Pale Blue

by Mike Jenne

  After the entire building was evacuated, Federov’s technical search team—four men attired in gray coveralls and also lugging tool boxes—rushed up the stairs and entered the apartment. To dispel potential suspicion by casual observers, similarly dressed men entered the other units in the building.

  Federov met his men at the door and guided them to the study. He decided to start with the desk. At his direction, a technician methodically brushed a thin layer of fingerprint dust on the various surfaces of the desk. The delicate procedure was not intended to determine who had been in the room, since that was effectively already established, but to identify the drawers and compartments used most often.

  The fingerprint expert whistled quietly to gain Federov’s attention, and then gestured at one of the lower drawers. Faint smudges in the fine dust indicated that the drawer had been opened and closed often, and probably recently. Federov smiled; no matter how well they might have been trained, clandestine operatives seldom take the time and effort to adequately tidy up after conducting secret activities in their own homes.

  Federov motioned for another agent to open the drawer. Since clandestine operatives sometimes go to great lengths to safeguard their secrets, the drawer-opening process was not simple. He knew of instances where operatives had laid elaborate traps with explosives and even poisonous vipers, and since he was painfully aware that Yohzin had ready access to volatile chemicals, he wasn’t taking any chances. To reduce the team’s exposure, one agent—the “inside man”—would carefully rig a mechanism using string and a series of pulleys to remotely open the drawer. Federov and the others would temporarily retreat to the stairwell and wait either for the inside man to call them in or for an abrupt indication—screams, perhaps, or a violent explosion—that Yohzin had indeed covered his tracks.

  As the team waited on the stair landing, one of the agents absentmindedly lit a cigarette. “Put that out, moron,” snarled Federov, glowering at the offender. “Can you not remember that we’re here to investigate a gas leak?”

  After a few minutes, Federov heard a low whistle from within the apartment and waved the other men back inside. By the time he reentered, the inside man had not only opened the drawer, but had also employed a dental mirror and other special tools to locate a secret compartment concealed inside the roof of the drawer. He had already opened the compartment to extricate a wooden box, which he placed on a metal tray for Federov’s inspection, and a small shortwave radio receiver.

  Federov donned rubber gloves to examine the contents of the secret box. It was obviously a kit for writing secret messages. Since he had seen several similar kits in the past, this one held pretty much what he expected: two vials of tiny gray capsules, a third vial which was empty, several thin strips of message paper, and several larger sheets of graph paper for composing messages. The gray capsules were a new twist; he assumed that they were some type of concealment device, since the strips of paper were specially trimmed to fit inside them.

  At the bottom of the box, underneath the other contents, he found the specific item that he sought. Approximately the size of a small pocket notebook, it was a bundle of “one-time” encryption sheets. Each sheet contained a unique transcription key; once a message was composed and encrypted with the code, the sheet—which was probably made of chemically treated “flash paper”—was destroyed. The resultant message could be decrypted by a receiver with the matching code, but it was virtually unbreakable otherwise.

  Federov signaled for one of the technicians to photograph each remaining page of the code book, and for the sake of redundancy, he directed another technician to repeat the process with another camera. He smiled; only a few hours ago, he was ready to dismiss the allegations against Yohzin as frivolous, but now he was well on his way to completing the puzzle of how the messages were conveyed. He had not yet determined exactly how Yohzin executed the drop, but he was confident that he would possess that information after watching more film this afternoon.

  Most importantly, he was entirely certain that the message capsules were unguarded for at least eighteen hours—the interval between the Yohzins’ evening stroll and the housekeeper’s lunch—during the transmission process. Consequently, it was vulnerable to interception. Now, armed with Yohzin’s one-time codes, Federov could surreptitiously interdict and read each message with virtually no risk of detection. Provided that he received approval from his superiors at the Aquarium, he could allow that scoundrel Yohzin to continue his subversive activities indefinitely, oblivious to the fact that he was being monitored. That capability could eventually yield a coup of unprecedented magnitude, probably resulting in the compromise of a major Western espionage network and the capture of scores of operatives.

