Simpson interrupted him. ‘Wrong. We know it’s not a proposed site. Our informant has stated categorically that the significant point is the removal of the hill.’
Kemp looked at Simpson for a moment or two, then turned to Penny. ‘OK, Penny. Get the projection room to set up for binocular projection of the last satellite picture with the Blackbird film frame of the same area.’
She returned after five minutes or so, by which time the coffee Kemp had presumably ordered had arrived. Kemp acted as mother. Richter was handed a slightly chipped white mug bearing an indecipherable legend. Simpson got a cup and saucer, plus two biscuits.
‘All ready.’
‘Good,’ said Kemp. ‘Projectionist – ready?’ The lights dimmed. Simpson and Richter looked at the images, and Penny supplied the commentary.
‘The frame on the left is the satellite picture; source, USAF; picture taken four weeks ago; vehicle, the KH–12 Reconnaissance Satellite, more familiarly known as Keyhole. The Keyhole satellite automatically converts images into digital form, then transmits the data to one of a number of communications satellites in geostationary orbit above it.’
‘And where does it go from there?’ Simpson asked.
‘Depending upon the location of the Keyhole, the communications bird beams the signal either directly, or indirectly via another communications satellite, to the Mission Ground Site at Fort Belvoir, near Washington, D.C. From Fort Belvoir, the images are passed to the National Photographic Interpretation Centre – that’s N-PIC, the Americans’ equivalent of JARIC – located in building 213 in the Washington Navy Yard. Keyhole technology means that the US planners and battle staff can get their pictures in as near real-time as makes no difference, usually no more than a few minutes after the picture was taken.
‘We,’ Penny added, ‘usually have to wait a good deal longer than that to receive images from across the pond. At best it’s hours, but usually it’s days or even weeks. The height of the satellite at this location is approximately one hundred and thirty-five miles, but as you can see the picture quality is good. This is due to the excellent cameras, and the KH–12 provides an exceptionally stable platform for long-range surveillance photography. The frame on the right is from the Blackbird film, and it covers only the central section of the satellite picture.’ She picked up a microphone from a wall bracket and spoke into it. ‘Increase magnification on the left-hand frame by a factor of ten.’ The picture wobbled slightly, and then seemed to accelerate towards the viewers. ‘Stop. That’s fine.’
She spoke to Simpson. ‘We can’t greatly increase the magnification of the satellite picture through the projection system, or we’ll start to lose definition, but I think the two frames will now illustrate what I wanted to show you.’ She picked up the microphone again. ‘Superimpose the grid overlay.’ The two frames, looking only slightly alike to Richter, suddenly sprouted vertical and horizontal lines; letters vertical, numbers horizontal. ‘Reduce grid size on the left-hand frame by thirty per cent. Stop. Hold it there.’ She walked over to the screen and took up her illuminated pointer.
‘Despite their different sizes, the two gridded areas represent the same geographical area, as near as makes no difference. They look different primarily because they have a different orientation; the left-hand frame is aligned to true north, so north is conventionally at the top of the screen. The Blackbird frame, however, is effectively rotated about one hundred and ten degrees anticlockwise, so the top of the frame is almost due east.’
She jabbed the pointer at the screen. ‘First, the points of coincidence. In grid Alpha Four, this small black patch is an outcropping of slightly darker rock.’ She pointed at a small blob on the left-hand frame, and then indicated a similar feature on the Blackbird still. Richter took her word for it, because the picture was still a confused blur as far as he was concerned. He wondered how long it took to train a PI Officer.
‘Here we have a small spur formation, in Hotel Seven, and a similar formation up here in Papa Eighteen. Now, the hill is quite clearly visible here on the left-hand frame.’ The pointer traced a dark area more or less in the centre of the frame. Richter looked over to the other picture, and he could see that there was no dark area in the corresponding grid squares – there was, in fact, a lighter patch in about the same position. Penny continued. ‘On the Blackbird frame, the hill has vanished, and there appears to be a slight depression in the same position.’
