The fires north and south of Washington were still raging. In Bethesda, the order to evacuate took on a more urgent tone as the spreading holocaust began to eat at residential tracts. At least fifteen homes had been destroyed before 11 A.M.
In the Oval Room, William Stark heard this news with a deep frown. Herb Markle had worried that the situation would get out of hand. Stark had reassured him it would not. And now Bethesda was a battleground between the devouring flames and exhausted firemen.
Beyond the south lawn, he could see the traffic jammed on the approaches to the Potomac bridges. While horns beeped and drivers sweltered in the heat, the exodus from the city proceeded at a snail’s pace.
The television stations had canceled regular programming for special reports on the disaster. There on the screen were the uncontrolled fires in Virginia and Maryland and gas company personnel painstakingly searching for gas leaks along the lines.
Stark and Randall watched the reports, and then Randall said, “The city should be empty by tonight.” Stark grunted his agreement and added: “I want them moved at least ten miles out of town. Weinroth told me the effective kill range of the Soviet weapon is probably six square miles. Of course, we can’t know for sure whether they’ll be accurate, but we have to assume they can get within a mile of their target.”
Randall had another problem to discuss. “What do you think of Carson’s report from the UN that the Russians have demanded a Security Council meeting for later today?”
Stark retorted: “What do you think?”
“Probably another attempt to lay blame at our door for increased provocations around the world. It’s just going one better on what they did with that pamphlet yesterday.”
Stark stretched his arms above his head and yawned. He shook himself briefly to ease his tired body. He had had very little sleep since the arrival of the Soviet ultimatum, sixty hours ago.
“We’ll wait and see what they do,” the President said at last. “I can’t tip our predicament to anyone yet. They’re just aching for the chance to use that goddamn laser. And if I tell the world that it’s the Russians who have gone mad, half the people won’t believe me anyway.”
Stark leaned back in his chair, then looked up at his advisor. “You know something, Bob? I’m amazed to find myself in this predicament. Me, the peace President. For Christ’s sake, I’ve spent the past year preaching peace to the whole goddamn world, trying to work with the Russians and the Chinese and generally pulling in our horns on the perimeters. God, when I think of the mess I inherited in this country. Strikes, race riots, absolute chaos in the streets. And now, look at how little it takes for people in this country to start swallowing the same old line, that this ‘imperialistic’ régime is bent on taking over the world. We’re always to blame, rarely right, while somehow, the other side comes off as well-intentioned and reputable. I know that the people who believe this stuff are well-meaning, most of them anyway, but for years now they’ve been convinced that we’re the bad guys in the world. And there is no way, no way, to convince them otherwise.”
As so often before, Randall found himself in agreement with Stark. “It reminds me of the Cuban missile crisis,” he said now. “In the middle of that mess, Kennedy got a telegram from Bertrand Russell, condemning him for attempting to plunge the planet into total war. Russell never mentioned Khrushchev, who started it all. At the time, Kennedy said it was the first instance he’d ever heard of where a man whose house was being burglarized was blamed instead of the burglar.”
President Stark chuckled appreciatively. “That’s exactly what I mean. I must sound like Steve Roarke when I talk this way, and I’d say this is one of the few times I’ve ever seen eye to eye with him on anything. God knows, the extreme right in this country is just as dangerous as the extreme left, but somewhere in there I’ve got to sympathize with the general. These radicals want to tear down the system, and they drag along innocent moderates, who honestly want to correct inequities—and I’d be the first to admit we have plenty of those. But, damnit, so has the rest of the world. They see most of the faults right here. Then the radicals whisper in their ears, and they follow like sheep.” Stark slammed the desk in frustration.
Randall sat quietly, observing the evident strain on his President’s face.
