The Tashkent Crisis

by William Craig

  Bruk asked Kapista to wait a moment while he got another instrument. When the scientist returned, he had a Geiger counter, which he held over the pistol. The needle jumped to the limit of the radioactivity-detection gauge. Bruk backed away swiftly, colliding with the startled Kapitsa.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you, Bruk?”

  “Colonel, you are standing in front of an atomic bomb.”

  Twelve hundred feet beneath the crest of the Maryland mountain, the President of the United States had heard about Marshal Moskanko’s cable to Serkin. The giant radar installation on the northern coast of Turkey had picked the sentences out of the air and translated the code in one minute and twenty-five seconds. By phone, Stark had absorbed the dreadful news that the Soviet Union was evidently determined to incinerate Los Angeles. Utterly defenseless, it would substitute for Washington, and Stark had no time left to evacuate the new target. Eight million people would die in the next half hour, and he could prevent it only by surrender. Even in surrender the President wondered whether Los Angeles might be annihilated for effect.

  He was in a final meeting with his cabinet, most of whom were still trying to cope with the shocking story the Secretary of State, Martin Manson, had just revealed to them. Each had retreated into his own world, thinking of families supposedly spending the night in Virginia or Maryland as part of the general evacuation from title capital. Some had already recovered enough to grapple with the awesome decision to fight or surrender, and, when Stark asked for their views, the room erupted into a babel of divergent opinions. Stark tried to sort out voices but finally threw his hands up and shouted:

  “Gentlemen, hold it down. I don’t have any time left to seek all your opinions and frankly I want to apologize for not letting you in on this earlier. But I had my reason, and it was simple. The fewer that knew about this, the better. Newspapermen would have been after you. If they saw cabinet sessions late at night, the word would have gotten out quickly, and I’d have had more trouble answering them than trying to figure out this horrible situation.

  “At any rate, I’m glad you’re with me now for the final decision, and I want you to participate in it. Secretary Manson has fully explained my choices. Now with this latest word on Los Angeles, I have precious few minutes to act. We must either send in the SR-71 and notify the Russians as to our intention, or we must surrender. I will not send in hundreds of missiles. Given this insane situation, the single plane General Roarke suggested is a reasonable alternative at this moment. There is little doubt it will get over the target. The only question left then will be the Soviet response. And, as I said, I will tell them by hot line the plane is all we will send against them. If they still choose to fight and launch their missiles against us, the decision is theirs and not mine. But their response could bring death to our civilization.”

  Propelled by the emergency before him, Stark was speaking hurriedly. His face was calm, his voice deep and confident. He had come out of his bedroom determined to move firmly toward a resolution of the crisis. He was satisfied he had done all he could to defuse the situation in the past days. Now his options were running out.

  “I am going to ask you to vote with me on this issue. Please mark the white slips of paper before you with the word yes or no. You need not sign your name. A yes will signify your willingness to use the atomic bomber. A no would express your decision to capitulate and avoid nuclear war. I have no other reasonable alternatives to offer you.”

  Like schoolboys, they glanced furtively at one another and cupped a hand over the word they wrote down. Each folded his paper in two, sometimes three sections before handing it to General Roarke, who walked back and forth collecting the votes. Roarke brought them to Stark, who sat expressionless at the head of the table. He read the first one: “Yes,” then on to another “Yes”; “Yes”; the fourth one was called out: “No,” and General Roarke stared wildly down the ranks of civilians, who ignored him.

  Stark now had two piles in front of him. The sixth and seventh both called upon him to surrender, and the atmosphere in the room was heavy with unconcealed tension. Robert Randall knew what he wanted to do. Sam Riordan knew too, but the President had surprised them by asking for this vote, and they were not sure what he had decided. The eleventh vote was for attack, and Stark, betraying no emotion, placed it on the pile to his right. He read the last three aloud, and Randall who had counted them silently figured it as eleven for fighting and three for quiting. He glanced nervously at the President, who checked the clock on the wall—it read 10:32 P.M. Stark pushed all the papers together, and rose briskly from his seat.

