Chapter 9
For the last fifty miles the roads were ice and rock and a vague outline that some other vehicle had been there before. That was called a road. Up ahead on the map, where Colonel Semyon Petrovich was leading the command, were no roads.
Behind him were enough hydrogen warheads to incinerate the entire Yakut region of Siberia and irradiate Mongolia as well. What absolutely terrified this missile officer leading the eighty-seven-truck convoy for the four-missile battery were the missiles themselves. He had never been near missiles like these, and had been assured that Russia would never build them, for "the safety of mankind." The problem with these "burning hells," as he made every one of his men call them, was they could go off right here, right behind him, right in the middle of Siberia, leaving a crater the size of two Leningrads. The road, what there was of it, was colossally bumpy, and the warhead had come out of the factory armed, a lunacy never before heard of in atomic weapons. Even the Americans with the first atomic bomb did not arm it until the airplane carrying it was near the target. You did not arm the weapon until just before firing. Everyone knew that. And now all Russia had gone mad.
This madness, this strange new missile he and every officer had once been promised Russia would never build, was all over Russia. It would be mass murder, not war. He would murder millions without even the flimsiest excuse. There could be no excuse for the madness he was now so carefully trying to guide to its new base in Siberia.
It had started just a few days before. In his apartment at Saratov, a central farming city southwest of Moscow, Petrovich had received the first strange word. He had just finished waiting in line for a fresh batch of writing paper for his grandchild. He had retired the year before, and getting fresh paper had always been difficult when he no longer had access to military supplles. His wife was waiting in the apartment with a block leader of the party who had not even taken off his coat, but stood with his hat tapping his side and his feet tapping the floor.
"His telephone has been ringing all day," said the retired colonel's wife, a round, sweet-faced woman. "Your command has called using my telephone," said the block leader.
"They could not phone me, of course," said Petrovich, who had applied for a telephone in 1958.
"There are other phones they could have used, but this is an emergency. You are to report to Evenki immediately. You have top priority on any aircraft in the area, any car to get you to the aircraft, any telephone line at your service."
"Are you sure, me? What would they want an old man for?"
"They want you. Now."
"Is there a war? Where is there a war?"
"I don't know. I don't even know who is running Mother Russia anymore. That they would rudely instruct a party member to act as a messenger is obscene. I could see it if there were a war. But nothing is happening."
"Maybe something is wrong. Maybe something has failed. Maybe an entire missile army has blown itself up somewhere."
"We would have heard," said the party member.
"No. You would not have heard. Although there may have been a rebellion somewhere, and people have to be replaced."
"Is that possible?" asked the party member.
"No," said the retired colonel, shrugging. "It is not. Everyone who attends a missile is reliable to the extreme. They are all like me. We do what we are told, when we are told, and if we are lucky we get a telephone. If we are not, we settle for fresh writing paper. I take it the car to the airport is to be provided by you."
The party member gave a short nod. The retired colonel hugged his sweet-faced wife and tried in his kiss to tell her how much he loved her, how good a wife she had been, in that remote case he did not come home again. The communication was perfect, and when she cried, no denial on his part would convince her it was only some silly bureaucratic mistake that had called him to Western Missile Command in Evenki.
The party member carefully laid out plastic strips on the front seat of his black ZIL limousine, warning the retired colonel not to sit too heavily because the material underneath the plastic could wear. Petrovich felt like flinging the strips in the party member's face. But his wife might be vulnerable to this man's reprisals, so he only nodded dumbly. He even offered an apology to the self-important pip with the Communist party card and automobile and telephone and all the things that Communism had come to mean in the land where it was practiced longest.
It was a very small airport, but the runways, like those of all commercial airports in Russia, were built to handle the newest, most powerful jets. They were not only long enough for anything that flew at that time, but for anything that might be flying in fifty years.
The terminal building was virtually a shack. It was there that the nightmare began in earnest. There were young boys who had not yet shaved and old men from the original nuclear bomber commands. All of them had been called up like Petrovich.
Every thirty seconds a loudspeaker above warned everyone to keep silent. When they boarded the plane for Evenki and Western Missile Command headquarters, they received another warning. This time in person, from an officer of an elite KGB unit with special patches on their especially expensive green uniforms. No unbuttoned shirts in that unit.
"Soldiers of Mother Russia," the officer said, reading from a piece of paper as he stood in front of the airplane. "You are called in a dire time in the history of your people and in the history of your motherland. As much as it may be tempting to discuss what is happening with another soldier of the motherland, we must forbid it. Because of this ergergency, violators will be dealt with in the severest manner."
The airplane was quiet. No one spoke. The jets hummed, the KGB officer left the compartment, and then everyone spoke.
"It's war," said an old bombardier. "Got to be."
"You are jumping to conclusions," said a young man whose face was smoother than the colonel's wife's. "No," said the old bombardier. "If it is not a war, we hear about the wonders of the Communist party and what it is doing for the people of Russia. But when they want the people to fight, they never mention the party. I remember the great patriotic war against the Nazis. It started with defending communism against fascism, and very quickly became Mother Russia against the Hun. When they want you to die, it's the motherland. When they want you to wait in line for some goods, it's the party."
"Is he jumping to conclusions?" the young man asked the colonel.
"If there is a war, he is not. If there is not, he is," said Petrovich with very Russian fatalism. "But look around. I think it is more important who is not here than who is here. I have not seen one active officer of a missile command."
"In an emergency why would they call up all those who are less qualified?" said the old bombardier.
Their question was answered with the nightmare. One did not need expertise in missile technology to use what they were all shown at Evenki.
They drove through columns upon columns of trucks whose cargo was covered with tarpaulins. Guards stood by each truck. A missile-command officer entered each transport bus to insist that no one turn on anything. Some of the older retired officers' hearing aids were snatched away and smashed, leaving them helpless.
They were herded into a shell of a building. A strange crude missile sat on a gun carriage on a stage. Ordinarily, to show how safe the missile was before arming, an instructor would stand on it. This time, he very gingerly walked up to the stage and stood on its very edge. He did not move.
"Here she is," he said. He did not use a loudspeaker, and he spoke without yelling. Everyone leaned forward. Those whose hearing aids had been removed waited to be told later what was being said. They just looked at each other.