Blood Covenent, page 5
Andropov sighed. It was so difficult to develop candor. “Yes, Major—what does it mean? Your thoughts—I want the truth from you,” he said quickly.
“A disaster,” Yevgeny said plainly. “I suppose we can spread some sort of story about using the 747 for spy purposes, but the Americans—the ones who count—will know we are lying. There is no need for such desperate measures. American technology is quite capable of observing us from space.”
Andropov nodded approvingly. He paused, considering the course he was about to take one last time. Andropov had read the analysis prepared by his staff. Earlier this year Reagan had embraced the concept of High Frontier—a space-based missile defense system. It was the most fearsome concept to Kremlin leaders since President Harry Truman dropped the first atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.
America, protected with a shield and armed with a nuclear sword, could effectively relegate the Soviet Union to the third world. The trends indicated that Russia must develop some sort of parity with the exploding American technology by the end of the decade or lose the Cold War. Russia did not have the technological base to keep pace, and she could not steal the technology fast enough or in sufficient quantities to deploy a technological army. He sighed. If only Brezhnev had had enough restraint to not make Jimmy Carter look foolish, maybe he would have been elected to a second term, and Soviet dominance could have been secured.
“It is time, Major, to use theJew’s weapons,” he explained quietly.
Yevgeny froze in his chair. The tea glass tightly gripped in his fingers as he considered the statement.
“You find this a startling development?”
He nodded numbly.
Andropov got to his feet and walked back to his desk. “I don’t intend todetonate the weapons,” he explained.
Yevgeny continued to nod like a dime store puppy. The Americans would punish the Motherland for the KAL disaster. Light off a low yield weapon in their territory, and the sky would fill with missiles. No one knew what Reagan might do if pushed to the wall.
“I need a mechanism to checkmate the Americans. I need something to threaten the American President with.” He chuckled. “Of course, they believe not talking to us and canceling summits is sufficient punishment. These bombs are for when we come back to the table and sit down to talk about peace, disarmament, and that sort of rubbish.”
Andropov understood what he feared—the single-minded focus towards a goal of winning the Cold War. For the first time, Andropov wondered if they might lose the struggle. If America realized she could shrug off the mantle of Vietnam, then she might recognize her awesome technological and economic power. For the Soviet Empire to survive, they needed to deceive and distract the Americans from a single course. This simpleton actor refused to budge from his goal to revitalize the American military.
He picked a folder up from his desk. “Before we sit down again, I want forty weapons deployed to Western Europe, Japan, and America. If the Americans run true to course, it will be 1985 before we sit down to a summit again.”
“Do you have a target list in mind?”
Andropov’s eyes blazed. “Terror! I want terror and fear sitting across from me at the negotiating table. Nikita Khrushchev did it to Kennedy in 1961 and we got the Berlin Wall without ever firing a shot.” Would Reagan blink? Of course, he would—they all would. Andropov had no illusions of exchanging kisses with the American as Brezhnev did with Carter in 1979.But they would blink .
“I want them to wonder where the bombs are. I want their population to be at risk, and no missiles need fly, no armies need march. We achieve nuclear checkmate.” He left unsaid the need to circumvent the space shield Reagan was building.
Yevgeny thought for a moment about what he was being asked to do, and said quietly, “I’m only a Major. How—”
“How do you move nuclear weapons around? Where is your authority? Those sorts of questions?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. I like a man who thinks through the issues.” He sat back down in his chair and dropped the file folder on the settee between them. “Here are the locations of three storage depots where we put yourJew’s weapons in 1979.”
Yevgeny stared at the file folder. Acceptance meant a change in his life and uncertainty regarding the future.
“The system is an automated system. Computer interlocks to provide ingress and egress from the site. The location and codes are in the folder. Major, no one knows about these sites besides you and the Deputy Chairman for the First Chief Directorate.
“Operational integrity has been maintained. The weapons do not appear on any manifests or rosters available to the army. These weapons do notexist in the Soviet arsenal, and, as such, they are not subject to arms control agreements. Whatever you need or whatever assistance you require, use this office to get it. I want these weapons in place within eighteen months.”