Stark rubbed his eyes. “Christ,” he said, “I’m so tired of it all. This situation’s got me down, especially the waiting, knowing there’s a timebomb ticking down for all of us. Right now, Joe Safcek is the key. If that guy can pull it off, all this won’t mean a thing. If he can’t, well …”
Luba Spitkovsky held the end of the gun barrel directly under Peter Kirov’s left eye and said: “Downstairs, pig.” Kirov got up slowly, carefully. Luba prodded him in the back, and he lurched down the stairs to where Joe Safcek stood. “What the hell’s going on?” the colonel asked.
Luba’s voice was harsh. “He just killed Boris and tried to contact his friends in Moscow. I stopped it.”
Kirov stared coldly at Safcek, who hit him once on the bridge of the nose. The sound of breaking bone was accompanied by a rush of blood through Kirov’s nostrils and onto his shirt. Kirov staggered but held his ground. Safcek pounded his fist into Kirov’s stomach, and the Russian groaned as he fell to the floor.
Safcek looked at him with loathing.
“Luba, did he get anything off before you caught him?”
“No, Colonel. He did make contact with someone in Moscow, but I kept him from giving the exact details of our position. He used the call letters K-422.”
Safcek seized the terrified Kirov and pulled him upright. “Who are you, you sonofabitch?” Kirov’s face was a crimson mask; his nose was spread flat, and his eyes were filled with terror. But he did not speak.
The perspiring Safcek stood up slowly and went over to Luba.
“How did you find out about him?”
“Remember the conversation on the ride here last night? He was talking to Boris about his childhood in Volgograd. Well, in the middle of it, he mentioned the ice forming a land bridge across the Volga in January. Anyone who has ever lived in Volgograd or near it would know that the ice starts coming down in November and is a solid sheet by the first part of December at latest. His remark ate at me, but I couldn’t be sure.
“This morning, I deliberately went out to walk with him so that I could draw him out some more. Everything he said added up, except for the ice. But he seemed so positive that I began to doubt myself. After all, I never lived on the Volga myself, and what I had heard could have been wrong, too.
“That’s why you were so moody, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Colonel. All I had was a feeling that Peter was not what he said he was. And now this.”
“Forget it, Luba. Someone back in Washington or Germany failed years ago on this guy, and he slipped through our security checks. It’s as simple as that.”
Luba smiled gratefully and asked: “Shouldn’t we just dispose of him? We’re running out of time.”
“Not yet, not yet.”
At 11 A.M., Ambassador Tolypin entered the United Nations press room. Flanked by aides, the Soviet diplomat posed dutifully for photographers and television cameramen. Usually gregarious and smiling, Tolypin remained grim-faced all during the picture-taking. After five minutes, he waved his hand for them to stop and went to the podium. For a moment only the hum of cameras intruded, and then he began to speak:
“Under instructions from my government, I have just removed all diplomatic personnel from Washington. Tonight we will leave for the Soviet Union from Kennedy Airport. Because of recent provocations and disclosures, the Soviet Union considers the next days filled with peril for the entire world. As a result, all of our missions in this country are being sent home for their own safety.”
Tolypin paused, and reporters rushed in to question him.
“Mr. Ambassador, are you implying that war is imminent?”
“Gentlemen, I am merely stating the obvious. You are aware of the S
tark order exposed yesterday during the march in Washington. My country has ascertained that it is true beyond a doubt and will prove that charge later today. Under such circumstances, we have no alternative but to prepare for any contingency.”
Tolypin picked up his notes, thanked the newsmen for coming, and walked out the door. Behind him he left frantic men fighting for precious phones.
Hands on hips, Joe Safcek stared down at his prisoner. Kirov was stirring, trying to breathe through his mutilated nose. Seeing Safcek over him, he shrank back. Safcek grabbed a fistful of Kirov’s hair and yanked him upright.
“Kirov, this is your last chance. Answer my questions now, or I’ll start breaking you up into little pieces. What is your organization?”
Kirov’s lips tried to form a word but failed. Safcek asked him again. Kirov was silent.
Safcek was getting desperate. He looked at Luba, who showed no emotion.
Joe Safcek took Kirov’s left arm, bent it over his own knee, and began to wrench excruciatingly.
“Talk, Kirov!” he snarled.