Kemp interrupted. ‘For Mr Simpson’s benefit, could you indicate the size of the hill.’
‘Certainly. To an error factor of plus or minus fifteen per cent, it is – or rather was – around two hundred feet high, five hundred feet in diameter, more or less circular, and in cross-section similar in shape to an inverted bowl.’
Kemp got up, walked to the screen and studied the two frames intently.
Simpson turned to Penny. ‘Richter tells me that you detected an unusual number of vehicles in one location in these films. Is that location anywhere near this hill?’
‘Yes, sir. They were about a mile away, down to the south-east.’
‘Anything unusual about any of the vehicles or the loads they were carrying?’
‘Nothing really, sir. As I told Commander Richter last time he was here, there were a couple of low loaders carrying a bulldozer and a digger, but all the other vehicles had rigid cargo areas. In one of the shots the civilian lorry had its rear doors open, and it looked as if it might have been carrying a small satellite dish as part of its load, but that’s all.’
‘Satellite dish? Are you sure?’
‘Frankly, sir, no. That shot was taken on a sunny day and even though the rear doors were open, the interior of the vehicle was in deep shadow. What I saw was a light-coloured disk about one metre in diameter. It looked like a satellite dish, but it could have been a small picnic table or even a big drum for all I know.’
Kemp interrupted. ‘I can’t see any evidence of tracks that would have been left by heavy wheeled vehicles in either frame, and if the hill had been flattened immediately after the satellite snap, there should still be clear traces in this frame of the presence of the machinery they used.’ He looked again at the screen. ‘What I can see, though, are some tyre marks close to the hill in the KH–12 frame. They look as if they’ve been made by a medium truck – say about a three-tonner.’
Kemp tapped the left-hand picture and addressed the room. ‘It takes a lot of very heavy-duty gear to shift something that size, you know. A hill like that isn’t like a sand castle on the beach that you can just kick over. Even using demolition charges – and they would have had to – it would have taken at least a month to shift the earth and debris. Doing a rough mental calculation, we’re talking about over one and a half million cubic metres of earth. Which is another point – where did they put it?’
‘Perhaps they dug a hole and buried it,’ Richter said. Penny giggled, and Simpson flashed him a look that could have fried an egg.
Simpson got up, walked over to the screen and looked at both pictures. ‘We aren’t, I suppose,’ he asked, after a moment or two, ‘looking at a nuclear weapon test site?’
There was a brief silence before Kemp replied. ‘Not if it was any kind of a conventional nuclear weapon, no. Underground tests always leave a depression, like these pictures show, but they also leave a telltale circular perimeter of disturbed earth some distance from the epicentre. There is no sign of such a perimeter in these pictures.’
‘What about an above-ground test?’
Kemp shook his head. ‘The Russians almost always conduct underground tests. The few above-ground tests they have done have always followed the same pattern – they build a tower around a hundred feet high and detonate the weapon at the top of it. There was no evidence of a tower in any of the Keyhole pictures.’
He looked over at Penny, who shook her head decisively. ‘Definitely not,’ she said. ‘The towers are quite unmistakable.’
‘Plus,’ Kemp went on, ‘above-ground tests sh
ow distinctive after-traces, and we haven’t seen anything like that in the Blackbird films.’
‘What about a surface detonation?’ Richter asked.
‘Sorry? What do you mean?’ Kemp looked puzzled.
‘Suppose the Russians didn’t bother erecting a tower, but just stuck a weapon on the ground or maybe just below the surface, lit the blue touch-paper and walked away?’
‘Why would they do that?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Richter replied. ‘I’m just offering a suggestion. Suppose that’s what they did. What evidence would you expect to see on the ground afterwards?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kemp said slowly. ‘If the hill was at the centre of the detonation it would presumably be vaporized, but I would still expect to see other traces, like disturbed earth further out.’ He shook his head. ‘I may be wrong, but I don’t think a nuclear device did this. It would be worth checking the seismic records, though, just to make sure.’ Kemp paused, and then made another suggestion. ‘I suppose we are looking at this from the right angle?’
