heroes of the state.
Noon and Nishtar had been working for more than three hours in the cold warehouse, taking moments to warm their hands over a coal brick stove that had been lit in the corner so that their fingers would remain pliant for the intricate work of removing the nuclear devices from their MK84 bomb casings, necessary for them to fit in the payload containers. A group of Rehan’s personal security force stood by, ready to help with engine hoists and rolling racks. Safronov offered up Jamaat Shariat men for this work but Rehan refused, told him to keep his gunmen inside the perimeter gates but ready for any threat from the outside. Once the bombs left Dushanbe, Rehan explained, they would be Safronov’s, but for now Rehan retained possession and his people would handle them.
As Noon and Nishtar checked some data on a laptop on a table next to the first payload container, Rehan and Safronov stepped up behind them. The general reached out and put his thick hands on the two men’s backs. They continued to work. “Doctors, how is your progress?”
Dr. Nishtar answered while he peered into the container, looking at the configuration of the warhead. “Minutes more for this one, and then we begin on the second weapon. We have bypassed the launch code mechanisms, and we have installed the radio altimeter fuses.”
“Show us.”
Noon pointed out a device bolted to the side of the bomb. It looked like a metal briefcase, and it contained several mechanical parts wired together, as well as a computer keypad and an LED readout. He said, “There is a radio altimeter that is already set. When the devices reach an altitude of sixty thousand feet it will arm the weapon, and when it descends to one thousand feet it will detonate. There is a backup barometer on the detonator, as well as a manual override for a timed detonation, which you will not need for a warhead launch. Also, we will rig a tamper trigger on the door of the payload container, so that if anyone tries to open it to remove the weapon, the nuclear bomb will detonate.”
Georgi smiled and nodded, appreciative of the men’s work on behalf of the Dagestani cause. “And you will do the same for the other device?”
“Of course.”
“Excellent,” Rehan said as his hands patted the men on their shoulders. “Carry on.”
Safronov left the warehouse minutes later, but Rehan lagged behind. He returned to the two nuclear scientists and said, “I have one small request for you both.”
“Anything, General,” said Dr. Noon.
Ninety minutes later, General Rehan embraced Georgi Safronov outside the maintenance garage, and he shook the hand of each one of the Dagestani fighters. He called them brave brothers, and he promised them that if they should be martyred he would name streets in his country in their honor.
Then Rehan, Khan, the PAEC officials, and Rehan’s protection detail departed through the front gates of the bus farm in four vehicles, removing with them every trace of their work, and leaving behind the Dagestani fighters and the two Dnepr-1 payload containers.
Minutes after that, the Dagestanis themselves departed, the gifts from Pakistan loaded carefully into their tractor-trailers for the long drive to the north.
John Clark spent an entire morning on a stakeout on a tiny park bench in Pushkin Square, central Moscow. Two inches of fresh snowfall surrounded him, but the sky was clear and bright. He took full tactical advantage of the temperatures by wearing a heavy coat with a thick fur hood. He imagined that if his own wife sat next to him on this park bench she would have no idea as to his identity.
And that was coming in handy at the moment. Two muscular Frenchmen were also in the park, also looking at the same location Clark had come to stake out. He’d spotted them and a pair of their colleagues the day before. The others were stationed in a van up on Uspenskiy Pereulok, a van that they’d kept running throughout the day and night. Clark had noticed the steaming exhaust on one of his “lazy eight” strolls through the neighborhood, just one of dozens of anomalies his fertile tactical mind had seen in the streets surrounding his target’s house. The other anomalies he had, after checking them out, eliminated as potential tip-offs to watchers, but the two Frenchmen in the park, and the van that ran all day long in its parking spot, meant the men after him were using his target as bait.
It did not work for them in Tallinn, but here in Moscow, they would be determined to not fail again.
Clark used peripheral vision to watch the front door of the apartment of Oleg Kovalenko. The old Russian spy had not left his home at all the day before, but that had not surprised John Clark much. A pensioner his age would not want to stroll the icy streets of Moscow unless it was necessary; there were likely tens of thousands of elderly shut-ins filling tiny apartments throughout the frozen city this weekend.
The day before he’d bought a mobile phone with prepaid credits in a shopping center. He’d found Kovalenko’s phone number in the phone book, and he’d considered just calling the man and asking him for a minute of his time somewhere safe. But Clark had no way of knowing if the ex — KGB officer’s phone had been bugged by the French, so he discarded that plan.
Instead he had spent most of the day looking for a way into the Russian’s apartment that would not tip off the Frenchmen. He got an idea around two in the afternoon, when an old woman in a purple cap pushed an old metal rolling cart out of the front entrance of the building and headed west through the square. He followed her into a market, where she bought several staples. In the checkout line Clark stood next to her, used his rusty Russian to strike up a friendly conversation. He was apologetic about his language abilities, explaining he was an American newspaper reporter in town working on a story about how “real” Muscovites deal with harsh winters.
Clark offered to pay for her groceries if she would sit down with him for a quick interview.
Svetlana Gasanova was thrilled with the opportunity for company with a handsome young foreigner, and she insisted on taking him back to her flat — she lived right up the street, after all — and making him a cup of tea.
The watchers in the park were not looking for a couple entering the apartment, and Clark was bundled up in his coat and hood to the point where they could not have identified him without standing six inches from his nose. He even carried a bag of groceries to give the impression he belonged in the building.
John Clark spent a half-hour chatting with the old pensioner. His Russian was strained every minute of his time in her flat, but he smiled a lot and nodded a lot, and he drank the jam-sweetened tea she made for him while she talked about the gas company, her landlord, and her bursitis.
Finally, after four p.m., the woman seemed to grow tired. He thanked her for her hospitality, took down her address, and promised to send her a copy of the newspaper. She led him to the door of her flat and he promised to return for a visit on his next trip into Moscow.
He headed to the stairwell, tossed the woman’s address in an ashtray, and went upstairs instead of down.
Clark did not knock at Oleg Kovalenko’s door. He had noticed when he entered Ms. Gasanova’s flat that the heavy oaken doors in this old building were secured with large, easy-to-defeat pin tumbler locks. John had created lock picks days earlier by buying a small set of dental instruments at a pawnshop here in Moscow and then bending them to approximate lock picks he had used in the past in Russia.
From a pouch in his coat pocket he retrieved his homemade facsimiles of a half-diamond pick, a rake pick, and a tension wrench.
Checking up and down the wooden-floored hallway to make certain no one was around, he put the picks in his mouth, then manipulated the tension wrench inside the keyhole, turning it counterclockwise slightly and holding the tension on the wrench with his right pinky finger. Then, with his left hand, he took the rake pick from his mouth and slid it above the tension wrench, inside the keyhole. Using both hands while maintaining the pressure on his pinky finger he slid the pick in and out over the spring-loaded pins, pushing them down into place.
After he’d defeated all but two of the pins, he replaced the rake pick in his mouth, then took the half-diamond pick, slid it into place in the lock, and slowly manipulated the last two pins, pushing them down from back to front.
With a satisfying click that he hoped had not made much noise inside the flat, the tension wrench turned on the open cylinder and the bolt opened on the door.
Quickly John placed everything back in his pocket and drew his pistol.
He pushed open the door and slid into the kitchen of the tiny flat. Past this he found himself looking into a
