“You can’t be serious, Greg!” Bud fell back into his chair, pushing the reclining mechanism to its limits. “Do you know what you are really suggesting? I mean, besides the security aspect of it, the cost would be enormous.”
“Look, we could cut back on the amount of imagery we interpret for delivery,” the DDI suggested. “A few passes a day instead of sixteen.”
Bud’s head shook as he leaned forward, his eyes downcast into the hand supporting his forehead. “Greg, this is like asking for the keys to the new ‘vette before I’ve even driven it.”
“Anthony will get them from the President if you don’t hand them over,” the DDI said. “I thought it would be better coming from you. The teamwork thing, remember.”
He was right. Bud’s resistance would only strengthen the DCI’s hand, and give him the opportunity to hear the President say yes to another request. It wasn’t on the far side of smart, but it really wouldn’t be a major undertaking. Not the intended use, for certain, but also not beyond the system’s capabilities. Not much was.
“All right. I’ll clear it with the President. But you’re paying for gas,” Bud informed the DDI, quite seriously despite the euphemism.
A couple million a fill-up. Well, the Agency had wanted the damn gas guzzler in the first place. “Thanks.”
“Just don’t get it shot down,” Bud said. “We’ve lost ‘em there before.”
“Long time ago, Bud. And they ain’t got nothing that can touch this.” It was a partisan boast, but also one quite rooted in fact.
* * *
The Japanese technicians had been waiting in the poorly heated housing near the Voyska PVO’s headquarters for just over a week. An hour after dark the word to get to work had finally come, much to their delight.
Eight trucks deposited the joint technical group, made up of senior engineers from six major Japanese companies, outside the access building atop the underground command center. The elevators were loaded with the requisite tools in just a few minutes, then, in four trips, the three separate cars descended to the twenty-five-thousand-square-foot facility, which was divided into five operating areas that were all connected to the main access shaft. The joint technical group followed their Russian escorts into the area in which most of the facility’s work was done, yet there were the fewest people there.
The first reaction at seeing the antiquated computers was a collective snicker, then bemused curiosity as the technicians wandered about the room, examining the equipment—much of the designs obviously pirated from American, French, and Japanese systems—and marveling that any of it was still operating. There was even rust on some of the back panels!
“Time to do it,” the leader of the group said.
General Shergin, there because of duty and no more, looked to his aide, hesitated, then nodded. The junior officer walked to a red box on the wall, unlocked it, and swung the large cover downward. Three levers—looking as old as the computers—were attached side by side. The same number of supply cables entered through the top of the box, but only one exited the bottom. Heat radiated off of the center switch from the thousands of volts flowing through it to the equipment.
The first switch disengaged was that of the primary backup power supply, a diesel-powered generator that would kick in automatically in the event of a power failure. The second switch connected a large array of batteries to the system. These were the last resort, for use only after the generator failed. All that remained was the primary switch, which carried electricity from the Moscow central power grid to the computers. The commander’s aide lowered it completely.
The whine of cooling fans ceased, as did the electronic hum associated with older processing equipment. Performance-monitoring screens went blank, and the old reel tape machines ended their constant recording for eternity. “Done.”
“Okay,” the team leader said. “Let’s do it.”
The men who had been trained in the best technical schools in the world, who could perform complex mathematical operations in their heads, moved toward the six rows of machines with pry bars, cable cutters, and mallets. There was no reason to spare anything. The brand-new equipment was waiting a half a mile away in a climate-controlled warehouse. This room would soon have the same humidity and temperature controls installed, as well as the computers and software to bring the SRF into the twenty-first century. What was here was, simply put, scrap.
The first cabinet unit broke free of its corroded moorings and toppled to its side with only two men pushing it. General Shergin watched this with some interest. His position made a man well aware how much easier destruction was than creation.
* * *
The convoy of four vehicles pulled through the gate into the complex located on the western shore of the Bay of Cienfuegos. Soldiers exited the two lead cars, their weapons at the ready. Security was quite adequate out to a mile from where they stood but, as General Juan Asunción knew from the events of the past days, the scorpion that struck was often in one’s own bed.
From the third car a small Caucasian man in handcuffs emerged under the forceful grasp of two more soldiers. He was marched quickly to the general, who stood outside the doors that they had together passed through a countless number of times during their acquaintance, a period at one time cordially accepted but now enforced upon one by the fear of a painful demise.
“Welcome, señor,” Asunción said. “More work to be done.”
The man looked up. He was in his forties but appeared older about the face. Deep lines and loose folds of pale skin attested to some form of confinement away from a sun that had once tanned the thin body to a leathery brown. That had obviously faded, as apparently had the man’s desire for anything beyond that which he was commanded to do.
“I was here last month, General,” Anatoly Vishkov observed in a voice that was pathetic in its mild attempt at defiance. “A visit every three months was deemed sufficient when—”
“When we agreed to let you live, you miserable little insect!” Asunción brought a hand back to slap the insolent weakling, but the rumble of a distant explosion ended the action before it began. The general noticed the puzzlement on the Russian’s face. “The exercises are close today, it seems.”
