The general turned.
“Commence our occupation phase, Alex,” he commanded. “Well be having visitors soon, and we’ve got much work to do.”
“Of course, sir.”
Alex issued orders quickly. “Get the trucks up here with Hummel and send the demolition team down to blow the road. Roll out the wire for the field telephones. Get the canvas strung out. And get the boys started digging in.”
The general turned to the teletype machines against the wall. Five of them — marked SAC, ERCS, UHF Satellite, Looking Glass, and SLFCS — were still, as if dead. The sixth — marked National Command — suddenly began to clatter away insanely.
The genera] touched Alex on the arm.
“Look, Alex,” he said. “They know. The key vault must be rigged to send a robot signal to Command when it’s deployed.”
He looked at his watch, a gold Rolex.
“About three minutes. Not bad. Not outstanding, but not bad.”
He pulled the message off the platen.
FLASH OVERRIDE
FROM: NMCC WASHINGTON D.C.//J3 NMCC//
TO: SOUTH MOUNTAIN MISSILE OPERATIONS OFFICER
AIG 6843
SECRET
FJO//001//02183Z 17 DEC 88
IMPERATIVE YOU CONTACT THIS HQ ASAP. REPEAT. IMPERATIVE YOU CONTACT THIS HQ ASAP.
The machine spurted again. It was the same message.
“They must really be going crazy in the Pentagon about now,” the general said with something like a chuckle. “Lord, I wish I could see their faces.”
Alex nodded, and hustled out.
The general had two things to do now.
First, he went to the shortwave radio transmitter nestled between two of the teletypes. It was the Collins 32S-3 model, an older machine that had been installed in the capsule purely as an emergency backup method of communication. He flicked it on, bent to the band selector, and turned it to the 21.2 megahertz setting, then dialed in a more specific frequency on the tuner. That done, he simply twisted the emission dial to the CW setting and held it for five seconds exactly, sending out a burst of raw noise across the airwaves on his frequency. Then he turned it off.
All right, he thought, very good, according to plan. And now …
He pulled one of the chairs from the console over to the operative teletype. He pushed the red send button. Immediately, it stopped clattering.
He bent to the keys.
In one swift burst he typed out his message. He had no need to pause to think. He knew the words by memory, and it was in the spirit of memory that he delivered them.
Speak, Memory, he thought, as he hit the send button, and the lessons of the past reached out to twist the present into the future.
0900
“Imbecile,” yelled the excited Klimov. “Fool. Idiot. Do you know how much we spend on you? I mean, can you guess?”
Gregor Arbatov said, “No, comrade.”
It was useless to resist. Klimov was making an example of him before all the others. To defy Klimov in public circumstances such as these was to risk more than disaster, it was to risk humiliation. Christ in heaven, it was to risk recall to Russia! Klimov was ruthless. Klimov was tyrannical. Klimov was perhaps psychotic. But worst of all, Klimov was young.
“Well, let me tell you, comrade. I was up half the night going over budgets while you were rooting around under the sheets with your fat friend. It costs us over thirty thousand dollars a year to support you. We pay for the apartment, we give you a food and clothing allowance, we lease your automobile. And how do you repay us, to say nothing of fulfilling your duties? With drivel! With nonsense! With hearsay, gossip, and rumor! Some agent runner you’ve become in your old age, Arbatov. I remember once you were a hero. And now this. What the senator really thinks of SALT II. Where the senator stands on Peacekeeper. What the committee will do when next the Director of Central Intelligence requests a fund increase. I can read all this in
Arbatov mewled an explanation, head down, contrite, his eyes riveted on his bleak black shoes.
“In some cases, Comrade Klimov, it takes time before a source can be cajoled into producing high-grade product. It takes much patience and manipulation. I am working diligently to—”
But as he spoke, he sneaked a peek at his tormentor and saw the interest drain from Klimov’s eyes. Klimov was not much on listening. Klimov was a great talker, a lecturer, a young man extraordinarily fascinated with his own life and career; his interest in the human race seemed to stop at the tip of his own nose.
Klimov had ugly eyes, a short temper, and a quick mind. He was what everyone in Washington feared and hated, regardless of political inclination or global loyalty. He was very young, very bright, and very connected.
It was this last that so filled Arbatov with terror. Klimov was the son of the sister of the great Arkady Pashin, GRU’s Chief of Fifth Directorate (Operational Intelligence), the man next in line to be first deputy. And this rotten little Klimov was his nephew!
With Uncle Arkady’s kind intercession, young Klimov had shot through the ranks. To be a deputy
“Do you think,” said Klimov, “that when Comrade Pashin assumes full operational responsibilities for the organization he will tolerate such foolishness?”
Of course poor Arbatov had no idea what Pashin would or would not tolerate. How could he?
“Do you think because you service a special asset you are invulnerable to criticism and beyond self- improvement?”
Klimov must be feeling especially bold today to even mention the agent Pork Chop, on whom, as much as anything, Arbatov had staked his chances of survival. Was even Pork Chop to be taken from him?
“I–I—” he began to blubber.
“Your special source can easily be serviced by another,” roared Klimov. “You are merely a technician. You can be replaced as simply as one changes a light bulb, comrade.”
Arbatov saw that he was lost. There was but one course left open to him.
“But, comrade,” whined Arbatov, “it’s true I’ve become sloppy in my ways. Perhaps I take too much for granted. I’ve let the
“Ah!” Young Klimov made a snort of disgust. “These aren’t the old days. No bullets in the neck for such as Gregor Ivanovich Arbatov! We require only that he rededicate himself, as he says he shall.”