  “Thanks very much for your opinions. To those of you who voted against using a nuclear weapon on the enemy, I appreciate your profound concern for the lives of millions. But we will go with General Roarke’s plan and pray to God that the Soviets stop this insane game.”

  Nodding to Randall and Riordan, Stark hurried out to the Situation Room. There he picked up a red phone, spoke curtly to General Ellington at Incirclik Airbase, and hung up.

  On the runway at Incirclik, the three-man crew of the SR-71 listened to Ellington on the intercom. Quickly the pilot cut in power to the jet engines, and the plane moved off down the field. In two minutes it was airborne.

  In the control tower, General Ellington held the red phone in one hand and watched the atomic bomber disappear into a cloud bank. He was momentarily distracted by an aide who noted: “Thirty-seven minutes to drop.” Ellington nodded and held onto the phone in case Stark had any further word.

  The clock in the Maryland Situation Room pointed to 10:48 P.M. Stark had just handed the text of a message for the hot line to Sergeant Arly Cooper, who had received the ultimatum message at 11:18 P.M., just seventy-one hours and thirty minutes before. Cooper had spent the last days in a terrible state of anxiety, for he among very few knew the entire truth behind the strange happenings in and around the capital. Cooper had not been able to confide anything to his wife. He had become irritable with his family and hated himself for behaving so badly. When the summons came to accompany the President into the mountain, Copper was almost relieved to be able to take the awful secret with him into the cave. He told his wife he would be back in several days, and she had smiled tightly and bid him a curt farewell. Now Cooper sat before the machine, preparing to relay Stark’s answer to the Soviet High Command.

  The President’s mind was whirling as he considered last-minute details before the irrevocable commitment to his policy. He called the Samos and Midas tracking unit and heard the same report: No sign of detonation or damage to the laser. In addition, Samos had just begun to record the emergence of the laser from its lair.

  Stark ran to the wall, and the television screen jumped to life. His heart pounded as he watched the silvery weapon protruding from the building eighty-seven miles below the stationary satellite. Stark felt he could almost glimpse figures moving about in the shadowy cavern beneath it. He called for Randall and Riordan to join him at the wall. General Steve Roarke moved up behind them and stared at the apparition:

  “They’re getting ready. Just twenty-eight minutes.”

  The entire cabinet now gathered around the giant wall screen. Secretary of Labor Bruce Hinton was weeping openly as he waited for the imminent deaths of millions in Los Angeles.

  Robert Randall looked at him without comment. General Roarke snarled: “Stop sniveling, Hinton. For Christ’s sake, this is the time to be a man, not a mouse.”

  Roarke made a mental note that Hinton had probably voted to surrender. He reminded himself to find the other two “peaceniks” in the coming days, if there were any days to come.

  “OK, let them know about the SR-71.”

  Cooper began typing.

  ONE PLANE ENTERING YOUR AIRSPACE NOW TO VICINITY OF TASHKENT. IT WILL DESTROY LASER GUN AND RETURN TO BASE. NO OTHER WEAPONS WILL BE EMPLOYED AGAINST YOUR COUNTRY.

  STARK

  Stark kept his eyes fastened on the television screen.

&
nbsp; In the scientists’ briefing room, a concrete blockhouse with one glass wall, Marshal Bakunin sat before a closed-circuit television screen linking him with Moskanko in the defense command headquarters northwest of Moscow.

  Bruk was with Bakunin, giving both marshals an explanation of the inner workings of the atomic bomb, now laid bare on the table. Bruk had carefully pried loose the butt cover and snipped out of vial of acid with a pair of fingernail scissors. On the television monitor, Moskanko had listened in amazement as the white-smocked scientist extolled the sophistication of the device. He explained that when the two wires linking the battery to the nuclear mass were disconnected, the plastique cover would immediately implode onto the fissionable material. He estimated that it was capable of pulverizing a six-square-mile area.

  Beside him, Marshal Bakunin listened impatiently to the recital and finally exploded.

