Sam nodded. The special cybersecurity protocols created by the FSB’s Q Directorate to shield the Mars Project were too strong. Any attempt to hack through them would only set off alarms. “I agree,” she said evenly. “Which is why we’re not going to try cracking the perimeter security at any of those sites. Fortunately, we don’t need to.”
“Then what the hell is the point of going to all this trouble to forge some of those damned IDs?” Cartwright ground out through gritted teeth.
“Come now, Marcus,” she said with a smile. “You know my methods.”
“Sexual allure and carefully controlled violence?” he retorted.
“Well, okay, maybe not those methods,” Sam said with a low, throaty chuckle. Taking pity on him, she explained her thinking. They needed a work-around. If they couldn’t get into Star City themselves, they needed the next best thing — the chance to interrogate someone with direct, personal knowledge of the cosmonaut training program.
“Think about it,” she said. “Moscow’s apparently working up an elite cadre of military cosmonauts, right? Well, how many candidates usually make it all the way through that type of rigorous training?”
“Ten percent?” Cartwright said slowly. “Maybe twenty percent? Tops.”
“Exactly,” Sam said in satisfaction. “So there’s bound to be a much larger number of guys who made it through some part of the training course before washing out. We just zero in on the right cosmonaut wannabe and ask him a few pointed questions — backed up by the appropriate credentials. We don’t need Mars Project ID cards that can actually spoof Gryzlov’s multiple layers of security. We just need fakes that’ll convince someone who’s seen them up close and personal before.”
Cartwright frowned. “There are around five hundred thousand men and women serving in Russia’s aerospace forces,” he said dryly. “Not counting those who’ve recently left the service. How do we find the right needle in a haystack that big?”
“Only a handful of those five hundred thousand people have the necessary qualifications to make it as a cosmonaut,” Sam pointed out. “So that haystack of yours is really more like a handful of straw.” She smiled sweetly. “Besides, Russia’s Ministry of Defense personnel files aren’t nearly as tightly guarded as the rest of Gryzlov’s top secret programs, are they?”
“No, they’re not,” Cartwright agreed slowly. The Russians devoted a lot of cybersecurity effort to securing databases with information on weapons systems performance, procurement, and deployment. They spent far less energy safeguarding more mundane service and pay records. Exploiting this blind spot had paid dividends for Scion in the past. He looked at her. “So once we find the man you’re looking for, then what?”
“Ah, Marcus,” Sam said with a knowing grin. “That’s when the real fun starts.”
The large conference room adjoining Vostochny’s control center was on lockdown. Stern-faced members of Gennadiy Gryzlov’s plainclothes security detail stood on guard outside. For the duration of this top secret briefing on the Mars Project’s launch status, no one would be allowed in or out.
Inside the room, Colonel General Mikhail Leonov occupied the chair next to Gryzlov. Vostochny’s launch director, Yuri Klementiyev, sat across the table from them. No one else was present in person. Two secure video links connected them with the launch directors at Plesetsk and the Baikonur space complex in Kazakhstan. A third monitor showed Colonel Vadim Strelkov listening in from Star City’s cosmonaut training center. Strelkov would command the Mars One station once it was in orbit and operational.
“Our preparations here at Vostochny are proceeding on schedule,” Klementiyev said confidently. He touched a control, bringing up live feeds from cameras around the cosmodrome. One television picture showed a massive Energia-5VR heavy-lift rocket already in place on Pad 3, secure within the ring of retractable gantries. Another feed focused on a second, still-horizontal Energia space launch vehicle as it rolled slowly out of the main assembly building aboard a powerful freight train. “Barring unforeseen technical problems, both rockets will be fueled and ready for launch within forty-eight hours.”
Leonov nodded in satisfaction. Forty-eight hours was well inside their planned window. Given the number of problems that could crop up before any scheduled lift-off — ranging from glitches with the spacecraft itself to unexpected bad weather — it was always best to have plenty of time in hand.
The news from Plesetsk, located more than eight hundred kilometers north of Moscow, was equally good. Once mainly used to test new ICBM designs, the sprawling cosmodrome’s space launch facilities had been upgraded and expanded in recent years. Four rockets — two more big heavy-lift Energia-5VRs and two smaller medium-lift Angara-A5s — were either in position, ready for launch, or moving out to the pads.
Keeping his face impassive, Leonov listened carefully to the final site status report, this one from Baikonur’s Russian launch chief, Alexei Gregorjev. If it weren’t for Gryzlov’s sudden decision to drastically accelerate their timetable, he would have entirely avoided using the old space complex they were now leasing from Kazakhstan. In his judgment, the need to hide their real purposes and plans from Kazakhstan’s independent government represented a grave threat to the Mars Project’s secrecy. Kazakhstan’s leaders were too interested in developing closer economic ties with both the People’s Republic of China and the United States to be wholly reliable allies. If Kazakhs grew suspicious and started investigating Russia’s recent activity at Baikonur, they could cause serious trouble. But as it was, Leonov had no real choice. To meet the president’s ambitious schedule, he needed both Baikonur’s LC-1 launchpad and the two-stage, crew-rated Soyuz-5 rocket assembled in its production facility.
“The Soyuz-5 is ready for launch,” Gregorjev told them. “All indications show that the Federation orbiter is also fully flight-ready.”
“Is your cover story still holding?” Leonov asked.
Gregorjev nodded. “Yes, sir. As far as the Kazakhs and the international journalists here are aware, this spacecraft is only an unmanned test version.” He hesitated a moment. “Then again, why should they think otherwise?”
Leonov nodded back grimly. The Federation orbiter was Russia’s next-generation manned spacecraft, similar in shape and size to NASA’s Orion and SpaceX’s Dragon. In normal circumstances, no one would ever contemplate sending a crew into orbit using a wholly untested spacecraft design. During their Apollo moon landing program, the Americans had flown no fewer than eight flights with unmanned command modules — checking and rechecking the hardware and electronics to make sure everything worked as planned. Even during the opening, highly competitive days of the space race, Russia itself had conducted seven test launches of the first Vostok capsule designs without human cosmonauts on board. From a safety standpoint, what Gryzlov demanded — firing six men into space aboard a vehicle that had so far been proven reliable only in computer simulations — was sheer madness.
But when he’d pointed out the serious risks involved, Gryzlov had dismissed his concerns with a casual shrug. “Apollo and Vostok were peacetime space programs, Mikhail. You and I are embarked on a military operation, where risk and reward go hand in hand, do they not?” His gaze had turned cold. “Show me a commander unwilling to take chances and I will show you a coward.”
Now Gryzlov leaned forward, taking a direct part in the video conference for the first time. “How do the most recent weather forecasts look?” he demanded, addressing himself to the three directors at Vostochny, Plesetsk, and Baikonur. “Is there the slightest chance of a serious delay in any of our launches?”