Rockets' Red Glare

by Greg Dinallo

  The Chaika came out of Karl Marx Prospekt, crossed Gorkovo, and approached the Kremlin.

  The bureaucratic citadel is a sixteenth-century walled fortress. Dark red brick, twenty feet thick in some places, stretches almost eight hundred meters between corners of an inverted trapezoid. Golden onion-shaped domes of four cathedrals swell above the crenellated walls, and countless towers spike skyward, the five tallest thrusting illuminated red stars aloft—into a heavy mist that diffused them.

  The Chaika drove the length of the wall to the southwest corner, and entered the Kremlin through a gate at the base of the Borovitsky Tower. It continued up the steep hill, past the Great Kremlin Palace, and beneath the arch of the Council of Ministers Building, stopping inside the triangular courtyard.

  Deschin entered via an ornate bronze door, walked beneath the gilded dome, and hurried down a long corridor to Premier Dmitri Kaparov’s apartment.

  The Premier’s wife; aide, Vasily; and personal physician, along with Anatoly Chagin, head of GRU; and KGB Chief Sergei Tvardovskiy were gathered in the bedroom where the Soviet Premier lay near death.

  A tangle of tubes and wires snaked from beneath the bedding to vital signs’ monitors and life-support systems. The ping of the EKG monitor alternated with the asthmatic hiss of the dialysis machine.

  “When?” Deschin asked softly as he entered, his nostrils filling with the suffocating smell of illness.

  The doctor turned from the equipment and shrugged.

  “Morning, midday at the latest, Comrade Minister,” she said.

  “Poor Dmitri,” his wife whispered sadly, adding almost apologetically, “he thought he had more time.”

  “We all did,” Chagin said, his lips barely moving.

  “Yes, you said three months,” Tvardovskiy growled, challenging the doctor.

  “I know,” she replied. “I’m afraid the recent stress accelerated his deterioration.”

  Deschin stepped to the bed and studied Kaparov’s ashen face, knowing his friend would not live to see SLOW BURN realized. He took the Premier’s hand and squeezed it gently. He was about to let go when Kaparov squeezed back—hard, as if he knew who it was. Deschin’s lips tightened in a thin smile. He turned to the Premier’s wife and hugged her. Then he crossed the room and led Vasily, Chagin, and Tvardovskiy down the corridor to the Premier’s office.

  Vasily entered the ornate chamber last, closing the door. As the Premier’s longtime aide, matters of protocol, such as the arrangements for a state funeral, were his responsibility. “How shall I proceed?” he asked, careful not to direct the question to one man over the others.

  “The procedures are clearly outlined in Article Twenty-seven, comrade,” Tvardovskiy snapped. “I suggest you follow them.”

  “No,” said Deschin decisively. His title was minister of culture; but when it came to SLOW BURN, his power was second only to the Premier’s. “Things are going too well in Geneva. We can’t appear to be without leadership, now. We can’t lose our momentum.”

  “I agree,” Tvardovskiy said. “But the Americans know of the Premier’s condition. They—”

  “How? How do they know?” Deschin interrupted rhetorically. “Not by what they see.”

  “Of course not,” Tvardovskiy replied impatiently. “The opposite has always been their only gauge.”

  “Exactly,” Deschin said. “When they don’t see the Soviet Premier, they conclude he’s ill. But they have no way of determining degree. Tomorrow, he will have recovered sufficiently to leave the Kremlin. Find a military pensioner, preferably a senile one. Dress him in the Premier’s greatcoat and hat. Put the old fellow in his limousine and get it out in the streets—where their press people can see it.”

  “Fine, Aleksei,” Tvardovskiy said. “But how long do you think we can—”

  “—A day, two, ten,” Deschin snapped. “Every hour we give Pykonen before making the announcement brings the unchallenged nuclear superiority Comrade Dmitrievitch wanted for his people that much closer.”

  “I’ll do it,” Chagin said. He turned and left before either of them could reply.

  Tvardovskiy started after him.

  “Sergei?” Deschin said sharply, waiting until he had paused and turned to face him before continuing. “You spoke to Zeitzev?”

  Tvardovskiy winced, revealing the gold edges atop his incisors. He’d been hoping the subject wouldn’t come up.

