It would have been easy enough for Dmitri Trushenko to have sent copies of his emails simultaneously to Khamil, but from the start the leaders of al-Qaeda had insisted that the liaison with the Russians would be handled solely by Hassan Abbas, to avoid any possibility of compromising any other members of the organization.
The third email was the most interesting, and Abbas read it several times before composing his message to Khamil. Trushenko had couched his information in guarded terms, but his analysis of the implications of the over- flight by the American spy-plane was thorough. When he’d received the first brief message which simply stated that an over-flight had taken place, it had been immediately obvious to Abbas, as it had been to Trushenko, that some kind of a leak must have occurred. Trushenko’s considered opinion now was that this leak was an irritant, nothing more, because the operation was so nearly complete, with only two weapons still left to be positioned, and after some thought Abbas was inclined to agree.
In fact, from the point of view of al-Qaeda, everything they required was already in place, so whether the London weapon was successfully delivered or not made little or no difference to them.
When Richter got back to the office, he jotted down some dates on a piece of paper. Then he called the Registry and requested the Seismic Activity file and the Moscow Station activity files.
When they arrived, Richter went back through each for two months, and read all the subsequent reports. Then he checked the dates he had noted against one of the seismic reports, and then he knew why the Blackbird had flown, and why it had been so important for the Americans to take pictures of a hill that wasn’t there any more. The only things Richter didn’t know were how the Russians had done it, and what their next move was likely to be. The answer to the first question he might be able to find out by research, but the second Richter could only guess at. And his guess frightened him.
Richter made a long telephone call to a contact at the Ministry of Defence, then he called Simpson on the direct line and told him he was coming up.
Clifford Masters, Director of the CIA’s Intelligence Division, knocked and walked into the office. ‘We’ve heard from RAVEN again,’ he began without preamble.
Hicks looked interested. ‘About time. The same transmission method?’
‘Yes,’ Masters replied. ‘And again it wasn’t a film, just a short note in a film canister. It was passed to John Rigby in a Moscow restaurant at lunchtime today, in broad daylight.’
‘Did he see who delivered it?’ Hicks asked.
‘No,’ Masters shook his head. ‘As usual, Rigby hung up his overcoat when he arrived, and tried to identify anyone who went anywhere near it. He saw no known opposition personnel in the restaurant, and only left the table to go to the john – he says he was away for less than five minutes – but when he left the restaurant he found the film canister in his overcoat pocket. He went straight back inside, but saw nobody he recognized.’
‘Well,’ Hicks said. ‘At least we know that RAVEN is still alive and operational, which has to be good news. What was the message?’
Masters opened the file he was carrying and extracted a sheet of paper. ‘We’ve had the Russian translated, and double-checked. Like all of RAVEN’s messages it’s very brief and cryptic. It contains a single word and two short sentences. The single word is
Hicks looked blank, and Masters nodded. ‘Yes, this puzzled our analysts as well. It’s actually a slang term dating back to the bad old days of the collective farms and Ten-Year Plans. It means the falsification of records and other documentation to do with agricultural and industrial production. In those days, cooking the books was about the only way the farms and factories could meet the targets and quotas specified by Moscow.’
‘And the sentences?’
Masters looked at Hicks before replying. ‘They translate as “Last component enters west on 9th. Implementation date 11th.” And that,’ he added, ‘is exactly seven days away.’
‘I think I’ve worked it out,’ Richter said.
Simpson nodded encouragingly and looked at his watch. ‘Make it snappy. There’s an extraordinary meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee in under an hour, which means I’ve got to leave here in exactly twenty minutes.’
‘OK,’ Richter said. ‘I’ll give you the short version.’ Simpson motioned him to a seat. Since the beginning of the investigation, their relationship had improved considerably. Richter still couldn’t say that he actually liked the man because he didn’t, but at least they weren’t sniping at each other quite as much as before. ‘Why,’ Richter asked, as he sat down, ‘is there an extraordinary meeting of the JIC? And why so late in the day?’ Richter had checked his watch, and it was already nearly five.
‘I don’t know,’ Simpson said, ‘but I’ll let you know if it has any bearing on this.’
‘Thanks. Right, I think I’ve worked out when they moved the hill. The last KH–12 film that JARIC received prior to the Blackbird’s flight was taken a month ago, and they didn’t receive any further films at all from the KH–12 for eight days, and they’ve still had no further pictures of the area round the hill. I believe that the films shot by the Keyhole satellite showed something so unusual that the Americans decided a “command failure” was necessary. Again I don’t know, but logic suggests that this was the placement of a device in or on the hill.’
‘Device?’ said Simpson. ‘You obviously mean some sort of a bomb.’
‘I do mean some sort of a bomb,’ Richter agreed, ‘but I don’t know what sort, except that it’s something totally new. I’ll explain later why it has to be new. The Blackbird flew last week, so whatever happened out there on the tundra had to have taken place between four weeks ago and last week, and most likely closer to four weeks ago.’
‘Why?’ asked Simpson, then shook his head. ‘I’m not thinking straight,’ he said. ‘It had to be three to four weeks because of the lead-time needed to mount the Blackbird flight.’
‘Exactly. Just sorting out the logistics of getting a plane out of mothballs at Beale and across the pond probably took at least a week.’ Richter held up the Seismic Activity file. ‘I went back two months in this, just to make sure, but there was nothing significant reported from anywhere in the Eurasian landmass throughout that period, but on the second of last month there was—’
‘Don’t tell me,’ Simpson interrupted. ‘Let me guess. A major explosion was detected in the Bolshezemel’skaya Tundra.’ Richter nodded. ‘So?’
‘That was the easy bit. The seismic record shows that the Russians detonated a medium-size nuclear weapon way out in the tundra. What doesn’t make too much sense is the rest of the data. The Seismic Activity pack usually only contains traces from the seismograph recorders plus a summary about the likely source from one of the scientists, but this incident generated a number of highly technical little notes from the boffins at Aldermaston.’
Simpson looked at his watch. ‘And what do these notes say – briefly?’
‘I’m not a scientist,’ Richter went on, ‘but the gist of the matter seems to be that the nuclear explosion was unlike anything the Russians have detonated before. The seismic signature doesn’t match anything they are known to have developed for their nuclear arsenal. It also doesn’t correspond to any weapon type developed by the Americans, so the obvious implication is that the weapon is entirely new.’
Richter paused and Simpson looked at him appraisingly. ‘So what?’ he asked.
‘That’s precisely the point,’ Richter replied. ‘So the Russians have developed a new bomb, but so what?’
Simpson looked at his watch again. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, and stood up. ‘So what have we got?’
‘I still don’t really know,’ Richter said. ‘What I’ve read in the files and what Kemp at JARIC said about the lack of normal post-weapon test traces on the tundra suggests that the Russians have developed a completely new form of nuclear bomb. What I don’t understand is why that should make the Americans so cagey about telling us.’
‘Well,’ said Simpson. ‘I might be able to tell you that tomorrow, because this extraordinary JIC meeting has been called on behalf of the London CIA Chief of Station.’
