Trushenko had just entered the twelfth – and correct – digit of Code Ten when the hotel room door burst open. Three men stood there with drawn pistols. ‘Minister Trushenko,’ Captain Kabanov said, ‘please step away from the computer.’
Dmitri Trushenko stood up to face them, and smiled. ‘You are,’ he said, ‘too late. Much too late.’ He turned away from the table, but then span back and hit the ‘Enter’ key.
Kabanov fired immediately. The first bullet hit Trushenko on his right arm, was deflected by the bone of his elbow, and shattered the screen of the laptop. The second shot entered Trushenko’s left eye, killing him instantly. As he fell, his arm caught the telephone cord and tore the plug out of the modem, breaking the connection a little under one hundredth of a second before the transmission of Code Ten was completed.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Thursday
‘He’s gone,’ Baker said.
‘Where?’ Richter asked.
‘No idea. The connection’s been dropped. Right, with friend Trushenko out of the way, let’s tidy this lot up.’ Baker accessed the Username Table, selected ‘Modin, General Nicolai’, and changed the ‘
He selected the Network Control module and looked at the screen. ‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘A schematic diagram of the whole network. The satellite uplink is at Pechora, and the network has only two permanent connections, to Yazenevo and a Moscow number.’
‘Can you do anything about the permanent connection?’
‘I already have done,’ Baker said. ‘The connections are only permanent in that the telephone lines link the Krutaya computer directly with those locations, rather than having to route through any exchanges. Anybody wanting to use the computer would still have to input a valid username and password and log in just as we did. As I’ve changed the passwords of all the listed users,’ he added, ‘they can’t get into the system at all.’
Baker turned his attention to the Weapon Control module. He accessed the menu, and Richter translated the sub-menu choices for him. ‘OK,’ Baker said. ‘What do you want?’
‘Disarm them all, starting with Europe, except that one,’ Richter pointed at the screen.
‘The London weapon. OK, if that’s what you want.’ Baker concentrated on the screen while he navigated through the available options. He chose the Paris weapon, then looked at the options. ‘Here we are. What do these mean?’
‘This is Disable Sequence and that’s Abort Sequence.’
Baker selected the Disable Sequence, pressed the ‘Enter’ key and looked at the screen. ‘Another message. Can you translate it, please?’
Richter leaned over his shoulder. ‘It says “Paris Device. Activation of the Disable Sequence will temporarily disarm this weapon. Are you sure you want to proceed?” That’s not what we want,’ Richter said. ‘Try the Abort Sequence.’
Baker selected the other option, and they looked at the screen. ‘OK,’ Richter said. ‘The message reads ‘Paris Device. Activation of the Abort Sequence will permanently disarm this weapon. Are you sure you want to proceed?’ I’d say yes, if I were you. In Cyrillic script that’s “DA” – “ДА”,’ Richter added, ‘so it’s “D”, not “Y”.’
Baker nodded, pressed the ‘D’ key and then the ‘Enter’ key. The screen cleared, and another message appeared.
‘Oh, shit,’ Richter muttered.
‘What?’
‘It’s saying “Operation failed. You require Administrator or System Designer access to modify the status of any weapon”.’
‘It’s over, Comrade President,’ Yuri Baratov said, smiling. ‘Trushenko was found in Port-Khorly near Odessa. We believe he was in the act of attempting to detonate a weapon. The SVR officer in charge opened fire, and the Minister did not survive the encounter.’
The Russian President smiled. ‘Probably the best way, really. It saves any trial or embarrassment for us.’ He nodded. ‘Thank you, Yuri. Now I really do have something to tell the Americans.’
‘So now what?’ Baker asked, sitting back in his chair.
‘I don’t know,’ Richter replied. ‘You’re the computer expert, not me. First, and most important, can anyone else get into the system and detonate the weapons?’
Baker shook his head decisively. ‘No way,’ he said. ‘I’ve changed all the passwords.’
‘OK. So the only person in the system, or who can get into the system, is you?’
‘I just said that.’
‘I know,’ Richter said. ‘I just wanted to be sure because this is too important to cock up. OK, the system’s secure so there’s no immediate need to worry. If you can’t get in and disable the weapons through the satellite, that can always be done on site – General Modin told me that the weapons can be deactivated locally. What we need is the precise location of each weapon, so we can advise the Americans and everyone else. Can you do that using Modin’s access to the system?’
‘Probably,’ Baker replied, looking at the menu choices. ‘Yes, here we are, I think.’
‘“Weapon Locations (Europe)”,’ Richter read. ‘Yes, print that, please.’ A thought struck him, ‘Can you also save the information on disk?’
Baker nodded, stuck a floppy disk into the drive and pressed a sequence of keys. The drive light illuminated and went out a few seconds later. Baker extracted the disk, wrote ‘Weapons – Europe’ on it and handed it to Richter.
The laser printer generated forty-five sheets, three for each weapon. Richter picked one up and scanned it. It was highly detailed and quite unambiguous, giving the precise location of the strategic-yield neutron bomb positioned at Toulouse, together with information about the power supply back-up routines, the location of the satellite dish and receiver system, and even the serial numbers of some of the pieces of equipment. If anyone needed documentary evidence of
Baker did the same for the American devices, first copying the information on to a floppy disk and then printing a hard copy. The process took longer because there were over six hundred sheets to print, and even at the six pages a minute that the printer was capable of, it took nearly two hours. Richter slumped, dozing, in his chair, a result of his lack of sleep and the somewhat soporific sound of the sheets of paper being fed through the laser.
At half past seven Baker leaned back wearily in his seat, then reached over and shook Richter awake. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Can I break the connection now?’
‘No,’ Richter replied. He stood up, stretching his aching limbs and picked up the disk Baker had marked ‘Weapons – America’ and the plastic tray containing the printed sheets. ‘I’m going up to see Simpson. Make another file copy of the weapon locations for our records so we can print the information whenever we need it. Keep trying to get into the module to disable the weapons. And when you get tired of trying to do that, there’s one
