around. “Kirk” he called out softly. There was no answer.
The Stephos had drifted down on them and now was barely fifteen yards away. Potok could clearly see the Tomahawk missile raised in its launch position.
They had come so close, he thought bitterly. And they had failed.
“McGarvey” he shouted. But still there was no answer.
Kurshin stood at the head of the boarding stairs, his ear cocked. Had he heard a voice? Someone calling out? He held his breath to listen, but the night was silent. There was no one. Even McGarvey could not have survived.
He started down. The fully inflated life raft had drifted with the current back down against the hull of the ship. Somehow he was going to have to paddle it away before the missile fired, and before the explosive charges below took the ship to the bottom.
Kurshin was halfway down the stairs when a dark figure suddenly rose up from the water and scrambled aboard. Blood flowed down the side of his face from a head wound, and as he straightened up to his full height Kurshin could see that he held a stiletto in his right hand. The holster strapped to his chest was empty. His eyes! The knowledge exploded in Kurshin’s head. “You’re the devil” he shouted. “You knew that I was coming for you” McGarvey said, starting up. his senses. Kurshin backed up a step before he came to The man wasn’t the devil … he was nothing more than a man. He grappled his pistol out of its holster and thumbed the safety off. But McGarvey was too quick. They fell back against the stairs, each of them scrambling desperately to bring their weapons into play while holding on to the railing. Kurshin managed to yank his gun hand free, and he raked the barrel against McGarvey’s skull with every ounce of his strength, causing the American to reel away. McGarvey was like an animal driven by wounded rage. He recovered instantly, batting the gun away as Kurshin fired, the shot going wide, and the automatic slipping from his grasp and falling overboard. An incredible pain stitched Kurshin’s side, just below the gunshot wound. He had a split instant to realize that he had been stabbed-McGarvey’s knife hand coming around again-when he kicked out, the heel of his boot catching the American full in the chest. He turned and clambered on all fours back up the stairs to the deck of the ship, mindless of his wounds. At the top, he raced forward to Budanov’s body where he snatched up the man’s Kalashnikov rifle, spun back on his heel and fired off a burst just as McGarvey started to come over the side. The American either ducked or fell back, but Kurshin didn’t wait to see. He turned again and raced forward around the superstructure to the foredeck where he flattened himself against the bulkhead. His breath was coming raggedly, and he didn’t know how much longer he could hold on. He raised his left wrist to his eyes and tried to focus on the watch numerals. It was 9:55. The missile would fire in five minutes.
He looked across at the Tomahawk elevated in its cradle, barely ten feet away. When its engines fired he would die. But he would have succeeded.
He would have won. And that was all that counted now, because in the end McGarvey would be dead too.
McGarvey eased up again over the top of the rail and peered down the length of the portside deck toward the bow of the ship. A man lay crumpled in a heap by an open doorway. But it wasn’t Kurshin.
Time. It always came down to a matter of time, he thought. By now the missile was most likely in its countdown mode. But the Russian would have set it to launch after he was clear of the ship.
Or would he? Or had he been delayed? Or didn’t he care? Kurshin had called him the devil. They were two men cut, in many respects, from the same cloth. Both of them were killers. Only an accident of geography at the moment of their births had determined which side they killed for.
But Kurshin had murdered his own people for expediency’s sake, hadn’t he? Was there any difference between that and what he himself had done?
By his own mistakes he had caused the deaths of a lot of good people.
Their names and faces were always with him.
Who then was the worst: the killer by commission or the killer of innocent people by omission? McGarvey pulled himself the rest of the way over the rail, paused in the darkness for just a second, and then raced forward on the balls of his feet toward the open doorway halfway up the portside passageway. Kurshin reached around the corner and fired a quick burst, raking the deck just as McGarvey ducked inside. Without hesitation, McGarvey raced down the corridor to the starboard side, where he flung open the door with a crash. Then, careful to make no noise, he turned and hurried back the same way he had come.
