And yet it all stood, often reduced to curved metal walls and foundation only-as seemingly indomitable a monument to human engineering as any Roman ruin. I could walk its shattered byways as tourists do in Pompeii, and as easily picture the place in its heyday, all the way down to the bustling communal dining room.
Anatoly found me standing in the middle of a particularly ravaged building, its insulation streaming from the rounded ceiling like stalactites. “You come,” he ordered.
I followed him outside and across the compound to a small, nondescript building not far from the access road. Several of our group were standing around the gaping door. Beyond them, sitting in the gloom, was Sammie, the laptop balanced on her knees.
Anatoly gave an order and the group parted to let me pass. Padzhev was beside Sammie, looking unhappy.
“I’m not a phone technician,” she was saying. “I’d feel a whole lot more comfortable if we just kept looking till we found a terminal point.”
Padzhev addressed me as I entered. “This is a singularly inopportune time to start dragging our heels.”
“Or to cut corners that could screw everything up,” I answered. I turned to Sam. “He want you to splice into a line?”
“Yeah. It’s stupid. Getting all this junk and running the risk of hooking it up wrong. Christ knows how many wires there are.”
Rarig spoke up from outside. “You find the line?”
Sammie answered. “Yeah, but it’s more like a cable. And there’s no connection that’ll fit the computer.”
Rarig shoved his way inside, laughing. “No kidding. All this was state-of-the-art at the time-jam-packed with stuff. I can pretty much guarantee a connection at the top, though-that’s where the few people who use this place call out from. Push comes to shove, and you still want to fight ’em off down here, you can direct things from above using a radio.”
Padzhev scowled angrily and for the first time showed his mounting impatience. “God damn it. I want to see where those bastards are, not hear about it thirdhand.” He shouted something in Russian and then said, “Get out. We’ll go up.”
We went in one car-Sammie, Padzhev, Rarig, and myself with one man driving. The others had been given orders to dig in, set up crossfire zones, and otherwise prepare for an onslaught. Nothing had changed in our status since we’d arrived here-the sentries below had reported nothing, and none of us had been given cause for alarm-but the tension was rising nevertheless, as it might have upon the approach of a hurricane on a sunny day.
The trip to the top was distinctly different from what we’d already seen. The road remained the same, but the bordering vegetation, from a hodgepodge of trees, brush, and meadow, now became a uniform stand of stunted, thick evergreens, giving the narrow road the appearance of a carefully groomed path in a tightly knit English garden maze. In contrast to the wild abandon of the compound’s woodsy jungle, this looked almost lovingly maintained.
But it also had an ominous undertone, for the higher we climbed-turning corner after corner, always wondering what lay ahead-the more the clouds enveloping the peak began to press down upon us, decapitating the already low treetops and making us feel we were crawling between two unmovable forces, destined to be snuffed out entirely.
And there was no relief from this menace at the top, for as the trees finally pulled away, as if dragged down by the mist, there loomed out of the pale void three gigantic, towering, steel-clad structures-vaguely defined, unfamiliar in form or function, and utterly, threateningly immense.
“My God,” murmured Padzhev, his eyes riveted outside the streaming windshield.
Instinctively, the driver stopped the car.
Only Rarig was smiling. “Impressive, huh? Those are the radar towers-five of ’em. Tallest one’s sixty-five feet. The radar dome designed for that one would’ve made it look like a kitchen stool, but the whole site was decommissioned before they got it in place.” He pointed to a sturdy shack ahead and to the right. “That’s the telephone hut over there.”
Our driver pulled over and we emerged into a freezing, wet, windblown environment that cut through our clothes and coated our faces with moisture. The air was a uniform gray, visibility extending to no more than one hundred and fifty feet.
Sammie looked around, her computer case held to her chest. “This is creepy-like a black-and-white sci-fi movie.”
Ahead of us, as if in response, a metallic moaning was followed by a loud thump as a wide door swung open on a long, low-slung building across the road from the towers.
Rarig’s only comment was “Old computer building, where the scope dopes number-crunched the radar data.” He pointed to the shack’s front door. “Someone’s going to have to blast that lock off.”
Padzhev nodded to the driver, who extracted a gun from under his coat, pointed it at the lock, and pulled the trigger as we all instinctively shied away. Absorbed by the mist, the shot sounded like a damp firecracker.
Padzhev pulled the door open and gestured Sammie through.
The interior was simplicity itself-four battered walls, one tiny barred window, and a shelf with a single phone line curled up on it like a garter snake, all covered with dust. Padzhev looked around, obviously baffled.
Rarig interpreted his expression. “With everyone leaving, and vandals tearing the place apart, this is all the powers-that-be want to waste money on. Even then, they have to replace the lock every once in a while. The wardens bring their own phones when they come.”
Sammie put the computer on the shelf and clipped the phone line into its back.
“Guess we better let Olivia know where we are,” I said casually.
Sammie’s sole reaction was a minute hitch in her movements as she continued setting things up.
“Who’s Olivia?” Padzhev asked.
“One of the two women at the other end of this deal,” I explained, grateful Anatoly hadn’t been chosen to join us. I glanced out the open door. “I doubt the computer’s going to like all that humidity.”
Padzhev growled at the driver, who stepped outside, closing the door behind him. One down, I thought.
Sammie looked around her. “Wish I had a chair. I can’t type on this shelf.”
Padzhev got the hint. “I’ll go find something.”
As soon as he left, Sammie turned to me. “Olivia Kidder?”
I kept my voice low. “What options have we got? This god-damn scheme of his isn’t going to work. Sooner or later, Kyrov’ll get the upper hand and eat us for lunch. We need help.”
We heard voices outside the door as Padzhev shouted something to the other man.
“Set everything up, and if you get a few seconds to yourself, send an SOS to Judy to be forwarded to Kidder.”
“Snowden’ll probably intercept it,” Sammie warned.
“Then e-mail Tony Brandt and make sure he gets briefed by Kidder. Somebody’s going to have to tell the cavalry who’s who up here.”
The door crashed open, making us both jump, and Padzhev and the driver hauled a huge, dented steel box into the room. “Will this work?” he asked, panting.
Sammie perched herself on it, placing the computer on her lap. “Great. Thanks.”
A nervous twenty minutes later, she looked up from the keyboard. “Got it.”
Padzhev sat next to her and peered at the glowing screen. Floating in its middle, like an island on a black sea, was a multihued, three-dimensional slice of map, with a mountaintop at its center. “That’s us?” he asked.
“Yup.” She touched the screen with her fingertip. “We’re right here, and that thin black line squiggling down there is the road. The Quonset village’s here.”
Padzhev stared at it as though it were a crystal ball, which we were all hoping it was. “No sign of anyone else?”
“Not yet. The two women at the other end are going to keep watching till they see a change. Then we’ll get an update-assuming the Trojan horse worked. If it didn’t,” she added grimly, “then I guess the next thing we’ll hear is a knock on the door.”