what actions he was performing. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ Baker muttered. ‘He’s accessing the Weapon Control module.’
‘We missed him, Comrade President,’ Yuri Baratov said. ‘The local SVR officers found his mobile phone, still switched on, in a
‘What about the roadblocks?’ the President asked.
Baratov shook his head. ‘We think he left by boat. The police at Sevastopol have found records relating to the purchase of a high-speed powerboat in Trushenko’s name. They’re combing all the Black Sea ports for it now.’ He paused. ‘We’ll find him, Comrade President,’ he said, reassuringly.
The old Russian looked at him. ‘Oh, I’ve no doubt you’ll find him,’ he replied. ‘I just hope that when you do it won’t be too late.’
Kabanov’s phone buzzed as his car drove through the northern outskirts of Port-Khorly. ‘Kabanov,’ he said.
‘We may have something,’ the police chief said. ‘Atall man was observed arriving here in a powerboat less than thirty minutes ago. We’re checking the boat’s registration—’
‘Forget the boat,’ Kabanov snapped. ‘It’s the man we’re after. Where did he go?’
‘At the moment, we don’t know. Our informer thinks he drove away in a car, but can’t be sure. He was too far away to see the suspect get into a car, but he is certain that a car was started and drove off a few minutes after the suspect reached the car-parking area.’
Kabanov absorbed the news in silence. ‘What about the hotels?’ he asked.
‘We’re checking them now. Nothing so far.’
‘Let me know the instant you have anything,’ Kabanov said. ‘We’ve just arrived in the town, but we’ll stay in the cars until I hear from you.’
Dmitri Trushenko paused, savouring the moment. Which one should he activate first? The first page of the Weapon Control module had three vertical columns. The left column listed ten American cities in alphabetical order, the second column showed the weapon yield, and the third the anticipated loss of life. There were twenty- three pages in all, listing two hundred and three weapons on American soil, plus fifteen in Europe. Trushenko flipped through the pages until he came to the last one. Yes, he mused, that would be a satisfactory demonstration of the effectiveness of
Richter watched in horror as Dmitri Trushenko decided on the random annihilation of around a million people. ‘Stop him, for God’s sake,’ he said.
‘I don’t know if I can,’ Baker replied, and began scanning the options.
The screen on Trushenko’s laptop changed and the boxed message ‘Washington D.C. Weapon Enabled – Enter Authorization Code Three’ appeared in the centre of it. Trushenko reached into his jacket pocket and extracted a slim diary. He opened it at the back page and placed the diary beside his computer.
Then he began to carefully enter on the keyboard the twelve random letters and numbers which constituted the first firing authorization code.
Richter sat silent, because shouting wouldn’t help. Baker was looking for any menu option that would enable him to disable the weapon or somehow override Trushenko’s instructions.
‘There’s nothing,’ Baker said, panic showing in his voice. ‘There’s no master override facility. I don’t think we can stop this.’
At the first ring, Kabanov snatched up his mobile phone and pressed a button. ‘Yes?’
‘He’s at the Hotel Metropole,’ the police chief said. ‘Room 25. It’s on—’
‘I know where it is,’ Kabanov said. ‘We’re on our way.’
‘Wait,’ Richter said. ‘That code he’s inputting.’
‘Yes?’
‘There must be a copy of it in the Krutaya computer. You know, to check that the right code is being input. Forget about looking for an override command – just change the system’s authorization codes.’
‘Brilliant,’ Baker said, ‘that’s fucking brilliant,’ and turned back to the keyboard.
The message on the laptop screen changed again. ‘Authorization Code Three Accepted. For Final Verification, Enter Authorization Code Six’. Trushenko referred again to his diary and began carefully entering the letters and numbers.
‘What code has it asked for?’ Baker demanded.
‘Six,’ Richter said.
Baker’s fingers were moving rapidly over the keyboard. ‘Got it,’ he said.
Richter looked at the screen. The computer displayed the title ‘Authorization Code List – Page One’, and underneath it twenty horizontal lines of letters and numbers. Baker pressed the ‘Print’ button to save the original codes on paper, then swiftly moved the cursor down to Code Six. The last two digits were ‘ДШ’, so he altered them to ‘ГД’ and saved the change.
Trushenko sat back, puzzled. The laptop was displaying a message from the Krutaya mainframe – ‘Authorization Code Six Not Accepted. Enter Authorization Code Ten’. He shook his head and referred again to his diary.
‘What code is that?’ Baker asked.
The Cyrillic for ‘ten’ is ‘ДЕСЯТь’ – identical to ‘ДЕВЯТь’ – ‘nine’ – apart from one letter. Richter hadn’t slept in something like thirty hours, and he was beginning to feel the strain. His eyes were tired and, because of his position slightly to one side of Baker, his view of the screen was somewhat distorted. All these factors combined into a single, dreadful mistake. Instead of the ‘Ten’ that the screen was displaying, Richter read the number as ‘Nine’. ‘Code Nine,’ he said, and Baker obediently changed the last two digits on Code Nine.
‘We can do this all day’ Baker said cheerfully, and leaned back in his chair.