Kirov cried out: “KGB. I’m a captain!” Safcek eased the pressure.
Safcek nodded. “And you infiltrated the NTS in Germany?” Kirov had slipped into the dirt. “Yes, to spy … report back to Moscow.”
“What about this trip?”
Kirov lay quiet for a moment. He was slipping to the brink of unconsciousness, yet he struggled to answer.
“No idea,” he snorted through his swollen nostrils. “No idea until Pakistan.”
“Did you tell anyone there or since then?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Who?”
“Earlier at the laser place. The policemen who stopped us.”
“How did you tell?”
“When Gorlov … talking, I wrote on my papers … warned police not to try to take us there … we’d be back.”
Joe Safcek wanted to rush at Kirov and hit him again, but he controlled himself and asked: “What does K-422 mean?”
“My number … organization.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes, yes.”
Safcek was suddenly very tired. Sick of looking at the evidence of his savagery, he turned away from Kirov.
“Luba, I can’t tell if he’s lying or not. I suppose he could have slipped something to those policemen this afternoon.”
He suddenly whirled on Kirov.
“What else did you tell those men?”
Kirov pulled his face out of the dirt. “Just said spies … coming back tonight.”
Joe Safcek walked away.
A light summer rain beat against the Soviet army car as it sped toward Vnukovo Airport in the Moscow suburbs. In the back seat Marshal Moskanko, ignoring the presence of the chauffeur, spoke forcefully to his companion, Marshal Bakunin.
“Just keep a grip on your emotions, Pavel Andreievich, and in twenty-four hours, you will congratulate me for being a genius. When you get to the laser works, keep in close touch, and I will inform you of the American reactions right away. With Parchuk a traitor, I want you down there to make sure my orders are carried out with precision and dispatch.”
The thin-faced Bakunin nodded glumly as he watched the rain streak the window in the dark. “You will give the Americans enough time to surrender before you use the laser?”
“Of course I will. But we will hear from them long before we have to use it. Stark will collapse well within the eleven and a half hours remaining.”
Bakunin took out a handkerchief and wiped some mud off his boots. “Remember, Viktor Semyonovich, what I said about rats. They are vicious when all is lost.”
The car had stopped in front of the terminal. Bakunin slipped out, and Moskanko called after him. “Why don’t you think of Stark as a koala bear instead? When faced with disaster, they curl up and die of fright.”
Bakunin went through the glass doors without a word.
Moskanko picked up the car phone and put through a call to Marshal Fedoseyev, commander of Soviet land forces, in the Defense Ministry. “He is on his way,” Moskanko said. “No, he did not complain. And we can keep him out of the way until it is over. Maybe I should have given him some books to read to keep him occupied.” Moskanko chuckled as he hung up and ordered the driver to take him back to the city.
The bone in Peter Kirov’s nose had fractured in three places, blocking both nostrils. He was forced to gulp great drafts of air into his mouth while he watched Luba furtively. His left arm hung limply beside him, and the pain in his body brought tears to his eyes. Luba hung menacingly over him. There was no question that she would kill him on a word from Safcek. Whenever Kirov shifted to get into a more comfortable position, she brought the rifle up and fingered the trigger.
Kirov knew his situation was hopeless. Safcek could neither take him along on the mission nor leave him behind alive. Kirov’s own training in the KGB denied him any further attempt at optimism. He was a dead man, but his hasty fabrication about the police might still stop the mission. He regretted having been unable to warn his superiors about this operation inside the Soviet Union. The fact that he was able to mention Tashkent in his radio dispatch did not pinpoint the peril. If he had succeeded, he could have asked for and been reassigned to some safe post in the Communist bloc and allowed to pursue a more reasonable life. Peter’s solitary existence as an agent behind enemy lines had never given him time to form any permanent attachments. Now he was glad that he had no worries about leaving someone behind. His family had been among the 25 million in the Soviet Union killed by the Germans, and his dedication in life was to the Party and the system, which had neither time nor heart to mourn him.
