The Russian ambassador’s apartment resembled a large study, with walls covered mostly with floor-to-ceiling shelves of books of all kinds. The most imposing item in the room was Karmarov’s massive desk, a huge, ornately carved antique, well over half the width of the apartment itself. Brent ran a hand over plush leather chairs, noticing that the coffee table in the center of the apartment was genuine Chippendale.
“A most exquisite room, Ambassador Karmarov,” Brent said without turning around. Karmarov wrung his hands with impatience as he waved Asserni into the apartment. She set the tray with a silver urn, a long fluted decanter of brandy, china cups, and large snifters onto the Chippendale table and hurried out.
“Balshoye spasibe. Thank you,” Karmarov said. “Mr. Secretary, we may speak English if you prefer. You need not—”
“I am in Russia now, Mr. Ambassador,” Brent said, continuing in urban Muscovite Russian. “It would be a presumption to speak anything but your native tongue.”
Brent turned, his hands folded behind his back. The two men observed each other for a moment. Karmarov saw a tall, elegant frame, a silvermaned head; a firm chin thrust defiantly up and outward; a thin silver mustache perfectly symmetrical. The suit was conservative, tailored to razor-sharp perfection, the shoes were polished to a gleaming shine despite the harsh Manhattan streets.
Brent saw a shorter but powerful man, with a full head of gray hair atop broad shoulders. The years of plush living in the most fashionable section of New York had begun to tell on the Ambassador’s waistline and chin, but Karmarov’s eyes were still as fiery and bright as in his revolutionary youth.
Karmarov finally motioned Brent forward. “Pazhaloosta saditis. Please sit down, Mr. Secretary.”
Brent took the wide-armed leather chair offered him by the Russian and lightly seated himself. He kept his knees, legs and back perfectly straight as Karmarov joined him. Karmarov reached for the coffee urn but, correctly interpreting a sly grin in Brent’s eyes, his hand slipped over to the decanter. He poured a generous amount of brandy for both of them and offered one to the American Secretary of State.
“To your health, Mr. Secretary,’’ Karmarov said in English.
Brent raised his glass. “Za vasha zdarovye! And to you and yours, Ambassador,’’ Brent replied.
They let the strong spirits flood their insides, then Brent set his glass down on the table.
Karmarov spoke first. “I am totally embarrassed, Mr. Secretary,’’ he said. “I had no idea . . .”
“It is I who should apologize, sir,’’ Brent said. “This may seem most inappropriate, but I simply felt that I must speak with you immediately.’’
“By all means,” Karmarov said. He took a bigger sip of brandy.
“It concerns the fears some in my government have of the research being down at the Kavaznya complex,” Brent began. “They feel—”
“Please, Mr. Secretary,” Karmarov said, his eyes serious. “I am not permitted to discuss Kavaznya. It is more than a classified facility, sir. It is a forbidden subject.”
“Then permit me to speak,” Brent said. “Consider this a message from my government to yours—you need not reply.” Brent interlaced his fingers and let his arms rest on the chair’s wide armrests.
“The Pentagon is convinced, on what I feel is sketchy information, that your government is responsible for the destruction of an American reconnaissance satellite and an American RC-135 aircraft.”
Karmarov said immediately, “My government has already categorically denied any involvement—”
“Yes, Ambassador, I know,” Brent interrupted. He picked up his brandy snifter, passed his nose over it, letting the palm of his left hand warm the liqueur. He settled back into his chair.
“Allow me to be frank with you, Ambassador,” Brent said. Karmarov’s eyes widened. “I am not a friend of my country’s military hierarchy. I believe it was Montesquieu who once said, ‘If our world should ever be ruined, it will be by the warriors.’ ”
“He referred to Europe, I believe,” Karmarov said, his eyes narrowing. Brent nodded.
“It applies to affairs between our nations as well,” Brent continued. “Ambassador, we are on the threshold of an historic arms-control agreement. In the two years since those negotiations have been conducted, both sides have managed to keep the uniformed military out of the negotiations.
