“You would kill yourself, would you, Polyakov?”
“I will do what has to be done for my country, Captain. I believe in Russia.”
“And you are the only one who does?”
Polyakov eyed Saratov suspiciously. Apparently he thought this some kind of loyalty test. “Of course not,” he said. “Aleksandr Kalugin loves Russia too.”
“I see.”
“I don’t want to talk about these things.”
“These subjects are uncomfortable.”
“I am a soldier. I obey my superior officers. All of them.”
“Is Esenin a soldier? A real soldier?”
“What else would he be?” Polyakov’s brows knitted. “You’ve met him before in your career, have you?”
“No. The naval infantry is a big outfit. Of course there are officers I do not know.”
“And michmen?”
“Plenty of michmen I don’t know.”
“Where are you from, Polyakov?”
“St. Petersburg, Captain. My father was a shipyard worker.”
It went on like this for several minutes. The major answered the captain’s questions because he was the captain, but his answers revealed no inner doubts. The faces of the sailors standing and sitting in the small room reflected the ordeal they had been through, and the horror of the abyss at which they found themselves. They looked at Polyakov as if he were a monster, which seemed to bother the major not at all. Esenin had chosen well. Just then, the screw noises of a ship became audible. Saratov glanced up at the overhead, as did most of the people in the compartment, including Polyakov. The noise became louder and louder. As the ship thundered directly over the sub, Pavel Saratov removed the Tokarev from his pocket and shot Major Polyakov in the head. The major toppled sideways off the stool and fell onto the deck. The box remained on the chart table. Saratov reached for it with his left hand as he pointed his pistol at the naval infantry michman standing openmouthed facing him, his rifle in his hand. The chief of the boat reached for the michman’s rifle and pistol, took them from him. “This is where the road forks, Chief. Are you with me or not?”
“We’re with you, Captain. All the men.”
“Go disarm the infantrymen forward. Collect all the weapons and bring them in here. And send Michman Martos to me. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
The navigator swabbed the sweat from his face with his sleeve. He was near tears. “Oh, thank you, Captain. I’d rather die than start World War Three.”
“If we don’t have some luck, son, we may do both. Now take the major’s pistol and disarm the infantrymen in the engine room and battery compartment.”
“And if they won’t give me their guns?”
“Shoot them, and be damned quick about it. Now go.”
Saratov hefted the box. It was very light. He used a pocketknife to pry off the back, which was held on with just three screws. The box contained only a battery. No transmitter. It was a dummy. “Captain,” said the sonar michman. “A helo just went into a hover off our port side. He is very close. He must have dipped a sonar pod.”
23
Other Tokyo bombers took off first, three Mig-25’s, one after another. The four Sukhoi escorts, with Yan Chernov in the lead, took the runway as the last Mig lifted off. Chernov and his wingman made a section takeoff, Chernov on the left. Safely airborne, Chernov turned slightly left so that he could look back over his shoulder. Yes, the other two Sukhois were lifting off. In less than a minute, the four fighters were together and climbing to catch the three Migs, which were climbing on course as a flight of three aircraft, spread over a quarter of a mile of sky. The Tateyama strike was scheduled to follow ten minutes behind. Alas, this whole evolution hinged on successfully rendezvousing with tankers at three places along this route. The tankers had been launched from bases farther to the east hours ago. Or so a Moscow general said, after much shouting into a telephone. A coordinated strike, precision rendezvous, over a dozen aircraft moving in planned ways over thousands of miles of sky — the Russians hadn’t even attempted exercises this complicated in years. If the tankers weren’t at the rendezvous points, if the equipment in the tankers didn’t work, if the tankers or strike planes had mechanical problems, if a tanker pilot screwed up, if the Japanese attacked with Zeros — any of these likely eventualities would prevent the bombers from reaching Japan. The Moscow general with the chest cabbage didn’t want to talk of these things. The morning was cool, but the day was going to be hot. Already clouds were forming over mountain peaks and ridges and drifting over the valleys, portending rain. Here and there a cumulonimbus was growing in the thermals, threatening to develop into an afternoon thunderstorm. All these clouds were below the fighters, which were cruising at forty thousand feet. The oxygen tasted rubbery this morning. Yan Chernov sucked on it, glanced at his cockpit altitude gauge, and tried to rearrange his bottom on the ejection seat to get more comfortable. As briefed, Chernov split his flight of four planes into two sections. He stationed himself and his wingman three miles ahead and to the right of the strike formation, and the other section in a similar position on the left side. He looked at his watch. An hour and a half to the first tanker rendezvous. The major sat listening to the electronic countermeasures equipment and watching the clouds in the lower atmosphere. There were dust storms down there, opaque areas that hid the land. Amazing how good the view was from this altitude. God must see the earth like this, he thought.
After a careful scrutiny of their credentials, the car bearing Stolypin and Ilin was allowed to cross the small bridge at the main entrance of the Kremlin and discharge its passengers. The two men then entered a nearby room to be strip-searched. First, each man emptied the contents of his pockets into a plastic bin: watch, money, keys, credentials, everything. Other security officers began examining the attache cases they carried. They disrobed in separate cubicles in full view of two of Kalugin’s loyal ones, who then scrutinized their naked bodies. They stood naked in the cubicles while their clothes were examined under a fluoroscope, a device much like the machines used in airports to examine hand baggage. The security men fluoroscoped every item of clothing, including shoes, belts, and ties. When they brought his clothes back, Ilin put them on. Then he left the cubicle and went to a table where an officer was playing with his keys and glasses. The officer, who was about forty and fat, examined the comb, looked at the pictures in the wallet, then turned the wallet inside out and ran it through the fluoroscope again. The examination was as thorough as Ilin had ever witnessed. Another officer handed back his money, keys, and watch, then sat looking at the FIS identity card and pass. He ran the ID cards through a black light, ensured they were genuine, then scrutinized both cards under a magnifying glass before passing them back.
Ilin had brought two pens with him that evening, one a ballpoint and the other an American fountain pen. The fat officer sat there pushing on the button of the ballpoint, running the point in and out, clict, clict, clict, as he passed each of Ilin’s cigarettes through the fluoroscope. When he finished with the cigarettes, he put them back in a tin cigarette case bearing the KGB insignia and laid it on the table. He made a few marks on a scratch pad with the ballpoint, then laid it down and picked up the fountain pen. He uncapped it and scrawled a bit, looked at it under a magnifying glass, then put the cap back on and placed it beside the ballpoint. Ilin had been wearing two rings, one with the old KGB insignia engraved on an opal, the other a plain gold wedding ring that had belonged to his grandfather. He normally wore the wedding ring on his right hand since he wasn’t married. The KGB ring fascinated the security guard. Of course he studied it under the fluoroscope. Then he began picking at the stone with a penknife, trying to get it out of the setting. “You are going to destroy my ring?” Ilin asked, his temper showing a little. He motioned to the supervisor. “This officer is trying to destroy my ring.”
“He is just doing his job.”
“You pay him to pry stones out of settings?”
“Let me see the ring.” The supervisor pulled out a magnifying glass and studied the stone under it. “If you want, I can leave it with you and pick it up when I leave,” Ilin suggested. The supervisor passed the ring to him and put the glass away. Meanwhile, the security officer at the table tackled Ilin’s cigarette lighter, a crude souvenir bearing a Nazi swastika. He ran a fingertip over the swastika and looked at Ilin with an eyebrow raised. “My father’s,” Ilin said. “He killed the German officer who owned it.”
The guard flipped the lighter several times: A flame appeared. He then took it completely apart. He removed
