Nikita had an uncanny sense about aircraft. Growing up at the Cosmodrome, he always heard the approach of helicopters before anyone else did. He could recognize jets by the sounds their engines made. His mother said that all those years his father had spent in cockpits had affected his genes, 'filled them with aviation fuel,' was how she'd put it. Nikita didn't believe that. He simply loved flying. But to have become a flier, to have been compared to the national hero Sergei Orlov, would have been impossible for him. And so he kept his love to himself, like a dream whose magic couldn't be communicated to another.
The train slowed as it came to a patch of track with thickly piled snow. Though the wind roared around the canvas flap over the open window, Nikita heard the distinctive drone of the MiG engines. Two of them, coming from the east toward a transport that was flying overhead. These weren't the first aircraft he'd heard, but there was something different about them.
He poked his head out the window and turned his left ear up. Though the failing snow made it impossible for him to see anything, the sound traveled clearly through it. He listened carefully. The MiGs weren't accompanying the 76T, they had caught up to it. And as he listened, he heard the 76T, and then the jets, head in the opposite direction, back toward the east.
That wasn't right. This might be the 76T his father had warned him about.
Nikita drew his head inside, oblivious to the snow caked on his hair and cheeks. 'Get Colonel Rossky on the radio,' he barked to Corporal Fodor, who was sitting at the table warming his hands above the lantern.
'At once,' the Corporal replied as he hurried to the console.
While Fodor crouched beside the console, waiting to be patched through to the base on Sakhalin, Nikita's eyes ranged over the civilians they'd picked up as he considered other possible explanations for what he'd heard. A mechanical problem could have caused the transport to turn back, but it wouldn't have needed an escort. Was someone looking for the train, trying to pinpoint their location, attempting to help them? His father, perhaps? General Kosigan? Or could it be someone else?
'He isn't there,' Fodor said.
'Ask for General Orlov,' Nikita said impatiently.
Fodor made the request and then handed the phone to Nikita. 'He's on, sir.'
Nikita squatted. 'General?'
'What is it, Nikki?'
'There's a transport overhead,' said Nikita. 'It was headed west until a pair of jets arrived, and then it turned.'
'That's the 76T,' Orlov said.
'What are my orders?' Nikita asked.
'I've asked the President for permission to send troops to meet you in Bira,' he said. 'I've not received an approval for my request. Until then, do whatever is necessary to protect your cargo.'
'As war materiel or as evidence, sir?'
'That isn't your problem,' Orlov snapped. 'Your orders are to keep it safe.'
'That I will do, sir,' Nikita said.
Handing the receiver to Fodor, the young officer hurried to the rear of the car, making his way through the passengers. The five men and two women were sitting on mats playing cards or reading or knitting by lantern light. Nikita pulled open the door and crossed the slippery coupling. Thickly packed snow fell on his shoulders as he pushed open the door.
Inside the car, the beefy Sergeant Versky was talking to one of his men as they kept watch at the window on the northern side. Another man was stationed at the window on the south. All of them snapped to attention as Lieutenant Orlov entered.
'Sergeant,' Nikita said, saluting, 'I want spotters on the tops of the train, two men on every car rotated in half-hour shifts.'
'Yes, sir,' said Versky.
'If there isn't time to request instructions,' Nikita continued, 'your men are to shoot anyone who approaches the train.' Nikita looked at the civilians, four men and three women they'd placed in this car at the last station. One of the men was sitting against a crate, napping. 'And don't leave the car unattended at any time, Sergeant. I won't have my cargo compromised.'
'Of course not, sir.'
Nikita left, wondering where Rossky had gone? and whether, absent the Colonel's orders, he could allow the crates to be turned over to his father.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
'Another message from NRO,' Bugs Benet said as Hood and the rest of the Op-Center officers sat around the conference table in the Tank.
'Thanks,' Hood said to the video image of his assistant. 'Put it through.'
Viens's voice came on, but his picture did not. Instead, a black-and-white image was constructed on the screen at fifty lines a second.
'Paul,' said Viens, 'we picked this up just three minutes ago.'
Hood swung the screen partly toward Rodgers, then watched as the white, hazy, moonlike terrain appeared, followed by the train, which occupied roughly one-third of the center of the image. The image was extremely hazy because of the falling snow, but what should have been an unbroken expanse of white on top of the cars was not. There were shadows.
'Sorry for the quality,' said Viens. 'It's snowing a hell of a lot. But we're certain those shapes on top are soldiers. They're in camouflage whites, so you can't see them per se— though you can make out the shadows.'
'Those are soldiers, all right,' Rodgers said tensely as he pointed a finger to the screen. 'You can tell by the way they're arrayed. Last one facing forward toward the left, next one facing back to the right, next one forward right, and so on. These shapes here— he traced a small line near one of the smudges— 'appear to be a rifle. '
Viens said, 'That's how we figured it, Mike.'
'Thank you, Stephen,' Hood said, then switched the NRO chief off. The room was silent, save for the faint hum of the electronic grid surrounding it. 'Can they know that Striker is on the ground?'
'Very possible,' Bob Herbert said as the phone on the desk beeped.
'For you,' Rodgers said as he glanced at the code number.
Because of the electronic field, Herbert couldn't be reached on the cellular phone attached to his wheelchair. He picked up the phone built into the side of the conference table, punched in his code number, and listened. When he hung up, his face looked waxen.
'The 76T is being escorted home by a pair of MiGs,' Herbert said. 'They'll start leaking oil and head for Hokkaido, but it won't be going back into Russia.'
Rodgers looked at his watch, then reached for the phone near him. 'I'm going to have the Mosquito go in from Hokkaido.'
Herbert slapped the desktop. 'No good, Mike. That's a round-trip of one thousand miles. The Mosquito's range is seven hundred—'
'I know what her range is,' Rodgers shot back. 'Seven hundred and ten-point-two miles. But we can get a cruiser up from the Sea of Japan. She can land on the deck—'
'We didn't get committee permission for the Mosquito to fly in solo,' Martha Mackall said.
'We also didn't get approval for them to exchange fire with Russian soldiers,' Lowell Coffey added. 'This action was supposed to be reconnoitering only.'
'I care about my soldiers,' Rodgers replied, 'not about those blowhards.'
'Let's see how we can try to please everyone,' Hood said, 'and disappoint them all. Mike—'
'Yes, sir?' he said, breathing deeply.
