'No,' he admitted. He didn't think that. After a bit he asked, 'Why?'
'For thirty million dollars.'
'For you? Or me?'
'You. I'll make a lot more.'
Kolnikov laughed then. 'You should have been a Russian. You would have fit right in. The people at the very top are stealing the foreign aid, the money the IMF sends, washing it and accumulating vast fortunes and putting those fortunes in their pockets. Communism was nice, with all that crap about everyone being in the same boat, but it didn't make them rich. Now they are getting rich.'
'They're trying to catch up all at once.'
'Yes,' he said.
'So. Will you do it?'
'You don't know what you are asking. Rothberg will be the only man who could program the missiles. They aren't like a rifle, just aim and shoot. It's a bit more complicated.'
She resented being talked down to, but she bit her tongue.
'No promises,' Kolnikov said finally.
'Thirty million. You can split it up among the crew any way you like.'
'Willi Schlegel is not going to like this. The man in Paris wanted a satellite.'
'I'll handle Willi.'
'If you succeed, you'll be the very first. Rumor has it that three or four others who tried are dead. No one ever found the bodies.'
'Willi Schlegel wants something very badly. As long as he thinks he has a chance to get it, he'll behave.'
Kolnikov refused to promise anything. He wouldn't even say he would try.
But the missiles flew.
As the CNN talking heads went through the Washington disaster one more time, Zelda thought about Kolnikov. He was hard to fathom. A Russian, willing to fight and risk death in that steel coffin. For money, of course. Dead men can't spend money, though.
Ah, who knew what drove him? Doubtlessly he didn't understand her either.
She was sitting at her desk, staring blankly at the computer screen, when she realized that she had an encrypted message. She called it up, verified the encryption protocol, then decoded it: 'An explanation is in order. Missiles were not part of our agreement. Willi.'
She took a deep breath, then typed her reply: 'Kolnikov obviously has his own agenda. Let's hope he hasn't forgotten ours.'
She stared at the message, weighed it, then encrypted it. She got up, walked to the refrigerator and took out a Diet Coke. Sipping it, half listening to the CNN broadcast and the comments of her angry, frightened colleagues, she walked back to her computer and fired the message to Willi into cyberspace.
When General Le Beau made it in to work, Jake was waiting in his outer office.
Flap motioned with his hand that Jake was to follow him into the office. He told Flap about Cowbell, but the marine didn't seem too interested. 'I've got to go to a Joint Chiefs meeting in a few minutes that General Alt called. This fucking submarine…' He dropped into a chair. 'Gonna be a helluva day, any way you cut it. What can we do to make tomorrow better?'
'Induce a four-mile error in the global positioning system,' Jake Grafton replied. GPS, as they well knew, allowed anyone on Earth with a little black box to receive signals broadcast by a small constellation of satellites and thereby fix their position within several meters. The satellites' signals, however, could be tweaked, subtly altered, thereby fooling the little black boxes.
Flap looked startled. 'I hadn't thought of that.'
'An accurate position is essential to launching a successful Tomahawk attack. The pirates will use the GPS to update their inertial. Let's lead them down the primrose path.'
'And mislead every airliner and ship in the world?'
'The stakes are high, General,' Jake acknowledged. 'Real high.'
'Why not just shut the system down?'
'Then they will update their inertial position with a star sight. If the GPS works, there is a good chance that these guys will merely push the update button without checking to see how much the inertial position disagrees with the GPS position. That's an easy mistake to make, and this equipment is new to all these guys. They're feeling their way along.'
'What if an airliner full of people goes into a mountain?'
'That's the risk,' Jake acknowledged.
'Jesus, you are a hard-ass.'
'Sir, I've been told that more than four hundred people died here in Washington last night. They were killed. Murdered. It's time to take the gloves off. If the pirates put a four-mile error into their inertial, their Tomahawks will miss their targets. The latest versions of the missiles will self-destruct or dive into the ground when the computer determines that the missile is lost. Sometimes we must risk lives to save lives.'
'You are assuming they will shoot more missiles.'
'These guys didn't steal a submarine just to wreck the Lincoln Bedroom.'
'I'll suggest it,' Flap Le Beau said. 'The decision will have to be made by the president. Just between you and me, I don't think the folks at the White House have the cojones for a move like that.'
In London, Tommy Carmellini awakened from a nap to find the American media circus on most of the channels of his television. He watched the White House burn, horrified and fascinated at the same time.
He left the tube on while he showered and shaved, dressed, hung up his clothes in the closet, checked the attache case the CIA man who met him at the airport had handed him when he dropped Tommy at the hotel. After looking over the contents of the case very carefully, he closed and locked it.
He turned off the television only when dusk had fallen and he was ready to go find something to eat. He took the attache case with him.
At ten o'clock he walked two blocks to a pub. He ordered a cider and was sipping it in a booth against the back wall, making it last, when the door opened and Terrell McSweeney walked in. He saw Tommy, ordered a pint, then brought it over to the booth.
'Good to see you,' McSweeney said. 'What's it been, three months?'
'Something like that.'
'Seen any television today?'
'A little, before I left the hotel.'
'Holy damn. Sounds as if somebody declared war on the guys in the white hats. They shot the shit outta Washington last night. A stolen submarine, no less. Beats the hell outta me what the world is coming to.'
McSweeney was CIA, of course, attached to the London embassy. He was over fifty, balding, porking up, with a braying voice. If the Brits didn't know he was a spook they were complete, utter incompetents.
'Maybe terrorists, you think?' Carmellini asked.
'Iraqis, I bet. Before it's over we'll find Saddam had his eye glued to the periscope.'
'I always wondered, McSweeney. Tell me, do the Brits know you're a spook?'
McSweeney snorted. 'Of course they know. I go to conferences with them all the time. When they want something from us, they call me. Every Brit spook has me on his Rolodex.'
'Umm.'
'I know, you're thinking that maybe we should have had a covert officer contact you. Well, hell, I know what the book says, but this is the real world. I mean, who in the hell are we fooling anyway.'
'I saw the barkeep give you the high sign when you came in. You ever use this pub before?'
'I have a pint here a couple times a week, sure.'
'You're a real horse's ass, McSweeney, a professional joke. I've half a mind to walk out that door and grab the next plane back to the States.'
'Don't give me any of your shit, Carmellini. I'm in charge in London. Me! This is my turf.'
'You're compromising
'Hell, we're only doing burglary tonight, not espionage.'
'That's a relief. I was so worried! But if I get caught and charged with anything, I'm taking you down with
