Thirty minutes later found the two men sitting in another room, much smaller, with barely enough space for the two high-backed, padded chairs they occupied, and a huge instrument panel that stretched the length of the room. They sat at opposite ends of the panel. Each of them was holding a small white metal key, and both keys were inserted into identical locks. Their eyes were watching two small screens, each set above the panel, angled down toward them. The screens flickered for a moment, and then each displayed, in an incandescent, wavering green, two words: BATTLE ALERT.
Orlov looked quickly over to Leverotov. 'Battle Alert?' he said, his voice rising slightly. 'Not Training Alert?'
'Shut up,' said Leverotov. 'You know the procedure. Follow it.' And then he began a countdown. 'Three, two, one… turn!'
Simultaneously the two men turned the small, white keys. An amber light above each lock went off, and immediately a red light next to it came on. Each man then raised his right arm slightly and positioned an extended index finger over a large round white button. Their eyes were fixed on rows of lights beneath each button, watching closely as the lights turned in sequence from red to green.
When the last little round light had turned green, Leverotov said, 'Arming sequence complete,' to which Orlov replied, 'Confirmed, arming sequence complete.'
The words 'BATTLE ALERT' disappeared from the screens over their heads, instantly replaced with the words 'RED STAR.' Both men looked to the binders open before them, traced with a finger down a column of words.
'Firing verification Red Star,' said Leverotov.
'Firing verification Red Star confirmed,' replied Orlov.
'On my mark,' said Leverotov, and raised his finger to the white button, while Orlov, like a mirror image, did the same. 'Three, two, one… fire!'
Both fingers pressed and held the white buttons. The green lights above the buttons blinked out. The words 'RED STAR' disappeared from the TV screens. Still the men held down the white buttons. There was a long moment of silence… then a speaker set in the ceiling of the room crackled.
'Fighting watch alpha,' said a staticky voice from the speaker.
'Fighting watch alpha aye,' said Leverotov.
'Alert canceled. Repeat, alert canceled. Stand down. Repeat, stand down.'
'Alert canceled confirmed,' replied Leverotov. 'Fighting watch alpha out.'
He moved his hand to his key, looked over to Orlov, waiting for him to do the same.
Orlov looked over at Leverotov. 'That's not-'
'Your key, Captain Orlov,' Leverotov said.
Orlov raised his hand to his own key. Once again, Leverotov counted down from three to one; once again, they turned their keys simultaneously, this time counterclockwise, back to Lock.
'Now,' said Leverotov, 'make your record. They'll be cracking the hatch soon, I want to be on time.'
Orlov shrugged, pulled a logbook toward the edge of the panel, began writing down figures. He happened to glance again at the instrument panel. 'What the hell?' he said.
Leverotov looked at his own panel. On both sides, a red light was blinking.
The two men looked at each other. Leverotov immediately leaned forward, pressed the button for the intercom.
But before he could say anything, Orlov said, 'Wait!' He pointed at the red light in front of him, which had stopped blinking. Leverotov looked at his; it was now off, too.
They could hear the sounds of men on the other side of the oval door, unlocking its mechanism.
'What do you think?' asked Orlov. 'Should we report it?'
Leverotov thought a moment. 'Let me… look into it,' he said. 'I will let you know.'
And then the hatch to the room was opened, and the process of handing over their records and keys began.
CHAPTER 44
The light in the basement of the church had dimmed a little as clouds moved overhead and blocked the sun. Nikolai was leaning back in his chair, while Benjamin sat forward in his. Benjamin realized his body had gone stiff with tension while he listened to Nikolai's story.
'Anton said something about 1968, about it being the time we truly came closest to nuclear war. But in the U.S. we never heard of this.'
'Of course not,' said Nikolai. 'You didn't really care about the rebellion. It was all… theater to you.'
'And this mysterious red light during the drill, this glitch… what did Leverotov find out about it?'
'Before I answer that question, there's something you must understand,' Nikolai said.
Nikolai told Benjamin the same thing Anton had: after the Cuban Missile Crisis, a new protocol for the Soviet nuclear forces had been issued. And that protocol changed the way their missiles were targeted. Before that, each missile stored its individual target and guided itself once it was launched. But under the new protocol, Strategija Chetyre, the targeting codes were transmitted from Moscow Center only after the missiles were launched.
'That red light,' Nikolai said. 'It meant the targeting codes were being transmitted then, before launch. And next thing we know, new message comes from Moscow. Cancel alert. Stand down. Only 'training exercise.' All damn strange.'
Then he explained to Benjamin that his early training at the military academy had been that of an engineer, as were most of the other rocketchiki, so he and his comrades were intimately knowledgeable about even the most technical details of their nest of nuclear-tipped ICBMs.
'More than just fingers on buttons,' he said. 'We must understand fuel, circuits, electronics… everything.'
He told Benjamin that Vladimir Sergeyevitch Leverotov was someone who knew the insides of the rockets and all the facilities better than anyone. But this particular 'bright guy' had come not from the Academy, like Nikolai, but rather from the Ministry of Defense. He'd graduated university as a mathematician before joining the Red Army, and then been assigned to something called the 12 Directorate in the Ministry of Defense.
'Anton mentioned that,' Benjamin interrupted. 'He said-'
'Please, wait,' Nikolai said.
Nikolai and Leverotov had become fast friends. They were both ardent believers in the mission of the rocketchiki, which Nikolai described as 'guarding the whole planet from the aggression of imperialistic states.' Nikolai and Leverotov had had frequent discussions about the importance of what they were doing, about their 'ideological certainty' that it was right and, more important, patriotic.
But Benjamin was still dealing with something else Nikolai had said.
'You actually believed NATO would attack? Over Czechoslovakia?'
'I know what you are thinking,' Nikolai said. 'Did we really believe we were the good guys, you were the bad guys?' Nikolai gave him a very serious look. 'And would I have used this terrible weapon? The answer is yes, absolutely. We believed. And for those four weeks, with Czechoslovakia in chaos, we were very close to edge of making belief into reality.'
The Czech crisis lasted another two weeks. By the time it was over, Nikolai told them, everyone of the underground watch group was exhausted, just wanted to go home. Nobody talked about the 'glitch.' It was considered unpatriotic to even suggest something had gone wrong.
But in the month after that, Nikolai noticed a change in Leverotov's behavior. He seemed preoccupied. He no longer told jokes, didn't participate in the political discussions in the relaxation building. He performed his duties, but something seemed to have dampened his spirit.
'More robot than true rocketchiki, ' Nikolai said. And after that Leverotov spent more time than ever checking the 'sausages,' going over their circuits, running tests.
Nikolai said he was used to people lying to one another, hiding their true feelings; that was all part of the system, a part of it he eventually came to despise. But with Leverotov, he felt it was something more than that.
One day, after another drill, they were in the changing room together. Nikolai approached Leverotov, began talking about the drill. Finally he came out and asked Vladimir: Had he lost his belief? If the time came, would he
