POLYARNYY, R.S.F.S.R.
"There's just something weird about watching a guy pour cement into a ship," Flynn observed on the ride back to Murmansk. No one had ever told him about ballast.
"Ah, but it can be a beautiful thing!" exclaimed their escort, a junior captain in the Soviet Navy. "Now if only your navies can do the same!"
The small press group that had been allowed to stand on a pier and watch the neutralization of the first two Yankee-class fleet ballistic missile submarines was being carefully managed, Flynn and Calloway noted. They were being driven around in groups of two and three, each group with a naval officer and a driver. Hardly unexpected, of course. Both men were amazed that they were being allowed onto so sensitive a base at all.
"A pity that your president did not allow a team of American officers to observe this," the escort went on.
"Yeah, I have to agree with you there, Captain," Flynn nodded. It would have made a much better story. As it was, a Swede and an Indian officer, neither a submariner, had gotten a closer look at what the reporters called the "cement ceremony," and reported somberly afterward that, yes, cement had been poured into each missile launch tube on the two submarines. Flynn had timed the length of each pour, and would do some checking when he got back. What was the volume of a missile tube? How much cement to fill it? How long to pour the cement? "Even so, Captain, you must agree that the American response to your country's negotiating position has been extremely positive."
Through all this, William Calloway kept his peace and stared out the car's window. He'd covered the Falkland Islands War for his wire service, and spent a lot of time with the Royal Navy, both afloat and in naval shipyards watching preparations for sending the Queen's fleet south. They were now passing by the piers and work areas for a number of surface warships. Something was wrong here, but he couldn't quite pin it down. What Flynn did not know was that his colleague often worked informally for the British Secret Intelligence Service. Never in a sensitive capacity-the man was a correspondent, not a spy-but like most reporters he was a shrewd, observant man, careful to note things that editors would never allow to clutter up a story. He didn't even know who the station chief in Moscow was, but he could report on this to a friend in Her Majesty's embassy. The data would find its way to the right person.
"So what does our English friend think of Soviet shipyards?" the captain inquired with a broad smile.
"Far more modem than ours," Calloway replied. "And I gather you don't have dockyard unions, Captain?"
The officer laughed. "We have no need for unions in the Soviet Union. Here the workers already own everything." That was the standard Party line, both reporters noted. Of course.
"Are you a submarine officer?" the Englishman inquired.
"No!" the captain exclaimed. A hearty laugh. Russians are big on laughs when they want to be, Flynn thought. "I come from the steppes. I like blue sky and broad horizons. I have great respect for my comrades on submarines, but I have no wish to join them."
"My feelings exactly, Captain," Calloway agreed. "We elderly Brits like our parks and gardens. What sort of sailor are you?"
"I have shore assignment now, but my last ship was Leonid Brezhnev, icebreaker. We do some survey work, and also make a way for merchant ships along the Arctic Coast to the Pacific."
"That must be a demanding job," Calloway said. "And a dangerous one." Keep talking, old boy...
"It demands caution, yes, but we Russians are accustomed to cold and ice. It is a proud task to aid the economic growth of your country."
"I could never be a sailor," Calloway went on. He saw a curious look in Flynn's eyes: The hell you couldn't... "Too much work, even when you're in port. Like now. Are your shipyards always this busy?"
"Ah, this is not busy," the captain said without much thought.
The man from Reuters nodded. The ships were cluttered, but there was not that much obvious activity. Not so many people moving about. Many cranes were still. Trucks were parked. But the surface warships and auxiliaries were cluttered as if... He checked his watch. Three-thirty in the afternoon. The workday was hardly over. "A great day for East-West detente," he said to cover his feelings. "A great story for Pat and me to tell our readers."
"This is good." The captain smiled again. "It is time we had real peace."
The correspondents were back in Moscow four hours later, after the usual uncomfortable ride on an Aeroflot jet with its Torquemada seats. The two reporters walked to Flynn's car-Calloway's was still hors de combat with mechanical problems. He grumbled at having gotten a Soviet car instead of bringing his Morris over with him. Bloody impossible to get parts.
"A good story today, Patrick?"
"You bet. But I wish we'd been able to snap a picture or two." They were promised Sovfoto shots of the "cement ceremony."
"What did you think of the shipyard?"
"Big enough. I spent a day at Norfolk once. They all look alike to me."
Calloway nodded thoughtfully. Shipyards do look alike, he thought, but why did Polyarnyy seem strange? His suspicious reporter's mind? The constant question: What is he/she/it hiding? But the Soviets had never allowed him on a naval base, and this was his third tour in Moscow. He'd been to Murmansk before. Once he'd spoken with the Mayor and asked how the naval personnel affected his administration of the city. There were always uniforms visible on the street. The Mayor had tried to evade the question, and finally said, "There are no Navy in Murmansk." A typical Russian answer to an awkward question-but now they'd let a dozen Western reporters into one of their most sensitive bases. QED, they were not hiding anything. Or were they? After he filed his story, Calloway decided, he'd have a brandy with his friend at the embassy. Besides, there was a party celebrating something or other.
He arrived at the embassy, on Morisa Toreza Embankment across the river from the Kremlin walls, just after nine o'clock that night. It turned into four brandies. By the fourth, the correspondent was going over a map of the naval base and using his trained memory to indicate just what activity he'd seen where. An hour later, the data was encrypted and cabled to London.
8 - Further Observations
GRASSAU, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
The TV news crew was having a great time. It had been years since they'd been allowed to film a Soviet military unit in action, and the entertainment value of the mistakes they saw gave plenty of spice for a piece on the NBC Nightly News. As they watched, a tank battalion was stalled at a crossroads on Highway 101, fifty kilometers south of Berlin. They'd taken a wrong turn somewhere, and the battalion commander was screaming at his subordinates. After two minutes of that, a captain stepped forward and made a few gestures at the map. A major was banished from the scene as the younger man apparently solved the problem. The camera followed the dejected major into a staff car, which drove north along the main road. Five minutes later, the battalion was mounted and rolling. The news crew took its time reloading its equipment into their carryall, and the chief reporter took the time to walk over to a French officer who had also observed the procedure.
The Frenchman was a member of the Joint Military Liaison Group, a convenient leftover of the Second World War which enabled both sides to spy on each other. A lean, poker-faced man, he wore paratrooper's wings and smoked Gauloises. He was an intelligence officer, of course.