  “Giancarlo Borsa is an old friend. And heavily involved in Geneva,” Deschin went on tautly. He paused, then, with quiet outrage, asked, “How? How the hell did that happen?”

  Tvardovskiy stared at him for a long moment while he brought his temper under control.

  “It will be taken care of,” he said gravely. He was about to warn Deschin not to use that tone when it occurred to him, he might just be addressing the next Soviet Premier.

  * * * * * *

  Aeroflot INT-237 from Rome had flown a northeasterly course across the Adriatic, Yugoslavia, Hungary, the eastern tip of Czechoslovakia into western Russia, and was on final approach to Sheremetyvo International Airport, in the desolate flatlands twenty-six miles northwest of Moscow.

  “By the way,” Andrew said, taking Melanie’s hand, “in case you’ve heard those stories about Russian air traffic controllers looking at their screens through glasses of vodka—”

  “I was just wondering about that,” she replied, amused rather than alarmed.

  “No problem,” he concluded. “The ATC system here was manufactured by Churchco Electronics. It’s the best in the world.”

  “Churchco—” she said, connecting his name to the conglomerate. “You’re—”

  “Theodor Churcher’s my father,” he said, nodding. “As they say, I made my money the old-fashioned way—” he cut off the sentence, leaving the joke unfinished. It was the first time he had actually thought about inheriting the billion-dollar empire.

  Sheremetyvo was a modern, efficiently run airport, and in minutes they had landed, deplaned, and cued for passport control. A young inspector with a sullen face and brown uniform processed Andrew’s travel documents, then began digging through his bag. He unzipped one of the pouches, removed an electric razor, and held it up.

  “Is for what?”

  “Shaving?” Andrew replied, making the motion over his face with his hand.

  The inspector eyed him suspiciously, then shifted his eyes to the shaver, looking for a way to open it; finally he took a penknife from a pocket.

  “Hold it,” Andrew said, concerned he would damage it. “I’ll do it, okay?” He took the shaver and popped off the rotary heads.

  The inspector shook his head no, unsatisfied. “Where is cord?” he challenged.

  Andrew understood, now. The shaver was a battery-operated model, and had multicolor indicator lights, nine shaving modes with calibrated selector, and sleek packaging. To the inspector it looked suspiciously high tech and electronic, as its designers intended.

  Andrew turned it on and ran it across his face, trying not to appear smug about it.

  The inspector eyed him coldly, and shoved his bag aside, dismissing him. Melanie was next. He swept his steely eyes over her. “Papers please.”

  He’s probably going to take it out on me, she thought, as she handed them to him.

  The inspector examined and stamped her passport, then brusquely unfolded her visa. His eyes widened, his expression softened, and he handed it back, waving her on without checking her bags.

  “Mr. Warmth must have a thing for older women,” Melanie said as they walked off.

  “Does your visa have a small green crest stamped across the signature?” Andrew asked.

  “Yes, it does—”

  “It’s a special clearance. My father’s visa had one. It took him years to get it.”

  “Now we know what Gorodin meant when he said it was within his power.”

  Andrew nodded, reflecting on his suspicions.

  “So much for middle-age charm,” Melanie concluded.


  The Tupolev 134 had taken three hours and twenty minutes to cover the fifteen hundred miles between Rome and Moscow. With the two-hour loss of time, it was well after midnight when they arrived at the Hotel Berlin on Zhadanova Street in the theater district.

  The Berlin’s lobby was deserted and quiet.

  They were both too exhausted to appreciate the plush Victorian decor as they trudged to the check-in desk. The clerk was off to one side doing paperwork, and didn’t notice them. Andrew lightly tapped the bell.

  “Dobriy vyecher,” the clerk said as he looked up and approached them. “Mozhna pamagat?”

  “We’d like to check in, please,” Andrew replied. “Mr. Churcher, Miss Winslow.”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Churcher,” the clerk said.

  He took their passports, slipped a card from a file box, and gave it to Andrew to fill out. Then he prepared a propoosk—a hotel pass that contains one’s name, length of stay, and room number—and pushed it across the mahogany counter to Andrew.