We have dealt on a level never before attempted—instead of throwing our bloody swords on the table and staring into each other’s faces to see who will blink first, like some medieval combat, we have sat down like men and talked true disarmament.
“Ambassador, in our lifetime we can see nuclear weapons eliminated. Not just a phony controlled escalation, not even a numerical reduction. No, I talk of true disarmament.”
Brent swirled the brandy in his glass and stared into it. “But there are those who see disarmament as a weakness. They seek to disrupt our efforts at every turn. It is the actions of these ‘disrupters’ that I wish to warn your government about, Ambassador.”
“What . . . actions, Mr. Secretary?” Karmarov asked.
“As I said, there are many in my government who are convinced of your culpability in the loss of our aircraft,” Brent said. “They have conjured up a magical laser device, straight out of one of our Hollywood films, and planted it on Ust-Kamchatkskiy, at your research center at Kavaznya. Evidence or not, they have all but convinced the President that this laser exists and that it threatens the security of the United States.”
Karmarov could not keep his eyes focused on Brent’s. Brent’s fingers curled a bit tighter around the brandy snifter as he noticed Karmarov’s uneasiness.
Dammit, Brent thought. Could it be true? Is it possible . . . ?
“You must convince them, Mr. Secretary,” Karmarov said quickly, forcing his eyes back toward Brent’s. “I plead with you, my government is deeply and firmly committed to lasting peace and the total elimination of all nuclear weapons from the face of the globe. Nothing must interfere.” “I have come to offer you my guarantee,” Brent continued, “that I will make every effort to achieve a workable arms agreement. But I must tell you what is afoot. There is talk of matching the so-called killer laser with a construct of our own. I’m not at liberty to give details, but—”
“Ice Fortress/” Karmarov said suddenly. “The armed space platform! That’s what your military means to deploy, isn’t it?”
Brent sighed. “Again, I’m not at liberty to discuss—”
“But that’s it, isn’t it?” Karmarov’s face was flushed with anger. “Marshall, you know that deployment of Ice Fortress is a clear violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. It is a violation of the 1982 Space De-Militarization Agreement. It flies in the face of our entire arms elimination negotiations. It is madness.”
“Key elements in our military are convinced of the existence of a killer laser,” Brent said. “That is also a violation . . .”
“Such a device—should it ever exist in our lifetime—is not a violation of the ABM Treaty,” Karmarov interrupted. “The Treaty clearly never mentioned such exotic devices because they exist only in the imagination of a few excitable scientists and physicists. Why write a treaty forbidding something that does not exist?”
Karmarov’s rising tone of voice, with the strained chuckle punctuating his last sentence, rang like an echo from the walls of a canyon in Brent’s ears. Karmarov continued: “The Space De-Militarization Agreement does not apply, of course, to a ground-based defensive device. It was specifically written to eliminate the placement of weapons of any kind in orbit over the Earth. It was supposed to have averted a madness that swept both our countries. It cannot be possible for your country to deploy Ice Fortress. It cannot.”
“I have made no admission that such is the case,” Brent said. “But I can tell you that many options are being considered.”
He looked directly into Karmarov’s eyes and paused, as if to lend emphasis to what he was about to say. “
The laser is a menace, Dmitri,” Brent said. His voice sounded as if it came from the bottom of a deep well. “Find some way to reassure the leaders of my government that their fears about a laser at Kavaznya are groundless. Make some sort of presentation about the research you conduct there, or at least describe the facility in a bit more detail. But put the saber-rattlers to rest ...”
“I can guarantee little,” Karmarov said.
“We must not fail, Dmitri,” Brent replied. He got up and took Karmarov’s hand in his. “The future—our children’s future—may depend on it.” Slowly, Brent released his grip on Karmarov’s hand. He gave the Ambassador a curt nod and made his way out of the room.
Karmarov watched him leave, then sat down in one of the plush leather chairs. He did not move for a full two minutes. Finally, he rang for Asserni.
“Do they know? Asserni asked.
“They suspect. How could they not suspect?” Karmarov reached down to the table and gripped his snifter with both hands. “What the hell are they doing over there, Asserni? Are they trying to destroy the arms agreement? What do they want the Americans to do?”
