Rockets' Red Glare

by Greg Dinallo

  “When, Comrade? Do we know when?” he asked impatiently the instant he grasped the implications.

  Kovlek nodded crisply, and handed Zeitzev a photocopy of a document that displayed the official seal of the Italian Defense Ministry. “The twenty-third according to this directive we obtained,” the deputy replied. “That’s a Monday.”

  “A little more than three weeks,” Zeitzev calculated in a tone that suggested he was unhappy with the little time he had to counter the plan.

  “Yes, but the vegetation is on Italian land. So, the Italian Army will remove it. Therefore, three weeks could easily turn into three months,” Kovlek replied jauntily, hoping to mollify him.

  “Or three days,” Zeitzev snapped, holding up the photocopy. “Did you see the signature on this?”

  “Borsa,” Kovlek said flatly.

  “Borsa, head of the Defense Ministry. Borsa, champion of deployment,” Zeitzev lectured.

  He shook his head and slipped a piece of the cheese between his lips, savoring the nutty flavor that made the roof of his mouth tingle—a timely reminder of how much he enjoyed the advantages of being posted in a Western capital, and of how unhappy his mentors at No. 2 Dzerzhinsky Square would be if NATO curtailed surveillance of the missile base.

  “This plan, Comrade—it must, must be subverted,” he said. “Give it to Dominica.”

  Now, as the equipment that would remove the vegetation charged across the field, Dominica Maresca, once again, led a group of protestors in Comiso. This time their placards displayed, not antinuclear slogans and peace signs, but catchphrases that lamented the plight of the area’s wildlife. Dominica had rallied environmental groups from across Europe to force the government to declare the area a national sanctuary. However, their petitions had been ignored, and the KGB’s highly valued camouflage had run out of time.

  A representative of the Italian Government rode in a jeep next to the convoy of earth movers. He waited until the bulldozer that bore down on the protestors was a few meters from Dominica before he held up a hand.

  She stood her ground unflinchingly as the massive piece of equipment stopped closer than she anticipated. The battered plow arched high above her, clumps of grass and shrubs were jammed between the menacing teeth.

  The government man got out of his jeep. “I must ask you to instruct your people to move aside,” he said politely.

  “And I must instruct them to remain,” she replied, a defiant timbre in her voice.

  The soldiers who operated the equipment revved the diesels in response. They built the sound to an intimidating cadence, filling the air with acrid fumes.

  Dominica raised a bullhorn to her mouth. “Wildlife! Wildlife! Wildlife!” she shouted.

  The protestors quickly took up the chant, turned their backs to the convoy, and sat down—heads bent forward, backs curved, arms wrapped around pulled-up knees—like boulders scattered in the field.

  “Fucking assholes,” muttered the government representative in disgust. He was a mid-level bureaucrat in the Defense Ministry. Procedure called for him to report the stalemate to superiors, and await instructions. Experience taught him it would be days before he had them—days during which Italy’s soccer championships would be decided. The tickets had cost him plenty, and no group of bleeding heart ecologists was going to keep him from the match. He made a snap decision to expedite the situation, and signaled the bulldozer with an abrupt wave of his arm.

  The soldier started the twenty-five tons of steel rolling, and centered it on a cluster of protestors. He depressed pedals and pulled levers until he had maneuvered the leading edge of the plow beneath a half dozen of the hunched men and women. He scooped them into the deeply curved trough, and yanked hard on another lever. The hydraulic pistons that manipulated the bulldozer’s welded steel arms drove the plow upward, swiftly elevating its human cargo five meters above the ground. With a vengeful smirk, he pulled a third lever releasing the compressed air that held the plow in position. It pivoted downward, dumping the protestors like clods of earth atop others below.

  Those who weren’t injured scrambled to their feet, shouting expletives at the soldier. He laughed and made an obscene gesture. The angry protestors surged forward, surrounding the bulldozer.

  Dominica climbed up onto one of the treads.

  “Bastard! You bastard!” she screamed in Italian through her bullhorn. “Why did you do that? Why?”

  “Bitch!” the soldier shouted.

