by Walter Grant
An approaching vehicle forced him to break stride and temporarily abandon the roadway in order to conceal himself from its headlights—he would repeat this several times before reaching his destination.
Several miles later the road dropped off the mesa down into a narrow valley and followed a series of small ponds filled with reeds and lily pads, connected by a spring fed creek, before ascending the next mesa. In the valley Max felt a change in temperature, a reminder the Santa Ana winds had died allowing the moisture laden marine air to move on shore. Already fingers of fog were moving along the low lying areas. Without the offshore breeze the cool ocean air would continue to flow inland over the warm land mass, creating a thick fog that would soon blanket the entire coastal area.
Max had studied the photographs and a detailed street map of the air base until every detail on his intended route was permanently fixed in his mind. When he reached the crest of the second mesa he knew his destination was only a couple of miles away. From the top of the second mesa he could see the runway approach lights about three miles away, the strobes created eerie patterns against the encroaching fog. Ten minutes later Atlas Road intersected on the right and angled off toward the airfield. Max slowed to a walk for the next couple of hundred yards so as not to miss a fire break cutting through the chaparral in the direction of, according to Pablo, a Eucalyptus grove standing about a mile off to the left. The dirt road, even in the dark, was easier to find than he anticipated and was in good shape. He walked at a fast pace and reached the eucalyptus grove without any problems. When checking his watch he realized he had arrived none, too, soon, he had less then two hours of darkness left.
The trees were thick only along the perimeter, thinning after about fifty feet, to reveal three or four hundred houses on well lighted streets meandering about in all directions. This was military family housing. Max had purposely come through the back door, so to speak, to avoid the street lights and security—the military goes to a lot of trouble, even making a show of it, to secure the front door, but often leaves the back door unguarded—but, more importantly, it put him almost in the back yard of the house occupied by Colonel Howard Kent Tolinger. A near-by street sign, conveniently illuminated by an overhead light, provided a quick reference and was easily located on one of the maps he carried. Refolding the maps, he slipped them into his pack, and eased back into the woods. He was on the right street, but, had turned off the firebreak into the woods a little too early and was in the wrong block. A short time later he located the house and after double checking the street and the house number, waited in the woods in back for several minutes, observing the neighborhood and watching for movement inside the house. Satisfied, he moved toward the back door.
Less then a minute later he was standing motionless just inside the kitchen, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the interior, his other senses keen and alert. He could hear snoring from somewhere down the hall to his left. The only other sounds, a drip from a leaky faucet in a bathroom down the same hallway and the ticking of a near-by clock. Slowly his sight adapted to the new surroundings and he moved silently to the dining room, eased his backpack off, and placed it gently on the large oak table. From the pack Max removed a mini-cassette recorder and two small leather cases.
Selecting a couple of ampoules of chloroform from one of the leather cases, he crossed the dining room into the living room and headed down the hallway towards the bedrooms. The snoring grew louder as he approached the open door to the master bedroom.
Except for his shoes, Tolinger lay on his back fully dressed with his head propped up against two pillows. A glass, only inches from his right hand, still smelled of bourbon. An empty bottle on the night stand beside an ashtray, filled with half-smoked cigarette butts, hinted that Howard Kent Tolinger was a very troubled man.
His snoring was uneven, broken by the mumbling sounds of unintelligible half formed sentences. His face contorted with each outburst. Max held one of the ampoules under Tolinger’s nose, squeezing it until the thin glass broke allowing the chloroform to flow out onto the surrounding cotton. Even in his sleep the man seemed to sense that something was wrong as he breathed the vapors. His head jerked back and forth a couple of times before the anesthetic took affect. A check of the rest of the house found the other bedrooms unoccupied; things were working out better than he had hoped.
Before returning to the dining room Max crushed the second ampoule between his fingers and let Tolinger breath some more chloroform vapors, a precaution to make sure he didn’t wake up and cause trouble before getting the injection of truth serum. From the second leather case he removed a syringe, attached a hypodermic needle, pushed the needle through the rubber cap of a vial containing a yellow tinged liquid, and slowly drew the liquid into the syringe.
Tolinger, under the affects of chloroform, never felt the needle slip into his arm. Tomorrow, he would question and might even guess the reason for his nausea, the soreness in his arm, the splitting headache, and the puncture wound on his skin. But, he would not remember anything that took place between the time he fell asleep and the time he awoke, if he remembered anything at all. The advantage of Sodium-Amytal with Benzedrine over Sodium-Pentothal, besides the subject’s willingness to cooperate fully, answering any and all questions, is the subject’s inability to recall the incident. The disadvantage was that sometimes the subject couldn’t recall anything ever again. Max would not have cared whether Tolinger recovered from the drug or not except for the fact that when the time came he wanted the traitor to know why he was dying. And the time would come, that was a promise.
