Pale Blue
Page 32
His body shook in a spasm of uncontrollable shivering. As he shook, he struggled to convince himself that it was just a matter of hours before he would be warm again, hopefully for the rest of his life.
Krepost Station, On Orbit
21:50 p.m. GMT, Monday, October 23, 1972
GET: 39 Days 21 Hours 5 Minutes, REV # 638
Shivering in his sleeping bag, Vasilyev waited. Gogol had docked almost twenty minutes ago. After enduring a steady stream of Gogol’s lascivious comments over the intercom, the moment of truth was upon him: Gogol had worked his way forward to the Orbital Module and was making ready to open the nose hatch of the Soyuz.
Vasilyev felt ready. He had mentally rehearsed his actions, time and again, and had arrayed his arsenal to subdue Gogol. Ironically, he had acquired most of his weapons from the senior cosmonaut’s own survival kit. For his initial attack, he had selected Gogol’s survival hatchet, which he had wrapped with strips of cloth salvaged from a set of coveralls.
Vasilyev twisted open a valve to equalize the pressure in the access tunnel and then opened the hatch from the docking hub side. He listened for the muted clicks that indicated that Gogol was manually actuating the back-up latching mechanism that ensured the spacecraft would remain sealed to the docking port.
Knowing that it would likely be less than a minute before Gogol cracked the hatch, Vasilyev climbed out of his makeshift sleeping bag, wadded it into a ball, and then crammed it behind the docking hub hatch. Incredibly strong and wiry, able to adapt almost immediately to weightless conditions, Gogol was extraordinarily dangerous under any circumstances. Vasilyev was conscious that he was in even greater danger than usual, since he was physically debilitated by nearly forty days in weightlessness, compounded by near-starvation and constant exposure to brutal cold. He switched off his flashlight and waited in the dark. His body shook uncontrollably, half from the frigid temperatures and half from abject fear.
Grunting, Gogol swung the Soyuz’s nose hatch open. “At last, darling, I’m home!” he exclaimed. As he peered into the darkened docking hub, dimly backlit from the lights in the Soyuz, his shocked expression revealed that he was obviously taken aback by how cold it was. Vasilyev was pleasantly surprised by the warm air that rushed from the hatchway.
“What, kitten, no bread or salt to welcome me?” asked Gogol.
Poised for action, Vasilyev grabbed the lip of the hatchway with his left hand for leverage, and then swung the hatchet with all his might to clout Gogol on the side of his head. The cosmonaut’s head thumped against the hatch’s rim. Losing his grip, Vasilyev tumbled backwards through the air in slow motion, rebounding off the aft bulkhead of the docking hub.
Gogol had apparently not locked the nose hatch open; the spring-loaded portal half-closed, gripping Gogol like a crocodile’s jaws. The hatchet’s impact split open Gogol’s closely shorn scalp. Globs of blood spurted from the gash. Stunned and disoriented, grunting in pain, Gogol flailed with his arms in a futile effort to defend himself.
Vasilyev made his way back up the access tunnel and gave Gogol another swing for good measure, although with not nearly as much force. The second blow did the trick.
Gogol stopped moving. Switching on his flashlight, Vasilyev realized that Gogol was bundled up in a heavily insulated dark blue snowsuit, of the sort worn by ice fishermen or dog sledders. He felt at Gogol’s neck to check his pulse; although unconscious and momentarily harmless, he was still very much alive. He considered finishing the job, as prescribed by General Yohzin, but as much as he despised Gogol, he just could not bring himself to kill the repulsive ogre. Gasping for air, he was amazed by how much energy he exerted.
He unzipped his coveralls to find the plastic box of hypodermic syringes, pre-loaded with powerful sedatives, that he had stashed close under his shirt to keep thawed. He opened the box, fumbled for a syringe with fingers numb from cold, and then jammed the needle into Gogol’s massive bicep. Just for good measure, he repeated the process, plunging a second needle into Gogol’s arm, hoping to make sure he would be unconscious for a long time.