  He reared back and slammed a foot into Dominica’s stomach, knocking her to the ground. Some of the men in the group leaped onto the dozer, threatening the soldier. One lunged into the cab and began punching him. The soldier panicked, slammed the transmission in gear, and pressed the accelerator to the floorboard. The bulldozer lurched and charged into the crowd.

  The protestors began screaming, and started to scatter. Some stumbled as they attempted to get out of the way. A shriek that segued to an agonized wail silenced the shouting mob. The unmistakably terminal plea announced that the fifty-thousand-pound bulldozer had crushed one of the demonstrators.

  Dominica pushed her way through the crowd that formed around the victim. She recoiled at the sight of a twelve-year-old boy beneath one of the Caterpillar treads—his torso pressed into the soft earth, his mouth frozen open in a silent scream, his eyes wide with the puzzled look of someone who had no reason to expect to die. She bent over him and took his hand, which immediately tightened around her’s. He tried to speak, but could manage only a muffled gurgle. Blood rose from the back of his throat, and filled his mouth. The crimson lake spilled over his lip and ran down the side of his face onto their locked hands. His last breath was pungent and warm against her face.

  * * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-one

  That same morning, nine hundred and fifty miles to the north, a heavy rain pelted Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport as TWA flight 802 from New York dropped out of the clouds and touched down on the slick runway.

  The time was 11:26 A.M.

  Andrew Churcher was one of the first passengers to come through the boarding ramp into the terminal. A shoulder bag containing the client files McKendrick had given him slapped at his side. He ambled along, making small talk with an older couple who had also traveled first class. They were horse people from the auction circuit who, like Andrew, had come to Rome for the International Show at Piazza dei Siena.

  Valery Gorodin had traveled coach, and took steps to avoid being detained by those passengers clogging the aisles while removing carry-on items from overhead compartments. Just prior to landing, he had casually moved from the rear of the plane to an empty seat directly behind the first class bulkhead. A position which would enable him to deplane quickly, and resume close surveillance of Andrew Churcher.

  Italian military personnel in gray jumpsuits, black berets, and mirror polished boots provided security inside the terminal. Each carried an Uzi slung across the front of his body.

  Andrew cleared passport control, and entered the baggage claim area where those meeting passengers were grouped behind a waist-high security barrier. Some held signs with handwritten names. Almost immediately, Andrew saw the one that read “Churcher.” But the sixteen-hour journey from Houston had a disorienting effect, and he continued walking a few steps before he realized that the uniformed chauffeur standing inside the barrier next to the automated baggage carousel was there to meet him.

  The chauffeur’s presence reminded Andrew that this was a Churchco operation, everything prearranged by Elsbeth, Theodor Churcher’s assistant, to exacting specifications. In the past, Andrew would have bristled at the long-distance control exerted by his father. But now that he was gone, Andrew found it surprisingly reassuring.

  Andrew raised a hand to the chauffeur who had been standing impassively. The man’s eyes lost their blank expression, and the blue in them twinkled as the casually attired young man approached.

  “Welcome to Rome,” the chauffeur said in heavily accented English. �
��I’m sorry about your father,” he went on uneasily. He wanted to pay his respects, but was hesitant to bring up an unpleasant topic.

  “Thanks,” Andrew replied, feeling saddened, and distanced from the stronger emotions that surfaced at the thought of his father having been murdered.

  The stocky Italian extended a hand, and, brightening, said, “Fausto.”

  “Of course,” Andrew said, shaking it. “You drove for us last year, didn’t you?”

  “Si, si. And many times for your father before that. He was a very fine man.”

  Andrew nodded, wondering—as he did last time—why, unlike the others, Fausto was allowed to wait inside the security barrier for his passenger. A loud buzzer that announced the baggage carousel was being activated pulled Fausto away before Andrew could ask.

  Gorodin had been watching from the other side of the carousel. He paced a few steps closer to the security barrier, and lit a cigarette. Then he blew out the match, threw it to the floor, and ground it into the gray terrazzo with his heel. A stream of smoke came from his nostrils as he surveyed the anxious faces that looked past him in search of friends and loved-ones. The crack of match against striker, and the whoosh of sulfur bursting into flame, called his attention to a plainly dressed man, with thick glasses.

