It was one of the factors in Vassily’s plan that had always eluded him: the only answer was that Vassily had had someone of his own-or planned to get the name of Oleg’s contact. But there was a possibility Vassily had intended to operate through Mikhail’s Kremlin network-and if Vassily had already made contact with any of them before he died then they’d spill it to Beria’s interrogators now and blow the operation wide open.
Six-forty. Irina’s eyes were locked on him and her hands were clenched into fists at her sides. No one spoke. Alex turned his head to stare at the transceiver. What if Mikhail’s people had intercepted Vlasov and silenced him before he could alert Stalin and Beria?
KOLLIN X KOLLIN X…
The key chattered faster than he’d ever heard Vlasov’s fist before and Cooper’s pencil jerked across the note pad in a rush to keep up. The staccato burst was less than two minutes in duration. Cooper tapped out the acknowledgment and Alex ripped the pages off the pad and went back through the house with Irina.
The decoding was a one-person operation because they had only the one copy of the St. Petersburg edition of Clausewitz. He left Irina to it because she was faster and surer at it than he was; but the waiting ragged him until he could hardly stand it.
KOLLIN X KOLLIN X SABOTEURS TRAPPED AS PLANNED X STEEL BEAR UNTOUCHED X INTERROGATIONS UNDERWAY FOUR MEN ONE WOMAN X INTERROGATION MAY LEAD TO OTHER CONSPIRATORS X SUGGESTION AT LEAST ONE CONSPIRATOR STILL AT LARGE X MUNICH CONNECTION NOT YET REVEALED X LOCATION OF STEEL BEAR DOUBLE UNKNOWN X WILL RESUME NORMAL COMMUNICATION SCHEDULE TOMORROW X KOLLIN X CARNEGIE
She said, “It’s half a victory for us, darling. But it leaves a great many things open.”
He wasn’t unnerved by that. He couldn’t help his sense of relief. It had been too close to an end to the whole thing: the planning, the training, the operation, the fate of the two hundred million. Most of the time he tried not to think in those terms because then everything became apocalyptic. It had to be held down to its own scale, not the scale of things it might affect. This was a precision military campaign with exact methods and finite individual goals: a few square meters of railway track, a few armored carriages, an airfield, two communications centers-a transmitter and a trunk switchboard-and a handful of men inside a railway car. Think beyond any of that and there was a risk of too much fear and then paralysis.
He said, “Put on your best dress. My spies tell me they’ve got good Angus beef at one of the pubs in town.”
17
Felix arrived at the improvised Ready Room at six in the morning. It was barely light: the days were growing shorter and this morning there was rain and thick overcast. The Scotland air had an unpleasant chill. He could barely make out the shapes of the planes at their hardstands; one of the ground crewmen was indistinct in the mist on top of an outboard nacelle on his knees.
The Ready Room had leather armchairs and a few mismatched tables and a home-made bar that was open after duty hours. Felix was the first to arrive; he’d planned that. He went through the room and banged on the inner door and the orderly came through the door with sleep in his eyes and stoked the coal fire.
A week ago their training area in the main hangar had been crowded out by infantry training and Pappy Johnson had moved the podium in here. Now the blackboard stood coated with chalk dust, the ghost of yesterday’s lessons. He supposed today would be another stand-down; in view of the weather they’d have to scrub the practice strike. The rain had come from the northwest on a night wind thirty hours ago and socked in the field and there was no way of knowing how long it would stay.
All the same Felix was dressed to fly.
Pappy Johnson batted into the room and wiped drizzle off his face. He blinked and whooshed. “Always the early bird.”
“A month ago you’d have had to send someone to my quarters to root me out of bed.”
“Why the change then?”
“If they expect me to lead them I’d better be ahead of them, hadn’t I.”
“You’re all right, Your Highness.”
“I suppose we’ll have another stand-down for today?”
“No,” said Pappy Johnson. “We’re going to fly.”
“In this soup?”
“Uncle Joe Stalin may not hand us a sunshine day. I just phoned Fort Augustus. It’s not raining over there. It may not be raining over our drop zone.”
“Good enough.”
“Your turn to have me ride right-seat with you tdoay, Your Highness. Your copilot will take the flight engineer’s post.”
Two of them arrived in ground clothes because they didn’t expect to fly in the weather. Pappy Johnson looked at his wristwatch and said mildly, “You misters have exactly four minutes to get into flying gear,” and the two pilots exploded through the door.
When the door slammed Johnson said to Felix, “Those two are always a little behind everybody else. They’ll be flying right-seat in the transports when we go to war. I suppose they know that-maybe that’s the way they want it. Not everybody wants to be a stupid hero.” He grinned at Felix and slid the cigarette pack out of his shoulder pocket.
The two pilots reappeared out of breath and still shouldering into their leather jackets and Johnson made a circular motion overhead with his cigarette. They all gathered around him.
“We’re going to stations six minutes from now. The mission is the same as it was two days ago. But this time your targets will be moving.”
One of the pilots said, “What about the drivers?”
“No drivers for Christ’s sake. The steering wheels are tied to go in something that’ll approximate a straight line and they’re tying bricks on the accelerator pedals. They’ll be moving about thirty miles an hour across the meadow. The ones you miss will crash into the trees and that’ll be a hell of a waste, won’t it. So don’t miss any.”
“How many in each cluster, sir?”
“That’ll be for you to determine when you get there.” Johnson gave them all his wicked grin. “Maybe one of them, maybe five. It’s your job to stop every one of them before it gets across the meadow.”
The four of them got out of the shuttle van and stood momentarily under the wing in the rain: Felix and Pappy Johnson and Ulyanov, who would fly as engineer this flight, and Chujoy the bombardier. Felix turned his collar up and went around the outside of the airplane: he kicked the tires, he did a visual inspection of the nacelles and control surfaces. Finally Felix nodded and Ulyanov opened the forward hatch and they chinned themselves into the bomber.
It took seven minutes to go through the preflight check-the final line inspection before starting engines. It was a chore many pilots left to their copilots but Felix wanted to know the exact condition of the plane he was going to fly. It was a habit he’d drilled into himself with racing cars: more than once he’d detected a defective tie rod or brake cylinder that way.
He handed the clipboard to Pappy Johnson and his eyes searched the crowded instrument panel once more and then he put the control yoke in his hands and planted his feet on the rudder pedals and… She’s mine.
Through the windscreen he watched the tower-barely visible in the fine rain-and finally he saw the double red flare go up: Start Engines.
“Mesh one… Mesh two…”
Pappy Johnson’s fingers sped over the toggles and buttons. Out the side screens Felix watched the oil-smoke chug from the exhausts, the props begin to turn. He swiveled his attention to the starboard side. “Mesh three… Mesh four.”
“Jigsaw Flight-go to stations.” That was the tower.
There were no runway lights. He saw Calhoun walking away dragging the chocks in the gloom; he taxied around in a tight circle and went bumping along toward the end of the runway.
He stood on the brakes and ran up each engine in turn-watching the gauges, using his ears. Inside him he felt the thrill he’d never lost in a thousand takeoffs: the Icarian desire to climb high, detached and free.