“To where?” Reztsov broke in.
Ivanov’s shoulders rose and fell again in what Danilov guessed to be a habitual responsibility-avoidance gesture. “Moscow, I believe. Two definitely just outside Leningrad, as it was then. And in the republics that were then part of the Union. Kiev, certainly. There was a great concentration of weaponry—nuclear, too—in the Ukraine because of its geographic position, so close to the West.”
“What about these numbers?” demanded Danilov, pointing to the print that specifically showed them on the side of each canister. “What do they signify?”
“Stock designation,” identified Ivanov.
“So they identify the manufacturing plant?” seized Danilov, suspecting an admission.
“No,” said Ivanov. “They were issued from Moscow, for Moscow’s records, not ours. The zero in both lines of numerals: That’s Moscow.”
“What about the emergency phone number?” persisted Danilov.
“Seven numerals,” the professor pointed out. “That’s Moscow again.”
“There’s a treaty. Signed in 1993. Everything should have been destroyed,” reminded Danilov.
“You can’t just pour these things down a sink, flush it away. There’s been a start.”
“This warhead didn’t work and was developed more than thirty years ago!” protested Danilov.
“
Because
it didn’t work it was considered the least important. We still work to Moscow’s instructions: Follow ministry guidance.”
Danilov knew he shouldn’t have been surprised at the inference of a treaty being abrogated—Washington was probably only making token gestures, as well—but he was. How many people at the emergency meeting—Sergei Gromov, from the Defense Ministry, in particular—had known about the extent of the program and Moscow’s control of it? “How many of these do you still have here at this plant?”
Ivanov groped in a desk drawer. Papers erupted at once, and he disturbed more shuffling through the lucky dip tub, finally emerging triumphantly with a three-ring binder it took him several more minutes to pick through. Still triumphant, he announced, “Fiftysix!”
“When was that count taken?”
The shrug came again. “There’s no date. It’s a program that ended a long time ago, as I said.”
“So it’s an old figure?”
“Yes,” conceded the man.
“It wasn’t verified, before our coming today?”
“No.”
“So you wouldn’t know if one—or more than one—was missing?”
“No. I don’t see how there could be, though.”
“Can I see them?”
“What!”
The question came from Reztsov, not the director. Danilov didn’t respond to the police chief. Instead he repeated to Ivanov, “Can I see them? They’re inert—harmless—in storage, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Ivanov said doubtfully.
“So we could look at them?” persisted Danilov, not knowing to what question the older man had been responding.
“I suppose so,” said Ivanov, still doubtful.
“Then I’d like to. Now.” As Danilov rose, intending to carry out his breakfast knife idea, another occurred to him. He decided to wait. The other three men followed hesitantly. They went along a different corridor from the one along which they’d approached. Some of the protectively suited and helmeted scientists in the nowoccupied offices were working with their arms and hands encased in sleeves and gloves forming permanent parts of the sealed chambers at which they stood.
Danilov said, “The process of destruction?”
“There is always a defensive need,” said Ivanov. “Parts of our country are far closer to those known to possess chemical and biological capability than we ever were to the United States of America.”
So the 1993 agreement wasn’t just being abrogated, it was being positively ignored, Danilov realized. He watched the elevator’s indicator light blink down to the fourth basement level, which he calculated from the time it took to pass the preceding three basement tiers to be at least half a mile underground. Danilov wondered how many hundreds—thousands—of germ warfare weapons were stored above and below him; there had been a fifth and sixth level on the indicator panel. There’d been no security check on their entering the elevator—Ivanov had not even used an electronically operating pass key—and there wasn’t on the level at which they emerged. The basement was simply an enormous, gouged-out cavern, the central corridor disappearing into a joined, arrowhead point of infinity at its unseen end. It remained closed despite their walking for at least five minutes toward it, to get to a numbered door, and Danilov judged that underground the chemical and biological facility of Plant 35 extended at least three times the building’s size above ground. He adjusted that estimate to five times the size when he followed Ivanov into the side chamber the far end of which he still couldn’t see.