  “Viktor Semyonovich, you have seen this damned bomb, and how it works. But more important, I have just seen a copy of the order you sent to Serkin changing the target to Los Angeles. You very neatly bypassed me until I went to the signal center and found this transmission from you.”

  On the wall, the face of Moskanko seemed to expand into a cherry-red bulge.

  “I do not know what prompted you to do this,” Bakunin went on, “but you must rescind the order right now. I went along with the Israeli strike because I could justify it as a legitimate military requirement, but this, killing several million human beings … it’s not war, Viktor Semyonovich. It’s an abomination.”

  Moskanko’s mouth moved on the screen, and his words thundered out from the wall.

  “You are talking foolishness, Pavel Andreievich. You learned years ago that a civilian population in modern warfare is on the front lines as much as the foot soldier. The missiles you developed for a strike against an enemy will kill millions of people when you launch them. You have always known that.”

  Bakunin cut him short. “But that was only in defense of the motherland. I never doubted I could send them out against someone who attacked us first, but what you propose to do is wanton murder of the innocent. For effect, you say.” Bakunin got up, strode to the glass wall, looked through it into the laser chamber, then returned to look at the television.

  In the Moscow defense center, Marshal Moskanko studied his agitated brother-in-law on the wall screen. Patiently, he tried to reason with him. “Pavel Andreievich, please do not interfere any more with me. I am not a fool. I know who the enemy is and always has been, and I am taking the proper steps to eliminate them as a menace to us.”

  “That is nonsense, Viktor Semyonovich. You are just trying to justify—”

  An aide appeared at Moskanko’s elbow and handed him Stark’s hot-line message. The marshal read it and jumped up. “Nonsense, Pavel Andreievich? Well, they have just sent a bomber against us. And it is heading right for you. Wait there until I settle this.” As Moskanko rushed away to the hot-line machine to answer Stark’s challenge, the television screen went dead.

  Marshal Bakunin sat in the briefing room in Tashkent and waited anxiously for the monitor to come to life again. It was his only link with the unfolding tragedy he had predicted.

  In the Soviet defense command center north of Saratov, monitors locked in on the SR-71 as it approached the Soviet border at a speed of 1,980 miles an hour.

  “Altitude?” asked a colonel at the control board.

  “It’s at a hundred and two thousand feet, heading due east. Just crossing the Caspian Sea south of Baku.”

  The colonel was at the phone talking to Marshal Moskanko.

  “Sir, a bomber has just penetrated our airspace.”

  “Shoot it down, goddamnit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The colonel hung up and called: “Intercept with surface-to-air immediately.”

  In the complex twelve miles north of Tashkent, the laser had stopped its climb into the sky. It hung there on its hydraulic lift, while below technicians scanned instruments. With the roof opened, the morning sunlight poured onto the floor of the building. The gun was cocked, ready to perform. Only a word from Moscow was needed.

  Glasov was at his station beside the laser, monitoring the telemetry that recorded the weapon’s vital functions. At 9:56 A.M., twenty-two minutes to zero hour, Anatoly Serkin appeared at his elbow, and Glasov said: “Where have you been? Moskanko is in a rage, and I have been looking all over for you.”

  Serkin did not answer the question.

  “Feed in the power, Glasov.”

  “But we do not have to do that until Moskanko gives word to fire.”

  “Feed it now. I want to make sure everything is perfect.”

  “Yes, sir.” Glasov punched a button and his gauges immediately recorded a huge surge in energy intake.

  When Glasov turned back from his board, Serkin was no longer beside him. He had gone down the steps of the catwalk that spiraled around the barrel of the weapon and was approaching the safety door at its base. The astounded Glasov followed him down and saw the professor working swiftly at the pressure valve that kept the door sealed tight. Serkin had it opened in seconds.

  Glasov screamed: “Professor, have you gone crazy? You will be burned to death.”

  Over the wasteland of the Kara Kum Desert, the electronics countermeasures officer on board the SR-71 spoke rapidly: “Six SAMs on way up.” He pressed a switch to initiate jamming of the missiles’ electronic-guidance systems.