  “Give this to the hall attendant on your floor,” he said. “She’ll give you your key. Reverse the procedure when you leave. The propoosk must be given to the doorman to be allowed to leave the hotel.”

  “Yes, thanks, I know,” Andrew replied.

  “I’ll have someone bring your bags,” the clerk said. He smiled, and returned to his work, assuming Andrew and Melanie were together.

  Melanie saw Andrew was about to say something, and touched his arm, stopping him.

  “Don’t,” she said warmly.

  Andrew studied her for a moment, then smiled wistfully and turned back to the desk.

  “Excuse me, but the lady’s checking in as well.”

  The clerk reddened, apologized profusely, and went through the check-in procedure with Melanie. In a few minutes, she and Andrew, propoosks in hand, were walking a long empty corridor to the elevator.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” she said.

  “You didn’t. I was just being cautious.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They tapped my phone in Rome.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s how they do business,” Andrew said with a shrug, not mentioning that he suspected his father’s collaboration with the Russians was the cause. “The guidebooks say, ‘Hotel Berlin, cozy, Victorian elegance, favorite of businessmen,’ ” he went on. “The truth is, they favor it because they have no choice. The government wanted me here, and that’s where Intourist put me. And why does the government want me here?”

  “To watch you—”

  “That’s right.”

  “But we would just be lovers.”

  “I know,” he said softly, letting his eyes catch hers before adding, “And I’d like that—”

  Melanie returned his look and smiled.

  ““—but they’re always looking for an edge. For something they can use against you.”

  “Well,” she said, teasing, “I wouldn’t want them to destroy your reputation by revealing you’re sleeping with an older woman.”

  “That’s how they work,” Andrew said with a grin. “Seriously,” he went on, “they’re experts at using the most innocent situation to make trouble.”

  “The KGB?” she whispered.

  Andrew nodded, and said, “Don’t whisper, it attracts attention.” His remark started him thinking about Raina Maiskaya, and he saw her blank eyes staring at him, staring right through him as the car whisked her away on that bleak night in Rome, and wondered if she’d been tortured and imprisoned, or if she was even still alive. The elevator door opened and snapped him out of it. He leaned his head closer to Melanie’s as he followed her inside.

  “Don’t ever forget where you are,” he warned.

  Melanie nodded.

  The door rumbled closed, and he kissed her.

  * * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The USS Finback, a Sturgeon-class hunter/killer submarine, cut through South Atlantic waters at a depth of seven hundred and fifty feet.

  The Finback’s captain, Commander Burton C. Armus, was an unpolished bear of a man, ill-suited in size for submarine duty. But he had the devious, calculating mind it takes to hunt in the dark. The Finback was as far from the South Bronx as he could get, and he loved it.

  Armus was in the process of “tickling” a Soviet Alpha-class sub-marine off Puerto Rico. The titanium-hulled alpha is the swiftest and deepest diving sub yet built. Armus had spent weeks sparring with his Russian counterpart to learn about its capabilities, and he had learned a lot. He was hunched over a chart in the Finback’s control room, plotting the alpha’s course and planning a countermove, when the communications officer handed him a teletype from ASW Pensacola which read:

  TOP SECRET

  FLASH PRIORITY

  Z143803ZAPR

  FR: ASW PENSACOLA

  TO: USS FINBACK

  1. DISENGAGE PRESENT TARGET IMMED.

  2.PROCEED TO 80W 22N ASAP. INTERCEPT TANKER VLCC KIRA DEPARTING CIENFUEGOS. TRACK TO CONFIRM GULF DESTINATION. REPORT EVENT ASW PENSACOLA IMMED.

  Babysit a fucking tanker? Armus wondered.

  As a security precaution, the orders were sent without a mission overview. And Armus’ reaction, if not eloquent was understandable. He had the alpha going in circles—an “underwater mind-fuck,” as he called it—and it killed him to let the Soviet submarine off the hook.

  At about the same time, the Kira was slipping from her berth at the Soviet naval base in Cienfuegos. VLCC means “Very Large Crude Carrier,” and measuring longer than four football fields, the Kira was properly classified. Her hold was empty of cargo, and she rode high in the water with ungainly majesty as the harbor pilot guided her through the channel. It was 4:07 P.M. when Captain Rublyov took over the helm.

