Richter had to agree he had a point. The single window, triple-glazed and barred, looked southwest, but only provided a view of the wall of an adjacent building and the top branches of an elderly sycamore tree that just about managed to eke out an existence in the side street.
The desk and office chair were next to the window, facing the door, and against the opposite wall was a grey filing cabinet with a non-functioning lock. Richter kept nothing in it but a small kettle, a jar of instant coffee, a container of powdered milk, a spoon and two cups. Next to the filing cabinet, and bolted to a steel plate cemented into the wall, was a large ministry-issue safe fitted with a combination lock. On the desk were ‘In’ and ‘Out’ trays, a desk calendar, and two telephones. One had level-nine access which meant that Richter could ring up anyone entirely at the British tax-payers’ expense. That was the grey phone. The other one was black, and was a direct line that communicated only with Simpson.
As usual, all the document trays on the desk were empty. Like the Secret Intelligence Service, the Foreign Operations Executive operated a ‘clear-desks’ policy, which meant that nothing was ever left on a desk in an unattended office. Even if the occupant was only going to the loo, all the files, document trays and even diaries had to be locked in the safe first. It was an irritating, but fundamentally secure, system.
Richter span the safe’s combination lock. He reached in and pulled out three documents that had been delivered just before he had left for Moscow. As he did so, the black phone rang.
‘Come up, please,’ Simpson instructed. He sounded preoccupied.
Walter Hicks stood up, walked over to his desk and pressed the button on the intercom. ‘Jayne,’ he said, ‘this is going to take some time. Cancel all my appointments for the rest of the morning, and only put calls through if you can’t sort them out yourself.’ This meant they wouldn’t be disturbed – Jayne was very good at handling callers. ‘OK,’ he said, as he sat down again at the conference table, ‘you people are the experts. I can read what it says, but I need you to tell me what it means.’
Muldoon glanced across the table towards Ronald Hughes. ‘This is probably more your field than mine, Ron.’
‘The message was apparently written in a hurry, Director,’ Hughes said, ‘as it’s brief and cryptic. But it contains three very specific pieces of information.’ He held up his left hand, fingers extended, and counted them off. ‘First, RAVEN states that there is a bilateral covert offensive in progress, one part directed against Europe and the other against the States. I emphasize that he says “in progress”, not “planned” or “future” or anything like that.’
‘My Russian isn’t that good,’ Hicks interrupted, ‘but we must be very clear on this. I presume you’ve checked the translation with our in-house specialists?’
‘Yes. Four separate analyst/translators have studied the wording of this section of the document, and they all agree. There is no doubt about the translation.’
‘Go on.’
‘Second, he provides a date – the second of this month. Third, a map reference.’ Hicks looked at him expectantly. Hughes rubbed a hand over his forehead and looked down at his papers. ‘Let me take the three items in order. First, the offensive. As soon as the Espionage Division had this translation to hand, Cliff Masters directed me to run a high-priority check on all military activity within the CIS, looking for any signs of increased readiness. I also checked our current DEFCON status with NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain, and ran a check through all allied intelligence services, concentrating on Europe.’
‘That should have covered all the bases,’ Hicks said. ‘The results were negative, obviously, or I would have known about it.’
‘Yes,’ Hughes replied. ‘We were aware that the RAVEN message specified a covert offensive, but for any type of offensive it would be reasonable to assume that there would be some evidence of heightened military activity. We found nothing. Now, the date and the map reference. The second of the month came and went, and nothing seemed to happen. The position is nowhere. It’s just a spot way up in the Bolshezemel’skaya Tundra, pretty much in the foothills of the Urals, and a long way from any sites of strategic interest or importance.’
‘Get to the point,’ Hicks growled.
‘As I said, nothing seemed to happen on the second, but actually something did. Seismic recordings that we obtained showed an explosion of some kind on that date, in more or less the same position as the map reference given by source RAVEN.’ Hughes looked over at Muldoon. ‘That was when we brought Science and Technology into the loop, because we needed satellite pictures to find out what had happened up on the tundra.’
‘We already had some pictures of the location specified by source RAVEN from a Keyhole satellite, taken in the weeks leading up to the second,’ Muldoon said. ‘The only thing of interest any of these showed was a handful of vehicles close to the map reference. After the event we tinkered with the polar orbit of a Keyhole satellite to optimize coverage. We had some trouble with cloud on the first few passes, but eventually we did get clear shots of the area. All we found was a hole in the ground, and not even a very big hole. Then we ran comparisons with earlier shots of the same area, but that didn’t help much either.
‘We hadn’t got detailed satellite shots of the area – as I said, it’s nowhere near anything of any strategic importance – but the wide-angle pictures we had showed nothing but a small hill in the tundra at the grid reference. And that’s when two other factors entered the equation.’
‘And they were?’ Hicks asked.
‘The fourth piece of information in the RAVEN message,’ Hughes replied, ‘and the seismographic analysis of the explosion.’
‘I thought you said the RAVEN text contained only three bits of data.’
‘No, Director,’ Hughes said, shaking his head decisively. ‘The message contained three specific pieces of information, which we’ve already discussed. It also contained three other phrases that were assessed as non- specific, as each was apparently intended to be a question or, possibly, an incomplete piece of data. One translated as “neutron radiation”, the second was the proper name “Gibraltar” and the last was the word “demonstration”.’
‘OK,’ Hicks said. ‘Give me the rest of it – briefly, please.’
‘Analysis of the seismographic records of the explosion suggested that the weapon was slightly unusual,’ Muldoon said. ‘I won’t attempt to go into the technicalities of it because it’s not my field, and our in-house experts can provide you with chapter and verse if you need it. However, what bothered our people was the fact that it didn’t have the usual characteristics of any known current Russian nuclear weapon, fission or fusion. What it resembled more than anything was a big – a really big – neutron bomb.’
Muldoon fell silent and Hughes spoke again. ‘We discussed the satellite pictures with Science and Technology, and ran some probability checks through Intelligence. John tried to do some checking with his sources in the CIS, but didn’t get anywhere. The thing that bothered us was the “neutron radiation” statement, which tied up with the seismographic analysis. We tried the usual procedures, using sampling systems in bordering countries and on civil aircraft flying anywhere near the site of the explosion, but got nil results. We didn’t understand that, because according to Science and Technology a weapon of the power suggested by the seismograph analysis should certainly have produced significant radiation. As we couldn’t detect any, we wondered if the Russians had managed to develop a high-yield but low-radiation warhead – a kind of super neutron bomb, if you like.’
‘You will be aware, Walter,’ Muldoon interrupted, ‘that the neutron bomb – the Enhanced Radiation Warhead – has an extremely small effective radius, usually under two hundred metres. The physical damage it causes is very limited, but the burst of neutrons it releases is immediately lethal within about five hundred metres, and lethal within hours or days to every living thing inside about a mile. More importantly, the radiation dissipates very rapidly and the area can safely be entered quite soon after detonation.’
Hicks stirred impatiently, but Muldoon pressed on. ‘The neutron bomb was always intended as a defensive weapon, allowing a numerically inferior force to decimate attacking armour. What concerned us was the possibility that the Russians had managed to turn it into a first-strike weapon of some kind, giving it a high yield without the lingering radiation effects of a conventional nuclear device.’
Muldoon paused, and Hicks looked at him. Hicks took the cigar out of his mouth, looked at the glowing end and then back at Muldoon. ‘I get the feeling,’ he said, ‘that we’re coming to the awkward bit.’
Muldoon nodded. ‘We decided that the only way to get detailed photographs and proper radiation