Vishkov listened as another blast echoed across the water of the bay to his rear and reverberated through the man-made canyon of buildings and equipment in the complex. The valleys north of Cienfuegos did twist and distort sound quite frequently, a trait common to areas with similar geological and weather conditions. The physicist in him rationalized it as possible.
“If you work quickly, you can be finished by nightfall,” Asunción posited, opting for a different tack to gain compliance without questioning. It was preferable that the Russian be kept blissfully unaware of the troubles just twenty miles distant, lest he be motivated by some sense of humanity to refuse his assigned task. The general thought that quite unlikely, as the onetime honored guest of his nation had proven himself to be quite susceptible to the mere threat of physical violence. Still, to take a chance at this stage would be foolhardy.
“What more work can I do?”
“Make it ready,” Asunción directed.
The Russian hung his head as a tired man did, a smattering of tears already on his cheeks. “It is ready. It is always ready.”
“No, señor.” Asunción reached out and lifted the Russian’s head by his chin. “Ready to use.”
The look on Vishkov’s face changed from frustration to horror. “To use? You mean to...”
“Presidente Castro wishes a complete readiness test.” It was a lie, one without precedence but one the Russian had little reason to disbelieve.
Another roar rolled in from the water. Vishkov turned his head toward it, then back to his tormentor. What is happening?
“Señor...” The general stood aside and gestured grandly at the entrance as a hotel doorman would for a visitor.
The Russian physicist had no choice. Where once he had been a man respected
for his ingenuity, he was now a prisoner of his value...and of his weakness. To stand up to his taskmasters would mean certain death, or, that which he feared more, a painful precursor to the release of the hereafter. Death, while not a welcome concept, was preferable to that which he could suffer, yet he was incapable of bringing that on to stave off the other. It was a circle of defeat few had mastered as well as the man who, in his brighter days, had mastered the atom and its destructive power. That mastery now remained as the sole bit of control that Anatoly Vishkov maintained over his existence.
And, in a twist of perception that he was incapable of realizing, it made him supremely powerful over a game he suspected he had just begun to play in the familiar role as pawn.
CHAPTER SIX
IMAGERY AND ICONS
It was known as Area 51 to most officially acquainted with its existence. Those more intimately involved with the goings-on at Groom Lake in the barren desert expanse of Nevada gave it more literal and crafted monikers. Dreamland, a name often shared by the nearby Tonopah Test Range, was one. The Black Hole was another. All, though, succeeded only partially in describing the mystical happenings in a place that, despite evidence to the contrary, didn’t exist.
The early afternoon light was painting the imposing mountains of the Timpahute Range a washed-out white and tan, and, unfortunately, was robbing Groom of the welcome cloak of darkness in which operations were almost exclusively conducted. Secrecy, normally a concern for intelligence and military agencies, was a well-crafted paranoia on the dry lake-bed facility that was surrounded by a piece of restricted government land the size of Switzerland. But, in homage to one of its nicknames and despite the oppressive and serious nature of the business that took place there, dreams not only existed at Groom, they took flight and soared as none could have imagined.
The aircraft was rolled out behind a tug into the harsh, breezy environment and was positioned at the threshold of Groom’s six-mile-long runway. Only ninety feet in length, it weighed in at 180,000 pounds, two thirds of which were the exotic super-cooled liquid-methane fuel that both fed the delta-winged aircraft’s twin propulsion systems and helped to dissipate the heat generated by high-speed flight from its airframe.
After allowing time for the tug and its operator to clear, the tower gave clearance to the pilot of the craft that had come to be known as Aurora, though the official government designation of the Special Access—or “black”— program was Senior Citizen. The pilot, more a mission manager, was an Air Force major who had logged more hours now at Mach 5+ than any of her fighter-driver cohorts. Four feet behind her the Reconnaissance Systems Operator sat, two high-resolution displays dominating his console of instruments, which controlled the array of imaging and signals sensors that were the real heart of the billion-dollar bird.
With the entry of a command into the flight-management system, the aircraft accelerated under a highly advanced form of rocket power down the concrete slab, the pilot providing only steering to keep the bird on the centerline. A thunderous, resonating roar, the product of Aurora’s unique two-phase propulsion, swept across the desert base, penetrating every structure above and below ground. Fifteen thousand feet after it began its roll, the computer brought the nose up. The climb-out was slow as the aircraft turned to the southeast, but once pointed in the right direction, a battery of microchips decided it was time to accelerate to operating speed and “pulled the trigger,” adding thrust that pushed the ninety-ton bird through Mach 2 in less than thirty seconds. With a nose-up attitude of seventy degrees, the Aurora was passing through thirty thousand feet when its forward momentum was sufficient (Mach 2.54) to switch over to the ramjet propulsion. Passing sixty thousand feet and somewhere over the Nevada/Utah border, the aircraft was breaking Mach 4. Directly over Cedar City, Utah, it passed Mach 5 at 120,000 feet. At this point the flight-management system eased the climb, leveling the Aurora out at thirty miles over eastern Texas, and set a constant throttle at Mach 6.2. Aurora was moving faster than any rifle bullet in the world just fifteen minutes into its flight.