  The pilot nodded and looked out his left window. Far below, he saw flaming trails and just above them what looked like supersonic telephone poles that were reaching up to touch and kill him.

  The commotion at the base of the laser had brought scientists and technicians away from their posts to the railings of the catwalks to peer below.

  Serkin faintly heard Glasov screaming at him. From his left pocket he pulled the bottle of tritium and held it high. He reached into his right pocket and felt the cool disk of the shaving mirror. Serkin knew death was seconds away. When he focused the mirror in front of the escaping rays of the laser, it would reflect the rays back onto the bottle of tritium and ignite the isotope. Before Serkin’s hand was melted by the rays coming out of the bottom end of the barrel, the entire building would be demolished.

  He pulled the mirror out, and Glasov saw the glint of light.

  The assistant leaped down the intervening ten steps and threw himself at the professor. His hands clawed at Serkin and dragged him back from the opening. The mirror flew in one direction and splintered against a railing. The bottle of tritium fell through the grating on the catwalk and crashed harmlessly into the blackness around the hydraulic lift. Serkin was whimpering as his assistant held him down. His glasses had broken, and he could not see Glasov very well.

  “Why did you stop me? It was the only way.” He cried in frustration as a voice from above said: “Take him outside.”

  Glasov helped Serkin to his feet and led him up the stairs. Someone punched a button, and the microwaves of energy from the nuclear generator ceased to flood into the laser barrel. It was unharmed, still ready to fire at 10:18 A.M., Tashkent time, now just seventeen minutes away. Anatoly Serkin was marched outside.

  Still jamming the electronic-guidance system of the surface-to-air missiles, the SR-71 pilot veered the plane sharply to the right. The cluster of missiles faded suddenly and fell back toward the earth. The bomber resumed course, boring across the parched and serrated crust of Central Asia while the pilot spoke briefly to Incirclik:

  “First SAMs detected and evaded. ECM officer now monitoring dozen MIGs trying to catch up.”

  In the Situation Room at the underground White House, General Roarke listened in on the call and relayed information to his audience: “SAMs licked so far. Incirclik says ten minutes to drop.” On the wall clock the second hand had just swept past 11:02 P.M.

  In the infirmary, Colonel Lavrenti Kapitsa had just entered Joe Safcek’s room. The colonel was carrying a copy of the International Register
of Handguns. Safcek acknowledged his greeting groggily just as the walkie-talkie at the colonel’s hip crackled.

  “Kapitsa here.”

  “Colonel,” the voice came metallically from the walkie-talkie, “we have trouble here at the laser. Dr. Serkin has just attempted to destroy the weapon, but the attempt was blocked. He is being taken out to the quadrangle now.”

  “Is everything back to normal inside the building?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” Colonel Kapitsa broke the connection and went to the window.

  Outside, on the grassy quadrangle, the professor’s shirt, pants, and underwear had been removed, and his captors were looking him over for any further evidence of sabotage equipment. A guard put grease on his middle finger as Serkin was forced to bend over.

  Across the compound, the colonel turned back from the window with a satisfied grunt and said: “Colonel Safcek, this place is crawling with fellows like you.”

  Joe Safcek’s close-cropped head struggled up to look at the friendly colonel, who added: “But fortunately we have been able to catch all of you. Even our best scientists have turned against us.” The officer shook his head in disbelief.

  Safcek’s face fell, and the colonel approached the bed.

  “I thought I would leave something here for you to read. I was fortunate enough to learn a great deal from it this morning.”

  Kapitsa opened the book to a certain page and laid it on Safcek’s lap.

  “If you look closely at the picture of the Colt .45, Colonel, you will see that it has no black button on the butt.”

  Safcek’s eyes betrayed him. They darted up at the smiling police officer, who shook his head in awe. “You almost fooled me, Colonel. I must admit I never thought that weapon you carried could be so deadly. My compliments to you and your scientists.”

  Joe Safcek did not answer. As the realization of his ultimate failure engulfed him, his head slumped back onto the pillow.

  The International Register fell to the floor, and the walkie-talkie crackled sharply: