by Tom Clancy
“Jesus! Coming up at nine!”
Captain Jackson’s head snapped to the left. Fifty feet away was a MiG-29 Fulcrum-N, the new naval variant of the Russian air-superiority fighter. The visored face of the pilot was staring at him. Robby saw that four missiles were hanging on the wings. The Tomcat had only two at the moment.
“Came up from underneath,” Shredder reported.
“Clever of him.” Robby took the news with equanimity. The Russian pilot waved. Robby returned the gesture.
“Damn, if he wanted to—”
“Shredder, will you cool it? I’ve been playing games with Ivan for almost twenty years. I’ve intercepted more Bears than you’ve had pussy. We’re not tactical. I just wanted to fly back here and get a look at their formation. Ivan over there decided to come up to look at us. He’s being neighborly about it.” Robby edged his stick forward, taking his aircraft down a few feet. He wanted to eyeball the Russian’s underside. No extra fuel tanks, just the four missiles, AA-11 “Archers,” NATO called them. The tail hook looked flimsier than the one the Americans had on their planes, and he remembered reports of landing problems the Russians had experienced. Well, carrier aviation was new to them, wasn’t it? They’d spend years learning all the lessons. Other than that, the aircraft looked impressive. Newly painted, the pleasant gray the Russians used instead of the high-tech infrared-suppressive gray that the U.S. Navy had adopted a few years ago. The Russian version was prettier; the USN paint was more effective in concealment, though it did give the planes a painfully leprous appearance. He memorized the tail number to report to the wing intelligence troops. He couldn’t see any of the pilot. The helmet and visor covered his face, and he wore gloves. Fifty-foot closure was a little tight, but not that big a deal. Probably the Russian was trying to show him that he was good, but not crazy. That was fair enough. Robby came back up level and waved to thank the Russian for holding a steady line. Again the gesture was returned.
What’s your name, boy? Robby thought. He also wondered what the Russian thought about the victory flag painted under the cockpit, under which was printed in small letters, MiG-29, 17-1-91. Let’s not get too cocky over there.
The 747 landed after its long trans-Pacific flight, much to the relief of the flight crew, Clark was sure. Twelve-hour flights must have been a bitch, the CIA officer was sure, especially flying into a smog-filled bowl at the end of it. The aircraft taxied out, then turned and finally stopped at a space marked by a military band, several rows of soldiers and civilians, and the customary red carpet.
“You know, after that much time in an airplane I’m too dogshit to do anything intelligent,” Chavez observed quietly.
“So remember never to run for president,” Clark replied.
“Right, Mr. C.”
The stairs were rolled up, and presently the door opened. The band struck up something or other—the two CIA officers were too far away to hear it clearly. The normal TV crews flitted about. The arriving Japanese Prime Minister was met by the Mexican Foreign Minister, listened to a brief speech, made a brief one of his own, walked past the troops who’d been standing in place for ninety minutes, then did the first sensible thing of the day. He got into a limo and drove off to his embassy for a shower—or more likely, Clark thought, a hot bath. The way the Japs did it was probably the perfect cure for air travel, a long soak in hundred-plus degree water. It was sure to take the wrinkles out of the skin and the stiffness out of the muscles, John thought. Pity that Americans hadn’t learned that one. Ten minutes after the last dignitary left, and the troops marched off, and the carpet was rolled back up, the maintenance people were summoned to the aircraft.
The pilot spoke briefly with the head mechanic. One of the big Pratt and Whitney engines was running just a hair warm. Other than that, he had no beefs at all. Then the flight crew departed for a rest. Three security people took station around the outside of the aircraft. Two more paced the interior. Clark and Chavez entered, showing their passes to Mexican and Japanese officials, and went to work. Ding started in the washrooms, taking his time because he’d been told the Japanese were particular about having spotless latrines. It required only one sniff of the air inside the airplane to note that Japanese citizens were allowed to smoke. Each ashtray had to be checked, and more than half of those required emptying and cleaning. Newspapers and magazines were collected. Other cleaning staff handled the vacuuming.