He shoved the hatch open and locked it in place, and then pushed by Gogol’s body to enter the Orbital Module. He was awestruck at the massive volume of food and other supplies packed into the orbital module; there was just enough empty space to gain access to critical equipment, as well as a passageway barely wide enough to crawl through to the Descent Module. He paused to bask in the luxurious warmth of the Soyuz. He spotted the galley station, stuck the water dispenser directly in his mouth, and drank a copious volume. He rummaged in the galley cabinets and found a chocolate bar; barely pausing long enough to unwrap it, he chomped into the confection, delighted to finally sink his teeth into something that wasn’t half-frozen. He quickly made a pouch of hot tea, and kneaded the crystals in its pouch as he made his way into the Descent Module.
He was excited to find a set of insulated coveralls, matching Gogol’s, in his couch. In an officious touch, his rank and name were stitched above the breast pocket of the heavily padded garment. After donning the coveralls, he spent several minutes looking for the special tool that Yohzin had described, but could not locate it.
He snaked back through the Orbital Module and frisked Gogol’s pockets. He found the tool and then headed back to the control area. Following the instructions of the Perimetr engineers, he used the tool to carefully remove the fasteners from the specific panel they had designated. Having no intent to replace the panel, he allowed the fasteners to float. He picked one out of the air, examined it closely, and realized that it was intentionally designed to shear apart if someone tried to force them without using the special tool.
Vasilyev aimed his flashlight’s beam into the guts of the Egg’s controls and identified the circuit breaker that the engineers had described. He laughed. Control had wanted him to recycle the Egg’s power, but now it was time to deviate from their plan. He opened the code safe, referred to the targeting book, and slowly punched a set of latitude and longitude coordinates into the targeting computer, verified them against the book, and then pushed the green Arm button.
Almost immediately, he heard maneuvering thrusters firing as the station made a few minor adjustments, and then heard explosive bolts fire, signifying that the Egg was now free of the Krepost. Entirely self-contained, the Egg’s on-board computer would wait until it reached the correct position in orbit, then align itself for reentry and fire its braking rockets. Slightly more than thirty minutes later, after a scorching descent through the earth’s atmosphere, the Egg would arrive at the place that Vasilyev had selected.
With that noxious chore out of the way, Vasilyev methodically went through the next steps of his checklist. He switched on the radios to establish contact with his new American friends below, to let them know that he would be returning to his beloved Earth shortly, in accordance with the plan they had coordinated. Afterwards, he switched off the circuit breakers for the Egg and disabled the power for the Krepost’s radios.
He moved forward to the docking hub, grabbed his makeshift sleeping bag as a souvenir, shoved Gogol’s inert body through the Soyuz’s nose hatch, and then entered the Orbital Module. He closed and secured the nose hatch and disabled the safety latches for the docking mechanism. He didn’t look forward to eventually wrestling the unconscious Gogol into his specially fitted couch, but there would be plenty of time for that later. Right now, he focused on undocking the Soyuz so that he could finally be free of his miserable outpost in space.
Gemini-I, On Orbit
2:40 a.m. GMT, Tuesday, October 24, 1972
GET: 39 Days 21 Hours 5 Minutes, REV # 33
The nuclear warhead had physically separated from the Krepost over an hour ago, and was orbiting on its own, several miles away from the station. Unaware of the drama that had taken place since the Soyuz had docked with the station, Carson and Ourecky focused their attention on the warhead, trailing it at a distance of roughly a mile as the right-seater literally kept his finger on t
he Disruptor’s Destruct button. Just as he had predicted, they had been able to slip the Disruptor onto the warhead without alerting Vasilyev.
Tew had reluctantly conceded to their scheme, but only after Ourecky had already fixed the jammed Disruptor boom. At present, they were acting as the final backstop to the overall plan; if it became obvious that the warhead was not going to reenter to a safe location, Ourecky would fire the Disruptor’s main charge to destroy it. Granted, the explosion would yield a cloud of radioactive debris that would eventually return to Earth, but even that was still a more favorable outcome than a nuclear detonation over a major American city.
“Time,” announced Carson, shifting his gaze from the warhead to the mission clock on the instrument panel. They were just entering the light period of an orbit; the sun popped over the horizon as the Gemini-I passed over Australia. “We’re in the window right now.”