  After lighting his cigarette, Antonin Kovlek disposed of his match in exactly the same manner as had Gorodin, identifying himself as his contact.

  Gorodin’s eyes directed Kovlek’s attention to Andrew. Neither agent openly acknowledged the other. Zeitzev had sent his deputy as a safety precaution, not a welcoming committee. Should Gorodin be delayed by Italian authorities, Kovlek would take up surveillance of Andrew Churcher. If not, he’d keep an eye on Gorodin—Gorodin was GRU.

  Fausto carried Andrew’s travel bag and led the way toward a row of customs stations, angling toward the one on the extreme left. The uniformed agent broke into a broad smile the instant he saw them approaching. Fausto winked, and said something in Italian that turned the agent’s smile into a lewd chuckle. Then, further heightening Andrew’s curiosity about Fausto, the customs agent waved them through without even a cursory check of Andrew’s passport or baggage.

  They had walked a short distance when one of the Uzi-carrying guards noticed, and stepped forward to challenge them. Before Andrew knew what was happening, Fausto had produced his wallet and opened it with a snap of his wrist that emphasized the inconvenience.

  To the guard’s chagrin, he was staring at a brass shield pinned next to official police identification.

  Fausto snapped the wallet closed, ticking the tip of the guard’s nose. “Careful!” he barked in Italian. “You lose that, you lose the only thing you have that will get you a promotion.” Then he turned and headed for the glass doors that led outside the terminal.

  “So, Fausto, you’re with the police?” Andrew said. He wanted it to sound like a casual observation, but was unable to suppress the wonder in his voice.

  “Retired. Twenty-five years on the Questura,” he replied, referring to the detective squad, adding “Twenty-five years of collecting IOUs.”

  “The customs agent—that wasn’t a professional courtesy?” Andrew asked, surprised.

  Fausto smiled cagily, and shook no. “He cheats on his wife. He got—how you say?—busted in a raid on a sex club. I decided he might be useful and kept his name out of the reports.” Fausto chuckled, savoring the memory of it. “He’s been eternally grateful,” he went on, adding philosophically, “Of course, human nature being what it is, gratitude has always been the seed of resentment.” He pulled back his jacket, letting Andrew glimpse the 9mm Baretta that rode on his hip.

  The exit door opened automatically.

  Fausto led Andrew toward a Maserati quatroporto. The black sedan was parked directly in front of the terminal, in a restricted area, beneath an overhang that protected them from the rain.

  The Maserati pulled away from the terminal, water spitting from its grooved radials.

  Andrew settled back into the soft Italian leather, and stretched out his lanky frame—his body telling him it was night; the brightness, despite the rain, insisting it was day.

  Fausto wheeled the big car onto a road that led to the autostrada, and pushed a button on the walnut-paneled console. The electric door locks engaged.

  The precise click triggered the memory of a thriller Andrew had once seen. The opening sequence raced through his mind: An airport, a chauffeur with a sign, a businessman, a limousine speeding into the night, fingers pushing buttons. And then, in a frenetic visual barrage—electric door locks activating, the window between passenger and chauffeur ascending, deadly gas filling the rear compartment, the man’s eyes widening with terror, fingers clawing at the glass, body falling back onto the seat unconscious!

  At the time, Andrew thought it was a damn clever abduction. Now, he thought about McKendrick’s warning, “Watch your ass son. Russians, professionals.”

  Andrew realized he had no proof of anything Fausto had said. He resembled his father’s chauffeur; but that was a year ago, and the memory was vague. Anyone could get a police shield and phony ID, especially a pro. Why hadn’t he been more alert, more vigilant?! Why hadn’t he walked right past Fausto, and taken a taxi? Why hadn’t he watched his ass? He hadn’t been in Italy a half hour and already he had screwed up in a way that, at least in the movies, had proved costly. Andrew studied his reflection in the glass that separated him from Fausto, and listened for the hiss of deadly gas.

