'You've been at this longer than I have,' Orlov said. 'What's your reading?'
'Someone high up has masterminded a very top-secret operation. But don't feel bad, Sergei. It's caught a lot of people by surprise including, it appears, our new President.'
'Has anyone spoken to him?'
'He's locked Away with his closest advisers now,' Mikyan said. 'Except for Interior Minister Dogin.'
'Where is he?'
'Ill,' Mikyan said, 'at his dacha in the hills outside of Moscow.'
'I spoke with him just a few hours ago,' Orlov said disgustedly. 'He was fine.'
'I'm sure he was,' Mikyan said. 'Which should give you some idea about who masterminded this.'
The phone beeped. 'Excuse me,' Orlov said to Mikyan.
'Wait,' Mikyan said. 'I've got to get to the Ministry, but first I was going to call because there's something you should consider. Dogin sponsored your facility in the Kremlin, and you went on-line shortly before the incursion. If the Minister is using the Operations Center to help run this thing, and he loses, you may be facing a firing squad. Crimes against the state, helping a foreign power—'
'I've just been thinking something like that myself,' Orlov said. 'Thanks, Rolan. We'll talk later.'
When Mikyan hung up, Nina told Orlov that Zilash was on the line. The General switched to the interoffice line.
'Yes, Arkady?'
'General, Air Defense on Kolguyev Island reports that the Il-76T crossed over Finland to the Barents Sea and is now headed east.'
'Do they have any idea where it's headed?'
'None, sir,' said Zilash.
'A guess— anything?'
'Just east, sir. The plane is headed due east. But they said it could be a supply plane. We're using the 76Ts to ferry cargo from Germany, France, and Scandinavia.'
'Did Air Defense try identifying it?' Orlov asked.
'Yes, sir. They're sending out the right signal.'
That didn't mean anything, Orlov knew. The heat-emitting beacons placed in the noses of the planes were easy enough to build, buy, or steal.
'Has anyone talked to the 76T?' Orlov asked.
'No, sir,' said Zilash. 'Most of the transports are maintaining radio silence to keep the airwaves clear.'
'Has Air Defense picked up outside communications with any other Russian aircraft?' Orlov asked.
'Not that we're aware of, sir.'
'Thank you,' Orlov said. 'I'd like half-hour updates, even if nothing changes. And I want one thing more, Zilash.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Monitor and record any communications between General Kosigan and the Interior Ministry,' Orlov said. 'The regular phone lines as well as the General's private uplink.'
The dead air lasted only a moment, though it seemed longer.
'You want me to spy on General Kosigan, sir?'
'I want you to follow my orders,' Orlov replied. 'I'll assume you were repeating them rather than questioning them.'
'Yes, sir, I was, sir,' said Zilash. 'Thank you.'
When Orlov hung up, he told himself he was wrong about the plane, that this was one of those drills the CIA occasionally ran to see how the Russians would react if they thought the crew of one of their planes or ships had become agents-in-place— operatives recruited to provide information about their own spheres of activity. There was nothing worse in any military confrontation than for commanders to start doubting the loyalty of their own troops.
But instinct argued against that, helped along by caution. Assuming the plane was from the U.S. or NATO, he considered possible destinations. If it were headed for the U.S., it would have gone over the Arctic or across the Atlantic. To reach the Far East, it would have used the air lanes in the south. He thought back to his last conversation with Rossky, and to the question that seemed to have only one answer. Why use a Russian plane unless they were planning to go somewhere in Russia? And where in eastern Russia could they possibly want to go?
That question, too, seemed to have only one answer, and Orlov didn't like it.
He punched in 22. A deep voice rumbled from the phone.
'Operations Support Officer Fyodor Buriba.
'Fyodor, this is General Orlov. Please contact Dr. Sagdeev at the Russian Space Research Institute and get me a summary of U.S. and NATO satellite activity from nine P.M. until one A.M. this morning, covering the area of eastern Russia between the Sea of Okhotsk and the Aldan Plateau, as far south as the Sea of Japan.'
'At once,' said Buriba. 'Do you want just the prime coverage— global positioning system reports and the times the data was downloaded, or do you also want the electro-optical sensor reports, isoelectric focus—'
'Prime coverage will be enough,' Orlov said. 'When you have that, correlate the data with the time the goods were transferred from the Gulfstream to the train in Vladivostok and see whether any of the satellites might have seen it.'
'Yes, sir.'
Buriba hung up, and Orlov sat back and gazed up at the black ceiling. Albert Sagdeev's Office of Space Debris Reconnaissance at the Russian Space Research Institute had been established to track the increasing numbers of discarded boosters, abandoned spacecraft, and dead satellites orbiting the earth and presenting real hazards for space travelers. But in 1982 its staff of five was doubled and it was also charged with clandestinely studying U.S., European, and Chinese spy satellites. Sagdeev's computers were tied to uplinks across the nation, and watched whenever the satellites transmitted data. Though most of it was digitally scrambled and couldn't be reconstructed, at least the Russians knew who was watching what and when.
It was conceivable— no, likely, the more Orlov thought about it— that the increase of Russian troop movements over the past few days would have caused the U.S. and Europe to keep a closer eye on military facilities like the naval base in Vladivostok. And in so doing, they may have seen the transfer of the crates from the jet to the train.
But why should that attract enough attention to send a plane after it? he wondered. Especially when the train could be watched from space, if all the U.S. or Europe wanted to do was follow it.
If the plane intended to meet the train, it would probably want to spend as little time over Russian territory as possible. That meant an approach from the east, which gave his son anywhere from ten to fourteen hours to prepare.
Still, it was a dangerous undertaking for whoever was running the 76T, and the question remained. Why would anyone bother?
Despite all that was going on, Orlov knew he had to find out why the cargo was so important. He knew there was only one way to do that.
CHAPTER FORTY
The pre-War steam locomotive had a rusting boiler plate, dented cowcatcher, and a smokestack blackened with decades of soot. The coal tender was full. The cab was littered not only with coal dust but with souvenirs of previous trips across the breadth of Russia. There were pieces of dry, brittle leaves from the forests of Irkutsk, sand from the plains of Turkestan, smudges of oil from the fields in Usinsk.
Then there were ghosts. The shadows of the countless engineers who had worked the throttle or shoveled coal into the boiler. Junior Lieutenant Nikita Orlov could see them in the whistle's wood handle, dirty with age, on the iron floor whose studded surface had been worn smooth by the scuffing of shoes and boots. When he looked out