Yevgeny picked up the folder and opened its pages. He realized he was being given access to seventy-five weapons. Each storage area held twenty-five weapons. Andropov decided to reveal three locations, their codes, and the arming codes. His head swam with the concept. He closed the folder, recognizing it would change his life forever.
“As you command,” he said softly.
Andropov smiled. “Good. One last thing, Major, we never had this conversation. Eighteen months.”
“Yes, sir.” He took the folder and walked from the Kremlin office suite.
* * * *
Andropov never attended an American summit as General Secretary. His twin goals of nuclear checkmate and preventing the Pershing II deployment were never realized. Iurii Andropov died six months later in February 1984, and no one told his successor, Konstantin Chernenko, about Major Yarovitsin’s mission, the man portable nuclear devices, or the dozens of other secrets Andropov took to his grave.
The Deputy Chairman for the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, Andropov’s brother-in-law, died of a stroke shortly after Andropov. The First Chief Directorate was responsible for the mission, but very little was written down and nothing was shared verbally. The Committee for State Security was an extremely large and institutionalized bureaucracy; as such, the mechanism to continue Major Yarovitsin’s mission survived the Soviet Union itself. In a world of secrets, no one probed deeply into the assignments made by the one-time KGB Chairman and Communist Party General Secretary. The bureaucracy kept the mission alive, even though no institutional memory remained.
When Mikhail Gorbachev assumed the mantel of leadership in March 1985, Andropov’s entire scheme existed in a sealed archive deep inside the cellars known as Lubyanka Prison. Nowhere in the entire Soviet nuclear weapons roster didSAMSON appear, and the idea that the KGB would take delivery of 125 nuclear weapons in 1979 was totally ludicrous.
The only constants remaining were David’s lithium batteries, the charging system, and Yevgeny’s personal mission. It continued to supply electrical current to the countdown timer. The twenty-year fuse had consumed five years, and no one in the Kremlin knew it was burning. Nor did they realize that fully armed, offensive nuclear weapons were located in West Germany, England, Scotland, Japan, France, Israel, Iran, and the United States. An act of war had occurred and nobody noticed.
CHAPTER 5
Barents Sea, North of USSR Border
November 30, 1984
The MC-130EHercules glided across the broken ice flow and choppy seas of the Barents Sea. It made a wide arc around Murmansk, choosing a flight lane west of a boot-shaped island calledNowaya Zemlya, about one hundred miles east of the Murmansk / Archangel axis.
A single aircraft, painted entirely in black with no national markings, began a run towards the northern Soviet coast less than five hundred feet above the wintry Barents Sea. TheHercules carried the same electronic warfare suite installed in the B-52 G/HStratofortress strategic bombers. It carried a package of electronic countermeasures and electronic counter-countermeasures designed to penetrate the most formidable air defense network in the world. Already, the electronic synapses popped and crackled, generating ghosts and deflecting signals. A subtle ballet began.
The passengers and crew were about to find how well the APQ-122(V)8 andOmega navigation pods worked. The four T56-A-15 turboprops pulled the fuselage through the bitterly cold Arctic air as they plunged straight from above the Arctic Circle towards the heart of Russia. The paint used on the fuselage was a special anti-radiation paint designed to absorb radar signals from the ground stations. The greatest threat were the MiG-25EFoxbats with their powerful look-down/shoot-down radar system capable of burning through the electronic haze hiding theHercules .
A deadly game of cat and mouse continued tonight. The ground stations would search the sky for intruders. The interceptors would prowl the northern borders looking for an enemy that rarely appeared. The significant problem for the Soviet Union was the incredibly broad frontage they must patrol. The Soviet Union traverses eleven time zones and it has a northern border stretching over 3500 miles. Sometimes the mice would win.