Waiting for the drug to take affect, Max looked through the refrigerator and found a half dozen unopened bottles of spring water. One he drank slowly, replacing the body fluids lost during the two hour run from Missileman beach. Two of the bottles went into his pack. The empty Gatorade bottle he had hauled all the way up from the beach went into the trash compactor. From the freezer he removed a box of Snickers ice cream bars. On the way past the dining room table he picked up the tape recorder, in the living room he stopped long enough to grab a cushion from the sofa, before walking on down the hallway to the master bedroom. After placing the ice cream bars on the nearest bedside table and using the cushion from the sofa to prop up the recorder on Tolinger’s chest, he pulled up a chair and sat down. Leaning over from his chair, Max pushed the proper buttons on the recorder; a red light came on indicating the machine was in the record mode.
“How are you feeling, Colonel Tolinger?” Max asked in a calm and pleasant voice.
“Okay.” Came the relaxed reply. The drug was working remarkably well.
Twenty minutes later Max finished the last ice cream bar and switched off the recorder. He had everything he needed. The one answer eluding him all this time was no longer a mystery. Gilbird’s group had no intentions of trying to override the control transmitter. Their plan was much simpler and appeared perfect.
From the instant telemetry was switched from the ground monitoring umbilical system to the on board transmitter, the receiver in Gilbird’s house on surf Road, as well as the receiver in their mobile rig, would track, monitor, and route the information through their computers where the identification authenticators would be retained, but the original data would be replaced with false information and then be sent via their five hundred kilowatt transmitters to receivers in the launch command center. The half million watt transmitters used by Gilbird’s group would easily override the low output transmitter aboard the MX. Actually, they would not alter the data sent by the MX until the missile reached an altitude of 50,000 feet, at which time the first stage would separate. Precisely at that time they would alter the data, indicating to launch control, the second stage had failed. With little, if any, discussion with his crew the launch commander would order the missile destroyed. With the destruct signal sent, Gilbird’s crew could then shut down their equipment and disappear, their job completed. The destruct signal would not cause the MX to destroy its self, it would
instead instruct the missile to switch programs. This feature had been incorporated into the Peacekeeper’s computer by Linda Larkin. She and whoever assisted her were responsible for the new program that would guide the MX along the Southern California coast where it would drop fifteen bombs which would glide with deadly accuracy to highly congested targets in and around Los Angeles, San Diego, and Tijuana, Mexico. Larkin’s tampering with the missile’s computers had not been discovered mainly because of Mitchell Cole’s cooperation. Cole was in charge of security at the missile check out facility where missiles are checked out in detail before being transported to the launch sites. After the MX had been inspected and deemed ready for launch Cole had secured the building, but delayed transportation long enough for Linda Larkin and her crew to switch the Peacekeeper’s computers and to replace the dummy warheads with the real thing. Cole had later had a change of heart and was about to expose everything—his change of heart had cost him his life.
Backup destruction of an ICBM in case of power failure, or any other problem causing the destruct sequence to fail, was carried out by SAC. The Strategic Air Command was responsible for having a B-52 airborne and armed with Thunderbolt air-to-air missiles for every ICBM launch. Because of the unpredictable coastal fog, two B-52s were loaded with Thunderbolt missiles and flown to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, where they could be sure weather would not be a problem. Before the ICBM launched, one of B-52s would take off from Nellis, and remain in a holding pattern over the Santa Barbara Channel until released by launch control. The second B-52 remained on alert at Nellis in case a problem developed with the primary.
Only this time, should the crew of the B-52 find it necessary to let their Thunderbolts fly, they would find it impossible to arm the missiles—this bit of handiwork performed by another Communist agent who had somehow managed to infiltrate Air Force Security at Nellis.
A message on the telephone/recorder near SAC Headquarters in Omaha gave the saboteur at Nellis the aircraft numbers and the time they would arrive in Nevada.
Max was getting scared. He couldn’t believe there were so many people in such sensitive DOD positions controlled by the KGB. Also, he was beginning to doubt everyone. Had General Wedemyer been correct when, answering the question of how long we had to turn back the tide of Communism, put to him by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, he answered: “Sir, my humble and honest judgment is that it is too late.”
The thought troubled Max, but he would never consider it too late, as long as he was alive, but paranoia was definitely setting in.
He walked into the dining room, sat down at the table, removed a couple of maps from his backpack, chose one and spread it out on the table, and using his MINI-MAGlite studied the map intently before folding it up and replacing it, along with the rest of his equipment, back inside the backpack.
From one of the plastic bags in his pack he removed a brown five by eight-inch air bubble envelope with Henri Tosi’s address already inscribed and the proper amount of postage affixed. He slipped the tape cassette inside, peeled the cellophane strip off the adhesive and carefully sealed the envelope. He slipped the pack onto his shoulders and adjusted the straps, wiped his fingerprints from everything he had touched, and departed by the backdoor.