Asserni did not reply. Karmarov stared into the brandy for a long time.
“I want the secure line to the Kremlin open all morning,” he finally ordered.
“Of course, Comrade Ambassador.”
He drained the liqueur and winced—both at the bite of the spirits and from the threats that were now bombarding him from both sides.
“What are they doing? What?”
6 Ford Air Force Base, California
Patrick McLanahan was in trouble.
His partner, Dave Luger, had been severely injured by flying glass and metal after his five-inch radar scope exploded from a near-hit by a Soviet SA-4 surface-to-air missile. Their aircraft had just been jumped by a small squadron of four MIG-25s. Climbing out of the low-level bomb run area in broad daylight, the B-52 was a sitting duck for the advanced Soviet interceptors.
Luger, lounging in his ejection seat, watched his partner switch the bomb-nav radar scope from off-center present position mode to stationkeeping, bringing the radar antenna up to level with the aircraft’s longitudinal axis. The display was now configured from attack mode to scanning mode, with a maximum of five miles range with range marks displayed every half mile. He was trying to save their lives.
“Anything I can do for you, Pat?” Luger asked nonchalantly.
“Watch for the damn fighters,” McLanahan said.
“Can’t do that, buddy,” Luger said. “I’ve got serious injuries over here, remember?”
As if to emphasize his point, he lolled lifelessly across the aisle, his parachute harness barely keeping him in his ejection seat. He stared up at the overhead circuit breaker panel of the B-52 Ejection and Egress Trainer, his arms flung out awkwardly. McLanahan muttered something about how stupid he looked.
“When did they add that into the scenario?” McLanahan asked.
“I don’t know,” Luger said. “I like it, though.”
“You’re havin’ too much of a fucking good time,” McLanahan said.
“I like watchin’ you work your butt off, partner.”
“Too bad your injuries haven’t affected your mouth.” McLanahan flipped switches on the instrument panel in front of him and looked over at his partner. “Get strapped in like you’re supposed to. Can you still reach your ejection trigger ring, or are your hands blown off too?”
Luger went through the charade of inspecting his hands. “Nope, they look fine.” As he reached for his parachute harness straps, he noticed a faint ripple of light in the upper left-hand corner of the radar navigator’s ten-inch radar scope.
“Ten o’clock,” Luger said, pointing at the scope. “Interference patterns. Could be . . .”
“No cheating now, Luger,” the instructor, Paul White, interrupted from the control console outside the trainer. “You’re blind, remember? Are you ready for the finale?”
“They’ve got this place bugged, ” Luger said, hurriedly pulling on the parachute.
“You’d be dead meat right now if those fighters launched a missile, Dave,” White said. “Don’t tell me you’re going to unstrap yourself like that during the real thing?”
“Only if there aren’t any instructors around,” Luger said. White did not share in the joke, and Luger quieted up and finished strapping himself into his seat.
“Pilot,” McLanahan said, acting as if he was talking to the pilot, “I’m picking up a bogey at ten o’clock, five miles. Moving rapidly to eleven o’clock.”
“Roger,” White said acting now as the pilot. Then, switching roles to the crew electronic warfare officer, he shouted, “Pilot, break left now.” Simultaneously, he turned a large black knob on the console in front of him, putting the trainer into a sharp left turn. The compartment in which McLanahan and Luger were sitting was mounted on four ten-foot hydraulic legs, enabling it to move in any direction at the instructor’s command.
“Bogey at one o’clock, three and a half miles,” McLanahan reported. The interference pattern on his radar scope, the telltale sign of the enemy fighter’s radar transmissions intermingling with the B-52’s radar, disappeared and then hardened into a solid white dot on the upper-right corner of the ten-inch scope. By the time the radar sweep picked up the dot again, it had moved considerably. “Beginning to go off my scope rapidly at three o’clock, three miles. Guns, you should be able to pick him up.”