‘What do you mean?’ Simpson asked, looking puzzled.
‘Well, we have two photographs here, one showing a fairly substantial hill, and the second one, taken two months later, showing no hill and no indication as to how it was removed. We are assuming – or at least I’ve been assuming – that the hill has been levelled for some sort of installation which will be built in the future. But suppose we’ve got it backwards, and that what we are seeing is not the site of a future installation, but the site of a past one.
‘Suppose the hill wasn’t a hill. Suppose it was simply a camouflaged structure housing some sort of installation that the Russians have had up there for years. That could have been removed without the use of the heavy equipment needed for earth moving, couldn’t it? And it would also provide the answer to the question I asked earlier, about where they put the earth.’
Simpson looked interested, glanced again at the pictures, then over at Richter, who shook his head. ‘My informant stressed the fact that the artefact removed was completely worthless and old – very old. He said it was pre-Christian, and I don’t think he was joking. I don’t believe he just meant something like a pre-war bunker. I think he did mean something hundreds or thousands of years old – I think the hill was just a hill.
‘And,’ Richter continued, ‘if it was artificial, what sort of installation could it have been? Bear in mind that if it was manned the people there would need food, changes of personnel, replacement equipment and spare parts. Even if it was purely some sort of monitoring station it would still need periodic checking and, presumably, repairs at odd intervals. There would have to be some evidence of transport to and from the area, even if it was only an occasional helicopter, and if there has been, I presume you haven’t seen it.’ He paused. ‘I suppose you would have seen it?’
‘I would say yes,’ Kemp replied. ‘We get a regular sighting of KH–12 and other surveillance satellite films, courtesy of the NSA and CIA, and even if there’s too much cloud cover for normal films to show much, the infra-red detectors would easily pick up anything the size of a man in the area. A helicopter would stand out like – if you’ll pardon the expression, Penny – a dog’s balls.’
Richter had a thought. ‘Are there any UK surveillance satellites covering that area?’
Kemp laughed. ‘There wasn’t any need to add the last three words. Apart from communications satellites and the geo-stationary type used by Rupert Murdoch to beam Sky television at us, the only stuff we’ve got going round this planet is scientific, and I mean really scientific, not Russian scientific. We measure cosmic radiation, take pictures of stars and listen for the extraterrestrial babblings of bug-eyed monsters, from what I can gather. What we don’t do is take pictures of Mother Russia, or anywhere else.’
‘I see. So we are totally dependent on the Americans for pictures of this area?’
‘In a word, yes.’
Richter beat Simpson to the obvious question by about half a second. ‘Have there been any significant gaps in the supply of films? I mean, any break of more than, say, a week?’
Kemp thought for a moment, then stood up. ‘Lights, please. I can’t recall any breaks, but I’ll just go and make sure. Excuse me.’
He left and Richter put his coffee mug down. Penny walked over and sat down beside him. Simpson looked at him disapprovingly. ‘What are you driving at, sir?’
‘I’m not sure I know at the moment,’ Richter replied. ‘We’re definitely missing something, and I don’t know what it is. What is obvious is that the Americans had to have had some indication of something going on in north-west Russia to make them fly the Blackbird. And, as we’re in the dark about what it is, it seems logical that they may have spotted something via satellite that they don’t want to tell us about. If that’s the case, they might therefore have simply omitted to let us see the relevant films. They might have pleaded some kind of mechanical malfunction for the critical period when whatever happened was going on.’
‘Yes, that makes sense. But what is it that they don’t want us to see, and why?’
Richter shook his head. ‘At this moment, I’ve absolutely no idea.’
Sluzhba Vneshney Razvyedki Rossi Headquarters, Yazenevo, Tëplyystan, Moscow
‘When will you leave, Nicolai?’ Sokolov asked.
