
Just talking to you about it helps a lot. The brandy doesn't hurt, either."
Tom laughed.
"I'm charging that to your account, too. Normally I save this bottle to go with my monthly cigar."
"Simon tries to help me, but somehow
talking to him about this makes me feel even more anxious," Stephanie
said.
Tom nodded.
"Makes sense, when we consider the William Gryphius factor. Simon was your knight in khaki armor -- but
he was there, he's tangled up with the worst moments of your life. And he killed Gryphius, practically right in
front of you, so he's both a hero -- and another monster."
"Promise me you'll never tell him
that," Stephanie said. "I
love him -- although not the way he might want me to -- and I know it would
hurt him to think that being around him might cause me pain."
"Therapist - patient privilege," Tom
said. "I don't tell him things that come out here -- and I
don't tell you things that he tells me, either."
Stephanie paused in mid-sip. "You know all his secrets," she
said.
Tom grinned.
"Probably not all, but I know a few things that you don't."
Groaning, Stephanie said, "Now that will give me something different to
obsess about!"
####
Within a few hours of
Simon's query, Erik Stevensson sent back the GPS coordinates where he had
recorded the 'ghost rocket' video. Simon
relayed the information to his CIA and NSA contacts -- as it turned out, they
were part of the task force assigned to deal with the massive blackmail scheme,
and were able to give top priority to the new data.
"This is hot
stuff, Simon," Alan Delarue said over a secure video link. "Fortunately for us, the satellites
tasked with covering the sub bases at Riga and Murmansk were already performing
surveillance of that general area. Once
we knew where to look and what to look for, the computers flagged dozens of
launch indications in the same general area as the ones your friend saw."
"And no one
thought this was worth mentioning?"
Delarue shrugged. "The launch indications didn't match the
profile for any known weapon or military aircraft, including air-to-air and
cruise missiles. Besides, they were
over Sweden -- not exactly a haven
for terrorists or world-conquering armies."
"What in God's
name could they be doing?" Simon
asked. "Why dozens of
launches?"
"If you're right
and they're putting some kind of hardware up there to make Baked Alaska
--" Delarue waited for Simon to
laugh, but gave up after a few seconds and continued. "Ahem. They'd want
as many birds in orbit as possible. If
each launch put one or more doohickeys into a polar orbit, they'd need a lot of
them to ensure they could get fairly constant coverage of the target
area."
Simon nodded. "Whoever is behind this scheme may need a trillion dollars just to pay the
bills. Any chance that the orbiting
weapons we're not supposed to have could shoot some of these 'birds'
down?"
Delarue shook his
head. "The missile defense
platforms were never intended to intercept stuff that's already achieved
orbit. They were designed to catch
things during the launch or reentry phases of a ballistic trajectory. Also, we still haven't been able to track
the damn things -- the stealth technology is state of the art, way too
effective for any of the space surveillance radar to see them."
"Then we have to
find the launch site," Simon said.
"Not Sweden, of course. I
mean the place where the balloons or dirigibles or whatever they are being
released."
"That could be
tough, even if we retask every satellite that can have its orbit shifted to cover
the area," Delarue said.
"Your 'ghost rocket' carriers have a pretty low infra-red signature
until the rocket engines are ignited, and they're probably camouflaged -- white
on top, black on the bottom for night flying over snow, so they'll be hard to
detect optically, as well."
"What about radar
tracking?"
"Are you going
'deef', Simon? I told you, these things
-- the rockets, the satellites, and even the balloons or whatever they're using
to get them up and over Sweden -- they're all damn near invisible to any
radar."
"Then they should
cast a shadow of sorts," Simon said.
"Suppose you did a radar sweep from high altitude, aimed
downward. The signal would be reflected
by the ground -- but not by our oh-so-stealthy dirigibles."
"Huh. If we put AWACS aircraft above the altitude
where the launches take place -- not too much higher, because we'd want the
targets to block a wide enough angle to make things obvious..."
"I leave it to
you and our military counterparts to see if my idea is practical," Simon said. "Of course, we must hope that our
extortionist friends keep launching more satellites until we can at least
obtain a vector to their base."
"That, and that
we can pull this off before the deadline," Delarue said. "I wonder if we can put in for a cut of
the ransom money if we manage to stop this scheme?"