  R-7 Launch Facility, Burya Test Complex, Kapustin Yar Cosmodrome

  2:45 p.m., Monday, October 23, 1972

  Soaked to the skin and shivering, Yohzin slowly inched his way along a treacherous catwalk, pretending to verify pressure levels on various valves. It was a miserably dreary day; a fast moving thunderstorm had swept through the cosmodrome earlier. Even though the deluge and deadly threat of lightning had passed, a persistent drizzle spattered the slick metal decking. His cotton coveralls were drenched, and he didn’t have a dry set to change into.

  Even though he had not yet revealed the problem to the pad crew, Yohzin had long ago diagnosed the flaw that threatened to delay Gogol’s launch this evening. In his left breast pocket, he carried a three-centimeter scrap of copper wire that he intended to jam into a critical pressure relief valve in the R-7’s first stage. The wire would prevent the valve from fully opening, which would cause an overpressure in an oxidizer line moments after the booster left the pad. All evidence of the wire fragment would be vaporized as the oxidizer line ruptured and the rocket exploded, so there was little chance that his sabotage would be detected in the investigation that was sure to ensue. It was still roughly four hours until launch; to ensure that it was not inadvertently discovered, he wanted to wait as long as possible until he planted it.

  Yohzin looked down. At the base of the R-7 rocket’s gantry, the launch pad crew had jury-rigged a rubber-coated tarp to fashion a shelter. Crouching under the makeshift tent, a gaggle of technicians studied an electronic schematic. At least Magnus had the sense to escape the lingering rain; licking his front paws, the Alsatian huddled under an equipment console at the bottom of the tower. Yohzin watched two vehicles—a GAZ-66 utility truck and an unfamiliar Lada sedan—pull up at the site.

  A few minutes later, as he continued on his rounds, he heard the faint squeak of rubber-soled shoes on the steel decking behind him, and slowly pivoted to see a heavy-set man in a dark blue topcoat and straw fedora. Livid, he bellowed, “You idiot! Who gave you permission to wander around up here? We’re launching this rocket today. No one but launch personnel are authorized on this gantry. You need to climb down immediately!”

  “Comrade General Yohzin?” asked the stranger. He tilted his hat, exposing wet red hair matted to his crown. “I’m sorry for the disturbance, but you are Major General Yohzin, are you not?”

  “Da,” replied Yohzin. “That’s me. Look, I’m very busy and we’re behind schedule. What’s this about?”

  “You must come with me immediately,” said the stranger.

  “Bosh!” exclaimed Yohzin. “Look, I’m very busy and we’re behind schedule.”

  The mysterious man frowned and then glanced from side to side, obviously to see that no one was watching. He stepped forward and subtly grabbed Yohzin’s right shoulder in a grip that would have rivaled a heavy machine vise. Simultaneously, the hulking stranger nudged Yohzin’s upper body backwards just a few centimeters, leaning him over a flimsy railing and pitching him off-balance.

  Wobbling, Yohzin gasped silently; he had spent virtually his entire adult life clambering up and around the rickety scaffolding used for servicing rockets, so he was as sure-footed as a six-toed cat and absolutely comfortable working at perilous heights that would reduce m
ost men to blubbering idiots. As a result, the sensation was doubly disconcerting; not only was he stricken by the terrifying knowledge that he would fall to his death if the stranger simply let go, but he was also startled by the man’s casual ease in applying precisely enough physical force to cause him to lose both his physical and psychological equilibrium. His ire was swiftly dissipated, replaced swiftly by abject fear.

  The interloper quietly declared, “Listen to me, Comrade General. I’m GRU. I know exactly who you are and I am not confusing you with anyone else. You will come with me immediately. If you insist on making a spectacle of this, then I will accommodate you, but the consequences will be much less than pleasant. Do you understand?”

  Yohzin nodded, and the GRU officer yanked him forward and released his grip.

  Overcome with a sense of impending dread, Yohzin leaned over the rail and shouted down to the pad supervisor, “Oleg, General Abdirov has called me back to headquarters. I will return as quickly as possible.”

