She saw the familiar corridors as she was hurried inside to the infirmary. She glimpsed Galyshev’s face, red with anger and fear, as he bent over her bed and tried to coax sense out of her. And then she woke up in a different bed, looking up at a different ceiling, a cleaner, whiter, more brightly lit one, but she never remembered the trip, and it wasn’t until the doctor told her, hours later, that she realized she was in Moscow, that they had flown her out at fantastic expense in a special emergency flight.
The massacre on the windswept Siberian ice seemed like some hideous fever dream, but one she could not shake from her thoughts; the image of that jagged double blade biting into Barankin’s back, the crunching sound as the blades cut through the boy’s ribs, the sight of that creature lifting its bloody trophy high so that it gleamed in the firelight, would not go away.
When at last they put her into a clean uniform and sent her to see General Ponomarenko the vision of Mikhail Barankin hung before her, like some unholy apparition, as she answered the general’s questions.
She stood at attention during questioning; in light of her condition they did allow her to hold on to a rail for support as she spoke. She thought she understood why she was not permitted to sit. When she had finished her description of the nightmare she had watched from beneath her blanket of snow, she did not stop, but went on to say, “An entire army squad has been wiped out. Someone has to answer for it. I know that. The circumstances of my promotion and transfer just make it that much easier to hold me responsible, and I accept that. You need make no pretenses.”
Ponomarenko smiled humorlessly and leaned back in his chair. He took a long drag on the imported cigar he held, then took a moment to carefully knock the ash into an ashtray before he looked back at Ligacheva.
”I make no secret of it, lieutenant,” he said. “I did think your promotion was a mistake. Your actions in the field, and the results, only confirm my belief.” He took another puff on his cigar, then leaned forward.
”You’re wrong, though, about one thing,” he continued. “We aren’t looking for a scapegoat this time. We don’t want simple retribution. We want more than that. We want to know what really happened, and what’s out there. And whether you have told us the truth or not, Lieutenant, you know more of what happened out there than we do.” He stubbed out the cigar and pointed at her. “So, my dear,” he said, “we don’t want your blood. It’s worse than that.” He smiled coldly.
”We want you to go back.”
Chapter 5
“What in the hell?” the technician said as he looked at the computer display. He frowned. Then he glanced up at the technicians seated to either side of him. They were quietly scanning through data downloads from spy satellites much like the one he had been receiving.
No one else seemed to see anything out of the ordinary; no one else was making comments or even looking up. That meant that whatever was responsible for what he was seeing, it wasn’t a whole-system, network-wide problem. Whether it was accurate data or a glitch, it was local.
He looked back at the screen, considered for a moment, and typed in a command.
He studied the result, tried another command, and another, then finally switched back to what he’d started with.
The results didn’t change. The computers said that he was, indeed, seeing what he thought he was.
He stared at it for a moment longer, then pushed back his chair and picked up a phone. It buzzed once before a voice said, “Yeah?”
”General Meeters,” the tech said, “I’ve got something on my screen down here that I think you should see.”
”Talk to me,” Meeters said.
”It’s satellite infrared of the Yamal Peninsula in northern Siberia. The oil fields. A big hot spot. I think you should have a look.”
”Why?” Meeters asked. “You think it’s a well fire? We haven’t heard anything.”
”I don’t know what it is, General, but I really think you should look at this.”
Meeters frowned. “I’ll be right down.” He dropped the phone and rose from his desk.
He was a week behind on his paperwork, and this wasn’t going to help any-if he’d known how much paperwork was involved he wouldn’t have celebrated when he made brigadier six months ago. Still, he knew his people wouldn’t call him down to the surveillance room if there wasn’t something there worth checking out.
He slammed his office door on the way out; moving quietly on this particular corridor was not considered good form, as no one wanted to do anything the guards might consider stealthy or suspicious. Meeters strode boldly and openly down the corridor to the surveillance room, where the guards let him pass without a word.
Shearson was the technician who had made the call; Meeters had recognized the voice. He headed directly for Shearson’s station, where he looked over the tech’s shoulder at the readout on the screen.
”What have we got?” he asked.
Shearson glanced up, confirmed that it was indeed the general who was asking, then tapped a quick series of keys. The screen immediately displayed an outline map of the Yamal Peninsula, with the known towns and installations neatly labeled. That was all done in fine black lines superimposed on bands of vivid color.
”This is the infrared, sir,” Shearson explained. He pointed to a bar scale in the corner that explained the colors-dark green, blue, indigo, and violet were areas below freezing, and most of the screen was awash in deep, dark violet. Warmer areas were chartreuse, yellow, and so on up through orange and two shades of red.
The marked villages and pumping stations were mostly little patches of chartreuse, with a few shading to yellow. None of them showed a single pixel of orange.
However, centered on the screen, in empty wilderness a few kilometers from a greenish dot marked ASSYMA PS #12, was a fiery red spot.
”So what the hell is that?” Meeters demanded. “Is there visual?”
Shearson shook his head. “It’s night there,” he said, “and there’s heavy cloud cover. Probably snowing.”
”Anything putting out that much heat should be bright enough to see at night,” Meeters pointed out. “How long has it been there? Was it there before the clouds moved in?”
Shearson shook his head again. “We don’t know, sir. With the budget cuts and the lowered priority for that area, and with RIS-34 off-line right now, we’ve only been going over the feed for that area twice a week. Wasn’t a damn thing there except ice three days ago.”
”Gotta be a well fire, then,” Meeters said, straightening up.
”No, sir,” Shearson said. “I don’t think so. We have visual from last week-take a look.”
He tapped keys, and a new image, composed of gray shapes, superimposed itself on the existing one. Shearson pointed to the location of the red dot.
”It’s at least a couple of kilometers from the pipeline and twenty or more from the nearest well-head. The Russians didn’t sink any new wells in less than a week in the middle of an arctic winter, General.” He tapped more keys and added, “And besides, look at this.”
The grayish lines and blobs of the satellite photography vanished, then the bright colors of the infrared scan. Then a new scan appeared over the same outline map.
Again, a single bright red dot gleamed on a field of greens and blues, in that same location.
”What the hell is this one?” Meeters asked.
”Radioactivity,” Shearson said. “Whatever we’re looking at is hot in more ways than one. I haven’t seen a mix like this since Chernobyl-though this one’s different, the radiation’s dropped off quickly and the heat hasn’t…”
”Radioactivity?”
”Yes, sir.”
”Son of a bitch,” Meeters said. He straightened up again, turned, and shouted at the guard, “Sergeant, I want this room secured, nobody in or out without emergency authorization.” Then he turned back to Shearson. “I want hard copy of all this on my desk in five minutes, and I want this wired to the White House and NORAD. Flag any intelligence reports on anything in the area military, political, anything.”
”General…?” Shearson asked, startled. “What’s going on? Who is it?”
”I don’t know who it is,” Meeters said, “or what they think they’re doing-might be some kind of Soviet