Simon grinned. "Perhaps I might -- but you work for
the government, remember."
"Damn. Guess I'll have to settle for saving a bunch
of people from getting quaked or tsunami-ed to death."
"Let me know how
it goes," Simon said.
Delarue nodded and
closed the video link.
####
It was painfully
obvious to Simon that Stephanie's skills might be vital in the field once the
extortionists' base was found. An
assault team could storm any structure, no matter how well defended, but simply
blowing up the control center for the rogue satellites might be worse than
doing nothing at all. As an engineer,
Simon guessed that the satellites had enough 'intelligence' built in to carry
out their mission unless countermanded
from the ground -- it was how he would have arranged things, if he were a
psychopathic genius (or the group equivalent of one). No, someone would have to penetrate the control center and take
over the computers controlling the operation of the satellites -- and Stephanie
was the best-qualified person for the job.
But she had been
suffering terribly since the events at Pico Neblina, doubting herself in
everything she did. Tom Weldon, while
refusing to discuss specifics, had hinted that her current state might be too
deeply rooted to be easily cured.
Simon shook his head,
hating himself for even thinking of asking her to go on another mission, but he
could see no way around it. No one else
at the Institute had Stephanie's combination of physical prowess and technical
skills; even the NSA and CIA had indicated that they would depend on a radio
link with experts based in Washington to talk field agents through any
computer-hacking tasks required.
The eerily artificial
voice from the video message came back to him, cold, emotionless, promising
chaos and death:
... Hundreds of billions, if not trillions in
damage ... thousands of lives will also be lost...
Simon knocked softly
on the closed door to Stephanie's office.
He'd never seen it closed before, not while she was in the building, and
the polished wood seemed to be silently rebuking him for asking more from
Stephanie when she might have nothing left to give.
"Come in,
Simon," Stephanie said. "It
is you, isn't it?"
Simon opened the door
and entered the room. Stephanie had
dimmed the overhead lights so the only illumination came from her computer
display and an incongruously ornate Tiffany desk lamp that he had given her
some years ago.
"I'm sorry to
disturb you," he said. "I
know that things have been difficult for you since our Brazilian --
vacation."
"I know what
you're going to ask me," Stephanie said.
"Callow already briefed me on the situation, because he said you'd
probably be hesitant. The bastard was positively
proud of himself for being too professional to care about my sanity."
"Stephanie, if
you don't feel up to going into the field again so soon, I'll find someone
else," Simon said.
"More likely two someone elses," Stephanie
said. "One hacker, and one
bodyguard for the hacker, big enough to carry the dweeb on his back if
necessary. Hey, maybe Tom could be the
beast of burden --"
"Stephanie, I
--"
"I'm coming on
the mission, Simon. I know what's at
stake -- not just money, although the sum is large enough to seriously disrupt
the U.S. economy, but lives and property on both sides of the northern
Pacific. And if we don't neutralize
these psychos now, there is nothing to stop them from using their equipment to
do something worse. Think about it -- their
plan depends on melting a huge expanse of permafrost in a short time. That means their satellites can deliver a
huge amount of energy, either as heat, or as something that will be converted
to heat when it strikes its target. I'd
bet on microwaves -- did you know that there were 'masers' before there were
lasers?"
"If you're
correct, their satellites could be used to target anything that contains
water," Simon said. "Crops,
animals -- people..."
"Imagine Yankee
Stadium with 50 thousand people in it -- and imagine those people being cooked
in their own juices."
"My God,"
Simon said. "It's too horrible to
contemplate -- but not too horrible to believe that the blackmailers might
resort to such a thing."
"That's why I'm
coming along whenever your NSA and military buddies find the bad guys'
base," Stephanie said. "I've
been driving myself crazy with guilt for even wanting to kill Celinde Gryphius.
I am not sitting on my ass while thousands of innocent lives are at
risk."
Simon nodded. "You are -- you have always been -- one
of the bravest people I have ever met."
"One thing,"
Stephanie said. "I am not carrying
a gun on this trip. If you put a gun
into my hands, I will hand it back to you.
Melvin Squibb can load me up with every non-lethal gadget in his
inventory, but I will not even risk killing someone."
Simon sighed. "I hope you'll forgive me if I have to kill someone to protect you
while you work."