Tense moments passed as they watched for the warhead’s retro rockets to fire. And then it happened, almost to the precise second that Vasilyev had stated. They witnessed the solid rocket motors flare brightly to life, and then the warhead slowed almost immediately, quickly passing below them and outside their field of view.
“Whew,” mumbled Carson. “Now I can breathe again.”
“Me too,” said Ourecky, thumbing a toggle switch. “Safe on.”
“Confirm Safe on,” observed Carson. “Well, that’s it. Our work here is done. It’s finally time to go home and put all of this behind us.”
“That it is,” replied Ourecky, immediately picturing Bea in his thoughts. Maybe they could finally move on with their lives, now that all this was behind them. “Hey, Drew.”
“Yeah, brother?”
“Do you have any more of those Fig Newtons left? I’m famished.”
Mission Control Facility, Aerospace Support Project
1:45 a.m., Tuesday, October 24, 1972
As the mission swiftly drew to a close, Wolcott and Tew emerged from their glass-enclosed office to take seats at the otherwise deserted last row of consoles. The past few hours had been packed with momentous events. Vasilyev’s Soyuz had safely landed in a remote wilderness area roughly fifty miles north of Gallup, New Mexico. A veritable armada of rescue aircraft had been dispatched in advance to search the area, and within an hour of landing, an Air Force SAR helicopter had spotted the bullet-shaped Soyuz capsule. Vasilyev had already built a roaring fire to warm himself and his unconscious companion, and was busy making a pot of tea when the chopper arrived.
The Egg had plunged into the Indian Ocean roughly midway between Madagascar and Australia; not detonating, just as Vasilyev had programmed it, it sank safely into the depths, far from land and human habitation. The threat of nuclear weapons in space was over, at least for the time being.
Just a few minutes ago, Carson and Ourecky returned safely to Earth, landing at Minot Air Force, North Dakota, under the cover of darkness. Blue Gemini’s twelfth and last mission was complete.
Weary from the strain of the past few days, Wolcott breathed a sigh of relief. While the flight had certainly been a tightly orchestrated team effort, the Gemini-I definitely turned out to be the little engine that could and did. Now it was time to make good on the promises that had been made to its stalwart crew.
Further down on the floor, a noisy party was underway. Champagne gushed, confetti flew, flags were waved, and the room was soon awash in a dense pall of cigar smoke. Wolcott looked to his left, studying Tew for a negative sign, but the general was silent, almost unnaturally so.
Tew usually frowned on any celebrations in the control room. While he understood how high emotions ran and the controllers’ need to vent off steam after completing a stressful mission, Tew had a good point. Voicing valid concerns that things could readily get out of hand and that sensitive equipment could be damaged, he normally insisted that any festivities be moved to a more appropriate venue.
Maybe he was silent now because he knew that this chamber would soon be obsolescent. Soon, the consoles would be stripped out and the room gutted. And although they were jubilant now, most of Gunter Heydrich’s civilian workers would be unemployed in just a matter of days. They would be returning to the job market just as the Apollo-fueled aerospace boom was swiftly drawing to a close, emerging from the shadows with an inexplicable five-year void on their otherwise impeccable resumes.
“Virgil,” said Tew in a wavering voice. “There’s something I want you to do for me.”
“Anything, Mark,” replied Wolcott, rolling his seat closer. “Your wish is my command.”
Lightly patting his chest, Tew leaned toward Wolcott and whispered in his ear.
Wolcott grinned, nodded and said, “You’re right. He deserves that. He’s certainly earned it. I’ll do my best to make it happen, pard. I promise.”
With his trembling hands on the desktop, Tew smiled weakly. He exhaled softly, closed his eyes and slouched forward until his ashen face rested on his hands. He made a faint gurgling sound, and then was silent.
Puffing on a huge cigar, grinning widely, Heydrich walked up. His hair and clothes were drenched with champagne. “Care for a Macanudo, Virgil?” he asked, offering a brown torpedo.
Wolcott shook his head and gently placed his hand on Tew’s shoulder. “No, thanks, Gunter, but I do have a mighty hankerin’ for a coffin nail, if you might have an extra one handy.”