It was stark and simple, row after row of floor-to-ceiling metal framing, each double warhead in its special, clamped pod about a meter from the one next to it. Danilov didn’t need to multiply row number by row content to know this one storage chamber alone contained at least four times Ivanov’s estimate of surviving warheads.
Obviously aware of it himself—but seeming genuinely confused—the huge, bearded man said, “Our records must be wrong. It was always difficult to be accurate, maintaining norms.”
Danilov knew it had been. But the falsification had invariably been to exaggerate the insisted-upon production figures to appear to comply with the demand, not to
under
estimate it. The fresh wash of frustration was wiped away almost immediately by anger. He was being treated like a fool by the local militia on one hand and suffering the chaos of norm-fulfilling, responsibility-avoiding centralized bureaucracy on the other. Just as quickly he curbed the fury, sure there was still a way he could beat both: certainly to prove whether what smashed into the UN building had come from here.
Every module in orderly lines before him was printed with the same stenciled lettering as in the American photograph, and there was similar batch numbering. None of those he saw as he passed, however, matched those in the photograph, but the designation of Plant 35 appeared to be in identical stenciling. None was dated after 1975. He continued slowly down the corridor, between the racks, isolating the break halfway down, to his left. There was a gap of three empty frames before the storage continued. None of these warheads was dated. Pointing to those beyond the separation, Danilov said, “Why the division?”
“They haven’t been filled,” said Ivanov. “That’s why they’re undated. Must mark my arrival, when I stopped the program.”
“Good!” Danilov said briskly. “I’m impounding one now under presidential authority. Have it removed from the frame for me to take it with me.”
“What … ?” said Reztsov, his voice trailing. “I don’t—”
“A comparable exhibit,” said Danilov. He wasn’t looking at the other three men. Instead he went back to the lettered canisters, taking from one pocket the envelope and from another the table knife he’d picked up that morning from the hotel.
“Now what are you doing?” Reztsov demanded impatiently, as Danilov began carefully scraping both the letter and numerical paint and undercoating into an envelope.
“Forensic exhibit,” Danilov said shortly.
“For what?” asked Reztsov.
“Proof,” answered Danilov, although still concentrating on the facility director. “To whom do you report the loss or theft of materiel?”
“It doesn’t happen,” insisted Ivanov.
“It has now,” said Danilov.
“Yes,” agreed Ivanov. “I suppose it has. Moscow. That’s who has to be told. That’s who I thought you were, someone from the Defense or Science ministries.”
“I don’t envy you this investigation,” said Reztsov, on their way back into the city. “Don’t envy you at all.”
Yuri Pavin’s third anxious call came as Danilov entered the National Hotel, the canvas-wrapped missile casing under his arm. He took the call in the lobby booth.
“Is he dead?” Danilov demanded at once.
“That’s not clear,” said the colonel. “Television reports are naming him as being there; he was in charge. And they’re saying at least sixteen people died. But the bureau is refusing to name them until all the next of kin have been informed.”
The woman who answered Cowley’s extension when Danilov called Washington direct said she wasn’t authorized to give out any information but that she’d pass Danilov’s name and inquiry on and suggested that he call later. Danilov telephoned Moscow again, for Pavin to initiate the inquiries he wanted.
And then, alone in his room, Danilov spent some time on the empty warhead and the paint scrapings to complete the idea that came to him in the missile basement, pleased bad Russian workmanship and material made it comparatively easy. He’d feared he might have needed a tool, pincers or pliers, for the warhead, but he didn’t. Finally satisfied, he put the empty containers in the clothes closet.
When he located CNN on his room television, a reporter was talking to the camera from a forest track about a scene of total devastation where no devastation was visible. But then the picture changed to a helicopter shot of a crater already turned into a lake from the flowing creek, with every tree snapped or totally flattened for what the reporter said was a radius of a hundred yards. Unnecessarily, because it could be seen, the man added that although it had been extinguished, the underbrush was still smoldering from the fire that followed the explosion. The death toll had risen. It now stood at seventeen.
“Hi! Can I sit with you?”