"We'll see,"
Stephanie said. Then she leaned back in
her chair, away from the light cast by the computer screen and lamp, and said,
"Close the door on your way out, please."
####
"Secure video link with Alexei Yakonov
established. Reciprocal encryption
protocols enabled. Live feed in five
... four ... three ... two ... one --"
"Simon, are you there? It is Alexei, or what is left of Alexei
after last trip we took together."
Alexei Yakonov's craggy, bushy-eyebrowed face
filled the screen of Simon's desk display unit, looming close enough for Simon
to count the pockmarks and deeply incised lines around the big Russian's eyes
and mouth.
"Yes, Alexei, I'm here," Simon
said. "You might want to lean back
a bit -- I can only see half of your face at a time when you lean into the
camera like that."
"Ha!
With this face, you should be grateful!"
Yakonov moved back -- to a distance of perhaps
20 centimeters from the camera. Simon
supposed that Yakonov still distrusted modern communications gear -- it had
taken decades from the fall of the USSR for the last of the tech-export
restrictions to be lifted, so reliable state of the art equipment had not been
part of Alexei's life for long.
"I understand that you have been asked to
be the Russian liaison with our little task force," Simon said.
Yakonov nodded. "They think we work well together. Me, I have bullet scar that says different, but no one listens to
me."
Simon laughed.
"I was not the one that
shot you. They tend to be reluctant to
let me have a gun, for some reason.
Anyway, did you receive the latest data from our search for the
blackmailers' base? Our AWACS planes
and satellites have narrowed the search to northern Finland, but they haven't
been able to pinpoint a location."
"Russian planes were able to fly closer to
Finnish airspace than yours without causing big international fuss, of
course. We have found the target, we
believe, using your suggestion -- very clever, looking for holes in reflected
ground clutter. There is a cluster of
buildings in the middle of Finnish Lappland, about 100 kilometers inland from
the Norwegian coast and 70 kilometers north of Inari -- buildings which do not
exist according to our contacts in the Finnish government."
Simon grimaced. "I hope your sources aren't in direct contact with the
blackmailers. It would be a shame if
our little surprise party wasn't a surprise at all."
Yakonov shrugged. "They have been trustworthy in the past. But if the little we have been paying them
could buy their loyalty, who knows what far more money might buy? Surprise ruined or not, the deadline for
delivery of the ransom is only days away.
Now we must decide how to proceed."
"The operation must be clandestine, of
course," Simon said. "We'll
be going in without any warning to the Finnish authorities, since we don't know
who might be working with the ghost rocketeers."
Yakonov's eyes drifted downward. "We do not know who in Finnish
government might be helping to conceal the blackmailers' base. But we believe we know who is brains of
operation. I am embarrassed to say he
is Russian, formerly an important man at Baikonur Cosmodrome."
Simon raised one eyebrow. "Disgruntled due to downsizing?"
"What?
Down -- ah, I understand. Yes,
after USSR broke apart, there was little money for space program. Doctor Yuri Baranoff was head of program to
develop orbital habitat as stepping-stone to Mars and asteroid belt. Then the Earth became more important than
the stars for government struggling to decide what it should be, so..."
"Well, a trillion euros would certainly
solve his funding problems for a while."
Yakonov shrugged. "Even with cheap launching method, this scheme must have
cost billions. Question is, who funded
scheme? Governments not in circle of
destruction? Corporations that will
profit from reconstruction if disaster occurs?"
"With no material from the balloons or
whatever or from the rockets or satellites themselves, it's impossible to even
guess," Simon said. "If we
are able to capture the base relatively intact, we'll be able to identify the
components used, and perhaps find records -- or people who can be persuaded to
talk."
"Before Iraq, I would have said leave
interrogation to us," Yakonov said.
"Now -- we can flip nice shiny euro coin."
"Let's figure out how to take the base
before we worry about that little detail. This can't be a purely military
operation. If troops or materiel from
any nation were to be captured or left behind, it would be tantamount to a
declaration of war --"
"Between U.S. or Russia and Finland? Declaration of very short
war."
"Short or not, I think we would all prefer
to avoid that sort of 'fuss', as you put it earlier. That's why it'll be a group from Nightwatch that will be the tip
of the spear."
"If you are supplying spearhead, you are
giving Russia the shaft, of course."
Simon sighed.