MC-130EHercules is a specialized variant of the venerable C-130 transport. This variant was designed and upgraded for Special Forces operations. Besides the state-of-the-art avionics, it sports specialized communication links, in-flight refueling capability and the STAR system designed to snatch people off the ground from the air. This was not the first time an MC-130E ventured across the Soviet border or that the air force’s most advanced electronic warfare suite operated in a real time hostile environment.
Tonight, a relief crew and three passengers augmented the crew. Only one passenger interfaced with the pilots and checked their position on the navigation computers. Louis Edwards looked over the navigator’s shoulder and saw the approaching Soviet coastline. He was bundled in a military parka and heavy gloves. Once again, he was sending men into harm’s way. Their adventure took them beyond the protective reach of American embassies and international protections. The second they werefeet dry, all protections ended. They became dependent on the quality of their equipment and skill of the pilots.
Louis clapped a gloved hand on the navigator’s shoulder saying, “Let me know when we cross the Trans-Siberian Railroad.”
“Yes, sir.”
Louis took one last glance at the screen. They were five or six minutes away from the northern coast. Their mission waited until the presidential elections concluded. A downed spy plane in the midst of central Russia was not conducive to securing the White House for four more years. Louis hoped they were at least half as successful as Ronald Reagan had been in his victory over Walter Mondale.
He left the cockpit area and ventured into the farthest pressurized and somewhat heated part of the plane. This area was off limits to the crew except in a catastrophic situation. The conventional wisdom suggested that if aFoxbat found them, their aluminum wreckage would scatter across the desolate forests and mountains below. Even so, Louis Edwards carried a cyanide capsule just in case he survived the crash.
Jim Harper looked up from a paperback, and Jerry Andrews sat poised over a solitaire game. Harper found Louis in the hatchway and said, “Next time, we could use some sun tan lotion so we can catch them rays.” Air temperature outside was seventy-five degrees below zero.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” replied Louis.
“I told him not to start another book. He never gets them finished. It always gets him in a grouchy mood when he can’t find the book later on,” explained Jerry.
Louis closed the hatch and settled down in one of the jump seats across from Harper. “Good book?”
Harper shrugged. “So-so. I’m always a little suspect of those books where the gun is for some non-existent caliber.”
“Who’s winning?” quipped Jerry.
“The bad guys; they always win.” He bent the book, then added, “They got another hundred pages to get this figured out. I hope it’s a reasonable ending.”
Louis produced a thermos and asked, “Coffee?”
Jerry slapped Jim on the arm. “And you said he didn’t care.”
Harper glanced up at Louis. “Of course he cares. That’s why we’re gonna step out of a plane going three hundred knots at thirty thousand feet and drop like rocks for twenty-eight thousand feet. You’d let Judy do that—right?”
Jerry thought about his bride Judy, then smirked. “Yeah, right.”
Louis ignored them. He pulled out two insulated mugs and poured some coffee for them.
Harper took his and said, “How about a Florida vacation this time? I mean, it’s going to take a couple months to thaw out after this.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“And you call yourself a hardy Minnesota boy!” teased Jerry.
“I always thought the ducks and geese had a good idea flying south for the winter,” replied Harper. He took a sip of his coffee and asked quietly: “So what’s up?”
“Final mission brief,” explained Louis. He examined his warriors. They were theBlackest of the Black, without unit or service designation. No movies or books would be written about Louis Edwards’ team. They were faceless men and women without names—warriors in a secret war to topple the Soviet Empire. They were neither SEALS, DELTA, nor Rangers; instead, they were the private army of Bill Casey, Director Central Intelligence. They operated beyond the bounds of national borders and against the greatest enemy facing the United States. In some small way, their mission would knock another chink in the Iron Curtain. They were the embodiment of a policy component designed to win the Cold War.
Jerry scooped up his cards and slid them into one of his zippered pockets. “I thought this was all straightforward. We jump out of this airplane and land in their secret city. We go and find this doctor and his family and escape through your pick-up route. Piece of cake!” He slapped Harper on the shoulder.
“Yeah. All the while, we’re dodging the entire Russian Army. No problem.”