Hollis looked up, startled, at Carole Parker standing by his otherwise empty table. “Yes … please. Of course.” He tried to get politely to his feet but she’d sat before he was able.
“Whatever was on your mind certainly wasn’t here!” she said.
“Thinking about a lot of things,” said Hollis. His determination not to receive the next contact call from the General was wavering. He knew he shouldn’t—that to do so was ridiculous—but part of him, a bit part, wanted to take it.
“Must have a lot to think about, being the manager.”
“It’s a lot of responsibility.” Why was Carole Parker, pursued by every man in the branch, choosing to sit with him?
“Surprised you haven’t been head-hunted yet by one of the bigger groups.”
“I’m happy here.” He hoped he wasn’t sweating. He had the same sort of empty-stomached feeling he’d felt on the day of the UN attack.
“You mean you wouldn’t go to somewhere like New York or Chicago if you got an offer!”
Hollis laughed, hoping his chest wouldn’t tighten up as it did sometimes when he was excited. “I’ll decide that when I get the offer.”
“I wouldn’t mind transferring to a department like yours.”
“Why don’t we talk about it sometime?”
“I’d like that.” She smiled.
Dying—being dead—did hurt: It was the worst pain Cowley had ever known. His head was being crushed and he wanted to stop, to push away, whatever or whoever was doing it, but he couldn’t move his hands or his arms—any part of him. Nothing would move or do what he wanted. Paralyzed. He tried to call out for it to stop, and his throat felt as if there were words but he couldn’t hear himself speak, although someone was saying something a long way away. When he tried to open his eyes it was too bright, searing light burning directly at him. It hurt even more and got worse, if it was possible to get worse, when he jerked his head to one side to avoid the glare. There were a lot of hands on him, pushing and feeling, and his name, his name being said over and over again, but still it was a long way off. He tried to say yes, that he could hear whoever it was, but there was no sound of his saying it. The faraway voice said they’d try to stop the pain but to keep his eyes closed, which he didn’t need to be told. There were more voices, the noise of talking, but he couldn’t separate the words, not enough to make any sense of them. The pain did start to go—not go, not completely, but lessened so that it didn’t feel as if his head were being crushed to the point of bursting, making him scream. He wondered if he had actually screamed because there was this feeling, like a vibration in his throat that there was when you talked.
“Bill?” The voice was louder, to his right, not his left. It said, not quite so distinctly, “The perforation is in the left, not the right,” and then more directly, “Yes, Bill. You’re talking. We can hear you. You’re all right. You’re fine. You’re going to sleep now and it’ll be a lot better in a while.”
The blackness wasn’t the blackness of dying. The pain stayed in his head, although not so bad—bearable even—and there was a dream that he knew wasn’t really a dream. Of people being in the air, as if they were flying: Burt Bradley and the sheriff with the tractor whose name he couldn’t remember and the Highway Patrol commander whose name he couldn’t remember, either, but then he could—Petrich, Alan Petrich—and an explosion although he couldn’t hear any noise this time. But there were voices he could hear, real voices that he could hear much more clearly.
One said, “You feeling better this time, Bill?” and Cowley felt himself—distantly heard himself—say, “Yes,” because he did, compared to how it had been before. He could endure the pain in his head now. He hadn’t been aware of the ache in his chest the first time but that was bearable, too, as long as he didn’t breathe too deeply.
“My name’s Pepper. Joe Pepper. You’re in the George Washington University Hospital in Washington, and I’m your neurologist. You understand what I’m telling you, Bill?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good!” Pepper said enthusiastically. “That’s very good indeed. I’ve taken away all the harsh light and I want you to open your eyes. I’ll tell you when we’re going to shine a beam directly in, OK?”
“OK.”
“Open now.”
There were several people—the movement of several people—around the bed, but he couldn’t distinguish anything about them. Everyone had more than one face and body, each superimposing on the other, although they didn’t quite fit, each outline slightly off center. He said, “I can’t see. Not properly. It’s blurred … like … .”
“Here comes the light,” warned Pepper. “We’re going to hold your eye open.”