  Ostensibly, Fedor Rublyov was the civilian captain of an oil tanker. But he was actually a commander first rank in the Soviet Navy, one of their finest—which was why the Kira had been entrusted to his command.

  He brought the huge vessel to starboard, and headed west into the orange fireball that sat on the horizon.

  The Finback was waiting for her just outside Cuban territorial waters. The sub’s BQQ-6 bow-mounted sonar picked up the rumble of the Kira’s power plant and her twin screw cavitation the moment her engines went all-ahead-full, and she headed out to open sea.

  The Finback tracked the Kira in a looping arc below Cuba’s southern shore to its western-most tip. Crawling at a speed of eighteen knots, it took the tanker almost fifteen hours to reach the Yucatan Channel, where she swung north into the Mexican Gulf.

  The Kira was still 750 miles from its offshore oil field destination when Armus brought the Finback to periscope antenna depth. Per the ASW directive, he contacted Pensacola—via SSIX, the geosynchronous satellite dedicated to U.S. submarine communications—and reported the Kira’s destination as the Gulf of Mexico, and position as 86W 22N. Almost immediately, the Finback’s printer came to life with a reply.

  BRAVO FINBACK. CONTINUE TRACKING. GUIDE ASW VIKING TO TARGET AND MAINTAIN PERI-CONTACT TO VERIFY RENDEZVOUS. REPORT EVENT ASW PENSACOLA. TAKE NO OTHER ACTION. REPEAT NO OTHER ACTION

  “Something weird’s cooking,” Armus said, handing the directive to the deck officer.

  “We’re guiding an S-3A to a rendezvous?”

  Armus shrugged. Both were reacting to the flip-flop in procedure—a Viking S-3A can detect submerged submarines, locating a surface vessel the size of the Kira would be child’s play. Neither knew the Viking had been gutted of all electronic tracking gear.

  In Pensacola, Lowell and Arnsbarger were on twenty-four-hour alert when the Finback confirmed the Kira’s destination. Within minutes, they had their Viking S-3A in the air on a southeast, heading over the Mexican Gulf. Lowell was in the copilot’s seat instead of the TACCO bay behind. It was 7:05 A.M. EST.

  They had been training for two days when Cissy remarked that Arnsbarger’s schedule had changed.

  �
��We’re running tests on some new sub-tracking gear,” he had replied offhandedly.

  “Oh,” she had said, letting it go. She was a military brat, and knew how to read between the lines.

  The night before, Lowell had called his folks in Santa Barbara. He’d been planning on checking in; the high-risk nature of the mission prompted him to do it now. He had a long chat with his parents and younger sister, but nothing was said about the upcoming flight.

  The Viking had been in the air a little over two hours when Arnsbarger locked the radio onto the SSIX band and flicked on his pipestem.

  “This is ASW Viking, Alpha Charlie nine-four-zero, to USS Finback, over.”

  “This is Finback. We read you, Viking.”

  “Request data update on target, over.”

  “Location 86.25W 22.37N. Heading three-one-zero.

  “Roger.”

  “What’s your ETA, Viking?”

  “Estimate visual contact, eight minutes.”

  The Finback’s radar man had been tracking the Viking on the BPS-15 surface search scope.

  “Thirty-five miles and closing,” he reported.

  Armus had his big face pressed to the eyepiece of the periscope. “Viking sighted,” he announced about five minutes later. “Let’s talk to Pensacola.”

  While Armus was reporting that the Viking/Kira rendezvous was imminent, Lowell and Arnsbarger had gotten a visual fix on the Kira.

  Arnsbarger reset the radio to the international emergency band. “Let her rip,” he said.

  Lowell pulled a remote control unit onto his lap. It resembled a minicomputer with a special keyboard, and had a procedure control list affixed inside the cover. The PCL enumerated three sequential event codes.

  Arnsbarger looked back at the wing expectantly as Lowell keyed in the first code, and hit the SEND key.

  There was a loud bang as an explosion blew a section of the cowling off the port side jet engine.

  “Holy shit!” Arnsbarger exclaimed, in case anyone was listening. “We got us a fire in number one!”