Of the fifty people Louis Edwards and General George Carnady had recruited, Jerry and Jim were the prize diamonds-in-the-rough. They were smart, resourceful, and the most successful team.
Jerry, the wiry one, was the runner. His straight black hair and hawk beak nose resembled a hunched gargoyle. He seemed to call up great reserves of energy from nowhere. He ate practically nothing. He was the grappler in the group, a superb wrestler through high school and college. He was far more academic and detail oriented than Jim.
Jim Harper was two-hundred-five pounds of solid muscle. Six months ago, he qualified for a black belt inTae Qwon Do . He was deceptively flexible. The power generated from his kicks and punches had sent more than one opponent to the infirmary. Details bored Jim; he examined the strategic options. His big-picture sense coupled with Jerry’s detailed examination made them a good team.
“All right, calm down. You boys aren’t jumpingjustanywhere . You’re going to Arzamas-16.” He focused his eyes on Jerry, who settled down in his chair. “They have barbed wire, gun toting guards, Doberman Pinchers, mine fields, and armored vehicles.”
“We ain’t stealing a bomb,” muttered Jim.
“No, you’re stealing something infinitely more valuable—Arkady Malikov, his wife and daughter. You’ll need to do it tonight, before the sun comes up.”
“You know, Jimmy, I think he’s trying to scare us.”
Harper nodded thoughtfully.
Louis ignored Jerry. “We haven’t had any contact for six weeks. There may be second thoughts.”
Jim locked eyes with Jerry and shrugged. “Willing defectors—the best kind.” Jerry rolled his eyes.
Louis grunted. “Winds aloft in the jump zone are close to fifty knots, and air temperature is eighty degrees below zero Fahrenheit. You’ll be dropping through a cloud deck at ten thousand feet, and ground temperature will be ten to fifteen degrees above zero with snow.”
Jim narrowed his eyes, “You got any good news, Louis?”
“Nice to know you boys are paying attention,” muttered Louis. The problem and the blessing was that they had not tasted bitter failure. Jim and Jerry had landed in some tough spots, but always managed to think or fight their way out. Louis and George created twenty-five teams. Three teams were already completely wiped out. Another seven suffered a death or severe injury, and two teams were missing.
Harper yawned and looked at his watch. “What are we—hour-and-a-half from the drop zone?”
“Something like that.”
“Okay, I hear what you’re saying Louis. But, we bring them out no matter what. That’s the mission, right?”
“Right,” replied Edwards.
Jerry pulled his gear towards him. “We got a HALO jump coming up in ninety minutes. I suppose we better get our stuff ready.” High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) jumps are the most dangerous type in the business. A miscalculation can lead to a thirty-thousand-foot drop to the ground, or a premature chute opening and drifting several miles off course. Survival depended on the quality of the equipment, and it was not an arena to go with the lowest bidder.
* * * *
TheHercules continued to fly into the storm. It was one of those odd early winter storms with thunder, lightning, and snow. Icing conditions were treacherous as the wings continued to develop nasty lumps of ice with the aerodynamics of the average brick. The only positive thing about the storm was the weird radar echo it generated for the ground stations and the grounding of Soviet fighters. Only madmen flew in weather like this.
Jim and Jerry stood tethered by ribbed oxygen lines in the aft portion of theHercules . They were on pure oxygen fed from theHercules’ internal system, as was everyone else in the aft bay. Their faces were shrouded by a breathing mask and goggles specifically designed for high altitude jumps. The danger was their own perspiration freezing into a brittle ice and shattering the goggles.
They checked each other over, tugging and pulling on one another’s straps, primary chute, secondary chute, oxygen bottle, mask, jump shoes, and tote bag, and looking for exposed skin. They spent a few extra seconds lingering on the critical communication gear built into their helmets and throat mikes. Looking like two beetles, they moved easily in their jump boots and flight suits. They prepared to leap from an aircraft traveling at two hundred-seventy knots through an increasingly angry storm, and drop to a level less than a thousand feet above the ground before their chutes opened.