Heydrich pulled out a pack of Winstons, tapped out a cigarette, and handed it to Wolcott. Looking at Tew, he said, “I guess all this excitement just finally wore Mark out, huh?”
“You could say that,” replied Wolcott. He snapped the filter off the cigarette, casually flicked open his Zippo, and lit it.
“Virgil, is he okay?” asked Heydrich, nudging Tew. He had obviously been so caught up in the exuberance that he failed to recognize that anything could be wrong. “Should I call the hospital for an ambulance?”
“No, Gunter,” replied Wolcott calmly, reaching into Tew’s jacket to retrieve a white envelope. He tucked the envelope into his pocket, leaned back in his chair, drew deeply on the cigarette, and then puffed a smoke ring into the air. “That won’t be necessary.”
Artsyz’kyi District, Odessa Oblast, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
1:32 a.m., Thursday, October 26, 1972
It was the middle of the night, but Luba Yohzin was wide awake, lying under a veritable mountain of quilts and blankets. Coming here to visit her parents was always a bittersweet experience, because she gradually watched as her father lost touch with reality. She knew that like so many others who went to fight in that terrible war, her father had died in battle, but his living body remained.
She and her sons slept in a small outbuilding behind her parents’ cabin. Her father used the shed to store winter fodder for goats and sheep. The cabin itself was just barely large enough to accommodate her parents, so there was certainly not enough room to accommodate the five of them. Besides, her father woke up frequently during the night, screaming and crying, which frightened her sons, so Luba transformed the rustic shed into a temporary bedroom. The structure was so rickety that it rattled and swayed with every strong gust of wind.
The boys loved it. They both enjoyed camping expeditions with the Young Pioneers, so sleeping in the shed was a huge adventure. Nestled in a pile of hay, sleeping soundly, she listened to the rhythm of their snoring.
She was startled by a persistent buzzing noise. Curious, she shoved her covers aside and tugged on her winter coat over her housecoat. As she walked toward the door, she noticed the shotgun her father kept for wolves; as an afterthought, she took it with her.
She stood outside in the cold night, looking up into the brilliant mantle of stars. In a short while, the buzzing sound faded, replaced by a faint swishing noise. Shielding her eyes against the glare of the full moon, she saw the shadowy silhouette of a man descending under a parachute. He landed in the distance, perhaps a few hundred meters away, and she walked toward him, shotgun at the ready.
“Halt,” she ordered quietly, summoning up her lessons from paramilitary training.
He looked up and raised his hands into the air.
“Explain yourself,” she ordered, menacingly pointing the shotgun at the stranger. “And make it quick.”
“What is the fastest way to travel to Tiraspol?” he asked in a soft voice.
What? Incredulous, Luba said, “You fall out of the sky, and then you ask…”
“What is the fastest way to travel to Tiraspol?” he repeated quietly.
And then she recalled what Gregor had told her. “You can travel by train,” she said, lowering the shotgun. “But an airplane would be faster.”
“I’m Smith,” said the stranger quietly.
“Smith?”
“Listen to me,” he said. “In a few minutes, a plane will land here to take us away. We don’t have much time, so you need to gather your sons and your belongings. Quickly.”
“A plane will land here? Where are we going?” asked Luba. “And when will we come back?”
“Obviously, your husband has not told you very much. If you board this plane when it lands, you will leave the Soviet Union and never come back. That’s what your husband wants for you and your sons.”
“And what if I don’t want to go?” she asked.
“That’s your choice, but I assure you that your husband wants you to go with me.”
Gregor had urged her to trust the stranger without question, but he certainly had not mentioned that they might meet under these conditions. She thought to wake her parents, but quickly reconsidered. The less that they knew, the better. She heard the strange buzzing sound again and glanced up at the sky.
“Go now,” said Smith. “Get your boys and your belongings and walk down the trail. I’ll collect you and make sure that you get aboard.”
2:02 a.m.
In minutes, Luba had awakened her sons, gathered their belongings, and then rushed down the trail. She found Smith lighting red flares, like the sort used on railroads, to mark the corners of an expedient landing strip.