“No” McGarvey said, Baranov’s picture rising up in his mind. “He’ll launch the missile and then make his escape”
“Launch it where, for God’s sake”
“The sixty-four-dollar question” McGarvey said, shaking his head.
“What’s the Pershing’s range, a thousand miles or so”
“This is a Pershing IIA. She has a range of more than two thousand miles”
“The warhead is armed” Kraus nodded glumly. “You can say that again.
Five hundred kilotons”
“But it’s a cruise missile”
“Not quite, sir. It’s RADAG controlled … Radar Area Guidance. It’s set for a latitude and longitude, and once it gets near its target the radar unit compares the returns it’s getting from the ground with what’s programmed into it”
“What’s its target”
“That’s highly classified McGarvey just looked at him. “Kiev”
“They’ll change it”
“They’d have to have a systems expert with them. None of ours is missing. It’s the first thing we had Langley check. There aren’t many men around who have that knowledge”
“Whoever is working with Kurshin does” McGarvey said. “You can bet your life on it”
Kurshin looked up as another helicopter came in for a landing a couple of blocks away in what he was assuming was the market square they’d passed through on the way in. It made the third since he and Schey had gotten out of the tractor and climbed up on the trailer with the missile. “How much longer” he asked the East German. Schey looked up from the open hatch in the missile’s side.
“I was finished ten minutes ago. You asked me to stall for time. “It’s set on the new target”
“Yes, of course, providing the data you supplied me with is correct”
“It is” Kurshin said curtly. “What about the abort mechanism”
“Disconnected”
“At this point then, once the missile is launched there is no way for their Missile Control facility to recall it or destroy it” The East German shook his head. “Short of sending a fighter interceptor after it and shooting it out of the sky-an almost impossible feat-no. “Very good” Kurshin said, glancing over his shoulder again toward the blockade at the south side of the plaza. “Button it up, let’s begin”
Schey closed and relocked the small hatch on the missile’s radar guidance system, and then replaced the section of outer skin he’d removed, dogging it down with a dozen flushmounted fasteners. “What about the plastique collar” Kurshin asked. “It will fall harmlessly away within the first few seconds after launch”
“There will be no effect on the missile’s course”
“None that the guidance system won’t correct for”
“Good” Kurshin said, his eyes hard. He jumped down from the trailer bed and one at a time lowered the hydraulic stabilizing jacks at each corner, while Schey was connecting the four launch control umbilical cords. If there was going to be trouble, Kurshin thought, sweating lightly, it would come now. They would be fools not to try to stop what was happening here. But then they had been fools at the base with lack of security. This would never happen in the Rodina, not even now, though if it ever did it would shake up those pricks in the Kremlin even nwre than the German kid had done by flying his little toy airplane into Red Square.
Ten minutes later, Schey checked all the wires and steadying jacks to make certain everything was in order, then opened a control hatch at the side of the trailer and flipped a switch. The Pershing missile began to slowly rise from the trailer bed.
“Oh, Jesus Christ” Colonel Collingwood said as the missile began to elevate from its transport trailer. McGarvey had been looking through binoculars at the two men. The taller of them, dressed in an Air Force uniform, had turned several times, giving him a good look. He had the same bulk and general appearance as Kurshin, but his face was different. From here he looked very much like the photographs McGarvey had been shown of Brad Allworth. He lowered the binoculars.
“Blow the missile now” he said. Trotter, who had met him when the chopper had set down, stepped back a pace and Colonel Collingwood’s eyes widened. “Is this the hotshot who was supposed to come up with the good ideas” the security chief spat at Trotter. He looked coldly at McGarvey. “Do you know what such an action would mean? Do you know what it would do here”
“You say the civilians have been pulled out. Clear the rest of your men except for one volunteer sharpshooter who can hit the plastique. And blow it now before it’s too late”
“It would spread radioactive materials for hundreds of yards”
Collingwood growled. “There would be a three-block area of no-man’s-land for a long time to come”
“Yes” McGarvey said, watching the missile rise. “And probably a number of casualties. An increase in the cancer rate over the next twenty or thirty years. The news media would be on your ass. The Pentagon would probably set you out to dry. You’d be a scapegoat”
“You’re goddamned right.
“What do you suppose five hundred kilotons is going to do when it explodes on whatever target they’ve programmed it for”
“They won’t launch it” Collingwood said, but he wasn’t as sure as he had been a moment earlier. McGarvey looked at him again. “Yes they will, unless we stop them”
“Is it Kurshin” Trotter asked. “I don’t know for sure” McGarvey admitted. “I think so, but he’s wearing a damned good disguise. Had to if he was able to fool the people at the base”
“We can’t destroy that missile here, Kirk” Trotter said emphatically.
Collingwood was closely watching the exchange. McGarvey turned back to him. “If they do launch it, what’s the possibility of shooting it down”
“About one in a thousand” Again McGarvey stared at the missile which by now was nearly at the vertical. “Well, I’d suggest that you inform your people to at least give it a try in case we fail here and that thing actually gets airborne. That was a logic the colonel could understand.
“Will do” he said, and he turned to his radioman and began issuing orders. McGarvey raised his binoculars and slowly began to search the entire square foot by foot, from the front of the train station all the way across to the missile transporter. It was Kurshin. He could feel it in his bones. Trotter had reported that the French police had indeed discovered a mutilated body along the railroad tracks fifty miles east of Paris. “Along the same line that Brad Allworth took to get here”
Trotter had said. That fact clinched it in McGarvey’s mind. But that meant that Kurshin had had some very good intelligence information. He’d known Brad Allworth’s orders, what he looked like, and what train he would be on. He also had the information needed to reprogram the missile. It was not beyond Baranov, coming up with such information. But the risks he had taken to get the data, and then so openly display that fact here like this, meant Baranov had a very large prize in mind. A very large prize indeed. “Get the city engineer here” McGarvey said.
Kurshin and the other man went around to the side of the transporter, the hatch opened and they climbed inside. “What” Trotter asked. “The city engineer” McGarvey repeated. “I know how Kurshin means to escape.
ABOARD THE MISSILE TRANSPORTER
It was coming up on fifteen minutes before eight. Night had fallen, but the transporter was bathed in lights that had been hastily strung up around the perimeter of the square and on some of the rooftops. Shadows were long. Where there wasn’tlight, the darkness by contrast was almost absolute. Schey had pulled the main panel from the fire control board where he had worked with a test instrument and a soldering pencil for the past half hour. He sat back and looked up, an expression of satisfaction on his face. “There” he said. “It is finished” Kurshin swiveled around and looked into the tangle of wires behind the panel. A small electronic device had been wired into the firing circuitry. “Once the fire switch is thrown, the delay circuitry will give us ten minutes to make our escape, no more” Schey said.