  As they clambered down the ladders to the concrete base of the tower, Yohzin saw a man in a padded suit slipping a rope noose over Magnus’s neck. Magnus bared his fangs and snarled, but it was to no avail. The noose was fixed to the end of a long metal pole, which the man used to guide the subdued dog into the canvas-covered bed of the GAZ-66.

  Yohzin started to protest, but the GRU officer shoved him toward the black Lada. He swung open the flimsy door, brusquely jammed Yohzin into the back of the tiny car, and then climbed in afterwards. The driver was a burly, fearsome man with a face as coarse and impassive as a millstone. The sedan’s interior was filled with an almost overwhelming stench of wet wool and body odor.

  “You’re GRU?” declared Yohzin, striving to regain his composure and at least some pretense of the authority due his rank. “I don’t recognize you. I demand that you identify yourself. Show me your papers.”

  “Gladly, Comrade General.” The red-haired GRU officer flipped open his credentials. “Colonel Felix Federov, Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye.” He quickly frisked Yohzin, confiscating his German-made wristwatch, his pocket-sized slide rule, a cigarette lighter, two pencils, a clasp knife, an engraved cigarette case, a soggy pocket notebook, and the tiny strand of copper wire.

  Federov gestured at the driver. The car lurched forward, pulling away from the launch site. Yohzin glanced at the rear view mirror and watched the R-7 rocket fading in the distance behind them. Trying to avoid eye contact with Federov, he shifted his gaze down to the sedan’s plywood floorboards.

  The three men rode in silence. A few kilometers away from the pad, Federov directed the driver to stop at an abandoned test site, and then ordered Yohzin out of the car.

  The secluded location resembled a ghost town in a Western cowboy movie. A pair of wary vultures gnawed at a jackal’s decaying carcass while more of the scavengers circled overhead, impatiently waiting their turn. An old telemetry antenna swayed against slackening guy wires. A rusting rocket gantry creaked in the wind. Parked at the base of the structure, a derelict armored car—with scorched paint and melted tires—was evidence of an explosion and subsequent fire during a refueling accident three years ago. The foul air hinted of various spilled chemicals that still permeated the barren soil.

  “What’s this about?” demanded Yohzin. He suspected that Federov was investigating the leak that Abdirov had described and was trying to intimidate him into confessing. But since he had nothing to do with that leak, he knew that Federov had absolutely nothing on him.

  Federov reached into the pocket of his blue wool coat and extracted a tiny gray plastic pellet, which he held gingerly before Yohzin’s eyes. “I think you know what this is about.”

  Yohzin swallowed deeply. “Oh,” he mumbled, staring at the blue-stained ground. His hands trembled, his lower lip quivered, and tears trickled from his eyes.

  “So, this is yours then?”

  “Da,” replied Yohzin in a faint and faltering voice.

  “We know that you’ve been sending messages in a dead drop,” stated Federov. “I’ll admit that it took me a while to deduce how the messages were being passed. It was difficult, after all, because no one would have ever conceived that the messages were literally being passed. Ingenious, I must admit. Very cunning. Your own idea?”

  Overwhelmed with fear, Yohzin shuddered as he nodded solemnly.

  “I suppose that your dog must share in the credit,” added Federov sarcastically. “After all, he did contribute his bowels to the effort. I can just picture him now, stuffed and mounted in a glass display case in the counter-espionage exhibit at the Aquarium.”

  Cringing at the image of his beloved Alsatian rendered by a taxidermist, Yohzin pleaded, “You wouldn’t harm him, would you? He’s just an animal.”

  “Nyet,” replied Federov, shaking his head. “No need for you to fret over that, not for the moment, anyway. I suspect that your mutt might be holding another transmission in the hopper, so to speak. To be honest, I had considered slicing him open to extract it, but then I came to my senses and realized that it was vital to leave him intact, at least for the time being, just in case we have you continue your activities.”

  “My activities?”

  “Da. Passing messages. I’m awaiting guidance from my bosses at the Aquarium, but I am recommending that you stay here, under my supervision, so that you will continue to service your dead drops. Of course, henceforth, we will furnish the script. So, can I count on you to be cooperative?”