It hurt but not so much as before, and a different voice said, “No corneal or retinal damage. I’m pleased with that. Looks like it’s all down to you, Joe.”
Pepper said, “There had to be some good news.”
“I thought I’d been killed,” said Cowley. The blur wouldn’t go but it didn’t hurt any longer to keep his eyes open.
The neurologist said, “You’ve got a pretty severe concussion. You were against a tree so you were either blown into it or something hit you. You’ve got twelve stitches in the side of your head but there’s no skull fracture. You’ve got a busted rib, on the right. And your left eardrum is perforated …”
“My eyes … ?”
“Temporary,” assured the other voice. “You’ve jarred, maybe even bruised, the optic nerve. It’ll go, very quickly.”
Pepper said, “And the hearing in your left ear will get better, although it won’t ever be quite like it was before. Considering, you’re one hell of a lucky guy.”
“What about everyone else?” asked Cowley. He already had the impression that his hearing was clearer.
“No need to talk about that now,” Pepper said at once.
A woman’s voice, pleasantly soft but urgent, said, “We need the debrief. He turned back. We need whatever it was—”
“Who’s that?” demanded Cowley.
“My name’s Darnley, Bill. Pamela Darnley. I’m from the bureau. You feel able to talk to me?”
“What unit?”
“Terrorism. You OK to talk to me?”
“Of course I’m—” began Cowley, impatiently loud, but he had to stop because of the quick burst of pain at his own noise. More quietly he said, “How many dead?”
The woman said, “A lot. Seventeen.”
Cowley squinted at the blur of faces at the bottom of his bed, wishing he could see her. “Burt Bradley dead?”
“Lost his right arm completely. And his right leg, below the knee. And he’s blind.
“Jesus Christ! The rest?”
“Every one.”
“I saw—” started Cowley, but she came in too quickly.
“That’s what I need to know! What did you see?”
“—bits of bodies,” Cowley finished.
There was a silence around the bed. She said, “It was a hell of a mess. You sure you can go on with this?”
“I’m your case officer! Sharpe. What happened to Sharpe?” That was the sheriff’s name, John Sharpe. His chest throbbed from the fresh outburst: the broken rib, he supposed.
“Dead,” she said.
“Petrich?”
“Dead. The only local guy to survive was Steven Barr. He was farther away than you; didn’t get touched. But he saw you turn and start to go back. Say something?”
Cowley carefully moved his head toward where he imagined the neurologist to be. “What day is it? I mean, how long have I been here since it happened?”
“It’s the day after. The afternoon. Less than twenty-four hours.”
“How long before my eyes clear?”
“Forget it,” said Pepper. “You’re not doing anything for a long time.”
“Neither are seventeen others guys, are they?”
He’d slept again, although he hadn’t wanted to, but when he opened his eyes once more there was a definite improvement in his vision. The ophthalmic surgeon who’d examined him before said the nerve was obviously only jarred, which was good, and Pepper, who turned out to be a young but completely bald man, decided it was OK for Pamela Darnley to go on with the debriefing.
Even close up he couldn’t properly discern her features, although he could see she was dark-haired, worn short, and had large glasses, which were black framed. She smelled good. She told him she’d set up the tape recorder on the edge of his bed and that the moment he felt like stopping he had to—Dr. Pepper was sitting in on the interview with them—but the bureau wanted everything he could remember, particularly why he’d turned and started to shout at the moment of the explosion.
“The video and still camera?” demanded Cowley. “They survive?”
“The video was relayed automatically. So we’ve got it all. The still camera was badly smashed, but they’re working on that now to see what they can salvage.”
“What about the video commentary?”
“That’s with the video. That’s OK.”
“Anything on it about jungle training? Raking their tracks?”
She didn’t reply at once. “There’s something about raking the ground. I don’t remember anything about jungle training: I need to check.”
“While they were waiting for the tractor, to pull the boat out, I talked with Jefferson Jones. He told me that they’d literally cleared their tracks. He said, “These guys got jungle training, for sure.” Soldiers—particularly special unit guys who might also know how to fire a missile from a moving boat—get jungle training. And special unit training always involves booby-trapping abandoned materiel. That cruiser was very specifically abandoned and the trap set to get the maximum number of people—bureau personnel—around it by initially giving the wrong location.”
