The Russian studied the rollers ceaselessly attacking the shoreline. He had been trained in oceanography classes to study the action of coastal waters, and he now saw what convinced him that perhaps a giant American submarine wasn’t just a rumor. The coloration of the water, the movement of the waves, even obviously shifted sandbars on either side indicated that a deep channel existed right to the base of that spit — and it was wide, over three hundred feet. This could be the monster’s lair.
There was but one way to confirm his suspicions. After a final sweep of the surrounding area, he dropped the binoculars inside his car. Opening the trunk, he extracted a large, well-wrapped package, which he lugged to the edge of the slope, lowering it carefully by rope to the bench below. The curious seals wriggling over to sniff the foreign object scattered when he tossed the rope down behind it.
Hearing the sound of a distant motor, he closed the trunk carefully. Extracting a paper bag from the front seat, he neatly laid the contents on the hood. As the only vehicle in the past twenty minutes approached, the Russian was perched on the hood of his car munching on a sandwich, a Coke bottle in his other hand. Smiling and waving to the approaching car, he was just a salesman enjoying his lunch by a scenic turnoff. The driver of the other car waved and continued on his way.
The lunch had been an afterthought, but it tasted good. It wouldn’t hurt him to finish it, and he remained on the hood of the car, pleased with his discovery and the few relaxing moments he was able to steal.
They would be his last for the driver of the other car had already alerted security.
High above, in an undetected orbit, a photographic satellite recorded his every moment. The images appeared quite clearly on a small screen in the security office situated well below the grazing cows. The watch officer was alerted early on to the car that stopped by the scenic turnoff. That spot had actually been constructed to provide the best view of this artificial headland, and a warning buzzer sounded in the security office whenever a car pulled off there.
The watch officer moved over to a periscope and studied his objective through a powerful lens that literally brought Kovschenko into the room. He depressed the automatic photograph button three times so that they would have clear pictures of the intruder, should he manage to elude them. Once the package was lowered over the edge to the sandy beach below, he then punched the alert button for the duty SEAL team.
The Russian finished his lunch, methodically bunching the sandwich wrappers and sliding them under the car seat with the empty Coke bottle. Then he moved back inside the car, unseen by either human or satellite. Quickly he dictated everything he had seen and would attempt to accomplish in the next few hours on a tiny recorder that fit in the palm of his hand. Finally, again checking to see that he remained alone, he removed his clothes down to a bathing suit under his trousers.
As he left the car, he placed a handwritten note under the windshield wiper—“out of gas will return.” He then engaged a switch on the tiny recorder to radiate a signal that could be picked up only by a similar instrument. Another recording had been left in his hotel room explaining where he would be going that morning. His people would be able to trace every step if he disappeared. His recorded words confirmed his impressions of the existence of a lair for a giant submarine.
After slipping the compact recorder under a loose rock at the edge of the cliff as he prepared to lower himself, his descent to the seal beach was rapid. Detritus preceding his approach irritated the seals until they finally moved offshore. The Russian removed a wet suit, breathing apparatus, diving mask, miniature underwater camera, and an electric pulling motor from the package.
By the time he entered the water, the leader of the SEAL team was in the security station watching. He’d seen those motors before and knew how fast they could pull a swimmer. Checking his watch, he calculated within minutes when the Russian would approach the thousand-yard barrier.
There was little effort involved on the part of the SEALs. When they unexpectedly appeared around him, the Russian reached futilely for the knife in his belt. But before he could remove it from the sheath, a dart with an explosive head had already penetrated his chest cavity, disintegrating his heart.
That night his body was towed out to sea and dumped, along with his equipment, in a weighted bag. Before nightfall, his car was a compact lump of metal in a junkyard a hundred miles distant. The area surrounding the car had been swept electronically.
Like those who had gone before him, there was no evidence that he had ever existed. But the compact device he had secreted under the rock had gone undetected. It would be turned up a few weeks later by what appeared to be a highway crew — a sweep team sent out by the Soviet intelligence officer in Seattle. It would be confirmation that the next man would utilize in the quest for a menace the Soviets had yet to ferret out.
In an even more remote part of the world, an equally determined individual was embarking on a similar quest. He was an American but he was not masquerading as a Russian on the forbidding Soviet Kola Peninsula. There was no need for such cover in the bitter arctic winter.
He was one of an elite few able to survive comfortably in that territory. His training was unsurpassed, primarily because he was the originator and instructor of the most rigorous cold-regions survival course. Swathed in white, not a centimeter of skin was exposed. His unique clothing was lightweight yet insulated against colder temperatures than he now faced, and his eyes were screened against the cold and the whiteness. A minuscule oxygen generator enhanced his breathing. Worldly needs were carried on his back, including an inflatable cocoon to protect him from the elements when he burrowed under the snow to rest.
The Norwegians had offered a miniaturized snowmobile, which had been politely rejected based on his assumption that the Russians guarded against such machines with sniffers capable of detecting the slightest trace of exhaust. Preferring to operate on his own, his training and stamina more than made up for any benefit a fallible machine might provide.
His mission was limited — a maximum of three days, he insisted. Longer would surely mean he’d failed. His superiors made one last offer, an honorable way to drop out. They would wait another month or so until the seasonal storms passed, then try satellite photography. He refused. The final transmission from one of his men — his closest friend — near Murmansk indicated the Soviets had been prepositioning tanks, artillery, and supplies near the Norwegian border under the cover of arctic storms. Only the Russians were capable of such large-scale movements that time of year. If the report was accurate, they would easily filter troops in to operate the weapons under the cover of the long arctic nights. Unanticipated, they could conduct a blitzkrieg-type sweep into Norway. His best man had died to relay that — he could not live with himself if he waited until the Soviets proved the report correct. The result could be Soviet occupation of the land mass controlling access to the Arctic.
The bleak landscape had been photographed repeatedly the past year by satellite, and terrain models had been constructed. There were obvious locations to conceal vast numbers of weapons, easy to camouflage and perfect for launching an assault as the weather broke.
He slipped across the border on cross-country skis less than forty miles from two of the three most logical spots. He navigated with a compass and a watch, matching his pace against the distance. The darkness, the snow, and the cold, punctuated by the persistent winds, provided the gift of security as the hostile terrain enveloped him.
The initial cache lay in a depression, and the downhill slope he anticipated there was nonexistent. Instead, a fuel storage area had been established in its place. The camouflage cover combined with the drifting snow to create a smooth-appearing surface when he should have been moving gently downhill. Little time was required to estimate the amount of stored fuel. It would support a massive assault. A satellite recorded the data he flashed skyward in a short, simple code. Aware there were no guards, he then rested under the protection of the Soviet camouflage.