Forward, Clark checked the booze locker. Half the people aboard must have arrived with hangovers, he decided. There were some serious drinkers aboard. He was also gratified to see that the technical people at Langley had guessed right on the brand of scotch that JAL liked to serve. Finally he went up to the lounge area behind the cockpit. It exactly matched the computer mock-up he’d examined for hours prior to coming down. By the time he’d finished his cleaning duties, he was sure that bringing this one off would be a snap. He helped Ding with the trash bags and left the aircraft in time to catch a dinner. On the way out to his car, he passed a note to a CIA officer from Station Mexico.
“Goddamn it!” Ryan swore. “This came in through State?”
“Correct, sir. Director Cabot’s orders to use a fax line. He wanted to save transcription time.”
“Didn’t Sam Yamata bother to explain about datelines and time zones?”
“’Fraid not.”
There was no sense swearing further at the man from the Japan Department. Ryan read through the pages again. “Well, what do you think?”
“I think the Prime Minister is walking into an ambush.”
“Isn’t that too damned bad?” Ryan observed. “Messenger this down to the White House. The President’s going to want it PDQ.”
“Right.” The man left. Ryan dialed up operations next. “How’s Clark doing?” Jack asked without preamble.
“Okay, he says. He’s ready to make the plant. The monitor aircraft are all standing by. We know of no changes in the PM’s schedule.”
“Thanks.”
“How long are you going to be in?”
Jack looked outside. The snow had already started. “Maybe all night.”
It was developing into a big one. The eastbound cold-weather storm from the Midwest was linking into a low-pressure area coming up the coast. The really big snowstorms in the D.C. area always came in from the south, and the National Weather Service was saying six-to-eight inches. That prediction was up from two-to-four only a few hours earlier. He could leave work right now, then try to fight his way back in the morning, or he could stay. Staying, unfortunately, looked like the best option.
Golovko was also in his office, though the time in Moscow was eight hours ahead of Washington. That fact did not contribute to Sergey’s humor, which was poor.
“Well?” he asked the man from the communications-intelligence watch staff.
“We got lucky. This document was sent by facsimile printer from the U.S. Embassy Tokyo to Washington.” He handed the sheet over.
The slick thermal paper was covered mainly with gibberish, some discrete but disordered letters, and even more black-and-white hash from the random noise, but perhaps as much as twenty percent was legible English, including two complete sentences and one full paragraph.
“Well?” Golovko asked again.
“When I delivered it to the Japanese section for comment, they handed me this.” Another document was passed. “I’ve marked the paragraph.”
Golovko read the Russian-language paragraph, then compared it to the English—
“It’s a fucking translation. How was our document sent in?”
“By embassy courier. It wasn’t transmitted because two of the crypto machines in Tokyo were being repaired, and the Rezident decided it was unimportant enough to wait. It ended up in the embassy bag. So they are not reading our ciphers, but they got this anyway.”
“Who’s working this case? Lyalin? Yes,” Golovko said, almost to himself. He next called the senior watch officer for the First Chief Directorate. “Colonel,
this is Golovko. I want a Flash-priority to Rezident Tokyo. Lyalin to report to Moscow immediately.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The problem is we have another leak.”
“Lyalin is a very effective officer. I know the material he’s sending back.”
“So do the Americans. Get that message off at once. Then I want everything we have from THISTLE on my desk.” Golovko hung up and looked at the Major standing in front of his desk. “That mathematician who figured this all out—good God, I wish we’d had him five years ago!”
“He spent ten years devising this theory on ordering chaos. If it’s ever made public, he’ll win the Planck Medal. He took the work of Mandelbrot at Harvard University in America and MacKenzie at Cambridge, and—”
“I will take your word for it, Major. The last time you tried to explain this witchcraft to me I merely got a headache. How is the work going?”
“We grow stronger every day. The only thing we cannot break is the new CIA system that’s starting to come on line. It seems to use a new principle. We’re working on it.”
President Fowler boarded the Marine VH-3 helicopter before the snow got too bad. Painted a shiny olive-drab on the bottom, with white on top, and little else in the way of markings, it was his personal bird, with the call sign Marine-One. Elizabeth Elliot boarded just behind him, the press corps noted. Pretty soon they’d have to break the story on the two, some thought. Or maybe the President would do the job for them by marrying the bitch.
The pilot, a Marine lieutenant colonel, brought the twin-turbine engines to full power, then eased up on the collective, rising slowly and turning northwest. He was almost instantly on instruments, which he didn’t like. Flying blind and on instruments didn’t trouble him. Flying blind and on instruments with the President aboard did. Flying in snow was about the worst thing there was. All external visual references were gone. Staring out the windshield could turn the most seasoned airman into a disoriented and airsick feather-merchant in a matter of seconds. As a result, he spent far more time scanning his instruments. The chopper had all manner of safety features, including collision-avoidance radar, plus having the undivided attention of two senior air-traffic controllers. In some perverse ways, this was a safe way to fly. In clear air some lunatic with a Cessna might just try to perform a midair with Marine-One, and maneuvering to avoid such things was a regular drill for the Colonel, both in the air and in the aircraft simulator at Anacostia Naval Air Station.
“Wind’s picking up faster than I ’spected,” the copilot, a major, observed.
“May get a little bumpy when we hit the mountains.”
“Should have left a little sooner.”
The pilot switched settings on his intercom box, linking him with the two Secret Service agents in back. “May want to make sure everybody’s strapped in tight. Picking up a little chop.”
“Okay, thanks,” Pete Connor replied. He looked to see that everyone’s seat belt was securely fastened. Everyone aboard was too seasoned a flyer to be the least bit concerned, but he preferred a smooth ride as much as the next person. The President, he saw, was fully relaxed, reading over a folder that had just arrived a few minutes before they’d left. Connor settled back also. Connor and D’Agustino loved Camp David. A company of hand-picked Marine riflemen provided perimeter security. They were backed up and augmented by the best electronic surveillance systems America had ever built. Backing everyone up were the usual Secret Service agents. Nobody was scheduled to come in or out of the place this weekend, except possibly one CIA messenger who would drive. Everyone could relax, including the President and his lady friend, Connor thought.
“This is getting bad. Better tell the weather pukes to stick their head out the window.”
“They said eight inches.”
“I got a buck says more than a foot.”
“I never bet against you on weather,” the copilot reminded the Colonel.
“Smart man, Scotty.”
“Supposed to clear tomorrow night.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it, too.”
“Temp’s supposed to drop to zero, too, maybe a touch under.”
“That I believe,” the Colonel said, checking his altitude, compass, and artificial horizon. His eyes went outboard again, seeing only snowflakes being churned by the downwash of the rotor tips. “What do you call visibility?”
“Oh, in a clear spot ... maybe a hundred feet ... maybe one-fifty....” The Major turned to grin at the Colonel. The grin stopped when he started thinking about the ice that might build up on the airframe. “What’s the outside temp?” he murmured to himself.
“Minus 12 centigrade,” the Colonel said before he could look at the thermometer.
“Coming up?”
“Yeah. Let’s take her down a little, ought to be colder.”
“Goddamned D.C. weather.”
Thirty minutes later they circled over Camp David. Strobe lights told them where the landing pad was—you could see down better than in any other direction. The copilot looked aft to check the fairing over the landing gear. “We got a little ice now, Colonel. Let’s get this beast down before something scary happens. Wind is thirty knots at three-zero-zero.”
“Starting to feel a touch heavy.” The VH-3 could pick up as much as four hundred pounds of ice per minute under the right—wrong—weather conditions. “Fuckin’ weather weenies. Okay, I got the LZ in sight.”
“Two hundred feet, airspeed thirty,” the Major read off the instruments. “One fifty at twenty-five ... one hundred at under twenty ... looking good ... fifty feet and zero ground-speed....”
The pilot eased down on the collective. The snow on the ground started blowing up from the rotor-wash. It created a vile condition called a white-out. The visual references which had just reappeared—vanished instantly. The flight crew felt themselves to be inside a Ping-Pong ball. Then a gust of wind swung the helicopter around to the left, tilting it also. The pilot’s eyes immediately flicked down to the artificial horizon. He saw it tilt, knowing that the danger that had appeared was as severe as it was unexpected. He moved the cyclic to level the aircraft and dropped the collective to the floor. Better a hard landing than catching a rotor in the trees he couldn’t see. The helicopter dropped like a stone—exactly three feet. Before people aboard realized that something was wrong, the helicopter was down and safe.
“And that’s why they let you fly the Boss,” the Major said over the intercom. “Nice one, Colonel.”
“I think I broke something.”
“I think you’re right.”
The pilot keyed the intercom. “Sorry about that. We caught a gust over the pad. Everybody okay back there?”
The President was already up, leaning into the cockpit. “You were right, Colonel. We should have left sooner. My mistake,” Fowler said graciously. What the hell, he thought, he wanted this weekend.
The Camp David detachment opened the chopper’s door. An enclosed HMMWV pulled up to it so that the President and his party didn’t have to get too cold. The flight crew watched them pull away, then checked for damage.
“Thought so.”
“Metering pin?” The Major bent down to look. “Sure enough.” The landing had just been hard enough to snap the pin that controlled the hydraulic shock-absorber on the right-side landing gear. It would have to be fixed.
“I’ll go check to see if we have a spare,” the crew chief said. Ten minutes later he was surprised to learn that they didn’t. That was annoying. He placed a phone call to the helicopter base at the old Anacostia Naval Air Station to have a few driven up. Until it arrived, there was nothing that could be done. The aircraft could still be flown in an emergency, of course. A fire team of Marine riflemen stood close guard on the helicopter, as always, while another squad walked perimeter guard in the woods around the landing-pad area.
“What is it, Ben?”
“Does this place have a dorm?” Goodley asked.
Jack shook h
is head. “You can use the couch in Nancy’s office if you want. How’s your paper coming?”
“I’m going to be up all night anyway. I just thought of something.”
“What’s that?”
“Going to sound a little crazy—nobody ever checked to make sure that our friend Kadishev actually met with Narmonov.”
“What do you mean?”
“Narmonov was out of town most of last week. If there was no meet, then the guy was lying to us, wasn’t he?”
Jack closed his eyes and cocked his head to one side. “Not bad, Dr. Goodley, not bad.”
“We have Narmonov’s itinerary. I have people checking on Kadishev’s now. I’m going all the way back to last August. If we’re going to do a check, it might as well be a comprehensive one. My position piece might be a little late, but this hit me last—this morning, actually. I’ve been chasing it down most of the day. It’s harder than I thought.”
Jack motioned to the storm outside. “Looks like I’m going to be stuck here awhile. Want some help?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Let’s get some dinner first.”
Oleg Yurievich Lyalin boarded his flight to Moscow with mixed feelings. The summons was not all that irregular. It was troublesome that it had come so soon after his meeting with the CIA Director, but that was probably happenstance. More likely it had to do with the information he’d been delivering to Moscow about the Japanese Prime Minister’s trip to America. One surprise he had not told CIA concerned Japanese overtures to the Soviet Union to trade high technology for oil and lumber. That deal would have upset the Americans greatly only a few years earlier, and marked the culmination of a five-year project that Lyalin had worked on. He settled into his airline seat and allowed himself to relax. He had never betrayed his country, after all, had he?
