A steam kettle’s annoying whistle pulled Annapolis back into focus. He turned off the gas stove, washed his hands to remove grime from furnace repairs, then poured a cup of hot java and sat down at the table, opening the large tin box which he had just discovered behind a ventilation grill in a ceiling—artifacts of his father’s double life. Memories.
He wrestled with the interpretation of the contents—intellectually and emotionally. Some items had clear-cut meaning. Ticket stubs showed where he had been—Berlin, Istanbul, even Moscow. There were passports, with varying countries of origin, varying names and stamped entries that read like a list of Cold War hotspots.
It was the ambiguous artifacts that he struggled with the most. They were like black-and-white illusions which shift in the mind’s eye from figure to ground, back to figure. He played with a wire survival saw—the kind they give to combat aviators, or SEALS. You could grip the ring on each end with a thumb. The wire’s rough, chiseled edge was sharp enough to cut through wood or steel—a useful instrument for escaping or evading behind enemy lines. It could also be used as a garrote, to sever necks. He noticed a dark stain which reached almost to the thumb rings.Tree sap, or blood ?
Certainly, evil in the world needed a counterweight. Alexander Sverdlov had simply balanced such evil against the means and methods required to fight it. The principles of duty, honor, country served as a filter—a way to put things in perspective.
And yet. The idea of cold-bloodedly killing one’s own countrymen was difficult to reconcile with other principles. Alien. Inhuman. Hitler and Stalin had done it. But Alexander Sverdlov, his own father...
Yuri decided to go for a walk along the shoreline. It would help him think.
19. LAUNCH CODES
August 1991
Moscow
A light drizzle fell, with spirit-dampening effect. On a speeding motorcycle, it was like riding through sheets of water. The biker slowed as he pulled through a narrow alley next to Vosstaniya, then rolled to a stop, cutting the engine. “It’s just ahead,” he said, face and hair wet from weather. “I don’t want to get too close. They know we’re tracking them. If you get into trouble, yell. I’ll be there, but I may have time for just one pass. Be ready.”
Daniel and Katrina got off the bike and walked toward the square. They heard engine noises and smelled fumes from idling APCs.
“What is this Alpha Unit?” Katrina asked.
“It’s the Soviet KGB’s elite anti-terrorist unit. The same group that assaulted TV facilities in Vilnius last January. They’re good. A crack team of about 200 men. They killed my brother-in-law in that assault and his son.”
“Anton,” she said.
Daniel nodded.
They approached the end of the alley. Daniel pressed a finger to his lips. They moved quietly, then looked into the square.
* * *
Rain beat a drumroll on ten armored vehicles. Idling engines played the bass section. Streetlights ringed the stage. Major Velon Bunyayev posed on the podium—an APC turret, inspecting Alpha Unit. Vehicle commanders waited for his cue.
“I don’t have to tell you,” he shouted, “how critical this mission is!”
Unmindful of the downpour, he scanned the unit.
“The Emergency Committee—specifically, General Varrenikov, of the Army... and General Kryuchkov of the KGB—depend on your success. They have warned the Russian Parliament that they will not tolerate insubordination! Agencies which defy the Committee will be dismantled.” He paused for effect, then said, slowly, “The Russian Parliament has defied the Committee.”
In Bunyayev’s mind the conclusion was inescapable—a matter of pure logic. “We now go to the Parliament Building to execute the wishes of the Committee. We now go to the Parliament Building to restore order. We now go to the Parliament Building to return the Communist Party to its rightful glory. We will secure the building within 30 minutes. That is our goal. You did well at Vilnius. Today there will be heavy casualties, but they will not be your casualties. They will be the fools who now defy the Committee. We go now for honor and Soviet glory! For duty and country!”
Bunyayev opened the hatch, climbed in and thumped the turret.
The driver, who had been listening to Bunyayev’s speech, maneuvered ahead into the single APC-accessible street entering into the square, turned the vehicle sideways and shut off the engine. Other APC drivers observed the rebellious action. One by one, they, too, turned their engines off.
Bunyayev was confused. “What are you doing?” he yelled.
Amid this anti-climax, an unexpected figure approached, moving between the stalled APCs. “Major!” Daniel yelled.
Bunyayev moved his hand to his holster. The figure continued walking toward him.
“I am Russian KGB! I have some information for you!” Daniel walked to the front of the vehicle.
Bunyayev looked down from the hatch, rivulets of water flowing from crooks in his hat.
“Can I come up? Or you come down? Please? I have a communiqué you need to see.”
Bunyayev thought for a moment, nodded, then climbed down. “You have something to give me?”
Daniel nodded. He withdrew a paper from his water-drenched coat and held it high in the air for Alpha Unit to see. He gave it ceremoniously to Bunyayev.
“I don’t understand,” the Major said. What is this? A child’s cartoon?”
He was not expecting Daniel’s round house kick that rocketed him against an armored fender. A second kick flattened him on the ground.
Daniel walked slowly to the sprawled figure and ripped the name tag from Bunyayev’s uniform. “What you did at Vilnius, and what you’re doing today, won’t be forgotten. After the revolution, there will be justice.” He rolled Bunyayev on his stomach and pushed his face into the mud with a boot. He lifted the gun from Bunyayev’s holster. Rounds plunked like metal raindrops in pools of water. Daniel threw the empty weapon onto the wet ground. Before he retreated to the alley, he wiped his boots on Bunyayev’s back. “Let’s go,” he said to Katrina. “there won’t be any problem here.”
Behind them, BMPs started their engines. They filed out of the square, one at a time, leaving Bunyayev wallowing in the mud—alone, beaten, clutching his gun and fishing for bullets.
* * *
The lift carrying Daniel and Katrina moved slowly with creaks and groans to the fifth floor, stopping in a lurch. Daniel opened the cage-style door. They stepped out into a Stalin-era viewscape of cement-floored hallways and buzzing, erratic fluorescent lights.
Even though Boris Pugo was a high ranking Soviet official, the common areas in his apartment building suffered from a type of neglect typical of the communist state. Graffiti, trash and damp gray walls heralded the visitors as they approached Pugo’s door.
They heard a faint sobbing inside.
Daniel pushed. The unlocked door swung open. They stepped inside.
The living room was empty, but there were signs of recent human habitation—a drained bottle of vodka on a coffee table and two glasses containing half-melted ice. In the kitchen, a woman’s body sprawled on the floor, head centered in a pool of blood.
“Probably his wife,” Daniel said.
Sounds of movement came from behind. They heard a gun cock.
“Yes! My wife!” a man yelled.
They spun around.
Boris Pugo braced a pistol with two hands, alternating the barrel between Daniel and Katrina. Sweat dripped from the end of his nose and lazy beads of moisture gravitated downward across chubby, pallid cheeks.
Easy, Katrina thought.No sudden movements.Try to make him relax .
Pugo breathed rapidly and shallowly. Darting, sunken eyes spoke of madness and anger.
“Please—be calm,” Daniel said. “Put down the gun.”
Their eyes met and locked. Daniel’s were serene, blue pools. Pugo’s were dark, disturbed storms.
Pugo blinked.
The gun barrel exploded in a deafeningBOOM !
&
nbsp; Daniel stumbled backwards, grabbed at a stack of pots and pans, then—with kitchenware crashing about him—fell dead in a corner. The bullet that hit him was a soft metal dum-dum that whirred like a helicopter’s blades, tunneling through his brain. The bloody pulp—all that remained of the delicate web of synapses and neural tissue—made a steady drip-drip-drip sound as it filled a metal pot behind his head.
As Pugo turned to Katrina, the world decelerated into slow motion.
She looked down the barrel of the gun. The shock of Pugo’s act seized her brain and wrenched her stomach. She watched a bead of sweat drip from his lip, ease gently through the air, then plunk like a teardrop on his shoe. She watched his fat, shaking fingers tighten on the trigger. She had to think. Quickly.
“The nuclear codes,” Katrina said calmly. “That’s all we’re after. You wouldn’t want them to fall into the wrong hands, would you?”
Pugo didn’t answer. He continued to hyperventilate.
“Did your wife do this to herself?” she asked, looking at the body.
He nodded, then wiped his mouth with one hand. “We were going to go together,” he rasped. “We could see it was all unraveling.”
“Where are the codes?”
“She was my only friend... the only one... Oh, God,” he bawled, doubling over. “What have we done?” He dropped to his knees. “What have we done?”
“It’s okay,” she said, moving toward him. “It’s okay. I just want the codes.”
He nodded and sobbed. “They’re in the bedroom. In a special suitcase.”
She started to move, then hesitated.
He looked up and laughed, tears streaming from his eyes. With a quick flick of the hand, he pointed the gun at her head. She thought it was all over. In that brief instant, she thought of her mother.
Then Boris Pugo smiled, calmly put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
* * *
Daniel’s body had no pulse. She laid him out and removed the child’s cartoon from his pocket.
The world is full of bastards, she thought.Why people like Daniel ?Why children ?
Daniel’s death added an abstract red motif to the edges of the drawing. She wiped her eye with a hand, brushing away the moisture. A tear tickled her cheek before it plunked down onto the cartoon.
Another design, she thought, touching the teardrop with a finger, mixing it with blood.How many more designs shall we add before it all ends ?How much more blood, before we are free, like Anton’s eagle?
She closed Daniel’s eyes, tucked the cartoon into Pugo’s electronic suitcase, locked the apartment with a key she found on Pugo’s body and departed.
Therockeri sped her back toward the Parliament Building along wet streets.
Atop the barricade, on the highest point, stood the immaculately dressed figure of Mstislav Rostropovich—cello in one hand, AK-47 in the other.
20. DOUBLE BLIND EXPERIMENT
August 1991
Johns Hopkins
“After this is over, there won’t be any doubt,” Whit Constantine said, adjusting his glasses. “We’ll be ready to press for more funding.”
Billy Stanton peered through a window which was actually a one-way mirror, built for viewing two rooms separated by a thin wall. In the room on the left, Richard Chandra sat at a table, reading a quantum physics journal. Headphones covered his ears. In the room on the right, a giant maze stretched from wall to wall. An angled mirror near the ceiling allowed the observation room to view activity within the maze.
“Here’s the setup,” Constantine said. “Inside this observation room we have video cameras synched to a common clock, recording activity in both experimental rooms. We measure the amount of time it takes for rats to navigate the maze. Richard, sitting in the other room, attempts to guide them. It’s a double blind experiment. Richard’s own eyes can’t see into the maze room, and the experimenter scoring each run doesn’t know anything about Richard or the experimental treatment.”
Billy looked around the darkened observation area, spotting the video cameras near the ceilings.
“If we ramp up in funding, I’m thinking—keep Richard’s R&D program at the same level, but add dollars to the Groom lab. We’ll develop and test the weapon system there. How’d you like to have that operation?” Billy asked.
“Well—”
“I’m not goin’ to ask twice on this. I need an R&D manager PDQ.”
“Sure, Billy. I’ll do it. I’d like that.”
Billy tapped a Lucite rat cage on a high table near the glass. “What’s this cute guy doin’ in here?”
“In this experiment, we’re using two treated animals. One of them is running the maze. This one’s observing. It sees the entire run from start to finish.”
“So Richard’s working two connections.”
“Yeah.”
“And this terminal?” Billy touched a video screen filled with rows and columns of data.
“It connects to a supercomputer which does three things. First, it records the establishment of each link. Second, it displays the data stream. Third, it acts as a filter to block the flow of certain information.”
“Like what?”
