Oh, shit, Rykov thought, feeling his heart rate accelerate sharply. What had been a bad situation was about to get much, much worse. Someone, somewhere, in either the Ministry of Defense or the FSB itself, had really fucked up — and now he might be about to pay in blood, bruises, and broken teeth for their mistake. Nevertheless, the special security oath he’d sworn was crystal clear, as was the prescribed penalty for violating that oath. He forced himself to sit up straighter in the chair. “I am very sorry, Colonel,” he said firmly. “But I really am not at liberty to discuss that subject.”
“You think not?” she said, sounding amused. Reaching into her leather jacket again, she tossed him yet another identity card.
Rykov looked it over in stunned disbelief. The card confirmed that Colonel Natalia Nikolaevna Talanova held a Level Two Mars Project clearance — a full level above the one he’d been issued as a cosmonaut candidate at Star City. Slowly, he breathed out. Why should he be surprised? The FSB, like the KGB before it, involved itself in everything. With a repressed sigh, he handed the card back to her.
“Right, then,” she said briskly. “I don’t want to hear any more noble bullshit about how you can’t talk about the program, Major. You spent those eighteen months of ‘detached duty’ training to become a cosmonaut. You know it. And I know it.”
Reluctantly, he nodded. She was right. Commended for his courage, superb technical and analytical abilities, and excellent flying skills, he’d been among those chosen for Colonel General Leonov’s rigorous cosmonaut selection and training program. His class had started the course one hundred strong. In twos and threes over the next months, they’d been whittled away. He had only failed to make the final selection cut by the narrowest of margins. Most of the failed candidates, like him, were sent back to their regular military duties. Several had died in training accidents. Others were probable suicides, the victims of intense psychological pressure and their own undiscovered inner weaknesses.
Talanova smiled thinly. “Now we are getting somewhere, Alexei.” Her humorless smile faded. “Which brings me to the point of tonight’s little excursion to this rather dreary dacha.”
Rykov swallowed again.
“Someone has been talking out of school,” she went on coldly. “And as a result, the West’s spies may be close to learning what were supposed to be our Motherland’s most closely guarded secrets.”
He stared at her. “What?”
“That surprises you?” Talanova countered.
“Of course it does.” Rykov grimaced. “But whoever’s blabbing, it is not me. I swear it.”
She studied him for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then she shrugged. “Oaths can be broken, Alexei. I prefer proof.”
“For God’s sake, how am I supposed to prove a negative?” he asked desperately, instantly despising himself for sounding so weak.
“You cannot,” Talanova said bluntly. “But perhaps I can.”
He stared at her. “How?”
“That depends on you, Major Rykov.” She moved forward, coming more fully into the circle of light cast by the bare bulb overhead. “Are you prepared to cooperate fully — without reservation?”
“Yes, I will. Absolutely,” Rykov said, almost stumbling over his words in his hurry to grasp the lifeline the colonel seemed to be offering. “What must I do?”
“Tell us your life story,” Talanova said. Her mouth twitched. “Or, to be more precise, your life story from the moment you arrived at the Anatoliy Gryzlov Military Cosmonaut Training Center.”
He stared at her in surprise. “But why? You already have access to the records of my time there, don’t you?”
“A dry list of classes, test results, and comments from your instructors?” she scoffed. “Of what use are they in determining whether or not you have betrayed your country? No, Alexei, you are going to talk us through your experiences at Star City — fully, honestly, in your own words, and in your own way. We already know what has been illicitly revealed to Western agents. And if you are the one responsible for this treason, so do you.”
Talanova looked down at him. “Now, a skilled liar may be able to conceal the truth for a time by carefully controlling how much he says. But the more anyone talks, the harder that becomes. Small inconsistencies begin to mount up. Hidden falsehoods emerge from what seems a jumble of otherwise irrelevant details. Eventually, the liar unmasks himself.” Her voice slashed at him, as sharp as a razor’s edge. “You see?”
Rykov nodded tightly. He said nothing.
“Very well. Let’s get started.” She glanced toward the big man looming behind him. “Wire him up, Dmitry.”
Without speaking, the other FSB officer began attaching electrodes to Rykov’s scalp, chest, neck, and wrists — pressing them firmly into place. The Su-27 pilot sat rigid in his chair, all too aware of the sense of helplessness and terror crawling up his spine.
“We don’t just use our ears to listen,” Talanova explained dryly. “Lies can be discerned in many different ways.” She leaned closer. “So, then, Alexei. Tell me a story…”
It was well past dawn when they dropped the exhausted and shaken Rykov at a commuter rail station outside St. Petersburg and drove away.
“Do you think he’ll tell anyone about what just happened?” Marcus Cartwright asked. He glanced in the rearview mirror, checking automatically to see if they were being followed.
“That he’s been under suspicion as a possible traitor?” Sam Kerr shook her head with a wry smile. “Our friend the fighter pilot wasn’t at his best last night, but he’s not really a fool. No, he’ll keep his mouth shut.” She shrugged. “Even if he doesn’t—”
“Colonel Natalia Talanova will have vanished,” the big man finished for her.
Sam nodded contentedly. “It is very hard to find someone who never actually existed in the first place.”
“And all those wild stories he told us? About the kind of training the Russians are doing at Star City? Do you believe them?”
She pondered that. Under their questioning, Rykov had painted a picture of an incredibly intense training regimen. He claimed that Russia’s cosmonauts were learning everything from on-orbit construction techniques to sensor data analysis and the combat use of both lasers and missiles. From what she knew, all of it sounded plausible. But what about his insistence that he and his fellow cosmonaut trainees had also been taught how to manage highly advanced nuclear fusion power systems? For decades, scientists and engineers had claimed that working fusion reactors were just around the corner. But their predictions never panned out. Could the Russians finally have made the technological breakthroughs that had eluded so many other researchers for so long?
At length, Sam shrugged. “Hell if I can say.” She frowned. “We certainly know that poor bastard Rykov believed he was telling us the truth and nothing but the truth. So I guess the sooner we send what we’ve learned to Mr. Martindale the better. Because I’m pretty sure our report is going to scare the living crap out of a lot of people back in the States.”
Fifteen
Air Force Major General Amanda Hayes was the senior officer on duty in the Missile and Space Launch Warning Center, two thousand feet under Cheyenne Mountain, when the shit hit the proverbial fan. Her desk was on the highest of three stepped tiers facing several large screens. Consoles fitted with computers, displays, and secure communication links lined each tier. Since USSTRATCOM was a unified command, officers and enlisted men from the Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps manned these consoles around the clock.