‘I will join the convoy at Minsk, on Sunday morning,’ Modin replied. ‘My old bones ache if I have to spend more than an hour in the back of a car. Minister Trushenko has instructed me to accompany the convoy, but he did not say from where. So, I will join it at Minsk – I can fly there on Saturday and get a good night’s sleep before the journey.’
Sokolov nodded agreement, then opened the first of the folders he had brought with him. Modin looked expectantly at his old friend and comrade, but Sokolov shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t found the traitor, Nicolai, and I am still not really sure that there is one. We have no hard evidence, none at all. The wiretaps, intercepts and surveillance have revealed nothing, so even if one of the people indoctrinated into this project has betrayed it, he has not been in contact since the start of this investigation.’
‘So what is in the folders?’ Modin asked.
Sokolov held them up in front of him. ‘As well as trying to find out who could have been in contact with the Americans, I also looked at the problem from the other side. I have been able to identify some officers who could not have been in contact, because of their postings to areas where no Westerner is allowed, for example. I had to assume that no traitor would be stupid enough to send evidence of his crime to the American Embassy by mail.’
Modin smiled thinly. ‘Particularly not Russian mail,’ he said.
‘Exactly. And the same applies to telephone calls. Most long-distance calls still have to be connected by an operator, and the called numbers are always recorded. It would be too much of a risk.’
‘And the result was?’ Modin prompted.
‘I could eliminate eight officers only,’ Sokolov replied. ‘Including the two of us and Minister Trushenko, that still leaves sixteen people.’
Modin sat in silence for a few moments. ‘Grigori,’ he said finally, ‘forget about the physical evidence. You have reviewed the personal files of all the officers?’
Sokolov nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘And you know most of them personally?’ Sokolov nodded again. ‘I have relied upon your intuition before,’ Modin continued. ‘Do you not have a feeling – however slight or irrational – about any of the officers? Let’s assume that you had to pick just one of them.’
Sokolov smiled. ‘You mean, if somebody told me that so-and-so was the traitor, which name would surprise me least?’
‘More or less, yes.’
‘I admit that I have never liked the man,’ Sokolov admitted, ‘and I am trying not to let that cloud my judgement, but if I had to pick just one, I would choose Viktor Bykov.’
Modin nodded and smiled bleakly. ‘We always thou
ght the same way, Grigori,’ he said. ‘I have already had Bykov seconded to my staff here, and he will be accompanying me to London with the weapon. If he is the traitor, he will have no chance to communicate with the Americans until the plan is implemented. I will see to that.’ Sokolov nodded, his relief evident. ‘However,’ Modin continued, ‘Bykov may be absolutely innocent, so continue your researches, old friend.’
‘Of course. Now, what is the next step?’
‘Apart from the placing of this weapon, all that remains is to indoctrinate the rezidents in the target cities into the plan and instruct them on the procedures they are to follow. That is being done as we speak.’
Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre, RAF Brampton, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
‘You’re right,’ Kemp said. ‘There was one short period of about eight days, just after the last set of KH–12 pictures that this frame came from. There was a “command failure” which took a week to rectify, during which time no pictures were received from the satellite.’
Penny smiled at Richter. ‘I didn’t realize you were psychic,’ she said.
‘I’m not,’ he replied, ‘I’m just a real good guesser, and I’m prepared to lay money that whatever alerted the Americans took place during that period when they are claiming that the satellite was out of action. Probably they detected more evidence of vehicular movement in the area, and that sparked their interest. Then when the hill vanished from the KH–12 pictures, they flew the Blackbird to get a closer look at the site.’
‘There’s another point as well,’ Kemp added. ‘Although we’ve been getting KH–12 pictures since the command failure, we’ve received none showing this location, or anything within about a hundred miles of it.’
‘I’m not entirely surprised,’ Richter said.
Overkill pr-1 Page 20
