by Mike Jenne
“Just a follow-up. I’ll let you know how it comes out.”
As Tew departed, Wolcott spread a large calendar on the table in front of Carson and Ourecky. Tapping his finger on a date in mid-June, he declared, “That’s our tentative launch date, provided we put this danged investigation behind us in time.”
Wolcott continued: “The remainder of March will be taken up almost entirely by mission-specific technical training here at Wright-Patt. At the end of April, you two will go down to Eglin for the full dose of SERE Contingency training. Anyway, the remainin’ time will be mission-specific prep work. The good thing is that most of that will be what you were already doing in the Box before January, so you won’t need too much catch-up work. The bad news is that you can plan on eighteen-hour days, seven days a week, for at least the two months before we launch.”
“Sir, when will we get weightlessness training?” asked Ourecky. “Don’t they do that with KC-135’s flying parabolic profiles? I don’t see it on the schedule. Am I missing something?”
“No, pardner. If we somehow slip ahead of schedule, we might let you jump on the Vomit Comet for a few Zero-G profiles, but otherwise we ain’t wastin’ time on it.”
“Wasting time?” asked Ourecky.
“Correct, pard. You’ve been in the Box, Ourecky, so you know how much room there is. More accurately, you know how much room there ain’t. Once you’re on orbit, you ain’t going to be doing any somersaults. If you have the time to snatch some Zero-G before you fly, great, but otherwise, the main thing that you need to know is that loose crap will float around in the cabin, and you have to manage the clutter. That’s about it.”
“Oh. I guess I was really looking forward to that, sir.”
“Someday you’ll have an opportunity. But speaking of gravity, there is something else.”
“What’s that, Virgil?” asked Ourecky.
Wolcott stubbed out his cigarette and grinned. “You have a ticket to ride the Big Wheel ! Tomorrow, you and Carson will go to the Johnsville Naval Air Development Center in Pennsylvania. It’s in Warminster, right outside Philadelphia. They have an unscheduled block on their human centrifuge on Friday, and we’ve arranged for you to take advantage of it.”
“I thought there was a centrifuge here at Wright-Patt,” said Ourecky.
“There is, but it’s currently booked for physiological testing. Besides, it ain’t the Big Wheel. Nothin’ holds a candle to the Johnsville centrifuge, pard. It’s the real McCoy.”
“But what’s the rush on the centrifuge, Virgil?” asked Ourecky. “It can’t wait? Surely the Navy will have some more open blocks between now and our final pre-flight work-up.” He thought of Bea; he hadn’t seen her in two weeks and was anxiously looking forward to their reunion tomorrow night. Besides, she only thought he was in Ohio temporarily; he had yet to break the big news to her. Certainly, she would be thrilled that he would be back in town to stay.
Wolcott’s face took on an expression like he was entering a corral to break a recalcitrant mustang. “No, Mr. Ourecky, it can’t wait. We ain’t hagglin’ here. If you’re going to ride a rocket, the Big Wheel is a rite of passage that you must endure. The flight docs have declared you medically certified and you may have the gumption to fly, but that’s all for naught if you can’t soak up heavy G’s. Not everyone has the stomach for it, and it’s far better that we find out now than several weeks down the road. The Wheel is available on Friday, so we strike while the iron is hot. I really ain’t in the mood to hear any more danged balking or bellyachin’ about it. That good with you, pardner? Are we square?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Ourecky sheepishly. “That’s good with me.”
“Splendid,” said Wolcott. “Now, if you two gents will excuse me, I’m going to mosey down the hall to the boys’ room. With my internal plumbing gettin’ as bad as it is, I might just start pourin’ my coffee directly into the urinal instead of filtering it through my kidneys first. That would sure save me a heap of time every day.” He stood up from the table and slowly ambled out the door. His knees and hips literally creaked as he walked.
After Wolcott departed, Carson punched Ourecky lightly on the shoulder. “In the future, try hard not to agitate Ol’ Virg, if you don’t mind. He owns you now. Before this, you had been a temporary worker, more or less, but now you’re on a crew, and that’s Virgil’s domain.”
