“From appearances,” Nitro Fizz Williams said, “you’re saying the whole damned wing is on twenty-four alert status, Amy?”
“It would appear that way, George,” Pearson told him. “There were two brand new ships, a destroyer and an amphibious landing craft, in the naval section of the harbor at Bremerton. Any questions, so far?”
There were none.
“All right. Delta Blue. This was the most interesting flight, from the standpoint of changes.”
A new series of pictures began to appear and disappear on the screen.
“There has been a lot of new construction in the industrial areas at Rostock, Halle, Leipzig, and Dresden. It’s rapid expansion, but still, something we might have expected, given the stated intention of expanding employment and developing the eastern economy. And, yet again, some of it is disturbing. Military units on the borders appear to have a full complement of equipment, most of it appearing new. Tanks, trucks, jeeps, artillery pieces. New, though, are large truck parks, identified by the tracks leading into them. We don’t know what is stored in the parks, however, because they have been hidden under camouflage netting.”
Pearson pointed to a photo on the screen, dim because of the low-light film used. It looked like a big, empty field next to a gravel road. Severed churned-up turn-ins from the road, crossing over culverts, provided the perspective.
“This one was taken a few miles east of Dresden. The camouflage nettings covers seven acres.”
“Jesus!” Munoz said. “That’s a lot of tanks.”
“Some of the markings on the road are from tracked vehicles, but it’s also a lot of howitzers, or fuel tankers, or ammunition storage or something else. We don’t know what.”
Another picture.
“Here, outside Leipzig, is a new tank farm. East Germany is expecting to sell its citizens a lot of automobiles, or it’s storing a great deal of fuel. We’re estimating a half billion gallons of liquid fuel stored here alone. At Rostock, there’s another tank farm.
“Last, but not least, Colonel McKenna and Major Munoz shot some pictures of an expanded installation west of Peenemünde. It is clearly a launch site, but we don’t know what kind of vehicle it is intended to launch.” McKenna studied the picture, much clearer than the tape he had reviewed on the return trip.
“It looks to me, Amy,” he said, “as if the shell of the launch facility is designed to be moved away from the gantry on tracks.”
“Exactly, Colonel.”
“Which would leave an exposed gantry at least as large as any on the pads at Canaveral.”
“Yes”
“Which means a vehicle designed for entry into space.”
“I would agree with that.”
“I wonder if it has a warhead,” he mused.
Gen. Marvin Brackman was cautious on the phone, still feeling out the relationship between himself and Vitaly Sheremetevo. Adm. Hannibal Cross had passed the Sheremetevo contact on to Brackman, and they had communicated by telephone several times. The last time they had talked, they had advanced to the use of first names, but the usage was still tentative.
“Is your government going to lodge a complaint against the Hamburg, Vitaly?”
There was a long pause. “No, Marvin, it is not. In fact, my government does not know about the strike attempt. I am keeping that information within the PVO Strany.”
“I see. Any particular reason?”
“For the moment, I wish to see if the strike was a rash move by an excitable commander. We will know more if it happens again.”
“Admiral Schmidt is not particularly excitable,” Brackman pointed out.
“No, he is not. But a subordinate may have been responsible.”
“That is possible,” Brackman said, though he felt as if something was being held back.
“And to tell you the truth, my airplane commander may have been a little rash, himself. His actions may have provoked the response he received.”
Which was the way David Thorpe had interpreted the radar tape from Themis.
“All right, then. Well leave it there for the time being. Did you learn anything of interest from the flight pictures, Vitaly?”
“Not very much. They are quite similar to the photographs you forwarded to me, and my analysts say the same as your analysts. There is too much heat being generated for them to be simply oil wells.”
“What do you suggest as our next step, then?” Brackman asked.
“I believe we have learned all that we are to learn from infrared pictures, Marvin. I am going to attempt to interest Admiral Michy in a subsurface excursion.”
Brackman considered the implications of American and Soviet submarines encountering the Black Forest in the Greenland Sea simultaneously.
“I have a suggestion, Vitaly. Call me back after you have talked to Admiral Michy, and I will arrange for him to communicate with Admiral Lorenzen, who is the commander in chief of submarines for our Atlantic fleet. We don’t want our boats bumping noses.”
“Ah, I understand. Yes, that is a good idea.”
“And then, if I may ask, has your Colonel Volontov ever been to Chad?”
“I do not believe so, Marvin, and I am quite certain that he would find no interest in such a trip. But I will convince him that he will enjoy it.”
“Good, Vitaly. Then, one last point. What are we going to do about that launch complex?”
“While I do not know for certain, it seems to me that the GRU will have persons in closer proximity to Peenemünde than will the CIA or the Defense Intelligence Agency.”
“That is probably true,” Brackman said, “though, like yourself, I couldn’t say for sure”
“I will make the first inquiries, then,” Sheremetevo told him.
McKenna put the MakoShark on the runway at Jack Andrews Air Force Base while it was still light out, just before seven o’clock. He taxied immediately into Hangar One and parked next to Delta Orange. The technicians working on final systems checks for the newest MakoShark abandoned their tasks to handle the after-flight inspection of Delta Blue.
They bitched about the hangar doors opening for Delta Blue’s entrance, also bringing in a heat wave and a cloud of hot dry sand from the desert.
“Damn, Colonel,” Tech Sergeant Prentiss said, “couldn’t you have come in a little later, like in November?”
“Is it any better in November, Sarge?” McKenna asked as he descended the curving ladder Prentiss had attached to the fuselage.
“No. But it sounds cooler.”
McKenna paced in a small circle. After several days in space, it always took him a while to reacquaint his leg muscles with gravity.
Munoz didn’t wait for his own ladder to be placed, but stood up on the rear cockpit coaming, slipped around the raised forward canopy, and slid down McKenna’s ladder.
“Thirsty, Tony?”
“I’m gonna have just one Bloody Mary and two bottles of Dos Equis, jefe.”
“Sounds good to me, too, but you’ve got to wait.”
“No shit? I’ve been waitin’ days and days.”
“All in your mind, Tony. I want you to meet this guy, too.”
They changed into khakis in the pilots’ dressing room and waited until eight-fifteen in the control tower atop Hangar One, drinking Cokes with the air controller.
At eight-fifteen, the radar beeped.
The controller jumped up and ran for his console, pulling the headset over his head. He told McKenna, “I’ve got an inbound sixty miles out.”
The radio speaker overhead squawked.
“Andrews Air Control.”
“Andrews, this is Soviet MiG-29 eight six four seven.”
“Go ahead, four seven.”
“I am one hundred kilometers out, requesting permission to land.”