Kurshin would be watching the starboard-side passageway now. He hoped.
Nothing moved on the port side as McGarvey emerged from the doorway, and stepping over the body of a man whose face had been mostly shot away, he sprinted forward. Sensing something behind him, Kurshin started to turn as McGarvey reached him, shoving him up against the bulkhead, the point of the stiletto beneath his chin. “When is it set to launch” McGarvey shouted. Kurshin tried to struggle, but McGarvey increased the pressure on the stiletto, drawing a little blood. “When” he shouted.
Kurshin smiled. “Why don’t we stay here like this and find out together?
We have a lot to talk over, you and I”
“I’ll kill you now”
“Then we’ll die together” Kurshin whispered. The moment the words escaped his lips he realized he had made a mistake. McGarvey saw it in the Russian’s eyes. The missile was going to launch at any moment.
“Sonofabitch” Kurshin shouted, and he gave a massive heave. McGarvey was off balance and he stumbled backward, the point of the razorsharp blade raking Kurshin’s throat, opening up a five-inch-long gash that instantly spurted blood. The Russian was incredibly fast. In four long steps he was across the foredeck and at the rail. “No” McGarvey screamed, the sound nearly animalistic in its intensity. He threw the stiletto with every ounce of his strength at the same moment Kurshin disappeared over the side. A second later there was a big splash and then the night was quiet. McGarvey turned and faced the missile. The countdown was started now. He forced himself to calm down. To think it out. To remember something of what Frank Newman had told them. Stepping forward around the base of the missile launcher, he found the control panel with its single switch. He flipped it, and the launch rack immediately began to descend. But slowly. Too slowly.
The Tomahawk’s guidance system was in its nose cone, Newman had told them. There was a small access panel just a few inches from its tip. But it was too high to reach yet. Ten screws, Newman had said. It would take time to remove them.
He spotted the screwdriver lying on the deck, and he picked it up.
“if they’ve placed a timer circuit in the firing mechanism, we’re going to have to first determine if removing it will cause the rocket to fire anyway” Newman had said. “It’s possible they installed failSafe devices. We’ll just have to see”
The missile’s nose finally came down within reach. McGarvey found the access panel and began taking out the screws one at a time, working as fast as he could. But his fingers were slippery with blood, his own as well as Kurshin’s, and twice he dropped the screwdriver. The last screw jammed. Not bothering with it, he jammed the blade of the screwdriver in the crack between the nearly loose panel and the missile’s casing, and pried it outward. The screwdriver snapped, but the panel had come far enough open so that he could get his fingers beneath it. He gave it one last heave, and it finally pulled away with a loud screech.
Directly inside the access panel he could see the timer mechanism, its counter switching to eight seconds. Reaching in, he pulled it out, extending it delicately on its wires. The counter switched to seven. The interior of the nose cone was filled with circuit boards, components sealed in black boxes, and a rat’s maze of wiring. Six. McGarvey tried to make some sense of it. “At the very least, we might try disconnecting the TERCOM unit, if we have the time” Newman had explained.
Five. But there was no time. And Newman was dead, most likely. He’d taken at least two or three hits to the chest. Four. Of course if the missile launched now, in the down position, it would explode here aboard the ship. Three. Baranov would not have won, this time. But he would try again. Time was on his side. Time, patience, ruthlessness. There would be others to take Kurshin’s place. Two. McGarvey reached inside the missile and grabbed a handful of wires. Still he hesitated. One. He yanked with all of his might, pulling the entire bundle of wires free from their connections to the various circuit BOOKFOUR boards. The counter on the timer switched to zero. A tiny buzz sounded from somewhere within the body of the missile, and then the night fell silent, except for the gentle lap of the wavelets against the hull of the ship.
THE WHITE HOUSE
The President’s national security adviser, General Donald Acheson, put down his telephone with a big grin.