  The Maserati cut through the sheets of rain, turned onto the autostrada, and accelerated smoothly on the glistening concrete ribbon.

  Approximately two hundred meters back, Gorodin and Kovlek sat behind the chattering wipers of an aging Fiat, its engine straining to keep up with the high performance vehicle it was tailing.

  * * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-two

  At approximately the same time that Gorodin and Kovlek were following their target, First Lieutenant Jon Lowell was searching for his.

  The time in Tampa, Florida, was 8:17 A.M.

  The moment he completed his midnight to eight ASW tour, Lowell had gone directly to K building.

  Now, he was hunched over a computer console in a SOSUS research lab set up for use by ASW personnel. The electronics-packed facility was adjacent to the main control room where military technicians, on a rotating twenty-four-hour watch, sat at consoles monitoring satellite and underwater cable transmissions. All pertinent data was sent over a land-based communications net to analysts at the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland, then forwarded to the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia.

  After shifting his focus to the mystery vessel he had spotted on the satellite photographs, Lowell pulled copies of the twelve hydrotapes that covered the one-hour-forty-eight-minute SOSUS window he’d established. With assistance of Navy Electronics Technician Lew Scofield, Lowell had been searching the tapes for the recording of the ship’s acoustic signature. Once located, it would be computer-compared with all others on file in the sonar library. With any luck, it would match one that had already been identified. Lowell and Scofield had searched ten tapes without finding it.

  When Lowell arrived that morning, Sconfield was threading the next to last hydrotape across the sound heads of the big Ampex reel-to-reel machine. He balanced a slowly growing ash on the tip of a cigarette that never left his mouth. Lowell had been working on and off with the lanky midwesterner for over a week, and had never once seen the ever-present ash fall before the technician could tap it into an ashtray.

  “Data up, sir,” Scofield announced when he had finished. “We’re looking at fifty-fifty today.”

  “Yeah, odds are getting better. Has to be a set of twin screws on one of these.”

  “Unless you’re off on the tonnage, sir, and the sig we’re after’s a one banger.”

  “No way,” Lowell replied as he settled in at the console. “Ship scales out somewhere between a hundred forty and a hundred fi
fty thousand tons. That means we’re looking at a tanker or containerized carrier. And either way, something that big has to be pushing twins,” he went on, referring to the propulsion arrangement which gave the big vessels otherwise unattainable maneuverability.

  Lowell donned a set of experimental headphones he had been testing. They received their signal by infrared light beam rather than by wire, giving him freedom of movement in the lab. And he had been pleased to discover they were more than able to reproduce a broad range of pure frequencies. He flipped on the tape console that was linked to the big Cray X-MP supercomputers used to process and analyze intelligence data, and began scrutinizing the hydrotape.

  His ears filled with the overlapping frequencies of moving ships, sea-life, and the surging Caribbean.

  A little over a half hour had passed. Lowell had gotten up from his chair, and was pacing thoughtfully as he listened. Suddenly, he paused in mid-stride, and pressed the earphone to his head.

  Scofield was bringing his Zippo to a fresh Marlboro when he saw Lowell’s reaction.

  “Low frequency rumble,” Lowell said. He listened for a few more seconds, then nodded emphatically, and sat down at the console. “Yeah, yeah we’re talking power here. Real big plant. Ship’s gotta be in the tonnage range we’re looking for.”

  The target was in his sights now. He could feel the competitive intensity building; just as it did in the Viking whenever the hours of tedious searching paid off in the blip of an enemy submarine pinging across his monitor.

  “Patch it through the frequency digitizer,” he said to Scofield sharply.

  “The what, sir?” Scofield asked uneasily. He was fully conscious of Lowell’s intensity and embarrassed he couldn’t respond.

  Lowell flicked him a sideways glance, and smiled. He knew Scofield was relatively new to the job and welcomed the chance to broaden his knowledge. The digitizer was a piece of equipment Lowell had adapted from submarine surveillance technology. He was an outstanding sonar technician until he decided he’d rather hunt than be hunted, and applied to ASW.