Because of the relatively short distance to the target, no in-flight refueling would be needed on the return leg, making this an easy quick-pass mission. The pilot kept constant watch on the flight systems, particularly the surface and airframe temperatures, the former of which was hovering around a quite acceptable one thousand degrees.
Somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico the RSO activated three of his sensors. They had crossed through two time zones in just under thirty minutes, so the day was two hours older over their target. No low-light or IR imaging would be necessary, though. Today they would need just the two visible-light Casegrain telescopic cameras and the Synthetic Aperture Radar.
“Uprange one minute,” the pilot warned.
Sixty seconds meant sixty miles, give or take a few. That time evaporated quickly. Their pass over the long axis of the island of Cuba took just twelve minutes, the cameras and SAR dumping gigabytes of image data into the ample computer-storage capacity onboard. After turning back, the RSO began preprocessing the data, selecting the images that most closely matched the mission requirements. As the descent to Groom began over eastern Texas, he transmitted the selected data to a Milstar satellite in geo. NPIC had it a minute later.
The Aurora touched down seventy minutes after taking off, the total distance covered over forty-five-hundred miles. Its crew, after having spent $2 million of Uncle Sam’s money on what they considered to be an E-ticket ride, debarked in a hangar at the north end of the runway. Dinner was in a few hours and, thanks to their somewhat special ride, they rarely missed a meal.
* * *
They were legally breaking the law.
The white van pulled up adjacent to the third utility pole from the corner, its two occupants exiting and setting up their work area. Orange cones directed any traffic in the curb lane to move to the left, and their blue work overalls were properly soiled enough so that questions would not be asked.
But there were always those to whom curiosity was not a feeling but a driving force.
“Whas za problem?” the old man asked, sauntering up to the nearest workman.
Special Agent Chris Testra looked up from the loop of cable he was unspooling, the smell of alcohol having reached him with the old man’s words. “Cable-TV trouble, Pops.”
“Sheeeeit! The fize on anight.” He swung a disappointed fist at the air.
Testra laughed. “Don’t worry, Pops. You won’t miss it. Guaranteed.”
“Oh, man. Thainz.”
Testra and his partner, Special Agent Frederico Sanz, watched the old man stumble away.
“His life is bliss, man. Eh, Freddy?”
“Guess so. Come on.”
Their work was rather simple, and only a schooled observer would have recognized that the two workmen were not working on the thick black cable-TV lines but on thinner wires belonging to the phone company. Wiretapping had come a long way since the days of splicing and stringing additional wires to carry the eavesdropped communications. The method chosen for this operation, authorized by Federal Court Order (Sealed) #76-a-1212-5, was known as “shroud interception.” It required a relatively simple procedure that was only slightly invasive. A black-colored cylinder, five millimeters thicker than the standard nineteen-millimeter telephone line, was at the heart of the operation. It was actually two sections, split lengthwise, that were placed over the existing line and reconnected, creating an almost invisible “shroud” over the line. Several tiny, sharp probes, made of polished copper, pierced the protective synthetic coating on the wire and made contact with the cable bundles housed inside. The agents then plugged a remote dialer into one end of the shroud, which actually contained more computing power in its body than a second-generation PC. Special Agent Chris Testra then dialed the number they were authorized to tap into, waiting a few seconds before it was picked up.
“Yeah?”
“Is Raji there?” Testra inquired in his best feigned Pakistani.
“Wrong number.” Click.
Testra cleared the line and dialed another number, which rang in room 145 of the Golden Way Motel four blocks away, their home for the next few days at least. It rang only once before being answered by a machine that emitted four long beeps. Connection made. Any calls to or from the intercepted number would now be automatically relayed to the monitoring station in room 145 for recording and instant analysis.
They completed the operation in just under a half hour and picked up their cones, making a U turn on the street to drive past the house in question once again.
“What do you do in there, Meester Spy?” Sanz asked in his best Speedy Gonzalez as they passed the older-looking house.
“Hope he does whatever it is soon,” Testra said. “The boat has a new coat of paint”
“Well, maybe he’ll hear your heavy breathing on the line and just invite us over, Chris,” Sanz joked. “Surrender and confess right then and there.”
“I’ll pant my ass off if it gets me off this by Friday.”
* * *
A ten-power loupe was hung on the wall as a deferential tribute to the practitioners of their art who had come before. Trailblazers, really, men who had perfected the innocuous act of looking at pictures into a form of educated soothsaying that had saved their country from embarrassment, missteps on the international stage, and from being hoodwinked into situations with potentially deadly consequences for the unaware.
Much had changed since the first days of light tables, foggy slides, and long stints hunched over with a loupe stuck to one’s eye. Much had evolved at NPIC. Photo interpretation was now more correctly known as imagery analysis. Computers had replaced the three-by-three slabs of backlit Lucite mounted on box tops as viewing apparatuses. Cataloging, storage, and retrieval of data were now instantaneous. Yes, the men who practiced the craft had a new, sophisticated array of tools with which to perform their wizardry, and, not surprisingly, some of those “men” were no longer of the anticipated gender.
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