“It looks for an atomic explosion, yes,” Hollingshead said, nodding vigorously. “No real worries there, are there? No one is about to detonate a nuclear device on Russian soil. Your country doesn’t even do nuclear tests anymore, as I understand.”
Nadia bit her lip. “We cannot rule out the possibility that a rogue state would detonate a bomb inside Russia. Though the sensors are looking for a megaton-scale blast, not just the much smaller explosion of, say, a dirty bomb. We believed until recently, in fact, that an event on the scale that would trigger Perimeter was of negligible threat.”
“Something changed that?” Chapel asked. The look on her face definitely suggested as much.
She looked down at her hands. “In February of 2013, a meteor exploded in the air over the city of Chelyabinsk.”
“I remember that,” Chapel said. “The YouTube videos were pretty incredible.”
Nadia inhaled sharply. “As it burned up in the atmosphere, the meteor was large enough to light up the sky like a second sun. When it exploded, its sonic blast created an air overpressure wave that shattered windows across the city.” She looked from one man to the other. “Heat, light, overpressure.”
Chapel fell back in his chair. Looking over at Hollingshead, he saw the director’s mouth moving as if he were trying to speak but the words wouldn’t come.
“My government has wanted to take Perimeter offline for some time. We thought we had time, time enough at least to… to fix things,” Nadia said. “The last few years have convinced us otherwise. If the shortwave signal had faltered at the same time the meteor hit Chelyabinsk — if these two conditions ever happened again at the same time…” She pushed down on the table until her hands turned white. “It would be the end of the world.”
The silence in the briefing room had felt flat before, all the ambient sound soaked up by the hard concrete walls. Now it felt like it buzzed with an angry energy. Chapel knew the effect was purely psychological, but it didn’t matter. He felt a nasty headache coming on when he thought about what Nadia had just said.
“You need to turn this thing off now,” he told her. “You need to shut it down.”
Hollingshead nodded. “We’ve been asking for that for years. Every time, the Russian government has brushed us off. Most often they simply tell us that the Dead Hand — Perimeter — never existed, that it was only ever a thought experiment and it was never built. Sometimes they contradict themselves and say it was switched off years ago, before the fall of the Union. Most often they just say they won’t discuss matters of state security. But clearly the time has come, Ms. Asimova. Clearly the time has come.”
Nadia looked over at the director with a sad smile. “This feeling is one shared by my superiors. We are not insane. We know that a Perimeter launch would be the end of our country, as well. The reason it has not been done, the reason I am here today, is a matter of great national… embarrassment. I can think of no better term.”
Something occurred to Chapel. “You said earlier you could only estimate the number of functional sensors in the network,” he said.
She nodded. “That’s correct. We don’t know how many of them are still active, because we do not know exactly where they are. Until recently, we didn’t know where the Perimeter computer was located, either.”
“I beg your pardon?” Hollingshead asked.
Nadia turned to look at him directly. “On 25 December, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev officially ceded power to Boris Yeltsin. Famously, on that day he handed over the nuclear launch codes, effectively surrendering the Soviet military to what was then called the Commonwealth of Independent States, the precursor of the Russian Federation. It is unclear to my office whether Gorbachev even knew about Perimeter — it was considered then of utmost secrecy, and even Gorbachev was kept in the dark on some things by the KGB. What is known is that Gorbachev never mentioned Perimeter to Yeltsin. He did not tell him where it was, or how to turn it off.
“You must understand how strenuously they kept their secrets in the Soviet Union. No one was given information they did not immediately require. Even now the men who work at MDZhB, the shortwave station, have no idea why it is so important that the buzz tone is played night and day. The technicians who work on our nuclear missiles do not know that they can be activated without warning. Even my office, which is in charge of maintaining security around the nuclear arsenal, had no confirmation that Perimeter existed until a few years ago.”
“This keeps getting worse and worse,” Chapel said.
Nadia did not disagree. “It took me years to track down the Perimeter computer. Between August and December of 1991, the KGB knew that the Union was going to fall. They used that time to destroy every bit of secret material they could — they thought that the new regime would seek to prosecute them for their atrocities, and they wished to destroy all evidence of their crimes. There were seven secret KGB libraries in the Union at one time. Six of them were burned to the ground that year. A seventh, on an uninhabited island south of Vladivostok, was spared, but even its existence was nearly lost. I had to go there personally to find the information I needed. To find out where Perimeter is located, and how to stop it.”
“So you do have a plan,” Chapel said.
“That’s why I’m here,” she told him. “And why I am speaking to you two. It is my intention to personally end the Perimeter project. But I need your help.”
Chapel frowned. “Why?” he asked.
Hollingshead cleared his throat. “Son, we’re being given an extraordinary opportunity here. A chance to eliminate a grave threat. Let’s not, ah, examine our gift horses altogether too closely.”
Chapel shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t mean any disrespect. I just don’t see why the Russians would bring us in on this. It seems like their problem — and one I’d think they’d be happy to take care of internally, and quietly.”
“Quietly, yes,” Nadia said. “We will have no official support from my country, not even any contact with my organization once we begin. This must be done in absolute secrecy. If the world never finds out that we lost control of Perimeter, it is for the best. For the operation to be conducted internally, well, that is not possible in any case.”
Chapel raised an eyebrow.
“Most reports of the system describe it only as being located south of Moscow. When Perimeter was constructed,” Nadia said, “the designers looked for a place unlikely to be attacked in a war, conventional or nuclear. A spot of limited strategic value, and a place they knew their enemies would never occupy. Unfortunately, they did not take into account that the real threat to their power would come from within. The place is no longer inside Russian borders. It is now in foreign territory.”
“Where?” Hollingshead asked.
“Kazakhstan. Near the Aral Sea.”
“That certainly adds a, to put it mildly, wrinkle to things,” the director said. “I assume the Kazakhs don’t know what they have. And that you’d like to keep it that way.”
“Correct,” Nadia said. “It will not be easy, but we must enter the country unknown, take down Perimeter, and exfiltrate before they know we were there. Diplomatic relations between Kazakhstan and Russia are good, right now. We want to keep it that way.”
“I can think of another reason, besides diplomatic relations,” Chapel said.
Hollingshead shot him a nasty glance — but then nodded for him to continue.
Chapel’s eyes narrowed. “If you make this an American op, and something goes wrong, you won’t take the blame.”
Nadia shrugged. “If you wish to see it that way, fine. Though I imagine if the Kazakhs capture me, it will not take long for them to determine who I work for. I am not asking you to take this risk alone.”