  Staring out at the bleak landscape, Yohzin nodded his concession.

  Federov continued his droning commentary. “I assume that you’re intelligent enough to know that you’re destined for some serious interrogation at the Aquarium. Quite frankly, it’s more likely that you’ll be sent there, post haste, possibly as early as this evening.”

  Yohzin had overcome some of the initial shock of his arrest and remembered that, despite his absence from the proceedings, Gogol’s rocket was still scheduled to depart in a few hours. Since there was no way to know what his immediate future held, Yohzin realized that this might be the opportune moment to reveal General Abdirov’s plan for the Egg.

  “Look, Colonel,” he blurted. “I know that I will suffer for my transgressions, but there’s something I need to describe to you, a crime much greater than what I am guilty of.”

  Federov laughed. “If only I had a kopek for every time I’ve heard that one,” he said. “Everyone seems so willing to conceal terrible crimes and treasonous activities, right up until the moment they get rolled up, and then suddenly they’re so stricken with guilt that they feel obligated to sell out their contemporaries.”

  ‘It’s not like that!” muttered Yohzin.

  “Really?”

  “Are you familiar with Perimetr?” asked Yohzin.

  “I am. The Dead Hand. What of it?”

  “Do you know what I was working with here?” asked Yohzin.

  “Vaguely.”

  “We sent up a Proton rocket over a month ago. It carried a two-man space station called a Krepost. It is armed with a nuclear weapon, a big one. We sent two men up to watch over it, but one has since returned.”

  “This all seems rather far-fetched, Comrade General.”

  “Wait. There is a Perimetr device called the interlock installed on the Krepost, to prevent the nuclear warhead from being deployed without authorization from the General Staff of the High Command.

  Federov lit a cigarette and drew deeply. Frowning, he puffed on it as he listened to Yohzin talk.

  “There’s a secret code that can disable the interlock, that only the Perimetr people are supposed to know,” said Yohzin urgently. “I stole it from them and brought it to Lieutenant General Abdirov. He gave it to the cosmonaut who is being launched today. The two of them are conspiring to drop the bomb without authorization. You must pass this information on to the High Command, so they can halt the launch and arrest General Abdirov.”

  “Oh, that’s all?” asked Federov. He dr
opped his smoldering cigarette onto the blue-shaded mud, crushed it beneath his boot, and smiled. “I’ll admit that I’m as ambitious as the next officer, but I’m not foolhardy enough to haul in an RSVN lieutenant general to be investigated for a seditious act, with no tangible evidence, based solely on the testimony of someone who was caught dead to rights, neck deep in espionage with sworn enemies of the State.”

  “But…”

  “Very imaginative ploy, Comrade General, but I’m not falling for it. Your time is nigh, so let’s go.”

  Federov shoved him back inside the Lada and yanked a canvas bag over his head. Yohzin realized that he obviously wasn’t the first one to wear the coarse veil; the damp sack reeked of grime, sweat and someone else’s vomit.

  Like virtually every officer in the Soviet armed forces, particularly those entrusted with high level secrets, he had endured a multitude of grueling practice interrogations, so he was well aware of his tolerance for physical pain and deprivation. Consequently, he had no misconceptions about how he might bear up under an actual interrogation, particularly if the intense inquisition was heavily seasoned with brutal torture, as the GRU are like to do.

  As they resumed their journey, Yohzin thought of Luba and the boys. Probably the only way he could ensure his family’s escape was to be dead, so that he was incapable of answering questions. To that end, Yohzin yearned for a bit of cyanide to nibble on.

  Ironically, Smith had provided him with a black capsule during his hurried training at a Moscow hotel, but he had misplaced it months ago. Then, amused at Smith’s melodramatic instructions and the absolute absurdity of committing suicide, he hadn’t bothered to request a replacement. Now, faced with agonizing reality and an uncertain fate, he desperately wished that he still possessed the means for a prompt exit.

  GRU Internal Security Office, Kapustin Yar Cosmodrome