He groaned, and Luba hissed: “Suffer, Kirov, for what you did to Gorlov. I’d like to cut your throat myself.”
Kirov wiped his bloody face with his right hand and sniffed through the bubbles in his nostrils. When Joe Safcek approached him and looked down, he tensed.
“Luba, we haven’t much time left, and it’s pointless to try and beat anything more out of him. I’m not sure he told the other side anything, and even if he did, we have to go ahead.”
Safcek had regained his composure. But he was increasingly disgusted with himself for brutalizing the Russian lying in the dirt and wanted no more of what was to follow.
“So eliminate him.”
Kirov received the words almost as if he, too, were being given instructions.
Safcek did not look at Kirov again. He strode to the stairway and called back to Luba: “Only don’t use a gun. It might attract some attention.”
She nodded and put the automatic rifle up against a wall. Then she came to Peter Kirov, who suddenly twisted away from her reaching hands.
Luba seized him by the throat, and Kirov felt her thumbs pressing in on his windpipe. She just looked at him and relentlessly forced his life away. Kirov was conscious of a terrible pain in his lungs, and his head exploded in lights and black circles that whirled and whirled him into darkness. He fell back into the dirt of the ancient mosque.
Luba went to find Safcek, who was packing equipment in the trunk of the car and did not look up as she approached.
“It’s done, Colonel,” she said softly, and he continued arranging the supplies. At his feet was the box containing the atomic bomb. He carefully put it in a corner away from the handguns and other paraphernalia.
“Let’s take care of the bodies in there.”
Inside the gloomy mosque, the dead Boris Gorlov lay on his back. In the candlelight, Safcek saw Gorlov’s open mouth and glaring eyes. Luba stared at the remains of the KGB man who had defected to the West.
“He must have known it would happen someday,” she murmured.
Safcek knelt down and went through Gorlov’s pockets. He found forged papers and a few rubles. “There’s nothing else, I guess. I thought perhaps he might have something more personal we could bring back with us.” Safcek looked up at Luba.
“It’s not much, is it, for a man to leave behind?” The
colonel seemed to be searching her face for an answer, a reaction to his question.
Luba shrugged and walked over to the body. She pulled Boris’s eyelids down over his sightless eyes and stepped back.
They carried Boris Gorlov down the stairs to the dusty cellar floor and laid his body beside his murderer’s. Safcek went to the wall where the bones of ancient men rested, and knocked dust and bits of bone back into the farthest recesses. Then he returned to lift Boris to his final resting place. Blood dripped steadily onto Safcek’s wrists, as he carefully placed Boris in the makeshift grave. He pulled Gorlov’s tunic up under his chin to hide the ghastly effects of Kirov’s knife, then stepped back and went to the other corpse. They searched the double agent. He also had left nothing behind. Luba grabbed Kirov’s legs, and Safcek grabbed him under the arms and hoisted him to the grave just above Gorlov. Peter’s head lolled back and forth as they dumped him into the cavern. Joe Safcek could not look at the broken face.
He sat down on a box of rifle ammunition.
“We’ll have to make a few changes now that there’s only two of us. We can’t carry too much. You can manage the AK-47. I left six satchel charges in the trunk instead of twelve. We wouldn’t be able to handle more and still move quickly. They should be enough to get us through any kind of interference before we’re as close as we need to be for setting up the bomb.”
They made one last equipment check. Luba staffed ammunition into her pockets, and then the agents passed by the crypt for the last time. Safcek hesitated a moment, reached up and tried to straighten Peter Kirov’s bent left arm. He could not. He let it flop onto the body and snapped. “C’mon, Luba. We’re running out of time.”
It was 11 P.M. in Tashkent, one hour later than they had told Richter they would be leaving the mosque. The last phase of Operation Scratch was already well behind schedule.
Zero hour was eleven hours and eighteen minutes away.
Helicopters from the D.C. metropolitan police department hovered over the avenues leading from the city and reported on the congested traffic.
The Tashkent Crisis Page 17