“I understand that, but I just got back here, and I would like some time to adjust.”
“Oh yeah, sure you need time to adjust.” Carson laughed. “You can’t yank the wool over my eyes. You’re just trying to finagle some extra time with Bea. I feel really sorry for you, but we have to ratchet up the program. Every millisecond between now and June is precious. Remember when I asked you if it wouldn’t be better to just not tell Bea that you’re back at Wright-Patt? Now, maybe you understand that I was trying to do you a favor.”
“If you say so,” muttered Ourecky.
“And this trip doesn’t have to be miserable. We’ll stay at the Navy Yard. And I’ve got some hot numbers for a couple of girls in Philly.”
“I don’t think Bea would be too thrilled with that idea.”
“I wasn’t talking about you, Scott. Tomorrow night, you, me, and Jennifer will go out for a Schmidt’s and a cheesesteak. After that, I’ll tuck you into bed early for a good night’s sleep, because you’ll need to be well rested when you climb into the Wheel, and then I’ll make some time with Susie. You ride the Wheel first thing Friday morning and then we’ll head for home.”
“Extra onions on that cheese steak?”
Carson nodded. “Anything for you, brother.”
“Then it’s definitely a road trip. Philadelphia and the Big Wheel.”
Suitland-Silver Hill, Prince George’s County, Maryland
1:12 a.m., Thursday, March 6, 1969
Felix Federov, a highly decorated colonel of the Soviet GRU, was uncomfortably crammed with sixteen other men and nearly two hundred kilograms of equipment in the rear of a Ford Econoline van. They were jammed in so tightly that he could scarcely breathe. As the van navigated the darkened streets of suburban Maryland, it was rocked by gusts of high wind and pelted with heavy rains. For most, the weather could not be more atrocious, but for Federov, it could not possibly be more accommodating. For over two weeks, he had waited patiently for rain to mask their clandestine activities, and tonight’s violent thunderstorm was much more than he could have ever hoped for.
He shifted slightly to relieve the pressure of a man’s knee jabbing sharply into his left flank. The severely cramped quarters reminded him of his earlier days, as a young lieutenant leading a spetsnaz reconnaissance team, when he and his squad scrunched into the cargo space of an Antonov AN-2 bi-plane to practice clandestine infiltrations into Western Europe.
Federov was the Resident, the officer in command of the GRU’s field office located at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC. He wasn’t the senior GRU officer in the Embassy—that billet was occupied by a general—but as the Resident, he managed the station’s intelligence collection operations in DC and the surrounding area, a prestigious assignment by anyone’s assessment. Renowned for his cunning, as well as his somewhat brutal tactics, his star was definitely on the rise. Three months ago, he had arrived here from a posting in East Germany, and if all went well, his next assignment would be a genuine combat tour, as a military intelligence advisor to the Soviet Union’s “comrades” in North Vietnam.
Tall and broad-shouldered, Federov was in his early thirties. The red-haired officer had risen up through the barbaric ranks of the GRU’s spetsnaz commandos before matriculating into the espionage and counterespionage realms of the GRU. In addition to being an accomplished spy, he was a brutally efficient judo expert who had killed several men—including two of his sparring partners—with his bare hands. His proficiency and unbridled enthusiasm for unarmed combat had earned him his nickname, “The Crippler.”
Federov really didn’t have to be here. O
rdinarily, he would have parceled this mission to one of his subordinate officers, but it was a task of such great magnitude that he elected to personally lead the foray. Of course, the assignment—to surreptitiously acquire an onboard computer from an American spacecraft recently returned from orbit—was rather bizarre, but his GRU superiors had insisted that the tasking had come directly from the very highest levels of the Soviet command.