"It's amazing how your English is quite fluent when you want to
make a joke, and so -- unfluent at
other times."
Yakonov grinned, displaying several gold teeth
that he hadn't had the last time Simon had seen him. "I am just poor Russian peasant, working his way through
military and diplomatic ranks."
"I've seen pictures of your dacha on the
Black Sea. If you're a poor peasant,
I'd like to know where I sign up."
"I will send you application forms. But for now, let me tell you about the
'shaft'."
"Oh, by all means, Alexei. Give me the shaft."
"We will send submarine from Murmansk base
-- old Shchuka-B attack boat Tigr, converted to transport for
Spetznaz. Not that we send commando
units anywhere they are not wanted, of course."
"Shchuka-B?"
"Is what NATO called Akula-II. Very confusing --
what we called Akula, NATO called
Typhoon. Tigr was hunter-killer, not missile boat. With most of torpedo storage replaced with quarters for covert
operations troops and their equipment, we will have to hope that Dr. Baranoff's
backers don't have private navy to go with fleet of space weapons."
Simon shook his head. "We can't have Spetznaz troops involved in the actual
infiltration of the base."
"What, you don't trust us?"
Simon rolled his eyes. "The temptation to, er, re-acquire
Doctor Baranoff and his miniature weapons satellites might lead your boys into
doing things that would strain our countries' current friendship."
"Send along SEALs or Rangers, CIA black
ops types if you like. Your Nightwatch
friends may need help to get through defenses anyway."
"I'd prefer it if we had neither Spetznaz
nor SEALs on the mission. Both groups
are prone to blow things up rather than taking them intact -- and we need the
equipment on the base if Stephanie Keel is to have any chance of reprogramming
the dozens or hundreds of satellites in Baranoff's fleet."
Yakonov frowned. "Your Ms. Keel is on mission? I had heard that she was -- indisposed."
"Bloody hell, Alexei, how could you
possibly know that? It's hardly public
knowledge, and it's not even something the U.S. intelligence community would
have on file."
Yakonov shrugged. "To most of world, Nightwatch is think tank and charitable
aid organization. We know it is more. So --
we watch Nightwatch. Especially we
watch you, and Ms. Keel, and that
large fellow, Weldon, who does not work for Nightwatch, but so often goes on
your little expeditions."
Simon scowled. "It's bad enough I have Callow -- I
suppose you have a file on him, too -- prying into my affairs. Now I have to worry about Moscow's opinion
of my actions as well."
"Ha! It is hard to do cloaky-daggery things when
you are famous for appearing wherever there is trouble."
"Believe me,
Alexei, I'd rather be building hospitals and schools than chasing mad
scientists and the horrors they create."
"Is lousy job, but
someone has to do it. Better you than
me!"
Simon said nothing,
but called up a map of northern Finland and found Inari, the Finnish town that
Yakonov had named.
"Looks like it
would be faster to take the highway from Murmansk to Inari than to sail into a
fjord and continue by what, reindeer-drawn sleds?"
"Faster,
yes. But we wish our arrival to be a
surprise. The Finnish Border Guards are
few, but one place they are not so few is on the border with Russia. Norwegian coast and border between Norway and
Finland are practically undefended by comparison."
"I notice you
didn't contradict my remark about reindeer-drawn sleds," Simon said. "Please tell me that we will not be
staring at the buttocks of reindeer for 100 kilometers of cross-country travel."
Yakonov laughed. "If we had time, it would probably be
most stealthy way. But the trip would
take many hours. Do not worry -- we Russians
have much experience with traveling in deep freeze."
"I would have
suggested that we parachute in, but we can't risk that Stephanie might be
injured on a jump. Her skills are the
key to neutralizing Baranoff's satellites."
"Is hard to find
geek who is not a geek, eh?" Yakonov said. "SEALs and Spetznaz can blow up computer, but take control
and use? Nyet."
"Indeed. Time is short, and dwindling as we
speak. I will make arrangements to
assemble our part of the team, and contact you to confirm our ETA in
Murmansk."
"Pack thermal
underwear, my friend. It is balmy minus
25 Celsius where we are going."
Yakonov leaned to one
side and then the screen went blank.
"Video link terminated."
