were each housed in a pale gray metal container a little less than a quarter-inch long, and half that in thickness and width.
These he took into the bathroom, wrapped them in tissue paper and flushed them down the toilet.
Back at his work table he took a small plastic box out of his purse, opened it and from within drew out a tiny device to which a pair of wires were attached. Oblong in shape, the triggering device, which had been designed and manufactured by the Swiss firm of ModTec, was not much larger than the filters he’d removed from the radio.
Working with extreme care he soldered the glass-encased trigger into one of the slots that had held a filter, making certain he did not allow the device to get too hot, or for any solder to splatter the board.
Providing the selector switch was not turned to the shortwave band, the radio would work normally.
When he was finished with the first trigger, he soldered in the remaining thirteen devices, then resoldered the power supply wires to the proper connections, refastened the power supply board, and closed the back cover, replacing all six screws.
He was sweating lightly by the time he had cleaned up his tools and equipment and finished packing his single bag.
Making sure he had his airplane tickets and passport, and that he was leaving nothing incriminating behind, he left his room and took the elevator down to the lobby.
The time was just 2332.
Wind was gusting to forty miles per hour, sending spray a hundred yards inland from the waves crashing on the rugged rocky shoreline, and snatching away most sounds except for the wind itself.
A panel truck, its headlights out, materialized out of the darkness on a narrow dirt track that ran down toward the water and disappeared on the stoney beach. A long time ago local fishermen had maintained a cooperative dock here. A few years after the revolution, however, government forces had occupied the nearby town of Dalnyaya on Cape Krilon at the extreme southern tip of Sakhalin Island. Japan was barely thirty miles south, across the Soya Strait, and this area had been abandoned.
The beat-up, dark gray truck stopped twenty feet off the beach, and Franz Hoffmann switched off the engine. He was a huge, rough-featured man with a pockmarked face and a thick barrel chest. His eyes, however, were small and close set.
He glanced over his shoulder at the four animal cages in the back. Now that they were this close he was becoming nervous.
“Let’s get the little bastards down to the beach,” Otto Eichendorf said.
Hoffman looked at the other East German. Spranger had ordered them to take refuge inside Krasnoyarsk three months ago. Neither of them had liked the assignment, and he could see that Eichendorf was just as nervous and just as anxious to get away as he was.
“Take the light and make the landing signal first, Otto. I don’t want to get caught here.”
Eichendorf nodded, and got out of the truck. Hoffman watched as the man trudged down to the beach and raised his flashlight.
They were a half hour early, but if the boat was out there waiting for them as planned, they would see the light and signal back.
Again Hoffmann glanced into the back of the truck. Two of the cages contained a pair of wild sables, and the other two each held a pair of wild Siberian mink.
They were vicious animals, and any border patrol prick or naval rating they might encounter would certainly think twice about sticking his hand in those cages. But if he did, and if he survived with his hand intact, he would find eighty pounds of refined plutonium 239 encased in lead containers beneath the false bottoms in each cage.
They had brought it overland from the nuclear facility at Khabarovsk, where, incredibly, they had purchased it in small lots from a local black marketeer who boasted (and rightly so) that he could get them anything for the right price. On the coast they’d hired a fishing boat to take them across the Tatar Strait onto Sakhalin Island … simple fur animal smugglers that everyone was happy to deal with for a few hundred rubles.
The idea was a to commit a visible crime for which the authorities were willing to take a bribe, in order to hide their real action. So far it had worked beautifully.
Now, however, if they were caught by the KGB, or by a Japanese Coast Guard patrol, they would have a more difficult time explaining themselves. Internal smuggling was one thing, but trying to take sables out of the Soviet Union was another crime, serious enough to expect, if they were stopped, that the cages would be searched.
A pinpoint of light out to sea flashed once, then twice, and once again, and Eichendorf hurried back up to the truck.
Hoffman climbed out. “I saw it,” he shouted over the wind.
“I’ll be glad to get off this rock,” the taller, thinner man said. “Now let’s get the cages down to the beach.”
They went around to the back of the truck and opened the door. The animals went wild, hissing and snapping and banging against the wire mesh, their teeth bared.
Hoffman pulled the first cage out by the handle, careful to keep his fingers as far away from the mesh as possible. One of the sables was madly biting and chewing at the wire.
Eichendorf took the other side and between them they carried the sixty-pound cage over the rocks the rest of the way down to the beach, setting it down a few feet from the water’s edge.
They could see nothing out to sea, no lights, not even the dark form of the boat.
But they’d seen the light signal in reply to theirs. So it was there. Nevertheless Hoffman was starting to get very jumpy. It was the tone of Spranger’s voice. The general had sounded… worried, upset. Hurt. It had been disconcerting listening to him.
It took them several minutes to haul the other three cages from the truck, and by the time they were finished they were both winded, and sweating lightly despite the breeze and the chill.
Hoffman held up a hand for Eichendorf to keep silent for a second as he cocked an ear. He had heard something over the wind, an engine noise perhaps.
He stepped closer to the water and held his breath to listen. The sounds were definitely there, but not out to sea, he realized with horror.
He spun around, and looked up toward the dirt track.
Eichendorf was hearing it now too. “Christ, is it a KGB patrol?”
“I don’t know, maybe not,” Hoffmann said. “Get the rifles.”
“Right.” Eichendorf raced back up to the truck, as Hoffman snatched the flashlight and turned back to face the sea. Under these circumstances he was supposed to send five short flashes, which meant there was trouble on the beach, and that the pickup was off.
But they were so close. To be caught here on the beach like this would mean certain arrest, and almost certainly death by firing squad after a very brief trial for espionage.
Never mind they were ex-STASI, and had once worked for the KGB. That old alliance would not protect them now.
Eichendorf came back with the Kalashnikov rifles. “Did you send the signal?”
Hoffman threw down the flashlight and grabbed his rifle, levering a round into the firing chamber and switching the safety off. “No,” he said. “We’re getting off this beach tonight, or we’re going to die here.”
The sound of the engine faded, came back and then faded again and was gone. Hoffman took a few steps toward the road, but he could hear nothing now, other than the wind.
“Franz,” Eichendorf called urgently.
Hoffman turned as a big rubber raft, carrying two men dressed in rough dungarees and thick sweaters, surged onto the beach. One of them immediately hopped out.
“Macht schnell,” he shouted. “We have a KGB patrol boat on our ass.”
Hoffman and Eichendorf exchanged glances, and Hoffmann shook his head slightly. Whatever had been heading toward them on the road had apparently turned around and left.
Between the three of them it only took a couple of minutes to load the cages aboard the boat. Eichendorf and the sailor clambered aboard, leaving Hoffman to push them off.
“What’s going on down there?” someone shouted in Russian from behind them on the road.