If filching a computer from a spacecraft was an odd job, so were the circumstances surrounding how the Americans stored it. It had taken Federov’s men less than two weeks to surmise the location of the spacecraft. If this had been back in the Soviet Union, the vehicle certainly would have been locked deep within a heavily guarded compound, but not so here in the land of capitalism and obscene abundance. Two years ago, according to Federov’s researchers, representatives of NASA and the renowned Smithsonian Institution had signed a formal agreement in which all returned spacecraft and related artifacts—all deemed to be historically significant—would be transferred from NASA’s control to the Smithsonian for safekeeping. From the perspective of NASA administrators, they were already decisively engaged with the heady enterprise of going to the Moon, so they had scarce interest in also delving into the museum business.
Consequently, just after NASA’s Gemini program ended, NASA delivered a massive glut of spacecraft and related objects to the Smithsonian. Lacking sufficient space to display the items, the Smithsonian trucked them to their aerospace renovation and storage facility located in Suitland-Silver Hill, a sleepy Maryland suburb of Washington. The modest facility, a cluster of thirty-two prefabricated metal storage buildings, comprised the “Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility,” also known as “Silver Hill” by Smithsonian employees. There, the recently flown spacecraft and related gear were crammed into a warehouse.
Once his researchers determined where the Gemini spacecraft were housed, he dispatched one of his best operatives-—Major Dimitri Gleb Roschin—to establish an operating site. Posing as a US Army officer recently assigned to the Pentagon, Roschin rented a one-story brick house in a neighborhood directly adjacent to the Silver Hill complex. The quaint dwelling on Bonita Street was less than a hundred meters from the warehouse where the Gemini spacecraft were stored, separated only by a stretch of woods, a shallow creek and a chain-link fence roughly two meters tall.
As his advance team of three operatives set up shop, Roschin established a regular pattern of comings and goings with the white Ford Econoline van. He played a stereo, perhaps too loudly for the neighbors, at the appropriate hours, and periodically entertained “fellow officers”—played by GRU operatives—-from his Pentagon office.
Even as he convincingly portrayed an American officer to his neighbors, Roschin and his advance team routinely infiltrated the Silver Hill complex. Federov could barely believe their reports. Laughably, even though the Silver Hill warehouses were overflowing with priceless aerospace artifacts and valuable technology, only four watchmen were responsible for guarding the twenty-one-acre site. Two—the guard supervisor and his assistant—were situated at the headquarters building, at the front of the complex; they took turns strolling through the complex on roving patrols. Besides the guard supervisor and his assistant, one stationary guard was located in a restoration facility that stored several historically significant aircraft being prepared for display at the Smithsonian and other museums, and—unfortunately for Federov and his team—the fourth watchman was solely responsible for the warehouse that held the target spacecraft. The fourth watchman’s post was a stationary assignment; he remained inside the locked warehouse for the duration of his shift.
After they had thoroughly scouted the exterior aspects of the complex, a pair of Roschin’s men nightly entered the target warehouse to conduct surveillance. Hiding amid piles of boxes, they watched the guard until they were intimately familiar with his nightly routine. They knew his patterns, when he normally ate lunch and when he occasionally grabbed a quick snooze before the sun came up. Most importantly, they knew precisely when the guard supervisor came to inspect his post.
Steering the van into a driveway adjacent to the house, the driver announced that they had arrived. As he quickly moved inside the house with the others, Federov thought about the operation about to unfold. The computer was a fruit ripe for the plucking. Security was effectively nonexistent; the place was as porous as a sponge. It was so easy, almost too much so, that he could readily suspect that he was being lured into a snare.
The various teams occupied their assigned rooms in the tiny house and immediately set to work preparing their equipment. The operation’s centerpiece was the technical crew, six men who would physically remove the onboard computer from the spacecraft and then replace it with a precisely fabricated—but non-functional—replica.
The majority of the GRU operatives were assigned to the mission support team. They were along to function as little more than pack animals, charged with bearing the technical crew’s bulky equipment from the rental house to the warehouse. Their most ponderous burdens were three footlockers, each stuffed with automobile batteries, wired in series, which would power the drills and various gizmos necessary to gain access to the computer.
“We’re ready,” stated the bespectacled leader of the technical crew.