“That all?” She sounded disappointed.
“If I’d worked it out five minutes earlier seventeen people wouldn’t now be dead and Burt Bradley would still have his arms and legs and eyes.”
“I’m sorry,” said Pamela.
“The wrong-location call to the Highway Patrol been traced?” he asked.
“A public booth in a mall at New Rochelle.”
“The cassette we’ve got is a copy.”
“The original’s gone. Wiped.”
“Shit! Any claimed responsibility yet?”
“No.”
“How’d the bomb work?” he demanded.
“Bombs,” corrected Pamela. “From the amount of recovered metal, there were at least three.”
“How’d they work?”
“Again it’s preliminary thinking, but it looks like antipersonnel stuff with a slack wire connected to the detonator or pin. When the boat started to move the wire tightened, activating the detonator or pulling out the pin.” She hesitated. “And they
were
antipersonnel. Shrapnel-packed, for maximum physical damage after detonation.”
“Russian manufacture?” pressed Cowley.
“Nothing on that yet. The metal’s being analyzed, obviously.”
On the helicopter flight from New York he’d said overkill was better than underkill, Cowley remembered. He remembered, too, the forensic team leader’s praise of the local organization and the remark about spending more time with wives and families. “Jefferson Jones have any kids?”
“Six,” the woman said shortly.
“You told me you were with the terrorism unit?”
“I’ve taken Burt’s place. Temporarily at the moment.”
“Tell Ross I’m not off the case.”
“I think I should have some input here,” intruded Pepper but Cowley spoke over him.
“I’m not off the case! We
are
looking for people—
some
people at least—with special military experience and training. The whole thing was planned like a military operation: the attack on the UN, everything that happened afterward. I want every militant or crazy in the New Rochelle area—everywhere in New York State, Connecticut, and New Hampshire—checked out. If it wasn’t local knowledge, they reconnoitered, certainly the creek. Patrolman Mitchell talked of a marina farther downriver. Check every single boat owner and marina—and I mean
every single one
—for strangers seen moving about, as if they had a special interest: taking notes, photographs, stuff like that. And go hard on the military. They’re ducking. I want the names of every guy—and girl—whose records show a connection with any militant group that got them recognized or into trouble. Especially if it got as far as a court-martial. OK?”
“Bill,” said the woman upon whom he couldn’t properly focus. And paused. “Bill,” she started again. “A few hours ago you thought you were dead. So did a lot of other people, me included. We’ve got to get these bastards before they kill anyone else, which means everyone’s got to be thinking straight, seeing straight.” She stopped. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be smart about seeing straight. The director’s asked me to report back, how you are. And I don’t think and the hospital doesn’t think—Dr. Pepper here doesn’t think—that you’re in any fit state to go on heading this investigation. That if you tried you’d endanger it. We’re not talking feelings or attitudes here. We’re talking operational practicality.” And my future, Pamela Darnley thought. My big chance, once-in-a-lifetime fast-track future opportunity.
“You got any problem with the way I’ve been thinking, analyzing?”
There was a pause. “No.” Who the fuck did this guy thing he was, Superman?
“You believe you can organize the manpower—switch it from the concentration upon finding the boat, which we don’t need to do anymore—to pursue the special services’ check?”
“Yes.”
“You got any other line of inquiry to follow at this precise moment?”
“No.” She wished she had.
“I’ll judge my own capability. And if something comes up before I think I
am
capable, I’ll back off. Not for one moment, for any half-assed personal reason, will I endanger a successful investigation. You do me a favor and tell Ross that? Say that’s how I feel and ask him to go with me.”
“I’ll tell him,” promised the woman. She wouldn’t have had to—could have used different words and expressions without actually lying—if the damned neurologist hadn’t been there as a witness.
“Tell him that although the Hoover Building isn’t a line office, that’s where I think the incident room should be, where he has instant access. Bring Terry Osnan in as controller and evidence officer.”