“The nervous system generates a whole melange of assorted data. Most of it isn’t needed to perform experimental tasks. It’s just noise. Getting the right data mix is something we’re working on.”
“What would be an example—”
“Pain. Richard doesn’t like it. He says that by blocking pain he can deal with problems in a way that is more objective. More human.”
“Which seems curious—”
“Wait. They’re getting ready. See? The light’s on. Now the maze door opens.”
Billy looked through the window at the brown animal scampering through the twists and turns of the giant labyrinth. The animal navigated perfectly, without a single hesitation, stopping only at the end point for a reward.
Billy sighed and shook his head. “Beautiful. You know, Whit, we’ve had our ups and downs in this program, and a lot of uncertainty, but it’s times like this where the objective seems palpable. And at the end of this maze, we find a noble goal. One that will point the human race in a new direction.”
“I used to be sure of that, Billy. Now—”
“Don’t doubt yourself now. Of course we’re right. We’ve weighed the good of the many against the hardships of the few. It’s up to us to make that trade-off, Whit. If we don’t decide, who will? Look—there goes another animal.” A broad grin spread across his face as a brown rat flawlessly weaved toward the objective, eating its reward at the end.
“Whatever that is, the animal really seems to like it,” Billy said.
“Yeah. So does Richard. We had to unblock the gustatory portion of the data stream. He wants to taste the food.”
“Pellets?”
“No—meat. Richard likes meat.”
* * *
The door to the observation room opened and Richard Chandra stepped in. He clasped Billy’s hand, shook it, then turned it over to see the jagged scar on the palm. He laughed. “Well, blood brother, what brings you here?”
“Curiosity, Richard. Whit’s been telling me about some of your successes.”
Richard’s eyes flashed at Constantine. “I thought you might have been out here to talk about increasing my funding.”
“I’ll just be going,” Constantine said, sensing a moment of tension. “I need to run a few tests.” He departed and closed the door, leaving Chandra and Stanton facing each other in the darkened shadows of the observation room.
“There’s only so much money, Richard. Sorry.”
“You’re a flim-flam man, Billy.”
“Whaddya mean?”
Richard waved a finger in front of Billy’s nose. “This grows longer when you lie,” he said. “I heard you talking to Whit.” He pointed at the rat cage. “My ears burned.”
Billy winced, shrugged, then broke into an easy grin. “Shucks, Richard,” he said, revert
ing to heavy twang, “I’ve just been too long in Washington. I’m startin’ to be a politician.”
Chandra put a muscled arm around Billy’s shoulder and whispered in his ear. “We had a bargain, Billy. You need to keep your end of it. I want control over weapons development.”
“It’s out of my hands, Richard. The Majestic Committee wants an independent project manager. Honest.”
“Okay, then this independent project manager works for me. That’s the deal.”
Billy felt his hand crushing under Richard’s grip. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Stop—”
“I don’t want lies, Billy. I don’t want deception. Play straight with me, or I’ll creep into your office and steal the truth.”
21. NEW WORLD ORDER
August 1991
Moscow
Yeltsin drove the gavel home three times. “My purpose this morning is to bring you up to date on the situation, and to propose a course of action.” He shuffled through notes on the podium. “Our sources tell us that the Minister of Defense and KGB Director could not get the support they needed for continuation of the Emergency Committee. The Minister of Defense was ordered to withdraw troops from Moscow. That withdrawal is scheduled for 3 PM today.”
A wave of applause ripped across the chamber, accompanied by excited whistles. Yeltsin let the emotion play out.
“The second thing I need to tell you is that the Foros rescue mission has succeeded. Gorbachev and his family are preparing to board a plane for Moscow. They are all safe. Kryuchkov and Yazov are under arrest.”
“I propose that when the last tank rolls out of Moscow, we arrest all members of the Emergency Committee. They must pay for their actions, and they must never again pollute the Russian spirit with their foul ideas.”
The Ganymede Project Page 11