Simon sighed. Callow would insist on arranging for SEALs
or CIA black-ops types, as Yakonov had suggested, balancing the presence of the
Spetznaz troops. It would be a challenge
to keep the clandestine infiltration he had in mind from turning into a
full-scale invasion, but he had to find a way.
Baranoff would only need seconds to destroy the equipment that Stephanie
would need to countermand the attack program; Stephanie would need to be practically
at the control console before Baranoff even knew his base was under attack.
"Call Melvin
Squibb," Simon said.
"Voice link
open," the computer said.
"Melvin, we are
planning a little trip to Norway and northern Finland. We'll need your best Arctic gear for myself,
Ms. Keel, and a rather large friend who will be assisting us. I'm sending you his measurements
now." Simon tapped out Tom
Weldon's rather unusual measurements on his keyboard and clicked on 'send to'.
"Arctic clothing
isn't something I keep in stock -- especially not in those sizes, don't ya know
-- but I'll get ya what ya need quick as can be. When will ya be leaving?"
"As soon as
possible, Melvin. Within the next 12
hours, if everything can be arranged within that time."
"I love a
challenge, Doctor L., but I gotta say, ya sure push the envelope in that
area. I'll be burning some favors on
this one..."
"Thank you,
Melvin."
Now to break the news
to Tom and Stephanie...
####
The passenger cabin of
Nightbird One had more than enough seats to accommodate Simon, Tom, Stephanie,
and the three CIA black-ops agents drafted to accompany them, but it seemed
crowded. Tom and the CIA agents all
were considerably larger than average through the chest and shoulders, making
Simon feel positively spindly by comparison.
To make things worse, the CIA agents had insisted that their gear stay
in the passenger cabin rather than in the spacious cargo hold, and Simon,
irritated by their unaccustomed presence, had insisted that the same should
apply to his, Tom's, and Stephanie's packs as well. The rear of the cabin was filled with the packs, secured in cargo
nets fastened to the legs of the unoccupied seats.
Several hours into the
flight from the Manassas airfield to Murmansk, the CIA agents had not so much
as offered their names. Simon hoped
that the Spetznaz troops would be more sociable -- and dreaded having to
convince Alexei to limit their numbers to match the CIA contingent.
Simon decided that the
Nightwatch and CIA groups at least needed to confirm that they would not be
tripping over each other in the field.
"Agent -- Agent -- you, the one with the dark hair -- I trust you
have been briefed on the mission objectives and the -- rules of engagement?"
The dark-haired agent,
who seemed to be in command, had a solid, sharply defined jawline, deep-set
eyes, and prominent cheekbones -- not quite handsome, but appropriate for his
overall action-hero appearance. His
face had none of the puffy appearance common to steroid users, so Simon guessed
that he had come by his impressive physique the hard way. His voice was the one aspect that didn't
match Simon's expectations -- it was almost boyish, tenor where basso profundo
would have seemed more fitting. Perhaps
that was one reason the man had spoken so little.
"Yes, sir. The primary objective is to get the little
lady there in to the control center of the enemy base. We are not to destroy any infrastructure
until and unless she indicates that her job is done. Secondary objective is to neutralize any enemy combatants
--"
"You mean
kill," Stephanie said.
"Capture or kill,
yes ma'am."
"Let's cross
killing off the list, shall we?"
"Ma'am, I
--"
Stephanie was out of
her seat and had her stiffened fingers within a few centimeters of the agent's eyes
before anyone could react.
"Don't call me
'ma'am' or 'little lady'," she said.
"And don't patronize me by assuming that I'm harmless because I
don't like killing."
To his credit, the
agent had barely flinched when Stephanie's fingertips came rocketing toward his
face. Nor had he tried to defend
himself; he knew that he was expendable, but Stephanie was not. Still, his forehead shone with perspiration
that hadn't been there a few seconds before.
Stephanie returned to
her seat, shaking the tension out of her hands. "I don't expect you to stand there and let someone shoot you
or gut you with a bayonet. But I do
expect you to kill only as a last resort.
We need to get in there without raising an alarm. That means getting around any guards without
being noticed, if possible. Rendering
them unconscious would be the second choice -- and we brought weapons designed
to do that, even if they're wearing full Arctic gear and maybe body
armor."
Simon exchanged looks
of concern with Tom. Stephanie had
always been 'feisty', but neither man had ever seen her so close to the edge
before. If she was forced to watch as
lives were taken in her defense, or worse, if she had to kill, it could undo all the healing and growth she had
attained since her ordeal in William Gryphius's chamber of horrors.
"Perhaps this
will make things simpler," Simon said.
"We three -- Dr. Weldon, Ms. Keel, and myself -- will perform the
actual infiltration of the base. Before
you object, I will remind you that this team has performed missions of this
type before -- something I'm sure was included in your briefing by the Agency
-- and we have special equipment that should improve our chances
considerably. You, and your Russian
counterparts, will get us there, and secure the perimeter to prevent the escape
of any of the technical staff, and Dr. Yuri Baranoff in particular."
"Sir, this is not
acceptable. We are --"
"Not in charge of
this mission," Simon interjected.
"Keep in mind that we are engaging in an unauthorized incursion
into another country. The U.S.
government is not involved in the operation -- officially. While Nightwatch is sometimes viewed as an
arm of the government, it is not. To be
rather pompous about it, we are watchmen for the world as a whole, not just the
United States."
"Sir, I
object. My men and I have undergone the
most rigorous training imaginable.
We've been through shit that would make SEALs and SAS guys crap their
camo pants. But we can't do our jobs if
you tie us down with a bunch of namby-pamby civilian rules."
Simon laughed. "I suspect that I've been in more real
firefights than you have, Agent Whatever.
People try to kill me on a regular basis, even when I am doing nothing
more and nothing less than trying to make their lives better by building a new
school or a bridge or a power plant -- but I'm still here."
"Sir, that
doesn't make you a professional."
"For which I am
duly grateful," Simon said.
"If you wish to confirm the command structure on this trip, you are
welcome to use the communications suite in the next compartment. You'll have to move some of the gear out of
the way, of course."
"Never mind --
sir."
"We'll be landing
in Murmansk in about two hours," Simon said. "We should probably try to rest, or review the maps and
satellite photos if sleep seems impossible."
Agent Whatever saluted
Simon with a crispness that went well beyond the boundary separating respect
from contempt. "Sir, yes
sir!"
Simon hoped that the
old Vietnam era practice of 'fragging the lieutenant' had not evolved into 'shooting the engineer' in the 21st
Century. Failing that, he hoped
Stephanie and Tom would be watching his back while he watched theirs.
####
It was dark in
Murmansk when Nightbird One touched down.
Of course, at that latitude, it was dark most of the time during the
winter.
Alexei Yakonov was
waiting on the tarmac outside the plane with two guards and a pair of old ZiL
limousines. The cars were enormous by
modern standards, hulking masses of gleaming black metal. Simon had vague memories of hearing that they
had some ridiculous horsepower rating more suited to a medium tank than a
passenger car.
"Simon! Welcome to the True North, strong and --
strong. Those Canadians took the good
slogans, but we are as True North as they are." Yakonov's breath emerged in white clouds as exhaled moisture
condensed in the bitter cold.
"Hello,
Alexei," Simon said. "Your
choice of transportation is a bit conspicuous, don't you think?"
Yakonov grinned,
exposing tobacco-stained teeth.
"You have spent hours in little plane. Soon we will all be spending more hours in little submarine. For a few minutes, all deserve a comfortable
ride."
"In ZiL limos
that look older than either of us?"
"You exaggerate
as usual. These are classics -- ZiL
41041's, only 42 years old and driven by little old babushkas to visit the
wonderful monuments and museums of Murmansk."
"At least they
look big enough to take all of us," Simon said. "With Tom Weldon and the three traveling companions supplied
by you-know-who, we'll need a lot of room.
And that's not counting the 25-kilo backpacks."
"Not a
problem. Trunk on one of these could
hold all three of your -- friends.
Believe me, I know from experience." He winked, a remarkable sight as one caterpillar-like eyebrow drooped
to obscure most of one eye socket before climbing back to its usual position.
"Alas, they will
be traveling with me all the way to our destination, and with luck, back home
again. Are these two young fellows your special friends?"
Yakonov glanced at his
two companions. "These? No, no, they are here only as our
drivers. To be frank, they were too
small to qualify for special-friend status."
Both 'drivers' were
just shy of two meters in height and probably weighed as much as Tom Weldon,
although their height made them seem slender by comparison. Simon found himself wondering where the
Russian and American governments were finding their Special Forces types --
assuming they weren't growing them in a lab somewhere.
"Simon, can we
get going? It's freaking cold out here,
and I don't care what Melvin says about the 'superb thermal properties' of
these suits, my butt is going numb."
"Doctor Weldon, I
presume?"
"Yeah. You must be Alexei. I hear you got your leg shot up the last
time you went somewhere with Simon. Me,
I haven't been shot -- yet -- but I've had the crap beaten out of me more than
once while following him around."
"And yet, here we
go again," Stephanie said.
"I'm Stephanie Keel, and I'll be your hacker on this little trip to
Santa's workshop."
Yakonov's smile grew
even wider, revealing a few back teeth that looked like stainless steel. Noting the direction of Simon's gaze,
Yakonov said, "I insist on gold where it shows, but steel is better for
chewing Russian beef. Ms. Keel, I have
heard much about you. I am charmed, and
I hope charming."
Stephanie
snorted. "Very, in your own unique
way. I'd offer you my hand to kiss, but
I'm not sure you could find it in this damn glove -- mitten -- whatever it
is."
Within minutes, the
six backpacks had been stowed in the limos' trunks, which were indeed large
enough to transport several bodies, and the Nightwatch and CIA groups had found
seats in the padded-leather passenger compartments. To Simon's surprise, the seats looked and smelled new, and the
cushions were quite comfortable.
"Recently
refurbished," Yakonov said, noting Simon's expression. "They would not let me take nice new
Mercedes up here, but I managed to get 'rich Corinthian leather' to make old
cars feel like new."
"It's
lovely," Tom said, "but it would be lovelier if you'd turn the heat
up."
Yakonov sighed. "Heat is up. Otherwise there
would be frost on nice leather."
Tom groaned. "At least tell me that the sub will be
warmer than this."
Yakonov frowned, and
Tom wondered if he had offended the big Russian. But then Yakonov grinned again, and said, "I did little
arithmetic, and you will be warm enough.
With so many big bodies in confined space, body heat will keep us all
cozy."
The trip to the docks
took no more than ten minutes. What
little traffic there was moved out of the way when the lead limousine flashed
its lights. The sheer size and power of
the cars commanded respect, even now, when a Mercedes would have indicated that
the occupants were wealthier, more powerful, or both.
The six Americans
climbed out of the limousines and retrieved their gear from the trunks. Yakonov exited last, then nodded to the
driver of the lead car, and both limousines rolled away into the night.
Simon shouldered his
pack and moved to stand next to Yakonov.
"Alexei, I have two concerns about the arrangements you have
made. First, we need to keep the size
of the party traveling to Baranoff's base reasonably small -- we're trying to
sneak in, not overrun the place and give him time to do anything nasty. That means that we shouldn't take any more
than two or three of your Spetznaz boys with us. Second, you said that we'd have about 100 kilometers of overland
travel from landfall in Norway to our objective. We can't afford to take more than a few hours to cover that
distance, especially considering that it will take at least several hours on
the sub at -- what, 25 or 30 knots? -- to reach the inlet you indicated."
Yakonov raised his
gloved hands in a placating gesture.
"To make your large CIA friends happy, only one Spetznaz soldier
will come with us to Baranoff's base -- yes, I am coming too -- but then only
two of them can make trip. That way Russia will have two men, America
will have two men, and Nightwatch will have you three. Our government trusts yours no more than
your government trusts ours, but both sides trust Nightwatch -- they don't know
you like I do. As for covering distance
from Norwegian coast to base in Finland -- we have sent transportation ahead
along with Spetznaz contingent. You
will like these vehicles, I think, but I want to surprise you."
"I can't
wait," Tom said, shivering.
Stephanie laughed, and
Simon smiled. She sounded much better
than she had during the flight from Virginia.
Perhaps the prospect of imminent action that would make use of all her
talents had broken through the guilt and confusion of the past weeks.
Agent Whatever
shouldered his way between Simon and Alexei.
"Did I hear that right? Did
one of us come halfway around the friggin' world for nothing?"
Alexei shrugged. "Spare CIA man and spare Spetnaz troops
can cover our overland escape route -- and keep eye on each other. Or one can stay here in comfort of nice
Nightwatch plane, play video games, whatever.
I leave it up to you."