Federov glanced at his watch, made note of the time, and commenced the operation. He nodded toward his radio operator, who issued a one-word command to a two-man auxiliary team that immediately disabled a nearby PEPCO—Potomac Electric Power Company—substation, shutting off electric power to the area. Armed with a small blowtorch, they would also leave telltale scorch marks on copper “breaker bars,” to convince repair crews that the distribution site had been knocked off-line by a lightning strike.
Guided by an operative of Roschin’s advance team, a handful of security men departed to set up watch sites throughout the complex. Unlike the remainder of the team, who would soon enter the warehouse, they did not wear raincoats or galoshes, so they would soon be soaked to the skin in short order.
Federov paused for five minutes as he waited for the security personnel to disperse, and then he quietly ordered the remainder of the team to advance on the Silver Hill site. Hoisting their burdens, the team followed Roschin through a sliding glass door, through the small backyard, past a sandbox and swing set left by previous occupants, and into the woods that separated the house from the Silver Hill complex. Moving silently, despite their loads, they ignored the heavy rain. Periodically, the dark woods were illuminated by brilliant flashes of lightning. In just a few minutes, they negotiated a narrow gap in the security fence and a few seconds later, the heavily laden men filed into the entrance of the warehouse.
Federov was confident that the torrential rains and darkness would dissuade the roving guards from their appointed rounds, so they shouldn’t be disturbed as they performed their chores. If there was any aspect of the scenario that he didn’t like, it was that the warehouse’s two entrances—a regular door and a large roll-up cargo door—were on the same side of the building, which dictated that they had only one point of ingress and egress.
The interior of the warehouse was pitch black. After removing their foul weather gear, armed with dim blue-filtered penlights, select members of the technical crew searched the warehouse and examined each spacecraft. In preparing for the mission, Federov learned that not all Gemini spacecraft were created equal, and that the onboard computers had significantly evolved from the earlier missions to the later flights. Consequently, the technical crew took the extra time to ensure that they targeted one of the later model spacecraft. To this end, they had carefully studied photographs taken by Roschin’s advance team. The images, taken in daylight, depicted the warehouse in jumbled disarray. In addition to the spacecraft, crates and boxes were stacked haphazardly wherever there was open floor space to accommodate them, with only a few clear paths left open for the watchman to make his rounds.
Many of the spac
ecraft were clamped into yellow-painted wheeled transport cradles, while others were temporarily mounted on wooden support structures. Some were fully exposed and appeared as if they had returned from orbit yesterday, while a few were encased in protective cocoons of plastic sheeting. Federov had repeatedly warned the men to be especially cautious around the hatches, since the ejection seats may not yet be disarmed. Only one man—a member of the technical crew—was authorized to open the cockpit hatches; as the other technical crew personnel removed the thirty-kilogram onboard computer though an access panel on the exterior of the spacecraft, he was responsible for entering the spacecraft and removing the computer’s readout displays from the right side of the control panel.
Federov stripped out of his raincoat and dropped it into a rubberized duffle bag. As two support team members used large sponges to mop up water that had dripped on the floor, he listened to heavy snoring from a small room at the front of the building. Earlier, Roschin’s inside men had spiked the guard’s peanut butter sandwich with a heavy dose of sedatives. At midnight, as was his custom, he sat down to eat lunch and within half an hour, he was sound asleep at his desk. Roschin assured Federov that the watchman was deeply unconscious and would remain so for at least the next hour or so, which should grant the technical crew more than ample time to finish their tasks.
The technical crew swiftly located their target. As some prepared their tools, others quickly erected a black cloth tent to abate light and noise. As the technical crew went to work, the support team operatives formed a line by the door, ready to haul the heavy gear back to the house when the operation was complete. Positioning himself so he could monitor the technical crew and simultaneously communicate with the support team, Federov leaned against the cool metal of the spacecraft’s transport cradle. Roschin took a seat next to him. After a particularly long day, followed by several mission rehearsals, Federov was bone-tired. It was very tempting to fall asleep, but he could not be lulled into complacency.