The mailbox, located conveniently at the intersection where he first entered the housing area, had the same squeaky drop chute door associated with every mailbox in the world. In the still of this predawn Saturday the squeak and the sound of metal slamming against metal as he closed the door seemed to reverberate throughout the neighborhood. The metallic thunder Max heard echoing about was only in his mind, brought on by his growing fear and paranoia. He imagined people jumping out of bed, grabbing the telephone, and calling security to report a prowler. His paranoia was growing, not from fear of being caught, but, from fear that somehow someone or something would prevent him from subverting the Communists and their grand plan to usurp American prestige and power through the deaths of hundreds of thousands, possibly several million people. He could see the headlines now, and the twenty-four hour around the clock television coverage of the carnage and of the anti-American demonstrations that would follow the first telecasts of the disaster. America would never recover and would be held hostage, as would the rest of the world, as the Kremlin’s every demand would be met whenever and wherever they chose—without American power and prestige, the rest of the world would be held hostage as well. He dare not fail, but, if he should, at least his friend would know the truth and possibly, with the aid of the tape recording, bring to the world’s attention what really happened and alert people to the realization that for Communists, the end really did justify the means.
Wispy fog drifted through the eucalyptus, growing denser with every passing second. By the time he broke out of the woods, lights from the airfield were no longer visible and it was impossible to spot any other landmark. Without the fire road he would have needed a compass just to keep from going in circles or wandering aimlessly about in the chaparral. The hard asphalt underfoot was his only indication that he had reached the road.
He crossed the pavement, so as not to miss Atlas Road, then turned right and walked along the shoulder, retracing his earlier steps until he once again felt asphalt underneath his feet. He found the street sign and using his MINI-MAG, made sure he had indeed reached Atlas Road.
The fog worked both for and against him. With dawn breaking, it would be more difficult to move about the air base unseen. The fog prolonged the advantage he had had during the hours of darkness, on the other hand, it heightened the possibly he would become lost in unfamiliar surroundings.
Considering the fog was now so thick he could no longer see the sides of the road he chose to walk rather than run and chance falling into the ditch. A broken leg would, in all likelihood, ensure success for the KGB. Also, the air force would immediately recognize sabotage, close the air base and conduct a thorough search. With a broken leg he would be unable, even with his skills, to avoid capture and eventually would be identified as Jack Johnson, deserter, traitor, and spy, not to mention being credited with the most villainous and dastardly deed in history. Henri could not come to his defense; to do so would indicate CIA involvement and possibly expose the Harte cover-up. He would be executed just as Henri had warned, by the same system he was trying to protect. He wasn’t concerned for his own life—it only mattered if losing it meant the Communist plan would succeed.
An hour and a half later Max reached his first objective, a bridge over the railroad tracks—Santa Fe still maintained a right-of-way through Vandenberg. Just across the tracks a dirt road intersected on the right, a thousand yards beyond the intersection a fenced compound with armed guards and patrol dogs blocked the road to all traffic. A large sign proclaimed the area Restricted. The compound was of no interest to Max, except for the simple fact it was there and presented an obstacle. The road he wanted turned left only fifty feet from the guard shack. The guards were not a problem although the sun had already climbed above the eastern horizon and the fog was beginning to burn off making visibility considerably better. As a marine sniper in Southeast Asia, he had, on numerous missions, been required to lie, without moving, for hours in 100-degree heat with insects sucking his blood or forced to inch his way through muck and mire with little or no cover, sometimes at a rate of only a foot an hour just to get within range of his target. Getting past the guards presented no problem, the dogs with their keen sense of smell, however, were a different story.
The area he needed to reach, an abandoned maze of roads with old launch sites and rusted out gantries used in the early days at Vandenberg, lay approximately five miles beyond the compound, overlooking the coast. The only road into the area paralleled the compound along the front and down one side for about a hundred yards. Anywhere along the road paralleling the compound he stood a good chance of being detected by the dogs. He walked the short distance back to the bridge, stepped off the pavement and climbed down the embankment to the
railroad tracks. Ten minutes later he scrambled out of the railroad bed and followed the slope of the land downhill toward the ocean.
He could smell the salt air long before he heard the surf, he was in the right area, but couldn’t see any of the landmarks Tolinger mentioned while under the truth serum. Max strained his eyes searching for evidence of the abandoned launch sites and finally spotted a twisted, half fallen, steel tower looming ghostlike out of the fog. Five minutes later he was walking along the broken streets connecting the crumbling buildings and rusting gantries. The pavement was being reclaimed by sage grass, creosote bushes, and Monterey Cypress.
This was the place where the Roach Coach would set up operations, according to Tolinger’s drug-induced statements. Tolinger had avoided the commonly used slang such as Roach Coach, Ptomaine Truck, and Gedunk Wagon, in referring to the Running Chef, the Air Force version of the mobile canteens roaming every military installation in the world selling sandwiches, soft drinks, pizza, et cetera, to people in isolated work places. If Tolinger was correct, and there was no reason to believe otherwise, Linda Larkin would not show up until the countdown had reached T minus thirty (launch time minus thirty minutes). The air force would have already finished their security sweeps of the area and with the countdown that far along she would stand little chance of being spotted. Max took in a long deep breath letting it out slowly, contemplating his options. It seemed simple enough, only two things left to do, actually three, considering the promise he made Tolinger, and come hell or high water, if still alive, he would keep his promise. But, first things first and for now all he had to do was wait around, undetected, until Larkin showed up—then do whatever was necessary to disable the transmitter hidden it the mobile canteen before the countdown reached zero. That would take care of numbers one and two, three would have to wait.