“Pilot,” White said, now as the crew gunner, “my fire-control system is broken. All gun barrels are jammed. No radar contact.” White switched back to the E.W. “Pilot, the fighter’s radar has gone down. Last contact was five o’clock, two miles. Expecting a cannon attack or infrared missile attack. Continue evasive maneuvers.” White swung the control knob to the right, and the real-motion simulator responded by slamming both crewmembers into their seats. “Dispensing chaff and flares. Continue evasive maneuvers.”
A long pause. The gyro compass and altimeter were both spinning madly as White, striving for maximum realism in his trainer, jerked the “plane” around as quickly as he could without locking up the hydraulically operated moving trainer. Then he leveled the trainer out and said, “Crew, this is the copilot. We’ve taken a missile hit on number four nacelle. Generators seven and eight are off-line. Pilot, seven and eight engine fire T-handles, pulled.”
White studied a hidden closed-circuit TV picture of the inside of the egress trainer—another modification he hadn’t told the trainees about. Both McLanahan and Luger were sitting bolt-upright in their seats, heads shoved back, work tables stowed, their hands gripping the ejection trigger rings between their legs. They were fighting to remain upright in the oscillating box. White twisted the controls, and the wildly-bucking box on its hydraulic legs slowly came back to normal. Both navigators were still tense, waiting for the order to eject.
Not yet, boys, White said to himself. He turned and signaled the technicians assisting him to get ready, then clicked on his interphone.
“Okay, gents,” White said. “Fun’s over. I was just checking out my new full-motion range. What do you think?”
“I’ll tell you,” McLanahan said, “after I puke on your shirt.” “Thanks,” White said. “Okay. You’re level at ten thousand feet. Plenty of time to get ready for ejection, right, Luger?”
“No sir,” Luger answered. “Last I remember before you blew my radar scope up—and that was a nifty addition to your little chamber of horrors here, by the way—the terrain was mountainous. Some peaks went up to six or seven thousand feet. Maybe more.”
“Very good,” White said. “Pressure altitude is secondary—it’s feet aboveground you need to worry about. You’re still flying over mountains. What else do you have to worry about, McLanahan?”
“The only damn thing I’m going to worry about,” McLanahan said, “is how far upwind I can get of that one-point-one megaton bomb I just dropped.”
“You guys are sharp, real sharp,” Whi
te said, beaming. “I guess that’s why you picked up eight trophies at Bomb Comp. All right, now, you only dropped your bomb ten minutes ago. We were balls-to-the-wall after bomb release, so we escaped the blast effects, but the fallout is still spreading. So if you were the pilot, Luger, what would you do?”
“Well, we only lost two engines,” Luger said after thinking for a few moments. “I’d try to keep this Strato-Pig flying as long as I could toward the coast until she wouldn’t stay up any more, then start punchin’ people out.”
“Even with a squadron of MIGs on your tail?” White prompted.
“Well, shit, ” McLanahan said. “Our day has already gone to hell. Maybe they’ll blow us up, or maybe they’ll miss, or maybe they’ll go home when they see our right wing on fire. Who knows? I’m bettin’ that, even if they hit us again, we’ll still have a couple of seconds to get out before the damn plane falls out of the sky. Our goose is cooked either way.”
“Okay, Patrick,” White said. “Don’t get all worked up. This trainer is here primarily to give you practice in using your downward ejection seat, true, but / want you guys to get more out of it. Some guys will punch out as soon as they hear the word ‘fire.’ Others will wait for an order. Some guys will freeze. Some guys will never punch out—they think they’re safer in the plane, or that they can ditch it or crash land it. I want you guys to think about what to do. That’s all. Ejecting is a traumatic and dangerous thing to do—and I should know, because I’ve done it three times. I’ve seen too many guys die unnecessarily because they don’t think first. Okay?”
“Okay,” McLanahan said.
“Well, then,” White said, “I, uh . . . listen, I have to use the little boy’s room. I’ll be back in a few minutes, and we’ll just talk about the ejection sequence and finish early. Okay?”
“Sure,” McLanahan replied.
“Good. Don’t go away.”
The interphone clicked dead. Luger turned a puzzled glance toward McLanahan. “Leave early? That’s a first.”
“I smell a rat,” McLanahan said.
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