Agent Whatever grabbed
Simon's arm and was surprised when Simon pivoted, breaking his grip, and came
perilously close to executing an arm bar and foot sweep before reason could
override reflex.
"God damn it,
Litchfield, what is with you people?
First your hacker friend, now you, practically trying to kill me."
Simon stepped back,
his face red. "I am sorry,
Agent. My mind was wandering, and you
startled me. As for Ms. Keel, she has a
very low tolerance for being patronized --"
"Don't apologize
for me, Simon," Stephanie interjected.
"Agent -- damn, it's hard to talk to someone who won't tell you his
name -- Simon is too polite to say so, but I can be a bitch when I'm tired and
stressed out. You happened to push the
wrong buttons at the wrong time, and I overreacted."
Shaking his head, the
CIA agent retreated to the safety of his own group. The three men spoke in low voices for a few moments, then Agent
Whatever returned to speak to Simon and Alexei again.
"Did you see
that? I'm surprised they didn't bang their
helmets together and yell 'break!' when they finished their little
huddle."
Stephanie snorted and
jabbed Tom in the ribs with her elbow.
"Hush. I've been hoping
that they won't be too trigger-happy, but if we piss them off any more, we'll
be lucky if they don't shoot us."
Floodlights snapped
on, illuminating a metal gangplank leading up to the deck of a looming black
hulk.
"My friends, I
give you K-157, the Tigr. Once one of our best attack submarines, now
a cruise ship for peaceful pleasure trips."
"Well, it'll be
peaceful if we don't get caught," Stephanie said. "I thought you said this thing was
small. It's the size of a small
football stadium."
"Compared to a
Typhoon guided missile boat, it's a minnow," Agent Whatever said. "And the exterior size is deceptive --
with the double hull and miles of plumbing for the ballast system, plus torpedo
and missile tubes, the inside is pretty cramped."
"I suppose you
have interior layout memorized," Yakonov said. "Joke is on you then, because much of 'plumbing' is
different now, with most of weapons and weapons storage removed to make room
for passengers and their baggage."
"You mentioned
something about it being cozy," Tom said.
"Cozy as in warm. Cozy as
in having some sort of bathroom facilities."
"I told you to go
before we left Nightbird One," Stephanie said. "Honestly, we can't take you anywhere."
"Settle down,
children, or we're all going back to Washington."
The CIA agents
exchanged looks of disgust.
"Goddamn amateurs," Agent Whatever muttered.
Yakonov moved closer
to Simon and whispered, "These men could use good drink of vodka to
dissolve broomsticks." Then he
walked up the gangplank, waving his arms and shouting, "All aboard Good
Ship Lollipop!"
####
As both Alexei and
Agent Whatever had said, the exterior dimensions of the Tigr seemed to have little to do with the available space
inside. The Nightwatch and CIA party
had to snake their way single file through corridors so narrow that Tom had to
walk with his shoulders at an awkward angle to avoid brushing against the
bulkheads. In some areas, exposed pipes
and conduits lined the walls and ceiling; the air smelled of old sweat, cooking
odors, and pine-scented air freshener that added to rather than covering the
olfactory chaos.
Their destination was
a space that had been carved out of the former torpedo room, a 10-meter cube
into which a dozen bunk beds in four triple-decker stacks and a large storage
locker hand been crammed.
"Choose a berth,
throw packs in unused berths," Yakonov said. "Rations will be delivered here so you will not have to go
wandering around top-secret Russian boat.
Head -- watercloset -- is just outside hatch we came through."
"Russian
hospitality -- there's nothing like it," Agent Whatever said. "We wouldn't be jammed into a damn
closet like this on one of our
boats."
"Also would not
know where you were going," Yakonov said.
"It was Russian planes that found our objective, and it will be
Russian vehicles that take you there."
"Can't we all
just get along?"
Everyone turned to
look at Tom, who had adopted an expression of child-like bewilderment to match
the near-falsetto voice he had just used.
He had also removed his coat and bulky sweater, so his powerful arms and
chest were on display, only thinly covered by the usual black T-shirt.
One of the other CIA
agents, a beefy-faced blond man whom Simon had designated as Agent Whoever,
snorted. Then he turned toward his bunk
and lowered his head. After a moment,
his shoulders began to shake.
The third agent,